Germany: More than one-third of all students at acute risk of poverty

Ela Maartens

The already dramatic social plight of German students is growing worse. According to the latest figures from the German Federal Statistics Bureau, more than a third of all students were at risk of poverty in 2021. For students living alone or in a shared apartment, the percentage of students facing poverty reached a shockingly high 76.1 percent. Policymakers are leaving students in the cold.

Since the start of the coronavirus pandemic, many students have been laden not only with massive health risks, but also to financial burdens. According to a report by the charity organization Paritätischer Wohlfahrtsverband from May of this year, one in three German students lived below the poverty line in 2020. Inflation and skyrocketing energy prices—both consequences of NATO’s proxy war against Russia in Ukraine—are drastically exacerbating the situation.

All told, 37.9 percent of all students were at risk of poverty last year, according to the Federal Statistics Bureau. More than three-quarters of students who lived alone or with other students were considered vulnerable. The extent of student poverty becomes clear when compared with the population as a whole: The overall poverty rate in Germany is 15.8 percent.

But even these already dramatic figures do not reflect the full reality and are based on padded values presented by well-heeled EU bureaucrats. According to the European Union Statistics on Income and Living Conditions (EU-SILC), an unmarried individual is not considered at risk of poverty until he or she has less than €1,000 per month before taxes at his or her disposal.

The figures hardly begin to illustrate the dramatic impact that the massive increase in energy prices will have on students in the coming months. Two in five students (38.5 percent) were unable to finance a major unexpected expense in 2021. The same was true for 55.5 percent of students who do not live with relatives. Back payments for incidental expenses amounting to several thousand euro, which countless people face, will drag students into the financial abyss, even if they are spared other difficulties.

Student City in Munich [Photo: WSWS]

The disastrous housing situation that students face in almost every university city is likewise not reflected in the figures of the Federal Statistical Office. Rents are mostly unaffordable and rooms in student dormitories are few and far between. Overall, almost a quarter of all students are considered overburdened by monthly rents consuming over 30 percent of their meager income. Those who live alone or in a shared apartment are hit even harder, spending 56.6 percent, more than half of their monthly income, on rent.

The financial burden of the ever-escalating confrontation with Russia is not just being passed on by the federal government to workers and pensioners. It is also hitting students with full force. Last week, the government coalition committed a one-time energy supplement for students amounting to a pitiful €200. This sum was announced in September with a so-call relief package, for which a vote in the Bundestag (federal parliament) is still pending.

It is completely open as to when students will be able to apply for this “mercy money,” let alone receive it. Even the question of how the energy supplement can be requested is unresolved. If, contrary to expectations, a swift decision is made, this will not prevent countless students from falling into debt. In October, the Federal Statistical Office calculated a staggering 43 percent price increase for energy products compared to the same month last year. And there is no end in sight.

In response to the increasing social hardship suffered by students, especially since the start of the coronavirus pandemic, the maximum federal student loan (BaföG) was increased last July. But these adjustments are nothing more than a drop in the bucket: instead of €427, students receive a maximum of €452 per month. The rent subsidy was raised by a meager €35 to €360. Meanwhile, inflation is devouring these subsidies while students are still struggling through the complicated application process.

Furthermore, completely inadequate BAföG adjustments were concluded with regard to the allowances for parental income: the age limit was increased and the maximum family income for eligibility was raised.

Meanwhile, the disbursement of the €230 heating cost subsidy for BAföG recipients is barely moving forward. So far, only 40 percent of those entitled have received the payment, although it was announced in the summer to be automatically implemented. Meanwhile, a further subsidy of €345 concluded.

It is significant that, according to the report by the Paritätischer Wohlfahrtsverband, the number of BAföG recipients has continually decreased since 2012, while the number of students at risk of poverty has risen sharply, especially in the last two years. In 2010, 18.4 percent of students still received state support. Due to years in which no increase was made to adjust to the reality of life, the number dropped to 11.3 percent in 2020.

Students are being plunged ever deeper into social catastrophe by the ruling coalition of Social Democrats (SPD), the Greens and the liberal Free Democrats (FDP) with the support of all bourgeois parties and the unions.

According to the Paritätischer Wohlfahrtsverband, inflation and further increases in energy prices will have a massive impact on the educational opportunities for young people. Very few parents can afford to support their children financially during their studies, the study concluded. Andreas Aust, social policy officer at Paritätischer, told Deutsche Welle: “Those who are short of money will think twice and three times before sending their children to study under these conditions.”

While ever greater numbers of students, pensioners, workers and their families are suffering the consequences of the coronavirus pandemic and the war in Ukraine, the government decided in February to create a special fund for the German armed forces amounting to €100 billion. This week will see the second reading of the 2023 federal budget, which will also be dominated by the cost of military rearmament.

The population will have to bear the costs in two ways. On the one hand, every euro that flows into the military will be balanced by cuts in education, social services and health care. On the other hand, the ruling class continues to escalate the NATO proxy war in Ukraine against nuclear power Russia, which puts the existence of the entire human race at risk.

Germany’s coalition government adopts a budget for war and austerity

Johannes Stern

The 2023 budget passed in the German parliament on Friday is a declaration of war on working people. At its centre is a massive increase in military spending and extreme cuts in the areas of health, education, and social welfare.

In June, at the behest of the “traffic light” coalition of the Social Democrats (SPD), Liberal Democrats (FDP) and Greens, the Bundestag (federal parliament) passed funding for the “Special Assets of the Bundeswehr [Armed Services],” amounting to more than €100 billion, launching the largest rearmament offensive since the end of the Second World War. Now, the far-reaching consequences of renewed German militarism—initiated with the foreign policy shift in 2013/14 when the leading state representatives announced Germany’s return to an aggressive foreign and great power policy—are reflected in the budget.

