Netanyahu presses ahead with neutering the judiciary, mobilising the police to suppress protests

Jean Shaoul

Starting Monday night, hundreds of thousands of people have taken to the streets in towns and cities across Israel, blocking roads and the country’s main international airport. With Tuesday designated a “Day of Resistance,” they are protesting against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s far-right and ultra-religious government’s introduction of legislation aimed at curtailing the powers of the judiciary as the crucial step toward assuming dictatorial powers.

Police uses water cannon to disperse anti government protesters in Tel Aviv, Israel, Monday, March 27, 2023. Over Sunday and Monday up to 600,000 people turned out to protest and strikes spread across all sectors, closing universities, grounding flights and shutting ports.protested. [AP Photo/Oded Balilty]

The demonstrations were met with aggressive tactics on the part of the police who were mobilized at 100 sites. Officers used water cannon to disperse thousands of people protesting in Tel Aviv and made scores of arrests for violating public order. A mounted police officer was filmed knocking over a demonstrator on Tel Aviv’s Kaplan Street and trampling over him with his horse, while others were seen pushing people on the sidewalks.

At Tel Aviv’s Ben Gurion airport where more than ten thousand people gathered, the police struck a protester, breaking his nose.

In Haifa, police declared the protest illegal and started to clear thousands of demonstrators blocking an access road to the Carmel Tunnel, arresting two people for violating public order.

It comes just days after several senior physicians wrote to the police asking them to stop using water cannon as a crowd dispersal technique after 15 protesters had been seriously wounded, saying they were “weapons” that cause “exceptional and serious” damage.

This mass outpouring of popular opposition reflects not just the anger over the proposed changes to the judiciary, move to dictatorial powers and increasing role of religious layers over everyday life, but very real fears over rising inequality and the soaring cost of living, including the exorbitant cost of housing, as well as deepening concerns over failing public services, including education, health and transport.

Such is the polarization of Israeli society that Histadrut chief Arnon Bar-David said he could be forced to call a general strike if the proposed legal reform is not stopped and negotiations held for an agreed compromise.

Netanyahu’s fascistic coalition partners have railed against Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara for approving an anti-government demonstration at Tel Aviv’s Ben Gurion Airport on Tuesday, with Transportation Minister Miri Regev vowing to change the law to block such protests from being held in future. She had earlier called for Baharav-Meira to be fired over law enforcement’s failure to suppress the protests against the judicial overhaul. Supporters of these far-right politicians have demonstrated outside the home of the attorney general, who has been warning against the erosion of Israel’s democracy.

National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir, who heads Jewish Power and is a leader of far-right settlers in the occupied West Bank, also attacked the attorney general and accused demonstrators of “crossing all lines.” He demanded that she “Stop backing rioters! Start enforcing the law!” This is the man who now heads the newly established National Guard that is, according to the budget passed in June, to be financed by a 1.5 percent reduction in funding for more than 40 ministries and government departments.

The “reasonableness” bill had its first reading in the Knesset on Monday and when passed as scheduled by the end of parliament’s summer session at the end of July will have the status of a new Basic Law. It removes the Supreme Court’s ability to overturn elected officials’ decisions on the grounds of “reasonableness.” It will enable Netanyahu to reappoint his key ally, Shas party leader Aryeh Deri, as head of the Health and Interior Ministries, appointments the Supreme Court overturned as being “unreasonable” due to his convictions for fraud, bribery and tax evasion and pledge not to seek public office again.

Even more importantly, the legislation will enable Netanyahu to press ahead with other dictatorial measures secure in the knowledge that the court—the only state institution that is able to hold Israel’s single chamber parliament to account and which his right-wing cabal does not control—will be unable to overturn them. However, it is expected that, when the bill does pass, the Supreme Court will review the legislation and strike it down, leading to a constitutional showdown with the government.

Last March, Netanyahu promised to freeze the measures in the face of the largest outpouring of popular opposition in Israel’s history that included massive street protests and a full-scale walkout by large sections of the Israeli working class, pending some compromise with the opposition parties. But with his far-right colleagues refusing to sanction any compromise, the talks were suspended and Netanyahu has pressed ahead, regardless of the continuing mass protests that have swept the country since the start of the year.

Netanyahu has used the intervening three months to carry out a series of criminal provocations against the Palestinians in the West Bank that Israel has illegally occupied for 56 years, and military operations against Iran, Syria and Lebanon who support some Palestinian militant factions opposing Israel, aimed at deflecting tensions outwards and creating a sense of national unity.

Just last week, Israel mounted a two-day attack on the densely populated refugee camp outside Jenin, home to 14,000 Palestinians, leading to pitched battles with Palestinian militants and the deliberate and widespread destruction of civilian infrastructure, including water, sewerage, telecoms, electricity, and healthcare facilities. Much of this was carried out under cover of air strikes by helicopters and drones. At least 12 Palestinians were killed, including four teenagers. More than 100 were injured, and one-quarter of the camp’s population was forced to flee.

A United Nations panel of human rights experts declared that Israel’s actions “amount to egregious violations of international law and standards on the use of force and may constitute a war crime.” They added, “The attacks constitute collective punishment of the Palestinian population, who have been labelled a ‘collective security threat’ in the eyes of Israeli authorities.”

There is no question that this criminal campaign of terror and murder is aimed at provoking a new wave of Palestinian attacks that will provide the pretext for the forcible displacement of the Palestinians, ethnic cleansing; the incorporation of the West Bank into Israel; the confinement of those Palestinians who remain in isolated Bantustans, denied access to the basic necessities of modern life; and the establishment of a Jewish Supremacist state, with Israel’s own Arab citizens having only second-class status.

