Global Popular Uprisings: Beijing Calls West to Jointly Defend “the Rule of Law”

 

Central organ of the ruling Stalinist party reiterates the regime’s counter-revolutionary position

 

By Michael Pröbsting, International Secretary of the Revolutionary Communist International Tendency (RCIT), 30 October 2019, www.thecommunists.net

 

 

 

A few days ago, we reported about the denunciation of the global wave of class struggles by the Stalinist-Capitalist regime in China. Their leading representative in Hong Kong has called the mass protests in Hong Kong and all over the world as a “virus worse than SARS” which could “plunge civilisation as a whole into calamity and no country would stay immune.” [1]

 

Yesterday, the regime reiterated this counter-revolutionary stance. This becomes evident from an article in the “Global Times”. This daily newspaper is the international English-language edition of People's Daily – the central organ of the ruling “Communist” Party of China. Titled “HK rioters set bad example for the West”, the Stalinist paper appeals to the Western imperialists to recognize the global wave of class struggles – from Hong Kong to Chile – as a common enemy. [2]

 

The very first sentences make already clear that, faced with the popular upsurges around the world, the capitalist regime in Beijing find itself on the opposite side of the barricades: “Rioters in Hong Kong have set bad examples affecting the globe. Cities such as London in the United Kingdom, Catalonia in Spain and Santiago in Chile have recently been through radical violent protests and confrontations between protesters and police. Western countries used to believe their lands are immune to Hong Kong-style "color revolution." However, in the era of globalization when the internet is so developed, direct interaction between young people from different places has continuously broken this immunity. Despite the differences in topics and specific legal orders, youngsters in London, Catalonia and Santiago have imitated the full range of tactics of the Hong Kong rioters in a short time, posing serious threats to the rule of law and social order in their countries. The destruction of the rule of law in one place will inevitably bring about a chain reaction. Imitators will take it for granted that they are able to do whatever Hong Kong rioters can do; the rule of law in Hong Kong can be damaged and so can that of their own countries.”

 

This introduction sets already the central theme of the article: the defence of the “rule of law” by any means necessary. (Characteristically, the reactionary phrase “rule of law” is repeated 8 times in an article with less than 800 words!)

 

It is hardly necessary at this place to explain that “the rule of law” means nothing else but the rule of law as it the imposed by the ruling class, i.e. the bourgeoisie. Law is not something which stands above classes but which rather serves the interests of the dominating class. Marx made this unmistakably clear. In Volume III of his famous Capital, he wrote:

 

„It is furthermore clear that here as always it is in the interest of the ruling section of society to sanction the existing order as law and to legally establish its limits given through usage and tradition. Apart from all else, this, by the way, comes about of itself as soon as the constant reproduction of the basis of the existing order and its fundamental relations assumes a regulated and orderly form in the course of time. And such regulation and order are themselves indispensable elements of any mode of production, if it is to assume social stability and independence from mere chance and arbitrariness. “ [3]

 

As we have elaborated in various documents in the past weeks, the huge global upsurge of class struggles is part of a dramatic shift in the world situation. We have entered a “pre-68” phase. [4] The elder generation among the readers will remember that in the 1960s, in a period of a world-wide youth radicalization, the capitalist rulers lamented that the young people no longer respect the “values and authorities of the society”. China’s ruling imperialists share exactly the same outlook! The Global Times moans: “Hong Kong's extreme social movement has become a paradigm that was duplicated in Western countries. This has triggered structural decline in value and authority of rule of law around the world.”

 

The article concludes with an impassioned plea to the Western imperialists to “jointly safeguard the core values of the rule of law and multilateral global trade order.”

 

“This dangerous and radical pattern is not a rational process of normal competition between countries, but rather an anti-globalization game dominated by the extreme hawks and intelligence agencies of the West. They attempt to reshuffle the global power and interests through extreme riots, retrieving the benefits they lost in the normal global competitive order in this extremely unethical and unscrupulous sinful way. In short, in the face of the impact of extreme social movements on global governance and the rule of law, political leaders and people of all countries should be sober and conscious and jointly safeguard the core values of the rule of law and multilateral global trade order. We believe that after this round of riots in Hong Kong and its spillovers, people around the world will cherish the core values of the rule of law and be more convinced that only global cooperative governance and common development are the correct path to resolve all conflicts arising from globalization.”

