Japan’s ruling party selects far right leader as prime minister

Ben McGrath

Japan’s governing Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) elected Shigeru Ishiba as its new president on Friday. As head of the party, he will be installed as the country’s new prime minister at a parliamentary session tomorrow, replacing Fumio Kishida.

Shigeru Ishiba (right) with Japan's Prime Minister Fumio Kishida (left) celebrates after Ishiba was elected as new head of Japan's ruling Liberal Democratic Party, September 27, 2024, in Tokyo [AP Photo/Hiro Komae, Pool]

Ishiba’s selection marks a significant further shift to the right in official Japanese politics that will accelerate remilitarization and preparations for war against China.

Nine candidates ran in what was a highly anti-democratic affair. In the first round of voting, Ishiba came in second to fellow anti-China hawk Sanae Takaichi, who was close to former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and represented Abe’s faction. Falling short of a majority, the two went to a run-off vote. Ishiba then received 215 votes to Takaichi’s 194.

The voting process heavily favored the LDP’s parliamentarians from both the lower and upper houses of the National Diet, who were each allotted one vote for a total of 368. The party’s membership of 1.1 million received a fraction of a vote, with their totals also equaling 368 points. In the run-off, the Diet members kept their vote totals while other party members were excluded. Each of the LDP’s chapters from Japan’s 47 prefectures instead received a vote.

Outgoing PM Kishida announced on August 14 that he would not stand for reelection as party president, essentially resigning as prime minister, after coming under pressure over corruption scandals that have gripped the party. Rather than corruption, the chief concerns of the LDP and ruling class were the ability of the government to prepare for war while suppressing growing working-class opposition to attacks on living conditions at home.

This paved the way for Ishiba, who has often postured as a party “outsider,” pledged to “clean up” the LDP. In reality, he is a longstanding member of the party and, like many in the Japanese government, comes from an established political family.

His father, Jiro Ishiba, began his career as a bureaucrat before World War II and was governor of Tottori Prefecture from 1958 until 1974 before being elected to the upper house of the National Diet. Jiro Ishiba also served in the cabinet of Zenko Suzuki as home affairs minister. Following his father’s death in 1981, the LDP recruited the younger Ishiba to run for a Diet seat from Tottori Province in 1986.

Ishiba’s career has been marked by involvement with the military and a focus on Japan’s remilitarization. From 2002 to 2004, he served as the director of the Defense Agency, which became the Defense Ministry in 2007. He then became defense minister from 2007 to 2008. He has held other cabinet positions while also serving as the LDP’s secretary-general from 2012 to 2014. He previously ran for LDP president in 2008, 2012, 2018 and 2020. Ishiba is a member of Nippon Kaigi, an ultra-nationalist organization that not only advocates remilitarization, but the tearing up of basic democratic rights.

To the extent that Ishiba differs from other politicians within his party, it has been over the pace of remilitarization. Ishiba has advocated a more rapid program of rearming, which includes spending more on the military than the current plan to double the military budget to 2 percent of gross domestic product by 2027. He was a critique of the right-wing Abe government for not going far enough, even as it carried out constitutional “reinterpretations” to work around post-World War II legal barriers to remilitarizing and rammed legislation through parliament to enable Japan to go to war alongside allies.

Now, without even waiting to be confirmed as prime minister, Ishiba has made clear that his government will be one of militarism and war. In an article for the right-wing Washington-based Hudson Institute published shortly after his election as LDP chief, Ishiba reiterated the LDP’s longstanding plans for constitutional revision.

Though Ishiba did not state it explicitly, he has on previous occasions declared that Article 9 of the constitution, which formally bars Japan from maintaining a military or going to war, should be deleted, not just changed to directly recognize the existence of the armed forces, currently called the “Self-Defense Forces,” as the Abe faction has advocated.

Ishiba called for the creation of an “Asian NATO” that would be capable of fighting a war with China, as well as Russia and North Korea. In doing so, he is pushing for Japan to play a larger role militarily within the Indo-Pacific, speaking for sections of the capitalist class that advocate more independence from Washington.

In addition, Ishiba proposed revising the post World War II US-Japan security treaty, changing it “into a treaty between ‘ordinary countries.’” He criticized the existing treaty for being “structured so that the US is obligated to ‘defend’ Japan, and Japan is obligated to ‘provide bases’ to the US.”

Ishiba suggested that a revised treaty could allow Japan to station its military at Guam, a US island territory in the west Pacific. He is thus attempting to create the conditions for Japanese imperialism to project power throughout the Pacific. To date, Tokyo has only one overseas military base, located in Djibouti on the Horn of Africa, ostensibly to combat piracy.