The only expenditure that is increasing massively is military spending. A total of €58.6bn is budgeted for 2023—an increase of €8.2bn compared to last year; €8.5bn will come from the special fund, which is not officially part of the defence ministry budget. The additional money will be used, among other things, to purchase F35 combat aircraft, CH-47 heavy transport helicopters, Puma infantry fighting vehicles, four F126 frigates and personal protective equipment for soldiers.

In the coming years, the defence budget is then expected to increase even more. Defence Minister Christine Lambrecht (SPD) told the Bundestag that she was “very grateful” to have heard “from various sides here today that this budget will have to grow in the future.” She added cynically that the current increases were just enough to “make ends meet.”

Karsten Klein, who sits on the “Bundeswehr Special Assets” parliamentary committee for the FDP, clarified the sums involved. “€300 billion are being provided by this German Bundestag, by taxpayers, by the federal government to the defence ministry for arming and equipping our Bundeswehr, for the soldiers. €300 billion in this legislative period!”

In terms of annual budgets, this means that in 2024, 2025 and 2026 a yearly average of €80.5bn will flow into the military. And even that is only the beginning. The ruling class is pursuing the declared goal of making Germany once again the “leading military power” (Lambrecht) and the Bundeswehr “the best-equipped armed force in Europe” (Chancellor Olaf Scholz).

Chancellor Olaf Scholz (SPD) speaking in the Bundestag debate on 23 November 2022 [AP Photo/Markus Schreiber]

In his speech in the debate on Wednesday, Scholz gave an insight into the insane rearmament plans. He said the “special assets” funding would enable Germany “to organise an orderly, a sensible change of path. We will and want to spend 2 percent of economic output on the Bundeswehr,” he declared.

The ruling class is working to switch the economy towards armaments in order to implement the war course that has been decided—which is currently directed mainly against Russia. We must ensure “that the factories and the machines are acquired for the things that are newly created,” Scholz stated. It was a matter of “equipping the Bundeswehr in such a way that it will function for decades. That’s what the special fund is about: a long-term plan.”

This “long-term” rearmament goes hand in hand with historic attacks on the living standards of the working class. While energy prices are skyrocketing because of the NATO offensive against Russia, and the highest inflation rate in decades is already pushing millions into poverty, the costs of war are being passed on entirely to working people. Adjusted for inflation, these are the biggest cuts since the end of the Second World War.

In nominal terms, the total budget is down from €495.79bn last year to €476.29bn, a further drop of almost €20bn. In 2021, it had still amounted to €556.6bn. Next year’s planned new debt is only €45.61bn compared to €138.9bn in 2022.

Finance Minister Christian Lindner (FDP) boasted in the Bundestag that he had complied with the debt ceiling and held out the prospect of even more severe cuts in the future. With the current austerity budget, “budgetary normality has not yet been reached,” and it was “the claim of this coalition to return as quickly as possible to the principle that only what has previously been earned can be spent.” For 2024, with net borrowing of only €12.3bn, the budget is to fall by a further almost €53bn, to €423.7bn euros.

The biggest savings are in health. This year, the budget will be cut by almost €40bn (!) from €64.36 to €24.48bn—and that amid an ongoing pandemic, which has already cost more than 157,000 lives in Germany alone. Currently, more than 1,000 people are succumbing to the virus every week, even before the impending winter wave. The ruling class is reacting to this by ending the last remaining protective measures and almost completely cancelling the funds for fighting the pandemic.

Thus, the item for prevention and for health associations drops from €9.57bn to €2.59bn. The grants for the fight against COVID-19 included in this amount will only be €119.4 million (2022: €1.9bn). The vaccination campaign is also essentially discontinued. The “grants for the central procurement of vaccines against SARS-CoV-2” included in the budget will drop from €7.09bn last year to €3.02bn.

There are also severe cuts in all other areas of the already broken health system. For example, expenditure on “nursing care and other social security measures” will drop by more than €2bn from €3.28bn to €1.08bn.

The ailing education sector is also being cut. The education budget will officially increase by a measly €500 million to €21.46bn (2022: €20.89bn)—but adjusted for inflation, this means a massive reduction. At the same time, the education sector is increasingly being put at the service of war policy. For example, the budget includes €2.1 million for the establishment of a “Conflict Academy” at the Institute for Interdisciplinary Research on Conflict and Violence at Bielefeld University. In the coming budget years, millions more are to flow into this and similar projects.

The so-called “social reforms” that the coalition boasts about cannot hide the class character of the budget but underline it. The “citizen’s income,” also passed on Friday—with the votes of the Christian Democrats (CDU/CSU)—is nothing more than the hated “Hartz-IV” welfare payment system under a new name. The bulk of the so-called “aid money,” like Scholz’s €200bn defence umbrella, flows into the pockets of the big corporations and the super-rich, just like the coronavirus aid packages in 2020/21.

The whole “debate” in the Bundestag underscored that working people are confronted with a conspiracy of all the establishment parties. If there was criticism of the budget, it came essentially from the right. Representatives of the CDU/CSU and the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) complained that rearmament was not being pushed even faster.

Speakers for the Left Party also made clear that despite their hypocritical criticism of the defence budget, they stand behind militarisation. For example, Gesine Lötzsch, the Left Party’s representative on the “Bundeswehr Special Fund” committee, described “a well-equipped army for national defence” as “our constitutionally guaranteed view.” At the beginning of the week, Bodo Ramelow, the “left-wing” state prime minister of Thuringia and current chair of the Bundesrat (Upper Chamber of the federal parliament), had even spoken out in favour of arms deliveries to Ukraine and the reintroduction of compulsory military service.

The Left Party also criticised the domestic affairs budget from the right. This is even though it includes €1.8bn more than originally planned. Half of the expenditure is earmarked for the security authorities. The Federal Interior Ministry alone and its subordinate authorities, including the domestic Secret Service, will receive 1,607 additional posts.

