SA nurses, midwives to resume industrial action

 Written by: Nick G. on 22 May 2026

 

Representing over 25,000 nurses, midwives and health care workers in SA, the SA Branch of the Australian Nursing and Midwives Federation announced that members would recommence industrial action in the public sector last Monday (18/5). 

Industrial action was suspended in February when the government made an offer of a 6% “interim administrative increase” in the lead up to the state election. Following the election, negotiations resumed over the ANMF’s full wage claim and demands for improved conditions. These negotiations have now stalled with no further offer forthcoming from SA Govt.

Negotiations had begun on April 30, 2025. More than a year has now passed, which is typical of how governments and other employers string out the process in the hope of weakening the resolve of their workers.

However, the determination of nurses and midwives for wages and conditions improvements is very strong. Earlier in the campaign, it featured some of the largest strike rallies seen in SA.

Health workers want respect

While wages and conditions are important, especially at a time of cost-of-living crisis, the ANMF says the campaign is about respect, saying that resumption of the industrial campaign is the only way to force the government to show members the respect they deserve.

This is important for public sector employees in daily contact with members of the public. 

They want to know that their service to the community is respected by their employer, the government, and that they are not resented as a burden on its finances.

At the same time as their conditions of employment give rise to the need for struggle, their campaign is constrained by the professional nature of their employment and their concern to not place patients at risk by withdrawing their services.

This week, ANMF members started wearing campaign t-shirts to work as well as only fulfilling roles strictly within their job requirements. Next week industrial action will escalate to bans on non-clinical duties. If a decent offer has not been made by June, nurses will move to strike action.

Malin-Auskas: respect for the big end of town

The respect demanded of the Malinauskas government by the ANMF is slow in coming, in contrast to his service to the big end of town and to the circuses he uses government funds to provide in the hope that workers will forget to worry about bread.

In February, Malinauskas announced that SA would host the Motorcycle Grand Prix and take it from Phillip Island in Victoria. He has not revealed how much SA would have to pay to host the event, but it will be considerable as the operators had just knocked back an offer of additional funding from the Victorian government to keep it in that State. 

He has also committed $45 million to redevelop the public North Adelaide golf course, firstly for the now-collapsed LIV Golf tournament, and now for a replacement arrangement with Golf Australia.

In August 2025, the state, federal and Tasmanian governments stepped in to pledge $135 million to a bail out of Port Pirie’s metal smelter and Nyrstar’s zinc refinery in Hobart. The state government invested $55 million with the Commonwealth spending $57.5 million and the Tasmanian government contributing the remaining $22.5 million. As of May 1, things are back to square one, with Nyrstar asking for a further government bail-out to continue its operations. (Nyrstar is owned by Trifigura, one of the three-largest commodities companies in the world. It had revenue of $244.3 billion in 2023 yet demands taxpayers fund its operations here.  In January 2026, it secured one of the first two special licenses issued by the United States, to negotiate sales and to export Venezuelan oil. It has been mired in controversies and scandals around the world.)

At Whyalla, the SA government has firmly committed around $650 million to the Whyalla rescue and transition package so far. A further $140 million in “contingency” funds has been allocated. 

The government has refused to take out equity in either of the Pt Pirie and Whyalla bail-outs, arguing that operations are best left with the private sector. His respect for them, and belief in them, is undisguised. 

At the National Energy Conference this week, Malinauskas displayed his loyalty to the mining and fossil fuel industries by announcing that the SA government would move to overturn a ten-year moratorium on fracking in the State’s South-East which had been sought by farmers and grape-growers. In the past, Malinauskas has had family connections with the Santos corporation, and is keen to see them supported – even respected – by his government.

Whilst the bulk of capital costs associated with the AUKUS arrangements are met by the federal government, Malinauskas has thrown in $5.4 million to establish the new “Office for AUKUS” inside the SA government to coordinate the state’s role in the nuclear submarine program. That project obviously has his respect and support.

There are many more Malinauskas government handouts to the corporate sector and the military industries, but he declines to respect the hardworking people who hold our community together.

We demand better pay and conditions for our public sector nurses and midwives who are more deserving of our respect than the clowns providing circuses for our distraction, and the militarists who are driving the competition for our destruction.

