Coronavirus Crisis Sharpens InterImperialist Rivalry

The World Health Organization and Inter-Imperialist Rivalry: Masses Led by Communist Workers, Soldiers and Sailors Will Take Down All Imperialists

LOS ANGELES (USA), April 18— “I was ready when a comrade asked me about Trump’s charge that the World Health Organization (WHO) was too pro-Chinese,” reported a comrade. “I had already looked up a little about Tedros Adhonom Ghebreyesus, the head of WHO. I’d seen the right-wing websites accusing Tedros of being a communist.”

As a young college graduate in Ethiopia, Tedros worked for the Derg as a public health expert. The Derg was the Russian-client junta that took power in 1974. When it was overthrown in 1987, Tedros went to London for graduate school. In 2001, back in Ethiopia, he headed the Tigray Regional Health Bureau. He held government offices in the Tigray-led Ethiopian national government until becoming WHO Director-General in 2017.

Tedros is no communist, but of course he’s pro-Chinese. Tedros is a smart, efficient scientist-turned-bureaucrat who knows how to look out for the main chance. But it’s not just him.

WHO and other UN agencies know that China is the ascending imperialist power and that the US is on the decline. That was true before Covid-19 and it’s even truer now.

Empires rise and fall in a process of sharp struggle. Look at Ethiopia, the second-most populous African country. Last year, China supplied 60% of its billions of foreign capital. Chinese imperialists profit hugely from these investments. They gain strategically from large infrastructure projects.

Ethiopia’s capitalist rulers have enriched themselves, but they are now deeply in debt to China. Ethiopia’s workers, who create all the wealth, pay the price. The government-established base wage for garment workers, for example, is the equivalent of $26/month.   That’s less than a tenth of what garment workers make in China.

But in December, the Ethiopian rulers successfully sought $9 billion from Western donors, the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank. This sharpened the contradiction between Chinese and western imperialism. Meanwhile, the World Bank still lends money to China. We can see here the unity and struggle of opposites.

US Rulers in Disarray

US pundits have commented on the “failure of US leadership” in this crisis, with Trump pushing xenophobia while China is sending personal protective equipment around the globe.

But the global “leadership” which the US projected during the Cold War was always based on military power and an economy prospering from imperialist expansion. The US economy will never be that strong again. And Covid-19 has changed the dynamics of military power quickly and dramatically.

The USS Teddy Roosevelt, the US’s main nuclear-powered aircraft carrier in the Pacific, will be dry-docked in Guam and out of commission for two years. Sailors are sick with the virus on three other Pacific-based carriers.

Meanwhile, China claims that its submarine fleet is Covid-free. It’s taking advantage of “an unprecedented security vacuum caused by the Covid-19 pandemic” (Asia Times) with actions to strengthen its claims in the South China Sea.

Contradictions Sharpen

The Covid-19 pandemic exposes the “unity and struggle of opposites” in the US-China contradiction. Coronavirus spread so fast because the world and its supply chains are so deeply interconnected.

“National security and public health experts fear that the two world powers are heading into a new Cold War that could seriously undermine joint efforts to quash the virus and salvage the global economy” (New York Times, March 22, 2020). Two imperialist analysts, writing in Foreign Affairs (April 15), argue for cooperating with China now and preparing to confront it later. They oppose the hardline anti-China faction that dominates the Trump administration.

But no policy can prevent the US-China contradiction from sharpening. Both sides are preparing for when the “new Cold War” becomes a hot one.

Sailors, Soldiers, Industrial Workers: Key to Communist Revolution

“I spoke with a former co-worker from a garment factory,” reported our comrade. “Like a lot of working-class white guys, he was in the US Navy during the Vietnam War. We started talking about the Covid-19 outbreak on the Teddy Roosevelt.

“‘Those rich jerks don’t care about the enlisted guy,’ said my friend. ‘They don’t send their kids to war! This whole system sucks! I haven’t been reading your paper but send me this one. I’ll read it. Something has got to change.’”

The Chinese military finds that soldiers and sailors garrisoned on its South China Sea artificial islands are experiencing “physical and mental strain.” It’s new “mental health stations” are meant to “boost morale.” We don’t think that will keep those young workers in uniform from coming to the same conclusion as our comrade’s friend.

Workers, students, soldiers and sailors, faced with a global pandemic and imperialist war, will agree that something must change. We hope that many will join the fight for communism. When they do, the days of US, Chinese and all imperialism will be ended.

Garment workers in a Chinese-owned factory in Ethiopia

March 22-Millions of masks, gowns and other medical supplies arrive in Ethiopia, donated by Chinese billionaire Jack Ma

Front page of this issue