How the establishment parties in Germany strengthen the far-right AfD

Peter Schwarz

This coming Sunday, the last state election in Germany before September’s federal election is being held in Saxony-Anhalt. It exemplifies how the establishment parties—the Christian Democrats (CDU / CSU), Free Democratic Party (FDP), Social Democrats (SPD), Greens and the Left Party—are preparing the ground for the far-right.

Saxony-Anhalt Minister President Reiner Haseloff (CDU) (Image: Olaf Kosinsky / CC BY-SA 3.0)

For five years, the CDU, SPD and Greens—in other words, the three parties whose candidates are the most likely to succeed Angela Merkel as federal chancellor—have jointly governed Saxony-Anhalt. The task of this coalition was ostensibly to form a “bulwark against the right,” after the Alternative for Germany (AfD) won nearly a quarter of the vote in the 2016 state election.

Instead, the coalition under Minister-President Reiner Haseloff (CDU) has largely adopted the AfD’s policies, making ever new overtures to the far-right and intensifying social attacks on the population. For example, the state government’s current coronavirus policy, whereby public health measures are being ended step by step, largely corresponds to the AfD’s demand that any lockdown efforts be ended immediately. The Left Party, as a loyal parliamentary opposition, has ensured that the growing opposition against te state government has not found independent expression.

The AfD has benefited from this in two ways. The adoption of its programme by the three-party coalition and the constant advances by CDU politicians, who would have preferred to form a coalition with the AfD immediately, have strengthened the far-right party politically. And the lack of any serious fighting perspective and left-wing opposition has enabled the far-right to use some of the anger over the catastrophic social conditions to their advantage.

Although the AfD has been weakened at the federal level due to internal squabbles and is riddled with neo-Nazis in Saxony-Anhalt, it is scoring well over twenty percent in current polls and is second only to the CDU. At one point in mid-May, it was even just ahead of the CDU.

The SPD, Greens, FDP and Left Party are all scoring around 10 percent in the polls. For the Greens and FDP, which narrowly missed entering the state parliament in the last election, this means an increase, for the SPD a slight loss and for the Left Party a heavy loss. In 2006 and 2011, 24 percent voted for the Left Party. In 2016, the figure was 16 percent.

Saxony-Anhalt has never recovered from the social devastation that followed German reunification 31 years ago, which destroyed tens of thousands of industrial jobs. The social crisis has worsened under the present coalition. In 2016, before the last election, 47 percent of the population rated the economic situation as good; in April of this year, the figure was only 33 percent. Unemployment is 7.5 percent, well above the national average of 5.9 percent. The coronavirus pandemic has deepened the crisis.

Large numbers, and especially younger people, have moved out of the region. While 2.9 million lived in Saxony-Anhalt in 1990, today there are just 2.2 million. Their average age, 48, is the highest of all the German federal states. In the 2017 federal election, there were 2.4 over-70-year-olds for every 18- to 29-year-old eligible voter. The State Statistics Office predicts that the population will decline by a further 11 percent by 2030.

Saxony-Anhalt is highly rural. More than half the population lives in places with fewer than 20,000 inhabitants. In terms of economic output, the state, together with Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, ranks last nationwide. At 28,700 euros per capita, the state’s gross domestic product is well below the national average of 40,100 euros. The standard of living is correspondingly low.

What binds all the parties represented in the state parliament together is the fear of a social uprising against these untenable conditions. That is why they promote and strengthen the AfD. State premier Haseloff’s constant assurances that they will not cooperate with the AfD under any circumstances, even after this election, are merely empty promises. Haseloff knows that making an open commitment towards the hated AfD would cost the CDU massive vote losses in the state and the federal election. According to a survey, even 77 percent of CDU voters reject cooperation with the AfD.

In reality, the CDU parliamentary group in the state legislature has already made repeated attempts at government cooperation with the AfD during the last legislative period. As early as August 2017, large parts of the CDU parliamentary group voted together with the AfD to form an inquiry commission to investigate so-called “left-wing extremism.”

In summer 2019, deputy CDU faction leaders Ulrich Thomas and Lars-Jörn Zimmer wrote a “memorandum” that openly advocated a coalition with the AfD. The voters of the two parties were pursuing similar goals, it said. It must be possible “once again [to] succeed in reconciling the social with the national”—an unmistakable allusion to National Socialism (Nazism). Today, the party says, “the content of the paper was correct and important,” reports newsweekly Der Spiegel. Thomas and Zimmer are running for 3rd and 4th place on the party list in the state elections.

The leading proponent of this line is Holger Stahlknecht, state interior minister since 2011 and CDU state chairman since 2018. He never misses an opportunity to flaunt his far-right sympathies. For example, he wanted to appoint Rainer Wendt, head of the police union and a figurehead of the extreme right, as a state secretary, only backing down after fierce protests.

Stahlknecht was also responsible for leaving the synagogue in Halle completely unprotected when right-wing terrorist Stephan Balliet carried out his attack there in 2019; only a strong wooden door prevented a massacre. Stahlknecht later complained to police officers about the fact that they could not be deployed elsewhere because they were guarding Jewish institutions. This sparked fierce protests from Jewish organizations.

When it became known that Robert Möritz, a board member of the Anhalt-Bitterfeld CDU district association and a CDU municipal election candidate, had been active in right-wing terrorist circles as a neo-Nazi, Stahlknecht publicly came to his defence.

Last spring, 100 refugees in Halberstadt staged a hunger strike to protest their inhumane treatment by Stahlknecht’s interior ministry. Around 850 people had been locked up in the central contact centre for asylum seekers, guarded by police officers and security guards without any protection against the coronavirus.

It was only when the CDU parliamentary group in the state assembly joined forces with the AfD last December to block an increase in the annual broadcasting levy, paid by all individuals and used to fund public broadcasters, and Stahlknecht publicly defended this in an interview, that Haseloff gave him the boot to save the coalition with the SPD and the Greens. The latter, for their part, then voted against the levy increase to preserve the coalition. The AfD had achieved its goal despite Stahlknecht’s resignation.

At the federal level, the CDU is also ready for collaboration with the AfD—despite claims to the contrary. This is demonstrated by the refusal of its chairman and chancellor candidate Armin Laschet to take action against Max Otte, the “AfD sympathizer with a CDU membership card” ( Der Spiegel).

Last Saturday, the economist and fund manager was elected chairman of the “WerteUnion,” an association of 4,000 arch-conservative CDU and CSU members that also includes the former head of the secret service Hans-Georg Maaßen.