Ishiba declared that an “Asian NATO” should “specifically consider America’s sharing of nuclear weapons or the introduction of nuclear weapons into the region.” Any open introduction of US nuclear weapons into Japan could set a precedent for Japan to acquire its own weapons, which Ishiba has long advocated.

Any move by Japan to introduce US nuclear weapons or acquire its own nuclear arsenal would provoke considerable opposition as memories of the horrific toll of the US atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki during 1945 run deep among working people.

Ishiba justified his stance in his Hudson Institute piece by repeating a phrase often used by Kishida that “Ukraine today is Asia tomorrow,” accusing China of planning an “unprovoked” war against Taiwan.

Raising tensions with China, Ishiba in August led a parliamentary delegation to Taiwan where he met with President Lai Ching-te. Ishiba declared that Japan should stand “shoulder to shoulder” with supposed “democratic” governments in the region against Beijing.

In reality, Washington and its allies, including Tokyo, have goaded and stoked tensions with Beijing over Taiwan, just as the US provoked the Moscow regime into invading Ukraine, including by expanding NATO to Russia’s borders.

The US and its partners are increasingly challenging the One China policy which states that Taiwan is a part of China. For more than four decades, both Washington and Tokyo have had formal diplomatic relations with Beijing de facto recognizing it as the legitimate government of all China including Taiwan. China’s ruling elite is conscious that Taiwan could become a military base for future imperialist attacks on the mainland.

Chinese central bank unleashes major financial stimulus

Nick Beams

The People’s Bank of China (PBoC) has unleashed a series of financial stimulus measures, highlighting the mounting concern in the Xi Jinping regime over the lowered Chinese growth rate and fears that it will not meet the official target of “around 5 percent” for this year.

Governor of the People's Bank of China Pan Gongsheng in Beijing, Wednesday, March 6, 2024 [AP Photo/Ng Han Guan]

The decisions were announced at a one and a half hour briefing by the PBoC governor and other officials on Tuesday.

However, in the absence of any moves by the government for a fiscal stimulus—that is, increased government spending—doubts were immediately raised that the financial measures, while providing a boost, will be sufficient.

The measures are largely directed to the financial system, the stock market and better-off sections of the middle class, who form the social base of the regime.

The main decisions were a cut in the central bank’s base interest rate from 1.7 percent to 1.5 percent, and a reduction in the reserve requirement rate (RRR) by 0.5 percentage points while signaling a further cut of 0.25 to 0.5 percentage points later this year. The PBoC said the reduction would add 1 trillion renminbi ($142 billion) in liquidity to the banking system.

A note issued by Goldman Sachs, reported by the Financial Times, said the “rare simultaneous cut of policy rates and RRR, the relatively large magnitude of cuts and the unusual guidance on further policy easing indicated policymakers’ growing concerns over growth headwinds.”

Other measures were aimed at trying to boost the stock market and the property sector. The central bank said 500 billion renminbi ($71 billion) would be provided to help brokers, insurance companies and funds buy stocks, with 300 billion available to help companies make share buybacks.

Announcing the decision to make available a total of $114 billion, the central bank governor Pan Gongshen said it was the first time the PBoC had “innovated” and used such measures. He indicated they could be doubled or tripled if they worked.

The measures saw a rise in the benchmark CSI share index of 4.3 percent, but it is still down 40 percent from its peak in 2021.

Another significant move aimed at shoring up support in the better-off sections of the middle class was the decision to reduce the minimum down payment on a second home purchase from 25 percent to 15 percent.

The PBoC will also try and boost the property market by ramping up its re-lending program for state-owned firms to acquire unsold property by providing 100 percent of the principal of bank loans for these purchases, lifting it from the 60 percent it announced last May.

The very sharp downturn in the property market has weighed heavily on consumer confidence and spending. According to calculations by Barclays, as reported in the Wall Street Journal, the “property crunch since 2021 has incinerated some $18 trillion in household wealth.”

Central bank governor Pan said the new measures were intended to “support the stable growth of China’s economy” and promote a modest rebound in prices. Economists have warned that the slowdown in growth risks pushing China into a deflationary cycle.

Pan gave a more upbeat assessment. “The Chinese economy is recovering and the monetary policies introduced by our bank this time will help support the real economy, incentivise spending and investment and also provide a stable footing for the exchange rate.”

This is not the view of economists, both in China and internationally, who insist that the government must intervene with a fiscal stimulus package to boost the economy. There is no indication that it has any intention of doing so, even though such measures were employed in the past, because it fears they will add to debt, with the potential to cause major financial problems.

