Beijing Reflections

August, 14 2008By Paul Street
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The Cold War Hoax and Non-Paradox of McMaoism

Nineteen years and two months ago, hundreds of peasant soldiers in Red China's "People's Liberation Army" (PLA) bivouacked in the world's largest McDonald's in downtown Beijing.  Followed by the vapid gaze of Ronald McDonald, the troops marched out to join a larger force assembled to attack students conducting mass protests against the Chinese dictatorship in Beijing's historic Tiananmen Square. The 1989 Tiananmen demonstrations received considerable support from Beijing workers, who were concerned about increased inequality, insecurity and corruption resulting from "capitalist road' economic "reforms" introduced by China's "Marxist" masters. Many of the students sang the socialist "International" as PLA tanks lined up to crush the rebellion. Thousands of Chinese civilians died in the June 4, 1989 Tiananmen Square Massacre - an event that has been officially deleted from Chinese collective memory with assistance from the U.S.-based Internet company Google [1].

Nearly two decades after the blood was cleaned off the Tiananmen killing grounds, "Communist" China stands in a long-established relationship of political-economic symbiosis with the corporate-captive United States.  A large number of leading U.S. multinational firms invest directly in coal-fired, smog-choked (around industrial centers) China to exploit its cheap, state-repressed labor and its willingness to subordinate environmental concerns to the holy imperatives of "economic growth" (capitalist throughout). This investment feeds global warming and China's massive trade surplus with the U.S, which skyrocketed from $83 billion to $252 billion between 2000 and 2007 [2].

CAPITAL WINS, LABOR LOSES