Otte has never made any secret of his sympathies for the AfD. Until January, he headed the board of trustees of the AfD-affiliated Desiderius Erasmus Foundation for three years, he gave lectures to the AfD parliamentary group and organizes the New Hambach Festival every year, where CDU/CSU and AfD parliamentarians meet. He had already publicly announced in 2017 that he would vote AfD. When CDU politician Walter Lübcke was murdered by a neo-Nazi in 2019, he denied the right-wing extremist background of the crime. Even the WerteUnion chairman at the time, Alexander Mitsch, had therefore called for his expulsion.

Nevertheless, when asked about a possible party expulsion procedure against Otte, Laschet replied that this was “not an issue for us because the WerteUnion is not an issue.” In other words, Laschet is letting AfD sympathizers in the CDU/CSU have their way because he is interested in a strong AfD and possible government cooperation with it.

In Saxony-Anhalt, the AfD is dominated by the völkisch-nationalist “Flügel” (“wing”), which has since officially disbanded but continues to set the tone politically. Its election posters read, “Our country—our rules” and “Stop the lockdown madness.” It calls for an end to measures designed to assist the integration of refugees and propagates the slogans of the coronavirus deniers. Björn Höcke, the frontman of the “Flügel” from neighbouring Thuringia, is constantly involved in the campaign. Despite the pandemic, the AfD holds mass rallies and threatens counterdemonstrators with violence.

Among the candidates running for the state parliament are known neo-Nazis. For example, broadcaster MDR’s “Fakt” program identified Mathias Knispel, running in list position 25, as a participant in a demonstration of 700 right-wing extremists in Magdeburg in November 2018 demanding, among other things, freedom for convicted Holocaust denier Ursula Haverbeck.

Maximilian Tischer, an ex-soldier and close friend of former Bundeswehr (Armed Forces) officer Franco A., who is currently on trial in Frankfurt for preparing a violent act of state-endangerment, is running for list position 26. Tischer’s sister is Franco A.’s partner and has a child with him. Maximilian Tischer was temporarily arrested himself because he helped Franco A. fake his false refugee identity and, like him, was active in far-right prepper groups that maintained death lists of political opponents to be executed on a “Day X.” He was nevertheless released.

Since then, he has worked for AfD parliamentarian Jan Nolte, who gave him access to the Bundestag (federal parliament), heads the AfD’s state committee on foreign and security policy in Saxony-Anhalt and sits on the state board of the AfD youth there.

The Greens, SPD and Left Party are unreservedly complicit in allowing this right-wing conspiracy to unfold unhindered. In Saxony-Anhalt, the SPD has governed for ten years, and the Greens have governed for five years together with the CDU, deceptively claiming that they are a “bulwark against the right.” In fact, it is a right-wing bulwark against the working class.

The Left Party would also have joined in had it been asked. Its predecessor, the Party of Democratic Socialism (PDS), had already rehearsed its first government participation in Saxony-Anhalt. In the so-called “Magdeburg Model,” it supported an SPD minority government from 1994 to 1998, under which the official unemployment rate rose to 20 percent. In her latest book, “Die Selbstgerechten” (“The self-righteous”), its leader Sahra Wagenknecht advocates political positions that hardly differ from those of the AfD.

In the state parliament, all parties are already working closely with the AfD. For example, the state parliament committees for “Labour, Social Affairs and Integration,” “Internal Affairs and Sports” and “State Development and Transportation” are led by AfD representatives. Their committee deputies come from the Green Party and the CDU. The Council of Elders is formed by the state parliament president Gabriele Brakebusch (CDU) together with the two state parliament vice presidents Wulf Gallert (Left Party) and Willi Mittelstädt (AfD).

The same is the case in neighbouring Thuringia, where the Left Party heads a minority government with the SPD and Greens that is supported on a vote-by-vote basis by the CDU and itself cooperates with the AfD. It collaborates with the fascists in state parliamentary committees and has helped elect them to high office. Last February, the “left” state prime minister Bodo Ramelow used his vote to make AfD man Michael Kaufmann vice president of the state parliament.

What applies to Saxony-Anhalt also applies to the federal election. In the Bundestag, all the parties are already preparing massive attacks on the working class and youth—to recoup the multi-billions given away to the banks and corporations in the coronavirus crisis, and used to finance the massive rearmament of the Bundeswehr and prepare for new wars, to suppress social resistance by stepping up the powers of the police and intelligence services, and to continue the “profits before lives” policy in the pandemic that has claimed nearly 90,000 lives in Germany alone.

Regardless of who wins the election in Saxony-Anhalt, the AfD will play an important role in the next federal government. It will provide the political line, as is already the case, or serve as a member of the government itself.

World’s largest meat processor JBS hit by ransomware attack, shutting down US operations

Kevin Reed

The US beef processing operations of the global meat processing company JBS SA were shut down on Sunday by a ransomware cyberattack. The Brazil-based company is the world’s largest processor of beef, chicken and pork products and operates 109 facilities in six countries.

The company confirmed that it had closed its nine beef processing plants in the US, as reported on Tuesday by Bloomberg, based on information obtained from an unnamed United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW) union official.

A JBS meatpacking facility. (AP Photo/Eraldo Peres)

The company said in a statement on Monday that servers in North America and Australia had been hit by the attack. Reuters reported that the firm halted cattle slaughter in the US and shut down its operations in Australia.

A company representative in Sao Paolo said that its Brazilian operations were not impacted by the hack. JBS Canada reported on its Facebook page that it operated late shifts on Tuesday at its beef plant in Brooks, Alberta after shutting down shifts earlier in the day and on Monday.

JBS issued a statement that the company took immediate action, “suspending all affected systems, notifying authorities and activating the company’s global network of IT professionals and third-party experts to resolve the situation.” The company said its backup servers were not affected and is “actively working with an Incident Response firm to restore its systems as soon as possible.”

Ransomware attacks typically involve remote encryption of all data on host computers combined with messaging that demands a sum of money—often in cybercurrency in the thousands or millions of dollars—in exchange for the decryption key required to restore operational control of the systems.

John Hultquist of the security and government consulting firm FireEye told Reuters, “The supply chains, logistics and transportation that keep our society moving are especially vulnerable to ransomware, where attacks on chokepoints can have outsized effects and encourage hasty payments” to the hackers.

Aboard Air Force One, Biden administration officials were quick to blame Russia for the ransomware attack on JBS without providing any facts or evidence to prove the assertion. White House principal deputy press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre told reporters, “JBS notified the administration that the ransom demand came from a criminal organization, likely based in Russia.” Jean-Pierre added, “The White House is engaging directly with the Russian government on this matter and delivering the message that responsible states do not harbor ransomware criminals.”

The details of JBS SA’s response to the attack, whether the company paid the ransom or not, are unknown at this time. The company is working with the FBI and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency to investigate the breach and provide technical support. Jean-Pierre told reporters, “The White House has offered assistance to JBS, and our team and the Department of Agriculture have spoken to their leadership several times in the last day.”

