After the current anti-China strategy fails, hopefully when the labor
movement is thinking about which way to go next, it will consider views
such as this more seriously. I think Doug reported recently that there is
considerable tension within the AFL-CIO about the 'yellow peril' strategy,
so there is hope. Hopefully that will be kept in mind before all out
attacks on the AFL-CIO membership as falling in line with this policy
also. This month's Monthly Review has an article by Bill Tabb that makes
solid arguments for why this strategy is likely to fail, as has David
Bacon recently.
Steve
Subject: Left Approach to China Trade: A Critical View
INTERNATIONAL SOLIDARITY IS THE ONLY ROAD
By Barry Sheppard, San Francisco Bay Area
The demonstrations in Seattle against the World Trade Organization have
rightly inspired activists in the labor movement. Many have commented on
the coming together of youth and students concerned about the destruction of
the environment and U.S. corporations imposing sweatshop conditions in their
factories in what used to be called the Third World, with tens of thousands
of trade unionists concerned with the loss of better paying jobs, the
reduction of real wages, and increasing economic insecurity. The
consciousness of most of these forces at this stage could be summed up as
"anti-corporatism." The big corporations and banks are seen as dominating
the world for their own greedy self-interests at the expense of the majority
of humanity and the world in which we live.
But which way forward for this movement, if indeed it becomes a movement as
we all hope it will, has become a burning question in practice. Key will be
the struggle between two opposite political strategies. One is the road of
American Firstism and U.S. protectionism, advocated by the AFL-CIO top
bureaucracy, and by some ultra-right politicians such as Pat Buchanan. The
counterposed strategy is international working class solidarity, which must
include solidarity with the worldıs peasant masses and with the nations
that are exploited by the imperialist countries.
At first sight, the answer would appear to be obvious for labor activists
on the left: we are internationalists, opposed to U.S. nationalism. But it
is not so simple. Disagreements have arisen over just what internationalism
means in the context of this movement. The sharpest expression of these
differences has been whether or not to join what has become the axis of the
AFL-CIOıs protectionist campaign, the drive to keep China out of the WTO and
to prevent Washington from granting China normal trade status with the U.S.
Some left labor activists say "yes" to this campaign. Others, like myself,
say an emphatic "No."
Before discussing the particular case of China, letıs recall some basic
facts about the world. Fact number one is that the nations of the world are
not equal. There are a handful of advanced capitalist countries, with a
minority of the worldıs population, which not only exploit their own workers
and small farmers, but suck super-profits out of the so-called "developing"
countries as well. Since the early 20th century this system of national
oppression and exploitation has been referred to as modern "imperialism,"
and the advanced capitalist countries as "imperialist."
The "Third World" doesnıt consist of "developing" or "underdeveloped"
countries, terms which imply that they will catch up with the imperialist
countries sooner or later. A better term would be "super-exploited"
countries, for the truth is that the gap between these countries and the
imperialist ones is growing, not diminishing, as I am sure we all know from
many sources. Within all countries, imperialist as well as super-exploited,
the gap between the rich and the workers and peasants is growing. The
neoliberal policies being promulgated domestically and internationally have
exacerbated the situation.
After over a century of imperialism, the world has now 800 million hungry
people, one billion illiterates, four billion in poverty, 250 million
children who work regularly and 130 million people who have no access to
education. There are 100 million homeless and 11 million children under
five years of age dying every year of malnutrition, poverty and preventable
or curable diseases.
Even Clinton admitted in a speech he made in September of last year that
while the rich countries have been long burdened with overcapacity,
including in the production of food, 40 million people die every year from
hunger.
The WTO, the IMF, the World Bank and the governments of the imperialist
countries are imposing ever worse conditions on the super-exploited
countries. Due to imperialist policies, the Third World debt to the banks
of the First World has ballooned to over two trillion dollars, from $567
billion in 1980 and $1.4 trillion in 1992. The spiraling debt has become a
perpetual motion machine of money flooding away from the super-exploited
countries, as recalculated interest payments dwarf the principal and new
loans are needed to pay off a part of old ones. These debts are a club the
imperialist countries hold over the super-exploited, forcing them
politically to acquiesce to imperialist policies such as opening their
economies to more imperialist ownership, slashing social spending, etc.
Imperialist profits also flow to the advanced countries as a result of such
investments. A third way the super-exploited countries are ripped off is
through unequal trade.
Even if there were really free trade, which there isnıt, because the
imperialist countries routinely erect their own trade barriers, the gap
between the have and the have not countries would necessarily widen. This
is because of the big gap in the productivity of labor between the
imperialist countries and the rest, due to the difference in when these
countries adopted the capitalist mode of production, but especially in the
fact that the "First" world, those who became capitalist first, imposed on
the others a stunted and distorted version of capitalism that made them
dependent, at the mercy, of the "first" world. They were not and are not
being allowed to develop into "normal" capitalist countries.
