The logic of imperialism’s ‘Maritime Great Game’ in the Southeast Asian Sea

By Rasti Delizo

Published 21 November, 2024

Email

First published at Amandla!.

The states with a coastline adjoining the Southeast Asian Sea are all facing a sharply rising regional quagmire. They are witnessing a soaring economic-diplomatic-security confrontation between the world’s top two imperialist powers. The United States of America and the People’s Republic of China are destabilising Southeast Asia by forcefully projecting their respective geostrategic objectives throughout the area. And by doing so, the region’s social majority — its working-class masses — are now becoming dangerously embroiled in this escalating great power collision.

A strategic competition

This imperialist rivalry is defined by the intensifying strategic competition between the US and China. They are both aiming to secure increased regional hegemony. So, they have unleashed parallel initiatives to thwart each other’s sweeping geopolitical designs for the immense Afro-Eurasia-Indo-Pacific as a whole — the Eastern Hemisphere.

In fact, these imperialist states are in relative decline. Only through international rivalry can they negate their weakened domestic conditions. Their reactions aim to protect their bourgeois socioeconomic formations from the fallouts of the chronically ruptured global capitalist system of production.

What is SEAS?

The Southeast Asian Sea is the vast expanse of salt water that lies within the southeastern region of Asia. Given its location, using the name ‘Southeast Asian Sea’, or ‘SEAS’, is more precise than the traditional name, the ‘South China Sea’. Another reason to use the name is to counter lingering inter-state frictions, which are encouraged by the use of nationalist-oriented place names for this marine realm. This readily breeds the reactionary phenomenon of national chauvinism and its destructive behaviours.

The Southeast Asian Sea remains one of planet Earth’s most diverse biospheres. It is a colossal aquatic ecosystem, covering approximately three and a half million square kilometres. It has over two hundred coral islets, an abundance of hydrocarbon deposits, and huge amounts of marine life. This organic wealth of natural resources is enough to sustain these states’ economies.

The Southeast Asian Sea is also a historically strategic marine domain that connects the Indian and Pacific oceans. As the region’s preeminent maritime corridor, its natural sea lanes provide crucial passage daily to enormous volumes of the world’s seaborne trade. It has key chokepoints in the straits of Malacca, Sunda and Lombok, and therefore acts as a vital channel for the trade between the economies of Europe, Africa and West Asia, and those of East Asia. And as a strategic sea spanning a zone of the Eastern Hemisphere, there is also a massive amount of shipping trade originating from the Western Hemisphere (i.e., North/Central/South America and the Caribbean).

Maritime Southeast Asia has consequently become a focus area for the competing interests of the world’s imperialist powers. Its regional security environment is now a turbulent arena of contestation for the major powers. They essentially seek to carve out additional space for capital accumulation through military means. This has turned the SEAS into an acute, perilous, global flashpoint.

A struggle between two imperialisms

The imperialist competition between the US and China is a particular manifestation of a generalised systemic crisis materially rooted in the inherent contradictions of the prevailing imperialist world system. Southeast Asia is being impacted by a strategic shift underpinning the bourgeois international order.

This great power engagement is unlike the last century’s Cold War. It is clearly not an international struggle between opposing ideological poles, supporting the strategic visions of contending socioeconomic systems. The first Cold War (1946-1991) was a clash of starkly counterposed systems — the capitalist camp (led by American imperialism) versus the communist camp (led by the former Soviet Union).

In contrast, the contemporary inter-imperialist conflict is being waged through a singular ‘capitalist unipolar order’. The contesting imperialist powers belong to the same capitalist pole. Together, they principally direct the monopoly capitalist agenda of the global core — albeit in an adversarial way.

Neither of them challenges the fundamentals of the capitalist system of production and distribution. Neither of them opposes globalised finance-monopoly capitalism’s exploitative norms of extracting surplus value through unequal exchange mechanisms to guarantee incessant capital accumulation for the imperialist core. Nor do they even attempt, in any serious way, to break imperialism’s circuits of global capital that oppressively control the periphery. Both American and Chinese imperialisms openly support the capitalist logic of guaranteeing the net flow of value (wealth) from the dominated countries to the centres of world capital.

Imperialist competition is mainly driven by the slow global pace of capitalist development due to stagnant growth with falling rates of profit. These negatives are made worse by other disruptive factors of the capitalist world economy, especially its generalised crisis of overproduction, along with overaccumulation, chronic underutilisation of capacity linked to constant mass unemployment, and global conditions of uneven and combined development. Thus, the central dynamics fueling this neo-Cold War moment stem from the contradictions intrinsic to the imperialist world system itself.

This system principally functions through the logic of super profits based on the eternal accumulation of capital. Its structure is built on exploitative and oppressive systems based on a global core-periphery model. In plain terms, this comprehensive socioeconomic formation supports and reinforces the capitalist, unipolar order.

The imperialist struggle for domination

Inside the global core lies a very small group of advanced capitalist economies. They are arranged into contending blocs led by the leading imperialist powers. These imperialist blocs directly compete with each other for economic control and political dominance over most of the world’s dependent semi-colonial states, which lie at the periphery. The power struggle between the US and China represents the current phase of the international system.

The imperialist blocs continually seek to increase the scope of their power through constantly expanding their respective spheres of influence and domination. In advancing their schemes for predominance, the imperialists try to reshape the international division of labour to favour their own geostrategic goals and interests. As a result, worldwide disputes, strife and wars inevitably erupt between them as they fight for global ascendancy.

These imperialist powers are always prepared to wage relentless acts of aggression beyond their frontiers. They do so to achieve a competitive advantage for their ruling classes. They engage in harmful and destructive economic competition, political schemes, and aggressive wars worldwide, regardless of the social cost. This is a general characteristic of monopoly capital. And during crisis moments, the imperialist states readily strike at each other in attempts to attain economic-political-security superiority for their own financial-oligarchic national regimes.

Unquestionably, the world suffers from the consequences of global polycrisis, which results from this in terms of the economy, politics, security, health, and climate emergency.

Following the ‘global capitalist crisis-depression’ that flared in September 2008, the US worked to regain and stabilise its international strategic position. It pursued this by strengthening its regional spheres of influence via attempts at reshaping the global economic and political order to align with its interests.

US strategy

US imperialism’s main goal remains the rejuvenation of American capital, chiefly through a revitalised global network of ever-expanding national markets in pivotal regions of the world. Combined with this, US imperialism robustly restimulates and weaponises monopoly capitalism for higher growth. It does so by producing enormous amounts of war materiel and using it in wars overseas. After the conflicts end, American capital then rebuilds the devastated countries. Through this coercive cycle, Washington aims to continually reshape the capitalist world order to maintain its global dominance. 

In functional terms, American imperialism currently advances a redesigned, long-range, foreign-security policy framework. Driven by the Biden regime’s central mantra, “We are in a competition with China to win the 21st Century”, the US’s geostrategy is based on building strong regional economic and military alliances to counter China in the Asia-Indo-Pacific region. Guided by its dual 2022 geostrategic blueprints — the ‘National Security Strategy’ and the ‘Indo-Pacific Strategy’ — Washington’s main goal is to secure ‘free and open’ access to the region’s air and maritime arenas while limiting China’s opportunities for expansion.

