China Warns U.S.: Those Who Play With Fire Will Perish By It

Countercurrents | July 29, 2022

Taiwan is a part of China and the 1.4 billion Chinese will not tolerate any challenges to the country’s national sovereignty and territorial integrity, President Xi Jinping told his U.S. counterpart, Joe Biden, in a phone call on Thursday. Xi’s warning comes amid reports that U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is preparing to visit the island next month, something China has warned her against.

Xi told his counterpart: Those who play with fire will perish by it. It is hoped that the U.S. will be clear-eyed about this.

Xi and Biden spoke via telephone for over two hours on Thursday at a juncture of increased tension between China and the U.S. due to the security situation around the Taiwan Straits and Pelosi’s reported plan to visit the island of Taiwan. Xi spoke with Biden on the phone at the request of the latter.

Xi “highlighted that the historical ins and outs of the Taiwan question are crystal clear, and so are the fact and status quo that both sides of the Taiwan Strait belong to one and the same China,” according to Beijing’s readout of Thursday’s call, also noting that Biden was the one who initiated it.

China Is Issuing The Same “Red Line” Warnings About Taiwan That Russia Issued About Ukraine

Caitlin Johnstone

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has continued to pour gasoline on the foreign policy dumpster fire that is her planned visit to Taiwan next month, now reportedly encouraging other members of congress to come along for the ride.

“Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., has invited a small group of lawmakers on her official trip to Taiwan, including the top Democrat and Republican on the House Foreign Affairs Committee,” NBC News reports.

This trip, which Beijing perceives as an egregious transgression of Washington’s longstanding one-China policy, is already so incendiary that the Pentagon is now planning to send in fighter jets and other war machinery to protect Pelosi’s plane in case of attacks by the Chinese military.

Hugo Chávez, Leader of the Bolivarian Revolution, Was Born 68 Years Ago

Orinoco Tribune | July 29, 2022

Comandante Hugo Chávez surrounded by people during a political rally. File photo.


It is said that on a rainy night, in Sabaneta de Barinas, the boy who would become one of the greatest political leaders of Venezuela, and of the Latin American and Caribbean region, was born. This was Commander Hugo Rafael Chávez Frías, the great leader of the Bolivarian Revolution. Hugo Rafael Chávez Frías, peasant boy, baseball-playing teenager, young soldier, insurgent man, firm and loving leader, and leading light of peoples and revolutions.

The great revolutionary leader ventured into the military world in an attempt to reach the US major leagues of baseball, but the call of his homeland, and outrage at a world of inequalities, made him change course.

50th Death Anniversary of Charu Mazumdar

Harsh Thakor

Countercurrents | July 26, 2022

On 28^th July we commemorate the 50^th death anniversary of Charu Mazumdar,who was tortured to death in police custody. It ranks amongst the worst abuse of human rights of a political prisoner or leader in India or the world. Today history is repeating itself in with Custodial deaths being a routine occurrence in prisons.Charu’s assassination illustrated the neo-fascist nature of the Congress regime in West Bengal. The Civil Rights groups undertook extensive research on the fascist nature of the execution of not only Mazumdar but thousands of cadres of C.P.I. (M.L).In 1997 a judicial inquiry was initiated 25 years after the murder by son Abhijit and other comrades, but the petition was dismissed by the high court and Supreme Court.

Charu Mazumdar must be credited for igniting the spark of ‘Naxalbari ‘by giving it a political shape, through, his Eight documents. He planted the seeds of the Indian Communist Movement demarcation from revisionism by formulating path of New Democratic Revolution. Whatever serious errors or dogmatic thinking,Charu Mazumdar formulated a path of agrarian revolution based  on  teachings of the Chinese Revolution. He stitched the base for re-building an All-India Revolutionary Party by delivering a striking blow to revisionism and parliamentary dogmatism. Naxalbari and Charu Mazumdar are inseparable.

Remembering T.Nagi Reddy, his college days in BHU and MK Gandhi

MA Krishna

Countercurrents | July 28, 2022

   A memorial meeting, remembering Com DV and TN was held in Khammam town of Telangana State on July27, 2022.

Hundreds of people who are fighting for and supporting agrarian revolution attended, including a big number of adivasi and poor peasants, and large number of women. The meeting held  in the peak of rainy season went on from10.30 am to 5pm (with 30-minute lunch-break), speakers explaining the revolutionary politics, current politics and ongoing struggles. Far left are adivasi and poor pesant leaders, Muttayya and veteran fighter Padiga Yerraiah (President  of  Grameena  Pedala Sangham of rural poor). Far right is Dr. Jatin Kumar, OPDR leader from Telangana.  

