China’s National People’s Congress convenes amid mounting crises

Peter Symonds

China’s annual National People’s Congress that formally appoints top government officials, endorses policy and enacts legislation opened in Beijing on Sunday and will run for more than a week.

The highly stage-managed affair takes place amid worsening crises confronting the government on all fronts: aggressive confrontation and threats of war by the US and its allies, a sharp slowdown in the economy and mounting social tensions, exacerbated by its criminal decision to lift all COVID-19 restrictions.

Chinese President Xi Jinping attends a session of China's National People's Congress (NPC) at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, Tuesday, March 7, 2023. [AP Photo/Ng Han Guan]

In these conditions, President Xi Jinping is expected to be appointed for a third presidential term and to consolidate his grip on power by installing his close supporters in top positions and leadership bodies. Li Keqiang will retire after two terms as premier and is mooted to be replaced by Li Qiang, Xi’s former chief of staff, who was party secretary in Shanghai during its pandemic lockdown last year.

Xi’s appointment to a third term as Chinese Communist Party (CCP) general secretary last year broke the two-term rule that had been in place since the 1980s. He is now routinely referred to as the indispensable “core” of the party and his vague general “thought” is enshrined in the constitution as a guide to the CCP bureaucracy. Xi’s reappointment as head of state at the end of the congress is as good as certain.

The emergence of Xi as party strongman is not, however, a sign of the CCP regime’s strength but rather of the need to hold the party together amid sharp internal divisions produced by the broader crisis of Chinese capitalism. The work report presented by Li Keqiang as premier on the first day of the congress and a speech by Xi to a closed-door meeting of private business representatives on Monday pointed to the huge problems confronting the government.

As reported by state-owned media, Xi dispensed with the usual oblique references and specifically accused the US of deliberately undermining the Chinese economy. “[In the past five years,] Western countries led by the United States have contained and suppressed us in an all-round way, which has brought unprecedented severe challenges to our development,” he declared.

The Biden administration has not only maintained the massive trade sanctions imposed on China under Trump but has introduced an escalating series of bans on the sale to Chinese companies of the most advanced computer chips and the machinery needed for their manufacture. US imperialism, which regards China as the chief threat to its global hegemony, is determined to cripple China’s ability to compete in hi-tech sectors.

Xi said that to “foster new growth drivers and new strengths in the face of fierce international competition, China should ultimately rely on scientific and technological innovation.” He appealed for increased cooperation between private enterprise, academia and research institutes to support “original and pioneering research.”

Li also placed considerable emphasis on technological development, particularly the need for China to be able to manufacture advanced semiconductors. Government expenditure on research and development is to double over the next five years.  The government has already pledged to invest an extra $US1.9 billion in the country’s biggest maker of memory chips, Yangtze Memory Technologies. Small and medium tech companies will be able to deduct their R&D spending from their taxable incomes.

Li said that the growth target for the Chinese economy for 2023 would be “around 5 percent,” down from the figure of “around 5.5 percent” set for last year. Unlike previous years when “targets” were met with implausible exactness, growth for 2022 was just 3 percent. The figure was the lowest since 1976, excluding the low of 2.2 percent in 2020 when the COVID pandemic first hit.

The CCP regime has long regarded 8 percent growth as essential for maintaining employment and social stability. According to Li, urban joblessness is stable at 5.5 percent and the government is seeking to create more than 12 million jobs. Youth unemployment, however, among 16-24 year olds hit 20 percent in 2022, declining only marginally to 16.7 percent in December. No figures are available for unemployment and underemployment in rural areas.

Clearly concerned by rising social tensions, Li announced that spending on public security will be increased by 6.4 per cent in 2023, up from 4.7 per cent last year. At the same time, Xi is reportedly intending to overhaul and exercise greater central control over the internal security apparatus.

China’s zero-COVID policy, which the government dismantled in December under huge pressure from the major imperialist powers and international finance capital, was not mentioned in Li’s work report. Instead he declared that China had secured victory over the pandemic but made no mention of the huge human cost of the government’s ending of zero-COVID.

Like its counterparts around the world, the Chinese government has downplayed the massive wave of infections that swept China over the past three months after public health measures were abruptly ended. The death toll officially is about 87,000 but various estimates by epidemiologists put the real figure at a million or more. The homicidal let-it-rip policy created a crisis in the hospital system and has led to an unknown number of cases of long COVID.

The CCP has joined governments around the world in sacrificing lives to corporate profits in its efforts to boost the economy, which is heavily burdened by debt, built up by local governments in particular to the tune of $9 billion. It is also plagued by the risks associated with a fragile real estate market grossly inflated by speculation.