JBS SA, with its US operations based in Greeley, Colorado, became the world’s largest meat processor through a series of mergers and acquisitions that included Swift & Company (2007), Smithfield Foods (2008), Pilgrim’s Pride (2009) and the pork processing business of Cargill Meat Solutions (2015). It has more than $50 billion in annual sales worldwide and the company employs approximately 25,000 workers in the US.

JBS is notorious for its response to the COVID-19 pandemic, forcing meatpacking workers to stay on the job throughout as part of the “essential workforce.”

With an estimated 20 percent of meatpacking workers contracting the virus and hundreds who have died from it, JBS used intimidation and lies to conceal the extent of infection and keep sick workers on the job during the pandemic. The company relied on its partner in the UFCW to suppress worker opposition that found expression over the last year in multiple wildcat walkouts and protests in defiance of the union bureaucracy across the country.

Company CEO Andre Nogueira sent a message to USA Today on Tuesday saying that “the vast majority of our beef, pork, poultry and prepared foods plants will be operational tomorrow.” Clearly concerned about the impact of the cyberattack on its market position—JBS has a Wall Street value of $76+ billion—Nogueira said, “Our systems are coming back online, and we are not sparing any resources to fight this threat. We have cybersecurity plans in place to address these types of issues and we are successfully executing those plans.”

Industry analysts reported that US meatpackers slaughtered 22 percent fewer cattle than a week earlier and 18 percent than a year earlier, according to estimates from the US Department of Agriculture. Pork processing was also down. Prices for choice and select cuts of US beef shipped to wholesale buyers each jumped more than 1 percent.

The JBS attack happened a few weeks after a similar ransomware breach of the Colonial Pipeline network that shutdown a major artery of refined petroleum product transport to the eastern and southeastern sectors of the US from Texas. In that attack, the FBI claimed a “criminal group” called DarkSide located in Russia was responsible. The Kremlin publicly denied any connection to the hack.

On May 11, Dmitry Peskov, a spokesman for Russian President Vladimir Putin, told US reporters, “Russia has nothing to do with these hacker attacks, and had nothing to do with the previous hacker attacks,” referring to the Colonial Pipeline incident and the SolarWinds hack in late March that compromised nine federal agencies and more than 100 private sector groups for a year by exploiting vulnerabilities on Microsoft's Exchange Server. Peskov added, “We categorically do not accept any accusations against us.”

The FBI released a statement late Wednesday declaring that its investigation had determined the hack had been carried out by groups known as REvil and Sodinokibi and that the agency is “working diligently to bring the threat actors to justice.”

While the FBI did not mention any connection between these groups and Russia, it is widely known in cybersecurity circles that they are thought to be based in the country even though their exact location cannot be precisely identified. In some instances, the two names are joined into one as REvil/Sodinokibi and refer to a specific kind of ransomware discovered in 2019 that is based on the code of a malware platform called GandCrab that uses the ransomware-as-a-service (RaaS) model.

The timing of the JBS cyberattack coincidentally corresponds with the political agenda of the Biden White House as the president prepares for a summit with Putin scheduled for June 16 in Geneva. Biden Press Secretary Jen Psaki said during a press briefing on Wednesday that the administration is not “taking any options off the table” in responding to the JBS attack. Psaki added, “I'm not going to give any further analysis on that. Other than to tell you that our view is that when there are criminal entities within a country, they certainly have a responsibility, and it is a role that the government can play.”

Later in the afternoon, when President Joe Biden was asked if the US would retaliate against Russia for the attack, he said, “We’re looking closely at that issue.”

Iranian ship, petrochemical plant hit by fires amid threats from Israel

Bill Van Auken

Iran was struck with two major fires in the past two days. The first one ravaged and then sank a naval vessel, the Kharg, reportedly the largest ship in the Iranian fleet. After a 20-hour battle to extinguish the blaze, the ship sank Wednesday near the strategic Strait of Hormuz.

The second fire erupted Wednesday at a petrochemical plant in southern Tehran, sending up a thick cloud of smoke that could be seen throughout the city.

The Kharg, the largest warship in the Iranian navy, caught fire and later sank on Wednesday in the Gulf of Oman. (Source: Iranian army via AP)

Iranian authorities said that the cause of the fire that sank the Kharg, named after the island that serves as Iran’s main oil terminal, was under investigation. The ship was 40 years old and used for support and training purposes. There were 400 crew members and trainees on board when the fire began. There were no deaths or serious injuries reported.

Spokesmen for Iran’s petrochemical industry said that the fire at the plant in southern Tehran began in one of its gas pipelines and spread to a gas tank. They said that no one was injured in the fire and rejected the possibility that the blaze was the result of sabotage.

The two blazes have taken place in a tense environment characterized by repeated attacks on Iranian targets by Israel’s spy agency, Mossad. It has been standard operating procedure for Israel to neither confirm nor deny such attacks. For its part, Tehran for its own reasons has at times been loath to acknowledge Mossad’s ability to strike with impunity against targets on the soil of Iran or off its coast.

Israeli attacks on Iran have included the detonation of a bomb inside the country’s main uranium enrichment facility at Natanz in April, which had the potential of triggering a catastrophic chemical or radiation disaster.

This provocation was timed to coincide with the resumption of indirect talks between Tehran and Washington on the revival of the 2015 nuclear accord between Iran and the major powers, a deal formally known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA). The Trump administration unilaterally abrogated the agreement in 2018, imposing a “maximum pressure” sanctions campaign that has led to soaring poverty rates in Iran and stymied the country’s attempts to obtain vital medical supplies to combat an accelerating spread of the coronavirus.

The two latest fires erupted just as the latest round of talks between the remaining parties to the JCPOA—Iran, China, Russia, Britain and Germany, along with the European Union—was wrapping up in Vienna.

While the Iranian delegate to the talks expressed optimism that outstanding obstacles to the deal’s revival could be resolved, the US administration of President Joe Biden has thus far taken the position that, as a precondition, Iran must roll back its increases in enrichment and stockpiles of uranium it built up in response to Washington’s illegally violating the agreement and reimposing sanctions.

Washington is also reportedly pressing Tehran for further concessions on its conventional missile program as well as demanding that it surrender its influence in the broader Middle East, bowing to the US quest for hegemony.

Also in April, Mossad carried out a mine attack on the Iranian military vessel Saviz, which had been deployed in the Red Sea by the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps as part of its anti-piracy efforts. The mining was part of a continuing campaign of attacks by Israel on Iranian shipping, particularly vessels bound for Syria, which is dependent upon Iran for oil imports.

Tensions in the region have increased in the context of the crisis in Israel, where a change of government was imminent on Wednesday that would end 12 years in power by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

On Tuesday, presiding over a change in command at Mossad, Netanyahu issued new threats against Iran, signaling that Israel would not be bound by any agreement reached between Washington and Tehran. “If we need to choose—I hope it doesn’t happen—between friction with our great friend the United States and eliminating the existential [Iranian nuclear] threat—eliminating the existential threat takes precedence,” he said.