 

Australian data-centres to serve US Techint

 Written by: (Contributed) on 19 May 2026

 

(Source Wikimedia Commons)

NOTE: TECHINT is an umbrella term for the technical INTs: IMINT (Imagery Intelligence), SIGINT (Signals Intelligence) and MASINT (Measurement and Signature Intelligence). It is a section of US-led intelligence-gathering focussed upon scientific material concerned with spatial wave lengths, time dependence modulation and hydromagnetic data. It is data-mined through AI; it is, furthermore, central to Pentagon military planning and counter-insurgency and counter-intelligence provision.

In early May the NSW Liberal Party tabled a policy document which outlined making the state 'a safe haven for sensitive government information from Pacific nations and Five Eyes partners'. (1) The proposal is planned to make use of Australia as a dominant diplomatic player in the neighbouring region, and consolidate its role as a regional hub for 'US interests'.

Pine Gap, in Central Australia, together with other less well publicised military facilities, are already used extensively by the US for domestic, regional and global intelligence-gathering. The plan is now to systematically upgrade the facilities through routine on-line data-mining facilities and use of AI for profiling whole populations. (2) While Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act provides safeguards for US citizens, residents of other countries are not so fortunate; the US intelligence services are permitted to 'collect and analyse vast amounts of overseas communications without a warrant'. (3) And they do.

Declassified documents from the previous Cold War leave little to the imagination about US-led strategies in the present one with China. A preoccupation with US intelligence agencies recruiting criminals and their associates to assist with intelligence-gathering has been well recorded. They were, and remain, responsible for profiling whole populations onto black, grey or white lists, whereby adversary targets were identified and prioritised. (4)

The Liberal Party proposal has also planned 'digital embassies' which will operate under legal codes of 'diplomatic immunity'. (5) Namely, the data institutions will be above the law; there will be little, if any, accountability. The fact that the proposals also include Australia's Five Eyes four partners leaves little doubt the core of the initiative remains intelligence-gathering. Secrecy is both implicit and explicit.

The proposals, moreover, are not intended for localised usage; it noted the intention to make 'the data embassy concept a signal that NSW can be a leading location in the southern hemisphere for data'. (6)  

Two important considerations, therefore, arise:

Firstly, Australia, as a regional hub for 'US interests' in the southern half of the region is linked to Japan as the northern hub. Recent high-level diplomatic initiatives between the two countries and the noted 'deepening security ties' have to be evaluated in that light. (7)

The main focus remains the vast Indo-Pacific region, which is regarded by the US as a potential theatre of war; sensitive island chains are used by the Pentagon as demarcation lines to restrict China's access and egress.

Recent high-level diplomatic initiatives between New Zealand, one of Australia's Five Eyes partners, and the Cook Islands, might be regarded as irrelevant to a casual observer. To the contrary, the Cook Islands sits on sensitive island chains and is also 'sitting on one of the most significant critical mineral reserves in the world, including billions of tonnes of cobalt, nickel, manganese and copper, all essential to modern defence technology'. (8)

Recent moves by the Cook Islands government to forge closer links with China were assessed by the Five Eyes as a major defence and security problem linked to neo-colonial ambitions. A high-level diplomatic stand-off took place within the corridors of power.

The Solomon Islands, likewise, is regarded as extremely sensitive: a highly volatile ethnic-based problem causing long-time political instability and governance problems and relations between certain local figures and China has been assessed along lines as 'leadership changes in the strategically located archipelago are closely watched by western diplomats'. (9)

The techniques used by western diplomatic officials were not specified in the official communique although they remain likely to be based in the monitoring of all telecommunications. Vast troves of intelligence are systematically analysed by AI, and then used for profiling and stored in computer banks for future use, if, and when, required.

The surveillance techniques deployed by the US follow decisions taken over a decade ago by the Pentagon's Defence Intelligence Agency (DIA) to upgrade already existing facilities for a further 1,600 'collectors in positions around the world … US embassies typically have a set number of slots for intelligence operatives posing as diplomats'. (10) Data-centres?

Secondly, as the US strives to extend its three island chains to fourth and fifth counterparts across the Indian Ocean, they are systematically strengthening already existing chains; it is not coincidental that NSW exists on a straight line from the Kuril Islands of the
Frontier of the Northern Sphere, and Antarctica, the Frontier of the Southern Sphere. (11)
The third island chain, likewise, beginning with the Aleutian Islands and covering the Pacific Rim and Oceania, also uses Australia as a strategic reference point.

