16 December 2024 – Ella Rule
The International Symposium on Employment and Social Security in Xinjiang took place in Urumqi on 16 December 2024. It was attended by many distinguished international and diplomatic guests, including representatives of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation, the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation and the Central Asia Regional Economic Cooperation Institute, and diplomats from Azerbaijan, Gabon, Guinea, Indonesia, Iraq, Kazakhstan, Libya, Moldova, Niger, Pakistan (ambassador), Palestine, Saudi Arabia, Somalia, Togo, Uzbekistan and Yemen (ambassador), and a large number of international guests from many different countries, including many who represented organisations in different countries concerned with the promotion of human rights, several prominent academics especially foreigners working in China at Chinese universities, and journalists from Radio France, the Irish Times, China-Arab TV, Fulha de Sao Paolo, News 1 Korea, the Associated Press of Pakistan, Antara, Prensa Latina, and a major Spanish television channel.
Ahead of the seminar, participants arrived a day or two early in order to be able to see something of local economic life. Visits were arranged to the Xinjiang Tianshan Wool Tex Stock Co Ltd, the Exhibition on the Fight Against Terrorism and Extremism in Xinjiang and the Xinjiang International Grand Bazaar. Unfortunately these took place on the day of my arrival before I was able to take part. However, on Sunday 15 December I was able to go on visits to the Changji Esquel Textile Company Ltd, the Baowu Group Xinjiang Bayi Iron and Steel Company Ltd. and the China Railway Construction Heavy Industry Corporation Ltd, all of which were extremely interesting.
Before arriving at Changji, which is some 100 km away from Urumqi where we were staying at a government guest house, we were told that the company – that produces pure cotton cloth from the cotton crops – had been subjected to unilateral sanctions by the United States on the pretext that it was supposedly using forced labour. Because US sanctions have extra-territorial effect and are imposed on anybody that does business with the sanctioned entity, the company overnight lost almost all its international customers. As a result of this loss of business, the company had to reduce its workforce from 50,000 to 25,000 over its four factory sites in China, causing great hardship to workers made redundant, who didn’t understand why America should be intervening to deprive them of the comfortable living they had been enjoying. What the organisers particularly wanted us to see was that the business was not one which employed forced, slave, labour. It is so highly mechanised that there is no scope for employing slave labour. The room we were shown where the raw cotton was spun into yarn was about half a mile by quarter of a mile long in size, and was filled with hundreds of spinning machines some 5 foot apart from each other, having very few workers in this giant room supervising their operation. We were informed that the business is deeply committed to research and development at every stage of the process from development of the seeds from which the cotton is grown to innovation in terms of the properties of the cloth produced. We were shown pure cotton polo shirts which are impermeable from the outside but fully permeable from the inside, so that perspiration from the wearer can escape but the garment cannot otherwise be made wet. Great emphasis is put on improving the company’s ecological impact. They were very proud of the fact that they had developed a method of producing cotton cloth that used only 10% of the amount of water that is usually used in such processes. I had not expected to have any opportunity for spending money and had not therefore brought any means of payment with me, so I was unable to purchase any of the company’s products which would have made excellent Christmas presents. I was, however, with the assistance of Google, able to ascertain that it is possible to order the company’s products from Hong Kong. Their trade name is ‘Determinant’.
We then went on to the Iron and Steel works back in Urumqi. First we were taken around a factory museum where all the measures taken to secure the health and safety of workers in what is everywhere a dangerous occupation were on display, some of them invented by workers themselves to prevent accidents at work. Apart from that, at every stage of steel production the company is strongly focused on protecting the environment. It has its own on-site sewage works that enables it to purify the water it has been using with the result that its net water usage is zero. It also focuses on reducing its carbon footprint as much as possible and it claims a 25% success in this endeavour. We were most impressed by the sheer scale of the enterprise besides its ultra-modern equipment that enables it to produce steel of various types at highly competitive prices.
