FIGHT FOR COMMUNISM!
International Communist Workers Party
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FIGHT FOR COMMUNISM! |
International Communist Workers Party | |
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Tens of thousands of Hong Kong students have been demonstrating since late September, boycotting classes and occupying an area of downtown.
Attacked by tear gas and pro-government thugs, many protestors carry umbrellas to protect against the rain and tear gas, inspiring the name "Umbrella Revolution." The students' demands are focused on the rules handed down from Beijing for the next Hong Kong election in 2017, which require that candidates be approved by a nominating committee of 1200, controlled by Beijing.
Students have also demanded the resignation of current Hong Kong Chief Executive C. Y. Leung. He is greatly resented for his attacks on students and for the huge payments he received from an Australian company. Although the protestors are mainly students, they have support from Hong Kong businesses and professionals, and billionaire Jimmy Lai.
Economics Behind the Protests
These protests are driven by serious economic issues. Housing in Hong Kong is some of the most expensive in the world, with prices doubling since 2007. Many workers live in unsafe illegal shacks built on the tops of buildings. Hong Kong housing prices are being driven up by rich buyers from mainland China, and mainlanders take up many of the spots in Hong Kong's elite schools. Hong Kong businesses are anxious to hire people from powerful mainland families with valuable connections, putting Hong Kong graduates at a disadvantage.
As usual the inter-imperialist rivalry between the US and Chinese capitalist classes is involved in the Hong Kong movement. The US Agency for International Development (i.e., the CIA) has funded several "pro-democracy" projects in Hong Kong, and Secretary of State John Kerry urged Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi to make concessions to the protesters. The US wants to use this issue to attack China, as it has done before with protests by Tibetans and Uighurs. Beijing responded by denouncing "foreign interference in Hong Kong affairs," and some journalists have hinted at dark conspiracies behind the student movement.
Democracy is the Bosses' Rule
The fact is that the Hong Kong movement is a real mass movement with real grievances that is unfortunately trying to implement the capitalist illusion of "real democracy." Democracy, with its trappings of elections, campaigns and media ads, is a strategy of the capitalist class for legitimizing its rule, promoting the lie that the masses have some say in what the government does. Beijing's insistence that a committee rule on who can run for office is just an unsubtle form of what capitalists everywhere do to make sure of their complete control over the process.
In the US and all other democracies, candidates have no chance to win elections unless they are approved by a combination of party leaders, the media and rich contributors. Candidates that aren't approved this way will either be ignored or attacked in the press or in big dollar TV ads. For now, US capitalists can rely on this to maintain their rule. In general, capitalists resort to mass violence whenever elections might not give the results the most powerful capitalists want, as they have done recently in Kenya and Ukraine.
Capitalists Always Rule in Capitalist Society
Hong Kong capitalists have their conflicts with the big capitalists in Beijing, but capitalists have ruled everywhere in China since the Cultural Revolution, a mass movement that tried but failed to prevent the victory of capitalism in China. Now the capitalists who rule everywhere in China and will never give up that rule without a communist revolution. The masses of Hong Kong are not going to be better off if some different politicians get elected there. We hope that they will redirect their energy and courage to fight for communism, not to support one group of capitalists against another.