In this, the Netanyahu government has the full-throated support of the self-proclaimed leaders of the mass protest movement, nearly all of whom have served at one time or another in ministerial positions under him and who have few political differences with him. Like former Prime Minister Yair Lapid and Defence Minister Benny Gantz, they are no less committed than Israel’s far-right government to the Zionist state and its oppression of the Palestinian people.

Far from representing a “progressive” alternative, they only object to Netanyahu’s judicial overhaul because they fear it, along with the increasing domination of religious forces, will destroy the myth that Israel is “the only democracy in the Middle East” and endanger the interests of the state. They have refused to mobilize support from Israel’s Arab citizens, far less the Palestinians in the occupied territories, instead drowning the demonstrations in a sea of Israeli flags.

Even now, when confronted with a government that refuses to make any concessions and is stepping up its repression of the Palestinians, Lapid and Gantz are calling for the resumption of talks in search of a “compromise.”

Japan to dump Fukushima radioactive water into Pacific Ocean

Peter Symonds

Japan plans to proceed with the discharging of 1.3 million tonnes of radioactive water accumulated after the 2011 Fukushima nuclear disaster into the Pacific Ocean after the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) gave its stamp of approval last week. The decision has provoked opposition and protests in Japan itself, as well as in neighbouring countries including China and South Korea, over the potential impact on the environment and human health.

Some of about 1,000 tanks holding radioactive wastewater at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant in Okuma town, northeastern Japan, on Feb. 22, 2023. [AP Photo/Mari Yamaguchi]

What happened at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant in March 2011 was the worst nuclear disaster since Chernobyl in 1986. A major magnitude 9.1 earthquake hit the region in northern Japan, triggering a huge tsunami reaching as high as 16.7 metres. It struck the inadequately protected plant, knocking out electrical and cooling systems, leading to partial meltdowns of three of its six reactors.

Out of concern for its investment, the plant operator, Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO), compounded the problems and dangers by failing to rapidly respond by pumping sea water through the damaged reactors to cool them.

More than a decade on, the task of de-commissioning and cleaning up the site is likely to continue for decades. TEPCO has accumulated massive quantities of radioactive water—irradiated groundwater and reactor coolant—that has been treated using the Advanced Liquid Processing System (ALPS) to remove most but not all radioactive isotopes. The water still contains tritium—an isotope of hydrogen—that has a half-life of 12.5 years (the time for the radioactive level to halve).

The water is currently stored in 1,000 huge steel tanks, but TEPCO claims it is running out of space and can build no more. The company, backed by the Japanese government, has been pressing for years for permission to dump the water into the Pacific Ocean, claiming there is no alternative.

Under the plan, the radioactive water would be diluted using sea water to levels of tritium within international standards then discharged over several decades through a kilometre-long pipe into the sea. Such has been the opposition in Japan and from neighbouring countries, however, that Tokyo called on the IAEA to conduct a study of the proposed release.

IAEA chief Rafael Grossi was in Tokyo last Tuesday to present the findings of the UN body’s two-year safety review to Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida. In the report’s foreword, Grossi declared that the IAEA concluded that TEPCO’s plan was consistent with relevant international safety standards. Moreover, TEPCO’s “gradual discharges of the treated water to the sea… would have a negligible radiological impact on people and the environment.”

In an interview with Reuters, Grossi conceded that there had been no unanimity among the IAEA scientists drawn from 11 countries, including China, on the findings of the safety review. He acknowledged that one or two “may have expressed concerns” but did not elaborate, while insisting that the published report was “scientifically impeccable.”

Grossi was met with protests when he arrived in South Korea on Saturday for talks with the government and opposition parties. Hundreds of demonstrators marched through the commercial district of Seoul with placards declaring: “We denounce the sea disposal of Fukushima’s nuclear wastewater!” and “We oppose with our lives the sea discharge.”

While the right-wing administration of President Yoon Suk-yeol has agreed to the water discharge, the opposition Democratic Party and Korean Confederation of Trade Unions (KCTU) have sought to capitalise on widespread public concern and opposition. According to a recent joint survey by South Korea’s Hankook Ilbo newspaper and Japan’s Yomiuri Shimbun, 84 percent of South Koreans disapproved of the release.

Many of the protesters were union members. In comments to the media, KCTU spokesman Han Sang-jin denounced the water-dumping plan as “like an international crime.” He said: “Other than discharging the water into the sea, there is an option to store the water on their land, and there are other options being suggested.”

China has been critical of the plan. As cited by China’s state-run Global Times, Liu Senlin, a Chinese expert in the IAEA’s technical working group, described the UN body’s report as “hasty,” adding that the input of experts had been limited and only used for reference.

China also announced a ban on food imports from 10 of Japan’s prefectures over “safety concerns” and said stringent radiation tests would take place for food from the rest of the country. The Chinese customs agency said Japan “still has many problems in the legitimacy of sea discharge, the reliability of purification equipment and the perfection of monitoring programs.”

Opposition is also widespread in Japan where an Asahi Shimbun survey in March found just 51 percent in favour of the radioactive water release and 41 percent opposed. Even though the IAEA does some monitoring of the water discharges, there is widespread public distrust in TEPCO, which colluded with Japanese governments to cover up safety breaches at the Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant. After the disaster, it was revealed that TEPCO had at least 200 proven instances of safety inspection falsifications.

