China

En el reciente decimonoveno Congreso del Partido Comunista Chino, celebrado del 18 al 24 de octubre en Beijing, Xi Jinping aprovechó la oportunidad para hacerle saber al mundo que China es una "fuerza poderosa" que pronto recuperará su posición legítima, como el "Reino Medio", es decir, el centro de la humanidad. Sin embargo, detrás de todas las fanfarronadas, uno podría detectar inquietud ante la perspectiva de una creciente inestabilidad interna que fluye de la inminente crisis del capitalismo.

At the recent 19th Congress of the Chinese Communist Party, held on 18-24 October in Beijing, Xi Jinping took the opportunity to let the world know that China is a “mighty force” soon to reclaim its rightful position as the “Middle Kingdom”, i.e. the centre of humanity. Behind all the bluster, however, one could detect unease at the prospect of growing internal instability that flows from the impending crisis of capitalism.

On the afternoon of Thursday, June 15th local time, an explosion ravaged a nursery in XuZhou city, Jiangsu Province, causing massive deaths, injuries, and damages. The latest official police reports states that 8 people have died and 65 were injured, although many Chinese netizens suspect that this is an understated figure given the photos that were leaked to Chinese internet at the onset of the explosion, which were later removed at the direction of the government.

The China Pakistan Economic Corridor, or CPEC, has become the cornerstone of the state policy of Pakistan in recent years and all the politics and economics of the ruling class revolve around this project. The rulers are claiming that this corridor will bring prosperity and advancement in the country and that soon rivers of milk and honey will start flowing.

The crisis of capitalism in the West has taken centre stage, with the spectacle of Donald Trump's election, and Brexit. China has dropped out of the limelight, for the time being retaining a degree of stability. This at least is the message the party leadership would like to present.

This book is a comprehensive analysis of the revolutionary history of China, from the early 20th century to the present era of crisis, aided by a wealth of research which cuts across the many historical distortions both of bourgeois academia and of the Chinese Communist Party. The degeneration of the Chinese People’s Republic to capitalism has been a second rigorous practical test of Trotsky’s analyses. Has his prognosis that without a political revolution to overthrow the regime, a Stalinist bureaucratic state would return to capitalism, been proved correct?

Less than a quarter of an hour after opening, the Chinese stock market was closed by an automatic shutdown. This was triggered twice last week by rapid falls of more than 7%. This "circuit-breaker" mechanism was imposed by the government only 5 months ago after equally dramatic losses. The government has now suspended this measure, not from new-found confidence, but as a further turn of panic.

From 1937-45, China became one of the main theatres of the Second World War. This entangling of China in World War II raised the country out of its subjugation on the world stage, such that at the War’s conclusion China was given a permanent seat on the UN Security Council. Only 4 years later the immense Chinese revolution was finally completed, freeing China from imperialist domination. The war's violent dragging of China onto the world stage had effected a thoroughgoing internal transformation of China. In this article we examine the war and its effect on China, the role of the Chinese ruling class in the war, and the strategy and tactics of the Chinese Communist Party that led the

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The world economy is tottering. This week it has been buffeted by two extremely turbulent financial storms - Greece and, suddenly, China, the world’s second largest economy. Globally, the system is extremely unbalanced, with massive wealth accumulating in tiny handfuls whilst the billioned masses must keep borrowing from these billionaires to make ends meet. This top heavy, blind and irrational system cannot stand on its own feet and the nation states are buckling under the weight. The sudden stock market collapse in China has been so vast that even the mighty Chinese government is incapable of controlling it.

Thousands of protesters violently clashed with authorities last Saturday in Linshui County, located in eastern Sichuan province. The protesters demanded that a proposed high speed railway pass through Linshui. They were met with batons and rubber bullets, with hundreds reportedly being injured by the police and tactical units. The heavy handed response of the Chinese state to these protests reveals the instability and weakness of the regime.

Newly released figures show that the Chinese economy in 2014 experienced its lowest economic growth since 1990. Furthermore, the International Monetary Fund downgraded its 2015 growth projection for China from 7.1% to 6.8%. According to the Financial Times, 30 out of China’s 31 provinces had missed their growth targets for 2014 – the only one which didn’t was Tibet, by far the country’s smallest regional economy.

Despite all the Keynesian experiments and the monetary stimulus, China has failed to escape the global economic crisis. In 2014 its economic growth dropped to 7.4%, the weakest in 24 years. For the first time in 16 years growth missed the government’s annual target (7.5%).

Three years after the Occupy Wall Street Movement spread out from Manhattan to several major cities all over the world, the Occupy Central movement has begun, earlier than planned on 26th September, after a couple of years of discussions and demonstrations, with the declaration of an “era of civil disobedience”. Prior to this, students from 25 universities and various schools joined a one-week strike called by the Hong Kong Federation of Students on 22nd September, which served as the ‘final warning to the regime’.

Twenty-five years ago, on 4th June 1989, the Tian’anmen square movement was brutally smashed by the rifles and tanks of the Chinese troops. It was a heroic movement of the Chinese people in a struggle against the bureaucracy in general, and more specifically against the lack of democracy, corruption, and the negative impact of the market economic reforms.

Luxury goods brands such as Louis Vuitton, Remy Martin and Bentley have posted falls both in growth and profits in the recent period, down from record highs. That the sales of luxuries have been booming in a period of global recession for the past few years appears remarkable in itself. This contradictory phenomenon, and its more recent decline, gives an insight into one aspect of the capitalist crisis.

Six months into China’s new Politburo Standing Committee under Xi Jinping’s Presidency, it has become abundantly clear that the next ten years under his rule will not resemble the relative social stability and rapid growth of the past ten years. The cart will not keep on rolling down the same path.  Xi Jinping and the Chinese Communist Party stand at a crossroads, facing that classic dilemma of all ruling classes - either to open up to democratic reform or clamp down on growing dissent?