By now, US imperialism has effectively extended the ambit of NATO into the Asia-Indo-Pacific. In also promoting market access initiatives, the ‘globalised NATO’ project aligns American monopoly capital’s economic and military priorities. To implement this strategy, Washington integrates the neoliberal Indo-Pacific Economic Framework for Prosperity (IPEF), along with alliances like the Australia-United Kingdom-United States (AUKUS), Quadrilateral Security Dialogue (Quad), and the Japan-Philippines-US political-military partnerships. Together, these coordinated efforts jointly form American imperialism’s battering ram to oppose Chinese imperialism in the region.

China’s strategy

To foil this, China has built up its own network. These include the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO), the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), the Maritime Silk Road (MSR), the Conference on Interaction and Confidence-Building Measures in Asia (CICA), the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB), and the BRICS (Brazil/Russia/India/China/South Africa) grouping.

China’s comprehensive national power is not just a counterbalance to that of the US; it is also aimed at maintaining the global bourgeois system along imperialist lines.

Despite this, the US is succeeding in enticing other East Asian states to join its imperialist project to deny/degrade/damage the Chinese imperialist bloc’s regional strategic agenda. Integral to this, Washington regularly affirms its diplomatic narrative of “upholding the rules-based international order” (a code phrase for globally propping up US imperialist interests). So, it enlists blatantly pro-American states — like the Philippines — to openly provoke China. This is exemplified by the deployment of American troops and weaponry inside US-controlled military bases on Philippine territory.

The Philippines as a puppet in the struggle

Washington has a clear strategic plan, but Manila’s foreign policy planners fail to consider how China’s leadership thinks. Filipino leaders assume China will see their actions as harmless, even when the Philippines cooperates with the US. However, what really matters is how China (as a great power) views its external security environment — not what Manila claims. This allows Washington to strongly take advantage of Manila’s blind loyalty to the US to provoke China.

China’s social-chauvinist militarism in the Southeast Asian Sea should be condemned. Equally, the international communist movement must also denounce the joint US-Philippines military manoeuvres. Clearly, all imperialist wars of aggression must be opposed.

At present, US imperialism is already preparing for a possible limited war with China, using the Philippines as a trigger point to reshape Southeast Asia’s geopolitical landscape. Washington aims to strengthen its influence in the region to boost American economic growth and power. This will lead to a risky and significant shift in the ongoing imperialist competition within the area. And so, today, this is now Southeast Asia’s ‘Maritime Great Game’.

Rasti Delizo is a global affairs analyst. He is a member of the Bukluran ng Manggagawang Pilipino (BMP/Solidarity of Filipino Workers); BMP is a revolutionary socialist political centre of the Filipino working-class movement.

Why US unions should embrace ‘undocumented’ migrants

Workers’ resistance can beat Donald Trump’s mass deportation plans

May Day march in 2006 in Los Angeles (Photo: Wikimedia commons)

By Yuri Prasad
Sunday 17 November 2024  

SOCIALIST WORKER Issue

Donald Trump’s plan to deport millions of “undocumented” migrants is a threat not only to those in the United States without legal status. It’s a knife against the throat of all workers.

The far right president-elect wants to deport two million people within his first 24 hours, and a further 11 million early in his term. That means initiating mass round-ups of anyone that looks like they might be from Mexico or beyond.

It would mean a massive expansion of the militarised state, complete with internment camps and secret police. It would also require a mass movement of right wing militia to help in the task.

Such a vast network of racism would not confine itself to searching out hidden migrants. It would smash those who stand against racism and be hostile to the unions who fight for workers to have more.

Both the left and many liberals have reacted with horror at the plans. But it was the Democrats that initiated many of the policies that Trump wants to ramp up.

Back in the early 1990s, it was president Bill Clinton that presided over the first big increase in border enforcement. A decade later, it was president Barak Obama that ensured over 2 million people were deported.

And it was Kamala Harris that talked of her “tough” record on illegal immigration, attacking Trump for not building enough of his promised wall with Mexico.

The Democrats wrongly conceded that immigration is a problem—that poor migrants are the enemy of the “indigenous” working class.

Like all capitalists, the party recognised that racism serves a useful function for the system. It acts to divide and rule. But unlike Trump, the Democrats also understood that migration serves capital.

First, undocumented workers fill millions of the lowest paid jobs in the United States. The undocumented perform 57 percent of all jobs in agriculture, for example.

Second, because of their vulnerability, unorganised “illegal” workers are the easiest to exploit. They are less likely to unionise and more likely to scatter when faced with authorities.

Third, bosses use illegal migration as a way of disciplining all workers. Firms often threaten to sack workers demanding higher pay, saying they will replace them with cheaper ones.

Some trade unionists point to such threats when they call for immigration controls. But accepting this apparent threat as real does half the bosses work for them. Instead, the US labour movement needs to embrace a different, earlier tradition.

In 1910-15, more than 15 million people moved to the US, about equal to the number of immigrants in the previous 40 years. Rather than shun them, radicals made it their business to help migrants organise.

Recently arrived workers were at the core of a new wave of trade unionism that spread through factories, mills and mines across the country. The victories that followed benefited all workers, no matter where they were from.

In the late 1960s, Mexican and Filipino farm workers in California struck for five years for better working conditions and wages. The eventual victory of the Delano Grape Strike led to the formation of the United Farm Workers union.

And in the 1990s, Los Angeles was at the centre of a massive unionisation drive that gave rise to the Justice For Janitors campaign. The local Federation of Labor recruited 90,000 new members in 1999 alone.

Throughout 2006 there were swathes of huge protests against the increasing repression of migrants. This climaxed on May Day, with as many as 700,000 taking to the streets.

The one-day strike, led by Latino workers, highlighted the role migrant labour plays in the US. It was a day without workers—it showed the power of all labour organising together.

These strikes and organisational examples helped break the myth that immigrants are a threat to organised labour. The lesson that migrant workers are fighters is one the US left needs to spread once again.

One Year of Genocide in Palestine


Israel’s genocide in Palestine threw the political landscape into chaos, bringing unfathomable destruction to Gaza and igniting a global solidarity movement that revealed the brutal face of U.S. imperialism in decline. One year later, the path to ending the massacre and the colonial oppression of Palestine is murky against the backdrop of possible regional war.


Claudia Cinatti October 7, 2024



This week marks one year since Israel’s brutal genocide in Gaza began, following the events of October 7, which changed the entire landscape of the Middle East. Gaza is devastated, with more than 43,000 Palestinians killed and millions displaced, a population decimated by disease and hunger, and hospitals and schools turned to rubble. Throughout this year, Israel has continued its attacks in the West Bank and rocket fire on southern Lebanon. In recent weeks, Israeli president Benjamin Netanyahu expanded his offensive against Hezbollah, killing its top leaders, followed by a ground incursion into Lebanon and heavy bombardment of Beirut for the first time since 2006.

