Holiday season, Euro 2024 tournament, music festivals, and lack of vaccines fuel UK COVID wave

Ioan Petrescu

The UK is in the middle of a new COVID-19 wave, driven by the summer holiday season and exacerbated by large-scale sporting events, such as the UEFA Euro 2024 football tournament.

Other summer events such as Taylor Swift concerts, Glastonbury and other festivals have exacerbated the spread. Swift is playing to almost 700,000 people just at her Wembley Stadium residence in London in June and August.

The lifting by previous Conservative governments, with the backing of the then opposition Labour Party, of any measures for protecting the population—such as mandating the wearing of masks and organising a comprehensive testing and contact-tracing campaign—guarantees that many people will succumb to the disease or be left with the debilitating effects of Long COVID.

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(Labour leader and now Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer attends a June 21 Taylor Swift concert at Wembley Stadium during the general election campaign).

There were 3,557 COVID cases in the week ending July 17 according to the official UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) dashboard, a 4.5 percent increase from the previous week and approximately three times as many as in March this year. Deaths have risen by 20 percent week on week and stood at 197 on July 12 and 2,797 people were admitted to hospital with COVID in the final week of June.

Since there is no comprehensive testing campaign—with COVID levels only measured in the general population from mid-November to mid-March, for the winter infection survey—all data in the rest of the year is based either on people self-reporting their positive tests or tests conducted on hospital admission. Official numbers must be considered a severe undercount.

Supporting this, high street healthcare retailer Superdrug reported a 319 percent spike in sales of its COVID lateral flow tests, alongside a 297 percent increase in cold and flu relief sachets, suggesting a surge of illness across Britain.

This summer’s COVID wave was massively boosted by the month-long Euro 2024 football tournament (June 14-July 14), in which millions of people across the continent gathered crowd together in large groups, often in enclosed spaces such as pubs, while shouting and cheering. A similar phenomenon was observed in the summer of 2021 during the delayed Euro 2020 tournament.

During the final alone between England and Italy on July 11, 2021, the number of people catching COVID was “between six and nine times higher than what would otherwise have been expected”, according to a study by Oxford and Warwick Universities, published in the journal Science. The study found significant additional infections from Euro match days in 11 other European countries. Professor Lawrence Young, a virologist at University of Warwick, told the i newspaper: “Any situation where folk are crowded together in poorly ventilated spaces provides an opportunity for the virus to spread.”

Given Britain’s larger population, in the week to July 7, its 17,800 cases were high compared with other European countries. However per head of population countries in southern Europe where millions flock each year for a summer break such as Portugal, Greece and Cyprus, have a higher infection rate.

A lax attitude to the virus, with no public education as to its implications, is encouraged by the government and the media. Among the main media outlets in the UK, only the twin publications the Independent and the i provide some coverage, albeit on an irregular basis, on the spread of COVID. Elsewhere, coverage is sporadic at best or non-existent. The nominally liberal Guardian has no article covering the recent wave of COVID infections in Britain.

The coverage that still exists promotes a generally criminal complacency towards the deadly and debilitating disease, such as this quote from Professor Mark Woolhouse in the Independent: “Over the coming decades, we will shift to a situation where most people are exposed to Covid—possibly several times—when they are young. This will not cause a significant public health problem— healthy young people were never much affected by Covid—but it will result in a build-up of immunity that will make them much less vulnerable when they are elderly and frail.”

This ignores the fact that rather than “building-up” immunity, repeated infections have been shown to increase the risk of serious illness, including Long COVID, a debilitating condition that has been dubbed the “pandemic within the pandemic”.

Its effects were highlighted recently in a study by the Office of National Statistics (ONS). An estimated 3.3 percent (2 million) people living in private households in England and Scotland were experiencing self-reported Long COVID (symptoms continuing for more than four weeks after a confirmed or suspected coronavirus infection that were not explained by something else). Long COVID symptoms adversely affected the day-to-day activities of 1.5 million people (74.7 percent of those with self-reported Long COVID), with 381,000 (19.2 percent) reporting that their ability to undertake their day-to-day activities had been “limited a lot”.

In addition, 56.4 percent reported that symptoms worsen following “mental and/or physical effort”. The most common symptom reported as part of an individual’s experience of Long COVID was weakness or tiredness (54.0 percent) followed by shortness of breath (43.7 percent), difficulty concentrating (39.4 percent) and muscle ache (36.7 percent). People between 45 and 54 years old were the most likely to report Long COVID, followed closely by those between 55 and 64 and those 35 and 44. The incidence of Long COVID was significantly higher among working people, as opposed to those unemployed or self-employed. The most affected workers were those in the teaching and education sectors, who were approximately 1.5 times as likely to be suffering from Long COVID than the average.

The COVID wave is fueled by the domination of a new set of virus variants, collectively known as FLiRT variants—after the technical names for their mutations. This is the term being used to describe a whole family of different variants—including KP.2, JN.1.7, and any other variants starting with KP or JN—that appear to have independently picked up the same set of mutations in a process called convergent evolution. They are all descendants of the JN.1 variant that has been dominant for the past several months.

These new variants are better at evading antibodies from previous infections or from vaccines. While they do not seem to cause a more severe infection than previous variants, the constant mutations encouraged by the continued unchecked spread of the virus means capitalist governments are playing “Russian roulette” with the lives of billions.

