Chinese and Russian Imperialist Expansion in El Salvador here ♦ Are US and China headed to WWIII? here ♦
Chinese and Russian Imperialist Plans for Expansion in El Salvador
EL SALVADOR, May 29— “Six worker comrades of the International Communist Workers’ Party recently had a meeting about how China and Russia are entering the country and how the US imperialists are in retreat,” commented a worker comrade leader. “We want to know how this is going to affect us on the job and how we workers can study and know what is happening internationally between the empires.”
“We should support what China is doing. I don’t share the US position; it should not manipulate us. China is a big power,” said a worker.
“The USA supports the corrupt politicians and does not want the country to develop. With China we have a future. As a communist, that’s the way I see it,” another said.
A comrade worker leader responded, “More communist study is needed, comrades, to understand that both the USA and China seek military and economic power and never the well-being of humanity. I invite you to continue reading Red Flag and continue advancing.”
The Beijing Asia Pacific Xuan Hao Investment Project is a mega investment project. It aims to create a free trade zone in southeastern El Salvador. This is a strategic area of almost 2,800 square kilometers north of the Gulf of Fonseca, from the Port of Libertad to that of Union, with access to Honduras and Nicaragua. An investment of $23 billion is expected.
Chinese investors plan to build an industrial park, a port, an airport and tourist areas, among other things. They are turning El Salvador into a zone for China’s commercial expansion in Central America. This is comparable to the Chinese imperialists’ attempt to build a canal in Nicaragua.
China and El Salvador signed a framework agreement in 2019, which was ratified this week by the Legislative Assembly. This was only a day after the US State Department made public a list of five corrupt El Salvador officials, including three senior members of Bukele’s cabinet and two former fmln commanders.
Likewise, in response to what Bukele is doing, USAID announced the diversion of funds originally meant for public institutions, such as the National Police and the Institute for Access to Public Information, to “civil society groups”, in response to what Bukele is doing.
The first Chinese donation that Bukele announced was $500 million. “They are two aid packages together, without asking us for anything in return,” he said, implying a contrast to US aid.
The inter-imperialist struggle is taking place in every corner of the world. El Salvador is no exception. In a third world war, just as in the first and second, the casualties will be the sons and daughters of the working class.
The political will of ICWP is organization and discussion to win the working class to communist revolution and not to die in wars for capitalist profits.
The Russian Empire in El Salvador
“Did you know that the Bukele government bought a million Russian Sputnik vaccines?” one worker asked another.
The other replied, “Wherever China is, there is Russia. It’s the fight against the United States. It is good that they bring those vaccines, that will help more people, which is the important thing. Those of the North (USA) don’t care about us.”
On the same day that the Legislative Assembly ratified the framework agreement with China, the Presidential House of El Salvador published a photo of Bukele with Russian diplomats with the quote: “There is nothing wrong with having good political relations as long as they are respectful.”
“The relationship is not very close, and our desire is to change that situation. El Salvador confirmed its willingness to strengthen relations, and that is a very important step,” said ambassador Khokholikov.
A fascist president wants to deceive us by shamelessly using the whole state publicity machinery to make the working class believe that Chinese and Russian capitalists are better than those of the United States. But the reality in countries like Cambodia, Kyrgyzstan and Pakistan is different. China is carrying out projects to meet its capitalists’ needs for higher profits and expansion of its overseas markets.
The real and revolutionary option for the working class is the ICWP. From India to South Africa, from Pakistan to Mexico, from the US to Colombia, and from El Salvador to the whole world.
In the fight for the communist system, we must permanently organize workers to prepare for new attacks and repression that the fascist policy of the Salvadoran state has in store.
US-China World War III: Speculative Fiction or Looming Danger?
2034: A Novel of the Next World War (March 2021) by former Marine Elliot Ackerman and US Navy Admiral James Stavridis, became an instant best-seller. In the book, China and the US enter into a naval conflict in the Pacific. The entire world is dragged into yet another imperialist conflict. In one chapter, the heavily populated port city of Shanghai is decimated by a US tactical nuclear weapon.
The book has been dismissed as “speculative fiction.” But the possibility that capitalists will go to war is higher than it has been in the last few decades. With China’s economic rise and its Belt-and-Road Initiative (BRI), the poles of power around the world are changing.
Perhaps anticipating an inevitable conflict with the US, China has been investing heavily in building a modern and technically formidable military over the past two decades. It has extended its naval presence in the South China Sea. Eighty percent of China’s energy imports and 40% of its overall trade passes through the South China Sea.
China has extended its military capabilities into space with satellite-destroying missiles. It even landed a rover on the far side of the moon. Since 2000, China has also launched its own GPS satellites to eliminate reliance on the US’s Global Positioning System.
In 2017, China issued its “New Generation Artificial Intelligence Development Plan.” This laid out its ambition to be an AI-driven superpower. China has a billion people generating datasets, a growing pool of highly trained AI engineers, and massive Chinese government spending as well as targeted regulation. This infrastructure allows China to compete with the US both economically and militarily.
Chinese and Korean companies hold the most patents in next-generation communication technologies such as 5G, followed by Finnish companies. The US follows. With Chinese government help, Chinese companies are playing an increasingly important role in setting standards. China submitted 830 technical documents to the International Telecommunications Union in 2019. That was more than the next three countries combined.
US Imperialist Rulers Prepare for World War
Following Obama’s “Pivot to Asia,” US administrations have adopted an increasingly aggressive posture towards China. To indoctrinate its population for war, the US has increased domestic and international propaganda and racist Sinophobia (anti-Chinese racism). Its latest offensive is reviving the “Wuhan lab leak” theory of how the Covid pandemic began.
Inevitably, anti-Asian violence has increased in US cities. Just as with anti-Japanese propaganda in the 1980s, the working class suffers the results of the often-fatal violence due to imperialist, capitalist rivalry.
US President Biden made it clear in his April State of the Union address that the US needs to bolster its economy “to win the 21st century” against China. But as history has shown repeatedly, capitalists are the only ones who win profits. Meanwhile workers die for those profits in wars against workers in other nations.
Generals, financiers and politicians sit in luxury underground bunkers protected against nuclear and conventional weapons. They sip champagne while touching buttons on their “Made in China” touchscreens, directing millions to kill each other.
One International Working Class – One International Communist Workers’ Party
The capitalists’ nations need to compete with each other, but workers don’t. We do not need technology to fight wars and kill each other for profits. We need to organize for communism, especially inside the bosses’ factories and militaries. Communist world revolution is the only way to end imperialist world wars.
Communist society will use technology to make life better for all living things. Freed from profit motives, communist workers can develop technologies that make agriculture more sustainable while distributing free food to everyone.
Potable water will be available to all living beings. Energy-efficient shelter will be available to all without destroying the habitats of other living beings.
Communism will eradicate capitalism’s inherent profit-driven, genocidal warmongering and its increasingly frequent financial and environmental crises. Communist society will sustainably produce everything that is needed.
And that’s not “speculative fiction.”
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