Quadrilateral Security Dialogue: Pacific Island nations and the US struggle against China

 Written by: (Contributed) on 11 November 2020

Information about a recent high-level diplomatic meeting of Pacific Island security leaders has revealed the central importance of the so-called Quadrilateral Security Dialogue (QSD) for US-led regional foreign policy behind the official scenes.

Fears exist about the diplomatic role of China in the Pacific; informed observers have already concluded traditional US hegemonic positions are in relative decline as China has increased its regional influence.

Major Cold War dramas, therefore, appear to have started over relatively small Pacific Islands nations which, nevertheless, possess huge strategic significance for US-led military and security provision.

 

A recent publication about regional affairs drew attention to a series of meetings of security leaders connected to the Second Joint Heads of Pacific Security which included 24 nations and territories including Australia, together with five regional bodies. (1) The US and Japan were also involved in various meetings with a range of security-related matters.

 

Such meetings, taking place with increasing regularity, might have provided nothing more than a casual read for many observers of regional affairs.

 

The listed agendas of the meetings, however, were remarkably similar to those which dominated agendas at the recent meeting of the QSD in Tokyo: maritime security, security, defence, infrastructure, investment, technology, cyber affairs, supply-chains and public health. (2)

 

The developments have to be viewed within the context of  the US being seen to have lost some of its traditional hegemonic position in the Asia-Pacific region in recent times: the rise of China has seen the US having to compete with another regional power. China has also extended its regional diplomatic representation to include 'soft power influence' which has included large-scale investment projects in the smaller countries of the Pacific Rim, including Micronesia and the South Pacific.

 

A US commission, formed by Congress in 2018 with responsibility for analysing regional developments, concluded later that year 'the US was no longer clearly superior to threats it faced 'and would struggle to win wars against China and Russia'. (3) Other studies, conducted with Australia, likewise, concluded China had successfully 'undermined US military superiority in the Western Pacific'. (4)   

 

As part of a regional military plan to attempt to reassert traditional hegemonic positions the US subsequently included India into their regional triangular defence and security provision alongside Australia and Japan to create the QSD. When US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo stated at their recent summit in Tokyo that it 'expanded co-operation … and … the Trump administration's aim … was to … transform the QSD into a fully-fledged alliance of countries', it was hardly surprising that the high-level diplomatic initiatives put the body on a collision course with China. It was the intended purpose for US-led military planners.

 

The official position adopted by China, therefore, that the QSD is a regional NATO is perhaps an appropriate observation, taken the indiscriminate war-mongering of the four main partners and their shift of emphasis by the US away from northern Europe to the Asia-Pacific region.

 

The developments have also included a recent US-led military exercise Noble Fury, a noted 'new-style exercise', which included the stated intention of establishing 'expeditionary advanced base operations' where small units capture Pacific landmasses in time of conflict to enable the creation of temporary vantage points for 'shoot-and-scoot' tactics. (5)

 

The recent security leaders meeting of Pacific Islanders has to be seen within the context of spokes around the wheels of the two traditional regional countries, Australia and Japan and hubs for 'US interests', which seek to extend their influence ever wider into the region and nearby countries; diplomatic initiatives, in recent times, have emphasis upon the military.

 

Amid the official media releases from the meetings, including references to 'common goals such as regional security maintenance', and, 'improved intelligence-sharing between our Pacific nation families', lay two important factors:

 

• reference to the role of the Australian Federal Police to 'remain closely engaged with Pacific policing and security partners', provided evidence that internal and domestic security were also considerations (6):

 

• India, itself, is also part of US-led surveillance operations with the launching of a C49 Satellite from Chennai recently. Its recently established Space Research Organisation (ISRO) have developed satellite systems 'to collect data' from areas including the South China Seas, South Pacific, northern Australia, together with elsewhere over Central and Latin America and the Middle East, specifically for US-led global intelligence provision. (7)

 

These developments have led to a rising wave of diplomatic tensions and hostilities between US-led military and security provision and China, drawing Australia ever closer to real-war scenarios: We need and independent foreign policy!

 

1.     Pacific nation security leaders meet, The Asia-Pacific Defence Reporter, 9 November 2020.

2.     Quad's rationale bringing balance to coercive China, The Weekend Australian, 10-11 October 2020.

3.     Study: U.S. no longer dominant power in the Pacific, Paul D. Shinkman, Information Clearing House, 22 August 2019.

4.     Great Expectations: Can we depend on the neighbours? The Weekend Australian, 17-18 October 2020.

5.     US marines move fast to 'shoot and scoot', Australian, 22 October 2020.

6.     Pacific nation security leaders meet, op.cit., 9 November 2020.

7.     Kleos Space, APDR, 9 November 2020.     

 

Biden Presidential Election Win and US Rulers Breathe a Sigh of Relief

 Written by: Ned K. on 11 November 2020

In the book American Exceptionalism - A Double Edged Sword, US sociologist Seymour Martin Lipset analyses US settler society history and shows how the US political system developed as a two-party system without the formation of a bourgeois social democratic labor party.