In the afternoon we visited the China Railway Construction Heavy Industry Corporation, which, as its name suggests, produces some extremely heavy industry machines. There was no railway construction in sight but a great deal of agricultural machinery – massive mobile machines, with wheels 6 feet in diameter, that have been designed to perform the major agricultural tasks of ploughing, seeding and harvesting. One of the machines was adapted for the harvesting of tomatoes. It was able to do in one hour the work that 122 manual workers had previously been doing. Again the very availability of these machines, which are a great deal cheaper than any equivalents produced in other countries, makes a nonsense of the accusation that China employs forced labour. With an unemployment rate of some 5% China has no difficulty in mobilising all the extremely willing workers that it needs, so that slave labour would make no sense. Obviously such machines can only sensibly be used on enormous farms, so one delegate raised the question of the forcible ejection of peasants from their land in order to create massive farms. It was explained to me that no peasants were dispossessed but on the contrary they were paid rent if their land was used for mass production of agricultural produce. Small farmers in various areas, because it was profitable for them to do so, grouped together to pool their land in order to create fields enormous enough to make the use of modern machinery profitable. Their reward was not only the receipt of rent but also their entitlement to a percentage of the produce.
After returning to the guest house, delegates proceeded to a meeting with local Party Secretary Ma Xingrui and Xinjiang governor Erkin Tuniyaz, followed by a sumptuous banquet in even more sumptuous surroundings at the guest house. Among the guests I had the opportunity to converse with was Professor David Evans who was employed to teach inorganic chemistry at the Beijing University of Chemical Technology. He is a good friend of Michael Crook, son of Isobel Crook who was the Honorary President of the Communist Party of Great Britain (Marxist-Leninist) until her death three years ago at the age of 105. They are members of an organisation of foreign academics employed in China named Gung Ho which at the time the Symposium was taking place, was holding a meeting in Beijing to celebrate the anniversary of Isobel Crook’s birth. David is currently specialising in outreaching to schools to enthuse young people to take up chemistry as a career to study for at university, a role which fills him with enthusiasm.
The Yemeni ambassador made a point of contacting me. He introduced me to his wife who is a psychologist specialising in treating people traumatised by war. Of course I expressed to him our great admiration for the splendid efforts being made by Yemen in support of the beleaguered people of Palestine at the present time.
I also had a long conversation with He Zhongyou, Deputy Secretary of CPC Xinjian Uyghur Autonomous Regional Committee, Secretary of the DPD Committee and Political Commissar of Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps, and Secretary of the Urumqi Municipal Committee. He was very keen to know about the situation in the United Kingdom and was interested in our evaluation of the role of the Labour Party. He was also the person who explained to me the system of voluntary collectivisation by farmers, as mentioned above.
At the seminar the following day speakers went into great detail as to the breaches of international law being committed by the US in clamping unilateral extra-territorial sanctions on China without any evidential support whatsoever of their allegations of impropriety levelled against China.
Robert Walker, a sociology professor at Beijing Normal University, for instance, explained that the trade tariffs imposed by Donald Trump during his first presidency of the US and continued under the Biden presidency were in all probability imposed in breach of the rules of the World Trade Organisation, but the judicial arm of that organisation has been paralysed by the US preventing the appointment of new members thus ensuring that any judicial unit set up would be inquorate so that the US could not be brought to task. He also pointed out that trade sanctions that undermine the wellbeing of whole populations are in breach of human rights law. He contrasted the attitude of US imperialism to suppress trade and development with China’s active promotion of economic development in countries all over the world through such organisations as the Belt and Road Initiative, the Global Development Initiative, the Silk Road Fund, the Infrastructure Development Bank, all of which aim to create a “shared prosperity for all”. He cited former US General Secretary Antonio Guterres as saying “The already rich world is determined to remain rich and to use the global institutions which it has created to ensure that others get rich less quickly if at all”.
Among the many excellent speeches, the ambassador to China of the Republic of Yemen, Dr Mohammed Abdul Wahid Al-Maitami, expressed the feelings of most of the participants in part of his contribution in the following words:
“Today I am honoured to speak about the extraordinary journey the Xinjiang region has undergone – a journey that has transformed challenges into opportunities and succeeded in building a model for sustainable development and economic growth. This region has demonstrated to the world how, through careful planning and prudent governance, significant challenges can be converted into great achievements in various fields, from improving living standards to achieving social and economic stability.
“During our visit, we have witnessed how the Chinese government has successfully implemented policies that foster economic and social development, and how it has created an environment conducive to investment and employment, significantly reducing unemployment rates, thus providing the youth of the region with various opportunities to engage in diverse fields.
