Street protests, backed by EU and US, try to bring down Georgian government

Andrea Peters

Violent protests have seized the capital city of the country of Georgia for the last week. Demonstrators, backed by the European Union and the United States, are working to drive the ruling Georgian Dream (GD) party from power.

Demonstrators launch fireworks at Parliament during a protest against the government's decision to suspend negotiations on joining the European Union, in Tbilisi, Georgia, Friday, Dec. 6, 2024. (AP Photo/Pavel Bednyakov)

The immediate spark for the street fighting outside of the parliament building in Tbilisi was an announcement by Prime Minister Irakli Kobakhidze that he is suspending talks with the European Union (EU) regarding his country’s membership in the alliance. Kobakhidze, whose party recently won elections that the West claims, without proof, were falsified, said he was halting discussions due to Brussel’s “constant blackmail and manipulation.”

Earlier this year, the EU froze Georgia’s ascension process and cut its financial support, after Tbilisi passed a “foreign agents law.” Brussels insisted that the bill be rescinded. This was, however, the least of their demands.

The NATO powers want Georgia to cut all its ties to Moscow and become the next front in the war against Russia. The Georgian Dream party, despite repeatedly making clear that it wants to bring the country into the EU, has been labeled as “pro-Russian” by the imperialist powers because it has thus far resisted the total reduction of Georgia into a NATO client state cut off entirely from Russia’s markets, which are key to its economy. Georgian Dream, which describes its opponents as a “global war party,” won the election on the basis of its appeal to popular anti-war sentiments.

Estimates of the size of the anti-government demonstrations in Tbilisi have varied from day-to-day, with some news reports putting it as high as “hundreds of thousands” to, more commonly, “tens of thousands,” and in the last couple days, “thousands.” Demonstrators have been holding aloft EU and Georgian flags and signs that read, “Russian slaves.” One banner read, “You suck.” Demands that relate to the concerns of the working class—for jobs, higher wages, better working conditions, decent healthcare, and so forth—are absent.

The government is responding with force. Several hundred people have been arrested and dozens injured in ongoing clashes with riot police, who are using tear gas, water cannons, and truncheons to break up the crowds. Protesters have transformed fireworks into mini-missiles and are attacking the security services with them and Molotov cocktails. Oppositionists’ homes and offices are being searched and several have been arrested. Some appear to have been beaten up in the process.

Prime Minister Kobakhidze declared the protests to be an attack on the country’s constitutional order, for which “EU politicians and their agents” are to blame. He insisted that his government would resist a Maidan-style attempt to overthrow it. Kobakhidze promised oppositionists would face “the full rigor of the law.”

On Tuesday, the executive secretary of the Georgian Dream party, Mamuka Mdinaradze, declared that 30 percent of those arrested in Tbilisi are foreigners, including individuals from Russia, the UK, the US, and the Netherlands.

At the center of the efforts to bring down the government is the former French diplomat and now Georgian President Salome Zourabichvili. She insists that the parliamentary vote held in October, which delivered a victory to Georgian Dream, was “illegitimate.” Zourabichvili, who worked in Paris’ diplomatic corps for three decades, including as its ambassador to Georgia, says that she will not vacate the presidential post when her constitutional authority expires on December 29. She claims that the legislature, which will elect the new president, has no popular mandate.

The United States and its allies are rapidly moving to isolate and strangle the Georgian government. Washington announced on November 30 that it is suspending the US-Georgia Strategic Partnership, halting its foreign assistance, and imposing sanctions. The EU, Canada, Germany, and the Baltic states are following suit.

Unencumbered by hypocrisy, in a November 28 statement that “strongly condemns Russia’s systematic interference in Georgia’s democratic processes,” the European Parliament demanded that Tbilisi nullify its recent vote. “MEPs [Members of the European Parliament] want the elections re-run within a year under thorough international supervision and by an independent election administration.”

A vote is only valid if it produces the result they want.

The reality or unreality of electoral fraud has nothing to do with why EU and US-allied forces are trying to push out the GD government. In nearby Moldova, Washington and Brussels just hailed the outcome of a highly undemocratic and suspect election that delivered a victory to pro-EU forces on the basis of a 1 percent margin.

When Georgia’s ruling party won the parliamentary election in late October, garnering 54 percent of the vote in comparison to 38 percent split among various opposition parties, the West and its allies in Tbilisi immediately claimed there was evidence of vote rigging, ballot stuffing, intimidation at the polls, and so forth. The basis of their allegations was reports by not-so-neutral election observers, local and international, who oppose Georgian Dream.

At that time, Georgia’s state prosecutor’s office, having launched an investigation into the matter, asked that President Zourabichvili, who was at the center of these allegations, provide them with the evidence she had. She replied, “It’s not up to the president to provide proof of election fraud,” adding, “I just want to say that my answer to the prosecutor’s request that I present proofs to sustain my declarations on the results of the elections is not relevant because the prosecutor should be doing its own investigation.”

This was an obvious set up. Zourabichvili had no evidence and knew that the investigators, appointed by a government that she says is illegitimate, would find little to none. Initially, the US and EU held back from saying that Georgian Dream had stolen the vote outright. Following the election of Donald Trump, however, they are anxious to ignite more fronts in the war against Russia before President Biden leaves office. This includes, in addition to Syria, the South Caucasus, which were once part of a unified nation, alongside Russia and other states, in the Soviet Union.

When the Communist Party bureaucrats that ruled the Soviet Union decided to dissolve it in 1991 and turn themselves into capitalist oligarchs, the appetites of American and European imperialism were whet. The South Caucasus sit astride trade routes that are central to the US’ struggle to destroy Russia, China, and Iran.

In a recent study, the Institute of War noted that Georgia is critical to securing the “Middle Corridor,” a trade route from Central Asia to Europe that bypasses Russia and drastically reduces transit times. “Cargo volumes through this corridor increased by nearly 65 percent in early 2023, surpassing one million tons,” observed the Institute. “Georgia has emerged as a pivotal hub in this network, playing a vital role in transporting oil, gas, and goods along the Middle Corridor.”