Israeli Defense Minister Benny Gantz, who was on his way to Washington to request another billion dollars’ worth of US military aid to replenish the stockpiles Israel expended in its 11-day onslaught on the besieged occupied territory of Gaza last month, described Netanyahu’s remark as “provocative.”

The incoming head of the Mossad spy agency, David Barnea, was even more explicit, however. “The Iranian program will continue feeling Mossad’s might,” he said. “We are well acquainted with the nuclear program and its various components, we know personally the factors that operate in it and also the forces that drive them.”

The new Mossad chief also indicated that Israel would not limit its actions in deference to a renewed Iranian nuclear accord. “The agreement with world powers that is taking shape only reinforces the sense of isolation in which we find ourselves on this issue,” he said. “I say it clearly—no, we do not intend to act according to the majority opinion since this majority will not bear the consequences for the erroneous assessment of this threat.”

In reality, Washington has voiced no opposition to Israeli attacks on Iran. Biden and his secretary of state, Antony Blinken, have endlessly repeated the refrain that “Israel has the right to defend itself,” even during the recent massive aerial bombardment that claimed the lives of at least 253 Palestinians in Gaza.

For all the bluster by Israeli politicians about a supposed existential threat from Iran’s nuclear program, the greatest danger to the interests of the country’s capitalist ruling class comes from within, as was exposed by the widespread demonstrations and general strike by Palestinian citizens of Israel in opposition to the assault on Gaza and the Israeli police crackdowns and “ethnic cleansing” in Jerusalem.

Underlying this revolt are the immense internal contradictions of Israeli society as a whole. Among the most unequal of the OECD countries, the country has a poverty rate of over 20 percent and the world’s greatest concentration of billionaires.

The greatest fear within Israel’s capitalist oligarchy is that the emergence of mass opposition among Israeli Palestinians, who make up 20 percent of the population, will be joined by struggles of the Jewish working class, fatally undermining the entire Zionist project.

To counter this threat, the country’s ruling camarilla resorts to fomenting rabid nationalism and anti-Arab chauvinism, on the one hand, and attempting to divert growing social tensions outward through unrelenting militarism.

If the Israeli ruling establishment succeeds in forming a new government without Netanyahu, it will do nothing to defuse the attacks and provocations against Iran and the threat that they will precipitate a regional war that would rapidly draw in the major powers.

British Medical Journal says UK government’s COVID-19 response created “maelstrom of avoidable harm”

Thomas Scripps

On Tuesday, the BMJ (formerly, British Medical Journal ) accused the British government of having unleashed “a maelstrom of avoidable harm,” including the deaths of up to 150,000 people “who died earlier than they might have” as a result of its disastrous response to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Executive editor Kamran Abbasi made this damning indictment in a comment on the testimony given last week by Dominic Cummings, former adviser to Prime Minister Boris Johnson. His account, Abbasi writes, leads to “the inescapable conclusion… that the disastrous manner in which the government is run is a major contributor to excess deaths in the UK, although Johnson persists with his denials.”

Britain's Prime Minister Boris Johnson, centre, Chief Medical Officer for England Chris Whitty, left, and Chief Scientific Adviser Patrick Vallance speak at a press conference at Downing Street on March 3, 2020. (AP Photo/Frank Augstein, Pool)

Cummings’ evidence confirmed that the Johnson government “slept on the job,” “relied on flawed pandemic modelling,” “sought a narrow caucus of expert views and kept them confidential,” “prioritised the economy over health,” “failed to protect vulnerable people in care homes and lied about it,” “ignored the potential of airborne spread,” “delayed mass testing,” “left international borders uncontrolled” and “oversaw a calamitous and costly procurement strategy for personal protective equipment.”

Britain “was ill prepared and had no pandemic plan, and even if it did it was a misguided plan that pursued herd immunity and was accepting of a large number of deaths. Johnson was dragged into each lockdown, particularly the first in late March 2020, and he delayed the key one in September by ignoring his own scientists and colleagues and backing cherry picked supporters of herd immunity.”

The BMJ is identifying a record of staggering criminality, as confirmed by Cummings. Johnson and his collaborators, according to Cummings’ account, were actively considering the deaths of 500,000 people, and up to 800,000 in one scenario, in pursuit of herd immunity through infection. He confirmed that the prime minister shouted he would rather “let the bodies pile high in their thousands” than implement another lockdown at the end of October, precisely because he “prioritised the economy over health.” While he was still writing COVID-19 off as a “scare story,” Johnson even suggested in Trumpian fashion that he be injected “live on TV with coronavirus so everyone realises it’s nothing to be frightened of.”

Cummings’ testimony painted a picture of a truly monstrous ruling class—stupid, vicious, greedy, utterly unmoved by the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people and living in “surreal isolation,” to use Abbasi’s phrase. Yet the BMJ is almost alone in even acknowledging the significance of such an extraordinary event. This is the first piece of serious commentary on Cummings’ appearance outside of the World Socialist Web Site .

It is also the second time the BMJ —a prestigious medical journal of over 150 years’ standing—has published a major attack on the government for its pandemic policy. The journal’s editorial of February 4 this year argued that “At the very least, covid-19 might be classified as ‘social murder.’”

This devastating verdict—referring to a concept first elaborated by Friedrich Engels—was entirely ignored by the media, the Labour Party and the trade unions. And it is likely that the same fate will befall this latest editorial. How could it be otherwise? All of these organisations collectively did everything they could to blunt the impact of Cummings’ revelations.

For their part, the nominally left and liberal outlets, with the Guardian in pole position, used Cummings’ own reactionary politics and break with Johnson as an excuse to dismiss his statements as inconsequential and embittered ravings. Neither the trade unions nor the Labour Party made a single significant statement, such that John Rentoul in the Independent described Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer’s performance against Johnson thus: “It wasn’t exactly like being savaged by a dead sheep; more like being asked trick questions by a sheep that was only barely alive.”

None of them can acknowledge the crimes admitted by Cummings without indicting themselves. As the BMJ correctly notes of the essentials in Cummings’ revelations, “None of this is news, at least to close observers.”

The UK’s murderous programme of herd immunity was a conspiracy carried out in plain sight. It relied less on secrecy than on the complicity of every supposed oppositional or independent force in the country. The Labour Party, first under Jeremy Corbyn and now under Sir Keir Starmer, has operated as a de facto coalition partner of the Conservatives in the name of providing only “constructive criticism” in pursuit of the “national interest.” The trade unions participate in more tripartite meetings with the government and the employers than there are days in the week. The national newspapers of every political stripe have for the most part loyally parroted government propaganda, keeping all criticism within safe limits.