In a bid to encourage foreign investors, Li foreshadowed changes to the foreign investment law reducing the number of areas that are off limits to overseas companies. However, the rapidly intensifying US confrontation with China undermines any incentives that Beijing might offer to encourage investment.

The US is not only imposing huge economic penalties on China but is rapidly boosting its military build-up and war preparations throughout the Indo-Pacific. Under Biden, the US has revived and elevated the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue, a quasi-military alliance with Japan, Australia and India, and established the AUKUS pact with Australia and Britain. The US Indo-Pacific Command, already the Pentagon’s largest, has been given additional funding and weaponry, and is consolidating basing arrangements throughout the region.

Following on from Trump, Biden has recklessly inflamed what is arguably the most explosive flashpoint in Asia—Taiwan—effectively tearing up the One China policy that has governed US-China relations since 1979. Washington had de facto acknowledged Beijing as the legitimate government of all China including Taiwan. Now Washington is engaged in high-level discussions with Taipei and has boosted arms sales to, and US military personnel on, Taiwan.

Beijing has responded on the one hand with attempts to end the stand-off, and on the other, by increasing its own military preparations. Washington’s latest provocation—the shooting down of what in all likelihood was a Chinese research balloon blown off course—demonstrated again that it is on a path of confrontation and conflict, not an easing of tensions.

The US and Western media have seized on the latest figures for Chinese military spending to inflate the so-called threat from China. Li announced a 7.2 percent increase in the defense budget—virtually the same as last year. Yet various pundits were quick to point out that it was higher than the overall increase in government spending and to speculate on new military hardware that China might be acquiring. In reality, China’s military budget is dwarfed by US military spending both in absolute terms and as a percentage of GDP.

While the National People’s Congress is carefully choreographed to project an image of strength and stability, the CCP bureaucracy is clearly fearful of the unprecedented dangers it confronts—both external and internal.

Chinese officials: US war plans threaten “confrontation” in the Pacific

Andre Damon

In response to the United States’ trade war and military escalation against China, Chinese officials warned that the relationship between the world’s two largest economies is “derailing.”

“Western countries led by the United States have implemented all-round containment, encirclement and suppression of China, which has brought unprecedented grave challenges to our nation’s development,” Xi said.

On Tuesday, China’s new foreign minister, Qin Gang, followed up with a warning that unless the U.S. changes course “there will surely be conflict and confrontation.”

The Nimitz-class aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln in formation during Rim of the Pacific exercises July 28, 2022. (Canadian Armed Forces photo by Cpl. Djalma Vuong-De Ramos) 220728-O-CA231-2003 [Photo: Canadian Armed Forces photo by Cpl. Djalma Vuong-De Ramos]

“If the United States does not hit the brake, but continues to speed down the wrong path, no amount of guardrails can prevent derailing and there surely will be conflict and confrontation.”

Over the past year, the United States has initiated a multipronged campaign of stifling China’s economic growth through trade war, arming Taiwan as part of its military buildup in the Pacific, and whipping up a racist and xenophobic campaign to demonize China among the US population.

These actions of “soft” power turned kinetic last month, when the United States shot down what China claimed was a non-maneuverable research balloon that had been blown over the United States, against the backdrop of a nonstop media hysteria accusing China of spying.

Responding to the statements by Chinese officials, National Security Council spokesman John Kirby replied that “there is nothing about our approach to this most consequential bilateral relationship that should lead anybody to think that we want conflict.”

Kirby’s public statements are completely at odds with actual US military doctrine, which calls for the United States to prepare, in the words of the latest NATO strategy document, for full-scale war with nuclear-armed “peer competitors.”

“We will ... deliver the full range of forces ... for high-intensity, multi-domain warfighting against nuclear-armed peer competitors,” declares NATO’s strategy document published on June 30.

Last October, Biden said that the United States is in the midst of a “decisive decade” in which the country must “win the competition for the 21st century.”

In March of last year, Biden declared that the world is on the brink of a “new world order” and that “we’ve got to lead it.”

In January, Gen. Mike Minihan, head of Air Mobility Command, sent a letter to his subordinates stating, “My gut tells me we will fight in 2025,” and urging them to get their “personal affairs” in order in preparation for a conflict with China.

While the doctrine of “great power conflict,” first initiated in 2018 with the Trump administration’s national defense strategy, has largely been put into practice without public knowledge, more and more the US media is beginning to speak openly of the potential of a “two-front war” between the US and NATO on one hand, and China and Russia on the other.

