US to send largest weapons shipment yet to Ukraine
Andre Damon, WSWS, Apr 29 2024
On Friday, the Pentagon announced it was sending its largest weapons order to Ukraine to date, totaling $6b, after Biden signed into law a $95b military spending bill last Wednesday. Sec Def Austin said at a Pentagon news conference:
This is the largest security assistance package that we’ve committed to date.
Austin announced the procurement at a meeting of the Ukraine contact group at Ramstein Air Base in Germany, where the US is coordinating arms shipments from NATO countries for the US-led proxy war with Russia. Austin blustered:
We will not falter, we will not flinch, and we will not fail.
The package marks the second time in just two days that the US announced a new weapons shipment to Ukraine, following the announcement of a new $1b weapons shipment on Wednesday. Friday’s announcement is not a transfer from existing US weapons stockpiles, but rather a multi-billion-dollar procurement agreement with major US defense contractors. The stock prices of these merchants of death rose immediately following Congress’ passage of new spending last week. The WSJ reported:
Lockheed Martin and RTX, formerly known as Raytheon Technologies, have been the biggest beneficiaries of the $30b in federal contracts already awarded to supply Ukraine and refill US weapon stockpiles. Other contractors, including General Dynamics, last week reported strong quarterly sales as they delivered on deals awarded over the past two years.
To date, the US has provided more than $44b in weapons to Ukraine, together with tens of billions of dollars in direct financial subsidies. Last week, the Biden administration confirmed that it had secretly sent Ukraine long-range missiles capable of striking at a distance of over 190 miles. The Ukrainian armed forces used these weapons to carry out a strike on an airbase in Crimea earlier this month. In another strike, the weapons were used to attack the port of Berdiansk on the Sea of Azov. Confirming that the US secretly provided the weapons in March, National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan said Thursday:
They are now in Ukraine, and have been in Ukraine for some time. They arrived there before the supplemental was done.
Last year, Biden had categorically ruled out sending the long-range missiles to Ukraine, declaring:
We are not encouraging or enabling Ukraine to strike beyond its borders.
But as with nearly everything else Biden said he would not do in Ukraine, plans to send the missiles were already in the works at that time. In a press briefing, a defense official told reporters that the weapons would be used to strike Russian territory in Crimea, “where, right now, Russia has had relatively safe haven,” the NYT reported. Despite the vast quantity of weapons and money delivered to Ukraine, the military situation remains disastrous for Kiev. In January of last year, Austin and then-Sec Def Milley announced that the US and its allies would “go on the offensive to liberate Russian-occupied Ukraine.” Since that time, the US-planned Ukrainian offensive of that year has turned into a debacle, with Ukrainian forces being pushed back across the front. Hundreds of thousands of Ukrainian soldiers have been killed, while hundreds of thousands of potential draftees have gone into hiding in order to avoid conscription. In a statement Friday, Zelensky warned that “the Russian army managed to seize the initiative on the battlefield,” but said that it was possible to “stabilize the front.” In a statement on Telegram Sunday, Alexander Syrsky, the commander in chief of Ukraine’s armed forces, confirmed that Ukrainian forces had retreated in Donetsk. He added:
The situation at the front has worsened. The most difficult situation is in the Pokrovsk and Kurakhove directions, where fierce battles continue. Units of the Defense Forces of Ukraine, preserving the lives and health of our defenders, moved to new front lines west of Berdychi, Semenivka and Novomykhailivka.
On Saturday, Russia’s Ministry of Defense claimed that over 8k soldiers from the Ukrainian military were killed in combat over the past week. He said the Russian armed forces captured two settlements and were on the attack “along the entire front line.” Ukrainian authorities are increasingly desperate to dragoon ever greater numbers of men to the front. This month, the Ukrainian parliament passed a law, taking effect May 1, which lowers the minimum age of mobilization from 27 to 25 and requires all men eligible for the draft to register on an online database. At the same time, the Ukrainian government under Zelensky has canceled all consular services for military-age men in a bid to force some of the reported 4.5 million Ukrainian men living abroad to return home and enter the fight. A recent article in the Economist described the harrowing struggle to avoid being drafted—an almost certain death sentence:
For men like Sasha, that presents an impossible dilemma. He feels stuck in the middle, he says, not wanting to leave his home but fearful the draft officers might knock on his door next. “You can leave, but it’s a one-way ticket. You can go to the front lines, but that may be a one-way ticket too. Or you can stay here and live in fear.” One estimate late last year suggested 650k men of fighting age had left Ukraine, the majority by illegal means. Getting papers to leave was once a matter of paying a few thousand dollars to a corrupt officer. Now it is nearly impossible. The need on the front lines is stronger than ever, and no one is volunteering to fight.