The massacres committed by Israel, with the open support of the United States and the complicity of the European Union, have generated an enormous movement of solidarity with the Palestinian people throughout the world, especially in the imperialist states, such as has not been seen in decades.

What is the current situation? Is an escalation towards a “total war” in the Middle East inevitable? What role does the United States play in the midst of the electoral campaign for the White House? What is the role of Iran and the so-called “axis of resistance” in the region? What are the strategic strengths and weaknesses of the Zionist state? We discussed all this with Claudia Cinatti, editor of the International section of La Izquierda Diario and leader of the Party of Socialist Workers (PTS) in Argentina.

***
Are we already seeing a large-scale regional war in the Middle East? What are the open fronts?

In a sense, the war in Gaza — and more generally the Palestinian cause and Israeli colonial oppression — has always had a regional dimension. In fact, since Israel began the bombing and invasion of the Gaza Strip, Hezbollah began launching missiles at the northern part of Israel in solidarity with the Palestinian population; it signaled that the end of these attacks were contingent on the Netanyahu government signing a ceasefire in Gaza. What has changed in recent weeks is both the magnitude of the attacks and the possibility that this escalation by the State of Israel against Iran’s allies — notably the elimination of the Hezbollah leadership — could lead to a state war, a direct military confrontation between Israel and Iran. This could mean drawing the United States, which has already reinforced its military presence in the area in defense of the State of Israel, further into open conflict.

As Netanyahu said in his speech to the United Nations General Assembly, Israel has seven open fronts: Gaza, the West Bank, Hezbollah (and more generally Lebanon), the Houthis in Yemen, pro-Iranian militias in Syria and Iraq, and now Iran.

From a military point of view, Israel has achieved a series of tactical successes. It has decimated the Hezbollah leadership, weakened Hamas, and repaired the badly damaged image of its intelligence. But, as we know, tactical successes do not always lead to strategic victory — and that is the big issue, because these advances do not solve Israel’s strategic problem, which is not just a military one.

At the moment, Israel is continuing its offensive against Lebanon, both by air and by land in the south. There, it has encountered resistance from Hezbollah, which appears to retain its fighting capacity. The Zionist state’s imperialist allies, mainly the United States and the United Kingdom, have bombed Houthi positions in Yemen.

Following Iran’s launch of some 180 to 200 ballistic missiles into Israeli territory in response to the assassination of Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah and Hamas political leader Ismail Haniyeh, there is a sort of waiting period in preparation for the retaliation that will surely come from Israel and its allies, the United States, the United Kingdom, France, and other powers.

What has emerged is that the Netanyahu government is debating whether to bomb nuclear facilities, energy infrastructure — oil and gas refineries, etc. — or military installations. Meanwhile, the Biden administration, which is discussing next steps together with the Zionist state, is trying to dissuade it from the most extreme options — above all, to avoid major damage to the oil industry, a prospect that has already caused oil prices to rise. If this continues, inflation could rear its head again, impacting the world economy and the U.S. presidential election.

There is no doubt that Netanyahu is trying to drag the United States into a direct war against Iran, something that the White House has so far tried to avoid as it is not in the interest of U.S. imperialism. However, if Netanyahu does not achieve that goal, either with the Democrats or with a possible Trump administration, he may limit his objectives, at least in this period, to making as much progress as possible in isolating the Iranian regime by weakening the “axis of resistance” as much as possible.
A recent article in the Washington Post suggested that Biden has lost control of his strategic ally Israel because Netanyahu is crossing all the red lines that the White House tried to draw. How do you view this? Is it another consequence of the crisis of American hegemony?

The crisis of American hegemony has encouraged what some analysts call the “fragmentation of the international order,” that is, the emergence not only of rival powers, such as China, but of medium-sized regional powers, or allies with their own game. We see this loss of leadership in the fact that the United States has lost the ability to impose its policy and achieve automatic alignments, perhaps with the exception of completely subservient governments such as that of Javier Milei in Argentina. It goes beyond the fact that Joe Biden, after having been shoved off the ticket ahead of the elections, is all but a lame duck president. The norm is multiple alignments and occasional alliances, according to national interests. This has been seen, for example, in the war in Ukraine, as well as in the significant number of votes cast against the U.S.’s pro-Israel stances in the UN.

Unlike other historical moments, such as the Six-Day War, today the State of Israel depends in absolute terms on its alliance with the United States, which provides it with weapons, financing, and diplomatic cover, even to carry out the genocide in Gaza — despite the White House’s insistence on the need for a ceasefire. Secretary of State Antony Blinken systematically failed in negotiations; the last straw was that while the United States and France had supposedly agreed with the Israeli Prime Minister on a truce in Lebanon, Netanyahu authorized Nasrallah’s assassination from New York.

What dictates the policy of American imperialism in the Middle East, regardless of the party in power, is the strategic and unconditional alliance with the State of Israel, which gives Netanyahu the impunity to take colonial policies to the extreme, in line with his far-right partners, whether religious parties or settlers. And it leads the United States to support everything Israel does. This is Biden’s policy, although he has differences and friction with Netanyahu, who is openly working to elect Donald Trump in November, since he sees him as more in line with his interests. The Biden administration maintains this unconditional support for Israel even though it has caused a major crisis in the Democratic Party. On the one hand, Democrats face criticism from the right by Trump and a sector of the Zionist lobby. On the other hand, leftist and progressive sectors of the Democrats’ electoral base repudiate the genocide in Gaza, which could even cost Kamala Harris the presidency.
Israeli historian Ilan Pappé said in a conference a few days ago that Netanyahu needs a more warlike and chaotic scenario to try to implement an “extreme solution” in Palestine and the region. What would this imply?

The Netanyahu government and the extreme right do not hide the fact that their plan is to expel the Palestinian population from Gaza to Egypt and the West Bank, where colonization has qualitatively advanced. The destruction of Gaza goes in that direction. Life is practically impossible, there are no hospitals, no schools, no housing, and no food or water. Their ministers make openly fascist public statements in favor of liquidating the civilian population by military means and through famine. This plan to annex the Palestinian territories to Israel and extend colonization to southern Lebanon is what Netanyahu presented to the United Nations with his infamous maps of the “curse” and the “blessing.” These maps depicted a so-called “Greater Israel” where the Palestinian territories do not exist, in a Middle East that coincides to a certain extent with the Abraham Accords promoted during the Trump presidency.
In the case of Lebanon, Israel has had important tactical successes against Hezbollah in recent weeks, but can it defeat them by combining bombing and a “limited” ground incursion, as the Israeli army claims it is carrying out?

It seems difficult. Even in Gaza, after 11 months of destruction, Israeli military chiefs maintain that “total victory” — the “eradication of Hamas” — remains an unrealistic goal. In the case of Lebanon, Israel already invaded in 1982 and stayed for 18 years. And it suffered a political defeat in the 2006 war, which ended up strengthening Hezbollah.
As you pointed out earlier, the more direct confrontation with Iran changes everything. What is the internal situation in Iran, and to what extent does this influence the possibility of it adopting a more warlike course?