This gap in the productivity of labor means that when products are traded
on the world market between the imperialist countries and the
super-exploited ones, the hours of labor exchanged are far from equal. In
fact it takes more and more hours of labor in the over-exploited countries
to produce the raw materials needed to buy one tractor, for example. While
there is some high tech investment in the poorer countries by imperialist
concerns, this generalization remains true overall. Moreover, the wages in
those countries are very low in dollar terms due the difference in labor
productivity, and to massive unemployment. An aspect of this massive
unemployment has been the driving of hundreds of millions of peasants off
the land because they cannot compete with low-cost agricultural products
from the West. Another aspect of the displacement of the peasantry has been
reorientation of farming to the needs of the world market, as happened with
the Shah of Iranıs "green revolution" that expanded production of pistachios
and other products for the world market, a process that included the
destruction of small farms. These landless peasants stream into and around
the cities of the Third World, seeking jobs that are very scarce. One need
only think of the slums of Bombay, Mexico City, Teheran, etc. Imperialist
and local capitalist investments in these countries cannot meet the demand
for jobs.
So what trade policy would help reduce the gap between the rich and poor
countries, even without the overthrow of imperialism on a world scale?
There are two sides to the question. The first is that the super-exploited
countries need protectionist measures of their own, to allow their
industries to develop in the face of competition from the advanced
countries. Otherwise, the gap will grow.
The other side is that the imperialist countries should end all tariffs and
quotas on goods from the over-exploited countries, especially concerning
goods these countries can produce competitively because they do not require
massive capital investment and are labor intensive, such as textiles and
garments.
These two trade policies should be complimented by cancellation of the debt
the super-exploited owe the super-rich.
In the longer run, trade between the advanced countries and the poorer ones
should be based not on world market prices, which are largely determined by
the labor productivity in the advanced countries. Rather, world trade
should be based on exchange of equal hours of labor. This would help the
over-exploited countries build up their economies and improve their labor
productivity. Cuba succeeded in forcing the USSR to move in this direction,
a fact which is expressed in the assertion by bourgeois apologists that the
USSR "subsidized" Cuba. The adoption of such a policy, however, would
probably take the victory of the socialist revolution in one or more of the
advanced capitalist countries.
Of course, the imperialists are pressing in exactly the opposite
direction from eliminating tariffs on goods from the poor countries, and
allowing those countries to implement protectionist policies. They are
demanding that the poor countries open their markets, while maintaining
protectionist policies for the imperialist countries. A United Nations
Development Program report in 1992 (and things have gotten worse since) put
it this way: "20 out of 24 industrialized nations are generally more
protectionist than they were ten years ago and their protectionism is
exercised largely to the detriment of developing countries . . . Overall, we
can estimate that world market restrictions cost developing countries
approximately US$500 billion a year. Those $500bn in losses are equivalent
to around 20% of the global GDP of developing countries and represent seven
times the amount such nations currently allocate to spending on priorities
related to human development."
A good case in point is Latin America, where protectionist measures were put
in place by many nationalist governments. One need only think of Argentina
and Mexico. In addition to protectionist tariffs to protect local
industries, there were substantial sections of nationalized industries
protected from imperialist ownership. Under the whip of imperialist
dominated international competition, and debt owed to the imperialist banks,
Mexico and Argentina are privatizing like mad, including allowing
imperialist investment in former nationalized industries. And they have
been forced into accepting cheaper imperialist goods. This has been good
for some sections of the local capitalists, at least while the "Asian flu"
can be kept at bay, but it has been a big setback for the living standards
of the masses.
It is in this context that we have to view the proposal by the AFL-CIO
brass that the WTO should erect tariff barriers against countries where
there is child labor, low wages, etc. Why is there child labor and low
wages in the over-exploited countries? Because of imperialist exploitation,
of course! Because of this exploitation, many families in the
over-exploited countries cannot survive without their children working. And
wages in these countries cannot match in dollar terms wages in the U.S.
This call is phony through and through. It is merely an attempt to make
more palatable the real demand of the AFL-CIO bureaucracy: more
protectionism against the poor countries. What the AFL-CIO should be doing
instead is building solidarity with workers and farmers in those countries
as they fight for the right to organize to better their conditions. Calling
on the imperialists to bar goods from those countries has nothing to do with
solidarity with workers in those countries, but will punish them! To bar
the importation of goods into the U.S. from the poor countries with child
labor and low wages will mean more child labor and lower wages. The talk
about child labor and low wages is just a fig leaf. And coming from the
most powerful imperialist country, it is obscene! We should reject with
contempt this protectionism for the richest country in the world.
We should also note that the AFL-CIO tops themselves have been complicit
over the years with the CIA -- not in helping workers and farmers in the
Third World but in smashing their unions in the name of anti-communism!