For the imperialist powers, it is now time to bring Georgia to heel. Despite years of cutting deals with the EU, the United States, and NATO, Georgian Dream is inadequate. Thus, the country’s “opposition” has been activated. Its leaders, several of whom were educated in elite universities in the US, have long histories in the country’s previous violent, anti-democratic, right-wing governments, which gutted social spending and privatized services, making Georgia by 2008 “the leading economic reformer in the world,” according to the World Bank.

Running around yelling about the “European path” and “democracy,” they appeal to the grasping sentiments of better-off layers in the major cities, whom often have personal and financial ties to EU and American institutions via business, education, or one of Georgia’s numerous “civil society” organizations. They find a further base of support among some sections of youth. Many of Georgia’s expensive, private universities have shut down in support of the demonstrations.

Two articles on the website of Civil.ge, which is funded by the US National Endowment for Democracy, highlight the political outlook of these layers. The first fawns over “Georgia’s libertarian youth,” who combine advocacy for the legalization of drugs with support for “right-wing economics and minimal government intervention.” Forming groups like the Ayn Rand Center, Institute for Individual Liberty, and “Georgia’s right-wing youth party” Girchi, they are hostile to, in the words of one representative, the idea that “the ‘Nanny State’ should provide everything for us.”

The second article published by the US government-sponsored website promotes the “new generation of leftist youth,” who insist, according to one activist, that “merging class and national interests is the only way forward.”  Behind a hodge-podge of references to feminism, labor rights, environmental protection, anti-authoritarianism, social justice, etc., lies the goal of giving Georgian nationalism a left-wing coloration. The ultimate aim is to drown any genuine socialist sentiment that emerges among young people in a cesspool of political reaction. The group highlighted in the piece, Khma, has some association with the Pabloite United Secretariat, whose political life has been dedicated to this very cause.

To the extent that the working class of Georgia is drawn to the anti-government demonstrations, it is due to a combination of illusions and delusions in what a “European future” means and misdirected, albeit well-founded, anger at the not-so-dreamy reality that Georgian Dream has delivered. But if workers allow themselves to be swept along by the US and EU-directed regime change operation in Tbilisi, they will discover the consequences of the “European path”—savaged living standards and a country transformed into a bombed-out parking lot.

The Georgian Dream party is no alternative. It represents a layer of Georgia’s ruling class which believes that its interests will be best served by finding some sort of balance between Russia and the West. Unable to make any genuine popular appeal—to call the working class onto the streets in opposition to the machinations of the imperialists—they resort to police brutality to secure their hold on power. The state violence unleashed against the opposition in Tbilisi today will be directed against the workers tomorrow as soon as they express their own demands.

The fall of the French government and the bankruptcy of the New Popular Front

Alex Lantier

On Wednesday, Prime Minister Michel Barnier’s unpopular minority government fell after the National Assembly censured its 2025 budget. This is a major political blow to President Emmanuel Macron, who assembled Barnier’s government following snap elections in July. Public discontent is surging, with two-thirds of the French population now calling for Macron’s resignation.

Jean-Luc Melenchon listens to speeches from the tribunes at the National Assembly on Dec. 4, 2024 in Paris. (AP Photo/Michel Euler)

Macron is deeply despised. His brutal pension cuts, violent repression of mass strikes, calls to send French troops to Ukraine to fight Russia, and open support for the Israeli regime’s genocide in Gaza have provoked overwhelming opposition. However, the political forces strengthened by Barnier’s fall are not on the left, but on the right.

Barnier’s government collapsed after Marine Le Pen’s far-right National Rally (RN) withdrew its support and backed a censure motion introduced by Jean-Luc Mélenchon’s New Popular Front (NFP). French media are now lavishing attention on the RN, the foremost French allies of Israel’s genocidal regime and America’s fascist president-elect, Donald Trump. Le Pen’s party is positioning itself as the decisive force in French politics, biding its time while signaling its readiness to topple Macron.

The strengthening of the far right amid Barnier’s fall is a direct consequence of the bankruptcy of the NFP, which is seeking to paralyze workers. As he campaigns for Macron to resign, Mélenchon limits himself to calling on the National Assembly to support an NFP-led government, headed by Finance Ministry bureaucrat Lucie Castets.

Mélenchon won 8 million votes in the 2022 presidential elections, dominating working class neighborhoods in nearly all of France’s largest cities. A strike movement mobilizing these voters could bring France’s economy to a standstill. Yet not once in the last two years has Mélenchon called for, let alone organized, a mass mobilization to challenge Macron’s repeated violations of popular will.

During last year’s mass strikes against Macron’s pension cuts, the NFP limited its intervention to attending trade union rallies and writing a pathetic letter politely asking him to reconsider. Millions marched against Macron, and polls showed two-thirds of the French people wanted to halt the cuts with a general strike to block the economy. But the NFP was silent as the union bureaucracies halted protests once Macron’s cuts were promulgated as law.

This year, following Macron’s snap election call, Mélenchon formed the NFP—a coalition between his France Unbowed (LFI) party, the big-business Socialist Party (PS), the Stalinist French Communist Party, the Greens and the middle-class Pabloite New Anti-Capitalist Party. This opportunistic alliance, with discredited figures like ex-President François Hollande of the PS, was based on a thoroughly right-wing program, including pledges to send troops to Ukraine and bolster riot police and spy agencies.

In the election, LFI withdrew hundreds of its own candidates to support PS and pro-Macron candidates, claiming this alliance would block the far right. Mélenchon thus helped get hundreds of pro-Macron or PS legislators elected. When the elections resulted in a hung parliament, Macron promptly discarded his alliance with the NFP and turned to the far-right RN, which initially agreed to support Barnier’s government without formally joining it.

By blocking working class opposition to Macron and the bourgeoisie, the NFP strengthened Le Pen. It let her denounce the “left” as a tool of the banks and consolidate support among millions of workers who vote for the RN out of bitterness with the social attacks carried out by successive governments headed by the PS.