The official line of the government is to develop what President Xi calls “high quality productive forces,” based on high-tech and more efficient methods of production, and increase exports to the rest of the world.

But there is no indication that this strategy is providing a boost to the domestic policy, which critics of the government say is necessary. Moreover, it is running into obstacles in the form of increased tariffs imposed on Chinese goods.

Consequently, while the PBoC measures were broadly welcomed, they were regarded as being insufficient.

The size of the “big bazooka,” which many are calling for, was outlined in a speech given by a former top government adviser to an economic policy conference, held last week on the eve of the PBoC announcement.

Liu Shijin, former director of the State Council’s Development Research Centre, whose remarks were reported in the South China Morning Post, said the stimulus package should be at least 10 trillion renminbi, or $1.42 trillion.

He said it should be funded by ultra-long-term bonds and be directed to addressing gaps in social facilities.

“A key area is to significantly improve basic public services for new citizens, particularly rural migrant workers moving to the cities, in areas like affordable housing, education, health care, social security and elderly care.”

The focus on these areas reflects concerns, in sections of the regime and their economic advisers, that the falling growth rate means a decline in the prospects for the working class and could lead to major class struggles. The Chinese leadership used to say that 8 percent growth was needed to maintain “social stability.” Now it will struggle to make 5 percent, with most forecasters predicting a continuing downward trend.

While not specifying the size of the fiscal boost, numerous commentators and analysts insisted the PBoC measures were not enough.

Morgan Stanley said the boost to the stock market was “an absolute positive move,” but said improvement and a rebound rally was “more dependent on macro recovery as well as corporate earnings growth bottoming out.”

Julian Evans-Pritchard, head of China Economics at Capital Economics based in Singapore, told the WSJ the central bank’s measures were a step in the right direction, “but are not really enough to drive a turnaround in the economy” and more aggressive fiscal support was missing.

Liu Chang, a macro economist at BNP Paribas Asset Management, told the FT that while the stimulus was “certainly positive,” officials needed to act “very quickly in the weeks ahead to implement additional measures if they wish to get to the 5 percent target.”

“In this regard, we think there is still a worrying lack of urgency behind their words around stimulus,” he continued.

An FT editorial comment summed up the general sentiment, saying the measures failed to grapple with the reality of China’s economic challenges.

“Domestic demand is saddled by high precautionary saving rates and low confidence in the private sector,” it said. “Beijing’s desire for export-led growth is also under pressure from the intensifying trade war with the US. The latest measures are poorly targeted for these problems, and may largely be a cosmetic effort to hit Beijing’s annual 5 percent economic growth target.”

Israeli government rejects calls for ceasefire in war on Lebanon

Thomas Scripps

Israeli government officials delivered a uniform, savage rebuttal Thursday to the ceasefire proposal for the war with Lebanon proposed by 12 of Tel Aviv’s close allies, including the United States, UK and the European Union.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office announced bluntly: “The news about a ceasefire—not true. This is an American-French proposal, to which the prime minister did not even respond. The news about the supposed directive to moderate the fighting in the north is also the opposite of the truth.

“The prime minister instructed the IDF to continue the fighting with full force, and according to the plans presented to him. Also, the fighting in Gaza will continue until all the goals of the war are achieved.”

Touching down in the US, where he will speak at the United Nations, Netanyahu said, “We are continuing to strike Hezbollah with full force. And we will not stop until we reach all our goals,” which he claimed was the return of evacuated Israeli residents to the north of the country.

A man carries pictures of his relatives standing at the site of an Israeli airstrike in Saksakieh, south Lebanon, Thursday, Sept. 26, 2024. [AP Photo/Mohammed Zaatari]

No effort was made to suggest that Israel would consider future proposals. The line from the prime minister on down was that the war would continue as long as they wished.

Far-right national security minister Itamar Ben-Gvir threatened, as he has over Gaza, to lead his Jewish Power party out of coalition with Netanyahu and collapse the government if a ceasefire were agreed. He said, according to Haaretz, “Every day that this ceasefire is in effect and Israel does not fight in the north—Otzma Yehudit [Jewish Power] is not committed to the coalition.”

His close political ally, Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich commented, “The campaign in the north should end in one scenario—crushing Hezbollah… Surrender of Hezbollah or war, that’s the only way”.

The sentiment of these two most openly fascist members of the Israeli cabinet is shared by them all.

Foreign Minister Israel Katz declared, “There will be no ceasefire in the north. We will continue to fight against the terrorist organization Hezbollah with all our might until victory and the safe return of the residents of the north to their homes.”