This is obviously not enough for the Left Party. In her speech, Martina Renner, the party’s representative in the Domestic Affairs Committee, complained that “to date, the posts from the increase in the last budget have not been nearly filled.” There were “9,000 vacancies in the federal police alone.”

Hardly anything could better illustrate the right-wing bourgeois character of the Left Party than the call for more military and police. As the party of the state apparatus and upper middle class layers, the Left Party fears the growing opposition of workers and youth to capitalist war and austerity policies like the devil fears holy water. In the 2014 European elections, it had put up posters saying “Revolution—No thanks!” to signal to the ruling elites that it stands on their side when it comes to suppressing an independent working class movement.

Malaysian election presages deeper political crisis

Peter Symonds

Malaysia’s general election held on November 19 and the subsequent swearing-in of Anwar Ibrahim as the new prime minister last Thursday mark a further fracturing of the country’s political establishment and presage new political upheavals.

None of the three major electoral coalitions—Anwar’s Pakatan Harapan (PH), Perikatan Nasional (PN) and Barisan Nasional (BN)—obtained a parliamentary majority, leading to days of crass political horse-trading and closed-door discussions in ruling circles.

Malaysian opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim shows his ballot during the election at a polling station in Seberang Perai, Penang state, Malaysia, Saturday, Nov. 19, 2022. [AP Photo/Vincent Thian]

Anwar was finally installed by royal decree based on coalition agreements with BN and Gabungan Parti Sarawak—a party based in Borneo.

The extent of the political crisis is underscored by the fate of the right-wing United Malays National Organisation (UMNO), which, as the dominant party in BN alliance, had governed from 1957 to 2018 through a combination of electoral gerrymander, police state measures, control over the media and state apparatus, and the promotion of ethnic Malay chauvinism.

UMNO’s loss of power in the 2018 general election marked a political watershed and ushered in four years of turmoil. Anwar’s PH won the election in a cynical electoral pact with former prime minister Mahathir Mohammad who broke from UMNO accusing it of corruption, failing to sufficiently support ethnic Malays, and pandering to China.

The alliance was inherently unstable. Amid the 1998-99 Asian financial crisis, Mahathir as prime minister had broken with Anwar, then deputy prime minister and financial minister, over economic policy—Anwar pressed for the adoption of the IMF’s severe pro-market restructuring, which Mahathir rejected as it would devastate UMNO’s ethnic Malay business cronies. Mahathir expelled Anwar and his supporters, then had him arrested, beaten up and jailed on trumped up charges after Anwar initiated anti-government rallies.

Under the 2018 electoral pact, Mahathir was made prime minister even though his Bersatu party held a relatively small number of seats; he was meant to hand over the leadership to Anwar within two years—an agreement that was never going to be kept. Political intrigues came to a head in 2020 when the pact between PH and Bersatu fell apart—with Bersatu and several PH factions, including the Islamist Parti Islam se-Malaysia (PAS), joining with UMNO and its allies to form another unstable government with Bersatu’s Muhyiddin Yassin as prime minister.

The Bersatu-led regime imploded in 2021 amid soaring COVID-19 cases and a deep crisis of the health system, replaced by an equally unstable UMNO-led coalition with its leader Ismail Sabri Yaakob as prime minister. His calculation that UMNO would gain from an early snap election backfired badly—the party that ruled Malaysia for six decades with its BN allies was reduced to a rump of just 30 seats in the 222-seat parliament.

Nor did Anwar’s PH alliance make gains—in fact, it won just 82 seats, down from 100 in the 2018 election. Anwar sought to portray PH as a progressive alternative to UMNO and BN, opposing its anti-ethnic Chinese and anti-ethnic Indian discrimination, its police state measures and promoting a new inclusive, multi-cultural Malaysia to attract youth, in particular. This general election was the first in which 18-20 year-olds had a vote.

Nevertheless, Anwar willingness to ally with Malay-chauvinist parties—first the Islamist PAS, then Mahathir and now an open coalition with the widely despised UMNO—has severely tarnished this image. Indeed, its other coalition partner—Gabungan Parti Sarawak—was formed from UMNO allies in Sarawak after the 2018 defeat.

Anwar has been installed with the backing of significant sections of the ruling class amid the country’s mounting economic and social crisis. Malaysia’s economy is expected to grow by just 4 to 5 percent next year, compared with more than 7 percent in 2022. Moreover, it is just recovering from the economic impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, which in 2020 led to a huge 10 percent fall in economic growth to register negative 5.6 percent for the year.

As is the case around the world, inflation is hitting the working class hard with real wages falling. Despite government price subsidies, the cost of living increased by 4 percent in October. Food inflation, which hits the poorest layers of working people hardest, is significantly higher, reaching 7.1 percent in October. In 2022, according to one survey, salaries increased by just over 5 percent.

Official figures disguise the extent of the social crisis. Barjoyai Bardai, professor emeritus at Universiti Tun Abdul Razak, estimates that real inflation in Malaysia is 11 percent. Meanwhile, a survey by the consultancy ECA International expects salaries to rise by just 2.2 percent next year.

While reports of strikes and protests are limited, there are signs of growing social unrest. In July, hundreds of students protested demanding price controls and subsidies for food. Some reported skipping meals, with one telling Channel News Asia: “Our food security is threatened… I feel a bit frustrated to see how the government isn’t taking any action.”

In early August, thousands of food delivery riders held a 24-hour nation-wide strike to demand higher levels of compensation. In late August, the conservative Malaysian Trades Union Congress (MTUC) threatened to take action over the low wages and conditions of cleaners and security guards in schools and public buildings, reflecting far deeper underlying discontent.

