A slap in the face for the Israeli security system

by Fouad Baker
Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine (DFLP) 

No one expected that this would be the response of the Palestinian resistance to the plan of the fascist and racist Israeli occupation government based on Judaisation, displacement, expansion of settlements, annexation of lands, storming the courtyards of Al-Aqsa Mosque and the Palestinian camps in the West Bank, administrative arrests, and the liquidation of the Palestinian cause and the national rights of the Palestinian people.
  Although Israel possesses the latest technologies, its security system failed to protect the settlers living on stolen Palestinian land. A number of Palestinian resistance fighters were able to cross the border fence separating the Gaza Strip and the settlements killing dozens of settlers and taking others prisoner back to the Haza Strip.
  Some  5,000 missiles  were fired from the Gaza Strip towards these illegal settlements, which paralysed the Israeli ‘Iron Dome’ and the Israeli security system. The joint Palestinian operations room, which includes all the Palestinian factions, took part in this military operation. The most prominent of which were Hamas, Islamic Jihad and the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine...
The news was greeted with astonishment in the West Bank. Astonishment at the success of  the military operation carried out by the Palestinian resistance in the Gaza Strip. Celebratory marches in Palestinian cities in the occupied territories soon led to clashes with Israeli troops.
  Israeli troops opened fire on Palestinian demonstrators in towns throughout the West Bank and an Israeli police station was torched in Jerusalem
The Palestinian resistance called the attack on the Israeli settlements located on the border of the Gaza Strip ‘Operation Al-Aqsa Flood’.
The offensive was designed to regain the initiative and block Saudi-Israeli normalisation, which aims to liquidate the Palestinian cause and deprive them of their national rights. Rights which include the right of the refugees to return to their land, ending the Israeli occupation, establishing an independent Palestinian state.
The Israelis called the “Al-Aqsa Flood” operation a terrorist operation, ignoring the fact that they are the occupiers of lands belonging to the Palestinian people. If they want real peace in the Middle East they must end the occupation.
The Palestinian operation exposed the weakness of Israeli intelligence that failed to discover the resistance plan despite all the support from the USA, and the failure of Israel’s surveillance and espionage programmes such as their Pegasus spyware which they’ve also sold to some Arab regimes.
The operation’s success was down to the full coordination between the Palestinian resistance factions working in complete secrecy. 
The Palestinian bet on using parachutists to penetrate the border fence in the Gaza Strip to destroy Israeli tanks and open the way to the advance towards the illegal settlements worked.
     The emergence of a qualitative development in the work of the Palestinian resistance, which transformed primitive rockets and simple shells into semi-precise missiles that reach deep into Israel enabled it to capture Israeli soldiers to use in negotiations for the release of the Palestinian prisoners languishing in Israeli prisons for decades.
The Al-Aqsa Flood operation was launched only after all diplomatic means had been exhausted. It was a specific confrontation due to the racist policy implemented by the Israeli occupation government headed by Benjamin Netanyahu. It was a move to prevent the Arab regimes from signing peace agreements with Israel and derail American attempts to build economic blocs in the region to besiege China, Iran, and Russia – the most recent of which is the India-Middle East-Europe ‘corridor’.
The Israeli response to the Palestinian offensive has been to bomb the Gaza Strip including residential tower blocks and other civilian targets resulting in over 250 Palestinian martyrs and hundreds more wounded.
But the fascist Israeli government wants to avoid a long and multi-fronted conflict as it knows that any military operation that crosses the red line will ignite the Middle East in defence of the Palestinian people, as happened in the October War of 1973.
In the occupied territories, the refugee camps in Syria, Lebanon, and Jordan and the Palestinian communities in Europe the people are rallying behind the defence of the Gaza Strip. Support is coming from Iraq, Yemen and Syria and the Lebanese resistance has already intervened...
Around the world social networking sites are ablaze with congratulations to the Palestinians for this qualitative military operation while the Arabs took to the streets with fireworks and sweets to celebrate a Palestinian victory that has been seen since the birth of Israel in 1948.
Those who think that the Palestinian people can be fobbed of with email messages of support or agree to becoming political pawns of the Great Powers are only fooling themselves. The deluded are those who think that the Palestinian people will accept political settlements that do not meet demands that recognise their legitimate national rights. And the most delusional are those who think that peace in the Middle East can be achieved without real justice and an end to the Israeli occupation of the occupied Palestinian territories.
Just as the Battle of Saif al-Quds in Gaza in 2021 ended a stage in the history of the Arab-Israeli conflict, the Al-Aqsa Flood operation opened a new page in the history of the Arab-Israeli conflict.

As ye sow…

...so shall ye reap was what Paul told the followers of Jesus of Nazareth two thousand years ago. Sadly this lesson is still not understood by many of those who now live in the land that the Apostle knew so well.
The deadly Hamas raid into Israel last weekend that killed over a thousand Israelis and wounded thousands more reflected the pent-up fury of the Palestinian masses in the Gaza Strip who have endured a brutal and often bloody Israeli siege for years. Ignored by the West which has armed Israel to the teeth and betrayed by the feudal Arab oil princes who crawl to the imperialists whose guns prop up their thrones the Palestinians in Gaza have closed ranks behind the Hamas leadership and the other resistance movements that believe that confrontation is the only way forward.
While the Israelis pound the densely populated settlements in the Gaza Strip they are amassing their forces for a new onslaught. Many thousands of Palestinians will die in the carnage that will inevitably follow.
Assured of blanket Western support the Israelis are clearly out to crush all Palestinian resistance to their occupation. But they never learn.
This seemingly endless cycle of violence started when the first Arab-Israeli war began in 1948. The Palestinians were driven from their homes and robbed of their land. But wherever there is oppression, there is resistance.
The refugees have the right to return or receive compensation, if they so want it, for their stolen land. The Palestinians have the right to self-determination; to establish their own independent state as was envisaged by the same United Nations that created the State of Israel in the first place. 
The Palestinians remained determined to fight. They still are and they still will be no matter what the Israelis throw at them.
Russian and Chinese calls at the United Nations for a cease-fire and genuine peace talks to end the conflict were, of course, routinely ignored by the Americans and their lackeys. They still think that victory comes through air-superiority and hi-tech weapons. Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan proved them wrong. And they’ve been taught no end of a lesson in Palestine...  

a sham democracy

Delegates overwhelmingly re-affirmed their commitment to the renationalisation of the railways and the energy industry at their annual conference in Liverpool last week. But any hopes for a restored public sector under a future Labour government were soon dashed when
the Starmer leadership made it clear that this simply wasn’t going to happen. Shadow business secretary Jonathan Reynolds told the BBC "we're not going to nationalise the energy system". Asked if they would follow the vote, he said "No".
One wonders why Labour bothers to have a conference in the first place when decisions the leadership doesn’t like are simply ignored.
The social-democrats closed ranks with the bourgeois parties to trumpet their so-called “democratic” values during the Cold War. They called imperialist hegemony the “free world and said  the Soviet Union and the people’s democracies were dictatorships no better than those the Allies defeated in the Second World War.
They say we have free speech and live in a democracy but its democracy and freedom only for them. In fact bourgeois democracy is democracy only for the exploiters. It’s dictatorship in all but the formal sense for the exploited. Bourgeois elections are used so that the smallest number of people can manipulate the maximum number of votes. It is, in fact, a sham – much like Labour conference last week.