While not a substitute for comprehensive masking, testing and contact tracing programmes, vaccines are also helpful in dealing with the virus by the lowering the risk of severe infection and of Long COVID. The UK government has failed to ensure even this measure of protection for its population. As the WSWS previously covered, the heavily restricted spring booster campaign has ended, and the only way for workers to obtain a COVID vaccine is to pay exorbitant prices at private providers (as high as £100). Given the ongoing cost of living crisis and misinformation campaign, most workers will be left without even this protection.

Most vaccines available in pharmacies were developed to combat the XBB.1.5 variant and will have lower efficacy against virus variants circulating today. Highlighting the speed at which the virus mutates, compared to the ability of private companies to develop and manufacture vaccines, Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency has just approved a new JN.1 COVID-19 vaccine for adults and children, when the JN.1 is on the way out and increasingly replaced by the new FLiRT variants

The evolution and rapid global spread of the new variants of the virus is a product of the ruling class’s refusal to address the pandemic.

Bangladeshi government launches witch hunt after police kill hundreds of student protesters

Wimal Perera

According to the latest media reports, at least 201 people have been killed and over 4,500 others arrested during the Hasina government-ordered state attacks on student protesters over the past eight days. The mass demonstrations, which were led by the Students Against Discrimination, began on July 1, after a Bangladesh high court re-instituted a discriminatory quota system for public sector jobs which had been scrapped in 2018.

A student, injured in clashes with police and paramilitaries, being carried on a stretcher to a hospital, in Dhaka, Bangladesh, Saturday, July 20, 2024 [AP Photo/Rajib Dhar]

Under this divisive system 30 percent of public service jobs were allocated for the relatives of “freedom fighters”—those who fought for the establishment of Bangladesh in 1971—10 percent for women and those from underdeveloped areas of the country, 5 percent for ethnic minorities and 1 percent for physically challenged people. The remaining positions would be chosen according to the current merit system.

The largely peaceful protests took a violent turn when thugs from Hasina’s Awami League-controlled Bangladesh Chhatra League (BCL), assisted by police, attacked Dhaka University students.

As students intensified their campaign across the country, police stepped up the violence, firing tear gas, rubber bullets and live ammunition at the students, killing dozens and injuring thousands more. On July 19, Hasina ordered a curfew, deployed the military with “shoot on sight” orders and shut down the internet.

Hoping to quell the escalating nationwide unrest, the Hasina government on Monday issued a gazette changing its quota system so that 93 percent of new public sector recruits would be based on merit. Quotas for “freedom fighters” and their relatives would be reduced to 5 percent and 2 percent for other designated groups.

While the government eased its curfew to a few hours daily this week, allowing banks, government offices and garment factories to begin operating on Wednesday, the internet is not yet fully restored while police raids and arrests are ongoing.

Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina continues to threaten student activists, falsely accusing them of being aligned with the opposition Bangladesh National Party (BNP) and Jamaat-e-Islami.

Addressing an Editors Guild meeting on Wednesday, Hasina accused the BNP and Jamaat-e-Islami of being behind last week’s violence. According to the Daily Star, she told the meeting that “the recent mayhem [was] designed to cripple the country’s advancement and prosperity.”

The right-wing BNP and the Jamaat e-Islami, a communalist organisation which opposed the establishment of Bangladesh, had nothing to do with the student protest movement. Hoping to capitalise on the mass support for the protesting students, the BNP did not decide to “support” the students until July 18. BNP governments, which came to power twice in the 1990s and in 2001, were just as hostile as Hasina’s Awami League administration to workers and the poor during their rule.

Last week, Hasina toured parts of Dhaka, observing property destruction, including at the Television Bhaban studios in Rampura and the Mirpur-10 metro rail station, which she blamed on the protesters. The people of Bangladesh, she declared, “have to expose them [those involved] and bring them to justice.”

Hasina’s comments have been widely denounced on social media. A BBC report quoted one X/Twitter user who said: “We lost [hundreds of] students. But PM Sheikh Hasina had the time to go ‘cry’ for a metro rail, not for the people who won’t return ever again.” Another denounced the prime minister for “shedding crocodile tears for a railway track” but remaining silent about those killed by the police. Others observed that she had not visited any of the families of the students shot dead by police.

Journalists for the UK-based Guardian witnessed Rapid Action Battalion police forces using a helicopter to fire teargas at crowds and the army using light machine guns against unarmed demonstrators. Amnesty International has confirmed that police and paramilitary forces also used shotguns, assault rifles and grenade launchers.

A July 25 editorial in the Dhaka-based New Age reported “indiscriminate firing by law enforcement personnel” with scores killed and several thousand wounded. Many, it said, were “still in a critical condition,” including those who had lost their eyesight.

While Students Against Discrimination paused its protests twice this week, first on Monday and later Wednesday, it held a press conference on Tuesday, making eight demands of the government.

These included restoration of internet services, a withdrawal of the curfew, security for all coordinators of the student movement, the reopening of residential halls at education institutions and the withdrawal of all police from campuses. The organisation also wants an “apology to the nation” from Hasina “for the mass murder of students” and the sacking of the home minister and education minister.

There are ongoing reports on abduction and torture of student activists by police with many others going into hiding, fearing persecution and police raids. Nahid Islam, a Students Against Discrimination coordinator, told the Guardian on July 23 that he was seized by more than 20 police officers. “They took me somewhere I couldn’t recognise and then put me in a room where they started to question me and later torture me, first mentally and then physically,” he said.