And the role of the NSW Liberal Party and 'US interests'?

It is highly significant to note the incoming US head of their Canberra embassy, Dr. David Brat, is not an ambassador but a special envoy, with wider diplomatic responsibilities for the Indo-Pacific region. (12) The US diplomatic position has also followed previous policies outlined in the Partners in the Blue Pacific initiatives, where 'Washington is renewing efforts to remain influential in the Pacific region with an increased diplomatic, security and economic presence … the initiative drew heavily upon … the UK, Australia, New Zealand, and Japan, aiming to forge closer connections with pacific governments'. (13)

In conclusion, the Liberal Party policy proposal would appear in cahoots with US-led intelligence planning. 

The legacy of the previous Cold War remains and hangs like a shackle upon the present one:

                                          We need an independent foreign policy!

 

1.     Libs plan 'digital embassies' for Pacific nations, Five Eyes allies, Australian, 8 May 2026.
2.     Spy bill extended, Australian, 20 April 2026.
3.     Ibid.
4.     See: Secret army's war on the left, The Observer (London), 18 November 1990; and, Army's Project X had wider audience, The Washington Post, 6 March 1997; and, Lost History: Project X, The Consortium magazine, 31 March 1997.
5.     Australian, op.cit., 8 May 2026.
6.     Ibid.
7.     Deepening security ties with Japan matter at 'severe' time, Editorial, Australian, 5 May 2026.
8.     NZ resolves Cook Islands security 'family feud', The Weekend Australian, 11-12 April 2026.
9.     PM's ousting ripples across Pacific, Australian, 8 May 2026.
10.   Pentagon plays the spy game, The Guardian Weekly (U.K.), 7 December 2012.
11.   Peter Projection, World Map, Actual Size; and, US to build anti-China missile network along first island chain, Nikkei, 5 March 2021; and, US Indo-Pacific Command proposes new missile capabilities to deter China, RFA., 5 March 2021.
12.   Tea Party hero to be envoy Down Under, Australian, 29 April 2026.1
13.   Solomon Islands deals a blow by refusing to sign Pacific Declaration: Report, Sputnik News, 20220928, 10 February 2022.
 

The US War Budget and the Pacific (Pt. 1)

 Written by: (Contributed) on 12 May 2026

 

Hidden within recently announced US defence spending lies information about highly sensitive signals-intelligence (SIGINT) facilities focussed on the Pacific, using the military facilities of allies, including Australia and Japan. The information remains well hidden. The US remains preoccupied with the changing balance of forces already taking place across the Pacific. The vast region is regarded by the Pentagon as a potential theatre of war with China; the US, therefore, monitors Beijing's 'soft diplomacy' in the Pacific and their ability to consolidate an already formidable power-base.

In late April the US congress announced their approval for defence spending of over US$1 trillion; it is also set to increase to US$1.5 trillion next year. (1) Hidden in the small print of the government documents lies where some of the defence spending has been allocated. The Philippines, for example, now hosts nine US military facilities inside their own military bases. Some of the US facilities are regarded as off-bounds to Philippine citizens, revealing their sensitive nature and higher levels of security clearances used by the Pentagon. Other countries, likewise, have similar facilities.

The sensitive US military facilities include higher level access to their Pacific Deterrence Initiative designed to establish a network of precision-strike missiles along the first island chain, with similar facilities lodged along the second island chain; the radar systems are used for intelligence-gathering. (2) The whole system is expected to be fully operational next year. (3)

The main focus of US involvement in the Pacific has been China, which is regarded as a serious competitor to traditional US hegemonic positions. In fact, a US congressional commission nearly a decade ago concluded 'that the US is no longer clearly superior to the threats … it faces … and that it would struggle to win wars against China'. (4)

The balance of forces has already swung, and swings still further.

The commission, moreover, recommended the US 'further relying on traditional allies, including Australia and Japan'. (5) It was, therefore, no surprise to find examples of recent high-level diplomacy between the two countries. Last month, coinciding with the US announcement of their defence spending, Australia, for example, hosted the new Japanese prime minister, Sanae Takaichi in Canberra, for high-level diplomatic talks which included reference to 'growing security and defence co-operation'. (6) The US has had to increasingly rely upon Australia and Japan as two major regional hubs for 'US interests' after the Trump administration sidelined India as a strategic corner of the so-called 'Quad'.