Only one choice...

Some of the childish elements on the left would have us believe that nothing could be worse than a Labour government led by Sir Keir Starmer. But last week’s Tory conference showed that no matter how bad the current Labour leadership is, the Tories are much, much worse.
There, in Manchester,  nonsensical talk about raising the retirement age to 75 was taken seriously while the former UKIP leader, Nigel Farage, who was covering conference for GB News, virtually outshone everyone on Rishi Sunak’s front bench.
Though Rishi Sunak had hinted that the former Brexit campaigner would be welcomed back by the party he left in 1992 no one seriously thinks it will ever happen, least of all Farage who says he’s not even interested in returning to Sunak’s “broad church”,.
But working till you drop could happen if former Brexit negotiator Lord Frost has his way. The Tory grandee told delegates that “the honest truth is that the pension age is going to have to go up quite a long way to solve this problem [of reducing public expenditure],That seems to me the best way of getting out of it in the medium term”.
“The big blocks of spending are health, pension, and benefits,” says the noble lord. “If you don’t tackle those you’re not really tackling anything. People are much healthier than they used to be and I think [the pension age] does need to go up,” he said. Asked whether it should be raised to 70, he replied “75, it’s quite a lot higher”.
Needless to say this is too much for even the Blairites to swallow. And as we’re in the run-up to the next general election there will, thankfully, be few takers in the Sunak camp for Frost’s draconian plan.  But this is what we’re up against.
Crawling to the Americans isn’t just about preserving British imperialism’s interests around the world or upholding the “special relationship” with what some Tory politicians still regard as our “trans-Atlantic cousins”. It’s about admiring the unfettered capitalist system that operates in the United States – a billionaires’ playground that’s hell on earth for the poor,  and the sick and the elderly who cannot afford to pay for treatment in the “land of the free”. This is what they want here. Liz Truss leads the pack but there’s plenty more that agree with her free-for-all neo-con economics that nearly brought Britain to its knees during her brief spell in office last year. 
The social-democrats may not be much better. The slavish support of their leaders for what they think is the dominant section of the ruling class has led to betrayal after betrayal.   
 But the possibility of change remains as long as Labour retains its links with the trade unions and the co‑operative movement.
We need to defeat the right‑wing within the movement and strengthen the left within the Labour Party and the unions to create a democratic Labour Party that will carry out the demands of organised labour when in office.
Bourgeois democracy is a fraud. It is democracy for the exploiters and dictatorship in all but a formal sense of the exploited. Bourgeois elections, when they are held, are used so that the smallest number of people can manipulate the maximum number of votes.
Standing left candidates without mass support against Labour only divides the movement and ignores the obvious fact that, at the moment, the only realistic alternative to a Tory government is one led by Labour.

All smoke and mirrors

Quite why the Foreign Office has chosen to leak details of secret talks with the Russians at this time remains a mystery to the bourgeois media that unquestioningly published the story earlier in the week.
These sort of clandestine talks were, of course, the norm during the Cold War.  Hot lines and secret diplomatic exchanges via go-betweens in neutral countries remained open during the height of the imperialist confrontation with the Soviet Union. Vital links for spy deals, prisoner swaps and back-door channels to avoid misunderstandings that could rapidly escalate into a nuclear war that neither side could win. But if we are to believe the Foreign Office the only matters raised with the Russians at a number of covert meetings around the world were on routine issues of grain supplies and nuclear safety. These are issues that could usually be dealt with at ambassador level. They certainly would not normally justify covert liaisons in all sorts of places like New York and Vienna.
The Foreign Office is at pains to stress that at no point has the UK sought to enter peace talks around finding a diplomatic end to the conflict. If so what was the point of all these cloak-and-dagger meetings?
We can only guess at what was on the agenda but one thing’s for sure, and that is that the British envoys were acting as errand boys for the Americans. Though the Americans have been quite open about their own talks with the Russians they like to use trusted allies, like Britain and Japan, to raise issues without compromising their own position  in advance of any future direct negotiations.
Though Boris Johnson liked to pose as the man who persuaded  the Ukrainians to go for total war and break off peace negotiations with the Russians last year everybody knows that Johnson was only doing the bidding of Joe Biden and the American war-lobby which has used the conflict to tighten their grip over all their European allies.
Ukraine is essentially a protectorate of US imperialism. A vassal state that fights with NATO’s guns and lives on imperialist aid only keeps up the fight because the war is still in the American interest. 
No-one, beyond the chosen few in America’s ruling circles, knows what Biden’s war aims are but he’s clearly has got most of what he wanted when the war US imperialism provoked broke out in February 2022. NATO has taken over the once neutral states of Scandinavia. Russian gas and oil exports to Europe have been cut and US imperialism is now supreme in the UK and the European Union. It has come at a price that has largely been paid in blood by the hapless Ukrainians. But it has also cost the American tax-payers plenty in billions of dollars-worth of military supplies that can never be repaid. Now that bill is coming under scrutiny in the run-up to the next US presidential election.
Donald Trump is on the come-back trail claiming he could stop the Ukraine war in a day by talking directly to Putin. On the other hand the Democrats, still unsure on whether Biden is capable of fighting the next election, want to concentrate on their domestic reform platform which they believe will secure them a second term in office. They need a cease-fire to stop this becoming a campaign issue. But only time will tell whether the Biden administration is now ready to seriously talk about ending the war.

 

A disgusting spectacle in Liverpool

This year’s TUC annual conference summed up all that is rotten in the British labour movement. The bureaucrats, left-wing posers and the rest of the gravy-trainers were all there in Liverpool to pass the usual platitudes that pass for working class solidarity these days.
Sir Keir Starmer joined the assembled general secretaries for a back-slapping eve of conference dinner but left it to his deputy Angela Rayner to assure the union bureaucracy and the bourgeoisie as a whole that they can sleep soundly in their beds when Starmer gets to Downing Street.
The most sickening episode was when delegates voted overwhelmingly for a motion backing the provision of “moral and material aid”, including arms, to the puppet regime in Ukraine.
Moving the motion, Barbara Plant, the president of the GMB, said Ukraine was fighting for its survival in the face of a brutal Russian onslaught and claimed that denying the Ukrainians of the means of self-defence would be like the arms embargo that crippled the Spanish republic in the 1930s.
Seconding the motion, Aslef Assistant General Secretary Simon Weller claimed Ukrainian unions were not subject to bans, while Russia’s recent declaration that the International Transport Federation was an “undesirable organisation” would put the rights of many workers, particularly seafarers, at risk. And needless to say, TUC general secretary Paul Nowak got up to tell conference that the General Council backed the motion.
Though a handful of unions including the RMT, UCU and the NEU abstained only the firefighters’ and the small bakers’ union took the principled stand to oppose the motion. Jamie Newell of the Fire Brigades Union, condemned the way debate on Ukraine has been shut down in Britain. “We do not think the escalation of war is in the interests of the Russian or Ukrainian working class,” he said.
The “Solidarity with Ukraine” motion committed the TUC to supporting “Ukrainian unions’ calls for financial and practical aid from the UK to Ukraine”, and “the immediate withdrawal of Russian forces from all Ukrainian territories occupied since 2014”— including Crimea and the eastern Donbas regions – exactly the  same demands of Anglo-American imperialism and the rest of the NATO pack.