In a bid to appeal to ethnic Malays, as well as to exploit widespread discontent over declining living conditions, Anwar told an election rally: “People say ‘Long live the Malays’ but majority Malays are poor and face hardship. Only those at the top enjoy a good life. I want to be a prime minister for everyone.”

In reality, the new government has no solution to the social crisis. Indeed, Anwar’s commitment to pro-market restructuring will impose new economic burdens on working people. Significantly, when Anwar’s selection as prime minister was announced, the Malaysian currency rallied by 1.8 percent and domestic share prices surged by 4 percent.

Geoffrey Williams, an economist at the Malaysia University of Science and Technology, told Al Jazeera he expects Anwar will run a pro-market administration, with cuts to welfare programs: “There will be fewer handout-based policies and more structured long-term solutions. I also think he will offer a very attractive prospective for international investors and financial markets.”

Insofar as Anwar’s PH addressed the issue of food inflation, its policies are pitched to big business, promising tax incentives for companies producing basic foods, and special grants and loans to increase the use of technology in the agricultural sector.

The COVID-19 pandemic, which led to the collapse of the Bersatu-led government last year, is again surging. According to the director-general of health, during the election campaign, there was an increase of more than 57 percent in new weekly cases from 16,917 in the last week of October to 26,616 in the first week of November. Several parliamentary candidates tested positive.

None of the parties supports a policy of elimination. On October 31, caretaker health minister Khairy Jamaluddin said mask wearing in crowded areas was “highly encouraged” but “still voluntary” despite a 14 per cent increase in the number of people being admitted to hospital in the space of one week.

The election manifestos of PH, as well as of its new ally BN, promised to increase public healthcare spending from the current 2.6 percent of GDP to 5 percent within five years. Neither explained how the doubling of public health spending would be funded.

The latest government headed by Anwar, which is riven with deep political differences, will be no more stable than any of the others over the past four years. Incapable of addressing the social needs of working people, it will undoubtedly begin to fracture—sooner, rather than later.

Waiting in the wings is the third electoral coalition, dominated by Bersatu and the right-wing Islamist PAS, that won 73 seats. PAS was the only party to make significant electoral gains, pushing its reactionary mix of Malay chauvinism and calls for sharia law. It has extended its influence from its largely rural strongholds in the east of the Malaysian peninsula to so-called liberal bastions in the west such as Penang, winning 49 seats compared to just 17 prior to the election.

The protests in China and the lifting of Zero-COVID

Evan Blake

Over the weekend, protests took place in several Chinese cities, with most centered among students on university campuses. Based on images posted on social media, these demonstrations do not appear to be massive. However, given the authoritarian character of the Xi Jinping regime, the protests are significant political events which certainly undermine the image of social stability and universal contentment that Xi sought to present at the recently concluded congress of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).

The actual scale and aims of the protests are obscured by the response of the Western media, which is using them as an occasion for propaganda against China’s Zero-COVID policy. For the last two years, it has demanded that China lift Zero-COVID regardless of how many millions would be killed or disabled by the virus. If its propaganda is to be believed, all of China is now begging to be infected with COVID-19.

Protesters clash with policemen during a protest in Beijing, Sunday, November 27, 2022. [AP Photo/Andy Wong]

There is no question that there is a serious social and political crisis in China, which is intensifying after the CCP issued its “Twenty Articles” on November 11, initiating a relaxation of the Zero-COVID policy. On Monday, China’s National Health Commission (NHC) reported 40,347 new COVID-19 cases, the fifth consecutive day of record infections in what has become the country’s most geographically widespread outbreak to date.

In response to this deepening public health crisis, local officials have implemented partial lockdowns and mass testing in some of the worst-affected districts in Beijing, Guangzhou, Chongqing and other cities, while stopping short of citywide lockdowns which have proven necessary to fully suppress viral transmission.

The weekend’s protests were prompted by a tragic fire that took place last Thursday at a high-rise apartment building in Urumqi, in Xinjiang province, which killed 10 people and injured nine.

The Western media and various commentators on Chinese social media assert that barricades set up due to lockdowns prevented firefighters from reaching the building in time. But these claims are contradicted by the fact that the obstructing bollards—vertical posts that serve as traffic barriers—were erected years before the pandemic. Claims that residents were not allowed to evacuate are also contradicted by videos showing residents fleeing the building. Moreover, the district where the fire took place was not under a strict lockdown at the time.

The tragic fire in Urumqi was clearly the result of inadequate fire safety within the building and poor urban planning which prevented the movement of firefighters, problems which exist in every major city internationally.

The weekend’s protesters were largely motivated by anger over the negligence of municipal authorities and sympathy for those who died in the Urumqi fire. It may well be the case that a section of the protesters—especially those with access to the Western media—actually believe that the Zero-COVID policy played a role in the disaster.

The restoration of capitalism has created an affluent middle-class social constituency, an important base of the CCP bureaucracy. This social layer is more likely to use virtual private networks or other methods to bypass China’s Great Firewall and access Western media and social media. Thus, for the past year they have been bombarded by the relentless propaganda claiming that “Omicron is mild,” that “if you’re vaccinated, catching COVID is now like the flu,” and above all the lie by US President Joe Biden that “the pandemic is over.”

However, it would be incorrect to accept the media’s portrayal of the protests as uniformly favoring the abandonment of anti-COVID measures and politically reactionary. Significantly, there have been multiple reports of students singing the “Internationale,” the socialist anthem of international working class solidarity.

But there is also anger among less affluent sections of the middle class as well as the working class, caused by the economic impacts of the CCP’s implementation of Zero-COVID. The government has provided virtually no financial assistance to workers during lockdowns, and recently began charging the population the cost of testing.

Last Tuesday, thousands of workers at the Foxconn sweatshop in Zhengzhou protested against their horrendous conditions and lack of pay. The facility, where up to 350,000 workers produce roughly half of the world’s Apple iPhones, has been under a closed-loop system since October due to a COVID-19 outbreak. In order to maintain production, workers have been confined in prison-like conditions at the factory instead of being sent home.