Last week, the RN abruptly withdrew support for Barnier, reflecting a broader global restructuring of bourgeois politics following Trump’s election. In recent days, Ukraine has launched NATO-backed missile strikes on Russia, South Korea’s president issued an abortive declaration of martial law, and both the German and French governments have collapsed. Trump’s reelection, marked by plans for military escalation, mass deportations, and $2 trillion in austerity measures, signals a coordinated global intensification of the bourgeoisie’s class war on the working class.

In this context, pseudo-left parties like LFI serve to block and disorient working class opposition, strengthening the far right. Indeed, during the 2022 elections, Mélenchon pledged to serve as prime minister under either Macron or Le Pen. His view of neo-fascism had shifted since the 1970s, he said: “At the very beginning of the struggle against the National Front [the predecessor of the National Rally], I took a very harsh position. Inspired by the past, I said we should not accept them ... Now the question is not posed that way for me.”

WHO investigating unidentified illness which has killed at least 143 people in the Democratic Republic of the Congo

Benjamin Mateus

A health team organized by the World Health Organization (WHO) has been sent to the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) to investigate a disease outbreak that began in late October and has claimed the lives of at least 143 people in southwest Congo. Over the weekend provincial health minister Apollinaire Yumba informed reporters there have been at least 376 confirmed cases of the yet unidentified but extremely lethal illness. 

The logo of the World Health Organization is seen at the WHO headquarters in Geneva, Switzerland [AP Photo/Anja Niedringhaus]

Those infected have developed flu-like symptoms with high fevers, nasal congestion, and severe headaches. Another curious symptom of the disease includes anemia, a drop in the level of the hemoglobin. Women and children, especially those between 15 and 18 years of age, have been most severely impacted.

Yumba asked the population to take all necessary precautions to avoid contact with dead bodies and prevent contamination. He also asked residents not to attend mass gatherings, maintain hygiene, and report any suspected cases to health authorities. Additionally, he made a plea to international partners for medical supplies to assist with addressing what appears to be another health crisis on top of the mpox (monkeypox) outbreak in the eastern part of the country. Since January 1, 2024, the country had reported more than 47,000 mpox cases and more than 1,000 deaths believed linked to the outbreak. The following official communique was uploaded on the BNO News social media channel. 

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In the same period, one of the largest outbreaks of Marburg virus disease in neighboring Rwanda affected 66 people, killing 15 patients. Health authorities haven’t identified the source of the epidemic, but no new cases have been identified since October 30, 2024. Marburg outbreaks are declared over when no new infections arise over a 42-day period after the last recovered patient has tested negative twice by PCR, separated by 48 hours, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

One of the first reports on the current outbreak in DRC appeared on FluTracker.com on November 30, 2024, relaying that 67 deaths (from November 10 to 25) of an epidemic of unknown origin had been recorded in the Panzi rural health zone, in the southwest region of Kwango Province. The first reported death occurred on November 10, 2024. Most of the afflicted have perished at home due to lack of medical care. 

Map of the Democratic Republic of Congo with the Kwango province highlighted in red. [Photo by Profoss / CC BY-ND 3.0]

Then on December 3, 2024, the death toll was revised upward to 143 fatalities prompting Cephorien Manzanza, a civil society leader, to tell Reuters, “The situation is extremely worrying as the number of infected people continues to rise.”

The WHO was first notified last week of the outbreak. The international public health’s spokesman, Tarik Jašarević, confirmed these developments to inquiries made by reporters. Furthermore, Jašarević added, “WHO is aware of an unidentified disease and is working with the national authorities to understand the situation. We have dispatched a team to the remote area to collect samples for lab investigations.” No timeline has been set on the investigation and the identity of the pathogen is not yet known.

Yesterday, health officials raised concerns that the death toll may be higher and growing by the day. Yumba who confirmed that a team of epidemiological experts had been dispatched to the affected region had communicated that even before reaching their central office in the zone, “they found many deaths in the health areas in the villages, always caused by this disease.”

Kwango Province’s vice-governor, Remy Saki, provided the following synopsis to Deutsche Welle (DW):

[The authorities have] sent a team to the site that is taking samples and raising awareness among the population about certain measures to be taken, so that the epidemic cannot become widespread. Among these measures, for example, immigration officials have been asked to be able to limit the movements of the population and also to record the entries and exits of the population, people who come from surrounding villages, but also to practice the barrier measures previously practiced during the coronavirus period. Wearing a nose mask is also required.

Anne Rimoin is a professor of epidemiology at UCLA, an expert in emerging infectious diseases in central Africa, specifically in Ebola and human mpox, who has worked in Congo since 2002. Speaking with NBC News, she urged caution and patience in evaluating the complicated rural and under-resourced setting in which the epidemic is taking place.

“I think it’s important to be aware of what’s happening,” she said. “And I think it’s also really important not to panic until we have more information. It could be anything. It could be influenza. It could be Ebola. It could be Marburg. It could be meningitis, or it could be measles. At this point, we just don’t know.”

The DRC is a country with more than 100 million people. Its population has almost doubled in the last 20 years. Despite being immensely rich in natural resources, it is one of the poorest countries in the world, with a per capita GDP of $708 forecast for 2025, with half the population living below the abysmally low poverty line, and 25 percent of people lacking access to clean water. Ongoing civil wars, driven by the conflicts over minerals which are exploited by hugely profitable global corporations, have decimated the little infrastructure that had existed. Millions have died and millions more displaced over the years. Corruption is endemic. 

It is also a country of tremendous biodiversity, home to the world’s second largest rainforest. Encroachment into these regions can bring people into contact with pathogens that human beings have never previously encountered. And as the COVID pandemic has demonstrated so keenly, the globalization of the world means no place is immune from such diseases wherever they initially emerge. The DRC already is known for the second highest number of malaria cases and deaths. Measles and HIV remain major health concerns. Ebola is ever-present. Rift Valley fever is a mosquito-borne disease that affects livestock but also associated with acute and fatal disease in humans.

The urbanization of the country is already the third largest in sub-Saharan Africa, after South Africa and Nigeria, with 43 percent of the population living in cities. That figure is expected to grow at more than 4 percent per year. The capital, Kinshasa, with 17 million people is expected to become the most populous city in Africa by 2030. It is only a few hours (262 kilometers) northwest of the epicenter of the latest outbreak. 