Instead the two Coalition Party system of Republican and Democratic Party developed with both parties being formed by powerful capitalist interests. However, as Lipset points out, both of these parties developed as loose enough coalitions to "absorb/co-opt manifest evident discontent in the form of mass movements. The major parties stealing the thunder of the dissenters by adopting their policies" thereby encouraging groups to act within major parties.

In the 2020 Presidential election, this has been played out for all to see. The Republican leader Trump epitomisiing Marx's view of the USA social system as "...the sphere of egoism, of bellum omnium contra omnes (war of each against all). It is no longer the essence of community but the essence of difference." (Marx "On The Jewish Question')

Trump could not deliver or would not deliver his promises to the white working class men thrown out of work in the rust belt States while waging war against immigrants, women, Afro-Americans and all things Chinese which to him included the Covid-19 Virus.

The situation for the ruling class was getting out of hand. What would four more years of Trump mean if the oppressed peoples who came out in record numbers to vote Trump out and give Biden a go to (in Lipset's words) "steal the thunder of the dissenters" representing the oppressed millions? 

Another Trump win would have had the oppressed people looking for answers beyond the two-Party system perhaps and massive social upheavals.

The mass media would have us believe that the main source of social unrest and violence would come from the extreme Right wing. This has not eventuated yet, but still may come. However, another Trump win would have arguably unleashed something more powerful, a people's democratic movement for fundamental social change in the USA.

Such a movement is sure to grow as many of Biden's promises to those who voted for him will not eventuate due to Biden's allegiance to Wall Street and media magnate capitalists and the conservatism of the US political system.

US imperialism in its earlier days was able to throw enough crumbs to the white working class in particular to contain the working class movement. This was even the case in relation to bourgeois political liberty as pointed out by Lenin who used the term "gift of suffrage" when explaining that the socialist movement in Europe grew out of the struggle for electoral democracy. In the USA, however, the voting franchise predated the appearance of any organised worker movement. (Salig Pashman , Theory of the Labour Movement by Augustus & M Kelley quoted in Lipset's book)

However, times have changed and US imperialism does not have the dominance globally it once had and its internal economy does not have as many economic crumbs to throw the workers' way.

So Biden's win gives the ruling class some breathing space but not for long

Dumping Trump – a Doorway not a Destination

 Written by: John G. on 10 November 2020

The US Presidential election beat itself into all our heads, as commentators picked over the election entrails emerging at snail’s pace from the disjointed states of America.

Reaching the climax, a rejected Trump stretched out for days, then a week with more coming. 

It tended to overshadow what in the US led into the election, setting the scene for any change. 

‘I can’t breathe’, the words uttered by Eric Garner in 2014 and again by George Floyd on 25 May 2020 as police squashed the life out of them, unleashed the largest wave of protests ever seen in the US.

The Black Lives Matter movement organised over 8,000 protest marches in 2,000 US cities with enormous turnouts in the following 3 months. Other marches over Covid, economic hardships, food shortages, evictions and for rent relief, and just cries for relief from poverty, have marked a huge wave of unrest. The poor, sections of the working class, Black Americans with a wide and deep range of allies have been mobilised and to an extent organised. 

The action on the ground had, by August, forced a dozen cities and 3 states to outlaw choke holds, ban use of tear gas, other chemical irritants, and rubber bullets on protesters among other relief from violence and oppression by authorities. Free food handouts occur daily in cities across the country. Evictions were outlawed in some cities. Free clean water is supplied to communities where polluted supplies threaten health. 

In response to the jingoism of Trump and officials at State and local levels, and the crises over race, the exploding pandemic, waves of unemployment and growing poverty, communities have mobilised and found voice. Leaders have been emerging in the communities and on the streets to see hardships relieved.

The roadmap to that relief went through Donald Trump.

A decrepit old white hack is no real answer to entrenched poverty and racism

As a former Texan Commissioner for Agriculture and commentator on American life, Jim Hightower, called it from under his cowboy hat, ‘Beating Trump is a doorway not a destination’. 

Community leaders were agitating that it would not be enough to throw Trump out, to put in another old white corporate politician and just see things go on with a few minor concessions to the outburst of anger and emerging people’s movement, crumbs scattered from the table of US imperialist superprofits. The call for a new America, reverberated.

A different decrepit old white Democrat in the White House isn’t the answer for those mobilised Americans, even with the first concession of the first ever Black/Asian American women as Vice President elect. 

Mass frustration and dissolution might ordinarily lead to a poor voter turnout when people have experience of how useless elections are in their lives, leading nowhere. But this election had a historically high turnout, a product of the social conflict and people’s determination to be rid of Trump and the swamp of corporate Washington. 