Abdul Hannan Masud, another protest coordinator, told the media that the organisation was planning to form emergency health forces to “ensure proper treatments to around 15,000 protesters who were injured across the country.”

Responding to calls this week by United Nations Human Rights chief Volker Turk for an “independent investigation” into the government attacks, Bangladesh State Minister for Broadcasting and Information Mohammad Arafat cynically told Al Jazeera that the government had tried to “de-escalate the tension.”

Arafat declared that “third-party” actors, including “extremists and terrorists,” had fueled the student protests and that the government had formed an independent judicial committee that would ensure “everyone responsible for any of these casualties can be brought to book.”

These are patent lies. The Hasina regime responded to a wave of student protests against the public sector job quota system from April to July in 2018 by unleashing terror by police and the BCL. While it was forced to scrap the quota system it systematically witch-hunted and persecuted the student activists.

As a Frontline Defenders report on June 2020 noted: “Long after the protests stopped, many student activists, their friends and family members continue to face surveillance, intimidation and harassment, effectively silencing future dissent.” Citing several instances, it noted: “A prominent activist was attacked eight times after the protest movement ended. Another protest organiser has been routinely stalked by members of the National Security Intelligence.”

Key props of the Hasina government during the latest student protests have been various Stalinist parties who align themselves with one or another section of the ruling elite in Bangladesh.

Greece’s COVID surge in holiday season fuels global spread

John Vassilopoulos

Hospitals across Greece are being swamped with rising hospital admissions of COVID-19 patients. According to the latest weekly figures—released on July 25 for the week beginning July 15—there were 788 admissions compared to an average of 551 over the previous four weeks. The number admitted to hospital for the week beginning July 15 was over 2.5 times higher than the same week last year.

Deaths from COVID have been steadily increasing with the latest report recording 35 new fatalities, up from the average of 23 over the previous four weeks and twice as many as the same time last year.

Speaking to the Athens New Agency’s radio station on July 20 Garyfallia Poulakou, an infectious disease specialist at the Sotiria Hospital in Athens, estimated that nearly every household in Greece has got at least one person ill with COVID. She stated, “We don’t know if [the wave] has peaked yet. My sense is that more or less the same intensity will be seen during the next month as well.”

Sotiria Hospital, Athens, Greece [Photo by Dimboukas / CC BY-SA 4.0]

The rise in cases is part of the wider COVID wave raging across the globe driven by the latest variants of SARS-CoV-2—the FliRT subvariants of Omicron, KP.3 and KP.2—which based on official data have been the dominant strains in Greece since the middle of April.

Tourism is a big factor in the spread of the current wave. According to the wastewater data collected over the past few weeks from urban areas, cities which have seen the sharpest rises are those most closely associated with tourism. The biggest weekly rise since the start of June was recorded in the city of Chania on the island of Crete. In the week beginning June 17 Chania saw a 204 percent rise of the viral load compared with the previous week.

Talking about the situation at Athens’ Sotiria Hospital Poulakou confirmed that COVID wards are struggling to cope with increased admissions, after capacity was reduced to a minimum during recent months. She added that “gradually all clinics [within the hospital] are having to admit COVID cases as well in some of their wards, in order to keep up with increasing demand.”

This will inevitably increase the spread of the disease, which will only intensify the pressure on hospitals.

This was underscored by a press release by the local union of hospital workers at the Kilkis General Hospital in Northern Greece which stated that after the COVID-19 department was shut down in April this year, COVID patients are being hospitalised at the severely understaffed General Pathology Clinic: “Since the beginning of July 12 patients have been admitted [with COVID] seven of whom are still hospitalised. After COVID spread to a nurse as well as patients already ill with other diseases, three patients unfortunately died.”

Metaxas Cancer Hospital in Piraeus introduced mask mandates and compulsory testing on July 15 in response to the rise in cases. Speaking to state broadcaster ERT, the hospital’s director Sarantos Efstathopoulos said the measures were brought in following an “upward trend” in the proportion of cases noted among staff and patients.

Asked why these additional measures have not been extended to other big hospitals in the wider Attica region (population over 3.8 million) Efthathopoulos replied, “People should remember that for many months now the implementation of measures is not compulsory not just in Greece but in the whole of Europe. Each hospital can decide on its own the strictness of the measures it takes”, adding that that cancer patient at the Metaxas hospital are “more clinically vulnerable to all infections not just COVID.”

This fragmented approach exposes the complete breakdown of public health measures to curb the spread of the COVID virus. The mandate at Metaxas is subject to review on July 29 and will no doubt be lifted once cases are deemed to be at an “acceptable” level. In April, as the COVID winter wave retreated, all limited measures within healthcare settings were lifted while in March last year all COVID specific ICUs were scrapped.

Greece’s public healthcare system is especially vulnerable to the devastation wrought by the virus because of the brutal austerity imposed by successive conservative, social-democratic and Syriza governments at the behest of the European Union and International Monetary Fund over the previous decade.

A study published in 2022 by Greece’s Institute of Political Economic & Social Research stated that between 2009 and 2019 Greece was “associated with the largest reduction in total health spending (-22.8 percent) among all European countries”. Healthcare spending fell from 9.4 percent of GDP in 2009—a year before the first austerity package was signed—to 7.8 percent of GDP in 2019. Greece saw the sharpest rise of unmet healthcare needs in Europe from 9.4 percent in 2004 to 27.8 percent in 2020.