In a long article entitled “The U.S. Is Not Yet Ready for the Era of ‘Great Power’ Conflict With China and Russia,” Michael R. Gordon, the notorious propagandist who peddled false claims about Iraqi weapons of mass destruction, documents the ongoing war games being played out by the US military in preparation for a war with China:

When the Washington think tank the Center for Strategic and International Studies ran a wargame last year that simulated a Chinese amphibious attack on Taiwan, the U.S. side ran out of long-range anti-ship cruise missiles within a week.

Godon’s article continued,

If a conflict with China gave Russia the confidence to take further action in Eastern Europe, the U.S. and its allies would need to fight a two-front war. China and Russia are both nuclear powers. Action could extend to the Arctic, where the U.S. lags behind Russia in icebreakers and ports as Moscow appears ready to welcome Beijing’s help in the region.

In his response to statements by Chinese officials, Kirby continued, “We do not support independence for Taiwan. We’ve been very clear about that. We also don’t want to see the status quo cross across that strait changed unilaterally.”

Kirby was very well aware of the fact that he spoke these words following the passage of last year’s National Defense Authorization Act, which for the first time made provisions for the United States to directly arm Taiwan—which it had for decades treated as part of China—effectively ending the one-China policy.

In February, the Wall Street Journal reported that the United States plans to quadruple the number of troops stationed on the island and to directly train Taiwanese troops on US territory.

Last week, the House of Representatives Select Committee on the Strategic Competition Between the United States and the Chinese Communist Party held its first hearing, in which committee Chairman Michael Gallagher declared, “This is an existential struggle over what life will look like in the 21st century—and the most fundamental freedoms are at stake.”

On Wednesday morning, the committee will hold another hearing, this time aimed at promoting the false claim that COVID-19 was created by scientists in China. The hearing will invite as a star witness Nicholas Wade, a notorious advocate of racist pseudoscience, who claimed the genetic “adaptation of Jews to capitalism,” and whose work was hailed by former KKK Grand Wizard David Duke.

Ukrainian government spends millions on monuments and streets to honor Nazi collaborators and neofascists

Maxim Goldarb

80 years ago, in 1943, Kiev, the capital of Ukraine, was liberated from Nazi occupation by troops of the Red Army, led by General Nikolai Vatutin.

Shortly after the liberation of Kiev, General Vatutin died as a result of a wound inflicted on him in an ambush by Ukrainian Nazi collaborators from the OUN—the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists. In 1944, he was buried in one of the central parks of Kiev that he had liberated, and a monument was erected on his grave with the inscription: “To General Vatutin from the Ukrainian people.”

The general was deservedly considered a hero; flowers from the people of Kiev always lay at his monument.

And now, in our days, in the year of the 80th anniversary of the liberation of Kiev, the monument to Vatutin was demolished. With this demolition, the Kiev authorities also desecrated his grave. 

The demolition of the monument to Red Army general Nikolai Vatutin. [Photo: WSWS]

The destruction of monuments to the soldiers of the Red Army, which liberated Ukraine and Europe from fascism, is going on throughout Ukraine. In some cities, such as Chernivtsi, Rivne and many others, they are demolished, and in some places they are completely blown up, as happened, for example, in Nikolaev.

In addition, many other monuments are being demolished: monuments to the Russian poet Alexander Pushkin, to the writers Nikolai Ostrovsky and Maxim Gorky, the test pilot Valery Chkalov and many others.

The monument to the Soviet writer Nikolai Ostrovsky that has now been demolished in a photograph from 2021. [Photo: WSWS]

Moreover, in recent years, cities, villages, streets and squares have been massively renamed in Ukraine.

Since February 2014, after the coup d'état during the Euromaidan, more than a thousand settlements and more than 50,000 streets have been renamed in Ukraine.

Last year alone, 237 streets, squares, avenues and boulevards were renamed just in Kiev,  as the city’s authorities, headed by mayor Vitaliy Klitschko, proudly report. The same government, which for nine years since 2014, when Klitschko first became mayor, could not build in Kiev, a city of 3 million people with constant traffic jams on the roads, a single new metro station, a single new multilevel transport interchange, a single new medical center, a single new campus, a single waste processing complex, and so on.

Where did such an insistent desire to rename everything and everyone come from? Is it because a large number of local residents wanted this? Because they were suddenly no longer satisfied with the names of the cities and streets, where they themselves, their parents, and sometimes grandparents were born and raised? Nothing of the sort. There were no referendums, no votes of local residents on these issues, no one asked their opinion.

On the contrary, in the few cases that polls were conducted, they almost always showed their overwhelming disagreement with the renaming. For example, in the case of the renaming of the regional center Kirovograd a few years ago, which had been named so almost 90 years ago in honor of the famous Soviet statesman Sergei Kirov, the absolute majority of the city's population—82 percent—did not support the decision to rename the city to “Kropyvnytsky”. Only 14 percent supported it. 