Despite the disastrous situation, the US is demanding that Ukrainian troops once more go on the offensive. Austin said in announcing the weapons shipment:
With the capabilities and resources we provided, hopefully Ukraine will have the ability to not only hold its own, but regenerate additional capability and create options for itself.
The US and European imperialist powers, facing the prospect of defeat, are demanding a fight to the last Ukrainian. But with hundreds of thousands of fighting-age men dead, preventing the total collapse of Ukrainian forces will inevitably require ever-greater involvement by NATO forces. Over the past two months, the leaders of five NATO member states have raised the prospect of direct deployment of NATO troops to Ukraine, a prospect that is becoming increasingly likely with every passing day.
Australian defence minister in Ukraine, backs US-NATO war against Russia
Oscar Grenfell, WSWS, Apr 29 2024
Australian Defence Minister Richard Marles visited Ukraine on Saturday, where he pledged support for the Kiev regime until it “is able to resolve this war on its terms.” That is an open-ended and indefinite commitment to a proxy war stoked, instigated and prolonged by the US and NATO, with the aim of inflicting a major defeat on Russia. Marles was only the second government leader to visit Ukraine since NATO provoked Russia’s reactionary invasion in Feb 2022. In July of that year, Albanese joined the line-up of US and allied leaders visiting Kiev and promoting an escalation of the conflict. As a consequence of this militarist policy, which has included the scuttling of any negotiated end to the war, hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians and Russians have been killed. Multiple reports have indicated a crisis of the Ukrainian army, which includes its increasing reliance on compulsory service and its loss of substantial territory to Russia. The US has responded by doubling down, because the war is viewed as a central component of its broader campaign to block any challenge to its hegemony, including through wars and confrontations in the Middle East, against Russia and China, aimed at dominating the Eurasian landmass.
Marles’ visit came just days after Biden signed a bill providing over $60b in additional military aid to Ukraine. The day before he arrived, the US confirmed it would also provide Ukraine with Patriot missiles, in a major step towards direct conflict with Russia. In addition to signaling that there will be no letup in the US escalation in Eastern Europe, the funding bill made clear this is part of a global war drive. It included more than $26b for Israel, to fund the genocide in Gaza and military operations against Iran, and $8b towards war preparations directed at China. That includes funding for the Taiwanese military, which is being primed to play a similar role to Ukraine as it has against Russia, in provoking Beijing into war. Marles hailed the US military bill, saying:
We’re in a moment where the world needs to stand up on behalf of Ukraine. We’ve seen the package pass through the US. That is huge for Ukraine, a huge boost in morale.
An aspect of the massive US funding is undoubtedly to pressure other allies into also making substantial commitments. Marles unveiled an additional $100m in aid for Ukraine, taking the total Australian contribution to more than $1b since the war began. Half of the new funding is for “short-range air defence systems.” It appears that will primarily involve the provision of RBS70, a MANPAD with the capacity to shoot down aircraft. Over $32m is earmarked for drones and $16m more for other military equipment. Previous Australian commitments have included the donation of Bushmaster army vehicles, as well as surplus rifles and ammunition. Australia previously deployed a E-7A Wedgetail surveillance aircraft to the region to aid the war effort, and has participated in a British-led program to train Ukrainian recruits.
When the war began and Australia started to announce commitments to Ukraine, these were presented as “non-lethal” and auxiliary military aid. This was an attempt to present Australia as a friendly party to Ukraine, but not an active participant in its war with Russia. Marles’ latest announcement shows that this mask has largely been removed. Some of the weaponry that Australia is providing is of a plainly “lethal” character, and can be used in offensive operations. Marles also revealed that Australia has been supplying unspecified precision air-to-ground munitions to Ukraine, which are already in use on the battlefield. That shows that Australian munitions are directly being used against Russia, making the country a de facto participant in the war. This has been carried out behind the backs of the population, with no previous public discussion or announcement of the deliveries.
