Workers Must Control Economic Policy and Economic Outcomes Canadian Workers' Pension Monies Used to Privatize Water in Brazil Protest in Brazil, May 3, 2021, against privatization of water and sewage services. September 17, 2021 - No. 84 • Greenwashing Privatization of Public Utilities • "Financialization" of Government Pension Programs BC Government's Sell-Off of Public Lands to Powerful Private Interests • Corruption to Profit Privileged Buyers  - K.C. Adams Workers Must Control Economic Policy and Economic Outcomes Canadian Workers' Pension Monies Used to Privatize Water in Brazil São  Paulo, Brazil, June 11, 2021. One of the matters of ever greater concern amongst Canadian workers is their lack of control over where their pension monies are invested. These very large pools of money are put into the hands of investment companies, financial institutions and financial oligarchs whose job is to seek the highest return for themselves and sometimes but not always the safest bet, irrespective of where the funds are invested. The workers exercise no control over the fact that investments are done according to neo-liberal considerations and go against everything Canadian workers on the whole stand for. The current term for it is "financialization." It refers to a process whereby financial markets, financial institutions and financial elites gain greater influence over economic policy and economic outcomes. The process transforms the functioning of economic systems at both the macro and micro levels both at home and abroad in favour of these narrow private interests no matter what harm they cause to the social and natural environment. Under the guise that business is business, very harmful, unacceptable nation-wrecking and anti-people investments are made. Such is the case with the investment made on April 30 of this year of more than $900 million of Canadian workers' pension money to privatize water and sanitation services in Brazil. A large section of Rio de Janeiro's State Water and Sewage Company (CEDAE) was purchased at auction by a private company 85 per cent owned by the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board (CPPIB) and the Alberta Investment Management Corporation (AIMCo). CEDAE was the most profitable water system in Brazil, bringing in $226 million a year, with part of these revenues used to subsidize services in areas where costs were higher. AIMCo, which says it manages the investments for 32 pensions, endowments and government funds in the Province of Alberta, already possessed a significant stake in Brazil's third largest private water and sewage company, Iguá Saneamento, used to acquire part of the public utility. However it was a last minute infusion of some $270 million from CPP Investments, giving it 46.7 per cent ownership of Iguá, that was decisive in allowing the company to win the bid for CEDAE. In preparation for the auction CEDAE was divided into blocks or concessions. The most lucrative concessions were scooped up by private interests, one of these being Iguá. The least profitable ones remained in the hands of the state, likely ending its ability to continue using the profits from some to subsidize others. It will likely also push rates up for users already in the grips of a severe economic crisis. Residents living in areas of Rio already serviced by private companies are said to pay up to 70 per cent more for water than those serviced by the public system. Opposition by unions and others in Brazil as well as Canada to the privatization of water and sanitation systems was swift. Brazilian unions said 3,500 public sector workers stood to lose their jobs. The Brazilian National Urban Workers Union applied for and won an injunction to delay the auction. State legislators also voted out of concern for it to be delayed. Both of them were overruled by a government decree that ordered the auction to go ahead as scheduled. The auction took place in the midst of the terrible crisis Brazil was going through thanks to President Jair Bolsonaro's reckless response to the pandemic and the grim consequences of this for Brazilians. It turns out the timing was likely deliberate. Bolsonaro's former environment minister was secretly recorded urging colleagues at a cabinet meeting to take advantage of the pandemic and of people having other preoccupations to get as many unpopular policies passed as they could, as quickly as they could. Canadian Union of Public Employees President Mark Hancock accused CPP Investments of helping to legitimate Bolsonaro's privatization agenda, saying "It's outrageous that our public pension plan is using workers' retirement funds to profit from people's need for clean water and safe sewage treatment. These are human rights that are essential for survival. Access to water services is already fragile and unequal in Brazil. Privatization will make things worse." The handing over of Canadian workers' retirement funds without their consent, and over their objection, to pay the rich through schemes geared to assisting private interests at home and abroad to line their pockets is unacceptable. It is all the more repugnant when it is defended in the name of high ideals to detract from the anti-social and nation-wrecking consequence of the investments. The facts reveal that workers must control economic policy and economic outcomes. They must set the direction of the economy and end the policies which pay the rich and destroy the social and natural environment. Protest at Canadian consulate in Rio de Janeiro, June 2021. (Photos: CUPE, Jonas, SINTSAMA-RJ ) Greenwashing Privatization of Public Utilities Greenwashing the privatization of public utilities has become the fashion when it comes to self-serving and unethical pay-the-rich schemes by governments and their agencies, including government-run financial institutions and investment companies. A good example is the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board's (CPPIB) greenwashing of its privatization of Rio de Janeiro's public water system, presented as supporting "sustainable projects and clean tech solutions in Brazil." The Senior Vice President of Infrastructure & Renewable Resources of the Alberta Investment Management Corporation (AIMCo), which collaborated with the CPPIB in the privatization, said the investment management company was "excited" with the outcome of the auction and "for the opportunity to invest further in the business alongside like-minded partners to increase the service levels in water distribution and sanitation in the State of Rio de Janeiro." He called the acquisition, via its holdings in the private water and sewage company Iguá Saneamento, "an excellent addition to our infrastructure portfolio that is well-aligned to meeting our clients' investment objectives." Does anyone believe that Alberta public sector workers, presumably the clients being referred to, would have as an investment objective for their pension fund the privatization of public services in Brazil or anywhere else? The Latin America director of the CPPIB, who enthused in a press release about the "new legal framework" established to facilitate the auctioning off of Rio's public water system, was similarly excited about the acquisition which he said would be followed by many more. According to him, the private sanitation sector with its captive market offers the prospect of a consistent and stable payback, and is "perfectly compatible with our expectations, as long-term investors." He added that Iguá was well positioned to be a powerful competitor in most or all future auctions as nearly a thousand Brazilian municipalities were expected to privatize, or seek concessionaires, in the next few years. Scooping up public utilities as fast as neo-liberal governments in Brazil, Canada and elsewhere put them up for sale is but one of many anti-social projects Canadian workers' pension funds have been used to finance. Investment managers of the funds do their "fiduciary duty" of investing workers' money where prospects of amassing maximum capitalist profit are highest no matter the consequences. Everything can be justified in the name of high ideals and this must change. It is high time that working people themselves decide where their pension funds should be invested. The direction of the economy should be set by working people, not financial markets, financial institutions and financial elites. Pension funds come from the social wealth that workers produce but do not control. It is this lack of control by the workers, who are the producers, over what is produced and how it is produced that is at the heart of the problem. The social wealth produced by workers must be reinvested in a socially responsible manner to build a diverse economy at home that has an internal self-reliant strength and trades with others for mutual benefit and development. Such an economy must have the aim to guarantee the rights and well-being of all, and humanize the social and natural environment. "Financialization" of Government Pension Programs In the 1990s the international financial oligarchy and their institutions pushed governments to restructure their pension systems so the funds could be invested in financial markets where it was said higher returns could be obtained than was possible by parking the money in low-risk but more secure instruments like government bonds.  Along with this push to "financialize" pensions came the pressure to convert pensions from defined benefit plans that guarantee a certain level of benefits to workers after they retire, to defined contribution plans, where the level of benefits one receives upon retirement depends on how well the plan is doing in the financial markets and on returns from other types of investments at any given time.  A big reason for these changes, in addition to reducing governments' responsibility to provide for workers' retirement security, was to put at the disposal of the financial oligarchy a vast new pool of money to invest in order to amass even greater private wealth for themselves. In 1997 the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board was created by federal legislation to operate at arm's length from the government. The mandate of the new entity established as a vehicle for the financialization of the CPP was to exercise its "fiduciary duty" to Canadians by first and foremost maximizing the return on investments made on their behalf. The Alberta Investment Management Corporation, established in 2008, operates in a similar way and under a similar mandate. BC Government's Sell-Off of Public Lands to Powerful Private Interests Corruption to Profit Privileged Buyers  - K.C. Adams - Below is Part Two of the series on BC Governments Sell-Off of Public Lands to Powerful Public Interests. Part One appeared in Workers' Forum September 15. The private buyers of BC public property in many cases soon made outsized profits. The following are examples of this profiteering from the legalized corruption of the BC government to pay the rich. Burke Mountain In a 2018 report, the BC Auditor General Carol Bellringer noted that the Liberal government sold off 150 hectares of public properties in Coquitlam's Burke Mountain area for $85 million to a single buyer. This was $43 million less than the known appraised market value. In reviewing Bellinger's report, Vaughn Palmer writes in the Vancouver Sun, "The Liberals must have known they were unloading the 14 parcels for $43 million less than they were worth. When they signed off on the sale in February 2014, they had in hand the appraiser's report putting the value at $128 million. 'The appraisal was timely in relation to the sale of the land,' says Bellringer. 'The quality of the appraisal work was appropriate, and the appraised values for the parcels of land were reasonable.'" Palmer continues, "Knowing the shortfall, why didn't the Liberals cancel the sale and do a proper one? I'm guessing it was because the transaction, like other land sales at the time, was part of a rush-job effort by the government of then-premier Christy Clark to try to balance the budget. "The prime beneficiary of the expensive-for-taxpayers transaction involving the Burke Mountain lands, acquiring all 14 properties for two-thirds of the appraised value, was Vancouver-based Wesbild Holdings. In blowing the whistle on the sale to the legislature in the spring of 2015, the then NDP Opposition noted that the company's billionaire founder and chair, Hassan Khosrowshali, was a major donor to the BC Liberals." George Pearson Centre and Dogwood Lodge These two public health care facilities on Cambie Street in Vancouver comprised 25 acres. A SkyTrain line, which opened in 2009, runs north-south under Cambie. Onni developers bought both parcels from the government in 2015-16 with plans to build thousands of housing units and commercial spaces. Onni bought Dogwood Lodge in 2015 for $85 million and immediately subdivided the land into two lots and began seeking city construction permits. By 2019, the same property, now cleared of buildings, was appraised at $380 million. Onni bought Pearson Centre in 2016 for $217 million and subdivided it into four lots. Officially appraised after its subdivision, the market value of the four lots increased to $462 million. Without building anything, Onni turned the $302 million it paid to the BC government for the public lands of the two health care centres into a total assessed value of $842 million. This meant a possible profit of $540 million merely for being privileged recipients of a state-run pay-the-rich scheme. By building on the lots, the return for the Onni oligarchs in control will be even greater. According to the Elections BC website, the Onni oligarchs gave the BC Liberal Party $575,000 and the BC NDP $115,000 between 2005 and 2018. Cottonwood Lands The NDP/Green Party coalition government sold the Cottonwood Lands in Maple Ridge, which comprised 11 public properties on 21 hectares (52 acres) for $20 million in September 2017. Developers Polygon and Morningstar together bought the 11 parcels and subdivided them into 71 lots. The 2019 assessed value of just eight lots of the 71 exceeded the original $20 million the government received for all 11 parcels. Polygon also bought Steveston Secondary School in Richmond and Coronation Park Elementary School in Coquitlam during the sell-off. The Elections BC website says the Polygon oligarchs gave the BC Liberal Party $962,000 and the BC NDP $87,000 between 2005 and 2018. Moody Centre SkyTrain Station Developer Ryan Beedie partnered with others to buy four public properties near the new Moody Centre SkyTrain Station in 2017 and 2018 for a total of $29 million. The BC Liberal government initiated the sale, which was completed after the BC NDP/Green Party coalition government took power in 2017. Soon after Beedie took possession of the four properties the appraised market value ballooned to $116 million. Elections BC says Beedie donated $668,000 to the BC Liberal Party between 2005 and 2018. The Aquilini Investment cartel, well-known for its ownership of the Vancouver Canucks, during the same 2005-18 period gave $1.5 million to the BC Liberal Party and $270,000 to the BC NDP. The Aquilini group partnered with others in 2014 to purchase 40 acres of public property in Burnaby for $58 million. The property is known as the Willingdon Lands. Even though designated as "surplus," the government, after selling the property which houses several mental health and drug treatment centres, leased it back from the Aquilini group. The rental fee has not been disclosed. By 2018 the appraised market value of the property without any additional development has risen from $58 million to $123 million. The Aquilini cartel has submitted a "master plan" for development of the Willingdon Lands, which is now before Burnaby City Council. Lisa Moore, a principal with the BC auditor general's office told the Vancouver Sun that her office was aware of all the donations to the Liberals and the NDP and the involvement of the donors in purchasing public property. She said the donations did not violate the election rules in force at the time. The BC government changed the rules governing donations to BC political parties in November 2017, banning most donations from companies and unions. The BC public treasury is now the largest source of funds for the three cartel parties in the BC Legislature. The government pays the cartel parties an annual allowance according to the number of votes received in the election. In the two and a half years prior to the 2020 BC election, the government paid out approximately $16.5-million to the three cartel parties that have members in the legislature. To be continued — Part Three: "BC Sold 50 Schools and Educational Land Lots in Six Years and Now Faces a Shortage of K-12 Space" (With files from a Postmedia investigation appearing in the Vancouver Sun, "Sold on your behalf: 164 B.C. schools and hospitals, agricultural and industrial lots worth $1 billion.") (To access articles individually click on the black headline.) PDF PREVIOUS ISSUES | HOME Website:  www.cpcml.ca   Email:  office@cpcml.ca