But neither in this case, nor in any other of the many cases when monuments were demolished and streets renamed did the authorities care at all about the opinion of the citizens.

Why then is all of this happening? The answer to this question becomes clearer if you look closely at the new names and monuments that are now being erected. 

The avenue of General Vatutin, who helped liberate Kiev from Nazism, which was discussed at the very beginning of the article, was renamed to the avenue of Roman Shukhevych, a Ukrainian fascist. A the time of the attack of Nazi Germany on the Soviet Union in June 1941, Shukhevych served as a member of the Nachtigall battalion, a subdivision of the Abwehr (the military intelligence of the Wehrmacht), which consisted of Ukrainian Nazi collaborators.

What was formerly “Moscow Avenue” in Kiev was renamed to the Avenue of Stepan Bandera—another Ukrainian Nazi collaborator, and leader of the OUN (b), the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists, which during the Second World War “became famous” for its collaboration with the German Nazis, and its genocidal massacres of the Polish and Jewish population.

There are now many monuments erected and streets named in honor of Bandera in cities throughout Ukraine.

Stepan Bandera Monument in Lviv [AP Photo/Bernat Armangue]

The Druzhby Narodov Boulevard in Kiev was renamed into the Mykola Mikhnovsky Boulevard. Mikhnovsky was one of the main ideologists of Ukrainian nationalism, the author of the chauvinistic slogan: “Ukraine is for Ukrainians!”

And the street named after the Soviet military leader, Ukrainian Marshal Malinovsky, one of the leaders of the Red Army during the war against Nazism, was named the Street of the Heroes of the Azov Battalion. The Azov Battalion is a neofascist paramilitary formation that is now an official part of the Ukrainian army. Its emblem is the “wolfsangel,” a notorious Nazi emblem that has been used by units of the Nazi SS, in particular. For those who did not know or forgot, let me remind you that Azov was recognized as a neo-Nazi and terrorist group even by the US Congress.

Azov Battalion soldiers with Nazi flag. [Photo by Heltsumani / CC BY-SA 4.0]

At about the same time when the monument to General Vatutin was being demolished in Kiev, the Tenth Separate Mountain Assault Brigade of the Armed Forces of Ukraine was officially renamed Edelweiss. During the Second World War, “Edelweiss” was the name of the First Mountain Infantry Division of the Nazis’ Wehrmacht. This Division played a major role in the deportation of Jews, the execution of prisoners of war, as well as in punitive operations against the partisans of Yugoslavia, Italy, Czechoslovakia and Greece. Today, skull patches, which practically do not differ from the emblems of the SS division “Death’s Head” and other Nazi units, are openly worn not only by many military personnel of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, but also by the Supreme Commander.

The current government in Ukraine is completely destroying everything that is somehow connected with Russia, which most of Ukraine was part of for hundreds of years—even monuments and streets that were named in honor of world-famous writers—like Leo Tolstoy. It is also destroying everything that is related to the 70-year-old Soviet period in the history of Ukraine, and with socialism and leftist ideology in general. For example, streets named after Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels have been renamed, monuments to them have been demolished, socialist and communist symbols—from the red flag to the performance of the “Internationale'—are prohibited. Likewise, all left-wing parties are banned in Ukraine, including the Union of Left Forces - For New Socialism, which I head.

Socialism and communism are banned, left-wing activists are persecuted and imprisoned, and neo-Nazism is becoming an element of state policy and increasingly the dominant ideology.

This all-out war by the Ukrainian authorities against all public symbols, monuments and names that are associated with Russia, the October Revolution and Soviet history, or leftist ideology, requires a lot of money.

The cost of just one plate with a new street name for one house, according to the Kiev authorities, is at least 1,000 hryvnia (about 25 euros). This must be multiplied by the dozens (and sometimes hundreds) of houses on the same street. And then this must be multiplied by the tens of thousands of streets that are being renamed. Let me also remind you of more than 1,000 renamed cities and villages.

But the cost of the new address plates is only a small part of the enormous costs of this right-wing campaign. There are many more components. All institutions and enterprises have to change documents, order new seals and stamps, update signs at the entrance, and so on. We need new signs on the roads, entrances to the settlement, as well as for streets and roads throughout Ukraine. Many institutions—not only in the renamed cities but throughout the country—need to be provided with new maps and atlases.

For instance, the renaming only of the city “Zhdanov” to “Mariupol” cost about 24 million euros. According to the most conservative estimates, the massive wave of street renaming and the demolition of monuments throughout the country has already cost more than 1 billion euros!