Sweeny and company claim theyıve changed their spots. Weıll see. They are
active in Indonesia, saying they are there to help build unions. Will they
support class struggle minded unionists? Or are they more likely to support
the kinds of unions they lead in the U.S. class collaborationist ones? If
the latter, those unions in Indonesia would be expected to act in the
framework imposed by imperialism.
Take the example of the Union of Needletrades, Industrial and Textile
Employees (UNITE) officials. They are lobbying for higher tariffs on
garments from the Third World, supposedly to fight against sweatshops and
low wages there. But barring those goods does exactly nothing to help
workers in those countries to improve their conditions. This protectionist
campaign is being waged in the context where Washington uses its dominance
to impose 3,000 tariffs on clothing and textiles brought into the U.S.
The countries of sub-Sahara Africa Black Africa are among the poorest
in the world. At a time when these countries are ravaged by AIDS, and 290
million Africans more than the entire population of the U.S are
living on a dollar a day, UNITE has "united" not with the African garment
workers, but with the U.S. garment employerıs organization, the ATMI, to
block a law Congress is considering to allow these countries to export
clothing to the U.S. duty free instead of the current 17 percent import
tax. Even some Republican politicians apparently have more human solidarity
than the leaders of UNITE.
We should note that UNITE is a major financial backer for student
anti-sweatshop groups. These students are motivated by idealism and can
easily be won to an internationalist perspective. They have already shown
that by aiming their fire against U.S. corporations who super-exploit their
workers in the Third World. The opposition to the WTO in Seattle is further
evidence. And discussing the WTO, the IMF, and so on leads directly to a
discussion on capitalism and imperialism, which can and should lead to
socialist, internationalist, conclusions. Recently I spoke before a group
of students, many who had been in Seattle, studying the WTO at the
University of California at Berkeley and found receptive ears. But while
the young people who have been attracted to this movement come to it in
solidarity with the working people of the Third World, they are also naïve.
Will the UNITE leadership win them over to their chauvinist views and
slogans? Perhaps, if we donıt present any alternative.
Another argument the labor tops use in defense of protectionism is that
U.S. jobs are at stake. Capitalists can threaten their workers that they
will build plants in countries with lower wages if the workers wonıt accept
the bosses terms. And in fact the imperialists have built plants all over
the world, in other imperialist countries as well as in over-exploited
countries. They do so to be nearer potential markets, to take advantage of
lower wages, and for other reasons. This cannot be stopped by raising
tariff barriers. Calling for protectionism can seem to be a way to protect
American jobs, but it isnıt. It is a substitute for really fighting for
jobs here, by calling for a reduction in the workweek with no reduction in
pay, a massive public works campaign to improve deteriorating infrastructure
and poor housing, etc. But that would mean waging a fight, including on the
political level, which is not on the agenda of these "leaders."
Moreover, to wage such protectionist campaigns makes it appear that the
problems workers face here are due to other countries, and not due to our
own capitalist class, the way the capitalist system works, and the
capitalist government. It puts workers in the position of defending "our"
company or "our" American industry, against the world, including the workers
of the world. A recent newspaper of one UAW local supporting the AFL-CIO
anti-China campaign called for putting "U.S. jobs first!" This cuts across
what is needed, international working class solidarity.
The China Question
Before the Seattle demonstrations, the Steelworkers union threatened to
symbolically dump some Chinese-made steel in the harbour. I donıt know if
they actually did this. But they have been waging a campaign against
imports of steel from China and other countries, charging them with
"dumping" steel on the U.S. market. Just before the Seattle demonstrations,
a full-page ad was run in the New York Times and possibly other papers I
didnıt see. This ad, calling for protectionism for the U.S. steel industry,
was signed by various steel magnates and the head of the United
Steelworkers!
Every capitalist firm will "dump" their goods try to undercut the prices
of competitors if necessary and it makes economic sense. Steel from
China, Russia, and other countries presently has the price advantage of a
strong dollar, so their prices can be lower in dollar terms.
The AFL-CIOıs anti-China campaign is straight-out protectionism, designed
to protect "our" industries from competition from this source. The
campaign is being waged under the fig leaf of "human rights" etc., but that
is what it is. This campaign appeals to still-existing anti-communism, the
"threat" of "Red China," and the racist fears of the "yellow horde." It
occurs in the midst of a major anti-China campaign of the right wing, a
campaign that is also backed by the White House, although with more moderate
language.
Chinese-Americans have recognized the racist character of this campaign in
their raising of concerns about the "spy" charges against the
Chinese-American scientist Wen Ho Lee, and the anti-Chinese witchhunt
atmosphere around the case. The U.S. still has China in its nuclear gun
sights, and is once again playing the Taiwan card for all its worth.