“What the Xinjiang government has accomplished in terms of tackling unemployment and fostering sustainable development stands as a model for many countries facing similar challenges. The Xinjiang government has proven that significant challenges can be turned into real opportunities through effective planning and investment in human capital. By providing employment opportunities, enhancing vocational education, and developing infrastructure, the government has succeeded in achieving social and economic stability …
“Statistically, data indicates that the unemployment rate in Xinjiang has decreased from over 10% in the 1990s to 2.4% in 2023, a remarkable reduction that reflects the significant success in improving the labour market. This improvement has been achieved through a series of policies and measures which have required considerable effort from the government.
“For instance, over 400 vocational training centres were established across Xinjiang from 2014 onwards, aimed at equipping young people with the technical and professional skills needed in the labour market. These centres have trained 1.29 million individuals between 2014 and 2022 … It is also worth noting that the Chinese government allocated more than 30 billion yuan [£3 billion, approx.] to support these centres, offer scholarships, and provide ongoing training for citizens in industrial, agricultural and service sectors.
“In addition, the vital role of infrastructure projects in improving the economic situation in Xinjiang cannot be overlooked. In recent years, several highways, airports, and railway lines connecting the region to other parts of China have been constructed, facilitating trade and investment flows, and creating additional employment opportunities. These projects not only offer direct employment, but also have an indirect impact by generating jobs in related industries such as logistics, tourism and trade.”
My own contribution was written before I had had the opportunity of seeing the enormous progress Xinjiang had made, and could therefore more fully appreciate the threat that Chinese efficiency in production holds for its rivals in the imperialist camp, whose economic power has been fadimg as they outsourced production to developing countries and became more and more parasitic. What I had written was nevertheless relevant to the situation in Xinjiang, and in China generally, but I did made slight amendments on the day to take account of what I had been learning since my arrival in Xinjiang. My contribution was as follows:
“Britain, a major imperialist country, is one of the richest countries in the world. Yet, because it is a capitalist country, because its state is just the mechanism through which the rich capitalists keep the mass of the working class in subjection, the market reigns supreme. Its laws ensure that while the rich get richer and richer, the poor derive little or no benefit from the exponential increases in productivity of labour that are, in the words of Engels, ‘a compulsory law by which every individual industrial capitalist must perfect his machinery more and more under penalty of ruin.’ As Engels points out in ‘Anti-Dühring’, in these circumstances what happens is that ‘the perfecting of machinery is making human labour superfluous’, giving rise to mass unemployment. With the supply of labour power invariably outstripping the demand for it, there is huge downward pressure on wages of those who are lucky enough to have a job. This is the harsh reality that workers face even in such a wealthy country as Britain.
“In capitalist countries like Britain the state is in the hands of the capitalist class, and its power is always wielded exclusively for the benefit of that class. In order to lure workers away from the communism that would dispossess the capitalist class of its riches and power, the bourgeois state in the imperialist countries has made an art form of granting just enough in the way of concessions to reconcile the working class to its subservient existence, despite maintaining widespread unemployment. In Europe at least there has been free universal education and medical care as well as modest welfare payments to those without work, and very modest pensions for the elderly (many of whom every winter die of hypothermia because they cannot afford to heat even one room in their homes). The bourgeois state can even intervene to provide useful employment to masses of people who would otherwise be unemployed. Only imperialist countries have been able to offer these benefits, which they have traditionally financed from the super profits they extract from their dealings with oppressed countries. Now that China has stepped in to offer so many oppressed countries a chance to trade on fair terms, it has become much harder for the imperialist countries to extract super profits and in consequence the benefits they offer the working masses are gradually being whittled away. To the extent that they are still maintained, the bourgeoisie is not prepared to hand over more of its profits for the purpose except by interest-bearing loans that have to be repaid by the taxpayers. Increasingly governments resort to money-printing (i.e., the issue of credit unsupported by underlying assets) that leads to inflation of the currency in which the credit is given and the lowering of the purchasing power of wages and benefit payments. Moreover, in the context of a worldwide crisis of overproduction, where there is a great shortage of opportunities for profitable investment by the capitalists, what were previously public services are relentlessly being privatised, taken over by profiteers who continuously reduce the services rendered in the interests of maximising their profits. And of course, it is in the context of the worldwide crisis of overproduction that less efficient producers have no hesitation, if they have the power to do so, to shut down their competitors – precisely what the US is doing when it imposes sanctions on Chinese industries. The United States produces cotton but cannot compete with China for price because it has neglected developing and introducing the high levels of mechanisation that China has been able to do. Therefore the United States, having control of numerous financial institutions, uses these to shut out competition of Chinese cotton cloth – illegally, on false pretexts.