Defense Minister Yoav Gallant confirmed that the Israeli military would “continue throwing Hezbollah off balance and deepening their loss,” including by “eliminating Hezbollah terrorists, dismantling Hezbollah's offensive infrastructure and destroying rockets and missiles”.

Chief of the General Staff Herzi Halevi was even more bloodthirsty: “We need to continue attacking Hezbollah, we have been waiting for this opportunity for years.”

After Halevi said Wednesday that the Israel Defense Forces were preparing for a ground invasion of Lebanon, the IDF announced Thursday that it had carried out exercises simulating “combat in thicketed, mountainous terrain,” adding, “During the exercise, the troops enhanced their operational and logistical readiness for various combat scenarios in enemy territory on the northern front.”

The belligerence of the Israeli government comes in the face of an extremely muted response from its target in Lebanon, Hezbollah. The organisation released a video Wednesday stating, “We can escalate, but we are choosing to de-escalate at the moment.”

Israeli negotiators strung along the idea of de-escalation in pantomime ceasefire talks over the last few days. Jacob Magid, US bureau chief for the Times of Israel, wrote after speaking with a senior Western diplomat, “Netanyahu’s conduct is extension of how he handled the Gaza hostage talks where he has privately agreed to show flexibility only to make public statement immediately afterward… thwarting progress.”

Karine Jean-Pierre, the White House press secretary, told reporters that the statement endorsing the ceasefire US President Joe Biden had released with French President Emmanuel Macron “was indeed coordinated with the Israeli side.”

Nevertheless, over Wednesday night and into Thursday, IDF airstrikes continued on scores of targets across Lebanon, and over the border with Syria. The worst was on a three-storey building in the Lebanese town of Younine, where 23 Syrians were killed—mostly women and children.

Sixty people were killed in total in the latest 24-hour period reported by the Lebanese authorities, and 81 injured, taking the total killed since Monday to more than 600, roughly a quarter of them women and children. These deaths bring the number slain in Lebanon since the genocide in Gaza and cross-border hostilities with Israel began to more than 1,500 people, plus over 5,400 injured.

A new round of strikes began Thursday night.

At least 200,000 people are now displaced in Lebanon, with more than 70,000 living in over 500 shelters around the country. Its interior minister, Bassam Mawlawi estimated that the real number of displaced is approaching half a million, in a country which hosts 1.5 million displaced Syrians and the largest number of refugees per capita and square kilometre anywhere in the world.

Over 15,000 Syrian citizens have now fled back to Syria, alongside more than 16,000 Lebanese.

Luna Hammad, medical coordinator in Lebanon for Doctors Without Borders, explained that the injuries and displacements were placing “immense pressure on an already fragile health system,” adding that “Health facilities are operating with extremely limited capacity due to the shortages of fuel, supplies and staff… People here are already facing immense hardship due to the economic crisis and this has deepened their suffering.”

The response from Israel’s imperialist backers has been to issue new ineffectual calls for a ceasefire. Lloyd Austin, the US secretary of defence, told reporters, “A full-scale war between LH [Lebanese Hezbollah] and Israel could be devastating for both parties and it could lead to a larger conflict throughout the region. That’s not in the best interests of anyone.”

Asked if the US would withhold military support to Israel if the country refused a ceasefire and proceeded to a ground invasion, however, he answered that Washington had been “committed from the very beginning” to providing Israel with “things that are necessary for them to be able to protect their sovereign territory—and that hasn’t changed and won’t change”.

Underscoring the point, Israel announced that it had secured an $8.7 billion military aid package from the US, including, according to Reuters, “$3.5 billion for essential wartime procurement, which has already been received and earmarked for critical military purchases, and $5.2 billion designated for air defense systems.”

Reuters added that Israel’s Defense Ministry “said the deal underscores the ‘strong and enduring strategic partnership between Israel and the United States and the ironclad commitment to Israel's security’, particularly in addressing regional security threats from Iran and Iranian-backed militias.”

Confirming this ultimate target of US-backed Israeli aggression, the Jerusalem Post, sure of a warm audience, editorialised Thursday that “the West and the US” should not “fall for” new Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian, who spoke at the UN that day, “and grant any kind of relief to the country that is the source of so much of what ails the region”.

Study shows that COVID-19 causes cognitive decline among those without long COVID symptoms

Bill Shaw

CT image of a normal brain [Photo by Mikael Häggström, M.D. via Wikimedia Commons / CC BY 1.0]

A new study in eClinicalMedicine has found that healthy volunteers infected with SARS-CoV-2 had measurably worse cognitive function for up to a year after infection when compared to uninfected controls. Significantly, infected controls did not report any symptoms related to these cognitive deficits, indicating that they were unaware of them. The net effect is that potentially billions of people worldwide with a history of COVID-19, but no symptoms of long COVID, could have persistent cognitive issues without knowing it.