The fishing industry near Fukushima was devastated by the nuclear disaster. It destroyed the reputation of the region’s seafood. Fishing cooperatives in three prefectures have collected 33,000 signatures on a petition expressing opposition to the water discharge.

Haruo Ono, a fisherman to the north of the stricken nuclear plant, told the Guardian: “We here in Fukushima have done absolutely nothing wrong, so why do they have to mess up our ocean? The ocean doesn’t belong to only us humans—and it isn’t a rubbish tip.”

The small island nations of the southwest Pacific, which rely heavily on fishing, are also concerned about the potential impact on their ocean waters. In a comment published in January in the Guardian, Pacific Islands Forum secretary general Henry Puna expressed the fear that “the region will once again be headed towards a major nuclear contamination disaster at the hands of others.” He made the point that the decision to release the radioactive water “should not only be a domestic matter for Japan, but a global and transnational issue.”

A group of international scientists working with the Pacific Islands Forum has been critical of TEPCO, the IAEA, the Japanese government and the planned discharge. One of the scientists, Robert Richmond, director of the Kewalo Marine Laboratory at the University of Hawaii, told CNN the plan was “ill-advised” and premature.

Richmond explained that he was particularly concerned about the danger of bioaccumulation—that is, pollutants like tritium can become more concentrated as they pass up through the various levels of the food chain. Thus the relatively low levels of radioactive tritium in the discharged water are not necessarily an accurate reflection of the levels to be found in seafood in the future.

Richmond was also scathing of the argument used by the TEPCO, the IAEA and the Japanese government that the release of wastewater with tritium from atomic power plants was common practice around the world, including in China and South Korea. “Other people’s bad behaviour” was not an excuse for continuing to release radioactive water into the ocean.

The expert group proposed an alternative to discharging the water into the ocean, namely using it to make concrete structures and thus encasing the tritium. The Japanese government rejected the proposal out of hand, citing dubious technical and legal reasons. The real reason, however, as one of the group, Ferenc Dalnoki-Veress from the Middlebury Institute of International Relations at Monterey, explained was that it was “choosing the easiest, cheapest, status quo way of simply dumping the contaminated water into the sea.”

Deflation starts to grip the Chinese economy

Nick Beams

Most of the world is experiencing inflation at the highest rate in four decades. In China the opposite is the case, with the country entering a deflationary environment. However, this is not a sign of economic strength and stability but may portend a significant fall in economic growth.

After a brief increase following the lifting of all anti-COVID measures at the end of last year, the much-anticipated post-COVID “recovery” has failed to materialise.

Auto workers install windows at a minibus factory in Shiyan city in central China’s Hubei Province [AP Photo/Andy Wong]

Data released by the National Bureau of Statistics on Monday showed that the consumer price index was unchanged from a year ago—the lowest rate in more than two years. At the same time, factory gate prices continued to fall, an indication of lowered demand.

Producer prices for June were down by 5.4 percent from a year ago in the steepest decline since December 2015.

In its report on the data, the Australian Financial Review noted: “Producers have already spent months contending with lower commodity prices and weak demand at home and abroad. If consumers and businesses continue to hold back from spending or investment in the hopes of prices getting lower that could lead to a self-fulfilling price dropping spiral.”

If present trends continue, and there is no sign of their abatement, this could call into question the government’s target of 5 percent growth for the economy this year.

This has led to speculation that the People’s Bank of China could further cut interest rates and ease monetary policy. However, any stimulus will be nothing like what was carried out in the past.

Bloomberg economist David Qu told the AFR: “Zero consumer price inflation and deeper falls in consumer prices in June suggest China’s post-COVID rebound has lost more steam. Flagging momentum on the price front is a sign of weak demand that clouds the economic outlook. The need for more stimulus from the People’s Bank of China is rising.”

The last time China experienced a sustained period of deflation—there was a short period of price declines in early 2021—was in 2009 as a result of the global financial crisis that erupted in 2008.

The government introduced a major stimulus package, estimated to be around $500 billion, combined with an increase in credit to finance major infrastructure and investments. That is not going to be repeated because the earlier stimulus led to a large increase in debt, particularly by local government authorities.

The government and financial authorities are trying to cut back the expansion of debt, not least because of the problems in the real estate and property sector exemplified by the crisis at Evergrande in 2021 and other companies.

The ongoing economic war being conducted against China by the US, with its bans on the export of advanced chips needed for high-tech development and the push for US firms to get out of China—the drive for decoupling or “derisking”—is leading to a lack of investor confidence, further lowering the prospects for economic growth.

The Chinese government is making noises about the possibility of stimulus, but that is very much all they are at present.

China’s Premier Li Qiang, as reported by the state-run news agency Xinhua last week, indicated the government was planning measures to deal with lower growth.

“Targeted and co-ordinated policy measures should be introduced and implemented in a timely manner to stabilise growth, ensure employment, and guard against risks,” he said.

Li gave no details about what those measures might be. They could include some relaxation of monetary policy and reduction of business taxes, however such measures will only have an impact at the margin and will not lead to a new growth path for the Chinese economy.

Bruce Pang, chief economist at the real estate and investment management firm Jones Lang Lasalle, said it was “very unlikely” that the Chinese government would introduce major macroeconomy measures as it was emphasising high quality growth that is stable and would not lead to risks.