For lower working class and oppressed strata of American society, it’s an expression of the distance between the American dream and their American reality, of grasping their own interests in opposition to those of the corporate elites.

It’s important to be clear eyed about that phenomenon. Hopes and dreams don’t change US society. 

The American Dream for some

The US has the highest GDP per capita in the world by quite a way. The inclination of many Americans, including upper working-class strata, is to protect that wealth in which they share. It affects the thinking and aspirations of others who are only touched in passing and others who don’t partake. It feeds the militarism, jingoism, racism and nationalism that has significant importance to US capital. 

Interests aligned with American finance capital drive reaction within the US. Many realise high incomes, luxury housing, and decadent lifestyles from a cut from US imperialism’s dominance of world capitalism. Others hold onto the aspiration. 

At the start of the 20th century Lenin noted the phenomenon of a labour aristocracy in major imperialist heartlands. 

He cited sections of the English working class, and how stratified it had become with an upper stratum of workers engaged in sporting clubs, cooperatives, trade unions and guilds, and numerous religious sects. Implicit were their incomes, luxuries, and lifestyles. He noted the amount of land in southern England devoted to sporting fields and leisure. He referenced the lower stratum of the English proletariat proper, haunted by unemployment and insecurity, gathered in the barren slums of the major cities.  

In the preface of “Imperialism , the highest stage of capitalism”, Lenin pointed out “capitalism has now singled out a handful ... of exceptionally rich and powerful states which plunder the whole world simply by “clipping coupons” Capital exports yield an income of eight to ten francs per annum, at prewar prices ... out of such superprofits (... obtained over and above the profits which capitalists squeeze out of the workers of their “own” country) it is possible to bribe the labour leaders and the upper stratum of the labour aristocracy. ... In the civil war between the proletariat and the bourgeoisie they inevitably, and in no small numbers, take the side of the bourgeoisie ...” 6 July 1920.

The US has its aristocracy of labour, but there is frustration for some as US imperialism’s imperial lordship slides, even partially, and monopolist finance capital faces degradation. Sections sliding out of grace and favour seek paths to salvation. Some gathered round Trump after decades of what they see as government indifference and neglect from the Washington swamp. Talk about fake news.   

The American Dream grates against many people’s American Reality

Millions of the poor found themselves squeezed, abandoned to hardships over decades. Police violence and extraordinary oppressive rates of gaoling among minorities weigh on lower strata communities. They also had decades of growing hardships through wars, financial crises, housing crashes, unemployment and collapse of much healthcare. They have garnered significant support and gained leadership of greater numbers than previously experienced. 

Clinton’s 1996 social welfare “reforms” handed control to states. The new welfare system relied on “personal responsibility”, added work requirements, shrinking the numbers who qualified for benefits, handing out harsh punishments for non-compliance, compounding the impact of the economic crises and familiar to people here. Biden and Hillary were Bill Clinton’s collaborators in that disaster. 

The country tired of the warmongering Bushes, and had hopes dashed in 8 years of Obama’s government inaction. They emerged hating the Washington swamp as Trump branded it giving expression to a lot of people. Trump compounded frustrations, promise after promise unfulfilled while his early years saw some employment relief and the first rise in the minimum wage in many years. 

Celebrity showmanship, a sharp tongue and brash triumphalism attracted attention. Racism and inaction against COVID-19 mobilised sections of the black community, medicos, nurses, sections of working-class whites after delays on delays in programs he promised and the threat to many people’s lives and livelihoods. 

The cry to dump Trump grew. The aristocracy of labour worked to funnel it into the Democratic party’s presidential race. That fell short for many when Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren were pushed out of the Democratic primary race. Many who were determined to win relief from their difficulties, the racist police killings, the deprivation, the insecurity, the health crisis, couldn’t stomach trying to hold up another corporate politician from the Washington swamp as their saviour. 

Aiming for a different destination through this open door

Taking account of the failing mood, activists from a range of working-class and minority community groups and parties focussed on getting rid of Trump as a first step. 

The Freedom Road Socialist Party proposed; ‘The upcoming election (in the US) are in essence a referendum on the past four years, and we hold that it is important that everyone who can vote do so – and that you vote against Trump. The defeat of Trump and his ilk will create at move favorable context for the people’s struggle to advance. ...’  

‘No matter who wins the next election, we need to stay in the streets and fight for an agenda that reflects peoples needs. And we need to keep our eye on the prize. That means advocating for and building organization to achieve revolutionary change. The kind of change that sweeps away the current ruling class from power and puts power into hands of working people.’