The Iranian regime’s strategy has been to avoid direct military confrontation with Israel, and by extension with the United States. That is why it has built the so-called “axis of resistance,” a defensive alliance with tactical and strategic allies, of which Hezbollah is the most important, not only for its firepower but also for the projection of the Islamic Republic’s regional ambitions. Even Masoud Pezeshkian, the current Iranian president who is part of the reformist wing of the regime, made a conciliatory speech at the United Nations to try to alleviate the sanctions that are suffocating the country, and to resume some dialogue with the United States and other powers regarding the nuclear program.

The internal situation is complicated for the theocratic regime, which has lost legitimacy. In the context of a difficult economic situation, it faces recurrent cycles of protests despite the brutal repression with which it tries to crush them. For years, the regime has been divided into a more conservative wing and a sector that is more open towards the West. The Israeli escalation has apparently strengthened the hardline sector, particularly the Republican Guard, which maintains that not responding at the time to the assassination of Haniyeh on the day of the new president’s inauguration left Iran in a weak position. That is why, this time, the decision has been to respond and strengthen Khamenei’s discourse in order to try to transform resistance to Israel into a cause for the entire Arab and Muslim world.
There are sectors that consider that Russia or Iran (or even China) could play a progressive role in putting limits on American imperialism. What is your view?

The bloc between China and Russia, which also includes North Korea and Iran, at least at the level of military cooperation (not troops, but weapons, technology, etc.) undoubtedly questions the order led by the United States, and this has recreated a certain “campism” of sectors of the left that align themselves with this bloc. However, having interests opposed to those of the United States does not make it progressive in itself. It is a bloc of capitalist countries, which pursues its reactionary objectives. An example of this is the Russian invasion of Ukraine, or China’s aggressive policy in African and Asian countries where it is one of the region’s main creditors, in agreement with the IMF.
The forces that dominate the resistance against Israel in the region are Hamas and Hezbollah, whose strategy is to establish theocratic states in alliance with sectors of the Arab bourgeoisie such as Qatar or Iran. To what extent does this limit the struggle for a free Palestine and to expel imperialism from the region?

In the case of the Palestinian national struggle, Hamas capitalized on the capitulation of the Palestinian National Authority, which has become an internal police force at the service of Israel. Indeed, despite being part of the Palestinian resistance or national liberation movements, these organizations have a reactionary, bourgeois-religious strategy. Their policies of social control, which hinder the democratic organization of the resistance, as well as their military methods, are in line with these objectives.
Several analysts point out that a new generation in the Middle East is becoming radicalized against Israel and imperialism. At the same time, this year, solidarity with the Palestinian people was seen in Western countries in a way that has not been seen in decades. For example, there were massive mobilizations, as well as student occupations of university campuses, denouncing the complicity of imperialist governments. What importance does this movement have for the Palestinian resistance and the fight against imperialism?

The movement in the central countries is key to the victory of the Palestinian masses. Despite the brutal police repression and the persecution by university administrations, which has caused the most active aspects of the struggle to retreat, the movement marks a profound change in the consciousness of very broad sectors of the new generations, which includes the emergence of anti-Zionist Jewish organizations, such as Jewish Voice for Peace in the United States, that not only repudiate the crimes of the state of Israel, but also denounce its colonial character. In the event that the war in the Middle East deepens, leading to a war between Israel and the United States against Iran, this movement will not only be reactivated, but will probably reach broader sectors and develop its tendencies towards political radicalism and anti-imperialism.
Anti-Zionist Jewish intellectuals such as Ilan Pappé and others have pointed out that the idea of ​​“two states” living together in harmony is a pipe dream as long as the foundations of a colonial occupation and apartheid state are maintained. To what extent do recent events confirm this view, and what is the position of revolutionary socialists for a solution in Palestine?

The genocide in Gaza, the extension of the war, and the annexation and colonization plans of the State of Israel (not only of the Netanyahu government) absolutely confirm Pappé’s lucid diagnosis. His proposed solution is “a de-Zionized Palestine” in the historic territory, where refugees can return and there is no ethnic, cultural, or religious discrimination. In addition to intellectuals and academics such as Pappé, there are organizations such as the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) campaign that have been exposing the racist and segregationist character of the State of Israel. There is also the One Democratic State Campaign, in which people of Jewish origin and Palestinians come together with a similar objective of putting an end to the colonial regime backed by imperialism.

We revolutionary socialists share with them the need to put an end to the colonial occupation and the apartheid regime, which the so-called “two-state” solution has only legitimized. We also share the international dimension of the Palestinian struggle. We hold that in order to end the apartheid regime and the oppression of the Palestinian people, it is necessary to destroy its material foundations. That is why we believe that the only truly progressive way out is to fight for a working-class and socialist Palestine, because only a state that aims to end all oppression and exploitation will be able to guarantee democratic and peaceful coexistence between Arabs and Jews, as a first step towards a socialist federation in the Middle East.

Originally published in Spanish on October 6, 2024 in Ideas de Izquierda.

Translation by Otto Fors


Claudia Cinatti
Claudia is an editor of our sister site La Izquierda Diario and a leading member of the Party of Socialist Workers (PTS) in Argentina.

Voices from CUNY: Reflections on One Year of the Genocide in Palestine


The City University of New York has seen both the resurgence of the student movement and repression over the past year of genocide. Left Voice has gathered some reflections from members of the CUNY community.

Voices From CUNY October 7, 2024

Photo Credit: Brittany Kriegstein / Gothamist

The past year of genocide, and repression has been felt particularly acutely at universities. The student movement emerged in the weeks after October 7 to make their firm opposition to the genocide felt, this developed into a significant force at the universities which saw a peak during the encampment moment in Spring 2024. To halt this, university administrations and politicians have been striking back at the student movement with enhanced repression. One university system that has particularly seen the impact of the student movement and the resulting repression has been the City University of New York (CUNY).

The CUNY system almost immediately felt the repressive response to the movement for Palestine when a NYC city councilwoman brought a gun onto CUNY’s Brooklyn College campus less than a week after the genocide began to intimidate the students protesting. At least two professors at CUNY have been fired for pro-Palestine speech and CUNY’s Gaza Solidarity Encampment at City College was very harshly repressed with over 170 people being brutally arrested when the NYPD invaded the campus. Several of those arrested still face felony charges. Now the state-sponsored Lippman Report calls for more repression of pro-Palestine speech at CUNY and continues the false identification of anti-zionism with antisemitism. CUNY has long been a place that has faced repression of the Palestine movement such as the harsh backlash to pro-Palestine graduation speakers at CUNY law.

Left Voice has gathered some voices from the CUNY community to reflect on the past year and the struggle ahead. These voices reflect the diversity that is characteristic of the CUNY community and show the dedication of students and faculty alike at taking up the struggle for a Free Palestine. While the repression has dealt us blows, the struggle at CUNY has not been broken and will continue to be waged by the brave members of the CUNY community who have taken up the fight to stop the genocide and Free Palestine.