These organisations now have more reason than ever to bury this history along with the dead. Once again, they are lining up behind Johnson’s latest efforts to end the last vestiges of public health restrictions, in the teeth of a third wave of the pandemic.

A week after Cummings’ appearance before parliament’s health and science committees, with cases of the highly infectious (Indian) Delta variant doubling every week, Johnson felt free to announce, “I can see nothing in the data at the moment that means we can’t go ahead with Step 4 [ending all restrictions on June 21].”

Labour and the unions have so thoroughly suppressed opposition to Johnson that the most significant inconvenience the prime minister now faces in enforcing his agenda comes from Cummings’ pursuit of his own right-wing authoritarian fantasies. The former adviser told MPs, “In a well-run entity what would have happened here is essentially, in my opinion, you would have had a kind of dictator in charge of this.” This dictator would have “as close to kingly authority as the state has legally to do stuff… pushing the barriers of legality.”

The BMJ concludes its editorial by posing the question, “How much of this maelstrom of harm was avoidable with the right leadership?” Railing against the “unpractised Brexit loyalists” brought to prominence by Johnson and Cummings, it calls for “public accountability” to be established through convening a public inquiry immediately, rather than in a year’s time according to Johnson’s timetable.

But within the existing political set-up, there is no such thing as a “right leadership” and no possibility of public accountability. Every element of the British political establishment, from the Remain and Leave factions of the Tories to the Labour Party and the trade union bureaucracy has had a hand in this crime and its cover-up. An inquiry organised by Johnson and the judiciary, whenever it is held, offers no remedy for this essential problem. The British ruling class, veterans of the Hillsborough, Hutton, Chilcot and Grenfell inquiries, leads the world in the use of this mechanism to protect the guilty.

The same is true internationally. Not a single government anywhere has produced leaders who fought for a scientific, humane, globally coordinated response to the pandemic. The opposite is the case: the common policy has been one of nationalism and social murder in defence of private profits and fortunes, leading to the deaths of at least 3.6 million people officially and more realistically in the region of 7 to 10 million.

Far from changing course, governments the world over are intent on ending containment measures so that the exploitation of the working class can be resumed at full throttle. Meanwhile the lie of a Wuhan lab origin of the pandemic is amplified to conceal the responsibility of the world’s ruling elites for the pandemic’s spread, while paving the way for military aggression against China.

The BMJ ’s call for “the right leadership” to deal with the ongoing pandemic is in reality a revolutionary question. The universally brutal and incompetent response to the pandemic reflects a world capitalist system in a state of advanced decay, which serves the interests of an infinitesimally small, super-rich oligarchy and threatens the livelihoods and lives of millions. What is required to finally bring an end to the suffering wrought by COVID-19 is for the working class to secure its leadership of society. By taking power the working class will create the conditions to ensure that public health is given priority over private profit and bring to justice Johnson and other political and corporate criminals.

Fighting the Wrong Enemy in Africa

John Clamp

In the West, citizens have for years been given the impression that ‘jihad’ is spreading like a ‘contagion‘ n the Maghreb and sub-Saharan Africa. News editors in London and New York know that adding the magical letters I and S to a story gives it instant wings.

Pentagon analysts’ dire warnings about the ‘risks of radicalization’ in our least developed continent are being echoed in Europe. Yet the fight in Africa against ‘insurgents’ who happen to be Muslim is the wrong fight. They’re merely rebelling against a system that has left them behind.

Why do all these young people sign up to Boko Haram, Islamic State in West African Province, and al-Qaeda in the Maghreb?

In Somalia, the name of the Islamic militant group al-Shabaab, (‘the youth’) provides a clue. Africa’s demographics, with a rapidly expanding youth, and its rampant inequalities, are what we really need to be paying attention to. The real dangers for the future lie in the systemic corruption and rapacious resource extraction that characterizes much of Africa.

In Cabo Delgado, Mozambique, attacks on coastal towns were blamed on an Islamic State ‘affiliate’, but the group, also dubbed ‘al-Shabaab’ by local people, were merely in agreement with local imams that Sharia law would likely ensure a more equitable distribution of the region’s wealth in natural gas. Locals live in abject poverty; the promises of trickle-down wealth in their remote region are empty rhetoric. Government functionaries in the faraway capital of Maputo carry on skimming millions.

Unless serious attempts are made over the next decade to address the core issues, there will be more waves of migration from Africa into Europe, exacerbated by the short-term Covid-19 slump and the medium- and long-term ravages of climate change. A report published last week by the Internal Displacement Monitoring Center says a record 55,000,000 people are now internally displaced worldwide. 40.5 m were uprooted in 2020, and more than 30 m of these were fleeing natural disasters such as floods and droughts. How many are now intending to flee the poverty created by Covid-19? The shenanigans in Ceuta of late provide a worrying indication.

Serious academics, as opposed to CIA dilettantes, are clear about the root causes of much of the violence in Africa. Dublin University professor Catriona Dowd argues that ‘conflict research often emphasises the specificity of Islamist violence; but these conflicts can be understood as a form of political exclusion and grievance-based violence, comparable to other forms of political violence.’

Norweigan academic Stig Hanssen agrees. He says that in Somalia, al-Shabaab offered local people functional justice, unlike the officially recognized government: ‘[The] al Shabaab leadership’s ideology and its well-developed problem-solving mechanism…made it the most unified actor in southern Somalia.’

The corruption and inequities that drive this dynamic are facilitated and exploited by Western banks, corporations, mining companies, and antiquities collectors, for whom the status quo, as it is for the Pentagon, is just fine and dandy. We need to change this narrative before it becomes tragic for all concerned.

From 1980s Neoliberalism to the ‘New Normal’

Colin Todhunter

Sold under the pretence of a quest for optimising well-being and ‘happiness’, capitalism thrives on the exploitation of peoples and the environment. What really matters is the strive to maintain viable profit margins. The prevailing economic system demands ever-increasing levels of extraction, production and consumption and needs a certain level of annual GDP growth for large firms to make sufficient profit.

But at some point, markets become saturated, demand rates fall and overproduction and overaccumulation of capital becomes a problem. In response, we have seen credit markets expand and personal debt increase to maintain consumer demand as workers’ wages have been squeezed, financial and real estate speculation rise (new investment markets), stock buy backs and massive bail outs and subsidies (public money to maintain the viability of private capital) and an expansion of militarism (a major driving force for many sectors of the economy).

We have also witnessed systems of production abroad being displaced for global corporations to then capture and expand markets in foreign countries.

The old normal

Much of what is outlined above is inherent to capitalism. But the 1980s was a crucial period that helped set the framework for where we find ourselves today.

Remember when the cult of the individual was centre stage? It formed part of the Reagan-Thatcher rhetoric of the ‘new normal’ of 1980s neoliberalism.