Marles was only in Ukraine for a couple of hours, but in that time he identified his Labor government fully with the extreme right-wing regime in Kiev and its regional partners. En route, he held a joint press conference with Poland’s Deputy Prime Minister and Defence Minister Władysław Kosiniak-Kamysz. Marles hailed that country for its “work in organising Europe, but certainly in supporting Ukraine in defending against Russia’s appalling invasion of its country.” The Polish government is far-right. In addition to its virulent hostility to Russia, it openly touts its racist anti-immigrant policies and is reviving the political forces that collaborated with the Nazis in WW2.
In Ukraine, Marles visited Lviv and held a joint press conference with Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal. Marles repeated the lies that the Ukrainian regime represents “democracy” and “freedom.” In fact, it is a notoriously corrupt government that has banned most opposition parties while overseeing a police-state reign of terror targeting popular disaffection with the war. With large sections of the male fighting-age population having been wiped out, Kiev is ever-more reliant on fascist militias such as the Azov Battalion. While continuing the propaganda line, Marles hinted at the real motives for the involvement of the US, NATO and their allies such as Australia in the war. Ukraine, he said, was crucial to the “global rules-based order.” That is the stock code phrase for global order dominated by the US established in the aftermath of WW2. Most notably, Marles drew a connection between the war in Eastern Europe and developments in the Indo-Pacific. He declared:
In a world which has become increasingly smaller and more interdependent, where events in eastern Europe are having an impact on the way countries see events playing out in the Indo-Pacific, and visa versa, it means that, as we focus on our region, on the Indo-Pacific, of course, we can only do that by having an eye to what’s occurring everywhere in the world and particularly what’s occurring here in eastern Europe.
This is in line with the increasing attempts of the US to draw together Washington’s confrontations with Russia and China. As Marles was making these statements in Ukraine, Blinken was in Beijing, demanding that the Chinese regime halt a wide range of exports to Russia, even though it is not supplying weaponry. In addition to trying to ensnare China in the deepening war, the clear aim is to send a threat that a similar US and allied build-up is developing in the Indo-Pacific, as in Eastern Europe. Australia is at the forefront. Through the AUKUS military pact with the US and Britain, it is acquiring nuclear-powered submarines, as one component of a vast militarisation. That includes the deployment of US strike forces to the north of the continent, as well as Australia’s own development of missile capabilities across all branches of the armed forces.
The Labor government is also continuously campaigning throughout the region to align Asian and Pacific states with Washington’s anti-China push. Signalling Australia’s commitment to US militarism on a global scale, Marles last week visited Australian Defence Force personnel where they are stationed at the Middle East Headquarters in the UAE. They are aiding US operations throughout the region, including its campaign against Houthi forces from Yemen, who attempted to block shipments through the Red Sea that assist Israel’s genocide in Gaza. In addition to backing the Zionist regime’s mass murder of the Palestinians, Labor has vocally backed the US-led moves to use this war crime as the launching pad of a regionwide offensive targeting Iran.
US Sec State’s visit to China: An exercise in confrontation and bullying
Peter Symonds, WSWS, Apr 29 2024
Far from easing tensions between the two countries, US Sec State Blinken’s trip to China, which concluded last Friday, was aimed at intensifying the confrontation with Beijing by setting out an ever-expanding set of demands. During the three-day visit, he met with President Xi Jinping, Foreign Minister Wang Yi and other top Chinese officials. At the top of Blinken’s list was the demand that Beijing end its sale of so-called dual-use items to Moscow as the US-NATO war in Ukraine against Russia has suffered a series of reversals. Washington has acknowledged that China has not sold weapons to Russia but is now insisting that Beijing assist the US and its allies in crippling the Russian economy, particularly its war industries. Blinken told a press gathering on Friday:
I reiterated our serious concern about the PRC providing components that are powering Russia’s brutal war of aggression against Ukraine.
He pointed in particular to China’s sale of machine tools, microelectronics and nitrocellulose, declaring that “Russia would struggle to sustain its assault on Ukraine without China’s support.” After accusing China of “supporting the greatest threat to European security since the end of the Cold War,” Blinken added:
In our discussions today, I made clear that if China does not address this problem, we will.