 

All this reactionary garbage should not come as a surprise. The formal commitment of the ruling party to the ideology of “communism” has the same significance like the formal commitment of the Catholic bishops to the teachings of the New Testament or of Saudi Arabia’s Mohammed bin Salman to the teachings of the Koran. In other words, it is a hypocritical commitment with no meaning at all!

 

The Revolutionary Communist International Tendency (RCIT) has explained for a long time that China has become a capitalist country many years ago. [5] We have elaborated in a number of studies that China has not only become capitalist but that it has even emerged as a leading imperialist Great Power with a strong monopoly bourgeoisie. [6] The rivalry between Washington and Beijing is not based on “ideological differences” but on opposing interests as Great Powers – similarly to the rivalry between Britain and German before World War I or the U.S. and Japan before WWII. [7]

 

Hence, the Stalinist and Bolivarian “friends of China” who vigorously defend China as a “socialist” or a “progressive” state are, in fact, servants of Chinese imperialism. They are on the other side of the barricade and revolutionaries around the world must combat their influence in the workers and popular movements.

 

We note in passing that Beijing’s passionate call to the Western imperialists to jointly defend the “rule of law and multilateral global trade order” reminds us to similar public appeals of Libya’s long-time dictator Muammar Gaddafi during the beginning of the Arab Revolution in spring 2011. When the supposedly “left-wing, anti-imperialist” Gaddafi was faced with the wave of popular uprisings, he publicly denounced the mass protests in neighboring Tunisia which had brought down the long-time pro-Western dictator Ben Ali. Two weeks after the overthrow of Ben Ali, Gaddafi praised him and denounced the people. The Electronic Intifada issued a report about a speech made by Gaddafi in February 2011: “Gaddafi turned to pay homage to Ben Ali, whom he refers to as “Zine”: ‘I do not know anyone from Bourguiba [Tunisia’s first post-independence president] to Zine, but Zine for me is the best for Tunisia. He was the one who gave Tunisia pride of place [in terms of economic growth]; I don’t care whether you like him or not, whether you’re against him or not; I tell you the truth, regardless; do you think that Zine gives me money, glory or any kind of reward for saying this? He gives me nothing, but I tell you the truth. I’m usually candid with the Arab public, pointing out the truth to them. No one is better than Zine at the moment. What I wish is not for Zine to remain in power till 2014 [which is one of the concessions/promises Ben Ali made in his third and last speech before his flight to Saudi Arabia] but for him to remain in power for life, okay! If anyone close to Zine is corrupt or if Zine himself is corrupt, they should stand trial. Bring your evidence and try them; this is usually a normal practice. But it’s inadmissible that whenever there is corruption, we burn our country and kill our children at night. Ala Tunis al-salaam.’” [8]

 

Irrespective of all rivalry, the “left-wing” bourgeois dictator Gaddafi understood that his class brothers are the rulers in other Arab countries and that the protesting Arab people are their common enemy. It is the same with the Great Powers. Irrespective of inter-imperialist rivalries, Beijing recognizes that it shares a common interest with Washington and Brussels in containing and eliminating the “virus” (“worse than SARS”) of global popular upsurges.

 

The latest statement of China’s rulers confirms once more that revolutionaries must oppose all imperialist Great Powers. As the RCIT has explained repeatedly, it is impossible to build an authentic revolutionary socialist international without recognizing the imperialist character not only of the Western Great Powers (U.S., EU, and Japan) but also of the new Eastern Great Powers (Russia and China). Only on such a basis is it possible to build a Revolutionary World Party which links solidarity with the current global popular upsurge with a program of international socialist revolution. The RCIT calls revolutionary activists around the world to join us in building such a Revolutionary World Party! [9]