By Steve Halpern
The other day, I viewed two stories on the front page of the Philadelphia Inquirer about the horrendous murders of eight people, including six Asian women in Atlanta, Georgia. In reading this story, I learned that the city of Atlanta is located in Cherokee Country. The Cherokee were one of the first nations of Georgia. The government forced the Cherokee to march to the Indian Territory in what is now the state of Oklahoma. Thousands died in that forced march.
Then, I looked on page two of the Inquirer. There was a story about President Biden’s answer to a question about Vladimir Putin. Does he think Putin is a murderer? Biden answered, “I do.”
Clearly, Vladimir Putin is one of the many ruthless dictators in the world. His policies reflect a total betrayal of the goals of the Russian Revolution. However, Putin responded to Biden by reminding him of the atomic bombing of Japan in World War II, the history of slavery and the slaughtering of Native Americans.
White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki responded to those comments. “The President believes that one of the greatest attributes of the United States is our honest self-reflection, and our constant striving for progress, and there’s always more work to do.”
Well, across the street from the White House is a statue of former President Andrew Jackson. A portrait of Jackson is on the twenty-dollar bill. During his presidency, the Supreme Court ruled that the Cherokee had a right to live in their homeland in Georgia. President Jackson responded, that if the Supreme Court wanted that decision to be enforced, they would have to enforce it themselves.
The government then gave the land of the Cherokee to slave owners. After the Civil War, the land of the Cherokee in Oklahoma was given to settlers free of charge. So, I have to question the statement by the President Biden that he is interested in an, “honest self-reflection.”
Chinese immigration
Chinese people began to immigrate to this country during the gold rush in the 1800s. At that time, China was ruled by the Manchu dynasty. The United States had been investing in China for many years. Jacob Astor owned much of Manhattan island. He traded furs to China, and also profited from the opium trade.
Warren Delano Jr. was the grandfather of Franklyn Delano Roosevelt. Warren Delano also profited from the opium trade in China, in flagrant violation of Chinese law. In those days, Britain was the primary imperialist power in China. The United States was one of the other powers that profited from Manchu Rule.
China was thrown into an economic crisis because of its defeat in the Opium Wars. The majority Han nationality rebelled against the Manchu royal family in the Taiping Rebellion. The imperialists supported the Manchus, and the Taiping rebellion was defeated at the cost of millions of lives. This was one of the reasons why people from southern China came to the United States, as well as many other nations.
Gold had been discovered in California and people came from all over the world looking for a chance to make a fortune. The Chinese mined some of the less lucrative areas, but were persistent in making those areas productive.
At that time, the state government of California singled out the Chinese for a repressive tax. Much of the revenue of California came from this tax on the Chinese workers.
At that time, the diet in this country consisted largely of meat and potatoes. Chinese workers organized regular shipments of food from their homeland. This Chinese connection greatly diversified the diet in this country.
In the 1800s health care in this country was nothing like it is today. Doctors used concoctions that might or might not be effective. A cut on a leg or arm might mean amputation because there was no effective way of preventing gangrene.
The Chinese have a history of thousands of years of medical research. They studied the effects of how various plants could remedy all kinds of illnesses and injuries. Even today, Chinese acupuncture is used in prominent hospitals. So, Chinese doctors became respected in this country for their effective treatment of patients in the 19th century.
Then, there was the arduous task of building the transcontinental railroad. Chinese railroad workers toiled under horrendous conditions to build the railroad that transformed the economy of this country. They used primitive implements to blast through granite mountains. They worked under snow drifts, in the frigid cold, and in the heat of the summer. Even today, historians are baffled by some of the techniques the Chinese used to blast through those mountains.
However, after the Chinese railroad workers carried out this heroic project, the government drafted the Chinese Exclusion Act. This law prohibited Chinese people from immigrating to this country for decades. Just as there were racist and murderous raids of Black communities, there were also murderous raids of Chinese communities.
The Japanese internment camps
President Franklyn Delano Roosevelt had two documents on his desk during the Second World War. According to the Versailles Treaty adopted after the First World War, Germany was no longer allowed to import armaments. Roosevelt had conclusive evidence that there were corporations in this country that were exporting armaments to Germany. Roosevelt did nothing to punish those corporations.
At that same time, there were people in the government who suspected Japanese citizens of this country of spying for Japan. So, there was a ten-year surveillance program of Japanese that was in full violation of the Constitution. The conclusion of this surveillance program was that the Japanese were in no way a threat to the security of this country. Roosevelt responded to this report by arresting 110,000 Japanese and sending them to internment camps. This again was in flagrant violation of the 14th Amendment to the Constitution that is supposed to guarantee “equal protection under the law.”