Dr. Abraar Karan, an infectious disease physician from Stanford, told NBC that the outbreak certainly “does raise alarm bells.” The interaction between humans and wildlife, he explained, raises concern for these types of spillover events: “Many animal infections that transmit from animal to human can cause pretty severe disease.”

Sheffield universities to cut hundreds of jobs amid higher education deficit crisis

Joe Mount

Workers at the University of Sheffield are facing potentially hundreds of job losses in the coming years, as the institutions seeks to save £23 million in costs.

This month, the University leadership has launched a targeted voluntary severance scheme, to be followed by compulsory redundancies next spring. The deadline for staff to apply for redundancy is January 8.

Falling student numbers, which dropped by 2,200 enrolees (7 percent) this year, have plunged the institution into a dire financial situation and created a £50 million deficit. Like all UK universities, it is dependent upon sky-high tuition fees.

The University, which employs over 8,600 lecturers and professional workers, is implementing spending cuts and reviewing infrastructure projects as it looks to tackle the shortfall.

These will have a drastic impact on the over 30,000 people studying at the institution: domestic students as well as the international students who make the highest tuition payments, upon which the University of Sheffield is financially dependent. Its 10,000 international students, many from China, were largely attracted by its top 100 position in the QS World University rankings. But the University now stands at number 105 after sliding down the scale this year.

Arts Tower, which houses the School of Architecture [Photo by BCDS - Own work / CC BY-SA 4.0]

University upper management are targeting professional services (non-academic) staff and those schools and subject areas that recruit higher numbers of Chinese students. Departments being hit are the School of Architecture and Landscape Architecture, the School of East Asian Studies, the Journalism School, and the School of Mathematical and Physical Sciences; the Materials academic staff within the School of Chemical, Materials and Biological Engineering; Accommodation and Commercial Services; the English Language Teaching Centre; IT Services; and the faculty and school-based professional services staff.

Staff expressed their frustration with the way the university has been run and management’s unrealistic vision of never-ending growth by passing a vote of no confidence at a trade union all-staff meeting on November 14, approved by 93.3 percent of the 944 workers who participated. Workers from the Unite, UNISON and University and College Union (UCU) were involved.

Workplace relations have been strained for a number of years due to a series of pro-market measures and cuts. University management are imposing a major restructuring of most academic departments and Professional Services teams. This merges teams together and makes it easier to cut staff. The move follows the closure in 2021 of a world-class Archaeology department and a proposed over 100 jobs losses that could see the closure of the University’s Nuclear Advanced Manufacturing Research Centre.

Proposals for job losses take place amid a clampdown by management on the freedom of expression of staff and students who oppose the crimes of the British ruling elite.

Over the summer, the University used legal action and disciplinary measures to evict a student encampment opposing the ethnic cleansing of the Palestinians. The university is complicit in these war crimes due to the relationships between its Advanced Manufacturing Research Centre (AMRC) and aerospace companies such as BAE and Boeing that provide parts for American war planes used by the Israeli state. The university hired private investigators to spy on students opposed to these links. In October, security staff violently removed anti-genocide protesters at the careers fair that hosted these arms manufacturers.

During the same period, Vice-Chancellor Koen Lamberts (who is paid over £300,000 per year) oversaw a pay raise for himself and the lifting of the 10 percent cap on pay increases for university executives.

A similar crisis scenario exists at the city’s other major higher education institution, Sheffield Hallam University (SHU), which has seen a long-running dispute over mass job losses and cuts to teaching budgets, pay, and conditions. SHU lecturers protested last month over the delay of their pay rise until next July.

The picket line at Hallam University design school, February 2023

Management recently cut 225 academic jobs, of which 80 were fired through compulsory redundancy. The university announced in June a further voluntary severance scheme to shed 400 non-lecturer roles. Sheffield Hallam faces a catastrophic financial situation due to falling student applications and its costly, ill-fated London campus project and other construction plans.

Both universities can proceed with this scorched earth policy due to the role of the University and College Union (UCU) which has sat on opposition to these attacks, most recently by demobilising a strike planned this September at the last minute.

The situation in Sheffield has developed amid a huge financial crisis facing the entire higher education (HE) sector. As part of desperate attempts to fend off bankruptcy, 76 higher education institutions are imposing restructuring and redundancy plans, according to an official report by the Office for Students, a UK government regulator.

They forecast a £3.4 billion black hole for 2025-26, with teaching-focused institutions worst affected. Many higher education institutions face massive job losses and mergers to survive. The immediate cause of this is the anti-immigration policies and austerity measures imposed by the Labour government of Sir Keir Starmer and previous Conservative-led administrations. Other factors include higher taxes due to the recent increase in national insurance contributions for businesses and rising costs due to inflation.

Most of the sector faces a catastrophic money shortage, impacted by falling international student numbers, with student visa applications down by 16 percent compared to last year, according to the Home Office. Nationally, domestic student recruitment has increased by just 1.3 percent, far below the forecasted rate of 5.8 percent.

The entire sector has become totally dependent upon sky-high tuition fees from international students as funding from the Treasury has been reduced. This situation has its roots in decades of marketisation and creeping privatisation, as the ruling class dismantles the higher education system as it has existed for decades.

They have cut central government spending and increased the dependency on tuition fees since their introduction by Tony Blair’s Labour government in 1998. This month, in the first rise since 2017, Labour hiked fees by 3.1 percent from the 2025-26 academic year to £9,535 per year. Further rises are planned that will increase the debt burden on students entering the job market.

For lecturers and other university staff, pay has fallen precipitously due to years of below-inflation pay rises, while workloads have skyrocketed and precarious contracts have proliferated.

The vote of no confidence in management at Sheffield demonstrates the determination of staff to fight, but this cannot find any expression within trade unions led by a bureaucracy which has driven every major fight into the ground.

In the struggle immediately ahead, university workers at Sheffield and nationwide cannot oppose management’s attacks through the UCU, which has overseen a series of defeats stretching back to the onset of mass austerity in 2010. These laid the basis for the sellouts by the union of the national strikes that took place in 2018 and 2022-2023, over pay, pensions, equality and casualisation.