While he did not spell out the details, the Biden administration has made clear that it is considering a new round of punitive sanctions targeting Chinese banks that facilitate trade with Russia. Blinken’s comments stand reality on its head. While Russia’s invasion of Ukraine was based on the reactionary interests of the Russian oligarchy, the US deliberately goaded Moscow into reacting by seeking to incorporate Ukraine into its NATO military alliance. Washington provoked the war with the aim of destabilising and breaking up the Russian Federation in preparation for conflict with China, which US imperialism regards as the chief threat to its global domination. Even as it is funnelling another $61b in military aid to Ukraine and backing Israel’s genocidal war in Gaza, the Biden administration is deliberately heightening tensions with China over Taiwan by undermining the One China policy on which US-China relations have been based since the 1970s. In establishing diplomatic relations with Beijing in 1979, the US de facto recognised Beijing as the sole legitimate government of all China, including Taiwan. The US cut diplomatic ties with Taipei and withdrew American military personnel.
Under the Trump and now Biden administrations, the US has thrown the process into reverse—ending longstanding protocols limiting official contact, boosting military sales and stationing US troops on Taiwan. As well as providing military aid to Ukraine, the legislation signed into law by Biden last week for the first time provided military aid to Taiwan to the tune of $8b. While Blinken repeats the mantra that the US upholds the One China policy, Washington is strengthening ties with Taipei and encouraging a formal declaration of independence, knowing full well that China has little choice but to take military action to protect what it regards as its core interests. Chinese President Xi appealed to Blinken for a defusing of tensions, saying that the two countries “should be partners rather than rivals” and calling for “mutual respect, peaceful coexistence and win-win cooperation.” Beijing, however, is well aware of the dangers posed by Washington’s provocative actions. Foreign Minister Wang said the US and China could “keep to the right direction of moving forward with stability or return to a downward spiral” and even “slide into confrontation.” Wang warned that the US should not overstep China’s “red lines.” He told Blinken:
China’s legitimate development rights have been unreasonably suppressed, and our core interests are facing challenges.
By “core interests,” Wang is referring to Taiwan in particular, about which there was no agreement, while the suppression of “legitimate development rights” is a reference to the raft of punitive US trade measures against China. Even as Washington demands Beijing assist in strangling Russian industries, the US has imposed tariffs on a broad range of Chinese goods, as well as bans on the export of the most advanced computer chips and chip-making equipment to China. The US is deliberately seeking to prevent Chinese hi-tech industries from developing as rivals to their American counterparts and more broadly to undermine the Chinese economy. Following on from US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen’s visit to China earlier this month, Blinken repeated accusations of “unfair trade” and “dumping” items such as electric vehicles and solar panels onto the US market, allegedly that it is costing “American jobs.” Behind the demand for a supposed level playing field will undoubtedly be a new round of punitive trade measures against China, particularly as Biden is facing re-election this year.
Areas of agreement during Blinken’s visit were minor: China had taken steps to limit the sale of chemical precursors to the dangerous opioid Fentanyl, and to discuss managing Artificial Intelligence, and had restarted military-to-military talks with the US. By contrast, the US continued to stoke major disagreements that only ensure that the “downward spiral” toward war continues. Blinken again accused China of “dangerous actions in the South China Sea,” particularly against the Philippines over the contested Second Thomas Shoal. As the Philippine administration of President Ferdinand Marcos Jnr has turned to Washington, the US has seized the opportunity to expand its military bases in the Philippines and stage provocative joint military exercises in the South China Sea, including near the Second Thomas Shoal. Blinken repeated that US support for the Philippines under their military alliance was “ironclad,” meaning that the US would back the Philippines militarily in any conflict with China in the South China Sea.
Blinken also waved the tattered flag of America as the champion of democracy, raising concerns about “human rights” within China, in Hong Kong, Xinjiang and Tibet. This is the banner under which US imperialism has waged its illegal wars in the Middle East, North Africa and Central Asia in which millions have died. The accusation against China is all the more grotesque as the US is backing to the hilt, diplomatically, financially and militarily, Israel’s war of annihilation against Palestinians in Gaza that has already cost more than 30k lives. Blinken’s visit, like that of Yellen earlier this month, was an exercise in confrontation, provocation and threats aimed at bullying China into making concessions even as the US escalates its military preparations to open up a third front in the Indo-Pacific in the emerging global conflict underway in Europe and the Middle East.