The study’s lead author, Adam Hampshire, professor of cognitive and computational neuroscience at King's College London, said:

It … is the first study to apply detailed and sensitive assessments of cognitive performance from pre to post infection under controlled conditions. In this respect, the study provides unique insights into the changes that occurred in cognitive and memory function amongst those who had mild COVID-19 illness early in the pandemic.

This news comes as pandemic mitigation measures have all but been abandoned by governments across the globe. Public health practice has been decimated to the point where even surveillance data on SARS-CoV-2 infections and resulting hospitalizations, deaths, and other outcomes are barely collected let alone published. 

The data that are available indicate, per the most recent modeling from the Pandemic Mitigation Collaborative (PMC) on September 23, that since the beginning of August there have been over 1 million infections per day in the US alone. This level of transmission is expected to persist through the remainder of September and all of October. For the months of August through October, these levels of transmission are the highest of the entire pandemic

COVID-19 wastewater levels in the United States indicating that over 1 million Americans continue to be infected every day [Photo by Pandemic Mitigation Collaborative (PMC)]

The study on cognitive deficits has been shared widely across social media, with scientists and anti-COVID advocates drawing out its dire implications.

Australian researcher and head of the Burnet Institute, Dr. Brendan Crabb, who has previously advocated for a global elimination strategy to stop the pandemic, wrote:

Ethical issues aside, this is a powerful addition to an already strong dataset on Covid-driven brain damage affecting cognition & memory. Given new (re)infections remain common, this work… should influence a re-think on current prevention/treatment approaches.

The study enrolled 36 healthy volunteers. These individuals had no history of prior SARS-CoV-2 infection, no risk factors for severe COVID-19, and no history of SARS-CoV-2 vaccination. The researchers determined whether the volunteers were seronegative prior to inoculation, meaning that they had no detectable antibodies to SARS-CoV-2. If such antibodies were present, it would indicate past infection or vaccination.

These procedures resulted in a total of data from 34 volunteers being included for analysis. Two volunteers were excluded from analysis because they had seroconverted to positive for SARS-CoV-2 antibodies between the time of screening and inoculation. Notably, these two volunteers participated in all subsequent study activities, enabling a sensitivity analysis of the results that included them.

The researchers inoculated all 36 volunteers with SARS-CoV-2 virus in the nose and then quarantined them for at least 14 days. Volunteers only returned home once they had two consecutive daily nasal and throat swabs that were negative for virus. Thus, those volunteers who had an infection after inoculation spent the duration of their infection in quarantine. This quarantine was required by ethical study protocols, in order that the study itself not increase community transmission of the virus.

The researchers collected data on the volunteers daily during quarantine and at follow-up visits at 30, 90, 180, 270, and 360 days post-inoculation. The assessments included body temperature, viral loads from throat and nasal swabs, surveys on symptoms, and computer-based cognitive tests on 11 major cognitive tasks. The cognitive testing varied the particular exercise for each of the 11 tasks to avoid learning and memorization of solutions in subsequent sessions. Nevertheless, some tasks were more prone to learning so the researchers also studied the effect of infection on “learning” vs. “non-learning” tasks.

Of the 36 inoculated volunteers, 18 became infected and developed COVID-19 and 16 did not. The two groups did not differ significantly in key demographics. No volunteers required hospitalization or supplemental oxygen during the study. Every volunteer completed all five follow-up visits. 15 volunteers acquired a non-COVID upper respiratory tract infection in their community between the end of quarantine and the fifth visit at day 360. 

The researchers found that the infected group had significantly lower average “baseline-corrected global composite cognitive score” (bcGCCS) than the uninfected group at all follow-up intervals. At baseline, the two groups did not differ significantly. The difference between the two groups did not significantly vary by time, meaning that the infected group’s bcGCCS did not improve during the nearly year-long study.

Because the bcGCCS was a composite based on individual scores for the 11 cognitive tasks, the researchers also looked at which tasks in particular were impacted. They found that the most affected task was related to immediate object memory, in particular, recall of the spatial orientation of the object. There was no difference in picking the correct object itself, just its spatial orientation. This means that infected individuals had a hard time choosing the correct spatial orientation of the object they had just seen, for example, erroneously picking a mirror image of the object they had just seen. 

The results were not different based on sex, learning vs. non-learning tasks, or whether individuals received remdesivir or had community-acquired upper respiratory infections. 