The UCU divided up strikes, isolating them from workers engaged in industrial disputes in other sectors during the 2022-23 strike wave, and treating them as separate disputes with individual employers. They blamed the personal mismanagement and greed of specific executives, rather than basing the struggle on a fight to unite workers against the marketisation of education and its root in the demand by the capitalist class for increased exploitation in order to drive up competition between institution in the education “market”.

The union bureaucracy is tied to both management and a Labour government boasting itself as the “most pro-business in history”. The UCU is making only the meekest appeals to the right-wing Starmer government to change its ways and fund universities properly. UCU General Secretary Jo Grady stated, “The tuition fee increase… will not stop the rot; Labour now urgently needs to set out how it will put the sector on a sustainable footing by providing long-term public funding.”

China hits back at latest US high-tech bans

Nick Beams

China has delivered a quick-fire response to the decision of the outgoing Biden administration to further extend bans on high-tech equipment and computer chips. On Tuesday, it announced it would not permit the export of a series of critical minerals to the US.

A worker assembles electronic devices at an Alco Electronics factory in Houjie Town, Dongguan City, in the Guangdong province of China. [AP Photo/Ng Han Guan]

It will ban the supply of gallium, germanium, antimony and various compounds known as superhard materials, as well as tightening controls on the export of graphite, which is a key component in the manufacture of computer chips.

Announcing the decision, the Chinese commerce ministry hit back in a strong statement against the US bans which were announced on Sunday on “national security” grounds.

“The US has broadened the concept of national security, politicising and weaponising trade and technology issues, and abused export control measures,” it said.

The Chinese retaliatory bans “to safeguard national security” would be effective immediately.

The latest US bans, announced by Commerce Department Secretary Gina Raimondo, followed two previous packages of bans enacted in October 2022 and October 2023. Raimondo said they were “groundbreaking and sweeping.”

“They’re the strongest controls ever enacted by the US to degrade the People’s Republic of China’s ability to make the most advanced chips that they’re using in their military modernisation.”

The department also added 140 Chinese companies to its “entity list,” which requires that US firms apply for export licences to sell them goods that are all but impossible to obtain.

As with the previous bans, the latest US measures were introduced on “national security” grounds in line with the claim by National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan that it is pursuing a “high defence, small yard” policy—that is, the measures are aimed only at military developments and not the broader economy.

But this piece of fiction has been widely exposed by analysis which shows that the bans are aimed at trying to suppress China’s technological development, which the US regards as the greatest existential threat to its dominance of the global economy.

The new bans are aimed at an area which the US had not previously targeted—China’s chip making capacity. The US was shocked when the communications giant Huawei, which was nearly put out of business by previous bans launched by Trump, was able to recently release a new phone which, while not top of the range, contained a chip designed and made in China, representing a considerable advance.

Pointing to the need to target chip making capacities directly, Meghan Harris, an export control expert at Beacon Global Strategies, told the Financial Times it was an area the Biden administration had previously underestimated.

“Trying to impede China’s advanced semiconductor industry without addressing their accelerating domestic toolmaking capabilities is like trying to prevent a fisherman from catching bigger fish simply by denying him bigger fishing poles. He’ll get there in the end,” she said.

The new regulations restrict access to 24 types of chip making tools not previously included. In some cases, the US will have to seek the support of other countries to make the bans effective. It can do this by demanding that chips which have US-made components are banned. Companies that refuse run the risk of having US bans being imposed on them as well.

But given the complexity of chip making, which is a highly integrated global operation involving components emanating from many different countries, the US has had difficulty in drawing up the new regulations.

Gregory Allen, a technology analyst at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, told the New York Times that the complexity of the new rules—the document setting them out runs to more than 200 pages—reflected the intensity of the negotiations that had gone into drawing them up.

US firms are concerned that if the controls only apply to US firms, and not their international competitors, then this will hit them without effectively restraining China.

Nevertheless, Allen said some parts of the new rules were “a really remarkable expansion of authority” for the US.

His remarks underscore the fact that if the US wants to deny China access to high-tech development, then, because of the globally integrated character of high-tech development, it must impose its domination over the entire supply chain and enforce its demands against every country—friend and foe alike. In other words, it must establish itself as an effective global dictator over the entire high-tech industry.

China has powerful weapons with which to hit back, and Beijing is demonstrating an increasing willingness to use them. Its response to the first round of Trump tariffs was limited and had little effect, and it has been relatively restrained in response to the Biden administration’s measures.

But over the past four years it has been preparing its response. As a Times report noted last week, during the first Trump presidency “the Chinese government took mostly symbolic and equivalent measures after US tariffs and restrictions. But this time China is posed to escalate its responses… and could aim aggressive and targeted countermeasures at American companies.”

Jude Blanchette, also from the CSIS, told the Times China was capable of “dishing out pain.”

“It’s clear for political reasons that Beijing is not willing to stand by and watch as significant new waves of tariffs come in,” he said.

China is the main supplier for the critical minerals necessary for chip production. It produces 98 percent of the world’s supply of gallium and 60 percent of germanium. In a report last month, cited by Bloomberg, the US Geological Survey said a total export ban by China on gallium and germanium would deliver a $3.4 billion hit to the US economy.

Export bans have been under discussion for some time in China as part of a warning to the US. Speaking to Bloomberg, Joe Mazur, a senior analyst at the consulting firm Trivium China, said their imposition was “a clear signal that China is preparing to strike back more forcefully against US economic pressure than it has in the past few years.”

French National Assembly brings down Barnier government

Alex Lantier

Yesterday, a 332-seat majority of the National Assembly’s 577 deputies voted to censure the Social Security budget (PLFSS) proposed by French Prime Minister Michel Barnier, bringing down his government. The vote was strictly along party lines: deputies of Marine Le Pen’s National Rally (RN) and the New Popular Front (NFP) coalition led by Jean-Luc Mélenchon voted against Barnier. President Macron announced last night that he would begin a rapid search for a new prime minister.

