By Jane West
The election victory of the populist, left of centre, Puea Thai (For Thais) party in Thailand last weekend is a further indication of the continuing rise in struggle and shift to the left in a series of semi-colonial and developing countries – a trend in contrast to the predominant one at present in the US and Europe.
By Jane West
It is extremely difficult for those in imperialist countries, although as we shall see not for those in semi-colonial ones, to understand the full importance of the Chinese Revolution – which is, with the Russian Revolution of 1917, the most important event in modern human history.
By Jane West
US imperialism is facing a threat to its global economic, and therefore also political, dominance. Even at market exchange rates the latest estimates are that the size of China’s economy will overtake that of the US within ten years. The recent prediction by the IMF that on current trends the size of the Chinese economy, measured in PPP terms, will overtake the US in as little as five years’ time, created international comment
One of the important international economic developments in recent years has been the increasing trade and cooperation of China with Latin America and with Africa – two of the continents most oppressed by imperialism. This has given an important extra room for manoeuvre for these countries in providing an economic alternative to simply trade with the US and other countries. The economic ties of China with Brazil and South Africa, for example, are strongly growing in importance. The following article, which originally appeared in China’s Global Times, makes an assessment of the recent revolutions in the Middle East from this angle. It is also interesting in characterising clearly the hypocrisy of the US and European powers in propping up Arab dictators to the very last minute.
China’s media carries a wide range of different views. A significant part of this is pro-capitalist. It is therefore of interest that Global Times, one of China’s main English language papers, has just carried an interview stating the ‘superiorities of the socialist system’, seeing the international financial crisis as ‘an unprecedented crisis of capitalism’, and concluding that ‘the China path… is not only a brand new one that has never been seen before but also a path that is becoming more and more successful.’ The interview was with Hu Angang, Director of the Center for China Studies of Tsinghua University, Beijing. Extracts from the interview are below and the full interview may be read in Global Times here.
By Juliet Altan
Photo: World Economic Forum
Prime Minister Erdogan of Turkey attacks Israeli President Peres over Israel’s assault on Gaza at the World Economic Forum, January 2009.
On Sunday 12 September 2010, the 30th anniversary of the bloody military coup in 1980, Turkey voted to accept constitutional amendments that have widely been viewed as moving the country away from the grip of the army.
The turnout was 73.71%, of which almost 58% approved the reform package, whilst just over 42% rejected it. There was a high abstention rate of almost 27%, mainly as a result of the call by the main Kurdish party BDP for a boycott of the referendum.
Since the election of the AKP (Justice and Development Party) government in 2002, and its re-election on a strong vote in 2007, there has been a power struggle between the army and the government in Turkey. There were several attempts, some covert and some very overt, to destabilise the government over the last few years.
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