Votetrumpout.org, a broader alliance, notes: ‘We are not going to minimize our disagreements with Joe Biden. But we’re also clear-eyed about where things stand: supporting the Democratic nominee in swing states is the only means we have to defeat Trump. ... If Biden wins, we’ll be at his door on day one, demanding the kinds of structural reforms that advance racial, economic, and environmental justice. But before that, it’s clear what we have to do: This November, we have to #VoteTrumpOut in swing states.’

That approach appears to have rebuilt the drive to action for a better America. It recognised that people, including many of Trump’s supporters, want to get traditional corporate politicians off their backs, and have some level of recognition of the way ‘conventional electoral politics’ is weighed against working people and small business. 

The call for dumping Trump and then continuing struggle to impose a roadmap out of the crisis on the country’s rulers has distilled thinking of masses of Americans. It strives to take the rejection of Trumpism towards a different America, one not on the American nationalist Democrats agenda. It has an element of a call to arms for the times. 

Struggle to impose a roadmap for a people’s agenda against corporate America after the defeat of Trump, could also open a path for numbers of Trump’s alienated working-class followers to continue with their struggle to ‘clean out the swamp of Washington politicians’ in the fight to force Biden to give way to relieving their hardships.  

Challenging corporate rule requires step by step struggles at levels masses of Americans are ready for. There is undoubtedly struggle over leadership of this movement and its roadmap with those completely swamped in electoral politics. Mistakes and faltering are inevitable. Struggle to change America involves adopting new levels of understanding, tested in the vortex of struggle that is emerging in the US, in itself creating new ideas as the movement unfolds. 
Beating Trump has opened a doorway. 

It is yet to be seen if the people’s movement can take it forward towards a completely different destination than the electoral swamp has prepared. 
 

 

The US-India Basic Exchange and Cooperation Agreement

Written by: (Contributed) on 9 November 2020

The US has sought to develop stronger diplomatic links with India as part of their Cold War position toward China.

The diplomacy, however, has rested upon the longer-term increase in sales of US military and intelligence equipment with a compliant government in New Delhi to enhance US military preparations.

India, therefore, can be seen to have been allocated a key strategic position for 'US interests' by military planners, due to it being:

*geographically close to China with long-standing diplomatic rivalries;
*a major player inside the British Commonwealth;
*a dominant player in the Indo-Pacific region;
*a country with numerous diplomatic links elsewhere in the developing world.

In October 2020, the US and India established a Basic Exchange and Co-operation Agreement (BECA) to 'allow for expanded geospatial-information sharing between our armed forces'. (1) Official media releases about the high-level diplomatic initiative also stated 'the pact would give India access to advanced US map and satellite imagery, enhancing the accuracy of automated weapons, drones and missiles'. (2)

India, increasingly, has been drawn closer to the triangular US-led regional diplomacy with Australia and Japan, and it is, therefore, important to note the BECA was developed at the recent meeting of the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue (QSD) in Tokyo in October as part of an expanded provision which now has included: defence and security provision, maritime security, infrastructure, investment technology, cyber affairs, supply-chains and public health. The QSD is, increasingly, resembling a regional out-station of the US/European-based NATO.

High-level diplomatic talks between US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and his Indian counterparts noted the two countries were 'expanding America and India security co-operation', leading to the establishment of the BECA. (3) The signing of the BECA itself rested upon earlier agreements which included the so-called '2+2' dialogue established in 2018 where the US allowed India access to 'encrypted military intelligence' and an MOA where US personnel were allowed onto India's military facilities. (4)

The US has been keen during the past decade to include India in their regional military and security provision; in 2008, for example, co-operation between the two countries was marked with defence trade being virtually non-existent; it has subsequently grown to more than US$20 billion this year. (5) The defence sales have also been accompanied by India being included in numerous US-led regional military exercises.

Throughout the recent arms sales the listed function of 'interoperability' between the US and India, and moves to 'allow the transfer of high-end military platforms', has become commonplace. (6) The military relationship has also been accompanied with information relating to 'geo-spatial intelligence and real-time images', indicating extensive planning for drone intelligence-collection and warfare. (7)

The rise of China as a serious competitor has proved problematic for the US; their diplomacy has increasingly focussed upon developing regional agreements and alliances to encircle and contain China's rising influence. It is not difficult, therefore, to see why the US has drawn India diplomatically closer.

India's diplomatic relationship with China, historically, has also been problematic. The two countries regard each other as long-time rivals. On occasions hostilities have included military stand-offs over boundary disputes as in the recent case of their shared Himalayan borders in June. Further disputes of a similar nature are expected over nearby Kashmir following a decision recently taken by neighbouring Pakistan to formally integrate part of the area which is also claimed by India. (8)

Decisions by the US to include drawing India closer into the Five Eyes intelligence-sharing alliance have to be seen as an attempt to create another hub for 'US interests', working alongside Australia and Japan. (9) India's recent transition from a non-aligned country with strong diplomatic links with the former Soviet Union and Russian Federation to closely allied with the US, therefore, has led to the BECA marking a 'turning point away from its historical non-alignment policy, and re-mapping of its foreign policy priorities under right-wing nationalist Prime Minister Narendra Modi'. (10)

A number of important considerations have arisen.