The French National Assembly [AP Photo/Thibault Camus]

It is a shattering defeat for President Emmanuel Macron. He dissolved the Assembly and called the July 7 snap elections, but they produced a hung parliament. Refusing to form a government with the NFP, which had received the most votes, he nominated a minority government of his supporters, led by Barnier, and obtained a pledge from the RN to support its policies in the Assembly. But as Barnier’s budget came under criticism from financial markets and the press last week for not going far enough with austerity, the RN changed course.

The NFP had long threatened Barnier with censure motions, as he refused to include them in his government. However, the RN brought down Barnier by announcing last week that it would vote for the NFP’s censure motion yesterday.

Workers justifiably despised the Barnier government, and the critical question facing workers is how to develop a political offensive after its collapse. It brought an unpopular budget imposing €60 billion in spending cuts, largely targeting social programs, while increasing military and police budgets as Paris threatened to send ground troops to Ukraine in defiance of popular opposition. Polls showed 52 percent of the French public wanted Barnier to fall, and 63 percent wanted Macron to resign.

A movement must be prepared and built in the working class to bring down Macron and halt his widely despised policies: plans for NATO war escalation against Russia, austerity policies like his massive pension cuts, police violence and support for the Gaza genocide. This cannot be left to the French capitalist establishment. The progressive way forward is building a movement from below, in the rank and file, basing itself on the class struggle.

As all the major NATO powers escalate war threats against Russia, and financial markets demand austerity not only in France but across Europe, it is clear that workers face not a national but an international struggle. This takes the most naked expression in the election of the fascist Donald Trump as US president. Pledging a staggering $2 trillion in austerity measures, police round-ups of millions of immigrants, and escalation of war in the Middle East, he is set to massively expand class war on the workers.

Bourgeois politics internationally is being rapidly reshaped since Trump’s elections: First the German government and now the French government have fallen in Europe, and on Tuesday there was a failed attempt to impose martial law in South Korea.

After the fall of Barnier, the French bourgeoisie is more and more overtly bringing forward the neo-fascist RN. Indeed, the first politician to give a prime-time television interview was RN leader Marine Le Pen; Macron and Mélenchon are to appear tonight. Appearing on TF1 evening news, Le Pen postured as a defender of the French people, an opponent of pension cuts and increases in costs of medicine, and a friend of the little man.

The sharpest warnings must be made about the political posturing of Macron’s rivals in the ruling elite, including both the RN and the NFP. Le Pen’s politics are determined not by her populist demagogy but, like Trump, by the escalating global war and economic breakdown of the world capitalist system. Absent a struggle by the working class against austerity and war, the next government will divert funds to servicing France’s €3 trillion debt and escalating war against Russia in Ukraine and war in the Middle East, entailing massive austerity attacks on the workers.

Le Pen postured, however, as a friend of the people, stating: “I believe we had a choice to make, and the choice we made was to protect the French people. Mr. Barnier had made three promises: tax justice but he gave us a budget with €40 billion more in taxes; controlling public spending, but his budget increased the deficit; and building the budget with the opposition parties, but he ignored the opposition parties when he designed it. So this budget was toxic for the French people, and the only appropriate solution for those elected to protect them was to oppose this budget.”

Asked if she aimed to compel the president to present his resignation after Barnier’s collapse, she replied: “I do not demand Emmanuel Macron’s resignation. I say that if there arrives a time when he does not take the path of respect of political parties and elections, the pressure on the president will obviously be ever stronger. But it is his decision.”

In reality, it is clear that in ruling circles there is mounting discussion of Macron’s removal due to the economic crisis caused by the failure to adopt a budget. France’s borrowing costs have risen above those of Greece, as financial markets speculate on its sovereign debt. There are rising fears that, without a budget next year, financing of the healthcare system, of pensions, and of the public services may grind to a halt.

The budget negotiations will be explosive, as the Assembly is a hung parliament and legally cannot be dissolved for a year after Macron dissolved it last June. The budget will have to be negotiated in the hung parliament, which may deadlock again on budget votes.

Asked by Le Monde about whether she would press Macron to resign in such a scenario, to break the deadlock, Le Pen replied: “We will follow the normal functioning of the institutions. But if there is one government that falls, then a second, and a third, we will have to ask the question.”

In the meantime, the RN is opening a press campaign calling for Macron’s head. Vice President Sébastien Chenu said: “I think Emmanuel Macron would do his country a favor if he left his office and allowed for a reshaping of a political line to serve France.”

RN Europarliamentarian and Le Pen adviser Philippe Olivier commented, “Macron is a disgraced Republican monarch, advancing with his shirt open and a rope around his neck. ... We are not getting overexcited. We will discuss this once the demand for resignation, which is beginning to rise in our ranks and beyond, becomes massive. For the time being, Macron has to pick up the hot potato and deal with the problems.”

South Korean president attempts to impose martial law

Ben McGrath

South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol yesterday launched what was tantamount to a military coup. On national television at about 10.25 p.m., he announced a martial law decree, banning strikes, protests and all political activity and imposing blanket censorship. After facing immediate protests and opposition in the National Assembly, Yoon announced around 4:30 a.m. today that he would lift martial law and that troops dispatched to enforce the decree had been withdrawn.

Police officers stand outside the National Assembly in Seoul, South Korea, Wednesday, December 4, 2024. [AP Photo/Lee Jin-man]

Yoon justified his sweeping anti-democratic measures in the name of eradicating “pro-North Korean forces” and protecting “the constitutional order of freedom.” He declared that “we will protect and rebuild a liberal Republic of Korea, which is falling into the abyss of national ruin,” and accused the opposition Democratic Party (DP) of including “anti-state forces who are the main culprits of national ruin and who have committed heinous acts up until now.”

The immediate cause of Yoon’s move to impose military dictatorship is the political standoff between Yoon as president and the National Assembly, which, since the general election in April, is controlled by the DP and allies that hold 170 seats in the 300-seat body. Yoon’s People Power Party (PPP), which holds just 108 seats, nevertheless has ruling party status.

Political warfare has come to a head over the Democrats’ efforts to stall and cut back Yoon’s proposed budget. Yoon also denounced the opposition for carrying out impeachment proceedings against numerous figures in his government, including recently the head of the state audit agency and the chief prosecutor in Seoul.