And this is in the most impoverished country in Europe, and during a war at that! This is in a country which is now in critical need of financial assistance and 60 percent of whose state budget revenues this year are provided by funding from abroad, mainly from the EU and the United States.

This means that the money of European and American taxpayers is now being spent, among other things, on the mass renaming of streets in Ukraine in honor of Nazi collaborators and neo-Nazis.

I don't think most citizens of the “donor” countries would agree with this. But it seems that they, like most citizens of Ukraine, are not going to be asked for their opinion.

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Huwara offensive against Palestinians fuels anti-Netanyahu protests in Israel

Jean Shaoul

Ongoing attacks on Palestinians in the occupied West Bank make it clear that the pogrom-like rampage by hundreds of Israeli settlers on the town of Huwara on February 26, while Israeli troops stood by, is part of a broader campaign of ethnic cleansing.

Waged by Zionist settlers, it proceeds under the protection of the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) and is led politically by the newly installed government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, which includes fascistic, racist and ultra-religious parties. Their declared aim is to annex the Palestinian territories and implement apartheid rule, as embodied in the “Nation-State Law” enshrining Jewish supremacy as the legal foundation of the state.

Vigilante mobs attacked Huwara, beating residents with metal rods and rocks, killing one person and injuring 400 more, as well as setting fire to scores of homes and shops and hundreds of vehicles in a four-to-five-hour orgy of violence. They also attacked Burin and Einbus in the northern West Bank. All are in a part of the West Bank under Israeli security control and just minutes away from an army brigade headquarters. But Israeli soldiers stood by during the rampage. Not a single government minister condemned the atrocity. Just 10 people were arrested, of whom all but one were released.

A Palestinian man walks between scorched cars in a scrapyard, in the town of Hawara, near the West Bank city of Nablus, Monday, Feb. 27, 2023. [AP Photo/Ohad Zwigenberg]

Itamar Ben-Gvir, national security minister and fascistic leader of Jewish Power, declared, “The government of Israel, the state of Israel, the IDF, the security forces—they are the ones who have to crush our enemies,” not the settlers. On Wednesday, Finance Minister and Religious Zionism leader Bezalel Smotrich, responsible for the settlements in the West Bank, said that Israel should “wipe out” Huwara, a demand tantamount to the horrors inflicted on the Palestinians when more than 700,000 were driven out in 1948-49 at the hands of Zionist militias.

The town’s stores have only just reopened, following orders by the IDF to keep their doors shuttered that left storekeepers without an income. Settlers have issued threats on social media that they will return to the town in a repeat of their rampage. They plastered the area with posters demanding the army “crush” its enemies. One declared, “The intifada is here. We demand to crush! We demand to respond with war!”

Yesterday, Israeli forces stormed the Umm Said area, southeast of Beit Lahm, and demolished a Palestinian mosque, claiming it had been built without a building permit, which the Israeli authorities never grant. On January 23, soldiers stormed the Palestinian town of Isawiyyeh and the Khan Al-Ahmar community in East Jerusalem, where they demolished a greenhouse.

The United Nations’ Office of the High Commission for Human Rights (OHCHR) recently called on the major powers to take action against Israel’s systemic and arbitrary demolition of Palestinian buildings. Israel demolished 132 Palestinian structures, including 34 residential and 15 donor-funded structures, across 38 West Bank communities in January alone, a 135 percent increase on 2022.

On Monday, Ben-Gvir demanded that police continue demolishing Palestinian homes during Ramadan, set to begin on March 23, overturning the past practice that has seen Israel refrain from doing so to avoid inflaming tensions further. The attempted expulsion of families in the Sheikh Jarrah neighbourhood of East Jerusalem during Ramadan in 2021 was one of the factors that precipitated the firing of rockets by Hamas, the Muslim Brotherhood-affiliated group that controls Gaza, followed by Israel’s bombardment of Gaza and riots in Israel’s mixed Palestinian-Jewish cities in May of that year.

Israel’s escalating violence and criminality has killed at least 67 Palestinians so far in 2023, more than one per day, a rate far higher than last year when at least 171 Palestinians were killed in the West Bank and East Jerusalem—the highest death toll since 2005. It is setting the stage in the run-up to Ramadan and Passover for a violent conflagration that threatens to engulf not just the occupied Palestinian territories, but Israel and its neighbours.

This growing threat has led increasing numbers of Israelis to take to the streets in protest. Last Saturday evening, around 160,000 rallied in Tel Aviv, Israel’s commercial capital and largest city. An even greater number took part in pro-democracy demonstrations across Jerusalem, Herzliya, Netanya, Beersheba, Haifa, Ashdod and scores of other towns, with organisers claiming that there were some 400,000 protesters in all.