White House correspondents’ dinner celebrates “free press” amid propaganda in support of war, genocide and repression
Patrick Martin, WSWS, Apr 29 2024
The White House Correspondents’ Association (WHCA) dinner Saturday night was a disgusting display of subservience by the corporate media to the administration of President Joe Biden. It sought to cover up the blood-drenched role of this government, which is a full partner in the Israeli genocide in Gaza and is spearheading the US-NATO war against Russia in Ukraine, bringing the world ever closer to a nuclear Third World War. Some 2.6k people, including print and broadcast journalists, their corporate bosses and their invited guests from Washington and Hollywood rubbed shoulders at the affair, where the head table included President Joe Biden, Vice President Kamala Harris and their spouses. The event was the centerpiece of several days of festivities, including parties and receptions thrown by corporate trade groups and lobbyists, embassies and other well-heeled participants in influence-peddling in the US capital.
The WHCA banquet is an annual event at which the corporate media throws an expensive bash in honor of itself, celebrating its close ties to the administration in power and to the political establishment as a whole, while mouthing occasional hosannas to press freedom, although always in a way that aligns with US foreign policy. Thus there was much concern expressed for WSJ reporter Evan Gershkovich, held for more than a year in a Russian prison, and for war correspondent Austin Tice, detained in Syria more than 12 years ago. But no one mentioned the name of the most celebrated journalist currently held in prison, Julian Assange, the founder of WikiLeaks. This is all the more significant since the dinner’s main honoree, President Biden, is personally responsible for Assange’s imprisonment. Assange has been held in Britain’s maximum security Belmarsh prison for more than four years in response to a US government demand to extradite him for trial in the US on charges under the Espionage Act, which could bring a sentence of up to 175 years in prison.
While the dinner’s emcee, WHCA president and NBC correspondent Kelly O’Donnell, did refer to the journalists killed in Gaza, she gave the number as nearly 100, although the actual figure is at least 175. She did not name the government and military responsible for those deaths, namely, the Netanyahu regime in Israel and the IOF. Nor did she indicate that the man who supplied the weapons used to kill those journalists was sitting only a few feet to her right on the platform. This was no oversight. The genocide in Gaza, which has taken the lives of some 40k Palestinians, including targeted killings of doctors, university professors, teachers, poets, journalists and others who play an indispensable role in modern culture, overshadowed the proceedings. As the participants alighted from their limousines and taxis and entered the Washington Hilton, they had to pass through hundreds of anti-genocide protesters, who denounced the US media for its cover-up of the crimes of Israel and shouted “Shame on you!” At one point, the crowd chanted:
Western media, we see you and all the horrors that you hide.
But there was no reference during the proceedings to the protesters outside, or to the wider protests in dozens of US cities and on scores of college campuses, as demonstrators, mainly students and other young people, defy mass arrests and expulsions to denounce the genocide in Gaza and demand an end to official support for the fascist Israeli regime. NPR reported a letter sent by “more than two dozen journalists in Gaza” calling for a boycott of the WHCA dinner. The letter read:
The toll exacted on us for merely fulfilling our journalistic duties is staggering. We are subjected to detentions, interrogations and torture by the Israeli military, all for the “crime” of journalistic integrity.
The letter was ignored by the journalists who flocked to the Washington Hilton. While the Palestinians of Gaza, including journalists, face mass starvation, the WHCA attendees enjoyed appetizers such as “Jicama, Mango, Pepitas & Baby Oak Salad,” with a “bread presentation” of four kinds of rolls plus flatbread. This was followed by entrées: “Smoked Paprika Rubbed Filet, Foraged Wild Mushroom Ragout, Pancetta & Gala Apple Demi, Seared Alaskan Halibut, Mascarpone Cheese Stone Grits, Jumbo Peeled Asparagus & Roasted Baby Bell Pepper,” according to one account. That and “assorted desserts” were washed down with Chardonnay and Cabernet Sauvignon wines from West Coast vineyards. The dinner gave way to the presentation of a series of awards. Honors for reporting under deadline pressure, for both print and broadcast media, went to reporters who covered Biden’s trip to Israel after the Oct 7 Hamas attack. There was no mention of the actual circumstances of that visit. Biden rushed to Jerusalem to give the government of Netanyahu and his fellow fascists a blank check for the war they had launched against the population of Gaza, which had already killed many thousands. When Biden finally took the podium, his remarks were predictable. He devoted a few minutes to scripted jokes about his age and Trump’s legal woes, followed by a ten-minute paean to the “free press” as his ally in the defense of democracy against the danger of Donald Trump. He paid tribute to the “patriotism and heroism” of the media:
when you report truth over lies. That’s why I want to close the night with my genuine thanks for the free press.
