China: Mass Protests against Reactionary “Extradition Law” in Hong Kong
For an indefinite general strike to kill the bill and to bring down the Administration of Carrie Lam!
Statement of the Revolutionary Communist International Tendency (RCIT), 18 June 2019, www.thecommunists.net
1. Hong Kong is currently being rocked by a wave of mass protests. The people are demanding the withdrawal the so-called extradition law. This bill would allow people in Hong Kong to be extradited to China to stand trial. Given the fact that far more democratic rights exist in Hong Kong than in the rest of China – given the despotic rule of the regime in Beijing – this bill represents a serious attack against oppositional forces in Hong Kong. The brutal oppression of the Uyghur people in East Turkestan with up to one million people held in concentration camps underscores the dictatorial nature of the central Chinese government.
2. In response, a number of civil rights organizations have conducted a sustained campaign against this bill. The recent high point of these protests has been the largest demonstrations in the history of Hong Kong. Over one million marched on 9 June and two million on 16 June. Given the fact that the city has a total population of 7.4 million, this means that many of the residents between the ages of 15 and 54 have been on the streets! The police – following the orders of the pro-Beijing Administration of Carrie Lam – brutally attacked the demonstrators with pepper spray, beanbag rounds, tear gas and rubber bullets. As a result at least 81 people were hospitalized with injuries. One demonstrator – a man who had attached a banner reading “No extradition to China, total withdrawal of the extradition bill, we are not rioters, release the students and injured, Carrie Lam step down, help Hong Kong” – fell to his death and has become a martyr of the movement.
3. Carrie Lam is now under massive pressure and hopes to ride out the protests. She had to postpone the enactment of the bill. However, the brutal repression has radicalized the movement that is now demanding, in addition to the withdrawal of the bill, her resignation. At the same time, a Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman stressed that, “the Chinese government, the central government, has always fully affirmed the work of chief executive Carrie Lam and the Hong Kong government.”
4. The Revolutionary Communist International Tendency (RCIT) unconditionally supports the mass protests in Hong Kong. The struggle against both the extradition law and the Carrie Lam government is an essential democratic struggle. We welcome the fact that an international solidarity movement has emerged that held rallies in at least 39 cities around the globe. If the demonstrators enforce their demands, this would represent a serious blow against the Stalinist-capitalist dictatorship in Beijing.
5. We are fully aware of the political and ideological limitations of the protests. Many of the organizers adhere to bourgeois liberal ideas and have illusions in Western “democracy”. There is also a tendency by parts of the movement to call for the “independence” of Hong Kong. The city had previously been subjugated by the British Empire as recently as 1997. This was a legacy of the barbarous imperialist aggression against China in the 19th and 20th centuries.
6. The RCIT warns against any illusion in U.S. or European imperialism. These governments do not care at all about democracy – just look at the bloody dictatorships in Egypt and Saudi Arabia which are their close allies. Washington and London will only seek to exploit the unrest in Hong Kong in order to advance their position in the accelerating rivalry with China for global hegemony.
7. The RCIT calls for an indefinite general strike to kill the extradition law and to bring down the Lam Administration. It is crucial for the workers and youth in Hong Kong to hold democratic mass assemblies to discuss the demands and tactics of their movement. Such assemblies should elect delegates in order to build a movement led by a democratically-controlled coordinating body.
8. In our opinion, it is urgent that the democratic movement in Hong Kong does not permit itself to be isolated from the oppressed masses in the rest of China. Quite the opposite, it should express its support for the rights of workers suffering super-exploitation, the peasants who are harassed by the bureaucrats, as well as the oppressed Muslim Uyghur people.
9. The RCIT views the democratic struggle in Hong Kong as part of the international struggle for liberation. We call on activists to organize on the basis of an international and socialist perspective. Achieving this goal will require the construction of a revolutionary party in China and globally!
* Kill the extradition bill! Defeat the Administration of Carrie Lam!
* Down with the Pseudo-“Communist“ Capitalist Dictatorship in Beijing!
* For a Workers and Poor Peasant Republic in China! For a Socialist Federation in East Asia as a first step to a socialist world!
International Bureau of the RCIT
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The RCIT has published a number of booklets, statements, and articles on China that can be accessed on our website at https://www.thecommunists.net/worldwide/asia/ as well as at https://www.thecommunists.net/theory/china-russia-as-imperialist-powers/.
In particular we refer to:
RCIT: China: Down with the Pseudo-“Communist“ Capitalist Dictatorship! No to any imperialist Great Power – U.S., China, Japan, Russia or the European Union! For a Workers and Poor Peasants Republic! https://www.thecommunists.net/worldwide/asia/call-to-revolutionary-activists-in-china/
Michael Pröbsting: China: Defend the Muslim Uyghurs against Oppression! 18.10.2018, https://www.thecommunists.net/worldwide/asia/china-defend-the-muslim-uyghurs-against-oppression/
RCIT: Hong Kong/China: Long Live the Anti-Government Protests! For a General Strike against Police Repression and for Democratic Rights! Down with the Reactionary CCP Dictatorship! 2.10.2014, https://www.thecommunists.net/worldwide/asia/hong-kong-protests/
Michael Pröbsting: Anti-Imperialism in the Age of Great Power Rivalry. The Factors behind the Accelerating Rivalry between the U.S., China, Russia, EU and Japan. A Critique of the Left’s Analysis and an Outline of the Marxist Perspective, RCIT Books, January 2019, https://www.thecommunists.net/theory/anti-imperialism-in-the-age-of-great-power-rivalry/
Michael Pröbsting: China‘s transformation into an imperialist power. A study of the economic, political and military aspects of China as a Great Power, in: Revolutionary Communism No. 4, http://www.thecommunists.net/theory/why-china-is-imperialist/