NO
TO THE ASSAULT OF THE TPP!
DEFEND
RED CHINA!
18-10-2015 – Thanks once
again to Wikileaks, the draft text of the notorious Trans Pacific Partnership
(TPP) has been released into the public domain.[1] The draft text contains a
vigorous assault on the general conditions and standard of living of working
people throughout the Asia-Pacific, as well as yet more potential destruction
of civil liberties and pathways to yet more desecration of the natural environment.
The TPP has been in discussion for six years, led by the world’s foremost
imperialist power – the US. The TPP contains a litany of attacks on working
people, courtesy of “free trade”. The TPP, if fully enacted, could:
1.
Undermine the ability of governments to spend
money on public health services.
2.
Undermine any environmental protections put
in place.
3.
Increase the off-shoring of jobs by reducing
barriers to relocating workplaces overseas.
4.
Further empower internet service providers to
police content posted by users.
5.
Dramatically increase the cost of
pharmaceuticals and essential medicines.
6.
Reduce the ability to put in place
regulations of the financial and banking sector.
7.
Reduce the quality of food safety standards
of imported food.
8.
Allow corporations to effectively sue
governments for restraint of trade.[2]
All of these things, and
much more, are possible under this mega free trade deal. However, this is not
just another free trade deal as such. The countries that make up the TPP give
the game away. The TPP is an agreement between the governments of the United
States, Australia, Brunei, Canada, Chile, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand,
Peru, Singapore and Vietnam – all countries of the “Pacific Rim”. All countries
that is, except China. How can there be a Pacific Rim without China? When
it is the target. The US “pivot to Asia” is the military wing of the
escalating confrontation with China, whereas the TPP is the economic wing. An
economic war, combined with a propaganda war can only presage a shooting war.
Why does Washington, and
therefore Canberra, recklessly pursue war with China? It’s not so much China
which is their concern – it’s Red China, i.e. socialist China. Virtually to a
man and woman, bourgeois academics, the corporate media and social democrats
label China as “capitalist”. The US and Western ruling classes are happy to go
along with this charade, in order to disorient “their own” working classes. But
it’s certainly not the way they act. They are aware, much as they don’t like to
admit it publicly, that Red China is indeed Red, and that Red China’s
powerhouse economy is propelling it to the status of world’s number one
superpower. China’s incredible economic growth over a 30 year period has left
the entire capitalist West in its wake. And even during the “global” financial
crisis, China’s economy continued to grow at least three times the rate of the
capitalist West, despite a marginal slowdown. You wouldn’t know this if you
read the West’s media – they try to paint the Chinese economy as if it is on
the verge of collapse. They wish!
The US rulers are desperate.
They know that the longer they allow Red China to continue to power along, with
its gigantic socialist state led economy lifting its own people out of poverty
AND effectively preventing a capitalist world from sliding deeper into
recession, the less chance they will have to reassert what dominance they may
once have had. China recently establishing the Asian Infrastructure Investment
Bank was another example of the increasing rise of Chinese superiority along
with waning US influence over the globe. In order to stop, or even slow down,
this process, the US rulers may be prepared to resort to full scale war. This
time, the US realises that it cannot wage a war (even economic, let alone a
shooting war) against China alone. So it ropes in its lackey allies into a
“free trade” agreement, while goading other toady countries to claim islands in
the South and East China Seas. It also sails its navy through both these seas,
claiming to stand for “navigational rights”. These hostile military moves are
couple with an intense anti-China propaganda campaign, whether over spurious
claims for Tibetans and Uighurs, “labour rights”, “human rights”, or just
straightforward anti-communism.
Working people here and
internationally need to not only resist the anti-China moves of their
respective rulers, but to act in solidarity with Red China. This does not mean
agreeing with all policies of the central government in Beijing. However, it
does mean defending China against all economic, military and propaganda
provocations. It is needless to say that a shooting war with China may very
easily escalate into a global conflagration, which will cause immense
suffering.
Many progressive minded
Australians have pointed out the potential damage to the interests of working
people that the TPP can do if fully implemented. Others decry the loss of
decision making power for the Australian parliament that the TPP engenders, and
state that we must act to ensure it is safeguarded. But since when has the
Australian parliament safeguarded the interests of working people? If anything,
this parliament has become ever more beholden to the very corporations we are
concerned about even before the TPP came into being! In addition, “our”
politicians are already in the process of abolishing democratic rights and
civil liberties, privatising health care, education, public transport, water
and electricity even without the TPP. Hence, all politicians, whether Labor, Liberal,
Green or National, need to be positioned such that it becomes politically
impossible for them to extend any support whatsoever for the TPP.
It should be noted that the
demand “Stop the TPP” falls short of the mark. It implies that capitalism can
be regulated to such an extent that it will provide a human existence for all –
but this is a fantasy. In order to actually stop the TPP, or stop any of its
effects, we have to take action which will directly counter the system. We can
do this by demanding not the regulation of the capitalist system, but that
which working people are entitled to. Such things include, but are not limited
to: permanent
jobs for all workers, a 35 hour work week, publicly funded health care,
education and basic services. If the top end of town respond by saying
this is impossible under our system, we should reply that we, the workers, will
replace it with a system which will. We can do this while defending Red China
against the barrage of “our own” imperialism. The struggle for a socially just
society can only succeed by allying ourselves with, not against, Red China. The
TPP is an attempt to reassert the predominance of global capitalism, with all
of the horrors this incurs for working people. It is our task to ensure this
attempt fails. For socialism in our time!
MARXIST-LENINIST GROUP (MLG)
PO Box 66 NUNDAH QLD 4012
www.ML-Group.blogspot.com.au
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