The fact India is geographically close to China has provided the US with an added bonus: military facilities near border areas can be used for ground-control stations with sensitive surveillance and monitoring equipment for intelligence-collection.

Wider regional matters linked to geographical demarcation disputes were acknowledged by the US with the statement that they regarded India 'as a linchpin in its Indo-Pacific strategy', and that the BECA provided India with 'access to sensitive military satellite data … to track Chinese military movements on its Himalayan border'. (11) In addition, the Nepalese communists regard Indian expansionism as a serious threat.

Secondly, India has remained a long-standing player inside the British Commonwealth, a highly influential 54-member country body developed from the remnants of Empire. India was, in fact, regarded as the jewel in the crown of empire. Many of the countries in the British Commonwealth remain of high-level strategic value, as outlying centres of British influence and sensitive supply lines, which some historians have suggested were primarily concerned with protecting trade links with India.

The British Commonwealth also has the function of an overseas intelligence service for Whitehall, converging upon the Privy Council and acting head of state, Prince Charles. India, therefore, has access to the shadowy world of the corridors of power and influence.

Thirdly, India has maintained a long-time dominant role in the Indo-Pacific region with full diplomatic relations with 27 countries together with extensive trade relations. (12) Many of the countries concerned also host Indian expatriate professionals and workers.

Finally, India also retains strong diplomatic relations throughout the world, including active membership of the United Nations, Non-Aligned Movement and World Trade Organisation which provide ready access to international financial institutions controlled by the US. (13)  

It is, therefore, important to note that the US has been shown to favour 'security partnerships outside the alliance system', which are not clearly defined but left open to redefinition and flexibility at a later date, if required. (14) India, for example, can be used by the US for a wide variety of purposes to defend, secure and promote 'US interests' through Washington and the Pentagon accessing any of the above four listed criteria.

In conclusion, India has been drawn closer to US-led diplomatic positions in recent times, with the purpose of confronting China in specific sensitive areas including contested borders. As Australia is also part of the same US-led military planning we are increasingly entering a period whereby our standard military and security considerations can easily be replaced with real-war scenarios following an escalation of diplomatic hostilities in areas of the world far beyond our usual line of focus.

With that in mind: We need an independent foreign policy!

 

1.     US, India to sign military pact to counter China, Australian, 27 October 2020.
2.     Ibid.
3.     Pompeo renews charm offensive to keep China in check, Australian, 23 October 2020.
4.     Australian, op.cit., 27 October 2020.
5.     Ibid.
6.     India, US fall in line in bid to curb China aggression, Australian, 28 October 2020.
7.     Australian, op.cit., 27 October 2020.     
8.     Pakistan changes status of Kashmir, Australian, 5 November 2020.
9.     Australian, op.cit., 28 October 2020.
10.   Ibid.
11.   Ibid.
12.   Wikipedia: Foreign Relations of India.
13.   Ibid.

14.   Australian, op.cit., 28 October 2020. 

Palau technology upgrade to serve US military interests

 Written by: (Contributed) on 5 November 2020

The decision by the United States, Japan and Australian governments to provide Palau with underwater internet cable provision has little to do with improved services for general subscribers.

It is primarily concerned with improved military communications and extending the reach of US regional hubs into spokes and outlying strategically-placed countries.

The development can be best viewed with the following considerations:

     a further wave of US-led militarism;

     a further consolidation of Island Chain Theory;

     increased defence and security provision of one of Taiwan's major regional diplomatic
     contacts for 'US interests'.

A number of questions, therefore, have arisen about the Australian involvement. Answers, as yet, have not been forthcoming from official channels.

In October, the US and their two regional hubs, Japan and Australia, announced plans to finance the laying of a major 170 kms underwater internet cable to Palau, linked into the US mainland and Singapore network. (1) The plan followed similar moves last year when the US launched a Kacific 1 satellite system to provide improved mobile telephone services. (2)

Palau, a sprawling land-mass of about 340 islands with about 20,000 residents, has historically had strong links with the US; following independence in 1978, the country established the Compact of Free Association with the US and subsequently became an important offshore banking hub with a large international airport. Being situated on the western chain of the Caroline Islands, Palau is strategically-placed in the Pacific, east of the Philippines and north of Papua New Guinea, just inside the arc which swings from Diego Garcia to Guam from US regional intelligence provision based at Pine Gap.