44th General Election

Right to Housing for All Canadians — an Election Issue

Evicting Homeless from Toronto Encampments Is the Crime
— Not Protesting It!

Three people were arrested on September 16 by Toronto police during a march to 14 Division Police Station. The march was organized to support the 26 people who are facing charges arising out of the forceful eviction of homeless people from a camp at Lamport Stadium in July. Following the arrests marchers held a vigil at 14 Division demanding the release of the three people. One of those arrested was Skyler Williams, spokesperson for the Six Nations 1492 Land Back Lane land defenders. [More]

Cities Have No Right to Criminalize, Brutalize and Remove Homeless People

– Statement, Skyler Williams, Six Nations
1492 Land Back Lane Defender –

(September 17) Indigenous people make up nearly 40 per cent of those living without homes on the streets of every major city across the country. This is the legacy of residential schools. Dispossessed of lands. Disconnected from language, culture and family. The legacy of trauma inflicted on our nations and our people over and over again. [More]

Montreal Activists Call for Action
on Housing Crisis

With less than a week to go before the end of the election campaign, housing advocate organizations and the People’s Action Front for Urban Renewal (FRAPRU) organized a protest in front of Justin Trudeau’s campaign office on Park Avenue in Montreal. On the day FRAPRU held its action, tenants from Trudeau’s riding were occupying his campaign office to express their opposition to the lack of commitments from the Liberals to improve the situation of tenant households with urgent housing needs. [More]

Interview

Governments Must Implement Demands Put Forward by Organizations Defending the Right to Housing

– Serge Lachapelle –

The following interview was conducted with housing activist Serge Lachapelle, an MLPC spokesperson on the right to housing and candidate in Laurier–Sainte-Marie.

Renewal Update: During this election the right to housing has been a serious issue in Montreal. Despite this, the cartel parties and media do not have those affected by this problem or with expert knowledge such as yourself speaking about the needs and solutions. Can you comment on this please. [More]

Legalized Corruption in Real Estate
to Pay the Rich

– K.C. Adams –

The revelations of a corrupt real estate deal involving the BC government, the City of Vancouver and Holborn Properties Ltd. raise important questions. How pervasive is corruption in real estate, not only in depriving people of the right to housing but in driving skyward the price of land itself and real estate generally? Large amounts of the people’s money and funds in the economy are tied up in real estate and paying residential and commercial rent. The resulting economic and social problems, including homelessness and bankruptcy must be addressed and resolved. [More]

Vancouver’s Little Mountain Swindle to Pay the Rich

Removing land as a commodity to be bought and sold would address the housing crisis and block the parasites and flippers who, like in the case of the Little Mountain corrupt deal to pay the rich, can without remorse tear down social housing and sit on an empty lot for years until the opportune time arrives to either sell it or build something on it for a huge profit. Instead of having rich owners expropriating the value workers produce in building, maintaining and supplying the necessary material for housing, the value would be reinvested back into the sector for the good of all. [More]

Sorry Details of Legally Corrupt Deal to Sell Little Mountain Property

The 2008 deal involves the BC government as owner of the property, the city of Vancouver and Holborn Properties Ltd, a global investment cartel whose principal owner is one of the richest oligarchs in Malaysia.

The 12 acres of Little Mountain lie in Vancouver just east of Queen Elizabeth Park. Seven hundred people lived in 224 units of social housing at the time of the sale. The units had been built in 1954 and were owned and maintained by BC Housing. Many of those living there and displaced in 2009 were seniors, people with disabilities, and low-income families with children. [More]

 

The Need for Modern Child Care and Early Childhood Education

– Peggy Morton –

COMMUNIST PARTY OF CANADA (MARXIST LENNINST) 

The fight of women and families for modern child care and early childhood education goes back more than fifty years as reflected in the report of the Royal Commission on Women released in 1970, which called for such an endeavour.

