China

The pan-democratic camp won control of 17 out of 18 District Councils in Hong Kong’s 24 November elections, almost wiping out the pro-establishment Democratic Alliance for the Betterment and Progress of Hong Kong (DAB).

The only council held by the pro-establishment camp was the Islands district, where 8 out of 18 seats were automatically assigned to pro-establishment village heads.

2.94 million (71.2% of eligible voters) voted in the Pan-Democrats and other independent democrats in nearly 400 out of 452 seats, with the DAB winning only 58 seats. Four years ago, the pan-democrats failed to win

The conflict in Hong Kong has further escalated and has reached a critical point as I write on 19 November.

The escalation began last week with the first casualty of the protest, a university student falling fatally from a multi-story car park in a conflict zone. Since then, policeman have fired live rounds seriously injuring a number of protesters, a man was doused in petrol and set alight by protesters, a pro-Beijing legislator was stabbed, a pro-democracy legislator had his ear bitten off, and there have been many other individual violent acts.

A woman has launched a legal case after being

Across the world large and radical student movements came into prominence in the 1960s, fighting on their campus and against university administrators but raising wider political questions: opposition to the Vietnam War, opposition to the police, and opposition to capitalism. Their politics were often muddled and contradictory.

In America, students organised themselves on a national level into Students for a Democratic Society. This was a serious organisation, which had 30,000 supporters by the time of its collapse, and along with the black civil rights movement became a feared bogeyman for

At Labour Party conference, shadow foreign secretary Emily Thornberry made a speech denouncing tyrants all across the world, Putin, Bolsonaro, Duterte, Trump, and the rest.

All good. But one notable omission: the biggest. Xi Jinping, ruler of China.

As the election campaign happens, Xi Jinping is repressing the democratic revolt in Hong Kong, and locking up something like one million Uyghurs in “re-education” camps in north-west China.

Labour Party conference passed an emergency motion in solidarity with the Uyghurs.

We want Labour to stand for self-determination for the people of Hong Kong

Hong Kong has witnessed a further week of protests in defiance of the passing of the emergency regulation to ban masks.

The Government’s attempts to split the radical activists away from the mainstream have so far failed, because once again they have totally underestimated people’s angry reaction to the use of emergency powers.

The use of such powers has touched on a raw nerve – the thin end of the wedge that is perceived by many as leading to curfews, the use of detention without trial and even the transporting of detainees across the border.

The government’s concerted efforts to accuse the

On Thursday 4 October, the Hong Kong Chief Executive Carrie Lam invoked the Emergency Regulations Ordinance to introduce a ban on wearing face masks.

The ban came just before a long weekend. Monday 7 October was Chung Yeung Festival, a public holiday. From Thursday evening, protesters staged incessant and widespread attacks on MTR stations, Chinese banks, and pro-China businesses, and conducted violent clashes with the police in many parts of the city.

One more protester, this time a 14 year old, was shot — in the leg, by a policeman who was cornered by a large crowd and was nearly set alight

On October 1st, the 70th anniversary of the founding of the People’s Republic of China, Hong Kong was rocked by a huge wave of protests. Huge numbers of protestors took to the streets in many parts of the city even though the police had refused to grant permission to any demonstration and had declared all protests that day as illegal assemblies.

At the time of writing, one protestor, an 18 year old secondary school student, had only just been transferred out of intensive care, a day after he was shot in the chest at close range by riot police. The bullet could easily have been fatal, having

As I write on 30 September, the 70th anniversary of the founding of the People’s Republic of China. Here in Hong Kong, tonight is deadly quiet, the calm before the storm.

30 September was an international day of protests involving many cities around the world, and Saturday 28 September was the fifth anniversary of the 2014 Umbrella movement, when HK police launched 79 tear gas canisters five years ago that day.

The level of police weaponry and brutality five years on have far exceeded most people’s expectations. On Sunday alone over 100 more protesters were arrested.

In the old days, protest

Life isn’t always easy for Steve Sweeney, International Editor of the Morning Star. Earlier this year he was detained and interrogated by Turkish police when he landed at an Istanbul airport.

Thoughts of what had happened to Jamal Khashoggi in the Saudi consulate six months before in the same city flashed through his mind.

The Morning Star – quite rightly – is highly critical of the Erdoğan regime in Turkey.

But when it comes to regimes that the paper approves of — “anti-imperialist” Venezuela or Syria, for instance, or “socialist” China, Steve’s job is a lot easier. Most of the time he just

Workers’ Liberty comrades and those around us had a huge impact on Labour Party conference this year (21-25 September, Brighton).

When the Leader’s Office was fishing for compromises on Brexit in the run up to conference, some prominent Remainers were arguing that we’d already won everything we wanted, and that it was reasonable for Labour not to argue explicitly for Remain.

It was at the Labour for a Socialist Europe steering committee that was all put to bed. Following that, the AEIP/L4SE campaign was clear all the way through conference: we were going to refuse to accept being swallowed