While the government is anxious to avoid financial risks, threats are increasing on the social and political fronts. The stability of the government rests on the belief that, even though it long ago abandoned any real commitment to socialism and genuine equality, its program of capitalist development will bring rising living standards, above all for young people.

It is here that the economic slowdown, which began before COVID struck, is having a significant impact as revealed in the rise in youth unemployment in the urban centres.

In May, some 20.8 percent of youth aged between 16 and 24 were unemployed, the highest rate since data started to be collected in 2018. Many of them have come onto the jobs market after completing university degrees costing 30,000 yuan a year—around a fifth of the average annual income for a family of three—to find there are only low paid jobs available.

According to a recent report in the Financial Times entitled “China’s youth left behind as jobs crisis mounts,” the government has responded with a campaign directed at graduates to “find a job first and then choose a career.” President Xi Jinping has told young people to “ask for hardship” when seeking employment.

China’s overall urban unemployment rate has remained stable at around 5.2 percent. However, the available jobs are low paid and not able to attract university graduates who anticipated greater remuneration after years of intense study at considerable expense for their families.

Youth have always played a powerful role in the struggles of the Chinese working class and there are predictions they could do so again.

A recent report from the China Macroeconomy Forum think-tank, cited in the FT article, indicated that youth unemployment was not a passing phenomenon.

“We estimate that the problem of youth unemployment may continue for 10 years in the future and continue to worsen in the future,” it said.

“If handled improperly, it will lead to further social issues outside the economic field and even become the trigger for political issues.”

That was the case in 1989. The repression of students at Tiananmen Square in June 1989 was only the most public expression of a wave of attacks on the working class.

After three years of debate and conflict within the ruling Communist Party, the turn was made to the full-scale development of capitalism. There was an acceleration of economic growth and a rise in living standards, leading to the claims by the regime that the “peaceful rise” of China within the framework of capitalism was possible.

Now China has run into two interconnected obstacles: the determination of the US to suppress its economic advance and the exhaustion of the methods used to promote growth in the past amid a deepening crisis of global capitalism.

The CCP regime used to maintain that at least 8 percent growth a year was necessary to maintain “social stability.” Now the official growth target is well below that level and could fall even further as a well-educated cohort of millions of young people enter the working class and confront the contradictions of the capitalist economy and the actions of US imperialism.

German President backs delivery of cluster bombs to Ukraine

Johannes Stern

On Sunday, German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier (Social Democrat, SPD) backed US President Joe Biden’s decision to supply cluster munitions to Ukraine. He told broadcaster ZDF that the official position of the German government to speak out against these internationally outlawed weapons was still correct, only to add, “But it cannot stand in the way of the USA in the current situation.”

A US B-1 bomber drops cluster bombs [Photo: DoD photo, USAF, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons]

The fact that the German head of state is backing the delivery of cluster bombs just before the start of the NATO summit in Vilnius is a warning. In the Second World War, Germany’s ruling class committed the greatest crimes in history with the Holocaust and the war of extermination against the Soviet Union. Now, once again, it will stop at nothing to pursue its imperialist goals.

The use of cluster munitions is illegal under international law and a criminal act per se. They are rockets and bombs that burst in the air and release countless small explosive devices, which are designed to kill and maim people indiscriminately. Not only Russian soldiers, but above all Ukrainian civilians would pay a terrible price for years to come.

In air strikes during the Vietnam War, the US dropped cluster bombs extensively on targets in Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia. Between 1964 and 1973, over 270 million cluster bombs rained down on Laos alone, of which it is estimated that 80 million failed to explode. According to Wikipedia, more than 50,000 people were killed or injured by cluster munitions between 1964 and 2008, 20,000 of them after the war, while 23 percent of the victims were children.

NATO powers have also used cluster munitions in the wars of aggression against Serbia and Iraq, acts which violated international law. According to a Human Rights Watch report, the United States and Britain dropped nearly 13,000 cluster bombs over Iraq, containing an estimated 1.8 to 2 million submunitions, with terrible consequences. For example, according to Amnesty International, many dead and injured people were admitted to the local hospital in Hilla on 1 April 2003, their bodies covered with cuts caused by shrapnel from cluster bombs.

Steinmeier knows exactly what crimes he is supporting with his statement. In the ZDF interview, he cynically remarked that he was “biased” with regard to the use of cluster bombs, since he had signed the international treaty banning cluster munitions in Oslo in 2008 as German Foreign Minister.

In the agreement, which entered into force on 1 August 2010, the 111 signatory states undertook “never to use, develop, manufacture, otherwise acquire, stockpile, retain or transfer, directly or indirectly, cluster munitions to anyone under any circumstances.” They were determined to “end the suffering and death” caused by cluster munitions. And the text said it was concerning that “cluster munitions remnants could kill or maim civilians, including women and children”.

Fifteen years later, these are nothing but empty words for the ruling class. Phrases about disarmament, democracy, and human rights, which were always hollow, are increasingly replaced by open pleas to deploy the most terrible weapons of war. In order to avert the collapse of the Ukrainian war offensive and defeat Russia on the battlefield, Washington and Berlin are willing to use any means.

Speaking to ZDF, Steinmeier explicitly advocated an escalation of the war. At the moment, he did not see the conditions under which he could imagine a ceasefire, the German President said. “At this point in time, it would mean rewarding the theft of land that Russia is carrying out in Ukraine.” As long as Russia did not withdraw its troops from Ukraine, he said, one must have “understanding for the fact that ... Ukraine is trying to beat back the Russian troops.”

