Behind this belligerent stance is the growing recognition by the imperialist rulers of the United States that capitalism will not be restored to China, Russia, or the workers states of Eastern Europe by trade and investment alone. Washington's triumphant tone of the months following the destruction of the Berlin Wall a decade ago has faded, replaced by a more openly aggressive and militaristic stance towards Beijing, and ultimately Moscow.

The White House's chief trade negotiator, Charlene Barshefsky, traveled to Beijing November 9 to begin two days' talks over China's application for entry into the WTO. The Chinese government must reach bilateral agreements with the largest imperialist powers, which dominate the proceedings of the WTO and use it to reinforce their exploitation of the Third World, to gain admittance. Of those powers, Tokyo has given its approval to Beijing's application, but talks between the European Union (EU) and Chinese representatives ended without agreement October 27 and Washington has also withheld its assent.

In the various negotiations the imperialist powers have attempted to blackmail Beijing into trade concessions. A report on the failed talks with EU officials in the International Herald Tribune noted, "China overall has been reluctant to lower barriers to farm products and to allow other countries freer entry into its state-run sectors such as telecommunications and financial services."

The White House presents itself as eager to come to an agreement. Through a number of rounds of negotiation, however, Washington has blocked the Chinese application to the WTO. In April the White House published a list of concessions it said Chinese president Jiang Zemin had offered during a visit to the United States. Clinton then rejected those terms, stating that the agreement would face strong opposition in Congress.

Following this insult, the Chinese government has whittled down the list of concessions it says it is prepared to make, while insisting on its own conditions. Beijing demands, for example, that Washington pledge not to invoke sanctions against Chinese products that it alleges are being "dumped" on the U.S. market at below-market prices.

Even if the two sides reach agreement in the planned talks, the U.S. Treasury secretary has said the deal will not be submitted to Congress for consideration until next year.  
 

Moves to deploy new missile system

Washington's aggressive moves on the military front overshadow these trade negotiations and the WTO meeting itself. Most importantly, the imperialist power is pushing ahead with the development of a missile system designed to give it a first-strike nuclear capacity by intercepting incoming missiles and exploding them before they reached their targets. This missile system operates on similar principles to the "Star Wars" proposal that the government of Republican president Ronald Reagan failed to push through.

Military planners have proposed deploying such systems in the United States and in Asia. The Clinton administration has floated plans to install a network of missiles on the soil of Washington's allies of south Korea, imperialist Japan, and Taiwan. The missiles can also be mounted on naval vessels.

Washington claims that the system is necessary for defense against "rogue states," usually citing north Korea and Iran. But Beijing has no doubt it is the main target. According to the International Herald Tribune a "Chinese strategist," told participants in a Paris conference on defense matters November 6 that "if a U.S.- Japanese system covered Taiwan, 'We would go all out to build a force that clearly was strong enough to get through.' "

The big-business press has played up claims that Beijing is developing new nuclear defenses. In March of this year U.S. government figures leveled accusations of nuclear espionage at China, but provided no evidence to back up the charges.

Washington's militaristic policies are aimed also at Moscow, a bigger nuclear power than Beijing. The Clinton administration is pressing the Russian government to modify the 1972 Antiballistic Missile (ABM) treaty, which bans such missile defense systems.

Moscow has refused. "We can't allow a first modification that would open the way to a lot of changes that left the United States with the dominance of defenses combined with its arsenal of strike forces," said a Russian official

"If they persist absolutely" in refusing modifications to the ABM treaty, said Walter Slocombe, an undersecretary of defense, on November 6, "the United States… will have to face … whether to withdraw." Slocombe said that Clinton would make a decision whether to begin deploying the systems "next summer."

Washington's European allies and rivals express alarm at these developments. "This issue could end up driving a stake through the heart of [NATO]," the Washington Post cited a North Atlantic Treaty Organization diplomat as saying in early November. He expressed the "fear that if the system works, American and European security interests will no longer be bound by exposure to the same threats."  
 

Can't reimpose capitalism with dollars

The development and likely deployment of the system indicates the militaristic shift in Washington's China policy. This shift is already well in the past, and stems from the inevitable limitations of the pro-market reforms the Stalinist regime in Beijing has introduced.