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(The X posting notes of photos this month from Attikon hospital that it shows beds stacked close to each other and PPE being used as bedding)

The conservative New Democracy (ND) government has not made a statement even acknowledging the existence of the wave. Behind this are calculations that nothing must cut across the mega profits reaped by Greece’s tourist industry, not least given some articles in the travel sections of foreign media outlets have warned of the rise in cases. According to a study, “The Contribution of Tourism to the Greek Economy in 2023,” by the Institute of the Hellenic Tourism Business Association (INSETE), the tourist sector amounts to a third of Greece’s GDP and is estimated to be worth between 62.8 billion and 75.6 billion euros. Current Health Minister Adonis Georgiadis, as Development and Investment Minister in 2023 during the Delta variant summer wave, argued against any public health measures stating that “without tourism there is no money”.

Much of the media takes the stand of Britain’s Daily Mail in rejecting any danger posed by mass tourism from the UK to Greece every year. Last week in a piece headlined, “Do you really need to cancel your Greek holiday after ‘Covid spike’ and a return of mask mandates - after just 205 extra cases?”, deputy health editor John Ely wrote that there was no problem going to Greece on the basis that there were “205 extra hospital admissions for the nation of over 10 million people.” At any rate, wrote Ely, “the Mediterranean nation is currently faring better than Britain, official Covid data suggests.” He noted, “The latest weekly data from the UK Health Security Agency recorded 2,797 patients admitted to hospital in the week of June 28th, the most recent data available. While not directly comparable, this is four times the number of Covid admissions in the Greek report.

“Britain also recorded 163 deaths where Covid was mentioned on a death certificate as of July 5, again the latest data available. This is, while again not comparable, six times greater than the number of deaths recorded in Greece.”

The job of providing a scientific veneer to the Greek government’s herd immunity agenda fell to Gkikas Magiorkinis, epidemiologist and member of the Health Ministry’s scientific committee. In an interview in Apogevmatini’s July 14 edition Magiorkinis stated, “I don’t think the dynamic any longer exists for the reintroduction of compulsory protective measures.”

In a July 21 interview with ERT, Matina Pagoni, president of the Union of Hospital Doctors in Athens and Piraeus (EINAP) and member of the ruling New Democracy, she conceded the severity of the current wave while only advising people to test before going on holiday. The union bureaucrat then downplayed the severity of the FliRT variants stating they led to “two to three days fever and then you recover.”

This discounts the fact that Long COVID can be contracted from a mild infection with the risk increasing with every re-infection. A study carried out by Long COVID Greece based on 208 Long COVID patients found that 68.8 percent were not hospitalised. The study exposed the lack of adequate treatment for Long COVID patients. More than half (53.4 percent) state that they don’t have the right treatment, while nearly one in two have spent up to €500 in doctors’ fees and nearly one in three more than that.

Right-wing faction emerges as victor in Thailand’s Senate election

Robert Campion

Thailand’s new Senate, certified earlier this month by the Election Commission, is another demonstration of the sham character of Thailand’s supposed “return to democracy” under the ruling Pheu Thai Party (PTP) government. The new Senate met for the first time on Tuesday.

Thai officers check documents from potential candidates to become members of Thailand's next Senate arrive at the Phaya Thai district office in Bangkok on Monday, May 20, 2024. [AP Photo/Sakchai Lalit]

From the beginning, the conservative political establishment has attempted to pass off the highly complicated election process as a means to ensure “fairness” and the selection of a Senate “above politics.” Predictably, the very opposite occurred.

Most new senators are closely linked to one major party or another. The number of Senate seats has been reduced from 250 to 200. The exact breakdown is difficult to determine as senators all claim to be nonpartisan. However, a dominant “blue faction” has emerged, which is aligned with the right-wing Bhumjaithai Party (BJT) whose official color is blue. BJT-aligned senators are estimated to have taken anywhere between 123 and 140 seats, giving the party a solid majority.

The BJT further increased its control of the Senate on Tuesday when Former Buri Ram governor Mongkol Surasajja was elected as Speaker. General Kriangkrai Srirak and Boonsong Noisophon were chosen as deputy speakers. All three have ties to the BJT.

The BJT played a key role in anti-democratically blocking the Move Forward Party (MFP) from forming government after it won the most seats in last year’s election for the lower house of the National Assembly. It refused to enter into a coalition with the MFP because it had campaigned to amend Thailand’s draconian lèse-majesté law.

The BJT is now emerging as the standard bearer for the most right-wing sections of the Thai ruling elite, grouped around the military, the monarchy and the state bureaucracy. It is also the second-largest party in the Pheu Thai-led coalition government, holding 71 seats and essentially veto power over the ruling party in the 500-seat National Assembly lower house. The BJT also backed the previous regime headed by 2014 coup leader Prayut Chan-o-cha.

Significantly, in June, King Maha Vajiralongkorn rewarded BJT leader and Deputy Prime Minister Anutin Charnvirakul with the Chulachomklao Order, Second Class, and the Rattanaporn Medal, Third Class. The awards are highly significant among the Thai ruling elite. Other recipients included former Prime Minister Prayut, who is now a Privy Council member.

BJT-affiliated senators include Geneneral Kriangkrai Srirak, an adviser to Anutin. Another senator, Dr Praphon Tangsrikiatku, also served as vice health minister under Anutin in the previous Prayut government. Others include Pibul-at Haruehanprakan, former adviser to a previous BJT tourism and sports cabinet minister. Another senator is a chauffeur close to party founder Newin Chidchob.