Support the doctors!

Junior doctors joined consultants in industrial action called by the British Medical Association (BMA) this week. For the first time in the history of the NHS  consultants and junior doctors stood together in joint strike action for the first time. Ss with previous strikes the union ensured that patients are kept safe by ensuring that emergency services remain in place. 
Junior doctors account for nearly half NHS doctors - from medics fresh out of university to those sometimes with 10 years' experience. Their pay has been cut by more than 26 per cent in real-terms cuts since 2008/09. This mean newly-qualified medics earn just £14.09 an hour. This is in comparison to baristas at Pret a Manger, who can earn up to £14.10 an hour, after the coffee chain recently announced it has raised wages by 19 per cent this year. Consultants too have seen their real-term take-home pay fall by over a third over the last 14 years. his can’t going. Support the striking doctors! Defend the NHS! 

Palestine: Absent justice...

the horror of Sabra and Shatila

by Fouad Baker

Though 41 years have passed we can still smell the stench of death and hear the voices of the martyred men, women and  children when we pass through the streets of the Shatila camp and the Sabra neighbourhoods in West Beirut.
  The massacre,  carried out by the Israeli army and their Lebanese militia allies, lasted for three continuous days during the Israeli occupation of the Lebanese capital in 1982. Some 3,000 Palestinian and Lebanese civilians were killed. Their mothers and children are still waiting for international accountability and justice for the victims.
When a Palestinian refugee visits the Sabra and Shatila camp, the scenes of the massacre still come to mind. They have become engraved in the conscience of every Palestinian. The images of the victims being butchered while militiamen stopped ambulances entering the camp and refused to allow the International Committee of the Red Cross to provide relief supplies for the refugees makes the Palestinians even more determined to return to their land.
The Israeli goal was to eliminate the Palestinian refugees who fled after the pogroms organised by Zionist extremists drove them from their lands in 1948. Their plan continues to this day but the features have changed as the Palestinian refugees in Lebanon no longer have the right to live in dignity. They are deprived of their rights to education and health services, work, or own property, ... especially with the decline in international financial support for the United Nations relief agency, UNRWA.
The Sabra and Shatila massacre is not the only massacre committed by Zionist and Israeli gangs against the Palestinian people. We have not forgotten the Qana massacre or the massacres in Deir Yassin, Haifa, Balad al-Sheikh, Jerusalem, Abbasiya and Jaffa... and with the absence of justice and accountability of the Israeli occupation government, these pogroms continue every day against the Palestinian people.
These massacres show that the Israel wants to eliminate the Palestinian people in order to prove to the world the false narrative of the Zionist movement that Palestine is ‘a land without a people for a people without a land’, which is refuted by all historical and scientific evidence.
What Israel is doing is a real holocaust to annihilate the Palestinian people wherever they are, whether inside or outside Palestine. But when the Palestinians want to hold the Zionists accountable, they are accused of “anti-Semitism” even though the Palestinian people are Semites themselves
We saw how the Belgian government amended its laws, when charges were made against General Ariel Sharon, the Israeli Defence Minister, over Sabra and Shatila, to prevent him from being tried for war-crimes, genocide and crimes against humanity. We saw this repeated at the International Criminal Court when the Trump administration imposed sanctions on Prosecutor Fatou Bensouda when she announced the opening of an investigation into Israeli war crimes committed in the Gaza Strip in 2014.  When Attorney-General Karim Khan took over, the investigation was frozen in 2020 and it remains like that today..
Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir (1969-1974) said when she was asked about peace in Palestine that the old die and the young forget, but how can the young forget their martyred fathers, their wounded brothers, and their prisoners’ mothers? How can they forget how the Israeli occupiers demolished their homes and displaced them from their homes? 
They are still refugees to this day. They do not have the right to self-determination and establish their independent state. We are talking about peace while justice is absent, the land is still usurped, and thousands of settlers live in homes of Palestinians, stealing Palestinian land and falsely ascribing Palestinian food, heritage culture to themselves! 
Despite all these crimes and massacres committed by the Zionist and Israeli gangs against the Palestinian people, the major powers are still trying to force the Palestinian people to give up their legitimate rights that are recognised by international law.
Some Arab regimes have now normalised relations with Israel as if nothing had happened while the Israelis impose a siege on Gaza Strip, depriving Palestinians of benefiting from the natural resources the Israelis have stolen.
But when the Palestinian people resist the occupation some countries accuse them of  violence and terrorism. They ignore the Palestinians’ non-violent struggles, such as the boycott of Israeli goods movement, which they criminalise. They ignore the prisoners’ hunger strikes. There are 5,000 Palestinians jailed in Israel without charge or fair trial, including women, children and the elderly. They are living martyrs sentenced to life imprisonment, because they struggle against injustice and the occupation.
The countries that support Israel refuse to hold Israel accountable. Rather, they support it with weapons and money to kill the Palestinian people and commit more massacres and crimes against them. Not only did the countries that financially and militarily support Israel fight the Palestinians, but they also take control of the media to spread the false Israeli narrative over the true Palestinian narrative, and restrict content supporting the Palestinian question on social media. 
Our hope lies with the freedom fighters and the free people of the world who reject injustice wherever it exists. As  Che Guevara said “wherever there is injustice, this is my homeland,” and we call on them to put pressure on their governments with the aim of boycotting Israel, imposing sanctions on it, withdrawing investments from it, and stopping its support financially, militarily, and politically... and holding it accountable for its crimes committed against the Palestinians, and supporting the right of the Palestinian people to self-determination, establishing their independent state with Jerusalem as its capital, and the return of refugees to their homes.

