Canadian Social-Democrats Deny History and Call China Imperialist
300 People From Montreal Chinese Community March Against Quebec Solidaire Racism, in 2019. Photo provided by: William Ging Wee Dere
Written by: William Ging Wee Dere
Following the publication of my article, The New Internationalism of China’s Belt and Road Initiative & Canadian Regional Interference, a reader posed a typical question influenced by social-democracy, “By the criteria you use here, can you explain how belt and road is internationalist while British/French investment in the Suez Canal, and American investment in the Panama Canal, are imperialist?” This question could be interpreted as a roundabout way of saying that China’s BRI is imperialistic and that China is an imperialist country.
To answer the reader’s question, we need to look at the historical development of imperialist domination in the countries of Asia, Africa and Latin America. Imperialist power through military aggression is shown in both canal examples. The Suez Canal was operated by a consortium of British and French companies since its construction in 1869. Egypt’s Gamal Abdul Nasser came to power in 1956 and implemented reforms with his policy of “Arab socialism.” One of his reforms was to nationalize the Suez Canal in July 1956. In October 1956, France, UK, and Israel invaded Egypt in to reclaim the canal and in a failed attempt to overthrow Nasser. Up to 3,000 Egyptians died and 4,000 wounded during the invasion.
The power of US imperialism is aptly demonstrated in the history of the Panama Canal. The US literally created the country of Panama to push through the Panama Canal project in 1903. Prior to that, the territory was part of Colombia. After its completion, the Canal and the land bordering it became US territory with military bases to protect American interests. In 1977, Panama authorities negotiated an agreement with US president Carter to reclaim the Canal by 1999. However, in 1990, the US under president George H.W. Bush invaded Panama and arrested Manuel Noriega, an acknowledged CIA agent under one of the pretenses to “defend democracy and human rights in Panama.” Former US Attorney General Ramsey Clark estimated that 3,000 Panamanian were killed during the invasion.
Apart from the BRI, there is much gossip in the liberal left about China and Africa. The words of African writer Gerald Mbanda point out the difference between China’s BRI and the Western imperialist desire for conquest and domination, as in the two canal cases.
“China and Africa have a shared history of a bitter past caused by western injustices, but most important, today, they have a shared vision of prosperity for their people through various cooperation frameworks in social, political and economic fields. The bond of solidarity between China and Africa continues to grow day by day and this explains why African countries stand by China against the west on a number of issues including human rights. African diplomats who have visited Xinjiang testify what they saw of people living in full enjoyment of their rights and freedoms.”
Lenin wrote the book on imperialism
Lenin wrote his seminal work, Imperialism, The Highest Stage of Capitalism, during the time of the inter-imperialist war, WWI.
“Imperialism is the eve of social revolution of the proletariat” wrote Lenin. This became true in the colonized countries of Asia, Africa and Latin America, as countries of the Third World (Global South) threw off the yoke of colonial and imperialist exploitation through revolutionary struggles. However, in the advanced capitalist world, with the formation of monopolies and financial oligarchs, and the connivance of the labour aristocracy and social-democrats, imperialism has not only resulted in the gross exploitation of their own working class but also derived its wealth from exploiting whole countries and continents of the Global South.
In order to maintain the imperialist world order, military might become a necessary consequence. Hence military aggression, invasions, regime change, and numerous armed conflicts around the world are the primary features of latter-day imperialism. We have neo-imperialism today which goes hand in hand with neo-liberalism in suppressing working peoples in the home country as well as around the globe. Regime change as in the Ukraine, military aggression in Iraq, Libya, Syria and Afghanistan to destroy whole countries, as well as US dollar hegemony to apply sanctions on independent minded countries. These are all the hall-marks of neo-imperialism. For those that say that China is capitalist and therefore imperialist, in competition with the US are just being lazy and have not studied Lenin or learned from his principles in fighting imperialism.
Lessons of History
Lenin wrote his treatise of imperialism at the height of the inter-imperialist WWI. The lesson for today was the treachery of the social-democratic parties at the time. In the run-up to the war, the Second International of Communist, Socialist and Social-Democratic parties suffered a devastating split. The Communists held the position that the nature of the up-coming war was one to divide up the world among imperialist powers of mainly European countries and that it is not in the interest of the working people in these countries to side with their ruling class to act as cannon fodder to wage the war. The social-democratic parties lined up one after another to side with the ruling class of their respective countries all in the interest of defense of the father/mother-land.
Today, we are seeing similar lines of demarcation as the social-democratic parties like the NDP, Greens and in Quebec, Québec Solidaire, stand behind the Canadian/Quebec ruling class in the Cold War against China.
