The Class Struggle and Imperialist Conflict in Hong Kong

Street demonstrations in Hong Kong have never completely subsided.

Numerous protests followed the vast demonstrations last summer, interspersed with days marked by violent clashes between police and protesters, such as the first of October, on the occasion of the anniversary of the founding of the People’s Republic of China. The height of tension occurred with the occupation of the Polytechnic, soon besieged by the police, between the middle and the end of last November, an operation which ended with over a thousand arrests. Although there were violent marches, which also recorded some deaths, there were no other impressive demonstrations similar to those of June 2019, in part because they were prohibited by the authorities. But not on December 8, when, for the first time since August, the police were unable to prevent a large gathering, in which, according to the organizers, 800,000 took part.

Until the beginning of 2020, the stubborn struggle of social strata continued, identifying their defense in maintaining the autonomy of the ex‑colony, in anti‑Chinese and pro‑western attitudes. It was dominated by half‑classes that find support in the “young” and “students” in the streets, and in large sections of the population in the ballot box, as demonstrated on 24 November by pro‑democracy candidates who won 390 out of 452 seats, while in the last the 2015 elections they had obtained about a third (moreover a completely symbolic victory, since the powers of the district councils are local, irrelevant to the Legislative Council, the small town Parliament).

Not even the spread of the epidemic has completely stopped the ongoing social conflict. The quarantine measures were the pretext that brought out autonomist and localist tendencies: small anti‑Beijing groups called for a total closure of all connections between Hong Kong and mainland China, protesting against the four corridors left open. To this end, there was also a strike by doctors and paramedics in early February to demand the total closure of the border. In general, between February and April there was no lack of action, but less participation.

But protests have resumed with virulence since May. The trigger was a recent law passed by China: The National People’s Congress, the legislative branch of the Chinese Parliament, approved a law on national security in Hong Kong which punishes, in a very general way, acts of separatism, subversion, terrorism, or foreign interference. Obviously the pro‑democracy camp denounces the end of the “one country, two systems” principle. Thousands took to the streets clashing with the police and hundreds were arrested.

The Hong Kong crisis is not confined to the big metropolis but, as we had highlighted in issue 397 of Il Partito Communista, the game is part of the far‑reaching conflict between China and the United States. To the Beijing offensive against Hong Kong autonomy, the United States responded with the threat of revocation of the special status of the metropolis. So far Hong Kong has played an intermediary role for the movement of capital: on the one hand China uses it both to attract foreign capital and for its financial investments abroad, on the other hand foreign capitalists use it as a bridgehead for economic penetration in mainland China. In addition, Hong Kong is among the main commercial areas of the world; they load a significant portion of Chinese goods to the United States and vice versa in the port of Hong Kong. So the American retaliation, which would make the metropolis completely similar to the rest of mainland China and would put the threat of customs tariffs and other sanctions on the economy of Hong Kong, is an act of the ongoing trade war between the two super-powers.

Added to this is the growing tension in the waters of the South China Sea, and in general in the entire Pacific area, where the weapons of the Chinese and United States fleets face each other. The Hong Kong game is therefore not an internal Chinese affair, as stated by Beijing, but a front in the clash between the major imperialisms, which the progress of the capitalist crisis will make inevitable.

In this context, as long as the struggle in Hong Kong will be conducted by the middle classes with the aim of autonomy from China, whatever the outcome, both staying under the heel of Beijing and maintaining political autonomy under the protective umbrella of the Western imperialisms, nothing will change for the proletariat of the metropolis except different master ready to squeeze it. Only an autonomous intervention by the Hong Kong working class, united with the proletariat of mainland China in its ends and in the social war, under the leadership of its revolutionary party, will be able to overthrow any imperialist plan.

Trade Unions in Hong Kong

The proletariat of the city has a long tradition of union struggles and, given the history and characteristics of the colony, has always played an international role.

In the 1920s, when the wave of the communist revolution spread around the world and the class struggle in the western metropolises merged with the double revolutions in the colonial countries, according to the great perspective of the Third International, the proletariat of Hong Kong fought not only for political emancipation from British rule but directly against the oppression of capital, which had made the city a capitalist monster that exploited tens of thousands of workers.

Unlike China which, excluding some centers such as Shanghai, Canton and a few others, was dominated by a boundless rural world of over 300 million peasants, in Hong Kong the proletariat was directly aligned against the bourgeoisie, involved in major struggles: the seafarers’ strike of 1922, and one together with Canton workers between 1925 and 1926.

With the defeat of the proletarian revolution in China in 1927, the strong unions were destroyed, and the revolutionary movement started again from the backward countryside. But it abandoned the revolutionary perspective that had inflamed the country: the affirmation of Maoism represented the submission of the struggle of the Chinese proletariat to the bourgeoisie, which undertook the conquest of its political and national independence and the free accumulation of capital.