Workers clashing with security forces outside the iPhone factory in Zhengzhou, China. [Photo: @AnonymeCitoyen]

Contrary to its portrayal in the Western media, the protest outside Foxconn was not “anti-lockdown” or against Zero-COVID. Rather, in addition to demanding full pay, the workers, all of whom were wearing masks to prevent viral transmission, were also fighting for more regular COVID-19 testing and safer isolation and quarantine protocols.

Underlying the frustration driving the protests in China is the fact that any Zero-COVID policy applied exclusively to one country confronts insurmountable problems. There is no national solution to the pandemic, which is fundamentally a world problem that requires a globally coordinated response. In the absence of such a unified world movement, the public health and social crisis in China will only intensify in the coming weeks and months.

The greatest danger now confronts China’s elderly population, which remains the country’s least vaccinated age group, largely due to misconceptions about the vaccines and traditional Chinese medicine. According to the latest NHC data, fully 21 million Chinese people 60 years and older are entirely unvaccinated, and 21.5 million people above 80 years old have not received a necessary booster shot.

A study published in May estimated that the full lifting of Zero-COVID in China would kill upwards of 1.6 million people in the span of just six months. Since that time, vaccination rates have stalled and immunity has waned for most of the Chinese population, further elevating the dangers.

Beyond the immense risks facing the elderly, the entire Chinese population faces the threat of Long COVID, which can affect nearly every organ in the body. Throughout the world, tens of millions of people have been disabled by COVID-19, including fully vaccinated people. Studies have shown that one’s risk of developing Long COVID is only slightly reduced by vaccination, and that reinfections with new variants compound one’s risk of death and Long COVID, regardless of vaccination status.

Turkey continues bombing Kurdish forces in Syria, threatens ground invasion

Ulaş Ateşçi

After bombing Kurdish nationalist militias in northern Syria and Iraq last weekend, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has said a ground invasion is imminent. In recent days, more than 100 people have been detained in cities such as Istanbul and Diyarbakir for protesting against the cross-border attacks. Ankara claims its air strikes are retaliation for the November 13 terror attack in Istanbul, which killed six civilians.

A smoke rises from an oil depot struck by the Turkish air force near the town of Qamishli, Syria, Wednesday, Nov. 23, 2022. [AP Photo/Baderkhan Ahmad]

“While we will continue our air strikes without interruption, we will also get on the terrorists on the ground at the most appropriate time for us,” Erdogan said Wednesday. He announced plans to “close the entire southern borders from Hatay to Hakkari with a security strip,” hinting that he could extend Turkey’s occupation of areas in northern Syria, ongoing since 2016, to Iraq.

About possible invasion targets, Erdoğan said: “We have already created part of this strip with the cross-border operations we have carried out [in Syria]. We will take care of the rest step by step, starting with the sources of trouble like Tel Rifaat, Manbij, Kobani.”

A Turkish army offensive targeting Kurdish forces threatens to unleash large-scale conflict, displacing masses of people. The militias making up the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) reportedly control around 100,000 fighters.

Last Sunday, Turkish Defense Minister Hulusi Akar said, “Air Operation Claw-Sword was successfully carried out, [with] all aircraft returned safely to their bases after the operation.”

However, after two civilians, including a child, were killed on Monday in rocket attacks from northern Syria on the Karkamis district of Gaziantep, inside Turkey, the Erdoğan government again bombed and shelled YPG-SDF positions. Ankara blamed Kurdish forces for the rocket attacks. Kurdish forces denied this, however, asserting that like the Istanbul bombing, it was carried out by Turkish-controlled Islamist forces.

The opposing sides made conflicting statements about the air strikes. While Turkish officials claim to have killed “326 terrorists,” the SDF claimed 12 Turkish soldiers and eight Islamist fighters were killed in “legitimate defense” operations. At least 11 civilians, including a journalist, have also reportedly died.

The London-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) said Turkish air strikes have killed 45, including eight more SDF fighters yesterday. It said 18 of the dead were Syrian government soldiers. Syrian troops have reportedly deployed to SDF-held areas in recent months, with Russian backing, amid talks between the SDF and Damascus.

SOHR and Kurdish sources said airstrikes hit the area around Al-Hol in northeastern Syria, where they claim “ISIS families are present.” According to a recent UN report, “50 percent of Al-Hol’s total population (currently about 56,000 individuals) is under the age of 12. They find themselves deprived of their rights, vulnerable and marginalized.”

These conflicts are the product of the 11-year proxy war waged in Syria by the NATO powers, led by Washington. Initially, amid working class uprisings in Egypt and Tunisia in 2011, they armed Al Qaeda-linked militias in Syria to topple President Bashar al-Assad. When the Islamist ISIS militia then emerged in Syria and invaded Iraq, the NATO powers launched a “war on ISIS,” making the SDF in Syria based around the Kurdish-nationalist People’s Protection Units (YPG) their main proxies.

The Turkish bourgeoisie was dismayed by the rising influence of the YPG and the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), fearing Kurdish nationalist sentiment in Turkey itself. In recent years, it has launched repeated cross-border attacks on Kurdish nationalist forces in Syria and Iraq.

This conflict is now even more explosive due to the NATO war on Russia in Ukraine in which Turkey has tried to mediate, given its strong ties to both Russia and Ukraine.

Now, maneuvering between Washington and Moscow, Erdoğan aims to get a green light to invade Syria and attack US-backed Kurdish forces—both from Washington, his NATO ally, and from Moscow and Tehran, who back Assad. Ankara has threatened to veto Sweden and Finland’s NATO membership if NATO does not give it a free hand in Syria and Iraq. It is also trying to normalize relations with Assad after working for years to destroy his regime.

