WW editor speaks in Los Angeles
'Why U.S. banks can't tell China what to do'
By John Beacham
Los Angeles
The editor of Workers World newspaper, Deirdre
Griswold, spoke at a special Workers World Party forum on China
here on Jan. 9. The title of Griswold's talk was "The Great
Challenges Facing China Today."
The packed meeting was chaired by John Parker. Muna Coobtee
energized the crowd with her call to make the upcoming March 20
demonstration as big as possible. Its demands are to end the
occupation in Iraq, Palestine and everywhere and bring the
troops home now.
Page Getz from the Community Action Project to Support
Labor, a project of the ANSWER coalition in Los Angeles, gave
an update of the Southern California grocery workers' struggle,
urging everyone to continue to join the picket lines. She said
that community support is needed now more than ever.
Griswold, who has written extensively on China, put the
gains and problems of the Chinese Revolution in the context of
the great challenges it has faced trying to hold off
imperialist aggression and build socialism while lifting
one-fifth of the world's population out of extreme poverty. For
hundreds of years, every imperialist country, but especially
the U.S., has had as one of its primary goals the subjugation
of the Chinese people and control of the markets of Asia.
"Controlling China was the U.S. object in World War II, the
Korean War and the war in Vietnam," said Griswold. "But the
U.S. imperialists, even though they defeated Japanese
imperialism, did not achieve their goal. Something bigger than
U.S. air power, bigger than A-bombs and bigger than Wall
Street, with all its wealth, intervened--the political power of
millions of Chinese workers and peasants organized into a
Communist Party and a Red Army."
To this day, U.S. imperialism is still unable to control
China. Considering the poverty and underdevelopment of China in
1949 and the all-out assault by U.S. imperialism, it is truly
incredible that many of the social and institutional gains of
the working class and peasants have endured.
After the Deng grouping won out over the Maoists, China's
leaders turned to the market to spur development. This allowed
the growth of a capitalist class. However, foreign capitalists
"are not able to walk right in to China and tell the banks what
to do, as they can in other parts of the world. There are still
many mechanisms by which the party and the state hold the reins
[of the economy] in their hands," said Griswold.
As an example, she referred to China's recent decision to
transfer $45 billion from its foreign exchange reserves into a
bank that finances state-owned industry. This move, which can
save the jobs of millions of workers, was not decided on in New
York or London or Paris, she stressed. The imperialist banks
cannot tell China what to do, in the way they dictate economic
and financial policy to countries under their domination.
She also pointed out that China has canceled debts owed it
by the African countries, who can now use this as leverage to
demand that imperialist banks and institutions do the same.
In China, corrupt officials and capitalists who bribe them
often face harsh punishment, including execution. Members of
ruling class families in the U.S. never go to jail, and their
high-paid executives who steal millions can plea bargain for
sentences light by comparison with what the poor and oppressed
get. As for bribing officials, Griswold pointed out that George
W. Bush's biggest political contributions came from the Enron
Corporation.
Griswold concluded, "A lot of people here think China is now
a capitalist country. We don't agree. While there are many
aspects of capitalism in China, and the growth of a capitalist
class presents a real danger to socialism, it is not yet the
dominant class. It has not defeated the workers' state created
by the revolution. And most Chinese agree with us."
Those who want to aid China's socialist development should
build the struggle here against U.S. imperialism, Griswold
said. "When the workers in the developed, actually rotten ripe,
imperialist countries fight for social change, the biggest
burden will be lifted from the oppressed countries, too."
Reprinted from the Jan. 22, 2004, issue of
Workers World newspaper
This article is copyright under a Creative
Commons License.
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