In the run-up to the arrival of
Chinese Pres. Hu Jintao in January, almost every mainstream U.S. political
figure, including several members of Obama’s cabinet, called for China to make
additional concessions to U.S. capitalism. In basketball terms, it was a
full-court press.
The U.S. government is presently
trying to tighten the screws on China from several angles.
For one, government officials
are hypocritically using the language of human rights and specifically the case
of Liu Xiaobo to hurt China’s image internationally. Xiaobo is a recent Nobel
Peace Prize award recipient who praised the war on Iraq as a step forward for
democracy and freedom. Xiaobo believes the People’s Republic of China should be
abolished, and has published essays praising the colonization of China as a “civilizing”
process.
While speaking vaguely about
U.S. policy toward China, in the same breath Secretary of State Hillary Clinton
unequivocally called for Xiaobo’s release. Congress passed by a 402-1 vote a
resolution denouncing China for his continued incarceration.
The U.S. government’s second
angle is Korea. Defense Secretary Robert Gates went to China just prior to Hu
Jintao’s visit to Washington to pressure the Chinese military to break from the
Democratic People’s Republic of Korea. He made provocative allusions to war against
the DPRK on Chinese soil.
A break between China and the
DPRK would help further isolate the DPRK and advance Washington’s goal of overthrowing
its government. Should Washington eventually succeed, that would not only be a
major blow to the North Korean people but also to China, which risks having North
Korea become a U.S. client state at its border.
Thirdly, Treasury Secretary
Timothy Geithner—a key engineer of the bank bailouts—has been openly
criticizing Chinese economic policy and demanding that U.S. corporations be
allowed to grab a larger share of the Chinese market from local Chinese
manufacturers.
On the day of Hu Jintao’s
arrival, Geithner said, “In this new global context, China’s principal economic
challenge is how it will manage the next stage in its transition from a
state-dominated developing economy, dependent on external demand and
technology, to a more market-oriented economy, with growth powered by domestic
demand and innovation.”
In laymen’s terms, Geithner
reinforced political pressure on the Chinese government to forego all remaining
control of the economy and leave the door open to exploitation and domination
by the global capitalist market, with U.S. corporations leading the pack.
Every major corporate newspaper
in the United States ran editorials condemning China. Thus, the Washington
summit itself was not an act of friendship, despite the appearance of civility.
It was a thinly veiled exercise in imperialist “diplomacy” or extreme pressure.
U.S. officials hopes an
appeasement wing of the Communist Party of China will conclude that they must
make heavy concessions to imperialism to de-escalate growing tensions. That is
what led to the unraveling of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, and it
is an example U.S. foreign policymakers hope to repeat.
China’s response
Chinese officials, of course,
know this. While Hu Jintao maintained a diplomatic posture toward the United
States—emphasizing growing cooperation between the two countries—he only gave
lip service to U.S. economic demands. On other issues like the DPRK, he gave
little or nothing.
There is a clear understanding
in China that U.S. diplomacy is covert support for counter-revolution and
destruction of the existing state.
Each year, China produces a
report on the human rights violations committed by the U.S. government. These
include the millions killed by the occupation in Iraq, domestic spying and the
prison-industrial complex to name a few. And yet, during his visit to the
United States, Hu Jintao did not mention any of these violations.
The Chinese media, however,
wrote a blistering attack against the “arrogance” of the U.S. Congress for its resolution
on Liu Xiaobo.
“The so-called resolution
approved by the U.S. House of Representatives disregards facts and distorts
truth, and is flagrant interference in China’s internal affairs,” said Chinese
Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Jiang Yu. “We urge relevant U.S. lawmakers to stop
their wrongdoing on this issue, change their arrogant and rude attitude and
show due respect for the Chinese people and China’s judicial sovereignty.”
The heart of the anti-China campaign
Despite the pro-capitalist
reforms initiated in China over the past three decades, it is not insignificant
that the government is still controlled by the Communist Party of China.
The CPC has a nation-building
approach, which—while facilitating foreign investment and exploitation of the workforce—also
sets careful limits and conditions for that investment.
The
CPC provides the Chinese working-class a level of protection against
super-exploitation, providing services and rights that would otherwise be
destroyed by a foreign-dominated “free market.” In recent labor disputes, the government has
shown its capacity to intervene on the side of the workers and support their
struggles for better wages.
Until U.S. banks and
corporations have free reign to exploit the entirety of the Chinese market and
workforce, they will not be satisfied. This requires regime change. That
remains their aim whether they are promoting diplomacy and cooperation or using
more hostile rhetoric. It is in this context that progressives in the United
States should put the growing chorus condemning China. The threats and
demonization against China are due to the fact that it has dared to
independently chart a path for its own economy.