Since then, the need has only become greater as one government after another has made sure it has not created a national child care program as a right. The cartel parties treat child care as an electoral football to attract votes while different governments use complicated systems of credits and create budget categories of various sorts which families have to wade through as they fend for themselves, juggle their finances and worry about the safety of their kids.

For the past 28 years, the Liberals have repeated promises at election time to create child care “spaces.” All the cartel parties offer various forms of subsidies or tax rebates as partial payment to families for child care and early childhood education. Meanwhile the situation has gone from bad to worse. With average costs per child in major cities of from $1,100 to $1,700 or more a month, child care is both unaffordable and unattainable for most families.

It is now an accepted fact that affordable child care is a necessity in a modern economy. The pandemic further exposed the failure of the existing system and private business interests are calling for governments to provide more money for child care, saying they have a shortage of workers and want more women back in the workforce. These employers want to buy the capacity to work of more women, but they refuse to pay for the costs of child care needed for women to join or rejoin the labour force. The financial oligarchy expects that all these costs will be borne through user fees and from the public treasury.

Private interests also see child care as a “market” in which they want to expand their reach and control, with profits guaranteed by the state. One monopoly alone openly states it aims to capture an additional 10 per cent of the “market” which would increase the private for-profit share to 46 per cent from the current 36 per cent.

In a discussion organized by Women for Rights and Empowerment on September 8, the clear conclusion was that women are sticking to and fighting for our own demands. We set the standards, we take the measure. Working women have long established what we need to guarantee the right to child care and the rights of the workers who provide child care and early childhood education based on the needs of women and families and of the society itself.

Upholding the right to modern child care and early childhood education requires upholding the rights of the workers who care for and provide early childhood education. These workers are overwhelmingly women (around 96 per cent). While the average wage is just under $20.00/hour across Canada and Quebec many earn less and their jobs are often precarious. They have a right to decent wages, benefits and working conditions and all who are recruited abroad as cheap labour to care for our children must be given full status on arrival in Canada. The super-exploitation of migrant women brought to the country to care for children in private settings must be ended.

Quebec has had a program of $9 a day child care for many years. Sounds great of course, but the reality is that the waiting lists for licensed care are long, the number of spaces available has never come close to meeting the need, and workers are still low-paid. Everything indicates that the same Liberal promise of $10.00 a day child care within five years and 40,000 additional child care workers will never materialize.

With 1.3 million regulated spaces in Canada and Quebec pre-pandemic and 20 per cent of them closed during the pandemic, this leaves a shortfall of 280,000 spaces just to return to pre-pandemic levels. Around 63,000 child-care workers had lost their jobs as of February 2021 compared to the previous year. Promises over which nobody exercises control are murky indeed, the stock in trade of the parties vying for power.

The suspicion is that current promises will be part of neo-liberal programs to pay the rich to extend their reach and control of early childhood education and child care, replacing those programs which have closed with corporate chains subsidized by the public purse while women and families have to continue to fend for themselves for access and cover “their share” of the costs. Workers on night shifts need not apply!

Through the half-century long fight since the 1970 Royal Commission, women and their advocacy organizations have established the standards of what constitutes modern child care and early childhood education based on the needs of women, families and society. This is the measure, not the competing claims and cynical promises of the parties vying for power.

High-quality child care must be available for all who need it, especially the most marginalized, and without “user fees.” Centres must be properly staffed, appropriately located, and provide a modern standard of care. Indigenous peoples must have control over all aspects of the care of their children. There can be no place for private ownership and control, and all pay-the-rich schemes should be ended and recognized as a source of corruption which robs child care of needed resources.

The possibility for innovative new arrangements are endless. Child care, along with other public enterprise and services for all children including sports and culture, nutritious and delicious meals and education must activate the human factor/social consciousness. One thing is certain: we cannot rely on governments which pay the rich to create the modern institutions we require and must fight to create them ourselves just as we must fight to establish an education system which serves the needs of a society which seeks to humanize the social and natural environment.

Facts about Child Care in Canada

There are roughly 5 million children under the age of 12 in Canada, and about 1.3 million licensed child care spaces. These include 636,157 full and part day centre spaces for 0-5 year olds, 570,022 centre spaces for school-age children to 12 years and 143,647 regulated family (home) child care spaces for 0-12 year olds.

Statistics Canada reported in June 2021 that in 2019 there were nearly 302,000 child care workers in Canada. One third were immigrants or non-permanent residents. Twenty-five per cent of child care workers were self-employed. From February 2020 to February 2021, around 63,000 or 21 per cent of child care workers in licensed facilities became unemployed. In comparison, total employment in Canada decreased by three per cent over the same period. Women make up 96 per cent of the child care workforce. In addition, many migrant workers employed as caregivers on temporary work permits in their employers’ homes also lost their jobs when their employers began to work from home or left the work force.

In 2019, on average, child care workers were making $19.97 per hour, compared to average hourly earnings of $27.91 for workers in all other occupations. Keep in mind that this average is somewhat misleading, given the fact that the highest paid receive remuneration several times greater than what the lowest paid receive.

Prior to the pandemic, about 28 per cent of families in the work force with children had a child in licensed child care. From February 2020 to February 2021, at least 20 per cent of all licensed day care spaces had closed, and it is uncertain how many will be closed permanently. Many of those which closed were operated as “not for profit” centres by community groups or voluntary operators.

According to an RBC Economics report, nearly 100,000 women aged 20 and older have left the labour force since February 2020, 10 times the number of men who left the labour force. The 2016 Canadian census found that both couples without a post-secondary education and single parents had decreased participation in the paid labour force from 2005 to 2015. The high cost of child care and education as well as housing etc. are considered major factors in this decline.

In 2016, around 36 per cent of regulated spaces were operated on a for-profit basis. Large corporate chains are expanding, with one such company alone having a stated goal to capture 10 per cent of the Canadian child care “market.” As with long-term care for seniors, for-profit child care has been shown to pay poorer wages, have fewer highly trained staff and a higher rate of failure to comply with legislated staff/child ratios.

(With files from Childcarecanada.org, Statistics Canada and the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives)

#AUKUS

Stopping the new Cold War with China, before it’s too late

September 17, 2021

 BY JOE SIMS

CPUSA

Chinese President Xi Jinping and then-U.S. Vice President Joe Biden at Andrews Air Force Base, Md., in 2015. | Carolyn Kaster / AP


The Biden administration has been described as potentially transformative, equaling Lyndon B. Johnson’s years and possibly even rivaling Franklin D. Roosevelt’s tenure. While it’s still early, such comparisons may not be far off, considering the possible impact of pending environmental, infrastructure, voting, and labor rights legislation. If they become law (and at this stage that’s still a big if, thanks to Mr. Manchin & Co.), these bills would go a long way toward not only rescuing the country from the scourges of the health, environmental, racial, economic, and political crises that currently beset it. They would also mark a break with the neoliberal doctrine that has gripped decision-making since the 1980s. Or would they?

This question is brought into bold relief when considering the nine-month-old administration’s “inflection point” foreign policy doctrine. It too might be transformative, but the comparison now would not so much be to LBJ and FDR but rather to Harry Truman, Jimmy Carter, Dwight Eisenhower, and even Richard Nixon. Transformation, in this instance, would represent a 180-degree turn towards positions not assumed since the height of the Cold War, away from not only the Obama administration’s rather constrained international posture but from the very concept of peaceful coexistence that at least, in part, influenced U.S. foreign policy for the past half-century.

How so?

An F/A-18 Super Hornet fighter jet lands on the deck of the aircraft carrier USS Ronald Reagan in the South China Sea, Nov. 20, 2018. | Kin Cheung / AP

Having retreated from the Afghan theater in the war on terror, Mr. Biden’s administration now seems hell-bent on opening up a whole new battlefront, replacing “radical Islam” with China, socialism, and what are deemed autocratic states. In today’s Cold War redux, China is seen “as America’s existential competitor, Russia as a disrupter, Iran and North Korea as nuclear proliferators,” according to the New York Times.

Indeed, news of the military agreement between Australia, the U.S., and the U.K. aimed at China only underscores the danger.

“We’re in competition with China and other countries to win the 21st century,” the 46th president recently declared. “We’re at a great inflection point in history.” “On my watch,” he later boasted to reporters, China will not achieve its goal “to become the leading country in the world, the wealthiest country in the world, and the most powerful country in the world.”

The administration’s lurch rightward in foreign affairs flies in the face of U.S.-China detente that dates from 1979 with Deng Xiaoping’s entry onto the world stage and China’s “opening up.”

Only two years ago, Biden was referring to China’s leadership as “nice people.” What changed?

