The spread of the coronavirus across China is starting to have serious political repercussions for the regime. Social tensions are heightening, the economy is stalling, and the stability of the system is under threat.
The Coronavirus outbreak in China has caused widespread fear across the country. A perfect storm of bureaucratic blunders and the drive for profit has resulted in a growing crisis, heightening social tensions in China.
The big tech monopoly has been found using student “interns” in its factories, forcing them to work in brutally exploitative conditions. But this is not just a case of one rotten capitalist apple.
At the recent 19th Congress of the Chinese Communist Party, President Xi Jinping took the opportunity to let the world know that China is a “mighty force” soon to reclaim its rightful position on the world stage. Behind all the bluster, however, one could detect an unease at the prospect of growing internal instability within China, which flows from the impending crisis of capitalism.
Less than a quarter of an hour after opening, the Chinese stock market was closed by an automatic shutdown. This “circuit-breaker” mechanism was imposed by the government only five months ago after equally dramatic losses. This reveals how nervous the Chinese government is of the underlying economic instability.
To add to the turmoil of Greece and the Euro Crisis, there is now the sudden collapse of the Chinese stock market, which has been so vast that even the mighty Chinese government is incapable of controlling it. The world economy is tottering, and these latest events in China are yet another sign of the diseased economic system that is capitalism.
Newly released figures show that the Chinese economy in 2014 experienced its lowest economic growth since 1990. Such figures illustrate the beginning of the end for China’s ‘miraculous’ boom, as the reality of capitalist crisis is seeping through to the world’s largest exporting economy.
Despite all the Keynesian experiments and the monetary stimulus, China has failed to escape the global economic crisis. Chinese workers are experiencing the economic slowdown in terms of the closures of factories and non-payment of wages. The result has been a surge in the number of strikes and the organisation of the working class in China.
Twenty-five years ago, on 4th June 1989, the Tian’anmen square movement was brutally smashed by the rifles and tanks of the Chinese troops. It was a heroic movement of the Chinese people in a struggle against the bureaucracy. Class struggle is again on the rise in China today; but unlike the movement of 1989, the workers and students in China today are a qualitatively and quantitatively more powerful and revolutionary force.
Luxury goods brands have posted falls both in growth and profits in the recent period, down from record highs. That the sales of luxuries have been booming in a period of global recession for the past few years appears remarkable in itself. This contradictory phenomenon, and its more recent decline, gives an insight into one aspect of the capitalist crisis.
Six months into China’s new Politburo Standing Committee under Xi Jinping’s Presidency, it has become abundantly clear that the next ten years under his rule will not resemble the relative social stability and rapid growth of the past ten years. Xi Jinping and the Chinese Communist Party stand at a crossroads, facing that classic dilemma of all ruling classes – either to open up to democratic reform or clamp down on growing dissent. Daniel Morley and Congyue Dai analyse the current economic, political, and social tensions in Chinese society.
At the moment, the Chinese capitalist
class, on the whole, is happy to go along with the status quo. They see
no alternative, and are terrified of lifting the lid on the anger of the
working class, therefore they seek stability at all costs.