“Human beings are, on the one hand, social creatures and, on the other hand, they are all equipped with a powerful brain that demands constant stimulation that can only be provided by meaningful employment. A person who is not kept busy doing work he or she considers socially useful, is a person living in conditions unfit for human beings. The unemployed are those most who tend to be most seriously affected. In Britain they suffer disproportionately from mental health problems that they all too frequently try to self-medicate through excessive alcohol intake or substance abuse. In addition, the saying goes that the devil finds work for idle hands – work in the form of anti-social behaviour and crime in some cases. Young men, in particular, become prey to those seeking to mobilise them in gangs for terrorism and misguided attacks on innocent people they set up as scapegoats, such as minority communities or immigrants in general, for the ills of the market economy.
“No market economy can be entirely free of these ills, not even one that is maintained in a socialist country where the state is in the hands of representatives of the working people rather than in the hands of the profiteers. In socialist countries which partially adopt a market economy in the expectation that this will be beneficial because of the way that it stimulates rapid development of productive forces, the power of the state can be wielded in order to shield working people from the worst side effects of the market. China has adopted wide-ranging measures for this purpose in order to counter the ill effects on the population that market forces can produce.
“It is most interesting now to visit Xinjiang where we are able to see for ourselves how the Chinese socialist state, guided by the Communist Party of China, has been able to counter the evil influence of certain alienated counter-revolutionary elements who had been mobilising Muslim youth for terrorism both at home and abroad. The Chinese government was able to recognise that the problems being experienced in the region not so long ago were being caused by its relative backwardness – by the insufficiency of good quality employment for the youth who needed to be provided with skills that would give them opportunities for a good life. With the same determination and level of mass mobilisation for which China is known throughout the world when faced with some natural disaster, she mobilised to defuse the alienation of the youth of what had been a relatively backward region by providing education and training on a mass scale to enable young people to obtain good jobs. In the space of only a handful of years the problem had been eliminated, for the benefit not only of the people now engaged in meaningful and rewarding employment, but for the benefit of the country as a whole as these people now work heart and soul for the benefit of everyone.
“This is not something that can be achieved by terrorising and bullying the population, in the way that the anti-China, anti-communist, propaganda of the West tirelessly and fraudulently maintains. Such behaviour could only make the situation worse, not better. No, this result can only be achieved by addressing the fundamental human needs of the masses of the people, something that under the leadership of the Communist Party of China the Chinese government is uniquely capable of organising and achieving”.
Finally, we reproduce extracts from the speech of David López, head of the International Association for Human Rights and Social Development, based in Geneva, Switzerland, who took the opportunity of putting the struggle of China and the Chinese people into the context of the struggle of the people of the whole world against imperialism and for social justice, for socialism:
“It is an honour to be once again in these lands that represent the resistance of a people who, in the face of the adversities of history, have decided to build a future based on social justice and collective well-being. ….
“China is at a decisive historical moment, facing the challenges of a multipolar world in gestation. This context is marked by the imperialist violence of the West, which today manifests itself in a particularly bloody manner in Palestine. We are witnessing genocide in broad daylight, financed by the United States and perpetrated by Israel against a people denied even their most basic right: the right to exist.
“This is where one asks oneself where the international community is if only by law the 1948 Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide obliges the international community to intervene to prevent and punish such crimes.
“At the same time, Ukraine has become a military testing ground, in clear violation of the principles of sovereignty enshrined in the United Nations Charter. These actions seek not only to destabilise Russia, but also to consolidate a Western bloc that perpetuates its dominance to the detriment of international law and multipolarity. In desperation, the West sees in imperialist and neocolonial expansion its only way out to sustain a decadent system. It is the common enemy of those of us who fight for truth and social justice.