In Hong Kong, the rebirth of workers’ organizations after the Second World War occured in an international context that saw the CCP’s victory in China in 1949 in the civil war against the Kuomintang nationalists and the founding of the People’s Republic, but with Hong Kong remaining a British colony. In this situation, the workers’ movement found itself trapped in the polarization between two opposing bourgeois blocs: the pro‑CCP faction and the pro‑Kuomintang faction.

On the union level, this division manifested in the emergence of two adverse union centers: the “communist” Hong Kong and Kowloon Federation of Trade Unions (FTU), which has now become the Hong Kong Federation of Trade Unions (HKFTU), and the Hong Kong and Kowloon Trades Union Council (TUC), today HKTUC, formed by supporters of Kuomintang.

In October 1956 violent clashes between supporters of the “communists”, nationalists too, and those of Taiwan provoked the intervention of colonial troops, who killed 59 people.

This political division, a reflection of the clash between opposing international bourgeois fronts, is at the basis of the weakness of the Hong Kong workers’ movement, a feature that has persisted over the decades and, although in different forms, has come down to the present day.

The FTU in the 1950s and 1960s operated as a mutual assistance company for the benefit of associates suffering from unemployment and low wages.

Following the turbulent Chinese events of the Cultural Revolution, the FTU waged a series of struggles in factories and other sectors, particularly in transport, and tensions with the colonial government were growing. In 1967 the repression of a strike by the colonial police, with numerous injuries and arrests, produced a widespread reaction from the workers. The colonial government responds to these determined protests with violence, arrests, and the imposition of a curfew. The People’s Republic suggested of military intervention to take control of the colony. The riots lasted for months, but eventually the order came from China to stop them. The final toll was dozens of dead, hundreds injured, and thousands arrested. The working class demonstrated its generous willingness to fight the British oppressor and capitalist exploitation, but remained under the control of organizations linked to Chinese nationalism.

Starting from the late seventies, following the economic reforms launched in China, the FTU’s attitude towards the colonial government began to change: the economic transformations taking place in the Chinese hinterland required capital that transited through Hong Kong. This pushed the union to collaborate with the colonial government. Furthermore, negotiations had been opened between Great Britain and the People’s Republic in view of the return of the city‑state to Chinese sovereignty. It was in this context that the FTU was granted the opportunity by the colonial government to participate in elections for the Legislative Council, also in order to counter emerging democratic parties.

With the return of Hong Kong to China, a new rift opened up within the workers’ movement in the former colony, the clash between the pro‑Beijing faction and the pro‑democracy faction. The latter in 1990 created its own trade union organization, the Hong Kong Confederation of Trade Unions (HKCTU).

But still today the largest trade union organization is the FTU, with more than 400,000 members and around 250 federated unions. Since its founding, it has been an arm of the official All‑China Federation of Trade Unions and has opposed “democratic” and autonomist demands. CTU is the second central union by number of members, with about 160,000 members and 60 affiliated unions; it refers to the trade unions of western countries, is linked to the “democratic” parties of Hong Kong, and is actively deployed in the “battle for democracy”. Then, the third trade union confederation, with about 60,000 members, is the Federation of Hong Kong and Kowloon Labor Unions (HKFLU), founded in 1984 with a neutral position with respect to the other two major unions; today it is deployed in the pro‑Beijing field. HKTUC, historically linked to the Kuomintang and Taiwan, is the fourth organization by number of members, to date with only slightly more than 6,000. These four unions collectively frame around 70% of unionized workers; other organizations collect the remainder.

Although there are over 900,000 union workers, the working class in Hong Kong is in a state of weakness, because of the long decades of the counterrevolution, and because its organizations are subject, after the initial conflict between the PRC and Taiwan, to the one today between Great-Chinese nationalism and autonomy. The Hong Kong workers’ movement is therefore now framed in unions that pursue bourgeois interests, intent on deploying proletarians on opposite fronts but both belonging to its enemies.

Proletarians Defend Bourgeois Interests

The protests that have been going on in Hong Kong for a year now repeat what happened in the past and should also be a warning to the proletarians of the metropolis. Following the directives of the current centers of power, the proletariat is led not to the struggle for its interests but for bourgeois objectives, and risks spilling blood in a clash between its exploiters.

This is confirmed by the attitude that the two main union centers still hold today: the FTU supports the Beijing government; the CTU takes sides with pro‑democracy protesters. It was therefore CTU that called some general strikes, on August 5 and September 2‑3, in support of the protest movement. But the demands for which it called to strike are flattened by the demands of the democratic movement: withdrawal of the extradition bill from China; resignation of the chief executive; an investigation into police violence against demonstrators; release of those arrested; more democratic freedoms. No workers’ claims have been made; indeed there are fears that strikes will deteriorate the “normal functioning” of the “productive life” of the former colony.

In fact, the manifesto calling for the strike of 2‑3 September says: “Hong Kong has reached a critical point and we have no choice but to intensify the workers’ strike since this is our last resort (…) We must issue a warning to those in power: when the fundamental values and systems of Hong Kong crumble, the economic order will sink with them, we are determined to quit our jobs and unite on the streets with all the protesters who fight for our common future!”