The author is a member of the  international criminal court bar association and the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine (DFLP) 

A step in the right direction

 When the United States openly called itself the leader of the “free world” American leaders were raised to Churchillian heights in the bourgeois media. General Eisenhower was, of course, a famous war-time commander who led the Anglo-American advance into Nazi Germany during the Second World War. A halo of sanctity surrounds John F Kennedy and the Carters, Clintons and Obamas are regarded as role-models for the “American way of life”. Ronald Reagan and the Bush family are praised for their supposed leadership during the Cold War. Even Richard Nixon gets a look in these days.
But what can they say about Joe Biden, an octogenarian US president who barely knows which day it is, facing a not much younger Donald Trump preparing to make a come-back while fighting criminal charges in four jurisdictions.
Last week Biden was at the G20 summit in India. President Xi Jinping of China and Russia’s Vladimir Putin gave it a miss. The Chinese delegation was, instead, headed by Prime Minister Li Qiang and the Russian by Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov as Putin could not travel to New Delhi because of the ludicrous “International Criminal Court” warrant for his arrest on trumped-up charges of “war-crimes” is valid in India. 
But they still got the better over the leader of US imperialism at the conference which ended with a joint statement that pointedly avoided any criticism of Russia over Ukraine. The  Zelensky regime had hoped the Americans would give them another cheap propaganda victory at  this international economic forum that consists of 19 major countries, including China, Russia, India, the UK and the United States as well as the European Union and the African Union. The final declaration, the Ukrainians said, was “nothing to be proud of”. 
But the Biden team were realistic. They went along with the consensus that merely noted "the human suffering and negative added impacts of the war in Ukraine with regard to global food and energy security". It was, as Sergei Lavrov, said, a “turning point” and a “landmark” decision.
The West had failed to ''Ukrainianise'' the summit declaration. The  final agreement on the wording was "a step in the right direction".
The G20 is being transformed from within by members from the Global South, with the West failing to hijack the intergovernmental forum’s agenda to focus on the Ukraine crisis, the Russian Foreign Minister said. 
Lavrov also touched on the declaration’s inclusion of important concrete objectives, like reforming traditionally Western-dominated institutions such as the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank, and the need for the US and its allies to fulfill the obligations and promises made to the Global South, like technology transfers and financial support.
A new wind of change is sweeping the world as millions upon millions of people throughout the Global South rise up against Washington’s new world order. Another world is possible but it is not the European Union or the American dream of world domination.  A new and better world ia coming – the world Marx and Engels predicted and a world that will surely come to pass. It is already being built in the people’s democracies of today. It is now being fought for in every continent and every country.

People’s China: taking the lead for peace

 by Andy Brooks

New Communist Party leader Andy Brooks took part in a seminar on the role of the Communist Party of China and the world today at the Chinese embassy in London in August. This is his contribution to the discussion.

We meet at a time of sharpening contradictions — and the primary contradiction in the world today is between United States imperialism and the rest of the world it seeks to dominate.
    Generations of Chinese communists struggled against dogmatism and sectarianism to build a people’s democracy in their own way, to serve the needs of the working people of China and throughout the wider world we live in – a world torn apart by war and stricken by poverty and disease. While the American imperialists incite conflict and sectarian division People’s China has taken the lead in helping to build the economies of the Global South while working for peace and harmony throughout the world
    We too must struggle for peace and nuclear disarmament – as well as the abolition of
other weapons of mass destruction.
    Imperialism fans the flames of war in Ukraine and the Middle East, blocks the return of Taiwan to its Chinese homeland and prolongs the unhappy partition of many countries including Cyprus, Ireland, Kashmir and Korea. China’s perspective, on the other hand, is based on the concept of ‘one country, two systems’ and the principle that ‘a nuclear war cannot be won and must never be fought’. But the most aggressive sections of the American ruling class now at the helm in Washington clearly believe in “one world, one system” and that nuclear war is, under certain circumstances, entirely winnable.
    The Chinese revolution that established the people’s government in 1949 has transformed the country that was then the poorest in the world. Since then China has risen from being a weak semi-feudal, semi-colonial country to become a force for peace in the global arena with the second largest economy in the world.
    People’s China, the fifth permanent member of the United Nations Security Council, is the only veto-power actively supporting proposals for multilateral nuclear disarmament. Pledging never to be the first to use nuclear weapons in any conflict, China stands for the complete prohibition and total destruction of all atomic weapons.
    China, backed by many other countries, has repeatedly challenged the West to implement the entire non-proliferation treaty, signed in 1968, that not only called a halt to nuclear proliferation but also committed the signatories to work towards universal nuclear disarmament.
    The struggle to abolish nuclear weapons is crucial for the survival of humanity. But central to averting a Third World War is the need to eliminate the causes of war. And that is why communists have always understood that the struggles for peace and socialism are indivisible.
    The Chinese communists are striving to achieve lasting world peace, so that all countries can enjoy a peaceful and stable external environment and their people can live a happy life with their rights fully guaranteed to build a world that is free from fear and enjoys universal security. 
    This is, of course, a quantum jump from the post-war Soviet policies of “peaceful co-existence” and “detente” that failed to end the Cold War and probably accelerated the collapse of the USSR. Peaceful co-existence mistakenly believed that the capitalists could be economically beaten at their own game while detente was, in essence, a futile Soviet attempt at achieving nuclear parity with the Americans to divide the world into Soviet and American spheres of influence.
    Sadly the United Nations has been marginalised by the imperialists who only pay lip service to UN institutions when it suits their purposes. When it doesn’t the world forum is ignored and discarded.
So though the United Nations remains a prime focus China has taken the initiative in setting up other platforms for economic and diplomatic co-operation including BRICS, the Belt and Road Initiative and the Shanghai Co-operation Council.
    China has become a beacon of hope for all the peoples of the world struggling to build their own independent economies without imperialist interference. While Anglo-American and Franco-German imperialism use their military and economic might to impose their neo-colonial rule throughout the Global South the Chinese people can, and do, provide the countries of Africa, Asia and Latin America with an alternative source of high technology and economic assistance without the odious strings attached that always go with deals with the West.
    China puts people first. China has become a pivot for peace in a world torn apart by imperialist greed and aggression. China is strong but it threatens no one. China respects the sovereignty and territorial integrity of all countries. It stays true to the principle of equality of all countries big or small, strong or weak, and rich or poor, and it respects the development paths and social systems independently chosen by all the world’s peoples. The people’s government is dedicated to promoting a human community with a shared future.
    China stands ready to work with all countries and peoples who love peace and aspire to happiness to address all kinds of traditional and non-traditional security challenges, protect the peace and tranquility of the planet, and jointly create a better future for humanity, so that the torch of peace will be passed on from generation to generation and shine across the world.
    Earlier this year the Chinese leader, Xi Jinping, launched the “global security initiative” that lays out core concepts and principles regarding global peace and security.
    The first is to eliminate conflict through the establishment of a balanced, effective, and sustainable security framework under which countries respect the legitimate security concerns of each other and promote political solutions to cope with hotspot issues.
    The second is the promotion of economic development in the Global South.
    The third is respect for diversity. It is the right of every country to choose its own
political system and development path.
    Finally all international disputes should be resolved through dialogue not unilateralism and hegemonic acts. The UN can play a positive role in international affairs if the voice and representation of countries throughout the Global South is expanded in the world forum.
    This is what we should all be working for. Hopefully we will live to see it happen in
the years to come.