The task of anti-imperialists living in the belly of the Empire is to oppose imperialism of their ruling class. Anti-imperialists cannot determine what will happen in China, Cuba or Vietnam, nor do they have the right. The people in these countries know what is best for themselves and they are determining that their governments are doing a good job. While the socialist countries are busy building socialism for the benefit of their people, they are constantly faced with imperialist aggression in the form of sanctions, military blockades, encirclement, psychological campaigns by western politicians and media to demonize their governments. Short of a hot war, this is today’s focus of imperialist aggression on China. The pack of liberal leftists eagerly follow to show off their more left than thou attitude and to cover their little knowledge of Marxism by criticizing tried and true revolutionaries with over 100 years of experience in socialist and national liberation struggles.
As in Lenin’s time during WWI, anti-imperialists today are forced to fight their own imperialist governments as well as fending off the faction of the left that stands with their own government to wage war, Cold or otherwise.
The Establishment Left and Sinophobia
New Democratic Party
When it comes to China and Sinophobia, the NDP lines up with the Conservatives. In November, 2020, the NDP supported the Conservative motion in Parliament calling for the banning of Huawei and to denounce Chinese “interference” and “intimidation” in Canada without much evidence other than hearsay from CSIS and news reports of Chinese dissidence in Canada, as Aidan Jonah wrote in The Canada Files. In February 2021, the NDP voted for another Conservative motion labelling China’s treatment of the Uighurs in Xinjiang as genocide, days after the US State Department made a similar declaration. The lawyers in the US State Department had earlier concluded that there was not sufficient evidence to say that it is genocide but that did not stop the Canadian parliamentarians who fell in step with the US State Department.
Without being able to defend their vote on the anti-China motions, the NDP MP’s continue to espouse Chinese “human rights” abuses in Xinjiang, Tibet and Hong Kong.
The Green Party
As a small party, the Greens try to make their voices louder. Paul Manly, who appeared in the first Free Meng Wanzhou webinar, to call the charges against Meng “bogus,” nevertheless took the opportunity to roundly denounce China for “human rights abuses” again in the unholy trinity of Xinjiang, Tibet and Hong Kong.
What was more blatantly Sinophobic was the declaration of Annamie Paul, the newly minted leader of the Green. Paul voice support of a letter signed by 13 MP’s calling on the International Olympic Committee to move the 2022 Games from Beijing.
The letter compared the Beijing games to the 1936 Berlin games under the Nazis. Furthermore, Paul calls for the 2022 games to be moved to Canada without even consulting the Indigenous peoples. The Greens also voted in support of the Conservative motion to label “genocide” in China’s Xinjiang province without providing any evidence.
Quebec solidaire
The most egregious example of anti-China positioning among the liberal left parties is that of Quebec’s social-democratic, sovereigntist party, Québec solidaire. This Sinophobic positioning led to one of QS’s MNA, Émilise Lessard-Therrien calling Chinese farmers “predators” accusing them of working Quebec land and sending the produce back to China. This pre-supposed that Chinese farmers can’t belong to Quebec. It is egregious because the QS does not see the racism in these “yellow peril” type statements. Lessard-Therrien, a young MNA, had to have “yellow peril” explained to her.
A few days after Lessard-Therrien’s comments, the Chinese community in Montreal held a demonstration on March 3, 2019 after the QS refused to apologize or even acknowledged the racist, Sinophobic remarks. 300 people marched from Chinatown to the QS headquarters in Montreal calling on the QS to retract the racist assertions by Lessard-Therrien and for the QS leadership to acknowledge the racism and apologize. The march received the support of several anti-racist organizations and individuals, including many members of QS. Here is a partial list:
Dolores Chew, South Asian Women’s Centre
Safa Chebbi, Vice President, Alternatives
Will Prosper, anti-racist activist
Gabrielle Bouchard, President of the Québec Women’s Federation
Alex Tyrell, Québec Green Party
Patricia Alexander, QS member.
Instead of acknowledging the hateful statement, the QS leadership maintained a stone silence. It was up to their éminence grise, ex-co-spokesperson, Amir Khadir to defend Lessard-Therrien’s smear by using the typical anti-China liberal left trope. In his Facebook page, he wandered into the racist quagmire that other QS leaders did not dare.
First, Khadir criticizes the Chinese Québécois marchers for taking direct action (my translation of his French statement), “This way of combatting racism and xenophobia can only produce the opposite effect and fuel resentment.” Then he defends the MNA by attacking China, “Émilise described the character of capitalism: predation. Whether capitalism is Chinese or American, it is predatory by nature. … When Émilise denounces Chinese capitalism, why should we see racism against Chinese nationals.”
So there you have it, both Lessard-Therrien’s statement and Khadir’s defense of her statement is racist in intent and consequence. The ignorance of the QS MNA and its éminence grise is astounding. Legally, no foreign entities can buy Québec farmland. Period.
It is racist when you make a hypothetical case against Chinese farmers but not against Americans who might even be more likely to purchase Quebec land.
Khadir’s post was liked or loved over 870 times on FB, likely by QS members. This is a gross example of how anti-China Sinophobia either by the liberal left or the mainstream leads to anti-Asian hate.