This was said to an audience that has changed its narrative of the campus demonstrations against genocide in Gaza, now invariably describing them as “antisemitic,” a slur promoted by the Biden administration and congressional reactionaries in both parties. He continued:
You literally risk your lives doing your job. Some of your colleagues have given their lives. Many have suffered grievous injuries. Other reporters have lost their freedom. Journalism’s clearly not a crime, not here, not there, not anywhere in the world.
But for Julian Assange and other whistleblowers against the crimes of the CIA and American imperialism, and for the courageous reporters documenting the crimes of the state of Israel in Gaza and on the West Bank, this assurance does not hold. What they have done and are doing is a crime, according to imperialist warmongers like Biden and Netanyahu. Moreover, it is one punishable by death. Biden was followed by an interminable stretch of flat jokes and limp insults from Colin Jost of Saturday Night Live, the designated “entertainment” for the event. Jost assiduously avoided the US/Israeli mass murder in Gaza, the government/media slander of anti-genocide protesters as “antisemites,” and the police crackdown on college campuses in violation of freedom of speech and political expression. He closed with a fervent tribute to Biden, declaring that his grandfather, a longtime firefighter who recently died, had voted for Biden in 2020 “because you’re a decent man.” With a straight face, Jost continued:
He voted for decency. And decency is why we’re all here tonight. Decency is how we’re all able to be here tonight. Decency is how we can make jokes about each other, and none of us goes to prison afterwards.
It is difficult to determine the exact combination of willful ignorance and abject prostration before the capitalist state that produces such statements. But all the participants in this degrading affair are forever besmirched by it. In the face of a world-historic crime, they praise and fawn over its enabler and co-conspirator. In covering up the genocide in Gaza, and the US role in it, the corporate media acts as an accomplice. It plays the role not of an independent “Fourth Estate,” speaking “truth to power,” as self-satisfied pundits like to claim. Rather, it acts as a courtier, flattering the White House criminals as they prepare even bloodier crimes, including the final assault on Rafah and the introduction of US and NATO combat troops to fight Russia in Ukraine. This reality underscores the necessity to develop and support the socialist alternative to the corporate media. The WSWS tells the truth to the working class and to the world’s population as a whole: That the only progressive road forward is the revolutionary one. The working class must take power, put an end to capitalist barbarism and war, and establish a socialist society on a world scale, based on peace, democracy and social equality.
Former Japanese prime minister meets with Trump in New York
Ben McGrath, WSWS, Apr 29 2024
Former US President Donald Trump recently met with the vice president of Japan’s ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) Taro Aso in New York. The pair discussed the influence a new Trump administration would have on Japan should he win reelection as president this November. The meeting reflects concerns within the Japanese ruling class that Trump’s unpredictable nature will, above all, negatively impact the war drive against China that Washington and Tokyo are currently conducting. The pair met for approximately an hour on Apr 23 at Trump Tower in Manhattan. According to Trump’s camp, the two discussed the “enduring importance of the US-Japan alliance to both countries’ physical and economic security.” This included potential future cooperation over China and North Korea as well as the overall situation in the Indo-Pacific region where Washington has been building a system of alliances in preparation for conflict with Beijing. The meeting was part of the ongoing shadow diplomacy Trump has been conducting in recent weeks, given the unpopularity of the Biden administration and the potential for Trump to win reelection. Trump has also held discussions with officials from other countries, including UK Foreign Secretary David Cameron, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban and Polish President Andrzej Duda.
Prior to their talks, Trump praised Aso, saying it was “a great honor to have him” while also hailing his own relationship with former Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, whom he called “our dear friend.” Abe, who was assassinated in Jul 2022, played a leading role in remilitarizing Japan while also being a far right-wing nationalist and anti-China hawk. Trump reportedly asked Aso how current Prime Minister Fumio Kishida differs from Abe, to which Aso explained that Kishida had increased military spending from what it had been under Abe as well as sped up the procurement of military weaponry, which met with Trump’s approval. Under Kishida, Tokyo announced in Dec 2022 that it would carry out a de facto doubling of military spending over a five-year period. Various figures within the Japanese government, including Foreign Minister Yoko Kamikawa, claimed that Aso’s meeting with Trump was little more than “a personal activity” carried out by a member of the National Diet without Tokyo’s involvement. Such statements cannot be taken at face value.