For a democratic Labour party

Summer is known as the silly season by the press because the long parliamentary recess means they have to fill their columns with even more rubbish to make up the difference. This is a good time for bourgeois political leaders to shuffle their packs while the backstabbers make their play in the corridors of power. And it always ends with the spectacularly tedious "conference season" starting with the TUC and followed by equally boring Labour, Liberal Democrat and Conservative bashes that we've all grown to know and love down the years.
    This time round we’ve seen Rishi Sunak replace Ben Wallace with Grant Shapps in Defence – though Sunak had little choice as Wallace was going anyway after he failed to get the top job in NATO – while Sir Keir Starmer continues to purge the ranks of his Shadow Cabinet to make room for more Blairites eager for high office when Labour wins the next election.
    Some Corbynistas are rallying around the call to “Stop Starmer” from a campaign backed by two former Labour MPs, George Galloway and Chris Williamson, along with veteran Liverpool campaigner Audrey White who was kicked out of the Labour Party last year after she confronted Starmer in a cafe to challenge his right-wing policies and the ongoing purge of supporters of his predecessor, Jeremy Corbyn.
    Former Labour campaigner Crispin Flintoff, a stand-up comic who raised more than £150,000 for Labour before he too was kicked out, says “Keir Starmer is a danger to our democracy. He will say or do anything in pursuit of power. He is the most untrustworthy political leader this country has seen …the media hasn’t shown the reality of Starmer. But people who’ve been members of the Labour Party know what he’s really like. He stabbed the previous Labour leader in the back, he has broken all the pledges he has ever made, and he is carrying out a McCarthyite witch-hunt of the party — the biggest political purge of recent times...Starmer’s campaign to get into No 10 is the most cynical attempt to manipulate public opinion ever undertaken. We cannot allow him to get power because then it will be too late”.
    Whether Starmer is the most untrustworthy politician this country has ever seen is a matter of opinion – there’s been plenty of other Tory and Labour leaders over the years who would fit that bill. What is a fact, however, is that the only way Starmer is going to be stopped from getting into Downing Street is to vote Conservative at the next general election.
    Though Labour was founded by the trade unions to give the working class its own voice within Parliament, the Parliamentary Party leadership has been dominated by the middle class intelligentsia since the days of Ramsay McDonald.
    But the enemy of the working class is the ruling class not the Labour Party. Labour still maintains its links with the unions and the co‑operative movement and as long as that continues it remains the best option for the working class in the era of bourgeois parliamentary democracy. Our strategy is for working class unity and our campaigns are focused on defeating the right‑wing within the movement and strengthening the left and progressive forces within the Labour Party and the unions. Day‑to‑day demands for reform, progressive taxation, state welfare and a public sector dedicated to meet the people’s needs are winnable under capitalism, particularly in a rich country like Britain today.
    We don’t want to waste time on futile efforts to build social-democratic platforms to rival Labour at election time. We need to break with the “broad left” factions in the unions that do little apart from elevating their leaders on to the gravy train of the bureaucrats who line their own pockets at the members’ expense. We do need a democratic rank-and-file movement within the unions committed to peace and socialism. It can be done!

In the shadow of the atom bomb

 

by Ben Soton

Christopher Nolan’s latest film covers the life of J Robert Oppenheimer, played by Cillian Murphy, the theoretical physicist who developed the atomic bomb. Based on the 2005 biography American Prometheus by Kai Bird and Martin J. Sherwin, Oppenheimer largely consists of a series of flashbacks covering the most significant aspects of the life of the “father of the atom bomb”. Most notable of which is the part he played on the Manhattan Project which led to the United States using atomic weapons against Japan at the end of the Second World War.
    Oppenheimer was a New Deal Democrat who was on friendly terms with a number of communists, was openly sympathetic to causes such as Republican Spain and was staunchly pro-trade union. His wife, played by Emily Blunt, was at one point a member of the CPUSA; as was his brother Frank, played by Dylan Arnold and part of the film is taken up with Oppenheimer’s affair with the communist activist Jean Tatlock, played by Florence Pugh.
    His Jewish background made him a staunch opponent of Hitler. It was possible concerns about the Nazis obtaining atomic weapons that motivated him to develop one for the United States. During the Second World War he may have favoured sharing scientific knowledge with the Soviet Union and in the post-war era he campaigned against the spread of nuclear weapons.
    It could be said that Oppenheimer, although not a communist was not an anti-communist. However, to the US far-right, such as Senator Joseph McCarthy, himself a supporter of Adolf Hitler, there was no distinction. It was for this reason Oppenheimer eventually lost his security clearance to work in the Atomic industry. Much of the film is set in a committee room where Oppenheimer is questioned about his political allegiances.
    Meanwhile in a film about a scientist one would expect some reference to science; in this the film does very well. Albert Einstein, who developed the Theory of Relativity is portrayed by Tom Conti whilst the Danish physicist Niels Borr is played by Kenneth Brannagh. Although the film is set largely in the United States, it features many British actors.
    A point of discussion in the film was the possibility of a nuclear explosion igniting a chain reaction that couyld destroy the Earth’s atmosphere. Although this did not happen in 1945; it is still a possibility, especially if a larger and less one-sided conflict was to take place. The film also touches on the somewhat complex subject of quantum mechanics; the study of the movement of sub-atomic particles and the space between them.    The issue of Oppenheimer’s own feeling of guilt features heavily in the film. This is shown in scenes where Oppenheimer imagines radiation damage on those he is talking to. Meanwhile the film uses sound to dramatise the effect of the nuclear explosion as well as it’s impact of Oppenheimer’s conscience.
In a scene with President Truman (Gary Oldman) the scientist expresses his guilt. Truman sarcastically hands him a handkerchief and points out that the survivors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki don’t blame J Robert Oppenheimer for their fate. They blame him. It’s not often that I agree with the 33rd President of United States but on this occasion, he has a point.