Palau has major significance with Island Chain Theory, a relic of the previous Cold War which has become vogue military thinking, once again, in more recent times. (See diagram)

It is, therefore, not particularly difficult to establish why the recent internet cable was accompanied with an official diplomatic statement from Australian Foreign Minister Marise Payne that the 'project and Australia's new embassy in Palau were part of the Morrison government's Pacific Step-up', a US-led regional position aimed at containing and encircling China's influences. (3) When Payne also stated 'we are very pleased to work alongside Japan and the US to support Palau's vision to strengthen its global internet connectivity', the moves had little to do with ordinary Palau residents having improved services.

While satellite communications provide relatively easy access to remote areas of the globe, problems arise with micro-second delays in transmission and reception creating difficulties with the levels of precision required by military planners to use military equipment for drones, surveillance geo-spatial facilities and missile defence systems. Cable provision, however, has the capacity to provide real-time transmission and reception requirements.

Palau would appear to have been placed in a front-line position with US-led regional military planning. Two months ago, US Defence Secretary Mark Esper visited Palau for high-level diplomatic talks with president, Tommy Remengesau Jnr. It was noted in official media releases following the talks, that 'Palau's request to the US remains simple: build joint use facilities, then come and use them regularly'. (4)

While committing Palau to troop rotations from the US, presumably in conjunction with similar rotations from northern Australia, the small Pacific country would appear to have been elevated in status for US-led regional military planning for future operations.

In fact, a recent statement from the Lowy Institute director of the Pacific Islands Program, Jonathan Pryke, gave reference to 'the security-focused cable project' in the context that 'Palau's approach stood out from other Pacific nations, which are trying to remain neutral in the increasingly contested region'. (5)

It is, therefore, interesting to note Palau is one of fifteen countries which continues to recognise Taiwan, an entity itself pushed to the forefront of regional diplomatic tensions by the Trump administration. While the US has always provided military support for Taiwan, in the last four years a dramatic increase in military spending and arms sales has taken place. (6) During the four years of the Trump administration, US aid was escalated to $US22 billion in comparison to the $US14 billion of the previous whole eight years of the Obama period. (7) The moves reveal a great deal about US Cold War diplomatic positions.

The moves have also been accompanied with the recent $US 250 million upgrade to the so-called American Institute in Taiwan (AIT), which has provided working facilities for nearly five hundred staff who have diplomatic status and are officially on temporary leave from the State Department in Washington. (8) While, at one level, they exist, at another more sensitive and operational level, they do not in present-day US Cold War diplomacy.

The developments can best be viewed, therefore, as the implementation of a military plan early in the last decade where the US sought to transform their Defence Intelligence Agency (DIA) 'into a spy service focused on emerging threats' and military intelligence-type assessments. (9) They are primarily concerned with the changing regional balance of forces; a central preoccupation for the present-day Pentagon and their AIT staff in Taipei. (10)

Palau has an important position in the whole plan, being a noted part of the 'New Southbound Policy' of Taiwan’s President Tsai Ing-wen, where Taipei has sought to extend its diplomatic influence into regional dialogues organised by US think-tanks; their tentacles strike deep into the region for the specific defence and security of 'US interests'. (11)

It is significant to note the role taken by the present Australian government toward these developments. Why, for example, does Australia need an embassy and diplomatic staff in Palau? Any trade relations can, at best, be regarded as of minimal significance. Why should Australian tax-payers also subside Palau's internet services?
 
Australia, it can be seen, has assumed a compliant role in US-led military planning and directives for very likely future regional 'real-war' scenarios.

                                           
We need an independent foreign policy!

1.     Sea cable to keep Beijing at bay, Australian, 29 October 2020.
2.     Palau – CIA World Fact Book, 2020.
3.     Australian, op.cit., 29 October 2020.
4.     Ibid.
5.     Ibid.
6.     See: Wikipedia, US arms sales Taiwan.
7.     US to sell Taipei drones in $10 billion weapons deal, Australian, 18 September 2020.
8.     Beijing keeps a wary eye on new US Taipei outpost, Australian, 18 June 2018.
9.     Pentagon plays the spy game, The Guardian Weekly (U.K.), 7 December 2012.  
10.   See: Study – U.S. no longer dominant power in the Pacific, Paul D. Shinkman, Information Clearing House, 22 August 2019.   
11.   Australian, op.cit., 18 June 2018.

ICOR on the International Day of Environmental Struggle on Saturday, November 14, 2020

 Written by: ICOR on 4 November 2020

We publish this call by the International Coordination of Revolutionary Parties and Organisations (ICOR), to which we are affiliated. Different countries have different capacities, particularly under the Covid-19 restrictions, to carry out actions on November 14, but we note that Australians are rejecting the federal government's "gas-led" recovery and its continuing support for fossil fuels, as well as its determination to avoid setting targets relating to emissions reductions. And the Labor Party is little better. We support the basic analysis contained in this call, and draw attention to the important dot point demands at the end - eds. 

 

World economic and financial crisis, corona crisis and environmental crisis are demanding: Save the environment from the profit economy!

