{"id":1142,"date":"2020-03-16T20:18:48","date_gmt":"2020-03-16T18:18:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/marxistworkersparty.org.za\/?p=1142"},"modified":"2020-04-23T11:18:59","modified_gmt":"2020-04-23T09:18:59","slug":"covid-19-3-crisis-shakes-chinese-regime","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/marxistworkersparty.net\/?p=1142","title":{"rendered":"COVID-19 #3: Crisis Shakes Chinese Regime"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Originally published on 19 February 2020 on socialistworld.net<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

by Clare Doyle, CWI China<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

World-wide the number of dead and infected from the\nCoronavirus appears to have reached a peak. But fears persist that large\nnumbers could still die because of the impossibility of knowing before the\nsymptoms develop that someone is carrying the virus.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In Britain, nine cases have been diagnosed, including one at\nan event attended by 250 people including Members of Parliament and the\nTransport Minister. But so far no deaths have been reported. In France, there\nhas been one death \u2013 that of a Chinese national. Elsewhere in Europe and the US\nso far no-one has died. In Asia, where there have been a number of deaths, some\nnew cases have been reported. The fate of hundreds of passengers from around\nthe world on the cruise ship Diamond Princess moored off Yokohama is causing\nmounting concern.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In China itself, the total number of deaths was compounded\nby the slowness of the authorities to react in the initial stages of the\noutbreak. In the first six weeks of 2020, around 1,800 died and a further\n68,000 were known to be infected. What looked like a massive \u2018spike\u2019 in the\nnumber affected by the newly named Covid-19 at the end of the second week in\nFebruary was due to a re-definition of what counts as being infected by the\nvirus. The rate of deaths occurring in China is now reported to be slowing. But\nshortages of basic equipment such as masks are compounding the problem.
\nIn Hong Kong, where anger against the Chinese regime is already at boiling\npoint, there have been mass demonstrations and even strikes by medical staff\ndemanding that the borders with mainland China be fully sealed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/div>\n\n\n\n

Economy<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Coronavirus crisis \u2013 within China or world-wide \u2013 is far\nfrom over. It has already taken a greater toll than the Sars epidemic of 2002-3\nwhich started in China. Many events, conferences and sporting fixtures are\nbeing postponed. Important parts of the Chinese economy are at a standstill\nwith a knock-on effect on industries in other countries and on world prices of\ncopper, oil and gas. There are justifiable fears for the effects on the health\nof world capitalism as a whole, which has hardly recovered since the crisis of\nmore than a decade ago.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Chinese economy is second only to the US in size and influence, but even before the present clampdown in economic activity and trade, its growth rate was slowing. The Coronavirus emergency will put huge pressure on state resources, with big inroads being made into state coffers.
The way a government reacts to disaster \u2013 natural or man-made \u2013 can make or break it. China is a vast country, with the biggest population in the world, but one in which a multi-million state machine stifles initiative and fears the voice of the people. A small but very rich capitalist elite rules in the name of \u2018communism\u2019 but generally operates according to the laws of the market. Fearful of losing its position, this plutocracy brooks no democracy or criticism from below, let alone democratic elections or peaceful protests. Last year in Wuhan itself, days of street protests over the siting of an incinerator close to people\u2019s houses were violently attacked by state forces.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/div>\n\n\n\n

Delay Exacerbates Crisis<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Even before the end of last year, one lone medical\nprofessional attempted to warn the authorities in Beijing that a potentially\ndeadly epidemic was in the making. His findings were suppressed and fellow\ndoctors in Wuhan were also silenced. Time and resources were not immediately\nmobilised to contain the virus. It was seven weeks before Wuhan \u2013 a city as big\nas London \u2013 and the whole province of Hubei, with a 58 million population, were\neventually \u2018locked down\u2019.
\nWhen the \u2018whistleblower\u2019, Dr Li Wenliang, himself fell victim to the disease\nand died on 7 February, popular anger erupted. Even the country\u2019s Supreme Court\ncriticised the Wuhan police for punishing Dr Li and seven other doctors who had\nraised the alarm online. Millions of postings on Weibo repeated the hashtags\n\u201cWe want freedom of speech\u201d and \u201cwe demand freedom of speech\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A well-known revolutionary song from Les Miserables \u2013 \u201cDo\nyou hear the people sing?\u201d \u2013 went viral as a form of protest at the authorities\nover Li\u2019s death and their incompetence. Leading academics and commentators have\njoined an outcry against the suppression of news and the slowness of the\ncountry\u2019s president to make any public statements. As so often in authoritarian\nsocieties, it was lower ranked officials whose careers came to an abrupt end.
\nOnce it moved into action, many people were impressed by the speed and effectiveness\nwith which it was able to mobilise the human and material resources to build\nhospitals. Although this was on the basis of bureaucratic command and appalling\nconditions for those workers, it indicates some of what could be possible in a\nsocialist planned economy, on the basis of democratic control and decent\nconditions for workers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But the question on the minds of many is whether the\ngovernment\u2019s initial denial of the problem and the punishment of those who\nraised the alarm will have major political consequences?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As Yu Jie, a research fellow at Chatham House, writing in\nthe Financial Times put it: \u201cThe tendency among bureaucrats to play down crises\nis deeply entrenched. And, ironically, the party leadership\u2019s recent push for\ngreater bureaucratic accountability and its promise of stiffer punishment for\nthose who take a \u2018do little\u2019 approach have also contributed to the habit of\ncovering up disasters\u201d. (6\/2\/20) But the Sunday Times\u2019 Peter Francopan warns:\n\u201cFor now, one would be brave to make predictions of sweeping social and\npolitical change in China as a result of the Coronavirus\u201d. (In fact, even last\nweek, further arrests and disappearances of critics took place and \u2018refugees\u2019\nfrom the dictatorship envisaged a life-time in exile.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/div>\n\n\n\n