Because the investigators controlled for so many factors including the strain of SARS-CoV-2, timing of infection, quarantine, and lack of prior infection and vaccination, the study provides high confidence that SARS-CoV-2 infection was responsible for the cognitive defects. The control of the timing of infection also enabled clarification of whether and when cognitive deficits occurred and improved. The differences between the groups were apparent by day 14 of quarantine and as noted previously, the deficits in the infected group did not improve let alone resolve.

The symptom surveys did not differ between the two groups. None of the volunteers, infected or uninfected, reported subjective cognitive issues or symptoms. Thus the infected volunteers with measurable cognitive deficits at one year post-infection were not aware of these deficits.

The study reaffirms prior research into persistent cognitive deficits and brain damage associated with COVID-19, including other studies which have found deficits among patients without symptomatic long COVID. Building upon this prior research, the latest study indicates that basically every single unvaccinated individual with a history of acute COVID-19 is at risk for persistent, measurable cognitive deficits.

Figure 1 Areas of the brain impacted by COVID infection (Source: UK Biobank study) [Photo by Gwenaëlle Douaud et al / CC BY 4.0]

Given that other studies have shown that vaccination reduces one’s risk of long COVID by roughly half, similar measurable cognitive deficits are likely prevalent among vaccinated people who suffer “breakthrough” infection, albeit likely at reduced rates of decline.

The study raises the urgent questions about the level of protection provided by vaccination, whether strains since the original “wild type” SARS-CoV-2 strain have similar effects on cognition, and what is the impact of these cognitive deficits on people’s performance at home, work, and school.

The study also adds to the large body of damning evidence that the ruling class “forever COVID” policy is of immense criminal proportions. Enabling a dangerous, mind-damaging virus to circulate among humanity worldwide represents a scale of inhumanity and dereliction of duty that is practically unfathomable. The malignity of this intentional policy is underscored by the current situation where the U.S. alone has had over 1 million new infections per day since August, with levels not projected to drop below 1 million until November.

Turkish government’s Medium Term Program: A frontal attack on the social conditions of the working class

Hakan Özal

The Medium Term Program (MTP), which sets out the government’s economic targets and policies for the next three years, was approved by President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and entered into force.

While the official annual inflation rate was 52 per cent in August, the program, which focuses on maintaining fiscal discipline to reduce inflation and close the budget deficit, shows that the attacks on the living and working conditions of the working class will continue and deepen. The program accelerates the policy of turning the country into a haven for cheap and precarious labour for national and international companies.

Cover of the Medium Term Programme (2025-2027) [Photo: Turkish Presidency Strategy and Budget Directorate]

In his presentation of the MTP, Vice President Cevdet Yılmaz stated that Turkey’s economic strategies for the next three years are mainly focused on “sustainable growth” and “fiscal discipline”. Yılmaz stressed that the target of reducing inflation to single digits is a priority and that ensuring price stability is crucial in this process.

Yılmaz stated that the target is to reduce inflation to 41.5 percent in 2024, 17.5 percent in 2025, 9.7 percent in 2026 and 7 percent in 2027. The upward revision of the rates compared to the previous MTP (2024-2026) is evidence that the government’s targets have not been met and that the updated rates should be treated with scepticism.

Following Yılmaz’s presentation, Treasury and Finance Minister Mehmet Şimşek said that disinflation and price stability were priorities. Şimşek stated that fiscal and monetary policies will be implemented in a coordinated manner and public expenditure will be brought under control to strengthen fiscal discipline. Şimşek also reiterated that the aim is to reduce inflation to single digits.

The government wants to make the workers pay the price for achieving the objectives of the MTP, which is essentially the economic program of the bourgeoisie. Workers’ wages, whose purchasing power has been gradually reduced in recent years, are cited as the cause of high inflation. “The minimum wage increases to prevent the wage-price spiral will be in line with the disinflation process,” the MTP says. There is discussion in ruling circles that the minimum wage increase will be determined according to the target rate of inflation, not actual inflation, and that real wages will be further reduced.

In reality, the main source of inflation is not wage increases but corporate profits. This fact, which is also revealed by the data, was admitted by Erhan Çetinkaya, the head of TURKSTAT, who said the following: “Corporate profits are rising faster than inflation. The exorbitant corporate profits in Turkey have an upward effect on inflation, this has been scientifically proven”.

Under the leadership of Şimşek, who took office after the presidential elections in 2023, the government pursued a policy of high interest rates and pressure on wages. In the process, the Central Bank raised its key interest rate from 8.5 percent to 50 percent, while real wages continued to fall.