In the UK, the running down of welfare provision was justified by government-media rhetoric about ‘individual responsibility’, reducing the role of the state and the need to ‘stand on your own two feet’. The selling off of public assets to profiteering corporations was sold to the masses on the basis of market efficiency and ‘freedom of choice’.

The state provision of welfare, education, health services and the role of the public sector was relentlessly undermined by neoliberal dogma and the creed that the market (global corporations) constituted the best method for supplying human needs.

Thatcher’s stated mission was to unleash the entrepreneurial spirit by rolling back the ‘nanny state’. She wasted little time in crushing the power of the trade unions and privatising key state assets.

Despite her rhetoric, she did not actually reduce the role of the state. She used its machinery differently, on behalf of business. Neither did she unleash the ‘spirit of entrepreneurialism’. Economic growth rates under her were similar as in the 1970s, but a concentration of ownership occurred and levels of inequality rocketed.

Margaret Thatcher was well trained in perception management, manipulating certain strands of latent populist sentiment and prejudice. Her free market, anti-big-government platitudes were passed off to a section of the public that was all too eager to embrace them as a proxy for remedying all that was wrong with Britain. For many, what were once regarded as the extreme social and economic policies of the right became entrenched as the common sense of the age.

Thatcher’s policies destroyed a fifth of Britain’s industrial base in just two years alone. The service sector, finance and banking were heralded as the new drivers of the economy, as much of Britain’s manufacturing sector was out-sourced to cheap labour economies.

Under Thatcher, employees’ share of national income was slashed from 65% to 53%. Long gone are many of the relatively well-paid manufacturing jobs that helped build and sustain the economy. In their place, the country has witnessed the imposition of a low taxation regime and low-paid and insecure ‘service sector’ jobs (no-contract work, macjobs, call centre jobs – many of which soon went abroad) as well as a real estate bubble, credit card debt and student debt, which helped to keep the economy afloat.

However, ultimately, what Thatcher did was – despite her rhetoric of helping small-scale businesses and wrapping herself in the national flag – facilitate the globalisation process by opening the British economy to international capital flows and allowing free rein for global finance and transnational corporations.

Referring back to the beginning of this article, it is clear whose happiness and well-being counts most and whose does not matter at all as detailed by David Rothkopf in his 2008 book ‘Superclass: The Global Power Elite and the World They Are Making‘. Members of the superclass belong to the megacorporation-interlocked, policy-building elites of the world and come from the highest echelons of finance, industry, the military, government and other shadow elites. These are the people whose interests Margaret Thatcher was serving.

These people set the agendas at the Trilateral Commission, Bilderberg, G-7, G-20, NATO, the World Bank and the World Trade Organization.

And let us not forget the various key think tanks and policy making arenas like the Council on Foreign Relations, the Brookings Institute and Chatham House as well as the World Economic Forum (WEF), where sections of the global elite forge policies and strategies and pass them to their political handmaidens.

Driven by the vision of its influential executive chairman Klaus Schwab, the WEF is a major driving force for the dystopian ‘great reset’, a tectonic shift that intends to change how we live, work and interact with each other.

The new normal

The great reset envisages a transformation of capitalism, resulting in permanent restrictions on fundamental liberties and mass surveillance as livelihoods and entire sectors are sacrificed to boost the monopoly and hegemony of pharmaceutical corporations, high-tech/big data giants, Amazon, Google, major global chains, the digital payments sector, biotech concerns, etc.

Under the cover of COVID-19 lockdowns and restrictions, the great reset is being rolled out under the guise of a ‘Fourth Industrial Revolution’ in which smaller enterprises are to be driven to bankruptcy or bought up by monopolies. Economies are being ‘restructured’ and many jobs and roles will be carried out by AI-driven technology.

The WEF says the public will ‘rent’ everything they require: stripping the right of ownership under the guise of a ‘green economy’ underpinned by the rhetoric of ‘sustainable consumption’ and ‘climate emergency’.

At the same time new (‘green product’) markets are being created and, on the back of COVID, fresh opportunities for profit extraction are opening up abroad. For instance, World Bank Group President David Malpass has stated that poorer countries will be ‘helped’ to get back on their feet after the various lockdowns that have been implemented in response to the Covid-19 crisis. This ‘help’ will be on condition that neoliberal reforms and the undermining of public services are implemented and become further embedded.

Just a month into the COVID crisis, the IMF and World Bank were already facing a deluge of aid requests from developing countries. Scores of countries were asking for bailouts and loans. Ideal cover for rebooting the global economy via a debt crisis and the subsequent privatisation of national assets and the further ‘structural adjustment’ of economies.

Many people waste no time in referring to this as some kind of ‘Marxist’ or ‘communist’ takeover of the planet because a tiny elite will be dictating policies. This has nothing to do with Marxism. An authoritarian capitalist elite – supported by their political technocrats – aims to secure even greater control of the global economy. It will no longer be a (loosely labelled) ‘capitalism’ based on ‘free’ markets and competition (not that those concepts ever really withstood proper scrutiny). Economies will be monopolised by global players, not least e-commerce platforms run by the likes of Amazon, Walmart, Facebook and Google and their multi-billionaire owners.

Essential (for capitalism) new markets will also be created through the ‘financialisation’ and ownership of all aspects of nature, which is to be colonised, commodified and traded under the fraudulent notion of protecting the environment.

The so-called ‘green economy’ will fit in with the notion of ‘sustainable consumption’ and ‘climate emergency’. A bunch of billionaires and their platforms will control every aspect of the value chain. Of course, they themselves will not reduce their own consumption or get rid of their personal jets, expensive vehicles, numerous exclusive homes or ditch their resource gobbling lifestyles. Reduced consumption is meant only for the masses.

They will not only control and own data about consumption but also control and own data on production, logistics, who needs what, when they need it, who should produce it, who should move it and when it should be moved. Independent enterprises will disappear or become incorporated into the platforms acting as subservient cogs. Elected representatives will be mere technocratic overseers of these platforms and the artificial intelligence tools that plan and determine all of the above.

The lockdowns and restrictions we have seen since March 2020 have helped boost the bottom line of global chains and the e-commerce giants and have cemented their dominance. Many small and medium-size independent enterprises have been pushed towards bankruptcy. At the same time, fundamental rights have been eradicated under COVID19 government measures.

Politicians in countries throughout the world have been using the rhetoric of the WEF’s great reset, talking of the need to ‘build back better’ for the ‘new normal’. They are all on point. Hardly a coincidence. Essential to this ‘new normal’ is the compulsion to remove individual liberties and personal freedoms given that, in the ‘green new normal’, unfettered consumption will no longer be an option for the bulk of the population.