However, there were those who questioned Khadir’s anti-Chinese message. One woman, whom I will give her first name, Rosa, wrote: “When you give the example of American predators and compare it to Chinese predators … you omit important historical and social contexts of the exclusion experienced by members of Chinese communities in Canada and in Quebec since the 19th century (head tax, “yellow peril”, etc.) and the significant impacts that this still has on a daily basis, particularly in Vancouver but also in Montreal.”
Often, it is not worth the effort to counter point by point because the liberal left arguments are solidly grounded in anti-communist ideology with a neo-imperialist world outlook. They demarcate from the right on domestic issues to reform the capitalist system but fall in line with the reactionary forces on most international issues, especially on China and other socialist countries.
There are Canadian left organizations that have taken strong stands to oppose the imperialist ruling class and the cold war. The Communist Party of Canada, and the Canadian Peace Congress have been consistent in exposing the truth to stand in solidarity with China and to fight for peace.
More recently formed organizations pushing for peace and cooperation between Canada and China, along with an end to the numerous smears spread against China by the West, include the Canada-China Council for Cooperation and Development and the CCCCD Youth Association.
Manufacturing Consent
The Sinophobic positions of the NDP, Green, Conservative and the corporate media in the depiction of genocide in Xinjiang, human rights abuses and China’s handling of the pandemic cannot but helped to nurture anti-Chinese, anti-Asian hate and racism. The NDP has yielded to the Conservatives on “human rights” in China and to their Hong Kong faction on the former British colony. The Greens merely yielded on these issues to gain acceptance in the mainstream.
In the space of a few short years, Western public sentiment against China has plummeted. In Canada, an Angus-Reid poll showed that in 2021, only 14% of 5,000 respondents had a favourable view of China, whereas, in 2017, 48% had a favourable view. China has not changed but the business of manufacturing consent in the Western governments, agencies and corporate media have worked tireless to demonize China in the last 2 to 3 years.
As an example of how the media conditions people against China, the cable CBC on a Sunday afternoon, May 30, 2021, within the space of one hour had two interviews to bash China. The first was with a spokesperson of the Australia Strategic Policy Institute, funded by the military-industrial complex, which claimed that all the recent news reports favourable to China coming out of Xinjiang were fake. The second interview was with Charles Burton of the right-wing MacDonald-Laurier Institute who claimed that there is credence to the Wuhan Lab being the source of the pandemic and alluded that China is responsible for the millions of deaths from Covid 19.
With this kind of wall-to-wall news, without any balanced reporting, it is no accident that the rise of anti-Asian hate accelerated in this time frame.
In the recent Israeli bombardment of Gaza, where over 300 Palestinians, including 65 children were killed, the NDP was forced to shift their position on Palestine. One could attribute this shift to the resistance of the Palestinian people and the anti-imperialists within the NDP. It broke with the rest of the Parliamentary pack, while the party condemns the “illegal occupation” by Israel and demanded that Canada ban all sales of weapons, it has not come out to support the boycott, divestment and sanction movement against Israel.
The QS presented a neutral motion in Quebec’s legislature to express “concern” for the violence in Gaza without condemning Israel. The Green party of Canada however has listed its parliamentary boat to the right by issuing a “balanced” statement a la Liberals and Conservatives. Despite criticisms from its rank and file, Green leader Annamie Paul does not condemn Israeli atrocities. Paul’s senior advisor, Noah Zatzman, labelled those who criticizes Israel as “anti-Semitic.”
Aidan Jonah had an excellent article on how the media manufactures consent against China, which is being aided and abetted by left-washing social democrats like the NDP. Jonah reported on former New Brunswick NDP leader Dominic Cardy, who had switched parties to become the Conservative minister of education. NDP leaders have a habit of switching parties when the opportunity of career advancement comes along, as they re-cycle from one to another. There was Bob Rae from Ontario NDP to federal Liberals, Tom Mulcair from Quebec Liberals to federal NDP. As Conservative education minister in 2019, Cardy led the assault to shut down the Confucius Institute in New Brunswick. As Jonah pointed out, Cardy in the early 2000’s participated in counter-revolutionary activities in Nepal to try and prevent the Maoists from taking power.
Quoting from Jonah’s article:
“At a time when Sinophobia is rising, and smears against China continue to be pushed relentlessly, it is time for the Canadian left to stop being dupes for cold war propaganda. The time is now to break away from support of imperialism, once and for all. If things don’t change, many on the left will end up being key figures in manufacturing consent for a war on China.”
If they don’t learn from history, the Canadian social-democrats from the NDP to the Greens to Quebec’s QS will inevitably line up with their ruling class on major international issues which could lead to events as devastating as war.
William Ging Wee Dere is the author of the award-winning “Being Chinese in Canada, The Struggle for Identity, Redress and Belonging.” (Douglas & McIntyre, 2019). He was a political organizer and a leading activist in the 2-decade movement for redress of the Chinese Head Tax and Exclusion Act.
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