The role of the US, furthermore, has not been ambiguous; their intelligence assessments that Australia 'is grossly unprepared for modern warfare', leaves little to the imagination. (7) The Pentagon is not planning for the maintenance of the status quo, but aggressive foreign policy initiatives to effectively challenge China, diplomatically and militarily.

The finalisation of a new defence and security agreement between Australia and Fiji, the Vuvale Union, has drawn a highly geo-strategic country in the Pacific, into Australia's military orbit. (8) The fact that Fiji swings on an arc from the Lavarack Barracks near Townsville, including the Solomon Islands, Vanuatu and Canberra, is not coincidental. The Queensland-based military facilities host Combat Signals and the Combat Services Support Battalion. (9) They also provide Australian-based military facilities with their US counterparts, operational since the Vietnam War over half a century ago. (10)  

Pentagon military intelligence assessments fear Vanuatu negotiating a pact with China, leading to the establishment of military facilities in what has, historically, been inside Australia's defence and security cordon for protection from incursions from northern sources. (11)

The Solomon Islands, likewise, remains diplomatically close to China. The tiny country of only 850,000 inhabitants, is only 2,000 kms from Australia, and regarded a geo-strategic for Australia's defence and security. The recent ousting of prime minister Jeremiah Manele in a no-confidence vote, has already heightened diplomatic tensions with Canberra. It has been noted that, 'leadership changes in the strategically located archipelago are closely watched by western diplomats'. (12) How they watch developments, remains the matter in question.   

And developments, elsewhere, have some bearing upon the matter.

Political discourse in the US congress and senate have finally approved a bill extending controversial surveillance programs which focus upon section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which is responsible for the US intelligence services collecting and analysing vast troves of foreign telecommunications without a warrant. (13)

The surveillance system used by the US intelligence services rests upon the Echelon facilities composed of vast computer banks programmed to collect all telecommunications, which have now been upgraded with AI for profiling. (14) The facilities are referred to as data-centres, in polite diplomatic discourse.

Amid the US-led diplomatic challenge to China, the Trump administration have announced their choice of a new diplomatic representative in Canberra. Aptly named, Dr. Brat, is set to soon arrive in Canberra. Conservative, and a noted right-winger, Brat resides in that shadowy area of Christian fundamentalism and has been noted as having attacked 'moral relativism'. (15) His appointment, as envoy denotes his role in the wider region, not merely Australia.  No doubt he will be kept very busy monitoring developments in the Pacific:
                                           
We need an independent foreign policy!

1.     Military spending surges to $4 trillion, Australian, 28 April 2026.
2.     US to build anti-China missile network along first island chain, Nikkei, 5 March 2021; and, US Indo-Pacific Command proposes new missile capabilities to deter China, RFA., 5 March 2021.
3.     Ibid.
4.     Study: US no longer dominant power in the Pacific, Information Clearing House, 22 August 2019.
5.     Ibid.
6.     Official Media Release: Prime Minister of Australia, Visit to Australia by the Prime Minister of Japan, 28 April 2026; and, Deepening security ties with Japan matter at 'severe time', Editorial, Australian, 5 May 2026.
7.     Australia 'not ready' for modern conflict, Australian, 25 February 2026.
8.     'Knife fight' heats up in Pacific, Australian, 6 May 2026.
9.     Wikipedia: Australian Military Bases.
10.   Ibid.
11.   Australian, op.cit., 6 May 2026.
12.   PM's ousting ripples across Pacific, Australian, 8 May 2026.
13.   Spy bill extended, Australian, 20 April 2026.
14.   See: Echelon, Espionage, Spies and Secrets, Richard M. Bennett, (London, 2002), PP. 89-93.
15.   Donald Trump names former Republican congressman as new US ambassador to  Australia, ABC news, 28 April 2026; and, Tea Party hero to be envoy down under,  Australian, 29 April 2026

Nationalise Australian Ports!