Thomas Friedman, in a recent Times column, sums up the U.S. rationale succinctly, identifying technology theft, Hong Kong, the alleged mistreatment of national minorities (notably the Uyghurs in Xinjiang), and Xi Jinping’s leadership. The last factor tops Friedman’s list: “Then there is the leadership strategy of President Xi Jinping, which has been to extend the control of the Communist Party into every pore of Chinese society, culture, and commerce.” He continues: “This has reversed a trajectory of gradually opening China to the world since 1979.”

Trade is another key issue. Here, Friedman suggests that to end the tariffs imposed by Trump, China must first end its commodity subsidies. “Many U.S. businesses are pushing now to get the Phase 1 Trump tariffs on China repealed—without asking China to repeal the subsidies that led to these tariffs in the first place. Bad idea.”

Clearly, what irks U.S. capital and its apologists are primarily two issues: the Communist Party of China’s campaign to deepen its role and the country’s commodity export policy—in other words, how what’s called “socialism with Chinese characteristics” handles trade. The CPC has been campaigning against corruption and attempting to politically and ideologically reinforce itself, an effort that makes the likes of Friedman cringe. The op-ed writer’s call to “end subsidies” is basically a demand to dismantle China’s organization of production—in other words, its drive toward socialism. One might ask Mr. Friedman, should the U.S. end its subsidies to agriculture and oil as well?

Some might call these questions of national sovereignty, matters on which outsiders should dare not intrude. Friedman, obviously, has other ideas as he quips: “When dealing with China, speak softly but always carry a big tariff (and an aircraft carrier).” Small wonder the Chinese general secretary replied in his speech celebrating the 100th anniversary of the CPC with such vigor to the “sanctimonious preaching” of those who have the gall to tell them what to do and combine it with threats of military force.

National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan is one of the architects of the Biden approach to China, which appears to be pairing ‘progressive’ domestic politics with anti-communist foreign policy. | Patrick Semansky / AP

Biden’s views, it seems, are widely shared in the circles of the 1 percent. Indeed, a new bipartisan ruling-class consensus has taken shape. Jake Sullivan, the administration’s current National Security Advisor, argued in a Dartmouth College interview in 2019 that the national security establishment of both parties in recent years had come to the conclusion that “we totally screwed up, we got China all wrong” in assuming that the People’s Republic would become more “liberal” and “responsible stakeholders” as they became integrated into the “rules-based order” (meaning the WTO and other international bodies).

When that didn’t happen, the powers that be concluded, says Sullivan, that the U.S./China equation is “no longer about cooperation; it’s about competition and competition in a way is kind of a code word for confrontation.”

Enter Cold War 2.0

But this is a standoff of a different type. U.S. policy towards the USSR and the socialist community of nations was premised on the strategy of containment and the hope that these newly emerging societies would collapse under the weight of their own inertia. Today’s plans toward China instead posit a zero-sum, winner-take-all pursuit of U.S. imperialist objectives. Last spring, Sen. Bernie Sanders sounded the alarm in Foreign Affairs: “It is distressing and dangerous, therefore, that a fast-growing consensus is emerging in Washington that views the U.S.-Chinese relationship as a zero-sum economic and military struggle.”

Kurt Campbell, a Biden loyalist who advised the vice president during the Obama years and is now a member of his National Security Council responsible for China, put it this way last spring at a Stanford University conference: The period of “engagement [with Beijing] has come to an end.” U.S. policy is now under a “new set of strategic parameters,” says Campbell. Fierce competition, according to the NSC staffer, is the new framework for the relationship.

Needless to say, this language is a far cry from the diplomatic niceties accorded state-to-state relations in normal times, at least in public. Still, it should be pointed out that these not-so-veiled threats must be weighed against Biden’s pledge to end the forever wars and repeated ill-fated U.S. attempts at nation building. At the same time, one might rightly ask, is the White House speaking out of both sides of its mouth?

Democrats, after all, are notorious for moving to the right on foreign policy, an alarming trend in normal times but extremely troublesome in light of the ongoing fascist threat. After all, it’s no secret that the conduct of the war on terror helped fuel far-right extremism, leading to Trump’s Muslim ban and ultimately the coup attempt of January 6th.

Here, Democrats contend that it’s possible to confront on the one hand (e.g., pulling back on technology transfers) and cooperate on the other (climate change), a most dangerous game.

Not surprisingly, Republicans just love it. Steve Bannon, alt-right gadfly and former Trump strategist, has long painted China as an existential threat. Now it seems, at least in spirit, ruling elites have found common cause.

The “authoritarianism” equation

Upon hearing the news, Hal Brands of the right-wing American Enterprise Institute waxed ecstatic: Biden views…competition as part of “a fundamental debate” between those who believe that “autocracy is the best way forward” and those who believe that “democracy will and must prevail,” a patently false juxtaposition if there ever was one. Here the casual equating of right and left “authoritarianism” obscures fundamental differences between social systems.

Tech competition is one aspect of the new Cold War confrontation targeting China. Here, a Chinese family visits a mock space station at an exhibition promoting China’s achievements under the Communist Party, in Beijing, on June 22, 2021. | 

Andy Wong / AP

According to Brands, the U.S. is contemplating a three-pronged response: forging a new coalition with advanced capitalist nations, pursuing international responses to transnational crises like COVID-19, and reinvesting in infrastructure and technology in order to contest China and other rivals.

Untangling the two countries’ economic ties will be no easy task, given the existing level of integration. Another observer, a former editor of Foreign Policy, argues that some measures already underway are more aggressive than those pursued by Trump:

“Since taking office, Biden’s administration has maintained former President Donald Trump’s trade sanctions against China. It has worked with the Senate to pass a massive, quarter-trillion-dollar industrial policy bill aimed at boosting U.S. competitiveness. It has launched a Buy American campaign that cuts foreign firms out of the extremely lucrative U.S. government procurement market. It has worked to block Chinese acquisitions and investments inside the United States and to keep Chinese students and researchers out of the country. And on June 17, Biden signed an executive order banning Americans from investing in Chinese companies linked to the military or to surveillance technology.”

Additionally, “the U.S. is looking to impose further restrictions on the export of leading-edge semiconductor technology to China, and the White House has raised the possibility of an Indo-Pacific-wide digital trade deal that excludes Beijing.”

National security for whom?

The situation is growing increasingly complicated. Consider that the foundations of the administration’s international objectives, spelled out in an Interim National Security Strategic Guidance, are premised on benefiting working- and middle-class families: “We have an enduring interest in expanding economic prosperity and opportunity,” the document’s authors aver, “but we must redefine America’s economic interests in terms of working families’ livelihoods, rather than corporate profits or aggregate national wealth.”

Make no mistake: this is new. Without a doubt, a redefinition of U.S. economic interests, prioritizing working-class well-being over corporate profits, would indeed be welcome. That it’s framed within the context of U.S. national security is also noteworthy. The couching, however, of these ideas within the framework of such retrograde language and plans is extremely problematic. Biden’s National Security Advisor, Mr. Sullivan, it appears, is among the chief authors and architects of this strategy.

What’s behind it? Sullivan himself seems to have been moved by the 2016 election campaign and the realization of “how profoundly such a large segment of our country felt their government wasn’t working for them.” Hence he concluded that “the strength of U.S. foreign policy and national security lies primarily in a thriving American middle class, whose prosperity is endangered by the very transnational threats the Trump administration has sought to downplay or ignore.”

Bernie Sanders’s campaign, too, had an impact: “I didn’t always agree with his ultimate policy solutions, but there’s no question he connected with how much of America experiences and perceives the impacts of systemic inequality and this sense that the system was somehow working against them.”

Hence Sullivan’s belief in the need to address transnational issues like the pandemic, global warming, and trade along with massive reinvestments in infrastructure both traditional and human. But these are one individual’s subjective considerations, hardly a basis for the class policy shift that’s in the works. What then could be among the objective factors?

Here a shift away, if not a break from, neoliberal policy may be part of a wider change in advanced capitalist countries. One writer points to the nationalization of a steel plant in the U.K. and writes that in “Europe, the EU is in the process of overhauling its State Aid rules to allow greater government support to industry, citing the need to meet competition from China.”

A big issue, it’s argued, is the growth of big data and the absence of rules governing intellectual property, both of which demonstrate the need for government intervention:

“The broader point here is that the material base of the global economy has, in the past decade, been decisively reshaped around data technologies and a major new competitor economy outside the West and that this, in turn, has promoted a direct challenge to neoliberal norms of government across the globe. To the extent that the pandemic has accelerated the shift toward the digital economy, and has expanded the range of government intervention, it has brought neoliberalism’s death rather closer.”