Kim Yong-hyun, who was appointed defence minister on September 2, reportedly proposed martial law to Yoon. Kim has previously held high positions within the military, rising to the rank of three-star general in the army before retiring in 2017. He is close to Yoon, serving as an advisor in the past on military issues.

Under martial law, all political activities would be illegal, including the operation of the National Assembly, any work by political parties, and demonstrations. Strikes and other forms of workers’ protests would also be illegal. The media would be under the control of the martial law government.

Following Yoon’s declaration last night, thousands of protesters quickly gathered outside the National Assembly, many demanding Yoon’s arrest. Korean Confederation of Trade Unions (KCTU) leader Yang Gyeong-su announced, “Starting with the KCTU central executive committee press conference at 8 a.m. on the 4th, we will go on an indefinite general strike until the Yoon Seok-yeol administration resigns.”

Democratic Party leader Lee Jae-myung called on parliamentarians to meet and vote to end martial law. The head of Yoon’s own party, Han Dong-hoon, publicly declared that the martial law decree was “wrong.” Under South Korea’s constitution, a majority vote in the National Assembly requires the president to lift martial law.

Parliamentary aides blockaded doors as military personnel smashed windows to gain entry to the National Assembly in an attempt to arrest Lee, Han, and National Assembly Speaker U Won-sik. If that had been successful, the situation today would be very different.

At 1:00 a.m., 190 lawmakers were present and unanimously voted to lift Yoon’s martial law, including 172 opposition legislators and 18 PPP members. Speaker U Won-sik declared martial law “null and void” and called on soldiers and police to leave the building. He declared shortly after that no military personnel remained in the building.

Yoon and the military were silent for more than three hours before announcing that martial law would be lifted and that troops had been withdrawn. The Democrats have now announced that if Yoon does not voluntarily resign, they will pursue his impeachment.

The political crisis that led to Yoon’s declaration of martial law is far from over. Dictatorship, which has a long history in South Korea, continues to loom large. The lengthy delay in responding to the parliamentary vote was not out of any consideration of constitutional niceties, but fears in ruling circles that Yoon’s precipitous actions would trigger an outpouring of popular opposition, particularly from the working class.

Workers and youth cannot rely on the Democrats and their trade union allies to prevent another coup attempt. The opposition party and the KCTU have demonstrated time and again that their overriding concern is not the social and democratic rights of working people, but the defence of South Korean capitalism. In power, the Democrats, no less than their rightwing rivals, have made deep inroads into the social position of the working class, aided and abetted by the KCTU, which has confined and sabotaged strikes and protests.

The resort to martial law was not simply the product of the individual psyche of the president, but stems from the crisis of South Korean and global capitalism. Around the world, rapidly deteriorating living standards, the staggering growth of social inequality and the plunge towards world war are fueling strikes, mass protests and a political radicalization among workers and young people. Increasingly, in country after country, the ruling class is dispensing with the trappings of democracy and adopting extreme anti-democratic measures. The very advanced character of the crisis is expressed most clearly in the United States—the centre of world imperialism—where the fascist Donald Trump is about to be installed in power.

South Korea, the world’s 13th largest economy, is no exception. Indeed, there is a distinct echo of Trump’s lashing out at “the enemy within” in Yoon’s anti-communist diatribe used to justify his declaration of martial law. Real wages are falling as prices increase, making it harder and harder for workers to make ends meet and leading to acute social tensions. Yoon has backed and militarily aided the US-NATO war in Ukraine against Russia and is integrating South Korea into the accelerating US-led preparations for war against China.

As a result, Yoon is widely despised. His approval rating has fallen as low as 17 percent. One poll last month found that 58.3 percent of respondents wanted Yoon out of office. On November 30, approximately 100,000 demonstrators marched in Seoul to demand his resignation. The Democrats, the KCTU and various civic groups in the DP’s orbit all participated.

Since coming to office in May 2022, Yoon has regularly denounced his political opponents in vitriolic, anti-communist terms, accusing them of sympathizing or even taking orders from North Korea. During a major strike of truck drivers at the end of 2022, Yoon denounced the protracted stoppage for better wages and working conditions as “similar to the North Korean nuclear threat.”

This week, several unions affiliated with the KCTU planned to strike or hold protests, including of rail and subway workers. The unions involved represent approximately 70,000 workers. Workers belonging to the KCTU-affiliated Korean Railway Workers’ Union were set to strike on December 5, while Seoul subway workers were planning to walk off the job the following day. Non-regular education workers were also planning to stop work on December 6. Truck drivers belonging to Cargo Truckers Solidarity held a two-day strike on December 2-3. Workers at the National Pension Service and the Korea Gas Corporation also planned to strike this week.

In addition, auto parts workers at Hyundai Transys from the Korean Metal Workers’ Union (KMWU) held a one month-long strike beginning in October. The KMWU, one of the most influential unions in the KCTU, came under huge pressure from big business and Yoon’s government after the strike led to the shutdown of lines at Hyundai Motors.

The South Korean ruling class is no stranger to trampling on the democratic rights of the working class. Martial law was last declared in 1979 following the assassination of military dictator Park Chung-hee. It was expanded the following year when Chun Doo-hwan carried out his own coup. The military subsequently conducted mass repression against protesters, most infamously in the city of Gwangju, where upwards of 2,000 people were massacred.

The declaration of martial law demonstrates that despite the so-called democratization that took place following mass protests in the 1980s and early 1990s, the South Korean state still rests on the anti-communist, dictatorial foundations established by US imperialism after World War II through its puppet Syngman Rhee regime, later strengthened under Park.

Thai autoworkers face mass layoffs

Robert Campion

Workers in Thailand are part of the international jobs bloodbath taking place in the auto industry amid the transition to electric vehicles (EV) and the global economic slowdown. As the largest vehicle producer of vehicles in South East Asia, tens if not hundreds of thousands of jobs are potentially on the chopping block.

Thai car assembly plant [Photo: Siam Motors Group]

The latest assault on jobs came on November 22. Two anonymous industrial sources told Reuters that Nissan Motor Thailand is planning to cut up to 1,000 jobs while partially shutting down production at its Plant Number 1 and consolidating production at its Plant Number 2 by September of next year. Both plants are located in Samut Prakan province, just south of Bangkok.