Capitalist corporations based in a number of imperialist countries, as well as wealthier Asian countries like Taiwan and south Korea, have invested billions of dollars in "Special Economic Zones" established by the Chinese government in the 1990s. This investment exceeds that made in Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union combined. The capitalists have sought to profit from the low wages paid to workers, guaranteed by Beijing's repressive apparatus, and from the economic growth that has accompanied mass migration from the countryside into mushrooming cities.

But capitalism is not close to being restored into the Asian giant, home to 1.2 billion people. And the significant industrialization has brought into being a bigger working class. Labor disputes are on the rise in China today.

Washington regards China not as a trading partner but as a potential neocolony. Millions of workers and peasants tore this prize from the imperialists' grasp in the 1940s when they defeated the U.S.-backed regime of Chiang Kai-shek. Washington sent tens of thousands of troops, and would have intervened on a larger scale had it not faced mass resistance among the U.S. troops in the Pacific to fighting colonial wars after World War II.

This year, the 50th anniversary of the revolutionary triumph was celebrated in the streets of Beijing with a demonstrative military parade, including rows of infantry, mobile missiles, and a new jet fighter.

Despite the Stalinist misleadership of Mao Zedong, by the early 1950s the Chinese people had ended imperialist domination, unified the nation under a central government, nationalized the land, banks and major means of industrial production, and consigned the rule of the landlords and capitalists to the past.

The imperialists refused to recognize the People's Republic of China, and allotted China's seat at the United Nations and other international bodies to the regime set up by the exiled forces of Chiang Kai-shek on the island of Taiwan. The staying power of the Chinese revolution and the continued revolutionary ferment in Asia and Latin America eventually helped to render many aspects of this blatant anti-China policy untenable. Beijing, which withdrew from the WTO's predecessor, the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT), in 1950, reapplied for membership in 1986.

Beijing has repeatedly called for the return of Taiwan to China's sovereignty. In early 1996 Clinton sent an aircraft carrier into the Taiwan strait, threatening Beijing as tensions between the neighbors rose. Admiral Joseph Prueher, who commanded the U.S. forces in the Pacific at the time, has been nominated as the next Ambassador to China.

In 1997 the faded colonial power of United Kingdom returned sovereignty of Hong Kong to China. On December 19, the Portuguese government will formally cede its 442-year colonial rule of the Chinese port city of Macao. These victories have encouraged Beijing to press for the reintegration of Taiwan.

For the imperialists, the balance sheet of a decade of "neoliberalism" and "globalization" in relation to China is not positive. China remains a workers state, with a nationalized economy in which central planning plays a key role. And Beijing does not approach the coming trade, diplomatic, or military confrontations with Washington from a position of weakness. These demonstrated facts are behind Washington's shift towards military pressure.  
 

Chauvinist anti-WTO protests planned

This shift will provide a potent backdrop to the trade talks that Charlene Barshefsky and others will hold in Beijing, and the deliberations of the World Trade Organization in Seattle.

A range of groups, including union officials, environmental groups, and other liberal and radical middle-class forces, are planning to protest outside the Seattle conference. The publicity for these actions strikes strongly nationalist themes.

Some of the protesters will specifically target China. Among these will be the "Tibetan Rights Campaign," which opposes China's application for WTO membership. Their demand for a "free Tibet" provides Washington, which falsely poses as a champion of human rights in Tibet, with an opportunity to attack the Chinese revolution. This fits in with their goal of overthrowing the workers states and restoring imperialist domination of the territory, including Tibet.

Some AFL-CIO forces—primarily among those who style themselves as its "progressive" wing—have called a march on November 30, calling for incorporation of "workers rights" into the WTO. This demand echoes the demagogy U.S. officials sometimes use to demand governments of semicolonial countries bow to their trade demands. It effectively advocates protectionist measures against Third World countries, as well as Washington's imperialist rivals. Many top AFL-CIO officials are hesitant about the rally, however, worried it could embarrass Democratic presidential candidate Albert Gore.

Sensing an opportunity for recruitment to his forces, the fascist-minded politician Patrick Buchanan urged his "Buchanan Brigades" to be in Seattle with their union jackets. Buchanan's courting of a layer of union officials, especially Teamsters head James Hoffa, is grounded in a common economic nationalism — defending "American sovereignty" and "American jobs."

Buchanan's politics are deeply hostile to the real struggles of unions and the international solidarity of the working class. Actions like the protests in Seattle put wind in the sails of his reactionary campaign.  
 
 
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