Only an estimated 10 to 20 senators are affiliated with the ruling Pheu Thai-led government while a similar number are close to the so-called “progressive” MFP, which won nearly 40 per cent of the vote and 151 seats in last year’s general election compared to the BJT, which took a distant third with its 71 seats. Pheu Thai took 141 seats last year.

The Senate election was highly anti-democratic. The election certification process itself was delayed for a week by around 800 complaints citing electoral fraud and collusion, an expression of the internecine warfare in the ruling class and the corrupt character of the election overall.

In certifying the results on July 10, Sawang Boonmee, the Election Commission secretary-general, brushed aside these complaints, absurdly stating, “We still cannot say that the election was not honest and fair.”

However, the process was specifically designed to bar workers, the poor and youths from participating. Applications to run cost over a week’s minimum wage in Thailand and were only open to those over 40 years of age with at least 10 years of experience in certain occupational fields.

Senate candidates were required to not be members of any political party, the spouses or children of party members, and could not discuss any of their potential political plans during the election process if they won office.

Applicants were then screened by the military-appointed Election Commission. According to the Bangkok Post, the applications of 1,917 people were rejected before voting started, while another 600 were disqualified for supposedly failing to meet qualification requirements.

Rather than being open to the entire electorate, three rounds of voting took place in which 45,753 candidates vied among themselves, resulting in a starkly unrepresentative Senate chosen by less than one-thousandth of the voting population. In addition, only around 44 out of 76 provinces are represented.

The entire process was opaque as far as the public was concerned. Yet for the right-wing, pro-military establishment, it provided the ideal cover for vote buying, bloc-vote rigging, and other anti-democratic manipulations behind the scenes.

The rightwing which now dominates the Senate will not have the power to vote on prime ministerial candidates, but to endorse key bills, amendments to the constitution, and candidates to state agencies, including the Election Commission, the Constitutional Court, and the National Anti-Corruption Commission. Following the 2014 coup, the military used these nominally independent bodies to strengthen their rule and that of the traditional conservative elites.

Far from criticizing the Senate elections, the MFP and its supporters, which posture as left-wing, were preoccupied with sowing democratic illusions in the Thai establishment. Thanathorn Juangroongruangkit, an advisor to the MFP and leader of the “Progressive Movement” organisation, promoted a campaign to secure 70 “People’s Senators” to give the Senate a phony “progressive” veneer.

Thanathorn previously led the MFP’s predecessor, the Future Forward Party, before its dissolution by the military-appointed Constitutional Court on trumped-up ethics violations in 2020. Thanathorn was barred from official politics for 10 years.

The MFP now faces similar threats of dissolution over its campaign to reform the lèse-majesté law. However, party leader Chaithawat Tulathon backed the Senate election when certification was initially delayed, insisting on endorsement first and disqualifications later, pending evidence of any poll fraud. “Any delay in the endorsement process means the caretaker Senate will stay in office longer,” he stated.

While the outgoing caretaker Senate was appointed in toto by the military, the entire fraudulent election process itself was also drawn up and codified in the 2017 constitution by the military to ensure the conservative and right-wing bourgeois representatives remained in the National Assembly. In effect, the MFP is putting its stamp of approval on the junta’s laws.

Chinese leadership focuses on high-tech as problems of slowdown grow

Nick Beams

Documents from the Third Plenum of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) central committee, which met last week, confirm the initial assessment of its deliberations that very little will be done to boost consumption spending to try and overcome the mounting problems in the economy resulting from lower growth rates.

Rather, the Xi Jinping regime is placing heavy emphasis on the development of “new quality productive forces” based on high-tech to launch the next stage of China’s economic development.

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]

There is no doubt that in many critical areas the Chinese economy has made significant advances, drawing on the skills and expertise of the tens of thousands of young graduates from its universities and colleges.

But the hopes of the regime that this can provide a way forward for the economy as a whole, ensuring the continuation of growth which it regards as crucial to the maintenance of “social stability,” are running into major problems. Not the least of these is the unending economic warfare being waged against China by the US, now increasingly being joined by its allies.

In a statement issued last Sunday, Xi pointed to those issues when he warned of “frequent conflicts and turmoil, intensified global problems, and escalating external suppression and containment.”

The economic plan made more than 300 recommendations, many of them focusing on government investments in high-tech manufacturing and scientific innovation. But there was little mention in the statement, which ran to 15,000 words in English translation, of the ongoing problems in real estate and property development.

The issue of lifting domestic spending, which international economists and some within China have identified as a key problem, received only a passing mention as the document referred to the need to “refine long-term mechanisms for expanding consumption.”

There were some measures advanced to grapple with the debt problems facing local governments, which have been responsible for much of the infrastructure development that has powered Chinese growth for a decade and a half.

Local governments have financed these projects through funding vehicles which were sustained by the sales of land to real estate developers. But the downturn in the property market over the past three years has meant this has become unviable.

The Third Plenum statement proposed that transfers to local governments from the central government should increase and that local tax revenue sources needed to be expanded. But there was only a passing reference to a real estate tax. This proposal was advanced in 2013, but little was done to initiate a national property tax to provide money for local governments.

There was also some relaxation in the hukou household registration system, which prevents migrant workers from having full access to public services when they come to work in the cities. But how much of a real change this involves remains to be seen.

Robin Xing, chief China economist at Morgan Stanley, told the Financial Times (FT) there was a “slightly more balanced tone on social welfare programs” which could benefit consumption in the long run.

