(The following article is from the April 1-15, 2008 issue of People's Voice, Canada's leading communist newspaper. Articles can be reprinted free if the source is credited. Subscription rates in Canada: $25/year, or $12 low income rate; for U.S. readers - $25 US per year; other overseas readers - $25 US or $35 CDN per year. Send to: People's Voice, c/o PV Business Manager, 133 Herkimer St. Unit 502, Hamilton, ON, L8P 2H3).

People's Voice Editorial

Canada has joined other NATO states in recognizing Kosovo independence, and now a campaign has begun to boycott the Beijing Olympics around the Tibet issue.

     Both cases involve a long history of imperialist efforts to fan separatist forces, with the aim of destabilizing and breaking up countries which are reluctant to submit to western dictates. Similar strategies have been attempted in Nicaragua and South Africa, and can be seen today in Venezuela and Bolivia, among others, often using regional or tribal elites to raise the cry of independence for their own narrow interests. The CIA's intervention in China during the late 1950s backed the Dalai Lama's brutal feudal clique. The point is that some "national liberation movements" are tools of imperialist divide and rule tactics.

     Given the Canadian state's stubborn refusal to accept the right of self-determination for Aboriginal peoples and Quebec, this country should certainly avoid whipping up anti-China sentiments. The underlying motive for such efforts has nothing to do with popular liberation; in fact, many of the most outspoken anti-China voices reject the legitimate demands of Aboriginal peoples and Quebec within Canada. The real goal is to isolate China, which right-wing sections of big capital view as a potential geopolitical rival to the US Empire.

     The economic base of the sabre-rattlers is the U.S. military-industrial complex, represented in the White House by the Bush Republicans and in Canada by the Harper Tories. These forces constantly encourage the most jingoistic and chauvinist views, creating new "enemies" and new reasons to step up profitable military production in preparation for the next war.

     The western imperialist powers which committed genocide against indigenous peoples and which occupy Iraq and Afghanistan and which deny self-determination for the Palestinians have no right to lecture the peoples of China about human rights and democracy. Rather than encouraging the tragic violence in Lhasa, the Harper government should respect demands for social justice and national self-determination in our own country.