The official annual inflation rate, which was 38 percent when Şimşek took office, rose to 75 percent in May 2024. The real rate of inflation is much higher than the official rate. According to calculations by the Inflation Research Group (ENAG), the annual real inflation rate has been above 100 percent for a long time.

Real wages have fallen dramatically as the government, public and private sectors set pay rises for workers and pensioners based on official inflation. The government’s vehement refusal to raise the minimum wage in July 2024 has accelerated this trend.

In his study titled “The Convergence of Salaries and Wages to the Minimum Wage in Turkey and Related Income Distribution Problems”, published last August, Prof. Aykut Kibritçioğlu analysed the policy of reducing salaries to the level of the minimum wage (or even below) in Turkey, especially since 2014.

Kibritçioğlu explains the cost to minimum wage workers of not raising the minimum wage in July as follows: “If the CBRT’s inflation forecast for 2024 (the end of the year) of 38% is correct ... then the real loss in the minimum wage for the whole of 2024 will be 22.7%.”

In addition to wage suppression, the MTP will accelerate attacks on working-class conditions and cuts in social spending.

The expansion of flexible and precarious work is an important part of this. The program states that “active labour market policies will be supported by more flexible employment models to provide human capital for the needs of the economy in the short term”.

While the MTP plans to reduce the public contribution to the social security system, it is assumed that the inequitable pension system will continue. The program aims to introduce the supplementary pension system (TES) in the last quarter of 2025. It also plans to abolish severance pay, which is crucial for job security.

The reduction in the social security budget is an indication that demands for improvements in pensions will not be met. The lowest pension is only 12,500 liras, well below the current minimum wage of 17,000 liras (US$500). According to calculations by the pro-government trade union confederation Türk-İş, the minimum monthly food expenditure (hunger line) for a family of four was 19,200 liras in August. The poverty threshold for a family of four is 62,700 liras.

The MTP states that public spending will be cut in order to achieve the targets. However, the cuts in public spending do not target the tendering system, which is a method of transferring wealth from the workers to big business, and the waste of public resources by the bureaucracy. The cuts target social spending in critical sectors such as education and health, which have been massively attacked in recent decades, and the limited rights of public sector workers.

Turkey, a member of the imperialist NATO alliance, which is escalating the war against Russia in Ukraine towards a nuclear conflict and fully supporting Israel’s genocide in Gaza, is increasing its military spending while cutting social spending. While Turkey’s military expenditure has increased by 59 percent in the period 2014-2023, the military expenditure in 2023 has increased by 37 per cent compared to the previous year and was reported to be 15.8 billion dollars.

The MTP sets a growth target of 3.5 percent for 2024, 4 percent for 2025, 4.5 percent for 2026 and 5 percent for 2027. In parallel with this growth, unemployment is expected to be 9 percent.

Economist Mustafa Sönmez commented in BBC Turkish on the contradiction between growth and unemployment targets and disinflation: “On the one hand they say they are pursuing a disinflation program, but on the other hand their growth targets are very ambitious and high. Disinflation means a shrinking economy, which in turn means shrinking employment and rising unemployment... In this program it is claimed that unemployment will not rise to double digits this year and next year and will remain at 9 per cent. This is not possible.”

The absence of issues such as addressing inequalities in income distribution, reducing the tax burden on workers, protecting workers’ rights and ensuring that workers share in economic growth indicates that the burden will fall heavily on the shoulders of workers. While labour’s share of national income was 40.5 per cent in the first quarter of 2016, it fell to 29.7 per cent in the last quarter of 2023.

The problems such as unemployment, inflation and financial crises, which are caused by the objective contradictions of the capitalist profit system, are experienced not only in Turkey but all over the world. The response of the ruling elites all over the world to these problems is more exploitation, elimination of jobs, reduction of social spending and transfer of resources to militarism and war.

The Biggest Military Base Empire on Earth

Greta Zarro

Image by David Hili.

U.S. foreign military bases provoke war, pollute communities, and steal land from Indigenous peoples

The United States of America, unlike any other nation on Earth, maintains a massive network of foreign military bases around the world, more than 900 bases in more than 90 countries and territories. If the peace movement is serious about ending the United States’ and its allies’ war-making, then this global constellation of bases must be curtailed.

The permanent stationing of more than 220,000 U.S. troops, weapons arsenals, and thousands of aircraft, tanks, and ships in every corner of the globe makes the logistics for U.S. aggression, and that of its allies, quicker and more efficient. Bases also facilitate the proliferation of nuclear weapons, with the United States keeping nuclear bombs in five NATO member countries, and nuclear-capable planes, ships, and missile launchers in many others. Because the U.S. is continually creating plans for military actions around the world, and because the U.S. military always has some troops “on the ready,” the initiation of combat operations is simpler.

