China: Trump’s trade war draws closer

Vincent Kolo is a contributor to chinaworker.info. The world has moved closer to a trade war on multiple fronts as Trump’s administration rolls out its aggressive ‘America First’ trade policies, taking aim at both close US allies and major rivals. On 1 June, the US implemented its long threatened tariffs of 25 percent on steel […]

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China: ‘Belt and Road’ – Imperialism with Chinese characteristics

Vincent Kolo is a contributor to chinaworker.info. The Chinese dictatorship’s massive infrastructure plan is the spearhead for its whole economic and geopolitical strategy. The Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) has assumed increasing importance for the regime of China’s ‘strongman’ Xi Jinping. The BRI, also known as OBOR (One Belt One Road), is “the world’s biggest […]

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July 1917: The Bolsheviks “become a power”

Vincent Kolo is a contributor to chinaworker.info. A century ago this week, 500,000 workers and soldiers marched through the Russian capital Petrograd, with tens of thousands joining marches in Moscow, Kiev and other cities. The demonstrations on 1 July (18 June according to Russia’s old calendar), called by the pro-government socialist parties who at that […]

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Russian Revolution: February 1917 – Lessons for today’s struggles against dictatorship

Vincent Kolo is a contributor to chinaworker.info. In the February Revolution of 1917, (March in today’s calendar) the centuries-old system of Russian tsarism came crashing down. It was the working class especially of the capital Petrograd that made this revolution, spurred into action by the heroic women workers. The emblem of the February Revolution was […]

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The Olympics, big business and dictatorship

Vincent Kolo is a contributor to chinaworker.info. A short history of the Olympics: Vincent Kolo, chinaworker.info A short history of the Olympics: Rather than the Olympic movement’s self-professed ideals of ‘internationalism’ and ‘fair play’, the Games are about two at first sight contradictory forces: nationalistic flag-waving and capitalist globalisation The Rio Olympics kicks off this week. […]

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China: Hard landing in 2015?

Vincent Kolo is a contributor to chinaworker.info. China’s economic slowdown already being felt throughout world economy “The most important number in the world, for the past 30 years and next five years, is China’s growth rate,” declared BBC Economics Editor Robert Peston. With a stream of data confirming a pronounced slowdown in the Chinese economy, […]

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China: The great slowdown

Vincent Kolo is a contributor to chinaworker.info. Signs that the mammoth property bubble is finally bursting belie Beijing’s upbeat GDP data On July 16 the Chinese government released its GDP figures for the second quarter, causing global financial markets to heave a collective sigh of relief as 7.5 percent growth was announced. This figure (Beijing’s […]

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