Steinmeier speaks for a ruling class that despite its monstrous historical crimes, is once again pursuing the goal of subjugating Russia in order to plunder its vast reserves of raw materials, and to rise to become a leading military power. For days, the warmongers in politics and the media have been competing with their demands to increase the war effort. All inhibitions are being dropped.

The WSWS has already commented on the recent commentaries in Der Spiegel (“Give Ukraine whatever it needs—That’s what a victory over Putin should be worth to us”) and the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (“The counter-draft to Guttenberg”), which advocate unlimited arms deliveries to Ukraine and preparations for “tank battles” throughout Europe. Not only the content, but also the cynicism and lies being used are reminiscent of Nazi war propaganda.

“The moral outrage over the fact that the US now wants to supply Ukraine with cluster munitions, which are outlawed by many states, is unreasonable,” enthuses Die Welt’s chief foreign affairs correspondent Clemens Wergin in a commentary entitled “Why cluster munitions are morally justifiable for Ukraine.” While Russia “has been using this type of ammunition en masse since the beginning of the war, including against civilian targets,” this “cannot be assumed to be the case with the Ukrainians, who continue to try to abide by the rules of the international laws of war.”

One does not know which is more repulsive. Wergin’s double standard on war crimes, his glorification of the Ukrainian regime enforced by fascist forces, or the patently absurd claim that in the right hands weapons that violate international law are in accordance with the “international laws of war” and even protect the civilian population.

Others openly advocate nuclear escalation. Stefanie Babst, who was the highest-ranking German in the NATO General Secretariat from 2006 to 2020, complains in a commentary that NATO was unlikely to accept Ukraine “into its circle of members” immediately in Vilnius. A “glimmer of hope,” however, was perhaps “that the government in Warsaw has been seeking admission to NATO’s nuclear sharing arrangement for some time.”

According to Babst’s unscrupulous plan, the USA would station B61 nuclear bombs in Poland and Warsaw and equip the “existing F-16 and US ordered F-35 fighter aircraft with nuclear-capable delivery systems.” Should Warsaw then “agree to take Ukraine under its then existing nuclear umbrella as part of a bilateral security agreement, the Kremlin would be forced to think harder about this new strategic dynamic.”

Another commentary in Die Welt penned by its Brussels correspondent Christoph B. Schiltz also advocates upgrading Ukraine militarily to the point where “it can win the war.” At present, “above all, long-range surface-to-surface missiles (ATACMS), mine-clearing tanks, F-16 fighter jets, anti-aircraft systems (Patriots, Iris-T) and artillery shells are missing,” Schiltz gushes. And unfortunately, “Biden, Scholz & Co are still betting on not provoking Kremlin dictator Putin too much.”

Such statements border on suicidal madness. Babst and Co. are literally writing a nuclear escalation of the war into being. They do not even waste a thought on the consequences. Warsaw, Berlin, and other major European cities would be the first targets of a nuclear war of annihilation.

In a perspective on the NATO summit, the WSWS has already warned: “If NATO’s military threatens to defeat Russia, Russia’s military doctrine is to use nuclear weapons, triggering a nuclear war in which the Russian nuclear arsenal alone is capable of destroying not only every major city in America, but of ending human civilization altogether.”

Yellen offers no concessions in economic push against China

Nick Beams

The visit by US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen to Beijing over the weekend, while producing no concrete measures, has been presented as at least a step forward in easing the tensions between the world’s major economic powers that together account for around 40 percent of global production.

Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen speaks during a press conference at the US Embassy in Beijing, China, Sunday, July 9, 2023. [AP Photo/Mark Schiefelbein]

The Treasury Department described the meeting with Chinese Premier Li Qiang and other Chinese officials as productive. Yellen claimed the US was not engaged in a “winner take all” conflict with China and wanted to engage in economic competition that would benefit both nations over time.

Such assertions, however, are a cover for what are essentially tactical manoeuvres involving several components.

The US wants to be seen as at least easing its confrontation with China, which began under Obama and escalated under Trump and Biden, while it steps up the Ukraine war directed against Russia. The strategic planning in US military and national security circles is first the weakening of Russia, if not its breakup, while the military encirclement of China is increased along with the imposition of bans on its acquisition of vital technology.

Another component is to offer reassurances to countries, highly dependent economically on China, that the US is not about to immediately sever economic relations as it prepares for war.

As a report in Bloomberg noted: “Yellen’s message may ease concerns among US allies that Washington has embarked on a path dedicated to fragmenting the global economy between an American and Chinese bloc.”

The US is also trying to prevent Chinese retaliation in the form of bans on exports of vital minerals and manufactured components for US industry before alternative sources of supply are put in place.

That issue has come into prominence in recent days with the decision by China in the lead-up to Yellen’s visit to impose restrictions on the export of two critical metals— gallium and germanium—which are vital for many high-tech applications. The restrictions came with a warning from former vice-minister of commerce Wei Jianguo that the bans could be the beginning of Chinese countermeasures in response to US actions.

These issues were the subject of various comments by Yellen on the content of her talks. One of her central aims was to promote the fiction that the widespread technology bans are only related to possible military uses and not aimed at crippling Chinese economic advances in high-tech.

Anxious not to provoke further retaliation from China, she said: “The United States will take targeted action to protect our national security. While we may disagree on these actions, we should not allow that disagreement to lead to misunderstandings, particularly those stemming from a lack of communication, which can unnecessarily worsen our bilateral economic and financial relationship.”