Washington, which already abandoned its Kurdish allies to a Turkish invasion in 2019, has criticized Erdoğan’s offensive. Today, there are around 900 US troops and several US bases in northeastern Syria in YPG-held areas, which Ankara sees as a major threat.

On Wednesday, the Pentagon expressed its “concerns” over “escalating actions in northern Syria, Iraq, and Turkey. This escalation threatens the Global Coalition to Defeat ISIS’s years-long progress to degrade and defeat ISIS. … Recent air strikes in Syria directly threatened the safety of US personnel who are working in Syria with local partners to defeat ISIS and maintain custody of more than 10,000 ISIS detainees. Moreover, uncoordinated military actions threaten Iraq’s sovereignty.”

Turkish attacks also threaten Russian troops in Syria. According to the Syrian Kurdish-nationalist ANHA news agency, Turkish strikes hit a location in Syria’s Tal Tamr district, killing two SDF fighters and narrowly missing Russian troops who had left shortly before.

On Thursday, Russian Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said, “We understand Turkey’s concerns about threats to its national security, but at the same time we believe that a ground operation on Syrian territory will only escalate tensions in the region and lead to an increase in terrorist activity.”

According to AP reports, Erdoğan also wrote to Assad, calling “for the return of the Syrian army to areas now controlled by the Kurds, for action to prevent Kurdish fighters from using Syrian gas and oil, and for Syrian refugees in Turkey to be returned to Syria.” Erdoğan reportedly declared he was ready to send envoys to Damascus. Assad, however, rejected this, proposing to meet in a third country.

Kurdish-nationalist forces continue to emphatically reject Ankara’s claim that they carried out the Istanbul attack, which it uses to justify its offensive. SDF leader Mazlum Abdi told Al Monitor, “I believe [the terror attack] was an act of provocation that was conceived by the Turkish government in order to lay the ground for the war against us.”

Abdi blamed the attack on “Syrian opposition groups operating under Turkey’s control.” He said three brothers of Ahlam Albashir, who was arrested for planting the bomb in Istanbul, died fighting for ISIS, and that, “Another brother is a commander in the Turkish-backed Syrian opposition in Afrin.” Albashir, whose testimony was leaked to Turkish pro-government media, allegedly identified her brother Mohamed as a “senior commander in the Free Syrian Army,” a Turkish-backed Islamist militia. However, she also reportedly claimed to be affiliated to the YPG.

Abdi also linked Erdoğan’s launching of the attacks to the Turkish 2023 elections, stating: “But most immediately there is the question of elections in Turkey. … Erdoğan and his government are laying the ground, setting the public mood for the forthcoming elections.”

Abdi underlined the Kurdish nationalists’ willingness to deal with Ankara, claiming Erdoğan had “two paths” ahead of him: “He can either reach an agreement with the Kurdish movement, and that would give him an edge in the elections, or ignite a war. They’ve chosen war.”

The Kurdish nationalists have, however, no perspective for stopping the bloodshed. Ahmet Karamus, co-president of the Kurdistan National Congress (KNK), has said, “We call on NATO, the US, Russia and the European Union to fulfill their promises and agreements to the Kurdish people and not to remain silent.” Such impotent appeals to the US-led NATO powers, which over 30 years have killed millions in the Middle East in wars of plunder, expose the bankruptcy of Kurdish nationalism.

China tallies three consecutive days of record COVID-19 infections

Benjamin Mateus

On Thursday, Friday and Saturday, China’s National Health Commission (NHC) reported three consecutive record numbers of COVID-19 infections, 32,943, 31,656, and 35,183, respectively. The outbreak is the most geographically widespread to date, with five provinces—Guangdong, Chongqing, Beijing, Sichuan and Hebei—reporting over 1,000 daily new cases on Friday and Saturday, and eight other provinces reporting over 500 new cases.

[Photo by Our World In Data / CC BY 4.0]

Guangdong province in the Southeast is at the epicenter of the current outbreak, with 8,476 COVID cases reported Friday, followed by Chongqing with 6,500, Hebei with 3,375, Beijing with 1,860, and Sichuan with 1,310.

Rather than implementing full-scale lockdowns and mass testing of the population to bring the rapid, multi-city rise in cases under control, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) is waffling and demonstrably unsure of how to proceed as they employ halfhearted mitigation measures by way of reaction rather than a more deeply considered public health approach.

For instance, the five-day lockdown in Guangzhou’s most populous district of Baiyun will do little to stem the tide of infections. It will promote locals’ distrust and suspicion of public health authorities and exacerbate future efforts to implement infection controls. Implementing the Zero-COVID measures necessary to save lives and well-being requires a whole-of-society approach based on clear communication and the deployment of resources to protect the population.

In Chongqing, resources are already being overwhelmed, with the region’s 41,000 quarantine beds already filled with patients. The Deputy Director of the Chongqing Health Commission told reporters that the municipality is hurrying to construct new facilities that can hold close to 50,000 more people, with over 5,000 construction workers now laboring around the clock to complete the centers in five days.

In China’s capital city of Beijing, health authorities have shifted to haphazardly introducing modified lockdown measures, causing disarray and panic across the sprawling urban center of more than 22 million people. Health authorities are asking residents to voluntarily stay in their apartment compounds for a few days, while the number of businesses being forced to close their activities is growing.

Panic buying has once again left many supermarket shelves empty as families try to stock their pantries, unsure if the measures being implemented will take on a protracted character. Improvised quarantine centers and field hospitals are now under construction, while many schools have shifted to online classes.

The current surge in cases across China proves that attempting to compromise with the Zero-COVID public health stance can only lead to disastrous results.

The bankrupt “Twenty Articles,” which attempt to balance economic prerogatives with the relaxation of public health measures at the core of Zero-COVID, was a doomed strategy at its conception. This is quickly being demonstrated on a day-to-day basis as COVID-19 infections continue to spread along with protests and opposition to the relaxations of pandemic measures.