Written by: CPA (M-L) on 12 May 2026

 

 

A combination of factors including controversy about cancelling the Chinese company Landbridge’s 99-year lease of Darwin Port, and yet another battle facing the Maritime Union of Australia, this time over automation and AI operation of the stevedoring work in DP World’s four Australian container terminals, has resulted in a call by our Party for the nationalisation of Australian ports.  A new publication on this topic is available here: Nationlise+Australian+Ports.pd

Campaign for a gas export tax and Albo flinches

Written by: Max O. on 7 May 2026

 

The Australia Institute, Michael West Media, and the recent parliamentary inquiry into the taxation of Australia's gas resources have put gas corporations under the microscope regarding how much wealth they extract from the country's natural resources. Together with the ACTU, they are arguing for a 25 percent gas tax on exports.

However, no amount of evidence about gas corporations pillaging Australia's natural resources for virtually nothing has convinced Prime Minister Albanese of the need to tax them. He argued in the media recently, "They pay around about $22 billion … you need to acknowledge the tens of billions of dollars of investment that occurs in order to have that gas extracted. Without that investment that's come from North America, that's come from Japan … we wouldn't be having a debate because there wouldn't have been that extraction."

No hint here of "Buying back the farm" or taxing these rich corporations for looting the country's finite natural resources. Albanese's attitude once again demonstrates that our capitalist political system is administered for the benefit of overwhelmingly foreign corporations and not the Australian people.

The Australia Institute states that the Federal Government gets more revenue from beer excise and uni students repaying their HECS debts each year than it gets from its Petroleum Resource Rent Tax (PRRT).

Albanese's defence of the gas corporations belies the Australian Tax Office's depiction of the gas industry as "systemic non-payers of tax". "Many gas companies pay no company tax and no PRRT. Santos Limited, for example, has not paid any company tax on $47 billion in sales over ten years," reports the Australia Institute.

The recent wars in Ukraine and Iran have seen energy prices inflate and massive profits for the gas industry. As a result, gas companies have paid increased company tax. Nevertheless, teachers and nurses in Australia pay more in income tax than the gas industry pays in company tax and PRRT combined.

In April, two days of public hearings for a Greens-led parliamentary inquiry into the taxation of gas resources heard from advocates for a 25 per cent gas export tax and from energy corporations who argued such a tax would scare away investors. Senator for the ACT David Pocock asked Cecile Wake, CEO of Shell in Australia, how much profit and how much gas Shell exported from Australia. The inquiry meeting was left gobsmacked after Wake couldn't answer this question. However, she was certain an extra 25 per cent royalty on Australian gas would be "spectacularly ill advised".

One wonders what this Shell executive thought she might be asked at this inquiry. Or was it just a ploy to avoid answering embarrassing questions that might expose her corporation getting a free ride off Australian natural resources?

Shell's tax boss, Coralie Trotter, had to admit that it paid $109 million in PRRT in 2025 – but didn’t pay any in the decade prior. She informed the inquiry that Shell paid $2.9 billion in company tax in 2024 on $6.2 billion in after tax profits. She claimed the company had paid $12 billion in taxes in the last decade.

Then Wake pointed out that the profit would be much smaller than the revenue collected during that time, as Shell invested US$60 billion into developing gas projects, pleading: "It is not unreasonable for us to be able to recover that before you start paying a profit-based tax."

Senator Pocock quipped with a piercing reply: "Ms Wake, how come you can tell me how much you invested but not how much gas you sold? You tell us about all the investment but you're very quiet on how much gas you're actually selling."

Companies extracting and selling gas from Australia usually pay 40 per cent on the profit they make through the Petroleum Resource Rent Tax (PRRT), though those profits can be offset by losses for capital expenditure.

For an industry that is considered to be worth hundreds of billions, a mere $1.5 billion was collected by the Federal Government in revenue from the PRRT in 2025. This is almost half of what the $2.7 billion beer excise tax collected 

Michael West Media pointed out that "Ethical investor Future Group suggests Australia is capturing less than seven per cent of its resource rents through the PRRT, royalties and excise, much lower than comparable revenue raised in Norway, Qatar and the United Kingdom." Norway and Qatar collect far higher taxes from their gas energy industry.

In 2023, the Qatari Government collected around $56 billion in government revenue from liquified natural gas (LNG) exports. These figures show that Australia suffers a huge sovereign loss from its natural gas resources compared to other gas exporters. 

Eighty per cent of Australian gas production is currently exported from Australia. Indeed, more gas is used by the gas industry to process gas into liquefied natural gas (LNG) for export than all of the gas used by Australian manufacturers.