The latter point refers to the critical role played by Chinese investment in US Treasury debt amounting to some $868 billion, which, if withdrawn or significantly reduced, could set off a crisis in precarious US financial markets.

The Biden administration has been actively pushing for US firms to lessen their dependence on China—a policy for which Yellen has been one of the foremost advocates.

But in her remarks in Beijing, she emphasised the new term, derisking, that has been brought forward to try to disguise this objective.

“We seek to diversify, not to decouple,” she said on Friday. Expanding on her initial remarks the following day she said: “I’ve heard my Chinese counterparts express scepticism about decoupling—and have expressed some concern that derisking amounts to decoupling. And I felt that it was important for me to address this issue.”

She claimed that “derisking” involves attention to clearly articulated and narrowly targeted national-security concerns, as well as broader concern with diversifying out supply chains which applied to only a “few important sectors.”

However, given that high-tech development in any area has potential military applications, so-called national security bans have a wide coverage. Moreover, the US has applied pressure to others, including the Netherlands and Japan, to take part in its restriction on key high-tech exports to China.

The real motivations have already been exposed by the technology bans imposed on the Chinese communications giant, Huawei, which was a leader in many fields, until US bans severely impacted its global operations.

A comment in the state-run news agency Xinhua last Friday said derisking “would not fool the Chinese side to believe the United States has given up its efforts to contain China.”

There seems to be something of a divergence in the reaction of Chinese government officials to the Yellen visit.

According to a Chinese readout of a meeting between Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi in June, China blamed the US for the increase in tensions.

“Wang demanded that the United States stop playing up the so-called ‘China threat’ and lift illegal unilateral sanctions against China, stop suppressing China’s scientific and technological advances, and not wantonly interfere in China’s internal affairs,” it said.

But a different tone was struck by Premier Li Qiang after meeting Yellen.

“It’s not all wind and rain,” he said. “After the wind and rain, once that passes, we’ll definitely see more rainbows.”

If Li actually believes that then he is deluding himself.

The more likely explanation is that he is trying to delude others by obscuring the serious impact the US bans are having on the Chinese economy. China’s much anticipated “recovery” after the lifting of all anti-COVID measures has not materialised as key indices turn down and youth unemployment continues to rise.

Yellen made no concessions during her visit, not even a movement on the tariffs imposed on Chinese exports to the US by Trump which have no relation to so-called “national security.”

On the national security question, she only offered an extremely vague commitment to flexibility saying that in some cases the US could be willing to “respond to unintended consequences of our actions if they’re not carefully targeted.”

No mechanism has been indicated about how this might take place.

On the issue of Ukraine, which forms such a key component of the US tactical manoeuvres with regard to China, Yellen said she had raised “the importance of ending Russia’s brutal and illegal war against Ukraine,” coupling her remarks with a thinly veiled threat.

“I communicated that it is essential that Chinese firms avoid providing Russia with material support or assistance with sanctions evasion,” she said. The implication was that the US could impose sanctions against them if they do not comply with its demands.

The overall aggressive approach, which she sought to disguise with talk of discussion and dialogue and a healthy economic relationship, was revealed in comments to executives of US businesses in China. She told them she was conveying their concerns to Chinese leaders over government subsidies for state-owned enterprises among other market access issues.

The US has long maintained that it has a right to intervene in the running of the Chinese economy because such subsidies contravene its so-called rules-based international order.

At the same time, it is providing major subsidies to US firms, under the Inflation Reduction Act, to induce a movement back to the US for the production of major commodities, part of the drive to decouple from China, drawing opposition from both the European Union and South Korea as constituting a breach of free trade rules.

Putin met with Prigozhin and Wagner commanders days after insurrection

Clara Weiss

On Monday, on the eve of the NATO summit in Vilnius which is set to discuss a significant escalation of NATO’s direct involvement in the war in Ukraine, the Kremlin confirmed that Russian President Vladimir Putin had met with Evgeny Prigozhin on June 29, just five days after Prigozhin’s failed coup attempt. The news of the meeting had first been reported on Friday by the French newspaper Libération. 

After months of open conflicts with the Russian army leadership, Prigozhin, a far-right ex-convict-turned-billionaire and mercenary leader, launched his insurrection on June 23 with a direct appeal to pro-NATO sections within the Russian oligarchy and state apparatus. Having seized control of the main military headquarters in charge of the war in Ukraine, Prigozhin began a march on Moscow on June 24, demanding that Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu and Chief-of-Staff Valery Gerasimov be removed from their positions. 

According to Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov, Putin invited 35 people to a meeting just five days after the insurrection collapsed, including all leading commanders of Wagner. Sergei Naryshkin, the head of Russia’s Foreign Intelligence, and Viktor Zolotov, the head of the Russian National Guard, which was deployed against the insurrectionists, also participated in the meeting.  

Peskov revealed very little about the contents of the meeting but clearly indicated that a settlement had been reached between Putin and the commanders of Wagner: “The only thing we can say is that the President gave an assessment of the actions of the [Wagner] company at the front during the SVO [Special Military Operation], and also gave his assessment of the events of June 24. The commanders themselves provided their interpretation of events. They emphasized that they are convinced supporters and soldiers of the head of state and the commander-in-chief [Putin]. They also said that they are prepared to continue to fight for the Motherland.”

The meeting took place just two days after Putin denounced the insurrectionists as traitors on public television, accusing them of fomenting civil war and playing into the hands of NATO. In the two weeks that have followed the coup attempt, the Kremlin’s official line has been marked, despite many countless twists and turns, by an extraordinary degree of leniency toward Wagner. 