Aso is a significant figure in Japanese politics and no run-of-the-mill lawmaker. In addition to being the current vice president of the LDP, he is a former prime minister. He has also served in several cabinets, including as deputy prime minister and finance minister under Abe, with whom he shared his anti-China and far-right perspective. Aso has carried out a number of provocative trips in the Indo-Pacific region as well. Last August, he met with Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen in Taipei in a challenge to the One China policy, which states Taiwan is a part of China. Tokyo, which formally recognizes this policy by having no formal diplomatic relations with Taipei, has been at the forefront of US-led efforts to goad Beijing into a war over the island. In addition, Aso gave a speech in Australia in November calling on Japan to be allowed into the anti-China AUKUS alliance, something which is now being realized following Kishida’s trip to Washington earlier in April. Japan is set to join Pillar II of the alliance, which deals with military technology development.
The Japanese government is now seeking to gain an understanding of where Trump stands, given his tendency to eschew traditional alliances during his first term in office. This includes talks with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un in a bid to prise the country away from its alliance with China. The talks only took place after Trump threatened to militarily annihilate North Korea. Tokyo felt sidelined and is therefore concerned that Trump’s return to the White House could upend the last few years of carefully prepared plans for war against China. In an indication of how far advanced these are, during Kishida’s recent summit with Biden in Washington, the two agreed to the most significant revision of the US-Japan military alliance since 1960. Japan and the US have also formed what are de facto trilateral military alliances with South Korea and the Philippines respectively. The Japanese ruling class has also used the war drive and manufactured claims of Chinese “aggression” to justify remilitarization and the tearing up of Article 9 of Japan’s constitution, which prohibits Japan from fielding a military. This has been done under the umbrella of the US alliance in the name of so-called “collective self-defense.” Kishida has sought to reassure the Japanese ruling class that nothing would change should Trump win reelection, stating recently:
There is a shared understanding among Democrats and Republicans alike of the importance of the Japan-US alliance, and the outcome of the election will not affect bilateral relations.
However, it is clear that Japan does not want to be left in the lurch. Wanting to ensure that its own imperialist ambitions in the region are met, separate from Washington’s, Kishida has in recent months held out the possibility of a summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un. Tokyo did not initially inform Washington of the behind-the-scenes talks with Pyongyang earlier this year. Tokyo is also concerned that Trump could impose protectionist measures on Japan that would harm its already struggling economy. Shortly before his meeting with Aso, Trump railed against Biden for supposedly allowing the US dollar’s value to grow at the expense of exports to countries like Japan. The value of Japan’s yen is currently at a 34-year low against the US currency, or more than 155 yen to the dollar. Trump wrote on his Truth Social account:
When I was President, I spent a good deal of time telling Japan and China, in particular, you can’t do that. I put limits on both, and if they violated those limits, there was hell to pay.
He added that this “is a disaster for our manufacturers and others” and that US businesses would be “unable to compete and will be forced to either lose lots of business” or move overseas. Trump’s return to the White House therefore would only exacerbate the current tensions and instability in the Indo-Pacific region, including among allies like Japan, which are no doubt making contingency plans behind the scenes.
200k march in London against genocide in Gaza but offered no perspective by organisers
Robert Stevens, WSWS, Apr 28 2024
Around 200k people marched for Palestine in London on Saturday for the 12th national demonstration. Protesters assembled in Parliament Square and proceeded up Whitehall, past Downing Street and through central London to a rally in Hyde Park. Protesters were enthused and encouraged by the student demonstrations and occupations in the US that have spread globally. When references were made from the platform to the student protests around the world, including one at the UK’s Warwick University, the crowd applauded and cheered.
Those attending were above all determined to register their opposition to advanced plans for an assault on Rafah, the location of 1.2 million refugees from the north of Gaza.
The Socialist Worker published the results of a survey it carries out at the national demonstrations, extrapolating that thousands of newer forces galvanised by the horrors of the imperialist backed genocide are attending. It reported:
16k people were on their first national march on Saturday. And there is also a large core of very regular protesters who have been part of the marches from the start and stuck with them. Nearly a third said they have been on all the demos or all but one.