Walk on by…

None of us are going to miss Nadine Dorries who formally resigned as an MP  this week almost 12 weeks after she said she was stepping down with "immediate effect". 
Her resignation letter – a rant against her leader, Rishi Sunak, whom she clearly despises –  no doubt sets the scene for the launch of her forthcoming book on the downfall of her idol, Boris Johnson. 
In politics Johnson liked to be surrounded by people lesser than himself. Rishi Sunak and Dominic Cummings were notable exceptions. Nadine Dorries was not. 
Few, apart from herself, can recall her achievements as an MP and later a Cabinet minister in the Johnson government. If she’s remembered for anything at all it will be for the string of novels she’s written over the years or the time she lost the Tory whip for taking part in the TV reality show I'm a Celebrity...Get Me Out of Here! In 2012.
Many will be glad to see the back of her – and not just in the House of Commons. Adam Zerny, the Independent leader of Central Bedfordshire Council, says his constituents won’t be shedding any tears over her departure from the political scene.
  "There's a great degree of relief amongst the many people who are constituents that finally this may be over and we may soon find that we have an MP that actually cares about the local community.” Zelny said. “She's rarely ever been seen in the area. And I think we've had very much the impression that what she cares about is her own life and her life at Westminster rather than Mid Beds”.
With exquisite timing Ms Dorries has ensured that the by-election in her Mid-Bedfordshire constituency will fall soon after the publication of her book The Plot: The Political Assassination of Boris Johnson and the Tories’ annual conference in October.
And Sunak may rue the day he denied her a peerage if her safe Tory seat falls to Labour or the Liberal Democrats – and both have high hopes given the slump in Tory fortunes. 
The fact that the Tories are openly fighting amongst themselves shows how deep the divisions are between the Remainers and Brexiteers. Back in the halcyon days of the 1960s and 70s Tories of all hues closed ranks to stop Labour returning to high office. These days they clearly think they’ve nothing to fear from Sir Keir Starmer and his Blairite chums. 
The latest opinion poll puts Labour 25 points ahead of the Conservatives and suggest that Labour has the support of 50 per cent of the electorate and at the moment Labour seems to heading for a landslide at the next general election.
Ms Dorries says in her resignation letter that “it is a fact that there is no affection for Keir Starmer out on the doorstep. He does not have the winning X factor qualities of a Thatcher, a Blair, or a Boris Johnson, and sadly, prime minister, neither do you. Your actions have left some 200 or more of my MP colleagues to face an electoral tsunami and the loss of their livelihoods, because in your impatience to become prime minister you put your personal ambition above the stability of the country and our economy,”.
She may not be right about Sunak but she’s spot on about Starmer.

Another world is possible…

 

World leaders gathered in Johannesburg this week for the annual summit of the BRICS bloc. Named after Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa – the key players that set it up some 14 years ago – the bloc has become a pivot for the Global South in the struggle to end the economic and political stranglehold of Anglo-American and Franco-German imperialism in Africa, Asia and Latin America.
At the conference in South Africa the Chinese President, Xi Xinping, said China  was willing to deepen solidarity and cooperation with other emerging markets and developing countries to make the international order more just and equitable. "Emerging countries are becoming more and more relevant in the international arena. This summit will very much contribute to the shaping of a new global economic and political order. It will help change the current situation when it comes to international relations,"  the Chinese communist leader said.
The presidents of People’s China, India, Brazil and South Africa were all there together with leaders from all other the Global South because BRICS is not just a forum for the what we used to call the ‘Third World’ – it is a platform for concrete economic and diplomatic co-operation. Co-operation that led to the establishment of the New Development Bank in 2015 and the development of a common diplomatic front to demand  the South’s rightful share of the fruits of global market.
Some 85 per cent of the world’s population live in the Global South – the ‘developing’ world that is still largely excluded from the international institutions set up by US imperialism after the Second World War with the support of the weaker imperialist forces who rely on American might to defend their global interests now that their colonial empires have long gone. 
The people of the Global South are sick and tired of the fact that the Americans and their minions in the West have economically dominated the world for decades, forcing and imposing transactions in dollars with the fear that failure to comply with US directives would result in economic and financial sanctions or even “regime change” à la Iraq and Libya.  
In contrast BRICS is open to helping countries develop, as well as promoting investment and trade without strings or preconditions. BRICS is fighting against the concept of  a new Cold War and opening the possibility of building a fairer and more equitable international economic order from which the world can benefit. The BRICS bloc is helping to build the multi-polar world that will put an end to the American dream of the “new world order” and world domination.
No wonder Argentina, Egypt, Iran, Ethiopia, the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia have applied to join the group. Many more will follow in the future.
A new world is indeed possible but it’s not the European Union or the hell-hole of the United States.  It’s the world being built now in the new institutions of the Global South and Russia that offer an even playing field to all countries to trade and peacefully resolve disputes to build as better future for everyone on the planet.

People's China – giant strides along the road to socialism

China- the workshop of the world

On the 24 June Peter Hendy from the New Communist Party of Britain joined other communists from North America, Scandinavia, Australia and the United Kingdom, including General Secretary Rob Griffiths of the Communist Party of Britain, as guests of the Communist Party of China.  They arrived in Guangzhou in southern China to visit Guangdong and Guizhou provinces before travelling to Beijing. This provided an opportunity to see first hand the profound developments and modernisation that have taken place in People's China. To learn about the role and work of the Communist Party of China (CPC) over 40 years of reform and opening up. To find out the truth about 'Socialism with Chinese characteristics' and the CPC's path to modernisation.

In 1989 there was a political earthquake with the collapse of the Soviet Union and counter revolutions in Eastern Europe. Economic stagnation, significant problems in commodity production, inefficiency, corruption, opportunism and revisionism were factors ruthlessly exploited by imperialism which led to an enormous setback for socialism and the working class.
In response the Communist Party of China (CPC) led a new long march to thwart the potential threat of counter revolution.
The CPC has overseen deep reforms and opening up but also overcome complex social difficulties and unexpected events to develop a modern and dynamic socialist country.
Socialist modernisation involved a restructuring, diversification and transformation of the economy that has led over 853 million people out of poverty with improvements in living standards, incomes and quality of life for both people in both rural and urban areas.
Life expectancy is now 76.7 years. In 1949 it was 36, Medical Insurance is provided to the whole population and 45 per cent of youth from 18-22 go to college. With a population of 1.4 billion this is an astonishing achievement!
Today China is a global power and the second wealthiest country in the world with a staggering $5 trillion in bank reserves. In 2021 China's share of global GDP was 18.4 per cent. The trade between China and other countries along the Belt & Road is $12 trillion and in advanced digital technologies China is now a world leader.
People's China has successfully responded to one of humanity's worst epidemics and its international response was to provide millions of vaccinations and protective equipment to other countries around the globe. Following the lifting of Covid-19 restrictions China's economy is estimated to grow by over an incredible five per cent GDP.
US imperialism has aggressively responded to the perceived 'Chinese threat' by attempting to economically destabilise China's economy by imposing sanctions, increasing hostilities, provocations, geo-political tensions and conflicts even within China's borders.
However, China is now a powerful force for diplomacy and peace. China's recent peace proposals for Ukraine contained a 12 point peace plan to end hostilities and to resume peace talks. Iran and Saudi Arabia have now agreed to establish diplomatic relations following a conference hosted by China.
In a report delivered to the 20th National Congress of the CPC Xi Jinping stated the CPC's desire to build China into a modern socialist country and the rejuvenation of the China nation through a Chinese path of modernisation.