In the immediate wake of the coup, Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko, in language commonly used by mafiosi, boasted of having brokered a deal between Putin and Prigozhin during the insurrection. The deal reportedly involved not only an amnesty for Prigozhin and all Wagner fighters but also their relocation to Belarus. That relocation, however, has not happened.

Prigozhin is still predominantly based in Russia, with the Kremlin stating last week that they had neither “the ability nor the willingness” to track his whereabouts. Lukashenko, after declaring that the Belarusian army would be happy to be trained by Wagner, invited reporters from the New York Times last week to the camps designed for Wagner to demonstrate to the pro-NATO media that they were not there. 

Wagner is reportedly also freely continuing to recruit across the country. A raid on Prigozhin’s home was followed almost immediately by the return of his valuables, including his private firearms. The Financial Times tracked the movement of Prigozhin’s private jet and found that he had flown back and forth between Moscow, St. Petersburg, Rostov on Don (where the insurrection started) and Minsk, in Belarus, multiple times in the days following the failed coup.

In the Russian media, there has been a concerted campaign to ridicule Prigozhin, but even that campaign now raises more questions than it answers. The Nezavisimaya Gazeta noted in a comment that the state-run TV channels were “exposing Prigozhin in a way that actually looks like advertisement for him.” 

It is not even clear whether the Kremlin will go after Prigozhin’s extensive Wagner empire, which stretches over a dozen countries and includes a large number of companies and has turned Prigozhin into a billionaire. As Putin himself revealed after the insurrection, the Wagner company has been funded primarily by the Russian state with state contracts worth over 86 billion rubles (almost $950 million) between May 2022 and May 2023 alone. 

In the Russian army, the Kremlin has begun an investigation into the role of different army commanders in the coup attempt, but even here it is unclear how extensive the investigation is and how seriously it is being conducted. Commenting on the investigation in the army, the Novaya Gazeta, an outlet that is affiliated with the US-backed anti-Putin opposition, reported on Friday, “There is a growing sense, that ‘the President’s Chef [Prigozhin]’ had and perhaps still has allies. …Generals are being called in as witnesses and are disappearing into thin air.”

The newspaper added that in the many months during which Prigozhin launched open and repeated foul-mouthed attacks on the army leadership of Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu and Chief-of-Staff Valery Gerasimov, not a single army commander came out to defend them. Moreover, the newspaper reported that Prigozhin has systematically and openly tried to recruit active or retired generals and commanders from the army who were dissatisfied with the way the war was being handled.

Thus, Lieutenant General Mikhail Mizintsev, who was involved in the Russian military operation in Syria and the seizure of Mariupol in Ukraine, went over to Wagner after being discharged from the army. Based on anonymous sources, the Novaya Gazeta wrote that Prigozhin had made “tempting offers in the winter of 2022-2023 to other very high-ranking commanders. They all had their own views on the SVO [Special Military Operation] and also pointed to mistakes that had to be urgently corrected. All of these offers were made openly, the Ministry of Defense knew about them. All of their telephone conversations were also surveilled.”  

The many contradictions in the official line and the very fact that Prigozhin, after launching an insurrection based on a repeat of lies that NATO neither provoked nor was involved in the conflict, is allowed to continue his activities, indicate an extreme level of crisis and divisions within the Russian ruling class and state apparatus. This crisis and these divisions can only be understood based on the class character and historical origins of the ruling oligarchy, which has emerged out of the Stalinist destruction of the Soviet Union and restoration of capitalism. 

In a statement on the failed coup, the WSWS noted that Prigozhin

represents a substantial faction of the Russian oligarchy that opposes the war solely because Putin’s effort to protect the capitalist class’s and state’s privileged access to the country’s vast resources has cost them dearly. Putin has sought to balance between these factions, and this attempt to reconcile opposing oligarchic interests has determined the conduct of what he still calls a “special military operation.” From the beginning, the Kremlin’s policy in Ukraine has been based on the hope that limited military pressure could persuade the Western imperialist powers to accept the “legitimate” security interests of the Russian capitalist regime.

Turkish President Erdogan gives go-ahead for Sweden’s NATO membership

Bran Karlsson & Jordan Shilton

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan agreed late Monday evening to support Sweden’s NATO membership bid, clearing the way for Stockholm to become the US-led aggressive military alliance’s 32nd member. The announcement came on the eve of NATO’s Vilnius summit, where a major escalation of the war on Russia will be discussed.

In a tweet announcing Erdoğan’s agreement, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg wrote, “This is an historic step which makes all NATO allies stronger & safer.”

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Contrary to this absurd claim, the accession of both Finland and Sweden to NATO will further expand a northern front in the US/NATO war aimed at subjugating Russia to the status of a semi-colony and plundering its natural resources. The finalisation of Finland’s membership in April more than doubled NATO’s land border with Russia, while Sweden’s integration means that Russia will be surrounded by NATO members in the Baltic Sea. Plans are already well advanced within the Nordic countries’ militaries to transform the region into a common area of operations, including through the creation of a joint air force and the granting of unhindered access for US troops in the region.

Erdoğan’s approval of Sweden’s NATO membership followed several days of intensive discussions as US imperialism pushed for the issue to be settled prior to the beginning of the Vilnius summit. Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson visited US President Joseph Biden at the White House last Wednesday. Biden told Kristersson he was “anxiously looking forward” to Sweden’s NATO membership.