We encourage you to read these articles on the one year of the live-streamed genocide for Left Voice’s analysis of this political moment.
A Livestreamed Genocide and a Movement for Palestine that Shook the World
One Year of Genocide in Palestine

If you are interested in getting involved in Left Voice or Red Snare, our drumming group, sign up here
Hunter College Student

I am a student of Hunter College and a child of the world. My mother has Jewish and non-Jewish European heritage and my father is Moroccan and Muslim. I know that the ongoing genocide and colonization in Palestine is not in the direction of liberation for any of my peoples, or anyone. Receiving vague email after vague email, I am disappointed in the CUNY/Hunter administration in deliberately choosing not to name what is happening and what it is: a genocide. Denying what is happening in Palestine is part of CUNY’s complicity in genocide, not to mention the fact that CUNY has $1.09m invested in weapons manufactures and surveillance systems. Maybe if CUNY hadn’t spent $8.5m in 2021 on contracts with companies that play active roles in the colonization of Palestine, they could pay their adjuncts more and give the PSC-CUNY their contract.

Currently, the union has gone a year without a contract and a raise in a time of intense inflation. CUNY must divest from their role in supporting the genocidal, colonial apartheid state of Israel and invest in its students and professors. CUNY used to be a free university. The year students of color became the majority was around the same time CUNY began charging tuition. From this, we know that CUNY’s legacy of being a racist institution lives on with their repression of students organizing for Palestine. At Hunter, for example, students are no longer allowed to hang up flyers without the approval of administration. How can we leave it up to repressive and racist institutions like this to deem what is acceptable to hang up? It is up to us, the students and the teachers to continue to speak out in solidarity with one another. We know that our struggles and liberation are intertwined. The same cops sent to our campus are being trained in IOF tactics. We don’t need more cops or repression; what we need is to divest from genocide and invest in our faculty and students. Free people’s CUNY and Free Palestine.
Rami Mansi, Brooklyn College

When reflecting on the past year, memories flood my mind. However, a word pops out as an understated yet prominent ideal in my life: identity. My identity as a Lebanese-Dominican American has been put into question through recent events. I feel “Americanized” by society, yet the events I see unfold on my phone are weighing in on my life more than any American cultural ideal ever has. The same ideals my personhood has developed around, are the same ideals that allow people to suffer in ignorance over what has been occurring over the past year. Since the October 7th attack until now, a year later, something I have seen in humanity like never before is a lack of empathy. How can we as a society, as humans with empathy worked into our biology, allow ourselves to see violent videos and keep scrolling? Videos of pager explosions blasting people to death, a 12-year-old child helping in ambulances instead of sleeping soundly at night, or a father holding his child’s body parts in a plastic bag appear every day.

Yet, we move forward as if we haven’t been indirectly funding those very same missiles. The numbness we feel is due to its frequency, the norm of social media is seeing violent acts unfold and moving on; this nitpicking to ignore anything that doesn’t stay within our echo chambers or comfort zone needs to be brought down, to educate ourselves and stay alert of what happens beyond. The ability to stay ignorant, especially in a first-world country, has caused me to put into question the identity I have assumed since childhood. When one part of my identity is built off of indulging in excess while the other includes the paternal side of my family retreating to their basic human need of survival, how do I find my definition of what culture means? I have always wanted to connect to my Lebanese culture more. I never expected my way of doing so would be through finding out the day’s death toll and researching the generational trauma as a result of war and brutality.

My identity will always be something that confuses and orbits my mind, constantly adjusting my definition of culture. But I will always be proud of my culture and I have never been more connected, and felt stronger, about where I come from.
Brooklyn College Alum, Class of 2024

Outside the sealed gates of City College, among the keffiyehs slicked blue by nightfall, rain drops exploding into tears on the sidewalk, and our faces illuminated by flares erupting overhead, we were certain of only one thing — no one keeps us safe but each other.

On April 30, hundreds of NYPD officers descended upon us protestors protecting the CUNY Gaza Solidarity Encampment. As we hastily locked arms to form rows defending the campsite, I tucked away my cardboard sign reading “FROM PALESTINE TO THE PHILIPPINES, STOP THE U.S. WAR MACHINE!” A century prior, Filipino insurgents challenged the presence of U.S. imperialists, and were so thoroughly obliterated by American troops that the Philippine-American War has been retroactively described as a genocidal conquest. The mass slaughter of my people, however, is not often acknowledged as such, in the same way Western media continues to turn a blind eye to Israel’s ethnic cleansing of Palestine.

This censorship dominates CUNY campuses, where student speakers are often silenced and mass demonstrations such as the encampment are forbidden or dismantled. The evening of April 30, I watched policemen pepper-spray my comrades, tackle them to the ground, and rip us from each other’s arms. Still, we held strong and yelled, “The people united will never be defeated!”

The irony of the NYPD being summoned by CUNY Chancellor Félix Rodríguez and City College President Vincent Boudreau is not lost upon us. Although CUNY is meant to be the people’s university, the school system’s bureaucratic shortcomings, poor treatment of students and staff, and refusal to divest from Israel signifies its allegiance with the capitalist and imperialist oppressor. At the heart of the ravaged encampment once lay posters and banners from all walks of life: from Palestine to Kashmir, the people will persevere; Palestinian liberation is queer liberation; CUNY Jews say not in our name.

As Audre Lorde wrote, “There is no thing as a single-issue struggle because we do not live single-issue lives.” Racism, homophobia, misogyny – these are connecting threads of oppression that have long been intertwined but are now being scrutinized in new light through the ongoing siege of Gaza. Palestine will free us all, but liberation is only possible if we stand together. The ripples of this movement are felt worldwide, from workers blocking arms shipments to Israel, to protestors flooding the global streets, and the continued demonstrations among CUNY students. We’ve seized the empire by its head. Now all we need to do is grab the sword and pull.
Student and Worker, Queens College

I was born and raised in India and spent a few years of my childhood in the UAE. As a child of the year 2001, I have spent my entire life witnessing Islamophobia fester in every city I lived in, and especially within my right-wing Hindu family. This genocide feels like the ultimate manifestation of decades of such hateful rhetoric. It feels like the largest expansion of Israel’s settler colonialism and the most desperate effort by the United States to maintain its hegemony.

This past year has been very disturbing and enraging for me as a student and college assistant at CUNY. I have watched my union DC37 refuse to divest our pension funds from Israel while simultaneously ensuring that we workers make even less than the poverty wage of $18/hour that they have approved in our newest contract.

Many people I have spoken to this past year have echoed this feeling of helplessness I have been experiencing. It has made me realize that it is necessary but not enough to just speak out against Islamophobia, against capitalism, and imperialism. I think it is very important for us at CUNY to organize collectively not just within our university or our city, but with workers across the country and the world. Because that might be the only chance we have at dismantling this brutal system of global capitalism of which genocide is a feature, not a bug. My heart goes out to all the dock workers and Boeing workers on strike right now. I stand in solidarity with all the rank-and-file union organizers and union members of DC37 and PSC-CUNY who are shackled by the confines of Taylor Law. I hope that striking workers engage in the struggle for Palestinian liberation. We at CUNY need to realize the power we hold in withholding our labor. I hope that we do everything we can to stop this massacre from continuing for any more generations than it already has.
Sally Zieper, Brooklyn College and CityTech adjunct and MFA student

Prayer

The war will end.