As one resident in Shijiazhuang wrote on social media after authorities canceled regular PCR testing, “It is absurd and irresponsible to suddenly relax all measures when the number of infections is rising rapidly. This is by no means scientific.”

There is growing mistrust of health authorities attempting to downplay the risks of infections and shifting the burden of responsibility onto individuals, while at the same time claiming they are not relaxing Zero-COVID.

To place the current public health crises in perspective, vaccination rates must be assessed.

According to Our World in Data, an astounding 1.27 billion people (89 percent of China’s population) have completed the initial two-dose vaccine protocol. Around 3.44 billion COVID-19 vaccines have been administered since the vaccination campaign. However, China had delivered 3.3 billion vaccines by April 12, 2022, meaning that nearly the entire population received their last dose more than seven months ago.

[Photo by Our World In Data / CC BY 4.0]

As of November 24, 2022, cumulative COVID-19 cases in China have reached a mere 1.38 million, the lowest per capita infection rate of any country with over 1 million population. Given that China is home to 1.412 billion people, only 0.1 percent of the population has been previously infected and 99.9 remain immunologically naive from prior infection.

A recent study found that the current iteration of Omicron subvariants demonstrate near complete immune evasion against antibodies generated by people who received at least three doses of the Sinovac COVID vaccine, the most common vaccine in China, meaning that virtually the entire Chinese population is at risk of infection with COVID-19. Sinovac has also been shown to provide less protection against hospitalization and death than mRNA vaccines.

The situation is most precarious for the elderly. According to data from Statista, by mid-March 2022 only 51 percent of Chinese people 80 years and older had completed their initial vaccine series and only 20 percent had received a third dose. For the 70-79 age bracket, 82 percent had completed their two-dose series and less than half were boosted, while those in the 60-69 age bracket were only slightly better off. In an article Friday, TheWashington Post noted, “ Just 40 percent of Chinese older than 80 have received a booster shot,” adding, “Among people older than 60, two-thirds have gotten a booster.”

The increasingly precarious situation in China is viewed as a positive good by the imperialist powers and their corporate media, which have continuously demanded the lifting of Zero-COVID in order to fully restore capitalist production and the exploitation of the Chinese working class.

The same Post article begins by stating, “A coronavirus outbreak on the verge of being China’s biggest of the pandemic has exposed a critical flaw in Beijing’s ‘zero COVID’ strategy: a vast population without natural immunity. After months with only occasional hot spots in the country, most of its 1.4 billion people have never been exposed to the virus.”

They chide the Chinese authorities for prioritizing containment and elimination over diverting resources to building their health care system and developing their intensive care capacity, while having the audacity to promote the reactionary, unscientific claim that China would have done well to allow a “degree of community transmission” to raise population immunity. This is, in essence, the “Focused Protection” nonsense of the Great Barrington Declaration.

Viral evolution towards more immune-evading and contagious strains has proven again and again the bankruptcy of the “herd immunity” policy which the Post and the financial markets now demand be adopted in China. This criminal policy has led to the deaths of over 20 million people across the globe, including over 1.1 million just in the United States. It is a public health policy which is best described as “social murder” and the “normalization of death.”

The experience in Hong Kong in February is a stark reminder of the impact that a tsunami of COVID-19 infections will have on the population if China’s public health initiatives completely collapse. A modeling study published in the journal Nature in May looked at various mitigation scenarios if Zero-COVID was lifted, and found that hospitals and ICUs would be overwhelmed for several weeks. In a worst-case scenario, approximately 1.55 million people could perish, afflicting primarily the oldest and least vaccinated.

Nomura economist Lu Ting warned, “When the infection number quickly soars, it will be a big blow to the health care system, and the whole society. Large-scale infections will have a negative impact across consumption, production, and logistics.”

Goldman Sachs economists have estimated China will completely reopen by second quarter of next year if not sooner, writing, “The Chinese economy is likely a distinct ‘two halves’ next year, as the initial stage of China’s reopening may be negative to growth, with COVID cases surging and population mobility temporarily declining—similar to the reopening experiences of several other East Asian economies.”

However, Zhang Zhiwei, chief economist at Pinpoint Asset management, offered an alternative hypothesis. He said, “If [the exit from zero-COVID] is relatively slow, or the policy goes back and forth, there is a huge question mark over whether an economic recovery will be achieved in the second half.”

This week, Jörg Wuttke, president of the European Union Chamber of Commerce in China, wrote a letter to Beijing’s acting mayor Yin Yong demanding to know why the city has implemented a limited partial lockdown. He wrote, “A lack of adequate preparation has resulted in district governments and/or communities managing the recent outbreak in the same way as they did previously, by locking down businesses—with several having been mandatorily closed despite not being in a high-risk area—residences and other public venues.”

He then threatened, “This is very concerning, given that Shanghai’s experience from earlier this year has shown that after long-term lockdowns, many foreign nationals are likely to leave China. This would be detrimental to Beijing’s goal of developing into an international city.”

While the financial elite demand that China lift Zero-COVID in one fell swoop, the CCP seeks to do so more gradually. Under either scenario, the impacts of the abandonment of Zero-COVID on the health of the Chinese working class would be catastrophic and must be opposed.

The German government’s Citizen’s Income: Hartz IV poverty gets a new name

Carola Kleinert

Germany’s new “Citizen’s Income”—according to Federal Labour Minister Hubertus Heil (SPD), the “biggest social reform in 20 years”—will only increase the abject poverty of the current 5.3 million recipients of Hartz IV social security payments. The new system is due to come into force on January 1, 2023.