These projected job cuts are part of Nissan’s global workforce reduction plan, which is bound up with the transfer to the manufacturing of electric and hybrid vehicles. Under the plan announced in early November, Japan’s third largest car manufacturer, will lower production capacity by 20 percent and slash 9,000 jobs or 7 percent of its total workforce. This includes 1,000 workers in the US by the end of the year who have already accepted early retirement packages.

Dubbed the “just transition” to EVs, it is in reality a cutthroat race to the bottom in which companies are looking to boost profits and stock prices by slashing jobs. EVs require fewer parts and therefore less labour for their production. Japanese auto companies have also cited falling sales to justify the mass layoffs, forcing workers to pay for the growing crisis of global capitalism.

In addition to Nissan, several other Japanese automobile brands have already announced plant closures in recent months. Subaru intends to close its last remaining assembly plant outside of Japan in the Lad Krabang Industrial Estate, Bangkok, on December 3, sacking 200 workers. Suzuki is planning to close its Rayong plant at the end of 2025 affecting 800 workers.

Honda, which employs over 5,000 workers in Thailand, is closing its Ayutthaya plant some time next year, and consolidating production with its remaining plant in Prachinburi province. Claiming the need to improve “efficiency” and address “overproduction,” it is cutting its annual production capacity by 50 percent.

With around 80 percent of domestic car production relying on Thai auto parts, the closure of assembly plants is having a ripple effect throughout the sector. According to the Thai banking group Kasikornbank in September, sales of auto parts were down by 12 percent so far this year. The Federation of Thai Industries (FTI) Automotive Industry Club has also reported that over 360 factories in the manufacturing sector have shut down in the first half of the year.

Monthly reports from FTI Auto Club this year also point to a further slowdown in sales, with 438,000 vehicles sold between January and September, 25 percent lower than the same period last year. September’s sales in particular came to approximately 39,000 units, roughly equal to the sales volume during the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020.

Sompol Tanadumrongsak, president of the Thai Auto-Parts Manufacturers Association, said in an interview with Reuters in September that Small to Medium Enterprises (SMEs) which largely comprise the auto parts industry are facing a situation worse than the financial crisis of 1997 and the pandemic. “If auto parts SMEs close today, they are not coming back,” he stated.

Japanese companies have dominated the auto industry in Thailand since the 1970s, consistently responsible for 75-90 percent of car sales. Nissan was the first Japanese auto company to start production in Thailand in 1962, joining manufacturers from other countries moving to the country at the time, including Ford and Fiat.

The confluence of Japanese and Thai capital spurred the development of the Thai bourgeoisie, with about a thousand family firms developing in the auto industry in the 1980s and 1990s when foreign ownership was capped at 49 percent.

Following the Asian Financial Crisis of 1997‒98, hundreds of thousands of Thai and migrant workers lost their jobs. By 1998, nearly 9 percent of all Thai workers were unemployed, though this is likely a conservative estimate. In the auto industry, half a million vehicles were produced in 1996. This dropped by 75 percent in 1998.

The cap on foreign ownership was removed to allow global capital to resuscitate the dying sector and production was reoriented to the world market. While only three percent of vehicles were exported in 1996, this shot up to 44 percent in 2006. Last year, 57.2 percent of Thailand’s units were exported.

The development of Thailand’s auto industry made it the 10th largest in the world. In 2019, prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, the FTI estimated it comprised 890,000 workers, including 100,000 involved in assembly, 200,000 in sales, and 590,000 in manufacturing auto parts.

The number of Thai family firms has also been significantly reduced since 1997 to a handful. One of the most notable firms is the Thai Summit Group, which was founded in 1977 by Pattana Juangroongruangkit in partnership with Japanese brand Toyota. His brother Suriya has served in numerous government cabinets, including that of Thaksin Shinawatra and Prayut Chan-o-cha. He is now deputy prime minister in the Paetongtarn Shinawatra administration.

After Pattana’s death in 2002, his son Thanathorn assumed a leadership role in the company, only stepping down in 2018 in order to enter politics. Thanathorn utilized his wealth exploited from the working class to help found the Future Forward Party (FFP) in 2018. At one point, he was the richest member of parliament, though he was removed from office by the military.

The FFP, now known as the People’s Party, cynically exploits the democratic and social concerns of youth and workers in order to assert the economic and social interests of a weaker section of the Thai bourgeoisie dissatisfied with the dominance of the traditional elites centred on the military and monarchy and the impact this has on their profits.

For all this growth during the previous period, the Thai auto industry is now entering a convulsive new stage, triggered by a crisis of world economy and the transition to EV production. While the transformation to cleaner forms of transportation and energy is environmentally necessary, under capitalism, it is crippled by the demands for corporate profit and carried out at the expense of workers.

At the same time, as the US ramps up its preparations for war against China, it seeking to end its dependence on Chinese manufacturing and is encouraging its allies to do the same. It is attempting to establish alternative supply lines for goods currently dominated by China such as critical minerals needed for EVs and also weaponry. It also calculates that the turn to EVs will free up oil and gas supplies in the event of war.

Currently, the Thai government has plans for EVs to comprise 30 percent of the country’s total vehicle manufacturing by 2030, involving the production of 725,000 electric cars, 675,000 electric motorcycles and 34,000 electric buses and trucks. The transition to EVs is estimated to directly affect 37 percent of auto manufacturers employing 326,400 workers as well as countless more in related industries. The majority of these workers are under the age of 39, with 70 percent earning approximately 15,000 baht or less per month, or $US430.

These workers face levels of average household debt that are up 8.4 percent this year to 606,378 baht ($US17,908), according to a September survey by the University of the Thai Chamber of Commerce. This is the highest average debt level since the survey began in 2009 and a significant factor in the decline of domestic auto sales.

The election of Trump in the US will also further destabilise Thailand’s auto industry. The first Trump administration earmarked Thailand as a possible “currency manipulator.” Financial analysts now expect Thailand to be on the receiving end of a blanket tariff for many Asian countries of 10-20 percent, further dropping its export production.