Not to mention the fact that these bases act as a provocation to surrounding countries. Their presence is a permanent reminder of the military capacity of the U.S. Rather than deterring potential adversaries, U.S. bases antagonize other countries into greater military spending and aggression. Russia, for example, justifies its interventions in Georgia and Ukraine by pointing to encroaching U.S. bases in Eastern Europe. China feels encircled by the more than 200 U.S. bases in the Pacific region, leading to a more assertive policy in the South China Sea. With vastly more foreign military bases than any other country on Earth, the U.S. logically must lead the way in a reverse arms race.

Furthermore, the U.S.’s network of foreign military bases perpetuates empire — an ongoing form of colonialism that robs Indigenous people of their lands. From Guam to Puerto Rico to Okinawa to dozens of other locations across the world, the military has taken valuable land from local populations, often pushing out Indigenous people in the process, without their consent and without reparations. For example, between 1967 and 1973, the entire population of the Chagos Islands was forcibly removed from the island of Diego Garcia by the UK so that it could be leased to the U.S. for an airbase. The Chagossian people were taken off their island by force and transported in conditions compared to those of slave ships. Despite an overwhelming vote of the UN General Assembly, and an advisory opinion by the International Court of Justice in the Hague that the island should be returned to the Chagossians, the UK has refused and the U.S. continues operations from Diego Garcia today.

Each base has its own story of injustice and destruction, impacting the local economy, community, and environment. The U.S. military has a notorious legacy of sexual violence, including kidnapping, rape, and murders of women and girls. Yet U.S. troops abroad are often afforded impunity for their crimes due to Status of Forces Agreements (SOFAs) with the so-called “host” country. The lack of respect for the lives and bodies of Indigenous people is another product of unequal power relationships between the U.S. military and the people whose land they occupy. In essence, the presence of U.S. foreign bases creates apartheid zones, in which the occupied population, with second-class status, comes into the base to perform the labor of cooking, cleaning, and landscaping. Furthermore, the rise in property taxes and inflation in areas surrounding U.S. bases has been known to push locals out.

Status of Forces Agreements (SOFAs) also often exempt U.S. foreign military bases from adhering to local environmental regulations. The construction of bases has caused irreparable ecological damage, such as the destruction of coral reefs and the environment for endangered species in Henoko, Okinawa. Furthermore, it is well documented at hundreds of sites around the world that military bases leach toxic so-called “forever chemicals” into local water supplies, which has had devastating health consequences for nearby communities.

Closing bases is a necessary step to right the wrongs of colonialism, to curb the environmental destruction wrought by militarism, and to shift the global security paradigm towards a demilitarized approach that centers common security — no one is safe until all are safe. This September 20-22, in honor of the International Day of Peace, World BEYOND War is organizing its annual global #NoWar2024 Conference focused on the theme of the U.S. military base empire — its impacts and the solutions. Throughout three days of sessions held in four locations around the world (Sydney, Australia; Wanfried, Germany; Bogotá, Colombia; and Washington, DC), and streamed on Zoom, speakers will address the social, ecological, economic, and geopolitical impacts of U.S. military bases in their regions, plus the powerful stories of nonviolent resistance to prevent, close, and convert bases to peacetime uses.

Karina Lester, a Yankunytjatjara Anangu woman from the Anangu Pitjantjatjara Yankunytjatjara Lands (APY Lands) in the far North West of South Australia, will speak about the impacts of nuclear testing felt by her people. Alejandra Rodríguez Peña, member of the Olga Castillo Collective in Colombia, will discuss the collective’s work for justice and reparations for victims of sexual violence by U.S. military personnel. Laura Benítez, a marine biologist, will detail the campaign opposing the construction of a U.S. base on Colombia’s Gorgona Island, which is home to unique ecosystems and rich wildlife. Ricardo Armando Patiño Aroca, former Minister of Foreign Affairs and Minister of Defense of Ecuador during the government of Rafael Correa, will share how the U.S. base in Manta, Ecuador was effectively shut down. Dr. Cynthia Enloe, renowned for her work on gender and militarism and the author of Bananas, Beaches and Bases, will explain how the presence of U.S. military bases impacts the local economy, shapes race relations within the community, and re-configures the sexual politics of a society.

On September 20-22, join us virtually — or in-person in Australia, Germany, Colombia, and the U.S. — for the #NoWar2024 Conference to hear from these and many other speakers about the impacts of the USA’s military base empire and how to work towards demilitarization and decolonization.