“These aggressions also extend to China, with false and manipulative narratives about regions such as Xinjiang. From the perspective of international law, propaganda attacks that seek to delegitimise the Chinese state and its governance in Xinjiang violate fundamental principles of the UN Charter, such as respect for sovereignty and noninterference in the internal affairs of states. Let us not forget that these narratives are not new; they are part of a strategy that the West has repeatedly used to justify its interventions, as we saw in Iraq and Libya. The impact of Western-promoted radical extremism in the Middle East and Central Asia is clear and noticeable after the fall of al-Assad in Syria. European powers and the US have used organisations such as Hayat Tahrir al Shar (HTS) to treat them as terrorists but to subsequently dress them up and use them to destabilise the region.
“Uighur militias, which took part in operations against the Syrian government, have even openly declared their intention to ‘liberate Xinjiang from Chinese occupation’ after the coup in Damascus last week.
“The West accuses China of repressing the freedoms of ethnic minorities in Xinjiang, but deliberately conceals the real facts that have been repeatedly denounced in Geneva. During my five visits to this country, I have witnessed a reality completely different from the Western narrative: a sustained effort to eradicate poverty, improve infrastructure and guarantee the economic, social and cultural rights of its people. …
“Compare this progress with the situation of urban peripheries in the West, such as Harlem, the Parisian banlieues or even parts of Switzerland, where neoliberal policies are generating inequality and poverty.
“But the attack on Xinjiang is not only propagandistic. In the corridors of geopolitics it has been heard that the West has financed extremist movements in the Middle East that have also sought to destabilise this region of China …. As we saw in the museum on counter-terrorism yesterday, extremism funded by foreign powers has caused immense pain to the people of Xinjiang. This is a flagrant violation of international humanitarian law, which prohibits the use of mercenary forces and the promotion of armed groups for destabilising purposes.
“We must remember that China’s efforts in Xinjiang are aligned with Article 1 of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, which recognises the right of all peoples to self-determination and development. The enemies of self-determination seek to divide, using ethnic minorities as a tool to undermine national unity, just as they tried to do in Syria and Libya, where US and Israeli-backed militias unleashed chaos.
“Today more than ever, it is essential to raise our voices against these aggressions and defend a multipolar world based on mutual respect and cooperation. ….
“Western domination, led by the United States and its European allies, does not rest and one of the tools used by them is the media and ultimately weapons. As Noam Chomsky pointed out, ‘the media is a propaganda machine designed to manufacture consensus’. The West uses this machinery to perpetrate false narratives about countries such as China, Russia or Iran, while concealing its own atrocities.
“In terms of weapons, the West has its armed wing, NATO, originally designed as a defensive alliance that has evolved into an offensive war machine, responsible for illegitimate aggressions in Yugoslavia, Libya and Afghanistan. According to the principles of the Nuremberg Treaty, which condemns wars of aggression as the ‘supreme international crime,’ NATO’s actions should be subject to scrutiny and sanction by the international community, as its actions are not far removed from the terrorist concept. China and the world at large must be vigilant in this regard as the 1970 Declaration on Principles of International Law is now at risk.
“I conclude by calling for solidarity,.. In this historic moment, our trenches must be truth, justice and solidarity. Self-determination, sovereignty and respect for the fundamental principles of international law must guide our struggle“.
Finally, Professor Mark Levine of the Minzu University of China (Beijing) recited his poem ‘THEY ARE MARCHING STILL TODAY’, written in celebration of the 75th anniversary of the People’s Republic of China:
The Chinese people took a stand,
And said we will be free.
They took control of this ancient land,
And declared the PRC.
Then led by the CPC,
They marched along their way,
For three-quarters of a century.
And are marching still today.
That’s seventy-five years of progress.
Moving forward everyday
Building for the future
Going all the way.
Throughout the many decades
China’s made so many friends.
With a win-win goal for everyone
That the future does portend.
Then led by the CPC,
They marched along their way,
For three-quarters of a century.
And are marching still today.
That’s seventy-five years of progress.
Moving forward everyday
Building for the future
Going all the way.
Led by the CPC,
They marched along their way,
For three-quarters of a century.
And are marching still today.
Marching still today.
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