However, he said, the document was “very general, [and] there is no clear timeline on how to deliver and finance it.”

The main thrust of the economic program remains heavy investment in high-tech manufacturing.

According to the FT report, the final statement “mentioned terms related to technology, talent, science and innovation 160 times. But the property sector warranted only four mentions and did not appear until two-thirds of the way through the document.”

Its main thrust was that “the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation” would be obtained by promoting “scientific and technological self-reliance.”

But it acknowledged that this took place within a “complex” international situation. That was a reference to the growing list of high-tech bans and tariffs being placed on China by the US, for which it has got some support from the European powers, out of fear that Chinese expansion in this area poses an existential threat to American imperialism’s economic dominance.

The Chinese leadership is engaged in something of a high wire act. Apart from the high-tech bans imposed by the US, its focus on the expansion of quality products depends on finding global markets. And here it is running into the mounting protectionist measures of the US and increasingly Europe, as reflected in the recent tariffs imposed on electric vehicles and other high-tech exports.

Trump, who has a very real prospect of winning the US presidency, has threatened to impose a tariff of 60 percent or more on all Chinese goods if he is returned. But the Democrats will be no less belligerent if they win. In fact, the economic war initiated by Trump in his presidency has been deepened under Biden.

Moreover, replacing the dependence of the Chinese economy on real estate and infrastructure projects as the main driver of economic growth—it has been estimated to account for up to 30 percent of GDP—cannot be accomplished overnight.

In the meantime, there is a marked slowdown in the Chinese economy. It slipped to year-on-year growth of only 4.7 percent in the second quarter amid predictions by the International Monetary Fund and other institutions that it is on a downward trend over coming years.

Data for the second quarter showed that sales in June grew by only 2 percent from a year earlier, prompting warnings about the direction of the economy.

According to a report in the Wall Street Journal, analysts at the French Bank Société Générale said the retail sales figure was “just shocking” and the Chinese economy was “limping along precariously.”

It appears that while the focus is on the development of high-tech manufacturing, there are growing concerns within sections of the CCP leadership about the immediate state of the economy.

In a media briefing last Friday, following the conclusion of the Third Plenum, Han Wenxiu, deputy director of the CCP’s financial and economic affairs department, said that while the economy was moving in a positive direction and making solid progress, “we are also confronted with some difficulties and challenges, which are mainly manifested in a lack of effective demand.”

He said China’s economic recovery was “not strong enough” and “we need to introduce and implement more robust and effective macroeconomic … policies.” Proactive fiscal policy had to be used to “better effect.”

Underlying these remarks is the fear of the entire CCP leadership, which rules on behalf of a capitalist oligarchy, that, in conditions where its sole legitimacy derives from its ability to promote growth, a significant slowdown can lead to “social instability” and even political opposition.

Regional tensions escalate over ongoing New Caledonia crisis

John Braddock

As the outcome of France’s July 7 elections remains unclear, with the parties of the New Popular Front (NFP) engaged in bitter internal factional struggles and the ruling elite manoeuvring to form a far-right government, the crisis enveloping the French Pacific colony of New Caledonia continues to mount.

The snap election was a debacle for President Emmanuel Macron, whose Ensemble coalition came in second place behind Jean-Luc Mélenchon’s NFP. Voters mobilised against both Macron, the “president of the rich,” and the far-right National Rally (RN), testifying to broad left-wing sentiment and a rejection of neo-fascism among workers and youth.

In New Caledonia, the election produced a surge in support for pro-independence candidates against Macron’s move to push through the French parliament a change to eligibility rules for the territory’s local elections which the independence movement claimed would further marginalise indigenous votes.

In the territory’s poll, Emmanuel Tjibaou of the Union Calédonienne won the predominantly Kanak Northern constituency, becoming only the second pro-independence Kanak, and the first since 1986, to enter the French Assembly. In the second constituency, sitting pro-France MP Nicolas Metzdorf retained his seat against a strong performance by pro-independent Omayra Naisseline.

After more than two months of violent unrest amid a police-state operation by over 3,700 French forces, the rebellion, largely by impoverished Kanak youth, has not been suppressed. Last week a fresh batch of armoured vehicles and firetrucks was delivered to security forces. Meanwhile, five pro-independence leaders who were arrested on June 22 and deported to jails in mainland France remain there pending trial.

Anti-riot policeman in Noumea, New Caledonia [AP Photo/Ludovic Marin]

The crackdown claimed its 10th victim on July 10 in an exchange of gunfire in the village of Saint Louis, near the capital Nouméa between Kanaks and French gendarmes. The authorities immediately placed the blame on the victim, a nephew of prominent pro-independence politician and local Congress chairman Roch Wamytan, saying he had shot at the gendarmes, who then returned fire.

Public Prosecutor Yves Dupas claimed a group of “armed snipers,” including the victim, entered the Church of Saint Louis, from where they opened fire. Gunfire exchanges had also been reported the previous day, when security forces launched an operation attempting to dismantle roadblocks and barricades in the pro-independence stronghold.

Islands Business correspondent Nic Maclellan told RNZ Pacific the area had a long colonial history. In 1878 there was a revolt in the north and centre of the country. As the French military moved in, attacking villages, people fled to the outskirts of the capital. St Louis is one of the areas where survivors from the past conflicts had fled to. “It is a strong community, largely Kanak,” Maclellan said.

