Unfortunately, sometimes in assuming that all on these lists have good knowledge on China, Stephen gives the misleading impression that the CPC and the Chinese government is anti-labor, which is not true.
I posted this back in Jan. 2000 -:
AFTER SEATTLE - WHERE DO WE GO FROM HERE
by Jim Smith, L.A. Labor News <www.LAlabor.org>
(Excerpt) In some important respects, the AFL-CIO is still fighting the cold war. Although President John Sweeney and his New Voices leadership has purged many of the spooks from the federation's international department, old habits die hard. When international labor congresses held in Cuba attract unions from around the world, the AFL-CIO is not present. No effort is made to contact and discuss common problems with, for instance, the All China Confederation of Trade Unions. Instead it is dismissed as a tool of the Chinese government, a charge that would have stuck against the AFL-CIO during the Meany-Kirkland years. Perhaps this is so, but if Nixon can go to China, and Jiang can be hosted in the White House by Clinton, why can't Sweeney visit a union hall in Shanghai?
Instead, leaders of the AFL-CIO seem intent on shifting the attack from the WTO itself, to China's entry into that organization. They claim that China's entry into the World Trade Organization, which already includes 135 nations, would make it difficult or impossible to achieve labor accords. Their position that the WTO can be reformed, with or without China, is naive. The WTO is a creature of the transnational corporations and always will be. China and Chinese factories are not the enemy, U.S. corporations are. AFL-CIO leaders' time would be better spent working to take the U.S. out of the WTO. An intensive campaign of persuasion and engagement should be directed at Sweeney and the AFL-CIO Executive Council to focus on the real enemy.
The China baiting follows on the heels of Sweeney's signature on a letter with corporate CEOs that endorsed Clinton's WTO agenda. It is therefore appropriate to ask why the U.S. labor movement is unwilling to make connections with its opposite numbers in other countries in the same way as do churches, environmentalists and others? Clearly what is needed in the Sixteenth Street headquarters of the AFL-CIO and in union halls around the country is an approach based on class, not national boundaries or pro-business ideology.
SHORT-RUN AND LONG-RUN STRATEGIES
Even with a class approach by U.S. labor, there exists the problem of the enormous disparity of income and living standards around the world. This can only be solved in the short run by a massive transfer of wealth from North to South, from capitalists to very poor workers. This was the avowed purpose of the post-World War II Marshall Plan, although its not-so-hidden agenda was fighting communism. A massive, and fair, "Marshall Plan" administered by international agencies could eradicate the worst features of underdevelopment in a generation. If Bill Gates, alone, would be content to live on millions of dollars instead of billions, the wealth of the poorest two billion people on the planet could be doubled instantly. We are so rich as a society and they - most of the world - are so poor, that it is shameful not to take whatever action is required to reduce the income gap. The alternative is to live in a world where everyone confronts a worsening ecological and political environment.
While no less than fundamental ideological shifts and massive social engineering is required to get us out of this mess that has been created by rapacious capitalism, the first steps in that direction can be small and manageable.
The veterans of Seattle need to win the "spin" battle about what really happened there. Is it lunatic anarchists or lunatic capitalists that we must fear? We veterans must fan out across the country and across our communities to educate the uninformed or misinformed and speak to any audience that will listen to us about corporate domination, neoliberalism and the crushing of democracy and hope in the future. Let the Battle of Seattle continue in every town, campus and workplace in America. And in particular, let's spread the call for even more massive demonstrations at the pro-WTO conventions of the Republicans in Philadelphia and the Democrats in Los Angeles.
We veterans of Seattle - and that includes everyone who wanted to be there in the streets - know that the World Trade Organization is a creature - a monster - of its corporate masters. It will stop at nothing to defend itself and the few who want to have everything. It must be abolished. Fair trade, and fairness in general, can be administered through a United Nations organization where everyone has a seat at the table and there are open and democratic rules designed to build a better world for all.
******************************* Jim Smith <JSmith at LAlabor.org> is a Los Angeles labor activist and editor of L.A. Labor News, <www.LAlabor.org>. An earlier article, "Labor Eyewitness to the Battle of Seattle" is also posted on the L.A. Labor News website.
Back to Liu:
The fundamental difference I have with Stephen Philion is that he puts unjustifiable piority on "worker" issues in China; and by workers he means "industrial workers" in the export and SOE sectors (5% of the population) who are the mirror counterparts of Western workers under capitalism. This is single dimensional progressiveness.
To build socialism and to fight imperialism/capitalism, China needs sacrifice from all people: peasants, workers, intellectuals, and party cadres, and not just matching industrial workers to Western conditions. The president of the country takes a salary of less the US$60/month as does the Chairman of the Bank of China. Should they go on strike too?
Last year, the population of China increased by 12 million, which is greater than the entire membership of the AFL-CIO. These 12 million babies have to be fed and clothed and given medical attention and education.
Now there are groups in the US who accuse China of violating human rights with its one child per family population policy, and they want to suspend trade with China so that these 12 million babies can starve. Without the population policy, China will likely see an anual increase of 40 million people. Yet, these human rights organizations assumes no responsibility for the additional 30 million newborns that their righteous position will bring. It is like the rich telling the poor that if they starve their children, they will be fired from their already meager jobs.
Single issue progressiveness can become ractionary unwittingly.
Henry