On a phone call with President Biden on Sunday, Erdoğan told Biden that he still did not approve of Sweden’s membership. A Turkish press release said, “Erdoğan stated that Sweden has taken some steps in the right direction by making changes in the antiterrorism legislation,” but Sweden allowing Kurdish groups to “hold demonstrations freely praising terrorism nullify those steps.”

Earlier Monday, Erdoğan gave a press conference in which he called for his government’s approval of Sweden’s NATO membership to be conditional on the restarting of talks for Turkish admission into the European Union. After this proposal was roundly rejected by leading European politicians, including German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, and Erdoğan held a one-on-one meeting with Kristersson, an agreement was finally brokered at a final meeting chaired by Stoltenberg.

The decisive role in forcing an agreement was undoubtedly played by Washington. The US reportedly threatened to withhold its prized F-16 fighter jets from Turkey if Ankara did not let Sweden into NATO.

Erdoğan’s announcement followed a meeting in Istanbul over the weekend with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. Erdoğan declared at a joint press conference that Ukraine “deserves” NATO membership. Together with his acceptance of Sweden’s NATO membership, this statement by Erdoğan underscores that the Turkish bourgeoisie’s attempt to pursue a policy of balancing between the imperialist powers on the one hand and Russia on the other due to strong economic ties with both sides is proving ever-more untenable.

To placate Ankara, Sweden has lifted its arms embargo on Turkey, which it imposed after Turkey began its military campaign against the Kurdish nationalist People’s Protection Units (YPG) in 2019. Sweden has also passed a new sweeping antiterrorism law which will allow for the quick extradition of terror suspects to Turkey and other countries. In April, a series of antiterrorism raids were conducted in Sweden against Islamist extremists. However, multiple Quran burnings in Sweden aggravated frictions between the two countries.

The determination on the part of Washington and its European imperialist allies to bring Sweden into NATO is bound up with the country’s strategic location and military capabilities, as well as the significance of the broader Nordic and Arctic regions in the war on Russia. Stockholm sits on the Baltic Sea, home to water traffic and pipelines on Russia’s doorstep. The island of Gotland was a major military base during the Cold War due to its strategic location in the Baltic just over 300 kilometers northwest of the Russian exclave of Kaliningrad. Sweden also extends far into the Arctic Circle, an area of increasing tension, especially as new natural resources are discovered there.

The US has already concluded a defence cooperation agreement with Norway that gives military forces far-reaching latitude to operate without restriction in “agreed areas” and places troops operating in the country under US jurisdiction, including when they are off-duty. Similar agreements are being negotiated with Finland and Sweden. The Nordic defence chiefs have also drawn up a major plan for the rapid transportation of NATO troops and their supply through several ports on the west coast of the Nordic countries, From Esbjerg in Denmark, to Gothenburg in Sweden, and Trondheim and Tromsø in Norway.

The possibility that the NATO powers could seize on any number of pretexts to undertake a major military escalation in the Nordic region is made all the more likely given the deepening crisis facing the far-right regime in Kiev. The war in Ukraine has killed hundreds of thousands of soldiers, including an estimated 200,000 Ukrainians alone. Ukraine is scouring the country for recruits, imprisoning those who do not comply. The counteroffensive launched this summer has largely failed, and the war is only made possible due to the seemingly limitless flow of billions of dollars of advanced weaponry into the country from the imperialist powers.

Sweden’s emergence as a frontline state in NATO’s war on Russia revives the old lines of conflict that once divided northern Europe. Sweden fought a series of wars with the Russian Empire during the 17th, 18th and 19th centuries, culminating in the 1808-09 Finnish War as part of the Napoleonic Wars. This conflict saw Sweden lose control of Finland, which became a grand duchy within the Tsarist Empire.

Sweden subsequently pursued a policy of neutrality until its participation in NATO’s neocolonial occupation of Afghanistan. But the country has been deeply integrated with US imperialism for the entire postwar era. Sweden worked closely during the Cold War with the United States intelligence agencies, specifically for its spying operations on Moscow.

Historically, Swedish companies are major arms producers, having invented things like dynamite and the hand-held rocket launcher. Sweden, despite being a small country of 10 million people, has sent billions of dollars in military equipment to Ukraine already, including its advanced Archer mobile artillery system. It plans to increase its military budget by 64 percent between 2022 and 2028 as well as double the number of people in its yearly military draft from the current level of 10,000.

Swedish Gotland-class submarines are considered some of the most advanced non-nuclear submarines in the world, having the ability to stay submerged for longer. The Swedish Navy also has extensive experience in the Baltic Sea, a notoriously tricky body of water, filled with shallow archipelagos along the coastal regions. This region would become an area of intense conflict if open war breaks out with Russia.

In the exchange between Biden and Kristersson at the White House last week, Kristersson indicated this contribution the country would bring to NATO. He stated, “We do seek common protection [under NATO], but we also do think that we have things to contribute, to be a security provider for the whole of NATO.”

The cost of Sweden’s massive military build-up and the transformation of the region into a front in the war with Russia will be borne by working people. Sweden confronts a massive inflation crisis driven, in part, by the war. Inequality in the country is at its highest levels since records began in the 1970s. Sweden is currently the only country in Europe in recession, albeit a light one. A procession of right-wing governments both from Sweden’s nominally left Social Democratic Party, as well as its traditional right-wing parties, have overseen decades of cuts to education and health care that have decimated the country’s once much-vaunted public services and social programmes.