The Saint Louis church was last week burnt down, along with the Catholic Mission’s presbytery and residence. In the village of Vao on the Isle of Pines, another landmark Catholic mission was destroyed by arson. New Caledonia’s pro-independence President Louis Mapou condemned them as criminal “irresponsible acts,” saying they undermined the values of “fraternity and sharing on which New Caledonia’s society is based.”

In fact, the rioting erupted outside the control of the official pro-independence leadership and reflected widespread anger over poverty, inequality and social exclusion. The rebellion continues to defy both the security crackdown and pressure by Macron on New Caledonia’s political establishment to bring it to heel. The four-party Front de Libération Nationale Kanak et Socialiste (FLNKS) admitted last month that it had failed to persuade protesters to remove roadblocks because the rebels were not convinced Macron would drop the electoral reform.

Calls to divide the territory into pro-and anti-independence provinces are now being pushed by Sonia Backès, the pro-France president of the Provincial Assembly of the Southern Province, which includes the affluent suburbs of Nouméa. She said the project of a New Caledonia institutionally united and based on living together is “over.” Backès insisted that when two opposing forces are convinced they are legitimately defending their values, they face a choice of “fighting each other to the death or separating so they can live.”

Such a program could only be implemented through massive state repression and openly racist policies of an apartheid character.

French imperialism’s determination to enforce its grip on the Pacific colony is escalating tensions across the region. The Pacific Islands Forum (PIF) wants to send a delegation to New Caledonia to investigate the crisis before a PIF Leaders Meeting in Tonga in August. Forum Chair and Cook Islands Prime Minister Mark Brown said a request for such a mission had been received from the New Caledonia government, a PIF member, but emphasised that it “will require the support of the Government of France for the mission to proceed.”

The Melanesian Spearhead Group (MSG), formed in 1986 by Papua New Guinea, Fiji, Vanuatu and the Solomon Islands to back decolonisation, has bluntly blamed France for the riots and demanded it drop the electoral reform. MSG leaders who met on the sidelines of a Pacific Islands Leaders Meeting (PALM10) in Tokyo last week called on France to allow a United Nations-MSG mission to assess the political situation and “propose solutions.”

The MSG leaders expressed strong opposition to the “apparent militarisation” of the French territory and said the National Assembly’s passing of the constitutional bill to “unfreeze” the electoral roll for the provincial elections “precipitated the carnage that followed.” Supported by Brown, they called on France to undertake another referendum on independence due to their “dissatisfaction” with the third referendum in 2021, which they deemed a “forceful and unilateral decision by the French State.” That poll saw a 96 percent vote to remain with France after it was boycotted by the independence movement.

Speaking at the PALM meeting, New Zealand Foreign Minister Winston Peters also questioned the legitimacy of the third referendum, saying it may have been technically within the 1998 Nouméa Accord, but “not the spirit.” Peters sharply criticised France for pushing through the voting law, saying it had compounded “the sense of democratic injury for pro-independence forces.” In New Caledonia, he declared, “we hope to see more diplomacy, more engagement, more compromise.”

Peters, whose political career is based on nationalism, anti-immigrant chauvinism and populist dog-whistling, has no concern for ordinary people in New Caledonia or anywhere else. His principal mission is to fully integrate New Zealand into the expanding US-led military alliance in the Indo-Pacific and prepare for war against China. To that end, he has conducted four tours of the Pacific since December to pull tiny Pacific nations into line.

There are also long-standing tensions between New Zealand and France, who have competing imperialist interest in the Pacific. In an act of state terrorism, in 1985 French secret service agents bombed and sank the Greenpeace ship Rainbow Warrior which was moored in Auckland Harbour, killing a crew member. The ship was preparing to protest a French nuclear test at Mururoa Atoll near Tahiti.

Peters, and no doubt all the local political elites are, above all, alarmed that Paris’s provocative handling of the crisis will exacerbate popular discontent across the region. The New Caledonia riots, which follow similar deadly outbreaks in Papua New Guinea in January and the Solomon Islands in 2021, have deeper roots than frustrations over independence.

Escalating economic and social tensions are fueling the crisis. As global nickel prices tumble, the territory’s crucial nickel mining and smelting industry is in turmoil, faced with increasing competition from emerging world producers such as Indonesia and China. Hundreds of jobs have already been axed with thousands more at risk. Clashes have previously erupted between security forces and workers opposed to a far-reaching restructuring of the industry being imposed from Paris.

The entire region is becoming a social tinderbox. Peters’ predecessor, Labour’s Nanaia Mahuta, in a July 2022 interview sounded alarm about unrest in the Pacific amid geo-strategic tensions. Pointing to the explosive movement of the working class and rural poor amid Sri Lanka’s social and economic breakdown, Mahuta urged that the “lessons” about the consequences of economic “vulnerability” had to be learned, and warned of the need to prepare for future military interventions.

New Caledonia is on the agenda of the PIF summit next month with the local powers, Australia and New Zealand, likely playing a key role in deliberations. In Paris, the pro-independence lobby will be seeking the support of the rightward-moving NFP for a negotiated “solution” to the crisis. Whatever the outcome, nothing will be done to alleviate the underlying social crisis that is fueling the ongoing rebellion.

German federal and state governments deport ever-increasing numbers of refugees

Tino Jacobson & Markus Salzmann

Germany’s federal and state governments drastically increased the number of deportations last year compared to 2022. The figures show what to make of the supposed “fight against the right” and the “firewall” against the extreme right wing, about which German establishment parties—from the conservative Christian Democrats (CDU/CSU) to the Left Party—regularly bluster: namely nothing. Especially in refugee policy, all parties represented in government are putting the politics of the fascists into practice, thereby fueling the rise of fascism throughout Europe.