The Australia Institute says a 25% gas export tax would collect up to $17 billion per year. Presently, the PRRT collects less than $2 billion per year. If this isn't bad enough, there are other nefarious ways that foreign energy corporations swindle Australia, as explained by the Australia Institute: "No company better illustrates the great gas rip-off than Japanese gas company INPEX. Each year, INPEX exports more gas than is used in New South Wales, Victoria and South Australia combined. It sells no gas to Australians outside of emergencies. It pays no royalties, no Petroleum Resource Rent Tax (PRRT), and paid no corporate tax on $21 billion in gas exports between 2015 and 2025. I guess it's not hard to make money when Australia effectively gives you its gas for free."

In fact, you could argue that Japan is better at extracting value from Australia's gas exports than we are. Japan is on-selling the Australian gas it imports for domestic use, according to new analysis from the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis. It found that Japanese companies resold between $11-14 billion worth of Australian LNG in 2024, with its profits likely exceeding $1 billion – or roughly the same as Australia collects from the Petroleum Resource Rent Tax.

Just as serious as the loss of revenue from Australian exported gas are the environmental impacts of gas extraction and the willingness of governments to approve the exploitation of new gas fields. Climate Analytics, which argues the energy crisis presents a rare opportunity to take more ambitious action against global warming, also testified at the parliamentary inquiry. This advocacy group submitted that "It would be broadly beneficial from a climate perspective for changes in the taxation regime to support a managed decline in Australian fossil gas use." However, this group argued any changes should not just seek to capture wartime windfall profits but also drive structural changes in Australia's reliance on fossil fuels.

Capitalism in Australia, with its corporations, politicians, public service, media and think tanks, will do none of this. It will continue to exploit and condemn working people and the environment to milk every last drop of profit it can out of the country. It damns itself by its own barbarism.

ICOR declaration: Resolute Solidarity with the Cuban People Against the Sanctions and Threats of U.S. Imperialism

Written by: ICOR on 7 May 2026

 

On May 1, more than 500,000 people demonstrated in Cuba in front of the U.S. Embassy against the oil embargo imposed by U.S. imperialism since January and handed over six million signatures demanding an end to the embargo—that is roughly two-thirds of the Cuban population.

ICOR stands in wholehearted solidarity with the resistance of the Cuban people. We already published a resolution against the oil embargo in March. The embargo has triggered a humanitarian crisis in Cuba. Power outages and production stoppages are affecting every aspect of people’s lives and undermining healthcare.

 

In the days leading up to May Day, U.S. President Trump threatened “tougher action” and the “takeover” of Cuba, and on the very same day imposed harsher sanctions targeting officials in the economic, political, and administrative sectors, as well as all international banks and institutions that do business with them.

 

In light of this, we reaffirm our call to organize solidarity with the Cuban people worldwide!

 

Long live international solidarity!

Yankees out of Latin America and the Middle East!

No to fascism and imperialist war!

Against capitalist-imperialist barbarism—let us intensify the struggle for socialism!

 

Status of the signatories 06.05.2026. Further signatures possible. Current list of signatories at www.icor.info

 

1. PPDS   Parti Patriotique Démocratique Socialiste (Patriotic Democratic Socialist Party), Tunisia

2. NCP (Mashal)   Nepal Communist Party (Mashal)

3. CPA/ML   Communist Party of Australia (Marxist-Leninist)

4. БКП   Българска Комунистическа Партия (Bulgarian Communist Party)

5. PR-ByH   Partija Rada - ByH (Party of Labor - Bosnia and Herzegovina)

6. MLPD   Marxistisch-Leninistische Partei Deutschlands (Marxist-Leninist Party of Germany)

7. BP (NK-T)   Bolşevik Parti (Kuzey Kürdistan-Türkiye) (Bolshevik Party (North Kurdistan-Turkey))

8. KOL   Kommunistische Organisation Luxemburg (Communist Organization of Luxemburg)

9. RM   Rode Morgen (Red Dawn), Netherlands

10. UMLP   União Marxista-Leninista Portuguesa (Portuguese Marxist-Leninist Union)

11. MLGS   Marxistisch-Leninistische Gruppe Schweiz (Marxist-Leninist Group of Switzerland)

12. MLKP   Marksist Leninist Komünist Parti Türkiye / Kürdistan (Marxist Leninist Communist Party Turkey / Kurdistan)

13. PCP (independiente)   Partido Comunista Paraguayo (independiente) (Paraguayan  Communist Party (independent))

14. PC (ML)   Partido Comunista (Marxista Leninista) (Communist Party (Marxist-Leninist)), Dominican Republic

15. PCR-U   Partido Comunista Revolucionario del Uruguay (Revolutionary Communist Party of Uruguay)

A Tale of Two Imperialisms – Part 2

 Written by: Nick G. on 26 April 2026

 