In November last year the agreement to form the current coalition government, headed by the Social Democratic Party (SPD) and including the Greens and the neoliberal Free Democratic Party, had already presented plans for an expansion of the country’s low-wage sector and the expansion of methods aimed at forcing workers into precarious employment.

Food bank in Munich [Photo: WSWS]

Now, within the space of just three days, the coalition in Berlin has reached an agreement with the conservative CDU/CSU opposition to tighten up its own draft for a citizen’s income. At the start of this week the mediation committee of the two houses of parliament, Bundesrat and Bundestag, approved the new draft. The final vote took place on Friday in the Bundesrat.

The new agreement includes all the demands raised by the CDU and CSU (known collectively as the Union).

The most important change is the complete abolition of the so-called six-month “trust period.” The latter had been sharply attacked by the Union parties and the far-right Alternative for Germany, AfD. The “trust period” paves the way for an “unconditional basic income,” ranted CDU leader Friedrich Merz in chorus with his like-minded colleagues from the CSU and AfD.

In reality, the “trust period” would only have protected citizen’s income recipients from overly aggressive sanctions during the first six months of payment. In recent weeks, the members of the ruling coalition had repeatedly emphasised that sanctions could also be imposed during the “period of trust.”

In addition, the originally planned “waiting period” of two years and the amount of savings recipients could retain have been cut considerably: benefit recipients must now move into a smaller flat after one year, and the amount of their personal savings (which may not be offset against benefits by the Job Centre) will be reduced to €40,000 (originally €60,000) and €15,000 for each additional person belonging to the household (originally €30,000).

“We have approached each other in order to advance the matter without giving up the core of the citizen’s income,” it was a “workable compromise,” claimed Katja Mast, secretary of the SPD parliamentary group. Britta Hasselmann, parliamentary party leader of the Greens, also declared that the core of the reform was not to impel people into “any job,” but rather into permanent employment based on qualifications.

In this week’s general debate in the Bundestag, Chancellor Olaf Scholz (SPD) praised the new citizen’s income draft as a “consensual solution,” “a good one by the way,” which offered “ways out of long-term unemployment, out of unskilled jobs and into the labour market.”

The speed with which the ruling coalition has complied with the Union’s demands underlines that it was never their intention to relax the existing Hartz IV sanctions regime—introduced back in 2005 by the SPD-Green coalition headed by Gerhard Schröder—with the new citizen’s income.

With their Agenda 2010 program the former SPD-Green coalition organised the greatest redistribution in favour of the rich in Germany’s post war history. The current chancellor Olaf Scholz (SPD) and his coalition partners are continuing this redistribution with the support of the Left Party and the trade unions.

On Tuesday, even CDU leader Friedrich Merz expressed surprise at the quick success of negotiations behind closed doors: “The coalition was very quick and—to my surprise—largely willing to make compromises.” Alexander Dobrindt, CSU state group leader, was also pleased: “We have been able to eliminate serious systemic errors in the Hartz IV update.”

Even after Merz and CSU leader Markus Söder commenced a vile campaign against the unemployed and migrants who allegedly would have it cushy at home in the planned “social hammock,” German Labour Minister Hubertus Heil (SPD) promised to accommodate the Union’s demands.

The result is Hartz IV with a new name! With the new Citizen’s Income, the government, in cooperation with the opposition parties and the trade unions, is opening up another frontal attack on the living standards of the working class.

Poverty researcher Christoph Butterwegge has called the draft bill a “ruinous reform,” while those affected refer to it as “Citizenhartz.” According to Butterwegge, “more than two thirds of current Hartz IV recipients … will not feel any benefit from the minor relief, which only apply to “new customers of the job centres.”

The planned increase in the standard rate of €50 on average for an adult beneficiary cannot even begin to cover actual needs in view of exploding food prices.

The possibility of sanctions from the first day of entitlement to the citizen’s income means that the unemployed will be quickly forced into precarious, poorly paid jobs—as has been the case up to now. The planned de-restriction of the “social labour market” is also intended to accelerate the placement of the unemployed in low-paid jobs. Claims by the Rhineland-Palatinate Minister of Social Affairs Alexander Schweitzer (SPD) that “further training has priority over placement” and that sanctions for the citizen’s income, in contrast to Hartz IV, are “no longer essential,” are merely window dressing.

“If this compromise becomes reality, Hartz IV will remain Hartz IV,” stated Ulrich Schneider, head of the charity organisation Paritätischer Gesamtverband. “Sanctions against families who already have hardly any money for food and clothing are unacceptable,” declared Eric Grosshaus from the children’s rights organisation Save the Children Germany.

The Left Party is playing a particularly despicable role in the Citizens’ Income debate. The Left Party approved the original reform draft in the Bundestag and also campaigned for the bill in the Bundesrat last Friday.

The head of chancellery for the state of Thuringia, Benjamin-Immanuel Hoff (Left Party), said of the marginal increase in the standard rate: “We as the Left could have imagined much more than what the Citizen’s Income offers.” But “with the Citizen’s Income, we are developing Hartz IV in a positive direction.”

The Berlin social senator Katja Kipping (Left Party) has called the revised draft a “deterioration on all points,” but her “indignation” cannot hide the fact that, in those states where the Left Party is part of the administration, it is complicit in massive attacks on the living standards of the working class.

The 2023 budget bill, which will be passed in the Bundestag on Friday together with the Citizen’s Income Bill in the Bundesrat, will continue to protect the fortunes and incomes of the super-rich. The profiteers from the pandemic, the energy crisis and the Ukraine war will continue to enjoy favoured status and will not be taxed more heavily. Instead, social and health spending will be reduced or remain far behind the rate of inflation. At the same time, the military budget is to be massively increased.

The new Citizen’s Income will ensure that the costs of the billions in bailouts to the economic and financial elite, the economic consequences of the NATO war against Russia and the extra €100 billion for the rearmament of the Bundeswehr are all passed on to the working class.