Scholz: “We must finally deport more”—Olaf Scholz’s new toughness on refugee policy

In 2023, there were a total of 16,430 deportations from Germany. A year earlier, there were 12,945. So-called “voluntary departures” increased from 26,545 to 29,600 in the same period. This policy has further escalated in the current year. In the first quarter of 2024, 34 percent more deportations were carried out compared to the same period the prior year. From January to March 2024 there were 4,791 deportations, compared to 3,566 in the same period a year earlier.

The most common destination for deportations was North Macedonia, where 483 people (around 10 percent of the total) were sent. In this poor Balkan state, which is ruled by a thoroughly corrupt political caste, members of the Roma community in particular are severely discriminated against. Amnesty International’s 2022 report states that in North Macedonia, “Roma are subjected to derogatory language and systematic discrimination in housing and education, as well as in interactions with the police and in other areas of life.” The same applies to the eastern and south-eastern European states of Albania, Kosovo, Croatia and Slovakia. Roma are often “stateless” and lack identity papers, which results in further discrimination and harassment.

A shocking example was reported last year from North Macedonia. A Roma man died there after being denied important medical treatment because he lacked an identity card.

Turkey ranks as the second most common destination for deportation, with 449 cases (9.4 percent of the total) and Georgia third with 416 (8.7 percent). Afghanistan is in fourth place with 345 deportations (7.2 percent).

While politicians of all stripes never tire of denouncing the human rights situation in these countries when it serves the pursuit of imperialist interests, these conditions are completely ignored when it comes to deportations.

Turkey systematically violates the principle of non-refoulement and deports thousands of refugees to countries where the deported face a high risk of serious human rights violations.

The situation in Afghanistan is especially catastrophic for people deported from Germany. After years of war and occupation by NATO countries, the Islamist Taliban have been back in power for three years now. According to the German Federal Foreign Office (Auswärtiges Amt), “serious terrorist attacks” occur regularly. “There is also a risk of becoming a victim of kidnapping or arbitrary detention.”

In addition, the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development reports on its website that almost the entire population of Afghanistan (97 percent) is affected by extreme poverty. “Around 23.7 of the 40 million inhabitants are dependent on humanitarian aid in order to survive, and six million people are on the brink of famine. Millions of children are at risk of severe malnutrition and life-threatening diseases.”

There were 114 million refugees worldwide last year. Seven years ago, there were only half as many. The reason for the sharp increase in global refugee numbers is the many wars worldwide, which were provoked and caused primarily by the imperialist NATO states. The NATO war against Russia in Ukraine, the wars and crises in the Middle East and the war in Yemen, which has been ongoing for 10 years, are only the outstanding examples.

Since the start of the war in Ukraine in February 2022, around 1.1 million Ukrainians have fled to Germany. Around 400,000 of them are children and young people under the age of 16, as well as pensioners. Around 506,000 Ukrainians of working age in Germany receive citizen’s benefits. Only 187,000 are currently working in a regular job, which is mainly due to the restrictive laws and almost nonexistent integration measures.

“Over 90 percent of refugees in Germany want a job,” explains Kseniia Gatskova from the Institute for Employment Research. But 80 percent of Ukrainian citizens are women with children and no partner. There is not only a lack of language courses, but above all a lack of childcare.

While Ukrainian refugees were still much better off than other refugees at the start of the war, a vicious campaign is now also being waged against them. A few weeks ago, Alexander Dobrindt from the CSU demanded, in the style of the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD), that Ukrainian refugees should be deported to “safe” western Ukraine if they do not accept a job in Germany. Of course, western Ukraine is anything but safe. In addition, male Ukrainians of conscription age are being forcibly conscripted on the streets for the war. After massive Ukrainian battlefield losses in recent months, with an estimated 500,000 dead, the right-wing Zelensky regime needs fresh cannon fodder for the front.

Last fall, Federal Chancellor Olaf Scholz (Social Democrats, SPD) demanded on behalf of the coalition government of the SPD, Greens and liberals (FDP): “We must finally conduct deportation on a large scale.” This was implemented directly in the state government of the German capital, Berlin, where the CDU and SPD govern in coalition.

From the beginning of the year to the end of May, 477 people had been deported from Berlin, 123 of them to the Republic of Moldova and 60 to Georgia. Moldova and Georgia were declared “safe countries of origin” by the Bundestag (Federal Parliament) in November 2023. In Moldova, Roma are particularly affected by deportations. According to Amnesty International, they are at risk of “torture and other ill-treatment.” In addition, the healthcare and education system is not accessible to Roma in Moldova and violent attacks on Roma take place routinely, according to a UN report. Homosexuals are likewise persecuted. Overall, healthcare fees in Moldova are extremely high, which means that one in six households cannot afford them.

The European Union’s isolationist policy and the declaration of more and more countries as so-called “safe countries of origin” is intended to massively reduce the number of refugees and migrants living in Germany. In April, the reform of the Common European Asylum System (CEAS) was passed, effectively abolishing the right to asylum. As a result, refugees are forced to apply for asylum from outside mainland Europe, which is almost impossible to obtain.

The sealing off of borders against refugees has turned the EU into a deadly fortress and the Mediterranean into a mass grave. Since 2014, 30,000 refugees have lost their lives in those waters.