Chernobyl<\/strong>?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Comparisons have been made with the initial bungling and\ncover-up at the time of the horrific disaster at the Chernobyl nuclear power\nplant in Ukraine on 26 April 1986. Ukraine was a part of the so-called Soviet\nUnion, being run by a massive, bloated bureaucracy in Moscow.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Estimates have put the number of fatalities and long-term\nhealth defects in the tens of thousands. On the one side, a widespread\ndeficient safety culture was exposed. On the other, a massive containment and\ndecontamination operation was undertaken by the state, involving a quarter of a\nmillion construction workers. According to Mikhail Gorbachev, the Soviet\nUnion\u2019s head of government at the time, the cost of the clearing up operation\nwas the equivalent of $35.7 billion which virtually bankrupted the USSR.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The suggestion that Chernobyl spelt the beginning of the end\nfor the bureaucratically run, state-owned economy in the USSR is not the whole\nstory. Certainly, as in China today, it was a gruesome exposure of everything\nthat was wrong with rule by an unaccountable and privileged caste in society.\nBut there are many significant differences. Gorbachev headed a state-owned\neconomy that was grinding to a halt \u2013 starved for decades of the oxygen of\nworkers\u2019 control and management of the planned economy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In China today, statistics are still unreliable and zig-zags\ntake place in what the dictatorial state decides about banking, trade and the\neconomy. But China is not the state it was for decades after the coming to\npower of Mao Tse Tung, with a nationalised economy. Privatisation has been\nextensively carried through. The country\u2019s executive is made up of extremely\nrich oligarchs. Their main concern is to maintain power without an explosion\nfrom below.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Anger at the handling of the Coronavirus scandal has brought\nto the surface a smouldering resentment against the elite\u2019s dictatorial rule,\nhiding behind the so-called Communist Party. Over recent years there have been\ncountless reported and unreported \u2018incidents\u2019 of workplace and community\nprotests, including strikes. There have also been explosions of anger against\nthe lack of democracy in local and regional authorities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In this sense, although Chinese society today has a\ndifferent class character from that of the USSR at the time of Chernobyl, the\nCoronavirus outbreak and the way it is handled could act as a turning point in\nChinese politics. The government of Xi Jinping has already been severely\ndiscredited. Protest can go from online media outlets onto the streets of\nChina\u2019s vast cities and be reflected in an accession of confidence amongst\nworkers in the vast factories of this economic giant.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The coming weeks of a grave economic down-turn and continued\nincompetence in dealing with a deadly epidemic could mark the beginning of the\nend for the present head of state and some of his team. Whether a widespread\nstruggle for democratic rights ensues and an upturn in strikes develops remains\nto be seen.
\nRe-tie historic knot<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The city of Wuhan is in the heart of China on the banks of\nthe great Yangtse River. It has a proud history. It is where the first shots\nwere fired in the overthrow of the Chinese empire in 1911. It was the scene of\nheroic mass strikes and uprisings by workers and peasants during the revolution\nof 1926-27, betrayed into the hands of Chiang Kai Shek by Stalin. Its\npopulation massively celebrated the elimination of landlordism and capitalism\nunder Mao after the Second World War. Workers in Wuhan also fought for what\nthey saw as workers\u2019 democracy at the time of the \u2018Cultural Revolution\u2019 in the\n\u201860s.
\nToday the people of Wuhan are struggling to find a way of taking on the\nincompetent and self-interested rulers in Beijing. They, along with all working\nand young people, need independent trade unions and parties that oppose\nbureaucratic capitalism with demands for democratic rights \u2013 freedom of speech,\nof assembly, of the press, of organisation (trade unions and parties) \u2013 and for\nelections at local and national level where they can put forward the case for\ngenuine democratic socialism.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A struggle of this nature is vital \u2013 to cleanse government\nat all levels of bureaucrats and toadies and elect representatives who are\nsubject to recall when they fail to implement democratic decisions and who live\non the same wage as workers. The fight has to be taken up boldly for the\nrestoration of public ownership, this time under democratic workers\u2019 control\nand management.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

China is a vast country, with the biggest population in the world, but one in which a multi-million state machine stifles initiative and fears the voice of the people. A small but very rich capitalist elite rules in the name of \u2018communism\u2019 but generally operates according to the laws of the market.<\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1143,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[24],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1142","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-coronavirus"],"aioseo_notices":[],"acf":[],"brizy_media":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/marxistworkersparty.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1142","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/marxistworkersparty.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/marxistworkersparty.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marxistworkersparty.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marxistworkersparty.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1142"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/marxistworkersparty.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1142\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1272,"href":"https:\/\/marxistworkersparty.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1142\/revisions\/1272"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marxistworkersparty.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1143"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/marxistworkersparty.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1142"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marxistworkersparty.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1142"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marxistworkersparty.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1142"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}