This is particularly significant given that the organisers have sought to restrict the demonstrations’ focus to opposition to Netanyahu’s plans to trim the powers of the judiciary. The main speakers at the rallies have been former generals, heads of the intelligence services and government ministers. Most of them were members of the misnamed “government of change” headed by Naftali Bennett, Yair Lapid and Benny Gantz, had served under Netanyahu in the past, and have few substantive political differences with him.

They have deliberately ignored or downplayed growing social inequality and poverty and the worsening suppression of the Palestinians, ensuring that very few of Israel’s Palestinian citizens have participated in the rallies. Their sole concern is to protect the Israeli state in the interests of the plutocrats.

In marked contrast to the hands-off approach taken by the military and border police during the raid by Israeli settlers on Huwara, Police Commissioner Kobi Shabtai readied 1,000 police officers for the demonstrations, particularly in Tel Aviv. He was determined to stop them blocking the Ayalon Highway, the city’s chief highway, which has become a symbol of resistance in demonstrations in recent years.

Until last Wednesday’s “National Disruption Day,” the police had largely refrained from interfering in the rallies. Their intervention followed Ben-Gvir’s provocative demand that the police chief stop the protesters, whom he branded “anarchists,” from “disturbing the order.”

Saturday saw a second eruption of violence after the authorities in Tel Aviv deployed mounted police, special forces and water cannons against demonstrators who had broken through the barriers leading to the Ayalon Highway and halted traffic. They chanted “Shame!” and “Where were you in Hawara?” at police officers making arrests. Following the rallies, Ben-Gvir said that he had no intention of apologizing to anyone, “certainly not to the anarchists who seek to set the State of Tel Aviv on fire.”

The protest organisers announced that they would hold another “day of disruption” around the country on Thursday, March 9.

But it is impossible for Israeli workers to halt the government’s plans for dictatorship or prevent all-out war with the Palestinians without rejecting nationalism and allying themselves directly with the Palestinians. This means rejecting the Zionist project of a Jewish state based on the ethnic cleansing of the Palestinian population and unifying their struggles with those of their Arab class brothers and sisters for the overthrow of the capitalist profit system and the nation-state framework on which it is based—for the socialist reorganization of the economy of the entire Middle East region so that its vast resources can be utilised for the benefit of all its peoples.

Mass teachers strikes erupt across Portugal

Santiago Guillen & Alejandro López

Barely a year after the Socialist Party (PS) won a majority in the Portuguese parliament, strikes and protests are erupting across the country. Workers are mobilizing as rampant inflation slashes real wages after years of austerity, amid a global economic crisis intensified by the pandemic and NATO’s war against Russia in Ukraine. It is part of a mass strike movement drawing in millions of workers from across Europe.

Portuguese teachers protest in the streets of Lisbon. [Photo: @anamargaridacr4]

Inflation last year stood at 7.8 percent, the highest in 30 years in Portugal. Food prices have increased by a staggering 20 percent. Sleeping under a roof is also becoming increasingly impossible. In 2022 housing prices rose 18.7 percent, while rent in cities like Lisbon rose by up to 36.9 percent.

Wage increases have fallen far behind inflation. In the private sector, wages rose 2.3 percent last year and are forecast to rise 2.8 percent this year. This is below the voluntary wage increase benchmark agreed between big business, the government and the General Labor Union (UGT) bureaucracy of 5 percent—which, again, was below inflation. The average wage increase for civil servants was only 3.6 percent. Retirees will also see their pensions’ value fall, with increases of a mere 4 percent—more than 3 percent below inflation.

Meanwhile, the Portuguese capitalist class is massively enriching itself from inflation. Fifteen large companies listed on the Lisbon stock exchange paid out €2.5 billion in dividends to their owners, the highest ever.

Opposition is mounting, however. Portuguese teachers have been at the forefront of strikes, which are at a ten-year high. For over two months, they have been striking over wages and working conditions. As in other countries, they are demanding salary increases in line with inflation, payment of overtime and improvements to the promotion system, which currently makes it difficult to obtain a permanent job.

Their anger erupted in the mass march on February 11, which brought 150,000 people to the streets of Lisbon. It was even larger than the two previous ones in January attended by more than 100,000 demonstrators—marches already considered the largest since the Carnation Revolution toppled the far-right Salazar regime in 1974.

Antonio Costa’s PS government is reacting to growing opposition by imposing draconian minimum service requirements targeting teachers’ strikes. Teachers who are striking—some of them since December—must provide a minimum of three hours of lessons per day, even when they are on strike.