The war will end!

The war that is not a war will end.

The war against life will end, and the olive groves will flourish

in the hands of their original stewards.

The war will end with the destruction of the last wall and the last fence and the last checkpoint.

In the nights when the war is not over, I dream it is, and when in the dream I ask “How are you?” someone says “I am doing well today because there is no more genocide.”

The war will end, there will be dancing in the streets, and those who protest

saying there is nothing to dance for, now is the time to get serious with building the new world, and we will press their palms to ours and move in the manner we all know,

a seeded bed with all flowers among us
Anonymous, Brooklyn College Student

In the past year, I feel like I’ve seen the most violence in my lifetime in NYC alone; from the violence of the NYPD to the violence of the CUNY administration. With that violence, I’ve had to reckon with the tactics and methods used and how those choices have reverberated into my personal and academic life. And, as a CUNY freshman, I saw and experienced so much violence.

What was especially painful this year was how we were unprepared for the police escalation after weeks of documenting and experiencing it. In our role as a public institution in New York, the encampments had a lot at stake – especially after weeks of losses and arrests. Over all things, I wish for a redirection in how we absorb the arrests that happen in parallel to the escalation we participate in. Our statements and wishes alone are not resistance without a material effort, and, if our efforts are countered, to what extent are we accepting that we lose more than we gain?

It’s important to say that the first blame always goes to the occupation and state repression and our solidarity should lie with anyone with resistance in their hearts. But revolution requires more than just that insinuation, it requires action. Further, action requires evolution because the state will evolve regardless of our resistance, so we must start acting with strategy to prolong despite the state.

The past year has been full of loss everywhere, and our losses here don’t compare to that of Palestine’s. But it is a disrespect to call our loss resistance without preparing for the repression we know is coming.

6 months of an escalated genocide, and I remember the feeling of being outside Columbia the first night the encampment was announced. At first it was feelings of pride and joy with fear because it felt escalatory. But, there was no plan for defense for those of us who stayed outside in solidarity and eventually, after all but 14 people had left, those who stayed got manhandled, arrested, and forcibly removed. That is a problem.

I have hope, because it’s futile to be hopeless, but I don’t see promise without strategic escalation. We have an obligation to have foresight, to act accordingly, and organize with the intentions of preservation in the face of state repression. We must continue the fight for a free Palestine in hopes that we will one day liberate ourselves, beyond the appeal to the status quo.
Olivia Wood, City College Faculty

A little less than a year ago, I wrote about the history of political repression and student and faculty activism against it at City College and the lessons from our CUNY comrades in the 1940s that we can apply today, in the movement against the genocide in Gaza. Key among those lessons are the importance of solidarity between workers and students at CUNY and the faculty union at the time’s refusal to accept the sanctions levied by their parent union, the American Federation of Teachers.

Today, eight of our community members are still facing felony charges after over 170 people were arrested at City College on April 30, in relation to the Gaza Solidarity Encampment. At least two CUNY workers have been fired for their pro-Palestine speech. A year into the genocide, we’re all doing our best to fight back against a culture of fear. The fences erected during the encampment still surround my college, and the Lippman report criticizes my college, through veiled references to our senior administrators, for not being harsh enough. It is vital for all of us to gather our forces to fight the repression, both on principle and for the sake of the fight for a free Palestine.

Campus movements for Palestine across the country have been struggling to pull themselves back up after the harsh police violence, vigilante violence, and academic repression we all faced in the spring, while Israel continues its devastation of Gaza and begins a new bombing campaign and military invasion in Lebanon. Some of my students and colleagues are fearing for their loved ones’ lives. Others are mourning loved ones they have already lost. If the community members are found guilty, if more faculty are fired, and if students face academic sanctioned, the movement will be weakened right when we need it to continue to grow and expand. As the demand for a ceasefire has reached its limits, we have to fight to stop arms shipments from the United States, since it is those weapons that are murdering people abroad.

What do we have to go on, moving forward? We have the relationships with the people we met, or grew closer to, during the week of the encampment and the days following. There are more colleagues I recognize and wave to in the hallway, knowing we are allies in the struggle. There is the shared experience of our first CUNY-wide community assembly, where we voted to support the Five Demands, organize support pickets for the encampment, and organize the first sickout in the history of our union if enough people pledged to participate. We still have those muscles — another assembly was held just last week to discuss how to organize for this year’s October 7, how to respond to the Lippman report, and what to say about the invasion of Lebanon and the International Longshoremen’s Association strike. While there is significant work to be done in persuading larger sectors of our union to organize for Gaza, and the longshoremen union’s refusal to stop arms shipments during the strike demonstrates the solidarity-building work to be done among their ranks as well, these assemblies at CUNY and the longshoremen’s strike both show the power of the working class and the potential for how that power could grow and be used in support of the Palestinian and Lebanese people.

As details emerged about what happened on October 7, 2023, I quickly knew this was a pivotal day in global history, and that how we all responded to its events would matter. And I’m proud to join the legacy of City College workers and students from decades’ past, who fought like hell against war, racism, and austerity. We, too, can build on that legacy to fight and win a free CUNY, run by the workers, students, and community, and an end to the capitalist, imperialist system at the heart of the problems we face today.

Dossier: The Genocide in Gaza and the Road to Palestinian Liberation


We present a collection of our articles from the last year that put forward a perspective against the reactionary offensive of Israel, which is aided and abetted by U.S. imperialism. This includes debates on a working class and socialist strategy for a Free Palestine in the context of a historic solidarity movement for Palestinian liberation.

Left Voice October 7, 2024

On October 7, 2023, Israel found the perfect pretext to launch a reactionary offensive in Gaza, which has now killed over 43,000 people and displaced over 1.5 million Palestinians. More recently, the military campaign has expanded to the West Bank, Lebanon, Yemen, Iraq and Syria, and opens up the possibility of escalations and even a regional war targeting Iran. This was made possible by the material support of imperialist countries, above all the United States under the leadership of Joe Biden.

In response, a historic international solidarity movement emerged to denounce the genocide in Gaza. In the United States, this led to the reemergence of the student movement, with students on over 100 college campuses organizing protests and solidarity encampments. The working class also reared its head, with unions releasing statements and in some cases mobilizing to defend the encampments. In California, academic workers led a historic strike in support of the student movement for Palestine. Meanwhile, the state and its institutions have met the movement with intense repression, sending the police to brutalize protesters and launching a McCarthyist offensive on university campuses.

Over the past year, Left Voice — as part of the international network of publications published by the Trotskyist Fraction – Fourth International — has covered the genocide and the movement, highlighting the role of workers and students in denouncing the United States’ role in Israel’s massacre and analyzing the major shifts in the geopolitical arena that have taken place since Israel’s offensive began. The movement in solidarity with Palestine has opened key strategic debates on questions of national liberation and anti-imperialist struggle; Left Voice has engaged with and opened its pages to these discussions, putting forward the need for a socialist strategy, internationalist and led by the working class, to put an end to Israel’s genocidal colonial project and pave the way for a free socialist Palestine from the river to the sea.

