28/11/2022.
Baile Átha Cliath.
Over the last week, the ruling “Communist” Party of China has been rattled by waves of protests against corruption, revisionism, inadequate pay, sweatshop conditions, and a fresh wave of overbearing zero-COVID policies. Over 20,000 factory workers in an iPhone production plant Zhengzhou sparked the flame, clashing dramatically with police and private security forces on November 24th. Moments posted on Chinese social media platforms such as TikTok depict hordes of striking workers defending themselves from riot police with barricades and poles, and the disgraceful brutality of the security forces kicking them and even hitting them with steel rods. Coinciding with having to stay on-site for 5 days due to a fresh lockdown, the workers were demanding pay packages which they had been promised by the factory’s owner, Foxconn, otherwise known as the Hon Hai Technology Group. Foxconn eventually released an “apology” promising to pay the workers 8,000 yuan for quitting and leaving the factory. Despite even Foxconn admitting its fault in the matter, the slavish local government of Zhengzhou has done nothing to enforce the workers’ rights to the full benefit of their bonus or any protection for their employment, instead choosing to hysterically divert armies of police and security thugs to defend Taiwan-based Foxconn’s property.
With Zhengzhou under total lockdown and many workers without pay, discontent quickly spread throughout other urban centers of China affected by the excessive zero-COVID policies. People across the country have suffered from curfews, the inability to leave their dwellings or workplaces, lack of pay or compensation, and heavy restrictions on leaving their cities. While Socialist Republicans obviously support working to prevent the spread of the deadly disease, the approach of the Chinese government and its police forces has more or less devolved into purely irresponsible brutal repression. This attitude of not considering any of the peoples’ interests and enforcing laws through brute force rather than education and collective democracy was dubbed “commandism” by the original Chinese revolutionary leader Chairman Mao Zedong, who referred to this phenomenon as a “disease” in the Communist Party of China. With commandism long having taken hold, the revisionist government of Xi Jinping has long abandoned the ideals of the Chinese Revolution and Mao Zedong. Video evidence of Chinese police enforcing heavy handed zero-COVID measures through brutal beatings lie in sharp contrast to the democratically run factories and communes of Maoist China, where workers and peasants experimented with their own policies which were decided on through open and equal discussion.
Within days nearly every major urban center in China was rattled by protests carried out by both workers and radical bodies of students. A fire in Urumqi in a building under harsh lockdown measures which killed 10, and a factory fire in the “high tech zone” of Anyang which killed 38 contributed to the growing anger directed at the government. As of writing, large protests have broken out in Beijing, Wuhan, Shanghai, Nanjing, Chengdu, Chongqing, and Qingdao, along with many over smaller demonstrations in various cities and universities nationwide. Arbitrary arrests, police brutality, private heavies and plain-clothes thugs, desperate attempts at censorship, and total radio silence over state media are being employed by the government and their loyal investors to curtail the protests. One man was filmed being dragged into a police vehicle seemingly for holding a bundle of flowers, while surrounding crowds chanted for his release. In other videos, entire major streets have been taken up by running brawls between security thugs and protesters, with CCTV cameras being destroyed using long sticks and police vehicles being upturned. The size of the movement is impossible to estimate.
Of course, Brit and yank media has hypocritically spun this news story for its own ends, focusing in on pro-West narratives and attempting to involve themselves to push their own agendas. A hyper focus on the story as solely revolving around the Chinese peoples’ supposed desire for “Western values” has been used by Western imperialist media to attempt to demonise one imperialist rival in favor of their own. However, this pathetic hijacking has largely been rejected. Protesters have argued that harsh media restrictions in China have prevented them from being influenced by foreign forces in the first place. Another crowd of protesters from a Chinese university cheered when a speaker, being questioned over foreign influence, declared that his only foreign influence was “Marx and Engels”. Such incidents are flooding Chinese-speaking social media platforms. Overall, the West’s attempts to get a foot in the door have seemingly only been able to get attention from a tiny minority of the protesters. This makes sense, since after all, the anger began over a factory which produced goods for an American company, like thousands of other sweatshops throughout China serving Brit, European, Japanese and yankee investors. Pro-imperialist Brits and yanks have no place meddling in China’s affairs.
Videos and photographs have depicted portraits and quotations of Chairman Mao and other revolutionary slogans being displayed in the protests, calling back to the revolutionary spirit of the Chinese and their proud history and tradition of struggle for genuine liberation. Slogans such as “Workers of the world, unite!” have been seen painted on walls and posts, and crowds of students in Beijing have been caught on video chanting “Don’t be a revisionist!”. This draws up images of the brave generation of the Cultural Revolution, who rebelled against beaurocrats rooted in then-revolutionary Communist Party in 1966. If Mao could see the new generation of Chinese students and sweatshop workers risking their lives to keep the flame of resistance lit, he would be proud. After all it was Mao who urged future generations to overthrow any capitalist hijackers should they take power in China. “Never forget class struggle. Carry through the revolution until the end.”
Socialist Republicans supported and called for an adequete response to the COVID-19 pandemic, which both the governments of the Free State and Occupied 6 Counties have dragged their feet on, having given little notice to the calls for better resources and action by frontline healthcare workers. The half-hearted efforts of the colonial and semi-colonial governments in Ireland and the extreme excesses of the government of China both hinge on the same main problem: a small ruling class prioritising profit over the livelihoods of the people they supposedly represent. Whether this means underfunding health services or locking workers in, both ruling classes aim to avoid the costs of providing proper support to those impacted by the pandemic. As such, the protests seen in the Chinese cities, broad and varied in nature, ultimately stem from a genuine and just concern. Socialist Republicans in Ireland have always sympathized with the struggle of the Chinese people for socialism, whether waged against colonial oppressors or corrupt capitalist politicians and oppressive sweatshop profiteers. Ever since the brutal repression of the people’s communes and students during the capitalist Deng Xiaoping government the revisionists have long believed that they buried this spirit decades ago, turning China from a beacon of hope for the world into an imperialist power ruled by a millionaire’s club. But as Volunteer Bobby Sands pointed out in his poem “Rhythm of Time”, the spirit for freedom, whether in the National Liberation struggle in Ireland or the struggle for the restoration of socialism in China, is unkillable.
It is found in every light of hope,
It knows no bounds nor space
It has risen in red and black and white,
It is there in every race.
It lies in the hearts of heroes dead,
It screams in tyrants’ eyes,
It has reached the peak of mountains high,
It comes searing ‘cross the skies.
It lights the dark of this prison cell,
It thunders forth its might,
It is ‘the undauntable thought’, my friend,
That thought that says ‘I’m right!’