The union bureaucracy is trying to force teachers to comply with these requirements. The National Federation of Teachers called the minimum service requirement “illegal” and pledged to challenge it in court, but called on its members to obey the government’s order in the meantime.

The PS is terrified that concessions to the teachers will galvanise the rest of the working class, as it diverts billions to the military and to pay the debt. Finance Minister Fernando Medina said: “When we talk about the teachers and their demands, we must take into account the general situation in the country: not only the teachers, but also the nurses and doctors.”

Meanwhile, the union bureaucracies are blocking a broader struggle, preventing united action by teachers and other layers of workers, and cutting them off from millions of workers striking and protesting across Europe—from Britain, to the Netherlands, France and Germany.

Portugal’s nine education unions are calling strikes on different days and in different districts in order to divide this powerful movement as much as possible. Last week, schools in districts north of Coimbra were paralysed on Thursday; the next day was the south—that is, from Leiria to the Algarve.

The STOP union has continued the indefinite strike but refuses to broaden the struggle. This split-off union emerged after decades of union collaboration with successive governments to impose education cuts. Created in 2018, STOP calls itself an “apolitical”, “non-sectarian, non-partisan and truly democratic union,” committed to “never signing important commitments-agreements with the government without democratically listening to the teaching class first.”

STOP, however, is not an alternative to the old union bureaucracies. Like them, it does not link the strike to the necessary struggle against the NATO-Russia war in Ukraine. It has also isolated teachers, rejecting unifying their struggles with recent strikes by doctors, nurses, autoworkers at Volkswagen’s Autoeuropa plant, railworkers, port workers and cabin crew at state-owned airline TAP into a struggle against the PS government.

The strike movement is continuing to grow. Last week, workers at state-owned rail company Comboios de Portugal (CP) began a three-day strike against a below-inflation pay offer. During the same week, workers at the public rail infrastructure company Infraestruturas de Portugal also walked out for three days over pay. The strike cancelled a large majority of rail services. This week, Portugal’s National Federation of Doctors (FNAM) called its members to strike after what it called an “unacceptable step backwards in negotiations with the government.”

The strikes demonstrate the determination of masses of workers to fight back against big business and the PS government that is funneling money to the major corporations, the super-rich and the military machine. Workers must be warned, however: the union bureaucracies and their political allies, the petty-bourgeois Left Bloc (BE) and the Stalinist Portuguese Communist Party (PCP) have a long history of working with the PS to strangle workers struggles.

These forces are working to channel growing opposition to the PS government into one-day protests without any perspective. On February 25, several thousand people marched in Lisbon in a protest against rising living costs under the slogan “Por uma Vida Justa” (For a Fair Life), organised by PCP and BE. The aim of the march, which received widespread live coverage by mainstream media and the press, was to appeal to the PS government for better wages.

Similarly, these forces are also campaigning for a referendum on housing in Lisbon, aiming to limit how many buildings are dedicated to tourist accommodation, with the prospect of holding a larger rally on April 1.

Workers cannot fight the financial markets and the PS government under the political control of the PCP or BE, or on an apolitical, trade-union basis, like STOP. Significantly, in 2019, the PCP and BE backed the PS government’s deployment of the army to break a nationwide truckers strike, as fuel stations ran dry. BE leader Catarina Martins backed the crackdown, stating: “In certain fundamental sectors, it is understandable that there are minimum levels of service… The government will have to do whatever is essential for the country to function.”

In the autumn of 2021, the PCP and BE reacted to mass strikes—by rail workers, teachers, pharmacists, subway workers, nurses, firefighters and civil servants—not by seeking to mobilize workers against the minority PS government, which they were supporting in parliament. Instead, they sought to prop up the PS by forcing new elections.

They suddenly voted against the PS budget, which they had previously supported—as they had loyally supported all PS austerity budgets since the PS took power in 2015. Their vote against the PS budget triggered a government crisis and new elections, in which the PS won an absolute majority. The support for the PS has now sunk to 27 percent, from 41 percent a year ago.

South Korean government demands “normalization” of labor unions

Ben McGrath

The South Korean government of President Yoon Suk-yeol is stepping up repressive measures against the country’s labor unions and opposition political figures. Dressed up as a “law-and-order” campaign, the administration is concerned above all about the growth of unrest and opposition in the working class as social and economic conditions sharply decline.

Members of the Cargo Truckers Solidarity union stage a rally against the government's return-to-work order on cement truckers in Uiwang, South Korea, Tuesday, Nov. 29, 2022. [AP Photo/Ahn Young-joon]

The government has declared it is necessary to “normalize” trade unions, increase their financial transparency and put an end to “illegal acts.” Last Thursday, the Ministry of Employment and Labor stated it will push for a revision of the country’s trade union law, formally called the Trade Union and Labor Relations Adjustment Act, in collaboration with the ruling People Power Party (PPP).