***
Statements by the Trotskyist Fraction – Fourth International:Fight to End the Genocide in Gaza and the Repression of the Palestine Movement. For an Anti-Imperialist, Internationalist, and Revolutionary Movement of Young People and Workers!
Declaration: Stop Israel’s Airstrikes and Military Intervention Against the Palestinian People
Analysis One Year Into the War: One Year of Genocide in Palestine, interview with Claudia Cinatti
The Demand for a Ceasefire Has Met Its Limits by Samuel Karlin
Israel’s Lebanon Offensive: From Genocide in Gaza to Regional War by Claudia Cinatti
The Resurgent Student Movement and Repression on Campus: Unite the Encampments Against Repression and for a Free Palestine by Left Voice
Lessons from the Wayne State University Encampment and the Fight for Palestine in Detroit by Tristan Taylor and Brian H. Silverstein
“There Are No Separate Fights”: Interview with a Mexican Student at the UNAM Encampment for Gaza by Samuel Karlin
The Student Revolt for Palestine by Jimena Vergara
Specters of Vietnam in the pro-Palestinian Movement by Daniel Alfonso
The Strategic Centrality of Workers and Self-Organization and the Fight for a Free, Socialist Palestine: A Debate with the PSL over the Student Encampments by Sybil Davis
The Labor Movement and the Fight for Palestine: A Livestreamed Genocide and a Movement for Palestine That Shook the World, by Tatiana Cozzarelli and Luigi Morris
The Labor Movement Is Being Strengthened by the Fight for Palestine by James Dennis Hoff
The Labor Movement Is Key for Palestinian Liberation by Tristan Taylor and Brian H. Silverstein
The Ayatollah Won’t Free Palestine, but Workers of the Middle East Can by Samuel Karlin
Fighting Campus Repression Is the Fight for Palestine. Unions Must Take it Up by Tatiana Cozzarelli
The UAW’s Endorsement of “Genocide Joe” Is a Betrayal of Palestinians and Workers by Otto Fors and Luigi Morris
CUNY Rank-and-File Workers Stand With the Student Encampment by James Dennis Hoff and Olivia Wood
Uniting Workers for Palestine Is a Fight for the Future of Labor by Tatiana Cozzarelli
AFL-CIO’s Ceasefire Call Shows Power of the Movement for Palestine by Otto Fors
Strategic Debates about the Movement and the Horizon of Palestinian Liberation:Palestinian Liberation and Permanent Revolution by Jimena Vergara
Palestinian Self-Determination and the Fight for Socialism by Josefina L. Martínez
A Brief History of Anti-Zionist Jews by Nathaniel Flakin
The Movement for Palestine Needs Independent, Working-Class Politics by Tatiana Cozzarelli and Luigi Morris
The Farce of the “Two-State Solution” and the Socialist Perspective for Palestine by Nathaniel Flakin
Does Supporting Palestinian Resistance Mean Supporting the Strategy and Methods of Hamas? by Philippe Alcoy
Means and Ends: A Debate on the Left over Hamas’s Strategy by Matías Maiello
Dual Power: The Importance of Self-Organization and Assemblies by Marcos Nok and Mi Ka
Don’t Vote Uncommitted — Commit to Breaking with the Democrats by Brian H. Silverstein and Tristan Taylor
The Iranian Regime is No Friend of Palestine by Samuel Karlin
The Movement for Palestine Is Facing Repression. We Need a Campaign to Stop It. by Tristan Taylor
Once Again on Palestine and the National Question: A Polemic between Révolution Permanente and Lutte Ouvrière by Damien Bernard and Claude Piperno

Asian-Americans Could Make the Difference in 2024 – and Not Just in Nevada

LIKE THEY DID IN GEORGIA IN 2020

Stewart Lawrence

 October 9, 2024
Facebook

TwitterRedditEmail

Photograph by Nathaniel St. Clair

It’s emerging as a major anomaly in the  2024 presidential swing states polls  While Donald Trump is gaining and slightly leading Kamala Harris in three of the most important swing states in the Sunbelt – AZ, GA and NC – Harris still clings to a stubborn polling lead in a fourth swing state, Nevada.  It’s just 1.2 points, according to the latest Real Clear Politics polling averages, but it hasn’t budged much for months.  In fact, Harris has led Trump in most polls in Nevada since late August. And with just a month left in the race, and critical battlegrounds hanging in the balance elsewhere, it’s doubtful that the former president will even make a serious play for the Silver State.

Part of the reason, of course, is the state’s election history.  Nevada hasn’t voted Red since George W. Bush captured the state twice – in 2000 and 2004, by 2.5 and 3.5 points, respectively.  In fact, Democrats – and many Republicans – still tend to think of Nevada as reliably Blue.  Obama twice won the state by sizable margins – 13 and 7 points in 2008 and 2012, respectively.  And Trump has lost the state twice – to Clinton and Biden, each time by nearly 3 points. While far more competitive than neighboring New Mexico, which has leaned Democratic by double digits for years, Nevada, arguably, hasn’t been in serious contention for the past four election cycles. And with just 6 electoral votes – compared to 16 each for NC and GA, and 9 for AZ – there’s good reason for Trump to concentrate his precious campaign resources elsewhere.

But there’s another reason, too, for Nevada’s status as an outlier.  Its fast-growing Asian-American population.  Unlike the nation’s Hispanics, who are tilting increasingly toward Trump, Asian-Americans in Nevada (and elsewhere) are voting Democratic by a 2-1 margin, according to recent polls.  Moreover, their numbers in Nevada are unusually impactful:  Elsewhere in the Sunbelt, Asian Americans constitute no more than 4% of any one state’s total electorate.  But in Nevada, their share is a whopping 12%, giving Harris an important buffer against Hispanic (and other) defections.  According to some local political analysts, it may well be the reason she’s still in the lead.

Harris, of course, is America’s first partly Asian-American presidential candidate which does make her unusually attractive to this demographic group, especially Indian-Americans, the fastest growing segment.  In Nevada, several different nationality groups predominate but none is more important to Harris’s prospects than Filipino-Americans, with close to 200,000 registered voters.  First arriving generations ago as circus workers;  over the years, they’ve become a mainstay of Nevada’s burgeoning entertainment-oriented service sector.  Filipinos from other states where their numbers are much larger – especially in California – also look to Nevada as an attractive retirement center.  In addition to plentiful work, the state offers lower taxes and more affordable homes and a dry temperate climate – a reason many Califoirnians, including Hispanics, are migrating here as well.

Democrats haven’t always noticed the state’s Asian-American population – or conducted serious outreach to win their votes  But a sea change in the party’s thinking occurred in 2020 when Democrats needed to mobilize new voters to try to swing Georgia, a traditional Deep Red state.  In addition to Biden, two Democratic candidates were vying to win their highly-contested Senate contests.  The stakes were high: Not just the presidency, but also control of the Senate.  And the gambit worked:  Asian-Americans, though just 4% of the state’s electorate, turned out in record numbers to support the Democrats, giving Biden & Co their margin of victory.