The “values and fundamental systems of Hong Kong” are nothing more than bourgeois freedom and the capitalist system that make Hong Kong a paradise for the bourgeoisie and a hell for the proletarians; the threat of worsening economic performance is the classic warning that all the saboteurs of the class struggle are waving to push workers to defend the national economy.

Inevitably, the recent Hong Kong security law is opposed by CTU, as, the union believes, it will harm “the freedoms of Hong Kong” and “the rule of law”, destroying the already damaged formula of “One country, two systems” and the “High degree of autonomy” from the metropolis. A recent union manifesto in commemoration of the 1989 events in Tiananmen Square links the current situation with what happened then and deploys the union movement in the struggle for democracy: “In today’s Hong Kong, the working class of all backgrounds organized and created new unions, determined to fight tyranny from the union front. It is truly a new wave of the trade union movement seeking democracy. This resembles the trade union movement in 1989, when autonomous unions were popping up all over China. Although trade unionists have been subjected to large-scale detentions and repression, they have planted the seeds of workers’ struggles everywhere. After thirty‑one years, the flame has not gone out and the fight will continue. The independent workers’ movement in Hong Kong will certainly carry on this spirit. We aim to free ourselves from dictatorship, to achieve a truly democratic system and equality”. It is therefore to be expected that the union will be able to call workers to a fight against the Hong Kong security law, which will surely be used by the city authorities and by Beijing to repress workers’ organization. But against the attack of bourgeois powers the working class must not fall under the illusion that the solution lies in the establishment of a democratic system, since the essence of every bourgeois power, be it “democratic” or “totalitarian”, is to keep the proletariat submissive and guarantee the survival of the capitalist mode of production.

If on one hand CTU calls the workers to a struggle “for democracy” without making any claim concerning the harsh conditions of the proletariat of Hong Kong, on the other the major union of the city‑state, the FTU, follows the directives of Beijing and, like the official union in China, collaborates in the maintenance of social peace and instills nationalistic sentiments in the working class by placing “patriotism” first. It is therefore no wonder that the FTU stated in a press release that Hong Kong’s security law can help ensure a stable social environment for millions of workers in the city to live and work in peace.

Against this bourgeois policy, the proletariat will return to make claims in defense of its living conditions, to be imposed with the tools of class struggle. It actually happened in Hong Kong a few years ago: in 2013, dock workers went on strike for 40 days for wage increases and improved working conditions. This strike, by resorting to pickets and with the solidarity of other categories of workers, obtained those wage increases.

At the moment, the living and working conditions of the Hong Kong proletariat are becoming unbearable, with long hours and poor wages, in the face of the high cost of living on the peninsula, especially in housing. But it will be precisely the condition of misery that will bring the proletarians back to fight for their own interests and rekindle the fire of class struggle, certainly in union with the hundreds of millions of proletarians in mainland China.

The Necessity for Class Autonomy

What happens in Hong Kong, the crossroads of the traffic of imperialism, cannot fail to have repercussions on the world stage. The capitalist mode of production has reached the apex of its parable, showing all the characteristics of putrescence by now and showing its catastrophic destruction. But the abatement of a now anti‑historic mode of production can only take place through a ferocious struggle of the working class, the only one “which is not a class of this society”.

In Hong Kong, on the other hand, the uprising, even at times sensational, extended, prolonged and violent, has an interclassist character and seeks the aims of the petty bourgeois classes. These in themselves do not aim for the goal of the destruction of bourgeois society, and with their desperate struggle they try to defend their precarious existence within a mode of production that they cannot and can never really question.

The petty bourgeois rebellion that explodes almost everywhere in the world is not parallel to the revolt of the working class. And the noisy protests of Hong Kong confirm the impotence of these classes without history and without a party, which can only be the anti‑historic and now empty democratic and micro-national demands.

The working class must avoid taking sides in a struggle between late nationalisms destined to lead only to the deployed imperialist war, and to become an instrument of propaganda.

In Hong Kong, as in other parts of the world, the uprising of the half‑classes overwhelmed by the crisis of capital occurs without the presence of the organized force and political consciousness of the working class. Although still absent from the social clash with distinct objectives and organizations, the proletariat is the only truly revolutionary class, the only one to threaten the bourgeois social order, and which, framed in class unions and led by its own party, is able to break down the dominion of capital. Against the illusions of the multiform half‑classes, the proletariat can break down the bourgeois regime only by finding itself, its autonomy of movement and its program, that is, its party.

After long decades of counter-revolution, which subjected the working class and its organizations to collaboration with capital, its reorganization inevitably passes through the reconstitution of class unions and the revolutionary leadership of the communist party. Only in this way can the Hong Kong proletariat avoid a certain and perhaps bloody defeat.

When the working class presents itself on the social scene in all its historical stature and framed in the discipline of its extensive organizations, then it will also be able to drag behind it the plethora of half‑classes in ruins, or at least to make them neutral in the social war. It will do this not by enticing them with the myth of “democracy” and local autonomies, but by offering them the liberation from the yoke of big capital that ruthlessly crushes them.