Then there are the objective imperatives of real life. Confronted with the aftermath of January 6th and the events leading up to it, the objective of the Biden administration, at first glance, seems to be to rewrite the social contract in fundamental ways by addressing working-class concerns with the added benefit of winning back some of those influenced by Trump: “Biden has been pursuing investments in scientific research and development, digital and physical infrastructure, and other areas to improve competitiveness and address working- and middle-class alienation,” offers a Bloomberg analyst. He continues: “In Biden’s view, improving the economic fortunes of the middle class is insurance against a Trumpist resurrection and a way of strengthening the domestic foundations of U.S. diplomacy.”

Other commentators appear either skeptical or at best nonplussed: “Allies are also asking what Biden’s concept of a foreign policy for the middle class can do to advance prosperity in the free world as a whole. Some worry that it is just a softer version of Trump’s protectionism, skeptical of free trade agreements and partial to tariffs.”

But clearly, there’s another goal at work here. Team Biden’s Security Guidance hints at it: “Anti-democratic forces use misinformation, disinformation, and weaponized corruption to exploit perceived weaknesses and sow division within and among free nations, erode existing international rules, and promote alternative models of authoritarian governance.”

Canceling socialism

Who, it must be asked, is advocating “alternative models” of governance? Thomas Wright, writing for the Atlantic, comes close to an answer. “In his [Biden’s] view, the United States is in a competition of governance systems with China.” It’s one thing to compete as to who is best, East or West, and quite another to frame such competition in far broader and more insidious terms.

Nader Mousavizadeh, founder and CEO of Macro Advisory Partners and an advisor to the late Kofi Anan, quoted in the Friedman op-ed, hits the nail directly on the head. Questioning the advisability of the entire Biden foreign policy project, he asks, “Are we sure we understand the dynamics of an immense and changing society like China well enough to decide that its inevitable mission is the global spread of authoritarianism?”

Canceling socialism? Washington’s campaign to confront China is also aimed at halting the country’s effort to build a socialist society. Here, workers install flowers on a decoration with the Communist Party’s hammer and sickle emblem in Beijing, in June. 

| Andy Wong / AP

It’s a damn good question. Biden and company have been led to believe that China’s main purpose in life is the global export of its revolution. But this is clearly a misreading of intentions. As a question of practice, “socialism with Chinese characteristics” is very China-specific, a model based on that country’s unique conditions. As a matter of theory, as Gus Hall used to say, “socialism is not a foreign import.” In other words, there are no universal models of socialism fit for every time and place. If the 20th century has proven anything, social revolution is not an exportable commodity—it cannot be shipped in and imposed from without.

U.S. imperialism seems particularly alarmed at China’s Belt and Road initiative, a wide-reaching infrastructure plan aimed at developing nations. So alarmed in fact, that in response to Belt and Road, the U.S. pushed the G7 in June to launch a lamely labeled “Build Back Better World” (B3W) program aimed at a similar international audience.

When it’s all said and done, the linking of a left progressive domestic program to anti-communist foreign policy aimed at “canceling” China’s drive toward socialism marks a new stage in U.S. imperialism’s effort to regain lost positions and right the ship of state. As a tactic, however, the ploy is not new. During Cold War 1.0, sections of the left, particularly in the European social democratic movements, were encouraged to take similar positions. It would be a tragedy for history to repeat itself here at home.

The danger, of course, is that this left/right pairing of bread-and-butter priorities at home with great power imperatives abroad carries with it the potential for faux populist appeals, with all the dangers that come with them. Instead of responding to the genuine aspirations of Black Lives Matters movements, immigrant rights, union strikes, organizing drives, and shop floor activism, in other words, the “socialist moment,” the nation could be diverted toward potentially nationalist and xenophobic paths—the dramatic increase in anti-Asian hate and violence is a case in point.

The Biden administration has already extended the Trump sanctions against Cuba and remains hostile to Venezuela. What country will be next? Nicaragua now appears to be in imperialism’s sights.

Setting this aside for the moment, another question looms large: Are any of these actions in the objective interests of African American, Latino, Asian American, Native American, and white workers of the United States? And how will the labor movement respond? Hopefully not with a new round of China bashing in exchange for a few pieces of badly needed silver.

Notwithstanding these challenges, the concept of connecting security to working-class interests should not be dismissed out of hand. It would be a huge mistake to frame this problem narrowly. The issue is separating, if possible, these more-than-worthy domestic intentions from their entrapment in Cold War 2.0 designs.

The good news here is that some early on have seen through the Cold War rhetoric and are taking sharp issue with it. As pointed out above, already in late spring Bernie Sanders took exception to the emerging consensus and called for its reversal. Sanders, who also buys into a bit of China bashing, nevertheless correctly noted, “The primary conflict between democracy and authoritarianism, however, is taking place not between countries but within them—including in the United States,” and called for a global minimum wage to help address worldwide inequality. Biden has proposed a global minimum corporate tax, and the G20 and OECD have agreed in principle on a 15% minimum corporate tax. This is a good beginning if implemented. U.S. corporations currently pay an effective corporate tax of 17%.

Importantly, around the same time, 40 organizations took issue with the hawkish U.S. policy toward China, warning that it threatened climate collapse. Politico writes, “It’s the latest salvo in the months-long drama between progressive Democrats who say cooperation on climate change should take precedence over competition with China, and moderates who think the administration can do both things at once.”

The article continues:

The progressive organizations, including the Sunrise Movement and the Union of Concerned Scientists, “call on the Biden administration and all members of Congress to eschew the dominant antagonistic approach to U.S.-China relations and instead prioritize multilateralism, diplomacy, and cooperation with China to address the existential threat that is the climate crisis,” their letter reads. “Nothing less than the future of our planet depends on ending the new Cold War between the United States and China.”

It seems that the Biden administration itself is not of one mind on these issues.

The Atlantic writes that “some in the [Democratic] party’s foreign-policy establishment hope that his views on China are not yet settled and that he will moderate his rhetoric and outlook over time, deemphasizing the contest between democracy and authoritarianism. They worry that the United States could find itself embroiled in an ideological struggle with China akin to the Cold War.”

The divisions extend deep into the administration: “A Biden administration official [said] that, while the top foreign policy officials are simpatico with the president, some in the government share the restorationists’ concerns, while others have yet to grasp the significance of the president’s statements.”

The Biden administration is also risking a hot war with Russia over Ukraine and with Iran in the Middle East. U.S. imperialism is being challenged at the same time that Biden attempts displays of resoluteness in showing U.S. military and diplomatic “strength.”

Thus, there is plenty of room and opportunity to push the administration in a better direction, and pushing is a must. The goal here must not necessarily be to change the administration’s hearts and minds but compel change with real, mass, on-the-ground politics. This should include demanding a change of personnel in the State Department, which, having already badly managed the withdrawal from Afghanistan, is now pushing the country into a new balance of military and nuclear terror with China and possibly Russia.

The future of human civilization may depend on what mass movements do. It’s either peaceful coexistence or no existence.

This article first appeared at CPUSA.org.

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CONTRIBUTOR

Joe Sims
Joe Sims is co-chair of the Communist Party USA. He is also a senior editor of People's World and loves biking.

SOCIALISM IS; 

STATE CAPITALISM AND ELECTRICITY 

V. I. LENIN

US military basing to expand in Australia, directed against China

Mike Head@MikeHeadWSWS

WORLD SOCIALIST WEB SITE

This week’s announcement of a new Australia-UK-US (AUKUS) military alliance, with the US and UK to supply Australia with nuclear-powered submarines, is the spearhead of a closer integration of Australia into US war preparations against China.

A Royal New Zealand Air Force NH90 helicopter and an Australian Defence Force MRH90 land at Sam Hill Airfield in Shoalwater Bay Military Training Area in Central Queensland [Source: Australian Department of Defence]

Behind the backs of their populations—without any mention in the parliaments or Congress—the three governments have placed Australia on the frontline of plans for war against China to reassert US global hegemony.

For the first time, the Australian government has explicitly named China as the target of the military buildup, abandoning previous efforts to avoid doing so because China remains Australian capitalism’s biggest export market.

At a meeting in Washington the day after the AUKUS announcement, the US and Australian defence and foreign ministers issued a communiqué that commits Australia to hosting US troops, bombers, fighter aircraft and warships and acting as a logistics base for a military conflagration between nuclear-armed powers.

The 31st annual Australia-U S Ministerial Consultations (AUSMIN) joint statement was entitled “An Unbreakable Alliance for Peace and Prosperity.”

At its core was an agreement on “Enhanced Force Posture Cooperation and Alliance Integration.” This takes to a new level the Force Posture Initiatives pact signed between the Obama administration and the Gillard Labor government 10 years ago, which featured the rotational basing of US Marines in the strategic northern Australian city of Darwin.