Currently struggles of adivasi and poor and landless peasants for  podu (forest lands),who occupied and tilled thousands of acres and demanding pattas (legal rights) as per Forest Rights Act , 2006,are going on in various parts of Telangana.

Speakers  asked if the newly-elected  President Draupadi  Murmu, born and projected by Modi-led BJP as adivasi herself will stand by the rural poor fighting for their  land and democratic rights. 

T.Nagi Reddy died 46 years ago on July28,1976, and DV Rao died on July12, 1984. Every year in  July, meetings, small and big, are held across Telangana and Andhra Pradesh by UCCRI-ML remembering the revolutionary mass line they founded, and reviewing struggles along  that line. The above is one such well-attended meeting (see photos below)  

countercurrents.org has a rich archive on the lives and work of Comrades TN and DV: see at the end of the article for more.  

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UN General Assembly declares access to clean and healthy environment a universal human right

Countercurrents | July 29, 2022

With 161 votes in favour, and eight abstentions*, the UN General Assembly adopted a historic resolution on Thursday, declaring access to a clean, healthy and sustainable environment, a universal human right.

The resolution, based on a similar text adopted last year by the Human Rights Council, calls upon States, international organisations, and business enterprises to scale up efforts to ensure a healthy environment for all.

The UN Secretary-General, António Guterres, welcomed the ‘historic’ decision and said the landmark development demonstrates that Member States can come together in the collective fight against the triple planetary crisis of climate change, biodiversity loss and pollution.

“The resolution will help reduce environmental injustices, close protection gaps and empower people, especially those that are in vulnerable situations, including environmental human rights defenders, children, youth, women and indigenous peoples”, he said in a statement released by his Spokesperson’s Office.

Russia’s Vostok 2022 has big messages

M. K. Bhadrakumar

Indian Punchline | July 27, 2022

Russia’s massive Vostok 2018 manoeuvres, held four years ago was first of its kind after 1981 during Soviet era (File photo)

The announcement by Russian Defence Ministry on Tuesday on Vostok-22 strategic command post exercises during August 30-September 5 gives a big message to the West in political and military terms. 

The announcement said, “In addition to the troops (forces) of the Eastern Military District, units of the Airborne Troops, Long Range Aviation and Military Transport Aviation, as well as military contingents from other states, will be involved in these manoeuvres.” 

If there is going to be participation by China, it will be highly significant in the present context of global politics, especially in the Far East. 

Studying society for the working class: Marx’s first preface to “Capital”

Derek Ford

Liberation School | July 25, 2022

“Karl Marx, painted portrait,” by thierry ehrmann. Source: Wikimedia.

Introduction

In the preface to the first edition of volume one of Capital, dated July 25, 1867, Marx introduces the book’s “ultimate aim”: “to lay bare the economic law of motion of modern society” [1]. Looking back 155 years later, it’s clear the book not only accomplished that aim but continues to do so today.

In a few short pages, Marx introduces the method he used to study and present his research into the dynamics of capitalism, explains the reasons why he focused on England, distinguishes between modes of production and social formations (and by doing so refutes any accusations of his theory of history as progressing linearly through successive stages), identifies the capacities he’s assuming of the reader, affirms he’s interested in critiquing the structures of capital and not the individuals within it, and explains that the main function of the book is to help our class intervene in the constantly changing capitalist system.

Santhal rebellion in India: Recalling Santhal Hul

Harsh Vardhan & Shivam Mogha

Frontier | Vol 55, No. 3, Jul 17 – 23, 2022

[The Santhal rebellion actually began as a mass movement against exploitation by ‘upper’ caste zamindars, moneylenders, merchants and police officials who had come to dominate the economic sphere of Santhal life. June 30, is considered the anniversary of the beginning six-month santhal rebellion.]

Every year the Santhal rebellion and its leaders Sidhu and Kanhu are remembered in ritualistic way by different political parties and communities, all from different perspectives. But beneath all these different ways of remembering there lies a unitary theme; that the Santhal rebellion was one of the first expressions of revolt against the British colonial regime.

This framework, though true but limited, has become so dominant that the Santhal rebellion is now merely seen as a part in a series of similar such events that took place in colonial India.=

Russia will install the base of its Glonass navigation system in Venezuela

Moscow and Caracas signed a cooperation pact for space exploration in March

The Russian space agency Roscosmos announced through a statement its intention to deploy a measurement collection station for its Glonass navigation system in Venezuela.

“As part of the implementation of the provisions of the agreement between the Government of the Russian Federation and the Government of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela on cooperation in the exploration and use of outer space for peaceful purposes […], the Roscosmos state corporation plans deploy an unsolicited measurement station of the Glonass system in the territory of Venezuela”, reads a statement from the Russian agency, issued this Sunday.