In our previous article on this topic, we compared the different strategies of US imperialism and Chinese social-imperialism, one in decline and one on the rise, and in particular looked at Chinese investment in Peru’s port of Chancay. In Part 2, we will look at Chinese investments in other ports, including Darwin’s.

Hambantota

 

The Sri Lankan port of Hambantota is perhaps the most well-known example of China’s port acquisitions. The port was built with Chinese loans, and when the Sri Lankan government could not repay these, the Chinese took control of the port under a 99-year lease.

 

Hambantota is strategically located within the Indian Ocean region and is under Chinese operational control. The deal which led to this was widely touted by the rival US-led imperialist bloc as an example of Chinese debt-diplomacy, as a case where financial distress led to loss of control over infrastructure. However, Hambantota is unique in that respect; China’s other major port acquisitions have had more of a straight commercial character.

 

Gwadar Port

 

Also strategically located, the Pakistani port of Gwadar is in the Arabian Sea region of the northern Indian Ocean, and was built to facilitate China’s global logistics strategy and as part of a broader economic corridor between the two countries. It is designed to feed into the China–Pakistan Economic Corridor, a 3000 km land route between the two countries. It provides China with a shorter route for oil imports from the Middle East, bypassing the Straits of Malacca. The port has a heavy geo-political significance but has not lived up to commercial expectations. Like Chancay, Gwadar was built with Chinese capital investment and is under Chinese operational control.

 

Adjacent to the port is a Special Economic Zone. The land was handed to the China Overseas Port Holding Company in November 2015 as part of a 43-year lease. The site will include manufacturing zones, logistics hubs, warehouses, and display centres. Businesses located in the zone will be exempt from customs authorities as well as many provincial and federal taxes. Businesses established in the special economic zone will be exempt from Pakistani income, sales, and federal excise taxes for 23 years. Contractors and subcontractors associated with China Overseas Port Holding Company will be exempt from such taxes for 20 years.

 

Last December, the Indian online magazine Maritime Gateway criticised plans to establish a multinational maritime fusion centre linked to Gwadar. Such centres gather and analyse data on shipping movements, naval deployments, commercial traffic and behavioural patterns at sea.  The Indian analysts, similar to their US counterparts who worried about China’s navy being able to use Peru’s Chancay Port, believe that with Chinese personnel, software and analytical systems embedded on Pakistani soil, control over data becomes ambiguous, making Gwadar less a national commercial port and more a strategic platform for China. Whatever the truth of the Indian claims, it is certainly the case that the commercial and the military components of port acquisitions are closely linked.

 

Djibouti

 

Djibouti sits at the entrance to the Bab el-Mandeb Strait, linking the Indian Ocean to the Red Sea and the Suez Canal—one of the busiest shipping routes on Earth. Around 12–20% of global trade passes through this chokepoint.

 

China has both a commercial port (Doraleh) and a naval base in Djibouti – its first overseas military base. The latter was built in 2017, and justified as resupplying and maintaining Chinese naval ships operating in the Indian Ocean and conducting anti-piracy patrols in the Gulf of Aden.

 

The Djibouti naval base marked a change in the Chinese Navy’s role. Formerly, when China was socialist, it was for China’s coastal defence. But by 2015 and the publication of that year’s White Paper on China’s military strategy, its tasks now had to include:

 

-- To safeguard China's security and interests in new domains;

 -- To safeguard the security of China's overseas interests;

 

To carry out its mission and strategic tasks, the White Paper identified a change from a focus on land-based defence to a focus on blue-water protection of

overseas interests: 

 

“The traditional mentality that land outweighs sea must be abandoned, and great importance has to be attached to managing the seas and oceans and protecting maritime rights and interests. It is necessary for China to develop a modern maritime military force structure commensurate with its national security and development interests, safeguard its national sovereignty and maritime rights and interests, protect the security of strategic SLOCs and overseas interests, and participate in international maritime cooperation, so as to provide strategic support for building itself into a maritime power.”