The four ministers—US Secretary of Defence Lloyd Austin, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, Australian Defence Minister Peter Dutton and Australian Minister for Foreign Affairs Marise Payne—agreed to:
Enhanced air cooperation through the rotational deployment of US aircraft of all types in Australia and appropriate aircraft training and exercises.
Enhanced maritime cooperation by increasing logistics and sustainment capabilities of US surface and subsurface vessels in Australia.
Enhanced land cooperation by conducting more complex and more integrated exercises and greater combined engagement with Allies and Partners in the region.
Establish a combined logistics, sustainment, and maintenance enterprise to support high end warfighting and combined military operations in the region.

At a media conference, Dutton foreshadowed a further expansion of US military operations in Australia. “I do have an aspiration that we can increase the numbers of troops through the rotations, the air capability will be enhanced, our maritime capability [too],” he said. “If that includes basing and includes storage of different ordinances, I think that’s in Australia’s best interest at this point in time.”




After three decades of US-led wars, the outbreak of a third world war, which would be fought with nuclear weapons, is an imminent and concrete danger.

Blinken ramped up the Biden administration’s provocative allegations and threats against China, accusing Beijing of “economic coercion” against Australia and declaring that the US would “not leave Australia alone on the field,” in confronting China.

Payne followed suit. “Today, we also discussed strategic competition. We discussed the competition of China at a number of levels that requires us to respond and to increase resilience.”

Speaking from Australia, Prime Minister Scott Morrison declared: “The relatively benign environment we’ve enjoyed for many decades in our region is behind us. We have entered a new era with new challenges for Australia and our partners.”

A comment in the New York Times on the AUKUS pact noted that when Morrison became prime minister three years ago, he insisted that the country could maintain close ties with China, its largest trading partner, while working with the United States, its main security ally.

“Australia doesn’t have to choose,” he had said in one of his first foreign policy speeches. But the New York Times said: “On Thursday, Australia effectively chose … With its move to acquire heavy weaponry and top-secret technology, Australia has thrown in its lot with the United States for generations to come…

“The agreement will open the way to deeper military ties and higher expectations that Australia would join any military conflict with Beijing.”

The article said the US had made a choice also: “That the need for a firm alliance to counter Beijing is so urgent that it would set aside longstanding reservations about sharing sensitive nuclear technology. Australia will become only the second country—after Britain in 1958—to be given access to the American submarine technology, which allows for stealthier movement over longer distances.”

Significantly, the AUSMIN communiqué specifically referred to Taiwan, which the US and its allies are using as a potential trigger for conflict against China. The document further undermined the “One China” policy by which the US recognised Beijing as the legitimate government of China as a whole, including Taiwan, in 1979.

“The Secretaries and Ministers re-emphasized Taiwan’s important role in the Indo-Pacific region,” the communiqué stated. “Both sides stated their intent to strengthen ties with Taiwan, which is a leading democracy and a critical partner for both countries.”

This aggressive alignment against China will be intensified in Washington next week by the first-ever in-person meeting of the leaders of a de facto anti-China military alliance, the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue, or “Quad,”—the US, Japan, India and Australia.

Confident of bipartisan backing, the Morrison government has proceeded in close consultation with the Labor Party. Opposition leader Anthony Albanese and three key shadow ministers were briefed in advance of the AUKUS announcement.

In line with Labor’s unequivocal decades-long commitment to the US military alliance, Albanese immediately stated Labor’s agreement with the alliance and the acquisition of nuclear submarines.

Albanese called for three assurances, which were already included in the deal: no civil nuclear energy capability, no breach of nuclear non-proliferation treaties and no acquisition of nuclear weapons. These are essentially meaningless, because the logic of nuclear-powered weaponry involves the acquisition of nuclear warfare capability.

Morrison, Dutton and other Australian ministers bluntly rejected China’s condemnation of the AUKUS and submarine agreements, heavily backed by the corporate media.

The Australian’s foreign editor Greg Sheridan wrote: “The deal promises not only nuclear submarines but an even more intimate involvement of the US, and Britain, in regional security and in our security. … In the wake of the Afghanistan debacle, this is a good development in itself.”

Nevertheless, concerns have been voiced within the political and military establishment about the nakedness of the moves against China. Former Labor Prime Minister Kevin Rudd defended the US alliance but called for Australia to be an “intelligent” ally, not one that “paints a very large target on our forehead.”

Hugh White, an Australian National University professor and former defence official, warned: “As the US-China rivalry escalates, the United States will expect Australia to do more. If the US is allowing Australia to have access to its nuclear technology, it’s because the US expects Australia to be deploying its forces in a potential war with China.”

These responses reflect nervousness in ruling circles over the likely loss of lucrative Chinese markets, the prospect of a disastrous war and, above all, the triggering of widespread anti-war sentiment.

ANTI #BDS 

CAN NJ SAY #FREEPALESTINE
New Jersey set to shed $182 mln Unilever assets over Ben & Jerry's boycott

Reuters
Ross Kerber
Publishing Sep 15, 2021 

A New Jersey state treasury official said on Wednesday it is set to divest $182 million in Unilever Plc stock and bonds held by its pension funds over the restriction of sales by the consumer giant’s Ben & Jerry’s ice cream brand in Israeli-occupied Palestinian territories.

It is the latest action by a U.S. state challenging Unilever over Ben & Jerry’s move in July to end a license for its ice cream to be sold in the Israeli-occupied West Bank. Ben & Jerry’s said selling its products there was “inconsistent with its values.”

New Jersey’s Division of Investment had said on Tuesday it made a preliminary determination that maintaining its investment in Unilever would be a breach of a state law barring it from investing in companies boycotting Israel. It gave the company 90 days to request a modification of the order.

A Unilever representative said it had no comment on the state decision, but cited a letter to the state from CEO Alan Jope from August stating Unilever has “a strong and longlasting commitment to our business in Israel,” where it employs nearly 2,000 people.

Jope noted Ben & Jerry’s has an independent board overseeing its social mission, and said Unilever does not support the “Boycott Divestment Sanctions” movement that seeks to isolate Israel over its treatment of the Palestinians. The decision to stop selling ice cream was made by Ben & Jerry’s and its board, Jope said.

A Ben & Jerry’s spokesman did not respond to messages.

Many countries consider Israeli settlements on Palestinian land to be illegal. Israel disputes this.

Ben & Jerry’s, based in South Burlington, Vermont, is known for its commitment to social justice that has recently included strongly supporting the Black Lives Matter movement, LGBTQ+ rights and electoral campaign finance reform.

It was acquired by Unilever in 2000 in a deal that allows it to operate with more autonomy than other subsidiaries, including giving powers to an independent board to make decisions over its social mission, brand integrity and policies.

Arizona state Treasurer Kimberly Yee said earlier this month the state would sell $143 million in Unilever holdings for similar reasons. (Reporting by Ross Kerber in Boston, editing by Greg Roumeliotis and David Gregorio)

In Russian Far East city, discontent smolders amid election

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Election posters and billboards are displayed Thursday, Sept. 9, 2021, in the Russian city of Khabarovsk, in the country's Far East. The parliamentary and local elections will be closely watched to gauge how much anger against the Kremlin remains in the region, where its popular governor was arrested last year, causing mass protests.

​(AP Photo/Igor Volkov)


KHABAROVSK, Russia (AP) — The handful of demonstrators gathering each evening in Khabarovsk are a shadow of the masses who took part in an unusually sustained wave of protests last year in the Russian Far Eastern city, but they are a chronic reminder of the political tensions that persist.

The demonstrators have been demanding the release of the region’s popular former governor, Sergei Furgal, who was arrested last year on charges of being involved in killings.

Now, his Kremlin-appointed replacement, Mikhail Degtyaryov, is on the ballot for governor in the three days of regional voting that concludes Sunday. The regional election is taking place at the same time that Russians are voting for members of the State Duma, the national parliament.

The race for governor is being closely watched to gauge how much anger remains in the region, located seven time zones and 6,100 kilometers (3,800 miles) east of Moscow.

“The region really worries the Kremlin because they don’t want a repeat of those incidents (last years’ protests) of course. Khabarovsk is now under close supervision,” said Andrei Kolesnikov of the Carnegie Moscow Center think tank.

Three other people are on the ballot for governor, but supporters of Furgal and others in the city of about 600,000 complain they are insignificant candidates who were allowed to run to give the appearance of a democratic and competitive race.

“Whoever posed even the smallest threat was barred from running, and they left only spoiler candidates,” said 64-year-old protester Zigmund Khudyakov.