The proposed changes would give the government more control over unions. Labor Minister Lee Jeong-sik stated, “[Through the revision] the ministry will regulate what can be deemed as clear irregularities by labor unions within a scope that does not compromise labor activities.”

In pushing for these changes, the government has accused unions of hiding their finances from public view, including money received from the government. In February, government inspectors demanded that 327 labor unions with more than 1,000 members open their accounting books for inspection—207 unions refused.

Kim Dong-myeong, head of the yellow Federation of Korean Trade Unions (FKTU), called for the government to recognize the unions as “dialogue partners.” The so-called “militant” Korean Confederation of Trade Unions (KCTU) stated that it did not receive any money from the government except for some 3 billion won ($US2.3 million) on office space it rents, which is guaranteed by law. 

The Yoon administration has also accused unions of conducting illegal activities, such as demanding bribes and hindering work at construction sites. Conditions for construction workers are so poor that courts have previously ruled bribes are a part of doing business. The Gwangju Higher Court ruling on February 21 that they constitute “a decades-long practice and have virtually become a part of the wage.”

However, this campaign has nothing to do with upholding the law but is about boosting the profitability of big business and suppressing political opposition to the government’s policies, including its strengthening of South Korea’s military alliance with the US.

“If labor unions are normalized, our capital market will also be greatly developed,” Yoon said during a cabinet meeting on February 21. “Should labor unions, which shout opposition to (South) Korea-US military exercises or peddle employment opportunities, be normalized, the value of companies will rise automatically and jobs will be produced greatly.”

Any legal changes would limit workers’ democratic rights by essentially barring them from taking part in political rallies or demonstrations. Anything other than narrowly defined “labor activities” would be deemed illegal, which could include taking time off to attend demonstrations or using union funds for things like placards or transportation to rallies.

This also lies behind the government’s campaign against the leader of the main opposition Democratic Party of Korea (DP), Lee Jae-myung. On February 27, a request submitted for Lee’s arrest was narrowly defeated in the National Assembly by a vote of 139 to 138, with nine abstentions and 11 invalid votes. Two other lawmakers were not present and one seat is vacant in the 300-seat assembly. Parliamentary approval is required for the arrest of a sitting lawmaker. Majority approval of those present, or 149 votes, was needed to approve the arrest warrant.

Government prosecutors have accused Lee of corruption in a number of cases from his time as mayor of Seongnam, a city in Gyeonggi Province just south of Seoul, and then later as Gyeonggi governor. Lee ran against President Yoon in last year’s presidential election. Corruption charges in South Korea are regularly utilized to settle political scores.

The Yoon administration is reviving old police-state measures in preparation for social conflict. For three decades, the South Korean bourgeoisie has relied on the unions and the Democrats to block a movement of the working class against capitalism. Neither the FKTU nor the KCTU, regardless of the latter’s phony “militant” rhetoric, represent the interests of the working class, but instead orbit the DP, which defends capitalism no less than the PPP. The unions call strikes as safety valves on workers’ anger while working to isolate them, preventing the growth of the class struggle, and shutting down job actions on management’s terms.

However, with the growing social crisis, the ruling class increasingly feels it can no longer allow even this, lest a workers’ movement grow outside the control of the DP and the unions. This became apparent following the truck drivers’ strike in November and December of last year, which President Yoon likened it to a “threat” from North Korea.

The economic crisis in South Korea is worsening. According to the Bank of Korea, the economy is only expected to grow 1.6 percent this year after expanding by just 2.6 percent last year. The export-reliant country recorded a trade deficit in February for the 12th month in a row, the first time this has happened since 1997, just prior to the Asian Financial Crisis.

While the official unemployment rate stands at 3.6 percent, this is an underestimate of the true situation facing workers. It does not take into account the growth of low quality and poor-paying positions that exploded throughout the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.

According to Statistics Korea, at the end of October the number of full-time jobs had fallen by 8.7 million from the previous year, the biggest drop in 11 years. Full-time workers now make up just 43.3 percent of the entire workforce. Many workers have taken jobs in the gig economy, working as delivery drivers. In other cases, jobs in manufacturing and the tourism industry offer little more than minimum hourly wage, which is only 9,620 won ($US7.42) this year.

Furthermore, inflation grew to 5.2 percent in January. This has in part been led by rising utility costs for electricity, water, and gas. These combined costs have grown by 28.3 percent over the same period last year. The rise in consumer prices has resulted in a drop in real wages for workers.