Chinese workers fight for democracy
I was leading a meeting last November at Liverpool University’s Guild of Students on the question of a socialist response to the politics of multiculturalism and assimilation. During the discussion, the predominance of “cultural relativism” in left academia became explicit — perhaps, I wonder now, a liberal postcolonial hangover from the crimes of the British Empire. I recalled a special edition of the BBC’s “Question Time” programme, broadcast from Shanghai in 2005. When an official of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) was posed a question about universal suffrage and democratic rights from...