Notably, United Russia — the country’s dominant political party and loyal backer of President Vladimir Putin — is not fielding a candidate for governor in Khabarovsk. Nor is Russia’s second-largest party, the Communists.

Degtyaryov, a member of the nationalist Liberal Democratic Party, is widely believed to be backed by the Kremlin with both advice and money.

The man who wanted to run on the Communist ticket was kept off the ballot because he was unable to get enough signatures from officials. That aspiring candidate, Pyotr Perevezentsev, told The Associated Press that municipal authorities in some districts had been told by their superiors whose nominating petitions to sign.

“People representing the presidential administration curated these elections,” he said.

Separately, Furgal’s son Anton says he was kept off the ballot for the national parliament. “There is an opinion that if my last name had been Ivanov, for example, I would likely be allowed to run,” he said.

Degtyaryov rejects such claims.

“As head of the Khabarovsk regional government, I am obligated to ensure transparent, legal, free and fair elections, and we are following all of these provisions,” he said on a recent televised question-and-answer session with residents.

The weeks of protests that arose after Sergei Furgal’s arrest in July 2020 appeared to catch authorities by surprise. Unlike in Moscow, where police usually move quickly to disperse unsanctioned rallies, authorities didn’t interfere with the unauthorized demonstrations in Khabarovsk, apparently expecting them to fizzle out.

A Liberal Democratic Party member, Furgal won the 2018 regional gubernatorial election even though he had refrained from campaigning and publicly supported his Kremlin-backed rival.

His victory was a humiliating setback for United Russia, which also lost its control over the regional legislature.

While in office, Furgal earned a reputation as a “people’s governor,” cutting his own salary, ordering the sale of an expensive yacht bought by the previous administration, and offering new benefits to residents.

His arrest, which was shown on Russian TV stations, came after the Investigative Committee, the nation’s top criminal investigation agency, said he was accused of involvement in the murders of several businessmen in the region and nearby territories in 2004 and 2005. During interrogation in Moscow, Furgal denied the charges, according to the Tass news agency.

Ultranationalist lawmaker Vladimir Zhirinovsky, a veteran politician with a reputation for outspoken comments and also a member of the Liberal Democrats, once called Furgal “the best governor the region ever had.”

FILE - In this July 18, 2020, file photo, thousands of demonstrators turn out for an unsanctioned protest in the city of Khabarovsk, Russia, in the country's Far East in support of Sergei Furgal, the governor of the region. The posters read, "Freedom for Sergei Furgal, I am, we are Sergei Furgal," "Give us Furgal back, "Call Furgal home." The demonstrators demanded his release after his arrest on charges of being involved in killings. (AP Photo/Igor Volkov, File)

A small group of demonstrators hold posters reading "Degtyaryov, go to the bathhouse!!!" and "I'm, we are Sergei Furgal" in Khabarovsk, Russia, in the country's Far East, on Saturday, Sept. 11, 2021. A few demonstrators each evening gather in a persistent reminder of the mass protests last year demanding the release of Furgal, the region's former governor, who was replaced by the Kremlin with Mikhail Degtyaryov. (AP Photo/Sergei Demidov)

Furgal’s arrest brought hundreds, and then thousands, of people into the streets of Khabarovsk in a regular Saturday protest. A year later, the rallies — albeit much smaller — continue.

Local activists say that’s because of sustained pressure from authorities interested in ensuring Degtyaryov wins the election.

Under new rules enforced by police who monitor and film the protests, the rallies are restricted to 10 people at most. Officers disperse anything larger.

The protesters say they are pressured at work and at university, with some adding that they lost their jobs after being seen at the demonstrations.

Many wear T-shirts with the face of imprisoned opposition leader Alexei Navalny, while others carry signs depicting Furgal or denouncing the new governor.

“We constantly live in fear because any day we can be arrested,” said Denis Pedish, a 47-year-old education worker who says he now comes to protests with a packed bag of essentials in case he is detained.

“It’s difficult. But people have hope and faith and are actively fighting the lawlessness of the authorities and the lawlessness of the elections, which are a laughingstock for the world to see,” Pedish said.

___

Anna Frants and Olga Tregubova in Moscow contributed reporting.

Aluminum wrap used to protect homes in California wildfires

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In this Sept. 2, 2021 file photo a cabin partially covered in fire-resistant material stands behind a property destroyed in the Caldor Fire in Twin Bridges, Calif. Aluminum wraps designed to protect homes from flames are getting attention as wildfires burn in California. During a fire near Lake Tahoe, some wrapped houses survived while nearby homes were destroyed. The material resembles tin foil from the kitchen drawer but is modeled after the tent-like shelters that wildland firefighters use as a last resort to protect themselves when trapped by flames. (AP Photo/Jae C. Hong,File)


RENO, Nev. (AP) — Martin Diky said he panicked as a huge wildfire started racing down a slope toward his wooden house near Lake Tahoe.

The contractor had enough time to do some quick research and decided to wrap his mountain home with an aluminum protective covering. The material that can withstand intensive heat for short periods resembles tin foil from the kitchen drawer but is modeled after the tent-like shelters that wildland firefighters use as a last resort to protect themselves when trapped by flames.

Diky, who lives most of the time in the San Francisco Bay Area, bought $6,000 worth of wrapping from Firezat Inc. in San Diego, enough to cover his 1,400-square-foot (130-square-meter) second home on the edge of the small California community of Meyers.

“It’s pretty expensive, and you’d feel stupid if they stopped the fire before it got close,” he said. “But I’m really glad we did it. It was pretty nerve-wracking when the flames came down the slope.”

The flexible aluminum sheets that Diky affixed to his $700,000 home are not widely used because they are pricey and difficult to install, though they have saved some properties, including historic cabins managed by the U.S. government.

Fire crews even wrapped the base of the world’s largest tree this week to protect it from wildfires burning near a famous grove of gigantic old-growth sequoias in California’s Sequoia National Park. The colossal General Sherman Tree, some of the other sequoias in the Giant Forest, a museum and some other buildings also were wrapped amid the possibility of intense flames.

It comes after another aluminum-wrapped home near Lake Tahoe survived the Caldor Fire, about 20 miles (32 kilometers) west of Diky’s home, while neighboring houses were destroyed.

The wrapping deflects heat away from buildings, helping prevent flammable materials from combusting. It also keeps airborne embers — a major contributor to spreading wildfires — from slipping through vents and other openings in a home. With a fiberglass backing and acrylic adhesive, the wraps can withstand heat of up to 1,022 degrees Fahrenheit (550 Celsius).

Until about a decade ago, most wildfire damage was blamed on homes catching fire as flames burned nearby vegetation. Recent studies suggest a bigger role is structure-to-structure fires that spread in a domino effect because of tremendous heat that causes manufactured materials to burst into flames.

The company where Diky bought his wraps gets about 95% of its sales from the U.S. Forest Service and National Park Service. Firezat Inc. founding president Dan Hirning estimates the Forest Service has wrapped 600 to 700 buildings, bridges, communication towers and other structures in national forests this year alone.

Firefighters on social media liken the wraps to a “big baked potato.” One who helped install some said he felt like he was “wrapping Christmas presents.”

Forest Service officials say they have been using the wraps for several years throughout the American West to protect sensitive structures. At Lake Tahoe, they have wrapped the Angora Ridge Lookout, a nationally registered historic fire lookout tower, said Phil Heitzke, an agency battalion chief.

“Many times, Forest Service structures are wrapped well in advance of the fire,” he said in a statement. Crews often can then focus on protecting other buildings or other work.

Firezat sells fire shield rolls that are 5 feet (1.5 meters) wide by 200 feet (61 meters) long for about $700 each. Installation by a contractor typically costs thousands of dollars.

“People think we should be selling tons of these things, but it’s not as much as everybody thinks,” Hirning said. Despite the cost, he said a building won’t burn unless “fire falls right on it.”

A mechanical engineering professor at Ohio’s Case Western Reserve University published 10 years of research about protective wraps in the Frontiers in Mechanical Engineering journal in 2019, saying they “demonstrated both remarkable performance and technical limitations.”

The aluminized surface blocked up to 92% of convective heat and up to 96% of radiation, Fumiaki Takahashi said.

The wrapping is most effective if a wildfire burns past with exposure of less than 10 minutes, he said. It’s less effective in areas with high-density housing, where spreading infernos can burn for hours without being stopped by firefighters.

The wraps “show promise in being effective, but further research is needed to develop more efficient yet still lightweight” protection against severe fires, Takahashi said in an email. He said he wouldn’t recommend them for everyone because they require proper installation.

“But once the installation methods are established (like a standard), I would,” he wrote. “There have been multiple successful stories for saving historic cabins by the U.S. Forest Service.”

