China–Laboratory for Marxist Crisis Theory

Where could such a theory–“impenetrably dense” as it may be–have a better proving ground than a nation governed with all of the meritocratic efficiency of Maoism and the compassion of a Mandarin landlord.

The Chinese people are awakening to the Communist Party’s transformation from jailer and executioner to jailer, executioner, and exploiter, with party bosses often ending up with controlling interests in the state-owned enterprises in their districts. Those bosses, without accountability to either voters or unions, are free to regulate the labor marketplace from which they profit with our dollars. Here is a country in dire need of a free labor movement. The government, however, is having none of it, having just blocked an OECD workers’ rights meeting in China. The Chinese people are increasingly turning to violence to express their frustration with a corrupt oligarchy. This Times of London report has an impressive chronology of large protests in China:

– In mid-November, at least one person was killed when tens of thousands of farmers in Sichuan protested against a dam project that will flood 100,000 people out of their homes

– The October issue of Trend Monthly reported that more than 100,000 coalminers and their families held a strike for a week in September in Anhui province, demanding job security and working accident compensation, and protesting against corruption, forced overtime, and arbitrary lay-offs

– On September 17 more than 20,000 citizens in Xuzhou City in Jiangsu province protested at the municipal offices of the Communist Party and government against official corruption, waste and power abuses

– In September nearly 50,000 unemployed workers and their families demonstrated against official corruption and job losses in the cities of Baoding and Tangshang in Hebei province

– In Henan and Jiangxi provinces, hundreds of thousands of farmers, some carrying spears and hunting rifles, have demonstrated against over-taxation and land-grabbing

– In Henan province, which borders southern Shanxi, at least seven people were killed and forty-two injured after a car accident involving ethnic Han Chinese and a member of the Hui Muslim minority sparked rioting in late October

– Protests last year rose 15 per cent from the previous year, according to Outlook, the Communist Party magazine.

Given the size and violence of some of the protests, it’s surprising this issue has received so little coverage in the West. In a somewhat related note, France continues to push the EU to lift its arms embargo against China and block proposals to require transparency in those sales.