Australian Marxist Review • AMR #73 • September 2022

The first half of the year 2022 has seen a series of major developments in the international system, most particularly in terms of the outbreak of war in the Ukraine and a further hardening of tensions between the declining United States of America and a rejuvenated People’s Republic of China.

This dialogue between the members of the AMR editorial board was prompted by the significant and rapid changes taking place in the international system. Readers may remember that back in the 1990s, Western pundits proclaimed the “end of history.”

Britain’s communists have made clear our opposition to the new stage of militarisation in the Asia-Pacific region and, above all, British imperialism’s role within this campaign, directed against the People’s Republic of China.

I want to address the topic with three points: 1) what is the Biden administration’s China policy after one year in office? 2) How effective is that policy? 3) The Taiwan issue.

This contribution will deal with a topic that has been a feature in the “empire of lies” promoted by the small number of Western countries in the world in the last few years: Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region in the People’s Republic of China. I will provide a Marxist framework, relying on Chinese Marxist analysis, of the situation in Xinjiang.

The article “Australian Imperialism,” originally published in June of 1979 in the AMR, is being reprinted to make readers of the AMR aware of previous thinking on the question of Imperialism and how it relates to Australia in the Socialist Party of Australia (SPA), the present-day Communist Party of Australia (CPA). This article was written with its immediate context in mind by its author. In the 43 years since it was written there have been significant changes. It requires explanation to readers for the points it makes to be appreciated today.

The discourse on neoliberalism and its impact on Third World economies and societies has been well studied, but until recently little attention has been given to neoliberalism’s claims of human rights, which are argued to be necessary for free market economies to function efficiently.