Call for a new campaign: workers’ solidarity against CCP repression

The UK-based Labour Movement Solidarity with Hong Kong (LMSWHK) campaign proposes this draft platform for a new campaign – one in solidarity with the oppressed people and workers of China, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Tibet & the Uyghur Region.

The LMSWHK thinks this is important for Hong Kong’s democratic and workers’ struggles as well as those of workers and oppressed people across the region. This is explained in our statement. The explosion of dissent across China, that originated in resistance and protest against the abuse of Foxconn workers in Zhengzhou’s “iPhone City” and the murderous neglect of Uyghurs in Urumchi, reminds us of the struggles, and the enormous potential power, of China’s workers and oppressed people.

We plan to organise an inaugural conference of the new campaign along with other sponsors in late March/ early April – most likely in London. The details of the inaugural conference will be decided at a planning meeting open to all sponsors to be held on Feb 26. [Update: the inaugural conference is now planned for this summer in London. Planning meetings will continue in the meantime for all sponsors to join – we will send details to those who sign up.]

We ask other campaigns, political and workers’ organisations to co-sponsor such a campaign.

Please use the form below to notify us of your organisation’s support. We will publish a list of sponsoring organisations. Individuals can also use the form to sign up for updates and information. Details of individuals will NOT be published, nor shared with other organisations, nor used for any purpose other than organising this campaign. Alternatively, you can email contact details to WorkersSolidarityAgainstCCP@protonmail.com.

If outside the UK and in agreement with this proposed campaign, please do get in touch via this form or our email. Our priorities are starting a campaign in the UK but it would be useful for us to keep in touch and collaborate.

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We call for others to join us in creating a common labour movement campaign, to unite wherever we can in organising active solidarity for the struggles of workers and oppressed and marginalised people in China for liberation, democracy and equality. The campaign’s programme and activities should be discussed and decided by all participants. We suggest the following as a starting point.

The campaign should support struggles:

• For democratic and workers’ rights across China and its occupied territories: the rights to free speech, to organise and protest, to form opposition parties to the state and the CCP, to organise independent unions and for the right to strike, to practise any religion or none.
• For social justice and economic democracy for the Chinese, Hong Kong, Uyghur, Tibetan and Taiwanese people. 
• For equality and liberation for women, LGBT people, disabled people, and racialised minorities, and the abolition of the hukou system that discriminates against working-class migrants.
• For freedom from repression, and the democratic right to self-determination, for Tibet, the Uyghurs, and Hong Kong.
• For environmental protections, including just transition to halt climate change.
• Against exploitation, oppression and environmental degradation in other countries affected by China’s economic imperialism and arms sales to tyrants.

None of these struggles benefit from superpower rivalries, xenophobia or threats of war. The campaign should therefore also:

• Support the right of threatened nations such as Taiwan to defend their self-determination and to receive arms necessary for that defence from whatever forces are willing to supply them, while opposing armament drives and sabre-rattling by the imperialist camps of China, Russia and the US and their military and security alliances.
• Fight racism against people of East & South-East Asian backgrounds.
• Oppose the UK government’s racist anti-migrant policies and demand safe routes, sanctuary and equality for refugees fleeing repression, violence and authoritarianism – whether at the hands of the Chinese state or anywhere else in the world. Defend the rights of migrants & refugees who have already come to the UK, and support their inclusion & integration into the local workers’ movement.

To these ends, the campaign’s activities would include:

• Organise and support protest and direct action against the Chinese state and its embassies and representatives, and against businesses complicit in repression and exploitation.
• Work to win the argument for solidarity within the labour movement and the left, and to engage our trade unions and political organisations in this solidarity.
• Encourage and support workers’ action in the global supply chains that connect the working classes here and in China and its occupied territories.
• Discussion, debate and education within the left and labour movement on all these issues.
• To carry out practical aid tailor made to the communities within the struggles in the UK

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Co-sponsors so far:

• Labour Movement Solidarity with Hong Kong
• Power to Hongkongers
• Red Roots Collective
• Peter Tatchell Foundation
• Democracy for Hong Kong
• Left Chinese Student Association
• Uyghur Solidarity Campaign (UK)
• Alliance for Workers’ Liberty
• Wessex Solidarity
• Global Alliance for Tibet & Persecuted Minorities
• June 4 Sparks

If you endorse a campaign to fight for these objectives, please sign up below – if there are technical difficulties please email us at WorkersSolidarityAgainstCCP@protonmail.com.

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The founding meeting has passed and we have come together to establish a new campaign, Workers Against the CCP! More information coming very soon. For now, please sign up to the campaign e-newsletter to stay in touch.

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