It has long been the case that a significant part of the working class has been deemed ‘surplus to requirements’ – three decades ago, such people were sacrificed on the altar of neo-liberalism. They lost their jobs due to automation and offshoring. They have had to rely on meagre state welfare and run-down public services.

But what we are now seeing is the possibility of hundreds of millions around the world being robbed of their livelihoods. Forget about the benign sounding ‘Fourth Industrial Revolution’ and its promised techno-utopia. What we are witnessing right now seems to be a major restructuring of capitalist economies.

With AI and advanced automation of production, distribution and service provision (3D printing/manufacturing, drone technology, driverless vehicles, lab grown food, farmerless farms, robotics, etc), a mass labour force – and therefore mass education, mass welfare, mass healthcare provision and entire systems that were in place to reproduce labour for capitalist economic activity – will no longer be required. As economic activity is restructured, labour’s relationship to capital is being transformed.

In a reorganised system that no longer needs to sell the virtues of excessive individualism (consumerism), the levels of political and civil rights and freedoms we have been used to will not be tolerated.

Neoliberalism might have reached its logical conclusion (for now). Making trade unions toothless, beating down wages to create unimaginable levels of inequality and (via the dismantling of Bretton Woods) affording private capital so much freedom to secure profit and political clout under the guise of ‘globalisation’ would inevitably lead to one outcome.

A concentration of wealth, power, ownership and control at the top with large sections of the population on state-controlled universal basic income and everyone subjected to the discipline of an emerging biosecurity surveillance state designed to curtail liberties ranging from freedom of movement and assembly to political protest and free speech.

Perception management is of course vital for pushing through all of this. Rhetoric about ‘liberty’ and ‘individual responsibility’ worked a treat in the 1980s to help bring about a massive heist of wealth. This time, it is a public health scare and ‘collective responsibility’ as part of a strategy to help move towards near-monopolistic control over economies by a handful of global players.

And the perception of freedom is also being managed. Once vaccinated many will begin to feel free. Freer than under lockdown. But not really free at all.

Germany’s premature easing of lockdown measures threatens workers’ lives and livelihoods

Marianne Arens

On Monday the German government gave the green light for the opening up of most of the country’s schools, and crowds have gathered in the warm weather in parks, promenades and pubs. Normal schooling and holidays should now be possible again, according to Chancellor Merkel, regardless of vaccination statistics.

The pandemic, however, is by no means over. The price for the risky easing of restrictions will be paid by the working class. Fresh outbreaks of COVID-19 continue to take place in production halls, care homes and in agricultural and transport enterprises. Little is reported of such cases in the bourgeois media, due to the failure of employers, politicians and the trade unions to provide a full picture of infection incidence. Only sporadic reports reach the public.

A major outbreak took place in mid-May at a Deutsche Bahn (German Rail) site in Fulda. As BuzzFeed News Germany reported, more than 60 of around 600 workers at the location tested positive. Neither Deutsche Bahn nor the transport union, EVG, have disclosed how many workers suffered severe symptoms or had to be hospitalised.

Buzzfeed News writes that the press office of the district of Fulda only gave a very vague answer to its enquiries, declaring that there were “high numbers of cases in four different companies” in the district. Since then, the situation had quieted down “in three of the four companies.” The fourth company, apparently, is Deutsche Bahn.

Care workers in hospitals and retirement homes also continue to be affected. In Alzey, Hesse, two nursing staff and seven patients at a DRK (German Red Cross) hospital were infected last week when a staff member who had already been vaccinated once against COVID-19 unknowingly passed on the virus.

Asparagus harvest

An asparagus farm in Lower Saxony has been experiencing a particularly large outbreak since mid-April. At Thiermann GmbH in Kirchdorf, one of the largest asparagus farms in Germany, no fewer than 144 workers were infected with COVID-19 up until the Whitsun spring break. The first infected workers were discovered among the more than 1,000 harvest workers as early as April 18, but it was only 10 days later that proper tests were carried out. The virus therefore had 10 days to spread unhindered.

When the responsible health department finally carried out extensive tests, 47 workers tested positive, and since then nearly 100 more have been added to the list of those positive. The factory was not shut down and the direct contacts of those infected were not identified. A spokeswoman for the district told Deutsche Welle (DW) that the authorities were unable to track contacts “because of the diffuse nature of the infection within the farm.” Instead, a quarantine was imposed on the entire premises. Workers were not allowed to leave the farm, which was monitored by the police and private security guards. The workers were, however, “allowed” to continue working and ran the constant risk of also becoming infected.

This meant the virus was able to spread unhindered throughout the entire workforce. Neither the company nor the health department are willing to give any information about how many of the infected workers at the Thiermann asparagus farm were seriously ill and had to be hospitalised. Workers who spoke to DW reported that up to five people were in hospital and at least one person had a severe COVID-19 infection.

Workers reported that they share a room in twos and threes, but then work in different parts of the farm. “No attention is paid to who lives together,” one worker reported. Most of the time it was not even possible to abide by distance rules when working. In the sorting plant, for example, the harvest workers are led to work in groups of 50, and then divided into groups of 12.

A group of about a hundred workers apparently tried to oppose this practice and decided to go on strike the night after testing took place. Fearing the virus, they did not go to work for two days. As one worker told DW, they also demanded better pay, but had received nothing so far.

The harvest workers are paid a gross minimum wage of €9.50 (net: €6.80) per hour, which is linked to a bonus system. In addition, €9.80 per day are deducted from the wage for accommodation and lunch. To make the work worthwhile the workers toil seven days a week, for up to 11 hours a day. These grueling hours and hard work also contributed to COVID-19’s ability to spread so quickly and widely.

As was the case last year, the pandemic has revealed the brutal and exploitative conditions for seasonal workers who keep the food industry running. This was underlined by reports from Polish women workers to DW. On the day of the testing, women who tested positive were made to wait outside until 11 p.m. before being taken to new quarters. A number broke out in tears because they wanted to go home to Poland but were not allowed to. The police strictly enforced the work quarantine.

The latest outbreaks show once again that businessmen and politicians put profits before workers’ lives. The authorities and the media play along and cover up such cases, while the German trade union movement makes sure that workforces remained uninformed. This is especially true for the IG Metall union in the auto and car supplier industry, as well as for the service sector union, Verdi, with members at airports and in logistics centres like Amazon.

The pandemic is an international phenomenon; it will not be defeated until it is under control in every country. Until then, there is a danger that new virus variants will spread, driving the number of cases up again and once again filling intensive care units.

In Finland, the “India” virus variant B.1.617 is currently spreading in several hospitals, and is also affecting people who have already been vaccinated once. In Canada, too, there have been hundreds of cases of so-called breakthrough infections, i.e., infections of people who have already been vaccinated once. And a new pathogen has been reported in Vietnam, which had so far come through the pandemic well. The new variant dangerously combines characteristics of the British and Indian virus strains.