In the year 2013 the United States government issued an apology to Japanese families for the internment camps. The government also gave out checks of $20,000 in compensation for the years Japanese spent in those concentration camps.
There has never been compensation for the 400 treaties the government violated with respect to Native Americans. There has never been compensation for the years of slavery, Jim Crow segregation, or the current institutionalized discrimination against African Americans. There has never been an apology or compensation for the wars against the people of Korea and Vietnam. Yet President Biden argues that he has an “honest self-reflection” of the history of this country.
China
There has been an interesting development that unfolded during the last forty years. After the Second World War, the United States made alliances with nations in Europe and Asia in an effort to stop the advance of the Soviet Union and China.
In Europe they called this the North Atlantic Treaty Alliance or NATO. In Asia alliances were made with Japan, South Korea, Hong Kong, Taiwan, and Singapore. In Asia, U.S. corporations also aided in the industrialization of their allies.
However, as the economist Adam Smith argued, capitalism is ruled by an “invisible hand.” Capitalists bow to the drive to move capital to places where they can maximize profits. So, the so-called “Asian Tigers” that had received significant aid from the United States, began investing in China. Why were those massive investments made in China, the same nation the United States government had been determined to isolate?
We see from history that capitalists invest in nations where there are low wages and governments that ruthlessly repress all genuine efforts at reform. We see how the U.S. government worked to overthrow the reform governments of Mohammed Mossadegh, in Iran, Patrice Lumumba, in the Congo, Salvador Allende in Chile, and Jean-Bertrand Aristide in Haiti.
While the Chinese Revolution was in many ways an anti-capitalist revolution, the government ruled by Mao Zedong became a repressive disaster. The so-called Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution were clear examples of the disastrous consequences of Mao’s rule.
After Mao’s rule, Deng Xiaoping became the new leader of the Chinese government and opened up China to capitalist investment. Deng offered a repressive government as well as a working class that would grow to hundreds of millions.
So, while capitalists grew wealthy because of their investments in China, most of the Chinese population had a significant improvement in their standard of living. This improved standard of living was paid for with horrendous working conditions at minimal wages.
However, we also see in numerous examples around the world that when the working class is faced with horrendous conditions, there has also been determined resistance. During the past three years there have been about 20,000 labor strikes in China every year. There have been massive demonstrations in Hong Kong protesting the dictatorial rule of Beijing.
Today, China is on a course to become the largest economy in the world. Just as the so-called “invisible hand” of capitalism attracted investment in China, now China has investments all over the world.
In the 19th century the U.S. government used Chinese workers to build the railroads. Then, this same government adopted the Chinese Exclusion Act.
Today, China is making investments all over the world with their “Belt and Road” initiative. As an emerging capitalist center, the Chinese power brokers are funding railroads and communication projects throughout the globe.
Chinese Cubans
Cuba is one of the nations that is a part of the Chinese diaspora. Thousands of Chinese immigrants supported the Cuban war of independence in the late 19th century. Many Chinese Cubans also supported the 1959 Cuban Revolution.
Unlike the experience of the Chinese people in the rest of the diaspora, the experience of the Chinese Cubans is unique. In China, Chinese workers are routinely exploited because of corporate profit. This is also the experience of Chinese workers in the rest of the world. Many Chinese people who have prominent positions, also have also adopted to the corporate drive for profit.
While Cuba doesn’t have the resources of other countries, the government makes the needs of the people the top priority. So, in this environment Chinese Cubans have become genuine leaders on the island. Because of this reality, racist discrimination against Chinese Cubans is no longer the reality of life in Cuba.
Conclusion
I believe there is clear conclusion that we can draw from this largely swarded history. This was summarized by the revolutionary leader Vladimir Ilyich Lenin when he argued that the capitalist state is a “special repressive force.” Malcolm X spoke about the ruthless violence against African Americans in all of the United States when he argued, “Stop talking about the South. If you’re south of Canada, you’re in the South.”
Yesterday, I attended a demonstration in solidarity with Amazon workers in Bessemer, Alabama. This will be one of many demonstrations all over the country. My opinion is that the future of this country is with those Amazon workers who are voting to be represented by a union. My opinion is that the rights of these workers are more important than the profit drive of Jeffrey Bezos who has assets of about $200 billion.
The fight against discrimination and violence against Asians who live in this country is a central component to the liberation of the entire working class. Growing numbers of workers are beginning to see this indisputable reality.
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