 

In the connection of the deep world economic and financial crisis with the corona crisis and the global environmental crisis, a race for the preservation of the foundations of human life is developing worldwide. The worst victims of the Covid-19 pandemic are mostly claimed where environmental pollution is at its worst, where people are crammed into miserable living quarters and working conditions and where capitalist exploitation is carried out with little or no health protection.

 

Contrary to all the imperialists' targeted propaganda of a "respite for the environment through the corona pandemic”, the accelerated transition to a global environmental catastrophe is clearly evident. 

 

All over the world, large forest areas are burning, the polar ice masses are melting, the permafrost is thawing and the rainforests are being cleared (slash and burn) at an accelerated pace for the maximum profit of corporations. 

 

In 2021, the Amazon rainforest, one of the "green lungs of the earth", a tipping point is threatening and thus its irreversible transformation into a steppe. At over 411ppm, the CO2 content of the atmosphere has reached a new peak, as did the temperature of land and water. The global average temperature has already risen by 1.22 degrees centigrade compared to the pre-industrial era, while the ruling classes are still debating over the non-binding intention of limiting it to a "1.5 degree target" in the Paris Climate Treaty. However, this means already accepting devastating consequences and is triggering self-destructive processes that should actually be prevented. Violent storms, inundations, aridness and drought are destroying millions of livelihoods and forcing the survivors to flee.

 

To mislead the masses international monopolies and imperialist governments fantasize about a "Green Deal" with billions of subsidies for international finance capital, or like Trump or Bolsonaro openly reject environmental protection. Neither this, nor green packages of non-binding promises will save the environment. With the basic line "environmental protection only if the profits flow", humanity will perish!

 

Mass struggles and even rebellion-like developments in some countries and the criticism of capitalism, especially among young people, are increasing. The masses need more clarity and organization! In the struggles against mass layoffs, environmental destruction, hunger crises and rightward development of governments, as well as in the protests of the Fridays for Future movement, the search for a societal alternative is growing!

 

The massive spreading of anticommunism is intended to suppress this debate, search and organization. The imperialists know that their destructive rule will be overthrown when the masses worldwide, with the perspective of socialism in mind, unite and fight for their future under the leadership of the international proletariat!

 

With reference to the Corona pandemic, the imperialists have postponed the 26th UN World Climate Conference in Glasgow by one year, to November 1-12, 2021. The revolutionary and workers movement and the militant global environmental movement have no reason to postpone their activities. Time is pressing!

 

As planned, ICOR will conduct its annual Environmental Day of Struggle on November 14th, the date of the traditional annual Global Action Day of the militant environmental movement. We call upon the youth, the workers, environmentalists and activists of the social movements: Let us set a militant signal together on this day:

 

• in the struggle for jobs and comprehensive environmental protection at the expense of profits

• for the enforcement of renewable energies

• against the pollution of people and nature, against plundering and littering of the planet

• against the destruction of forests and marine ecology

• in the struggle for our democratic rights and freedoms, for the rights and protection of millions of refugees worldwide

• against every division: Build together an international active resistance front to save the environment! Working-class and environmental movement together hand in hand!

• mass discussion about saving the unity of humanity and nature, about genuine socialism as a societal alternative!

• Determined struggle against the destructive environmental policies of the imperialist countries - only socialism and communism will ultimately make the solution of the vital environmental question possible.

 

Participate in the ICOR Environmental Day of Struggle on November 14th - worldwide!

Strengthen the ICOR and its member organizations!

First Peoples likely to be the first target of law empowering the military

 Written by: Lindy Nolan on 3 November 2020

With nearly 450 deaths since the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody, the first murder charge against a police officer has been referred for trial in the Supreme Court. But a new Bill still in the Senate looks set to give immunity to military and police from charges arising from “emergency” actions. 

In September, Lawyer and human rights’ activist Kellie Tranter released a briefing paper on the Defence Legislation Amendment (Enhancement of Defence Force Response to Emergencies) Bill 2020, but there’s been barely a whisper in the media, apart from Independent Australian and The Saturday Paper.   

The Bill allows the ADF – and foreign forces – to escape charges from actions during civil “emergencies” declared by the Defence Minister. The action does not have to be referred to parliament or even the prime minister. 

US troops are already based in Darwin, making the NT the most likely place where foreign troops may be called into action. First Peoples are already the most gaoled people in the world. They make up 30 per cent of the Territory population and are already living in the firing line. 

Tranter says an assumption that the new law would only be used for natural emergencies, like bushfire or flood, is incorrect, though that’s the pretext. Tranter’s paper makes clear it could just as easily be used against anti-poverty protesters or striking unionists. 

Anti-imperialist organisation Spirit of Eureka provides evidence from history for Tranter’s statement. 