Hirning said most of individual buyers he’s had over the years are looking to protect “really expensive cabins, really expensive homes, resorts, etc.” They include homeowners on $5 million lots in Malibu, California, who are asked to sign an agreement that the Forest Service isn’t responsible for protecting their property in some cases.

FILE - In this Sept. 1, 2021 file photo Martin Diky's home completely wrapped in fire-resistant material to protect the property against the approaching Caldor Fire in Meyers, Calif. Diky decided to order $6,000 worth of aluminum protective covering to wrap his home near Lake Tahoe in June as the last big wildfire roared through the Sierra dozens of miles southwest of the forested alpine waters. (AP Photo/Jae C. Hong,File)

A Wyoming rancher once put Hirning on a conference call with a fire commander and insurance adjuster who was going to reduce his rates if he wrapped a cabin worth about $1.5 million.

“Often it’s people who can’t get fire insurance or their insurance has been dropped. They want to wrap it to protect their investments that way,” he said.

Diky suggests getting extra help putting up the wrapping.

“They recommended three people could do it in 3.5 hours. I brought four contractors with me and worked all day into the night ... busted our butt for 12.5 hours,” he said.

As far as sales taking off as a result of recent wildfires, Hirning emphasized that it’s “an extremely seasonable business.”

“The first five years, new competitors were coming on each year. And at the end of each year, I got a phone call: “Would you be interested in buying our inventory?”’ he said.

Once it starts raining and snowing, he says he often doesn’t sell anything for nine months straight. That could change, however, as climate change contributes to more intense weather and more destructive, nearly year-round wildfire seasons.

#ECOCIDE

World on 'catastrophic' path to 2.7C warming, warns UN chief

Issued on: 17/09/2021 - 

UN chief Antonio Guterres on September 17, 2021 warned a failure to slash global emissions is setting the world on a "catastrophic" path to 2.7 degrees Celsius heating. 

© Fabrice Coffrini, AFP
Text by:NEWS WIRES
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A failure to slash global emissions is setting the world on a "catastrophic" path to 2.7 degrees Celsius heating, UN chief Antonio Guterres warned Friday just weeks before crunch climate talks.

His comments come as a United Nations report on global emissions pledges found instead of the reductions needed to avoid the worst effects of climate change, they would see "a considerable increase".

This shows "the world is on a catastrophic pathway to 2.7-degrees of heating," Guterres said in a statement.

The figure would shatter the temperature targets of the Paris climate agreement, which aimed for warming well below 2C and preferably capped at 1.5C above pre-industrial levels.

"Failure to meet this goal will be measured in the massive loss of lives and livelihoods," Guterres said.

Under the landmark 2015 Paris deal, nations committed to slash emissions, as well as to provide assistance to the most climate-vulnerable countries.

But a bombshell "code red" for humanity from the world's pre-eminent body on global warming in August warned that Earth's average temperature will be 1.5C higher around 2030, a decade earlier than projected only three years ago.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change says that emissions should be around 45 percent lower by 2030 compared with 2010 levels to meet the 1.5C goal.

The UN said on Friday that current pledges by 191 countries would see emissions 16 percent higher at end of the decade than in 2010 -- a level that would eventually cause the world to warm 2.7C.

"Overall greenhouse gas emission numbers are moving in the wrong direction," said UN climate chief Patricia Espinosa in a press conference.

But she said there was a "glimmer of hope" from 113 countries that had updated their pledges, including the United States and European Union.

These new pledges, known as Nationally Determined Contributions, would see their emissions reduced 12 percent by 2030 compared to 2010.

Big emitters

With only 1.1C of warming so far, the world has seen a torrent of deadly weather disasters intensified by climate change in recent months, from asphalt-melting heatwaves to flash floods and untameable wildfires.

The Paris deal included a "ratchet" mechanism in which signatories agreed to a rolling five-year review of their climate pledges in which they are supposed to display ever greater ambition for action.

But many major emitters have yet to issue new targets.

That includes China -- the world's biggest emitter -- has said it will reach net zero emissions by 2060, but has not yet delivered its NDC that would spell out emissions reductions by 2030.

Meanwhile new targets from Brazil and Mexico were actually weaker than those they submitted five years ago, according to an analysis by the World Resources Institute.

The UN report was a "damning indictment" of global progress on climate, particularly by G20 nations, responsible for the lion's share of emissions, said Mohamed Adow, who leads the think tank Power Shift Africa.

"They are the countries which have caused this crisis and yet are failing to show the leadership required to lead us out of this mess," he said.

Time to 'deliver'

Another issue on the table at the Glasgow summit will be a pledge as yet unfulfilled -- the pledge by wealthy nations to provide annual climate funding of $100 billion from 2020 to poorer countries, who bear the greatest impact of warming.

The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development on Friday said progress was "disappointing", with developing countries receiving $79.6 billion in 2019.

It warned that the target for 2020, which saw the world shaken by the Covid-19 pandemic, would be missed.

"The fight against climate change will only succeed if everyone comes together to promote more ambition, more cooperation and more credibility," said Guterres.

"It is time for leaders to stand and deliver, or people in all countries will pay a tragic price."

(AFP)

UN: Climate pledges put world on ‘catastrophic pathway’

FILE - In this Jan. 30, 2020 file photo, a ThyssenKrupp coking plant steams around the clock for the nearby steel mill in Duisburg, Germany. The cuts in greenhouse gas emissions pledged by governments around the world aren't enough to achieve the headline goal of the Paris climate accord, according to a United Nations report published Friday. The U.N. climate office said it reviewed all the national commitments submitted by Paris pact signatories until July 30 and found that they would result in emissions of planet-warming gas rising nearly 16% by 2030, compared with 2010 levels. 

(AP Photo/Martin Meissner, File)


BERLIN (AP) — The world is on a “catastrophic pathway” toward a hotter future unless governments make more ambitious pledges to cut greenhouse gas emissions, the head of the United Nations said Friday.

A new U.N. report reviewing all the national commitments submitted by signatories of the Paris climate accord until July 30 found that they would result in emissions rising nearly 16% by 2030, compared with 2010 levels.

Scientists say the world must start to sharply curb emissions soon and add no more to the atmosphere by 2050 than can be absorbed if it is to meet the most ambitious goal of the Paris accord — capping global temperature rise at 1.5 Celsius (2.7 Fahrenheit) by 2100.

“The world is on a catastrophic pathway to 2.7 degrees (Celsius) of heating,” U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said.

Experts say the planet has already warmed by 1.1 C since pre-industrial times.

“We need a 45% cut in emissions by 2030 to reach carbon neutrality by mid-century,” Guterres said.

Some 113 countries including the United States and the European Union submitted updates to their emissions targets, also known as nationally determined contributions or NDCs, by the end of July. Their pledges would result in a 12% drop in emissions for those countries by the end of the decade — a figure that could more than double if some governments’ conditional pledges and assurances about aiming for carbon neutrality by 2050 are translated into action.

“That’s the positive side of the picture,” said U.N. climate chief Patricia Espinosa, whose office compiled the latest report. “The other one is more sobering.”

Dozens of countries, including major emitters such as China, India and Saudi Arabia, failed to submit new pledges in time for the report.

Espinosa called for leaders at next week’s annual U.N. gathering in New York to put forward stronger commitments in time for the global body’s upcoming climate summit in Glasgow.

“Leaders must engage in a frank discussion driven not just by the very legitimate desire to protect national interest, but also by the equally commanding goal of contributing to the welfare of humanity,” she said. “We simply have no more time to spare, and people throughout the world expect nothing less.”

Espinosa added that some public pledges, such as China’s aim to be carbon neutral by 2060, haven’t yet been formally submitted to the U.N. and so weren’t taken into account for the report. An update, which would include any further commitments submitted by then, will be issued shortly before the Glasgow summit, she said.

Still, environmental campaigners and representatives of some vulnerable nations expressed their disappointment at the findings.

“We must ask what it will take for some major emitters to heed the scientific findings and deliver our world from a point of no return,” said Aubrey Webson of Antigua and Barbuda, who chairs the Association of Small Island States. “The findings are clear – if we are to avoid amplification of our already devastating climate impacts, we need major emitters and all G20 countries to implement and stick to more ambitious NDCs and make strong commitments to net-zero emissions by 2050.”

Jennifer Morgan, the executive director of Greenpeace International, said meeting the Paris goal would only be possible with “courageous leadership and bold decisions.”

“Governments are letting vested interests call the climate shots, rather than serving the global community,” she said. “Passing the buck to future generations has got to stop — we are living in the climate emergency now.”

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Follow AP’s climate coverage at https://apnews.com/Climate