Clinton has given the green light to the development of an anti-missile
system which the Pentagon has openly discussed stationing in south Korea,
Japan and Taiwan. While the White House hasnıt decided yet whether to
deploy it, just the testing of the system is an open threat to China.
Recently, the Open World Conference, whose backbone was the Organizing
Committee for a Workers International, was held in San Francisco. One
person there who had a literature table was from an outfit called "State
Department Watch." Most of his literature was directed against China,
opposing Chinaıs inclusion in the WTO and opposing U.S. trade with China.
He apparently had many good people bamboozled, as many labor activists were
hobnobing with him. I was able to talk with him, and explained my views.
Under some goading, he became angry and he blurted out his real position.
He said that China was a threat to the U.S. because of its "billions" of
people ready to spill out and dominate the world. He didnıt use the words
"yellow peril" but his meaning was clear enough. I asked him about his
position on the major Presidential candidates, and he said that Buchanan was
the only candidate speaking to the issue. He wasnıt ready to say openly
that he would vote for Buchanan, but lamely said he hoped a major party
candidate might take a "good" stand against China.
I think the most hypocritical of all the "left" arguments on why we should
be opposed to China being able to trade with the US and other countries is
that we must do this in order to punish China for its ruling bureaucracyıs
trampling on human rights and workersı rights. Never in the darkest days of
Stalinıs terror did anyone who considered themselves revolutionists,
including the staunchly anti-Stalinist Trotskyists, ever call on the U.S.
not to trade with the USSR. Quite the opposite.
First, there is the hypocrisy of singling out China for such treatment,
when the AFL-CIO never proposed such a "remedy" for Suhartoıs Indonesia,
Pinochetıs Chile, Mobutuıs Zaire, Francoıs Spain, Batistaıs Cuba, Rheeıs
south Korea, Chaing Kai shekıs Taiwan, Somosaıs Nicaragua, or the regimes of
the Greek, Brazilian, Argentinan, Uruguayan, and Guatemalan colonels, and so
on and so on.
The bigger hypocrisy is to look to the U.S. as world disciplinarian and
protector of human and labor rights. Didnıt Washington support all of the
above regimes, and helped put in power most of them? Didnıt Washington atom
bomb Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and initiate the atomic arms race werenıt
these actions detrimental to human rights? How many hundreds of thousands
millions -- of Koreans and Chinese did the US kill and maim in the Korean
war? Doesnıt the destruction of two million Vietnamese say anything about
human rights? Didnıt the USA keep millions under the heel of the Jim Crow
system, and still oppresses Blacks and other minorities? Are the other
imperialist powers any better? Why call on these forces to protect human
and workersı rights in China or anywhere else? And why does anyone think
that trade boycotts and blockades and high custom duties by the imperialist
powers will improve human rights anywhere? They raise and lower trade
barriers only in their own interests, and are for "free trade" one day and
for "protectionism" the next, or sometimes for both on the same day.
The anti-China campaign strengthens Washingtonıs hand in negotiations with
China about trade. The agreements reached with China just before the WTO
conference were spelled out by a State Department communique released
November 15 of last year. These are some of the unequal trade positions the
U.S. forced China to agree to:
*China will reduce custom duties on average from about 22% to 17%, and from
85% to 20% on imported cars.
*China agreed to progressively increase quotas for importing cereals, rice
and cotton, and agreed that an important part of these imports could not be
distributed by the state.
*China will do away with the state monopoly on soy oil.
*China will stop state support of exports.
*US firms will have new access to banks, insurance companies and
telecommunications.
*US exporters to China have the right to control distribution of their
goods.
*Concerning textiles, the USA and China agreed to take measures to prevent
disorder on the markets after the elimination of quotas -- which
Washington takes to mean that China should erect no barriers to the free
flow of USA made products, while the US has the right to stop made in China
products coming into the US.
This is an unequal treaty in the most elementary sense of the term. If
workers in China organize to oppose these terms, we should give them all-out
support. But such workers would not be demanding that China not be allowed
to trade with the US, but that the terms of trade be more equal.
Our demand on the U.S. government should be exactly the opposite of what the
AFL-CIO is saying. Instead of trying to block Chinese goods from entering
the U.S., we should be for ending all trade barriers for such goods.
Instead of opposing trade with China, we should attack the unequal terms of
trade Washington seeks to impose on China. As against Washingtonıs demands
on China to further open its markets to US goods -- which is the other
side of the protectionist coin -- we should defend the right of China and
all over-exploited countries to protect their own industries.
The "donıt trade with China!" slogan is not just wrong, it is reactionary.
It pits US workers against Chinese workers. It cuts across the only road
forward for those who want to oppose imperialist globilization -- the
international solidarity of all the workers and oppressed. Globilization is
here to stay. The only question to be decided in struggle is globalization
by whom and for whom.
Barry Sheppard is member and steward in IAM at SFO
_________________________________________________________
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