In a 2015 article, Tranter also drew attention to a section of the ‘Australian Army Manual of Land Warfare’, called ‘Aid to the Civilian Authorities’. Circulating unofficially in the 1980s, former Greens Senator Bob Brown tried to make the document public in 2000. But his amendment to this affect was defeated by a Labor-Coalition voting bloc.  

A ‘how to book’ for military coups and martial law, the manual puts meat on the current Bill’s bones, like locking down neighbourhoods to undertake searches; setting up detention centres; systematically isolating and shooting leaders; hiding evidence by removing wounded and dead; and so on.

We could rejoin the sorry list of dictatorships where people simply disappear. Rejoin? This continent and its islands, as almost all now know, is covered with the bones of secretly or openly slaughtered First Peoples. 

“Emergency Response”

In publicising Tranter’s concerns, Spirit of Eureka also noted the last time the ADF was used here against civilians was during the Northern Territory Intervention which began in 2007.

The Intervention was called ‘The Emergency Response’. After late night passage through parliament of an enormous and barely scrutinised document, the army rolled into communities across the Territory.

The Emergency Response was a testing ground for open policies of state military, economic and cultural repression across the continent and islands. 

It aimed to open First Peoples’ lands to exploitation by multinational corporations. Last year half the Territory was opened to fracking. Gas is announced as Australia’s bipartisan economic saviour post-Covid. 

When mining (or gas) and community, including First Peoples, come into conflict, the forces of the state protect corporate property. It’s never reversed. Alas, no riot squad surrounds Rio Tinto HQ for destroying caves sacred to Puutu Kunti Kurrama and Pinikura or Victorian Government offices for cutting down Djab Wurrung birthing trees.  

Yuendumu resident, anti-fracking leader and Warlpiri Elder Ned Jampajinpa Hargraves spoke at an online forum for Redfern Amnesty Group on August 5 this year about events surrounding November 2019’s shooting death of Walker, a Warlpiri teenager by a police officer.

Jampajinpa said Yuendumu has a population of just 800, but a $7million dollar police station was the only thing built as part of the Intervention. “That money could have gone to our children,” he said.

The police station is a direct line from the Intervention to Walker’s death. Police, but no medical treatment, poured into Yuendumu as the teenager lay for hours before eventually dying.

Jampajinpa stated that Warlpiri were victims of the last “official” massacre by police and civilians at Coniston in 1928. 

He said that faced with the Intervention’s laws, army and police, Warlpiri “were tied down, could not move a muscle”.  

After Walker’s death, Warlpiri youth under Elders’ leadership alerted the world, ensuring protesters poured onto the streets across the continent, their numbers increasing until a police officer was charged. 

Groups as varied as the Australian Anthropological Society announced they stood with Yuendumu.

Strength growing

Great strength was taken from US Black Lives Matter protests to take to the streets against Black deaths here. 

The first aim of almost all First Peoples whose family members have died in custody is that people be held accountable, that charges be laid. This could well prove impossible if it falls under the new legislation.

A Warlpiri statement was read at a small Sydney Black Lives Matter protest on Monday October 26, the day murder charges were referred for trial at the Supreme Court.

It said, “We are a proud People, strong in our language, culture and our Lore. But the police and government rule over us and treat us as enemies in our own land.”

It concluded, “We want everyone supporting Black Lives Matter to stand with us for justice for Walker.

“This means those responsible must be held accountable. Justice for Walker also means that power must come back to the Warlpiri People and the violence and control against us must end. We want our rights back to control what happens in our communities and on our land. Stop this Intervention and all the racist laws we are under. Reset our local councils and give us the resources we need to employ and serve our people. The police must put down their weapons before they come into our land. We cannot walk around in fear in our own community. 

“Respect Warlpiri Lore, the real Lore of our land.”

Breaking silence and repression

No matter what words on paper are passed in parliament, no matter how brutal the suppression or terrible the sacred and human carnage, the ruling class has been unable to crush the resistance of First Peoples.

But First Peoples need more than our applause. 

Union motions were passed, articles were published. The CFMEU constructed a home in one week for Territory First Peoples, exposing what the Intervention was NOT providing. The MUA and others are active. The ACTU’s First Nations Worker Alliance exposes CDP slave labour, teaches history, encourages voting. All these have merit. 

A few unions will fight. Sadly, too many compliant leaderships deliberately suppress even their own members’ cries for support. No wonder there are no strikes when First Peoples are smashed. 

Collectively we need to break silence and repression, but we have far to go. The working class must breathe struggle into deliberately buried slogans. An injury to one IS an injury to all. This cannot just be words, for this law is coming for all those the ruling class deems enemies.

No matter how big the spontaneous demonstrations nor large an election victory, unless the working class systematically rebuilds its strength and alliances, exposes the lies and omissions that allow First Peoples to be murdered and repressed, the carnage will continue and spread. 

Colonialism and imperialism. First Peoples cannot defeat them alone. Nor can we.