Harris is well-aware of the strategic potential of Filipinos especially in Nevada.  Just two weeks ago, she launched a major digital ad campaign to coincide with Filipino Heritage Month.  It’s arguably the largest and most targeted outreach to Filipino-Americans in US election history, with virtually nothing on the GOP side to offset its likely impact.  And it’s just the beginning of a non-stop Harris media campaign as the race elsewhere seems to be tilting in Trump’s favor, and Nevada’s importance to an Electoral College victory looms larger than ever

Harris is also ramping up her efforts to capture the Asian-American vote in other swing states where she and Trump are divided by razor-thin margins.  Last month, a major new music video ad campaign aimed specifically at Indian-American voters got underway. Produced by Ritesh Parikh of Awesome TV, the Bollywood-themed campaign incorporates messages in multiple South Asian languages, including Telugu, Tamil, Gujarati, Punjabi and Hindi.  The video includes a song “Nacho, nacho,” which is based on the super-hit number from the 2022 movie RRR.  It features vocals by popular singer Shibani Kashyap along with visuals from the Harris campaign and messages from South Asian and Indian American supporters.  Ajay Bhutoria, a prominent Indian American community leader and chairman of Harris’ National Finance Committee, is responsible for producing and overseeing the video, which is just the first in a series that he plans to release for Harris over the remaining days of the race.

Filipino-Amricans are especially critical in Nevada but In terms of sheer size, no Asian American group is more important for both parties these days than Indian-Americans, with more than 150,000 voters in Georgia and Pennsylvania, and about 100,000 in Michigan, according to the estimates compiled by the Asian American Voter Survey.  Indian-Americans are also the single most affluent population sub-group in the United States, with median incomes above $110,000 per year.  Many Indian-Americans are highly trained professionals in the IT and engineering fields, and they enjoy strong transnational ties back to their homeland where they continue to influence internal politics.  Trump made an unprecedented effort to appeal to Indian-Americans in 2016, and after his victory, named three Indian-Americans, including his incoming UN Ambassador Nikk Haley, to top posts in his administration.  The former president also conducted a major diplomatic offensive to woo India’s popular Prime Minister Narendra Modi as a strategic ally against China in the Pacific – a stance that found favor with Indian-American voters.

There’s an intriguing parallel here:  While Democrats increasingly look to Asian-Americans to offset their losses among Hispanics, Republicans are cultivating Indian-American support as a potential counterweight to the Democrats’ near-monopoly over African-Americans.  Democrats have reason to fear GOP encroachments. According to polls conducted by the Asian American Voter Survey (AAVS) in July,  the number of Indians identifying as Democrats slipped to 54% in 2020, and now stands at just 47%, the lowest Democratic share ever recorded.  Even worse, just 46% of Indian Americans said they would vote for a Democratic candidate in 2024 compared with 65% in 2020.  Indian-American voters, more than many groups, including non-Hispanic Whites, tend to identify with the GOP “prosperity” message and even Trump’s MAGA message resonates with these voters, in part because Modi in India has adopted his own version of it – “Make India Great Again.”  This is potentially an enormous obstacle to the Harris campaign as it seeks to woo these voters back to the Democrats in November.

For Asian-Americans, the renewed attention by Republicans and Democrats alike is long-overdue.  Much as Hispanics have felt for decades, Asian-Americans have felt marginalized from national politics and opportunistically exploited when elections draw near.  Despite their important role in assisting Democrats in 2020, Asian-Americans were shut out from the president’s cabinet – a major diversity setback.  Protests from the Asian-Americans proved deeply embarrassing during Biden’s first year, and despite some fence-mending – including a high-profile White House campaign against Asian hate crimes – the community is still stinging from the administration’s rebuff.  Harris, currently trapped in a statistical dead-heat with Trump nearly everywhere, is well-positioned to make fresh gains with voters who share her cultural heritage.  Indeed, if she does manage to prevail in November, it may be due in no small part to her campaign’s last-ditch massive outreach to voters who have finally come of age.

To be sure, Asian Americans are still a relatively small ethnic constituency nationally, relative to Hispanics (19%) and African-Americans 13%). But while largely unnoticed, they are also far and away the fastest-growing one – with a growth rate (a whopping 81% for 2000-2019, which doubled their size) far surpassing even that of Hispanics.  Thanks to their important role in Georgia in 2020, and potentially several swing states in 2024, both parties are beginning to take notice of their potential and of the need to conduct more sustained outreach beyond election-year pandering.

Still, serious obstacles do remain – including the unusually high percentage of Asian-Americans who are immigrants and therefore, ineligible to vote.  Those who can vote require campaign messaging and materials presented in a plethora of different languages – from Hindi to Tagalog – which may boost campaign costs – especially in local elections – considerably, taxing campaign budgets..  In addition, despite tilting Democratic overall, the ideological and generational diversity – indeed, fragmentation — among Asian-Americans requires Democrats and Republicans alike to craft and vary their messages with greater nuance and precision than with other ethnic constituencies.

And it’s not just Indians or Filipinos.  In battleground Wisconsin, Harris recently sent her husband Doug Emhoff on a campaign swing to appeal to Hmong and Laotian refugees, who first arrived in the aftermath of the Vietnam War.  Most Vietnamese refugees tilt GOP, by a wide margin, but sensing an opening, the Harris campaign decided to send Emhoff to this year’s annual Hmong cultural festival to stump for her candidacy and for the candidacy of down-ballot Democrats running this year.  Why the Hmong?   While a tiny community overall, they are the largest Asian-American demographic in the Badger State, comprising a third of the total, with well over 100,000 eligible voters.  And local Republicans, it turned out, were also in full force at the Hmong festival this year – another precedent. Harris’ last-minute initiative may or may not work, but given the stakes, and the possibility of several states being decided by a swing of a few thousand votes, no group, it seems, is too small to warrant more sustained campaign attention.

And it’s not just the presidency, of course.  Asian-Americans, like Hispanics, are beginning to show up in ever increasing numbers as mayoral and state assembly candidates, as well as contenders for positions in the US Senate.  A Hmong candidate is currently vying for a seat in the Wisconsin state assembly, a first for the community.  And Vietnamese-born Hung Cao, the first Vietnamese member of the Virginia state assembly, is running against veteran Democrat and former 2016 vice-presidential candidate Tim Kaine for a seat in the US Senate, representing the Commonwealth, another major precedent.

All in all, whoever wins the presidency this year, the 2024 race will likely be a watershed, or an inflection point, in American politics.  Once an afterthought, or mere bystanders to the nation’s governing processes,  Asian-Americans – separately, and in a broader alliance – are beginning to exercise considerable leverage over the nation’s two parties – as well as third parties that can offer fresh outlets for political representation. It’s incumbent upon the two parties to spend the additional resources needed to fully integrate Asian Americans into their campaign strategies – and not just out of expediency, but out of a deep-seated respect for the communities and their contribution to America’s ever-expanding cultural mosaic.

Stewart Lawrence is a long-time Washington, DC-based policy consultant.  He can be reached at stewartlawrence811147@gmail.com.