This determination to fight among millions contrasts with the political neutering of the mass movement by the leaders of the protests in the Stop the War Coalition (STWC) and the Palestine Solidarity Campaign (PSC). To the extent that any demands are put forward from the platform other than to keep demonstrating on the streets, it is that everyone rely on the trade unions to lead the fight against the opposition to genocide and that the dwindling number of Labour lefts convince the Labour Party to break its alliance with Washington and Jerusalem and support a permanent ceasefire. The only current MP from the party who spoke at Saturday’s protest was Apsana Begum. Yet again, Begum was studious in refusing to mention party leader Sir Keir Starmer’s support for the genocide. Jeremy Corbyn, the former party leader expelled from the parliamentary party by Starmer over four years ago, made a speech almost bereft of politics. The parson of the official anti-war movement, who can criticise no-one, Corbyn stated:
Our movement has come about from all shades of opinion, and all parts of this countries and all other countries. We’re a movement for global peace and global justice in opposition to the arms trade and the cynical decisions that are costing the lives of tens of thousands of Palestinians.
A feature of the coverage of the rally by the Stop the War Coalition was its claims that the trade unions are now moving into struggle. Posts on its X account on Saturday included the claim of a “Massive turnout on today’s trade union bloc ahead of #MayDay4Palestine on Wednesday.”
Another, from Sean Vernell, a leading Socialist Workers Party member and high-up bureaucrat in the University and College Union, reposted by the STWC, read:
The movement for a free Palestine continues to grow as does the support from within the trade union movement. Next step May 1st workplace day of action: Solidarity with Palestine – Defend the right to strike and protest.
No such mass movement organised by the unions exists. The “trade union bloc” on the last few marches has consisted of members of branches where the pseudo-left have some influence, with a few banners brought along. There were no national banners of the two largest unions in Britain (Unison and Unite) on the protest, only one representing the London and Eastern region of Unite. Instead of a Unite national banner, at the head of the trade union bloc was a “Unite Members Say Stop the War” banner. This was necessary because Unite General Secretary Sharon Graham refuses to support the protests. Graham wrote to union officials earlier this month opposing groups involved in attempts to disrupt arms supplies from the UK to Israel and stating that Unite would have nothing to do with anything threatening to “undermine the defence industry or demand the disbandment of NATO and AUKUS.” Far from the unions rallying their 5 million-plus membership, the Trades Union Congress does not back the marches, with leader Paul Nowak not appearing at a single protest. No national trade union leader spoke at this week’s demonstration.
The claim that the unions were raring to go was even punctured from the platform by Libby Nolan, President of Unison, who said:
This is a trade union moment that the trade unions should be rising to. This a moment for our unions to pressure our government and incoming shadow government to do something to call for a ceasefire now.
Stating that it was nearly three months since the International Court of Justice “found it plausible” that Israel had committed genocide, she urged “the trade union movement must put more pressure on, it must do more.” That the unions are organising nothing is tacitly acknowledged in the call by the Stop the War Coalition for action on May 1, which is centred on individual workers themselves organising events. No industrial action is being taken by any union in defence of the Palestinians, with STWC listing just eight events nationally, including four in the capital. The London events are: a “Hammersmith and Fulham Council Unison Workplace Day of Action for Palestine @ 1-2pm”; a “lunchtime walkout at St. George’s Hospital, Tooting”; a rally to be confirmed, and held after work at 5pm at Guy’s Campus, King’s College London, and another 5pm rally at King’s College Hospital. The promotion for the May 1 Day of Action by the STWC makes no criticism whatsoever of the union bureaucracy, urging only that workers “Gauge what action best fits your circumstances,” including a possible 30-minute stoppage outside the workplace, a lunchtime gathering, concluding:
If you don’t work in an industry that has lunch-breaks as such, find out when most are free after work…
Concluding the rally was PSC leader Ben Jamal, who made reference to the first demonstration in London in support of the Palestinians, also held in Hyde Park, in 1921. He said that the movement was a success because it was “bringing the people with us and piling the pressure on the political establishment.” Many of those demonstrating do so despite, not because of, the rotten politics of the STWC leadership. They also know that the central demand to “Stop Arming Israel” can only be successful if directed to workers in the arms industry, haulage, the ports and airports. However, the pseudo-left and Stalinist groups in the STWC sabotage such a struggle with their insistence that the trade unions and their corrupt, pro capitalist, pro-war leaders be allowed to determine what happens without challenge. All workers and youth opposed to genocide and the many students now returning to campus must take forward a struggle independently from and against the trade union bureaucracy, and all those appealing to the “political establishment.” Those who understand the urgent need for a political turn to the working class should contact and join the Socialist Equality Party and International Youth and Students for Social Equality. To understand the political perspective on which a new mass socialist anti-war movement must be based, register to attend the May 4 online May Day rally of the International Committee of the Fourth International.
Niqnaq 