Guangdong Province

Guangzhou (Canton) is the capital of Guangdong province situated on the North Pearl River Delta near Macau and Hong Kong known as, 'the south gate' of China. Guangdong is the most populated province in China with over 127 million people.
Our first impressions of Guangzhou were of an ultra-modern, economically vibrant and rapidly expanding city with multi-lane motorways, wide tree lined boulevards and soaring skyscrapers. The city was awe inspiring with an incredible skyline and is home to 16 million people. It was smart, clean and architecturally contemporary with an abundance of urban green spaces. There was an absence of pollution, rubbish, poverty and destitution associated with Western cities.
On the outskirts we saw enormous construction projects taking place providing evidence of China's rapidly expanding economy and to meet new demands for low cost housing.
Guangzhou is a major transportation and communication hub for South China
having a humid subtropical climate with plentiful rainfall. It has a long and illustrious history with a profoundly rich culture of over 2,200 years being the starting point of the ancient maritime Silk Road. The Opium War and the 1911 Revolution took place here and its museums contain a wealth of cultural relics and artefacts.

Poverty to prosperity

Guangdong was established as a Special Economic Zone (SEZ) and a pioneer of socialist market reforms and the opening up of coastal areas. It is the epitome of Chinese style modernisation driven by a scientific and technological revolution. Moving from a predominantly labour intensive backward agricultural province to the largest most dynamic and fastest growing high tech manufacturing province in China. According to the World Bank it has been transformed from a low income to high income economy. Its economic performance is phenomenal with growth of 0.5 per cent and being a quarter of the national total. In 2021 its economic growth surpassed south Korea! 1.32 million jobs were created in 2022 and there are more than 300,000 foreign invested enterprises in Guangdong. From a closed economy in 1978 its foreign trade imports and exports reached $1.2 trillion in 2022.
The modernisation of Guangdong province has involved a high level of future planning to develop all aspects of the economic infrastructure involving the constant improvement of roads, highways, ports and harbours linking the province with other cities.
Guangzhou now has an international airport, port and the province is developing high-speed railways and bus links. The city demonstrates the CPC's leadership and commitment to implementing the Belt & Road Initiative in order to develop its international economic infrastructure, to boost trade and stimulate economic growth not only for China but for other countries across the world.
Research, development and innovation are instrumental to China's economic growth and prosperity. Guangdong is a Science and Technology Hub and is at the forefront of research being number one nationally for invention patents.
To promote economic stability the CPC is implementing supply side structural reforms. To increase economic capacity, reduce imbalances, inadequate development and to raise efficiency. Promoting new areas of economic growth involving innovation and technology.
Dual Circulation Theory emphasises the need for structural supply side adjustments and potential problems for China by depending too much on exports for its economic development. This reduces the risk of financial crisis but also acknowledges the enormous potential of a domestic market with over
1.4 billion consumers and opportunities to improve their lives. More emphasis is being placed on safeguarding China's domestic economy consumption by increasing consumption to achieve a balance between exports and imports.
Previously there has been a reliance on exports but due to global changes and future uncertainties a new paradigm has been developed. This recognises the dual importance of simultaneously developing and expanding the domestic circle or market to achieve strategic goals.
In Guangzhou we visited KingMed Diagnosis China's leading independent clinical laboratory company providing a technology orientated medical service company specialising in clinical diagnostics and pathology. The facility was state of the art but what made it so remarkable was that out of 17,000 employees 1,063 were CPC members!
We also visited the GAC group which is ranked 61st in the top Chinese enterprises building both conventional high class vehicles and electric cars with a production capacity of 200,000 vehicles using the most advanced robotics technologies.

Guizhou province

Next we flew to Guiyang in Guizhou province. A scenic area with a landscape of domed mountains, rivers and waterfalls. Guizhou was previously China’s poorest and most underdeveloped region.
Guizhou has also experienced a dramatic economic surge in high quality scientific, electronic and technological digital transformation. Artificial intelligence, big data, and cloud computing (online storage that keeps files readily accessible anytime anywhere), block chain (advanced database mechanisms that allow transparent information to be shared in businesses) and other technological developments are unfolding. Guizhou has an advantageous climate, power supply and infrastructure. The cooler climate is conducive to the servers operation and thus reduces operating costs. Power supplies are from thermal and water power and electricity costs are cheaper. Following a three year highway construction programme all urban areas have access to expressways enabling Guizhou to connect more efficiently with the outside world.
It is China's first national big comprehensive pilot zone and part of its national big data strategy. It now has the highest number of mega data centres in the country. The added value to the digital economy is predicted to exceed $91.7 billion. This will promote the integration of big big data into the real economy – industry, agriculture and service industry – and transform, upgrade and improve industrial development and big data industry.
Developments in big data are a central component of the province's social and economic development strategy. Financial support has been provided with special funds for the big data industry. The province has used big data integration to alleviate poverty and to establish the country's first provincial data platform for the online handling of provincial, municipal and county level government services. This has simultaneously involved the successful completion of upgrading optical fibres in 8,900 villages. Guizhou has achieved 100 per cent coverage for fibre optic broadband and 4G network. Vocational training and college education has included the development of 8 universities to set up courses in response to shortages of talent. Emphasis being placed on deepening relationships between universities and industrial and research institutes.

Ethnicity and Culture

China is a multi-ethnic country of 56 ethnic groups that forms a rich part of its political and cultural identity. This diversity is strongly promoted rather than suppressed as is claimed in mass media propaganda. A system of regional autonomy exists for ethnic minorities and equal rights are enshrined in the Constitution.
Guizhou is one of China’s most ethnically diverse provinces in China whose people have culturally benefited from the immense economic developments. In Guiyang we attended a magnificent performance involving people of Miao, Dono, Shui and Buyi ethnic minorities wearing traditional brightly coloured embroidered costumes and jewellery. The production was a musical opera and dance with traditional musical instruments against a backdrop of rivers, mountains, forests and waterfalls.
Culture is considered the soul of the nation and a nation’s strength is dependent on its culture. Xi Jinping has stated, ‘A nation’s confidence in its culture is its essential, underlying and enduring strength’. China is committed to stimulating future cultural innovation and creativity in literature and the arts but in protecting and restoring cultural relics, artefacts and historical sites.
A visit was made to Qingyan a former military town of the Ming and Qing dynasties. The streets and alleyways are paved with cobbles and the houses are of stone with traditional Chaomen and Yaomen roof tiles and flower-wood doors that reflect the architectural style of Old China. The place is full of temples, palaces, ancestral halls and pagodas and is a national cultural heritage site.
We travelled to the Zunyi Conference Site and Memorial Hall which is a place of great historical revolutionary significance. During the Zunyi Conference in 1935 Mao Zedong delivered a lengthy report criticising military errors and serious failures due to 'left dogmatism' during the Long March which nearly led to the defeat of the Red Army. Mao was co-elected as a member of the Standing Committee of the Politburo and so entered the military leadership of the Central Committee of the CPC and Red Army. The Zunyi Conference was a significant turning point in the life and death struggle of the CPC and Red Army.
The journey was made via a high speed bullet train from Guiyang. Symbolic of the rapid economic and cultural progress made by People's China since that historical conference. In a province defined by mountains and rivers the development of a high speed train network is a feat of engineering ingenuity.
In Beijing we attended the Third Dialogue on Exchanges and Mutual Learning among Civilisations and the first World Conference of Sinologists in which General secretary of the CPC Xi Jinping sent a congratulatory letter. He supported efforts to promote cultural exchanges, understanding, friendship and cooperation between China and the rest of the world. This was held at the China National Archives of Publications and Culture located at the foot of the Yanshan Mountains in Beijing which holds China’s largest collection of publications and database of cultural resources and traditions.

