Asia

Since the collapse of Chinese real estate conglomerate Evergrande, the second-biggest economy in the world entered a slow-motion crisis that has expanded into other sectors. This crisis has now reached the sphere where the debts are issued: the banks.

“The darkness will pass, the red dawn is coming!” This fiery chant in Urdu rang out repeatedly from the hundreds of voices of Pakistani communists who assembled in Lahore on 2-3 March to participate in the congress of Lal Salaam. It was a weekend that combined joyous revolutionary optimism with intense fervour and solemn preparation for a new stage in the class war.

On 14 February, 200 million Indonesians took to the polls to vote for a new leader. Official results are due in March, but the latest counts project that Prabowo will become Indonesia’s next president in October. In an election that many pundits have deemed the dirtiest ever, the ex-general garnered 58 percent of the vote in just one round, defeating his two other rivals – Anies Baswedan and Ganjar Pranowo – by more than 30 percent. Prabowo ran as the direct successor to Jokowi and promised to continue his policy. In fact, he would not have won the election without the support of Jokowi, who had his eldest son, Gibran Rakabuming, as vice-presidential running mate.

Chinese New Year was supposed to be a joyous occasion, but this year, despite the lights and festivities, it was cold and gloomy, given the economic crisis eating into the living conditions of the working class. But amidst the melancholy, there was also a wave of workers' wage protests that are increasing in frequency and intensity.

Thousands of Indian dockworkers are refusing to assist in the transporting of Israeli arms. This tremendous example of working-class solidarity must be repeated across the world to effectively resist Israel’s slaughter!

The following is the preface to the 2023 Indonesian edition of the Manifesto of the Communist Party. The last Indonesian translation of the Manifesto was made in 1948, but unfortunately the quality of that edition is far from what this important document deserves. Furthermore, the 1948 edition was written in an Old Indonesian style. Meanwhile, the Indonesian language itself has developed a lot in the past 75 years. Therefore, there is a pressing need for a new translation that can explain more clearly the ideas contained in this brilliant work for the new generation of Communists. The new edition can be accessed at the ...

What is the role of China today? While some on the left have celebrated China’s ambitions as a counterweight to the United States, Jorge Martín explains that capitalism has long been restored in China, and today it has all the features of a rising imperialist power. ‘Multipolarity’ will not benefit the workers of the world, who must trust solely in their own strength to throw off the chains of imperialism and capitalism internationally.

With general elections planned on 8 February, the crisis and splits of Pakistan’s ruling class and state are intensifying, while attacks on workers, under the dictates of the IMF, are continuing and unemployment and inflation are rising at an unprecedented level. No political party participating in the coming general elections has solutions to any of the problems in this country, and all of the political parties represent merely different factions of the ruling class. 

It has been over two months since the Northern Alliance – which is made up of armed ethnic organisations, as well as the armed wing of the Burmese Communist Party – launched ‘Operation 1027’ in northern Shan State in Burma. Other resistance forces have also attacked junta bases in the states of Karenni, Rakhine, Chin, Karen, Sagaing Region and Bago Region. As events are unfolding rapidly in Burma, this article can only provide the latest verifiable information. However, all signs point towards one clear outcome: the end of General Min Aung Hliang’s government.

The world’s so-called “super election year”, in which over 50 countries are scheduled to go to the polls, has been inaugurated in Taiwan with a consequential presidential and legislative election. The ruling Democratic Progressive Party’s (DPP) candidate William Lai Ching-te prevailed, but the party lost its legislative majority and a significant amount of support. Against this backdrop, a new era of instability lies ahead for Taiwan and the security situation around East Asia.

The year 2023 is coming to an end. This year was by no means a good one for the working class in China. However, it has also been a year in which we’ve seen new hopes springing up as workers have moved towards class struggle.

On 2-3 December 2023, a nationwide Workers’ Socialist School was organised by the Red Workers’ Front (RWF) in Landhi Industrial Area, Karachi. A large number of workers from both the public and private sector industries, in Karachi and across the country, took part in this historic occasion. 

It has been two years since Myanmar’s military coup in 2021, which removed the bourgeois liberal government of Aung San Suu Kyi. The masses rose up heroically against the coup, but the liberals’ betrayal led to a painful defeat. Today, the coup regime is creating hellish, barbarous conditions. From the free-falling economy, out-of-control organised crime and human trafficking in the hundreds of thousands, to the trigger-happy junta regime that faces potential civil war, capitalism has furnished yet another bloody case proving the need for socialism.

Bangladesh, the eighth most populous country in the world, is being rocked by political and social upheaval. Opposition leaders have been arrested. Tens of thousands have clashed in the streets with police, leading to the deaths of two protestors.

Nagorno-Karabakh has been wiped off the map as what remained of the breakaway region surrendered to Azerbaijan’s troops on 20 September, after brief fighting that led to at least 200 ethnic Armenians being killed. According to the most recent reports, over 100,000 Armenians – almost the entire population – have now fled the region. The government of the enclave has declared that as of 1 January 2024 it will “cease to exist”.

Recent figures have shown youth unemployment in China now stands at over 20 percent – double its pre-pandemic level. When young people in China look around, we see a world filled with turmoil, suffering, and injustice. In our daily lives, we often feel immense tension, pressure, anxiety and pain. Young people might well ask ourselves: what has happened to our world? How did this happen? And most important of all: what must we do about it?

The announcement at the recent BRICS summit that this bloc of countries would be expanded to include six new countries generated a wave of optimistic, almost pious statements from prominent leaders of the Portuguese Communist Party (PCP), extolling the virtues of this enlarged group of countries from the so-called ‘Global South’.

Countrywide protests against extremely costly electricity have erupted in Pakistan during the past few weeks. The protest wave started in Pakistan-administered Kashmir, where students, workers, small traders, intellectuals, political activists and others organised large-scale public protests in various cities. This wave has now swept a nation that was already on the brink of an explosion.

The news that Evergrande has filed for bankruptcy protection in the United States has sounded the final death knell for China’s real estate industries. A series of corporate defaults, a recession in the real estate market, soaring unemployment and a rapid decline in people's consumption have debunked the ruling Communist Party of China (CCP) regime’s fraudulent claims of a “strong economic recovery” in China.