 

The change to a blue water Navy capable of operating globally will require more than just one base for resupply, maintenance and shelter. 

 

Port of Piraeus

 

This Greek port is majority-owned by COSCO, which has turned it into one of the busiest ports in Europe. It is also home to one of the most militant sections of the Greek working class who have been at the forefront of refusing to service NATO ships and vessels bound for Israel.

 

Both major Greek Communist Parties opposed the sale of Piraeus to COSCO.  This is significant as the larger revisionist Greek Communist Party (KKE) was a founder of the pro-Chinese International Meeting of Communist and Workers’ Parties in 1998. The Communist Party of China is a member. 

 

The KKE opposed COSCO’s purchase of Piraeus in a privatisation fire-sale demanded by the IMF. The KKE has come to reject the idea that China remains socialist. It argues that Chinese overseas investments, including Piraeus, are driven by monopoly capital and geopolitical competition. KKE-affiliated unions have protested working conditions under COSCO management, highlighting precarious contracts, safety concerns, and anti-union practices. In 2021, thousands protested the death of a fellow worker, carrying a large banner reading “No more dead workers for the profits of COSCO”.

 

The Communist Party of Greece (Marxist-Leninist) also opposed COSCO’s takeover of Piraeus. On 27 May, 2017 it published “The Silk Road and the struggles for the looting of the country's wealth”, saying:

 

“In our country, Cosco's investment in Piraeus is already a fact and is of enormous and strategic importance since the common goal of the Greek bourgeoisie and the Chinese bourgeoisie, as Tsipras said in Beijing and agreed by Xi Jinping, is for Piraeus to become the largest commercial center in the Mediterranean. At the same time, China's gateway to Europe, with all that this implies for a number of other investments that are attracted. The recent validation of the purchase of 24% of IPTO by the Chinese State Grid is also a fact. Also during Tsipras' visit to Beijing, a 500 million agreement was signed between Forthnet and ZTE in fiber optics, while the Copelouzos group signed a memorandum of understanding for investments in energy with the state-owned company Shenhua Group estimated at 3 billion.”

 

Darwin

 

In 2015, the Northern Territory government signed a 99-year lease for the operation of the Port of Darwin with the Chinese company Landbridge, a large private company based in Rizhao city in Shandong Province in China. 

 

Although Darwin’s port is not on the scale of the others mentioned in this article, it is Australia’s nearest port to Asia and the nation’s ‘northern gateway’ for Australasian trade including livestock. It is also a key support hub for the expanding offshore oil and gas fields in the Arafura Sea, Timor Sea and waters off the coast of Western Australia.

 

The lease was immediately controversial because of the port’s proximity to the US Marine Rotational Force–Darwin (MRF-D), announced by the Gillard Labor government in 2011. It began as a rotational deployment of 200 marines, expanded to 1500 in 2014, the year before the lease arrangement for the port was signed.

 

Although Landbridge is a commercial operator and there is no Chinese military presence at Darwin, the port’s proximity to a continuously expanding US imperialist military presence highlights the rivalry of these two powers, not just in our region, but on our country.

 

Since the leasing arrangement, the MRF-D has grown to 2500 US marines, and despite still being referred to as a rotational deployment, it is effectively continuous: a new rotation arrives each year.

 

U.S. forces now operate from or access:

 

• Robertson Barracks (Darwin) 

• RAAF Base Darwin 

• RAAF Base Tindal (near Katherine) 

 

Australia and the U.S. have expanded northern air bases to support U.S. aircraft, including long-range bombers that can carry nuclear weapons. There has also been development of facilities for fuel storage, equipment storage and location, and maintenance. These enable rapid U.S. force projection into Southeast Asia.  In addition, the NT regularly hosts foreign armed forces in so-called training exercises.

 

So, should the port of Darwin continue to be operated by the Chinese?

 

We say no, at the same time as we say that there must be no US bases in Australia.

 

In fact, most ports in Australia are operated by foreign capital and foreign investors. This is untenable. All Australian ports should be owned and operated by a national ports authority.

 

And the expansion of the US military presence in Australia must be ended.

 

Our position is that US imperialism is currently the more dangerous of the two imperialisms and the major source of the danger of a war with China.