The Communist Party of China

The CPC has a membership of 98 million. It has experienced an arduous journey since its formation involving great sacrifices. During the period of liberation and from 1949 onwards in the socialist construction of China the CPC has achieved profound social changes for the Chinese people. After reviewing China’s historical experiences and rejecting dogma it oversaw a strategic shift from class struggle to one of opening up, reform and socialist modernisation.
The Museum of the Communist Party of China, located on Tiananmen Square in Beijing, provides a comprehensive exhibition of the Party’s history, 100 year struggles and truly astonishing progress including magnificent statues, photos and exhibits. A simulator takes you on a virtual awe inspiring intrepid journey. Through frozen mountains on the long march where you feel snow on your face before zooming through modern cities across China. Then plunging to the depths of the oceans before lifting off into space and landing on Mars!
The Report to the 20th National Congress of the Communist Party of China presented by Xi Jinping is a comprehensive political declaration for the future. The CPC is committed to continually improve people’s incomes, material living standards and overall quality of life but knows that it must also guard against complacency, corruption and ideological degeneration. To maintain its support and the integrity of the people it represents the CPC must remain dynamic and not stagnate.
Ideological
The CPC acknowledges the potential high risk of an emerging class that may represent an ideological threat to the communist movement. The situation is vigilantly monitored and laws prohibit capitalists or foreign investors from ownership or control in the Chinese media. We learnt how through Party Schools like in Guizhou exemplary working environments provide continuing education for CPC comrades.
In a survey conducted by China Youth Daily in 2021 involving young people 97.7% of respondents believed that the spirit of the CPC is the spirit of the nation. We met with members of the Communist Youth League (CYL) who have 81 million members. The CYL are the next generation and a priority is developing and strengthening ideological conviction. Political education, training and guidance is provided to forge a revolutionary spirit and socialist values. Educating young people in their historical knowledge of the CPC, Marxism-Leninism and its theoretical developments adapted to Chinese realities.
The CYL has been modernising how it disseminates information using technology ie social media and significant attention is paid to ensure that theories and policies are relevant to the present. Work includes frequent face to face dialogue with members of the National's People's Congress highlighting issues like housing problems for young people and the need for low cost housing.
CYL members carry out voluntary political work and were previously involved in work relating to improving literacy in poor rural areas, abolishing poverty and during the fight against the Covid epidemic.

Governance

In the West the term Governance is loosely associated with corporate mandatory training. It relates to self law or 'rule of virtue' and the individual. Often a superficial understanding is required before moving on to something else.
Whereas in China the term has a significantly deeper meaning and is associated with a process of continually reviewing, improving, strengthening and modernising the functioning of public institutions. To promote transparency, efficiency and ultimately accountability to the people at all levels. Achieving qualitative changes in political, social and economic organisations and systems.
At a national level this includes the working relationship between the Central Committee of the CPC  and the National  Congress. Its  functioning and the
implementation of its policies and procedures relating to key government reform strategies from national security to developing renewable energies. Strengthening China’s socialist systems in respect of the rule of law, democracy and the environment. This involves the people in villages, towns, counties, cities and provinces in both urban and rural locations.
The CPC considers that these systems need to be developed by the people for them to be effective. Thus the modernisation of Governance promotes a sense of social vitality, trust, and connection guaranteeing the welfare of the people. To protect and safeguard their interests and rights ensuring political stability.
The CPC recognises the importance of grass-roots support for the CPC. The need for leadership to improve local functioning and organisation of the Party. To recognise and respond to problems that arise affecting people’s livelihood at local level.
In Guizhou The Jinyuan Community in Guanshanhu District, Guiyang City, the home of 10,890 people, is a fantastic example of the CPC's dynamic work and implementation of social governance with the people. We met local CPC National Congress Member Yuan Yan in Jinyuan who explained how people's democracy and social governance works. She demonstrated her enthusiasm, commitment and dedication to representing the people of her community and was eager to show us the vital work being undertaken in an inner city area. The Party used the social media and public information screens to communicate with a predominantly elderly population living in high rise apartments to identify and quickly resolve problems. Recreational, social, and primary health care facilities were gold standard. The local CPC involved people in regular consultations and decision making promoting an evident strong sense of community. The environment was landscaped and a natural habitat created using trees and plants to enhance the area.

The Environment - Shougang Park

Shougang Park in Beijing was a former steel mill which produced 10 million tons of iron and steel but the former industrial wasteland has been transformed into a hub for tourism, sport and cultural events. The steel mill was closed in 2005 to reduce air pollution and due to significant changes in the supply of steel. Smokestacks, blast furnaces, cooling towers and other industrial relics are now surrounded by expansive green spaces, sport facilities, modern offices, commercial facilities and apartments. In 2022 it was a venue for the Winter Olympics and provided a dramatic backdrop. Shougang Park is now a monument to urban regeneration and innovation. It's an outstanding illustration of how the CPC is a catalyst for urban rejuvenation promoting a harmony between man and nature. Creating a green ecological and sustainable environment while retaining its magnificent industrial heritage.

New Era Modernisation

Overall we saw the enormous advancement in terms socialist modernization to meet the ever growing material and cultural needs of 1.4 billion people.
The People's Republic of China is moving into a 'New Era' with astonishing economic, political, social, environmental, scientific, technological and cultural modernisation against a backdrop of imperialism and war. Socialism with Chinese characteristics has shown how socialism is being integrated with the market economy and is not capitalism as critics proclaim. There are inherent dangers but the CPC is the representative political power of the working class in China and the power of the socialist state belongs to the people.
The CPC's goal is to build a modern socialist country that is prosperous, strong, democratic and harmonious but recognises the important contribution it can make to the progress of mankind in promoting diplomacy, international relations and peace.
At the 19th Party Congress in 2017 General Secretary Xi Jinping stated that it takes a good blacksmith to make good steel demonstrating the Party's resolve, confidence, and unswerving commitment to the future of socialism. Its greatest strength the leadership of the CPC.