In Germany, incidence figures are currently stagnating at around an average seven-day incidence of 35 new infections per 100,000 inhabitants. What is not mentioned is that the incidence in children is much higher. Among 10-14 year olds, the last known incidence figure from May 25 exceeded 100. Only 41.5 percent of the population in Germany has received a first vaccination, and less than 16 percent are fully vaccinated.

At the same time, the B.1.617 variant is spreading across Europe. As has been shown in Great Britain, vaccination against this virus is only effective after a second vaccination dose, which the vast majority of people in Germany lack. For children, there is still no vaccination programme.

Government politicians are using the declining coronavirus numbers to give a false sense of security. Chancellor Angela Merkel (CDU) claimed at the beginning of this week that “safe schooling” is possible again, “regardless of whether a child is vaccinated or not.” The same applies to holidays, she said, which must be possible again “both in other European countries and in Germany.” Merkel absurdly justified her remarks by saying that testing was “perfectly sufficient”—at a time when there are multiple reports of systematic fraud in mass testing.

It is clear that the statements by establishment politicians cannot be trusted. They have proven to be reliable servants of big business and the banks since the beginning of the pandemic.

US continues diplomatic provocations towards Beijing over Taiwan

Ben McGrath

The United States is continuing its provocations over Taiwan in order to ratchet up pressure on Beijing. Both the Democratic Party, with the Joe Biden administration at the forefront, and the Republican Party are manoeuvring to undermine the “One China” policy without openly crossing Beijing’s red-line on the issue, an agenda that risks war.

Last Friday, House of Representative members Brad Sherman, a Democrat, and Steve Chabot, a Republican, introduced a bill to Congress called the Taiwan Diplomatic Review Act that would rename the Taipei Economic and Cultural Representative Office (TECRO) as the Taiwan Representative Office.

Biden speaks at The Queen Theater, Thursday, Jan. 14, 2021, in Wilmington, Del. [Credit: AP Photo/Matt Slocum]

TECRO is the name of the office in Washington of the Taiwan Council for US Affairs (TCUSA), which serves as Taipei’s de facto embassy as the US has no formal diplomatic relations with Taiwan. The TCUSA is the relatively new name for the body known as the Coordination Council for North American Affairs (CCNAA) until 2019.

The bill, if passed, would call upon the US Secretary of State to enter into negotiations with Taipei to rename the office. Rep. Sherman openly stated the broader political rationale, “This bill simply says that it is time for the State Department, and Congress, to take action to elevate our relationship with Taiwan. We should also be taking action to encourage more robust engagement between US and Taiwanese officials.”

The proposed bill would also alter the diplomatic status of Taiwanese representatives in Washington by creating a special visa category. These officials currently do not receive diplomatic visas, but investor visas instead. The change is meant to facilitate closer relations between US and Taiwanese officials in line with the agenda set during the Trump administration.

It also includes the Taiwan Envoy Act, which would mean new directors appointed to the American Institute in Taiwan—the de facto US embassy on the island—would be required to receive Senate confirmation, similar to an ambassador.

The goal of these changes is to elevate Washington’s relationship with Taipei as the US prepares for conflict with Beijing. Taiwan is a self-governing island that the US and other countries recognize under the “One China” policy as Chinese territory. In 1949, Chiang Kai-shek’s Kuomintang was defeated in the Chinese Revolution and forced to flee to Taiwan, previously a colony of Japan, which had been returned to China following World War II.

From then until the 1970s, the US recognized Taipei as the legitimate government of all of China. Taipei even sat on the United Nations Security Council as a permanent member until 1971 when it was expelled from the UN and Beijing was acknowledged as China’s representative. In 1979, Washington cut formal ties with Taiwan and recognized Beijing as China’s government while upholding the “One China” policy.

To recognize Taiwan as an independent country, or to create the conditions for Taipei to declare independence, is a serious threat to Beijing. The ruling Chinese Communist Party will not allow Taiwan to be used as a launch pad for war against mainland China or set a precedent for Western powers to carve up existing Chinese territory in regions like Hong Kong, Xinjiang, and Tibet while returning the country to a semi-colonial state. As such, Taiwan represents a red-line for Beijing, which has stated that it will go to war if Taiwan ever declares independence.

Beijing’s fears of attack are not unfounded as demonstrated through documents recently published by Daniel Ellsberg, who leaked the Pentagon Papers. The new publications revealed that Washington had been prepared to launch nuclear strikes on major Chinese cities in 1958, only five years after the end of the Korean War. To this day, Washington continues to engage in regime change operations around the world, leaving countries like Ukraine, Libya, and Iraq completely devastated.

The danger of war has not given Washington pause as it inches closer to overturning the “One China” policy. Last Thursday, nominee for assistant secretary of defense for special operations and low-intensity conflict, Christopher Maier, stated during a Senate hearing that the US should help train special operation forces in Taiwan, in effect, preparing for a guerilla war against China.

Maier stated, “I do think that is something that we should be considering strongly as we think about competition across the span of different capabilities we can apply, [special operations forces] being a key contributor to that.”

He was backed by rightwing Senator Josh Hawley, who supported Donald Trump’s claims of a stolen election. Hawley suggested the US should train forces similar to those it had trained in the Balkans, a region carved up by US and European imperialism and plunged into war following the dissolution of the Soviet Union.

Since 1979, Washington has backed Taiwan militarily, including training troops, though this has not been officially acknowledged. Last November, Taiwan’s Naval Command confirmed that US Marines were in Taiwan for training exercises, the first public acknowledgement of such drills in over 40 years. The Ministry of National Defense and the US Pentagon walked back on this acknowledgement given the implications for a clash with Beijing. Therefore, official training exercises would set a dangerous precedent.

Alexander Huang Chieh-cheng, a professor of international relations and strategic studies at Taipei’s Tamkang University told the South China Morning Post, “[Improving and enlarging] the scale of US-Taiwan cooperation in training of special operations and irregular warfare…will definitely enrage Beijing and add difficulties to US-China and cross-strait relations.”

Washington has also encouraged Japan to take a more belligerent stance towards Beijing since Biden took office in January. Following a summit last Thursday between leaders of the European Union and Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga, the two sides released a joint statement calling for “peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait,” the first time Japan and the EU have included Taiwan in such a statement.

The language is nearly identical to that Biden and Suga used following their summit in April. Japan’s involvement has particular significance as Taiwan was a Japanese colony from 1895 to 1945, having seized it from China during the First Sino-Japanese War.

None of these machinations have anything to do with defending democracy in Taiwan or anywhere else in the Asia-Pacific region. They are, above all, aimed at eliminating China as an economic and strategic competitor to US imperialism, even at the risk of instigating a devastating global war.