This BBC article--like most of the Corporate media--downplays the underlying structural reasons why workers are rioting in China, Argentina, or throughout the Third World in general. Namely, the very same Capitalist Free Market reforms and privitization measures that the Western World (and its media lapdogs like BBC) advocate and champion around the world.

This is classic Capitalist hypocrisy: shed crocodile tears for Workers around the world, while attempting to hide the fact that fundamental guilt lies with their own Capitalist system.

The West in general always attempts to play a Double Game. On the one hand, they attempt to strong arm or "persuade" Developing nations like China to adopt these Free market reforms through the WTO for example, knowing full well these so-called Reforms will inevitably destabilize the nation/society as a result. On the other hand, they cynically express concern for the various abuses which result from these very same Reforms--so as to weaken or destablize the existing government, and enable even further Western capitalist penetration and domination of the targetted nation.

Many Western anti-globalization activists, of course, are completely ignorant of how this Double Game works.

Its interesting to note that, buried at the end of the article, the BBC admits that:

"A Hong Kong rights group told BBC News Online that violence in foreign-owned factories was common as they employ mainly rural teenagers whose naivety they exploit. Han Dongfang, from the China Labour Bulletin, said that foreign factories have the worst conditions because their young migrant workers, who have often travelled thousands of miles, are inexperienced and psychologically isolated. State-owned factories, where conditions are better, only employ people from the city where they are based."

If conditions in State-owned factories are better than in Foreign-owned factories, this is all the more reason to reject Neo-Liberal privatization measures and the opening up of the economy to foreign capitalism in China and throughout the Third World in general. Of course, you will never hear BBC or other corporate media advocate this line--it would jeopardize Western (and British) Imperialist interests.

These market reforms are happening under the sponsorship and encouragement of the Chinese Communist state apparatus. Any foreign factories are there at the invotation of the political elites, who wish to see economic liberalisation without any political freedom. China is, in fact a perfect home for capitalism, since the labour force has absolutely no rights. If conditions in state factories are better, this is because they have been around longer, and have probably been softened through pressure from below.

This kind of State adventure -- of allowing capitalists to organise the economy while retaining the use of political controls, anti-democracy and state terror of the workers is quite similar to Lenin and Trotsky's 'New Economic Policy' of the period 1921-1924. A 'scocialist state' can be as much of an oppressor as a capitalist one, and often, indeed, uses very similar weapons.

As someone once said to Marx: 'If you're hitting someone with a stick, it doesn't matter if you call it "the People's Stick."'

Trotskys international prolatariate democracy in no way advocates undemocratic control of the workers.This issue was the divide of the Bolshivik revolution of 1917.The policy followed by Stalin was one of undemocratic bureaucracy and control from above.Trotsky and the left opposition supported full workers democracy and control of production.This was the essential ingrediant to real Communism.The result of Stalins policy was not communism however but a totalitarian state , the end result of so called Communism in one country.

The comments by Epsilon and Redkop are excellent examples of why the Western "left" has no credibility outside their little activist cliques and ivory towers.

China has adopted free market reforms for the same reason that the entire Developing World has adopted them: they have no other choice. You "leftists" seem to operate under the illusion that developing nations can freely "choose" to allow market reforms or not, without coercion of various kinds from the West.

What you people don't understand is that with the fall of the Soviet Union, the Third World in general has much less room for maneuver in dealing with the Imperialist West. This is true not only politically, militarily, but especially economically. The terms of global trade and economics are increasingly dominated and dictated by the leading capitalist powers--Japan, Europe, and of course America. It is thus no concidence that the entire project of Globalization or Neoliberalism arose in the early 1990s--immediately after the fall of the Soviet Union.

In this New World Order, the Third World has either one of two choices: 1). play by the rules of this exploitative game but hope to minimize, regulate, and minimize the impact of its policies to a degree 2). or be cut off from Western markets, technology, and investment (and be demonized as another "Rogue state" like North Korea and subject to various destabilization campaigns and covert operations as witnessed in Venezuela).

Compared to the rest of the Third World, "communist" countries like China and Vietnam have done a better job of limiting the impact of these Capitalist free market reforms than most so-called Third World Democracies. Even Western liberals have had to admit this, as this article by Mark Weisbrot acknowledges at the end
 http://www.alternet.org/story.html?StoryID=13470

These are all issues which the so-called anti-globalization in the West avoid talking about because it would involve addressing the issue of Western Imperialism as a global hegemonic system--and of course the bankruptcy of their own system and its lies about representing "Democracy and Freedom."

You essentially preach from your own priviliged positions in the Imperial Center to the Third World for not living up to your standards of revolutionary purity--but you refuse to see the underlying Imperialist political and economic architecture which compels the developing world to adopt the policies that it does in the first place.

Worse yet, you uncritically accept the assertions and sincerity of your own corporate media such as this disingenous piece of BBC "news"--even as you claim to be opponents of the corporate media.

Western Leftists are good at debating esoteric nonsense about Trotsky or Lenin (primarily for their own academic and political turf battles) but not addressing how the world actually works today.

Do you really give a damn about workers in China or Argentina or the Third World in general? Then stop with your tired preaching and "radical" posturing and work to compel the Western world to permit Third World countries
to protect domestic industries, agricultural subsidies, and social welfare nets. Best of all you can work to overthrow the system of Western Hegemony which mandates market reforms in the first place. But that of course would involved bringing to your Empire, and with it your own comfortable lives.

Bullshit speaks bullshit! Trotsky believed in the workers international revolution of all nations and not just western nations.True workers democracy can only be achieved by this end.China is a perfect example of revolution being removed from the hands of the working people during the 1920s.The revolution in order to survive must be exported to all peoples of the world , in order to overthrow the capitalist system.Bullshit should read more history of the early 20c and obtain more detailed knowledge of this important period of world history.Ps i do not feel all that secure for reasons i shall not discuss at the present time!

The only bullshit here is your believe in the benevolence of the West, its propaganda media like the BBC, or that the Western working class cares about "international solidarity."

Instead of spending all your time reading Trotsky, you should understand how the global capitalist system works today.

Most of the workers in the First World and the West don't give a damn about "international workers solidarity." They are only concerned with their own comfort and way of life.

That is why these people identify with their own National capitalism and will happily screw over "those foreigners" whenever they get the chance.

If you want to promote international solidarity, get in the face of these workers and tell them to destroy the international institutions like the IMF or WTO which their country uses to control and exploit the Third World.

Mr Bullshit i do not in anyway shape or form believe in the BBC or a paternal west.I do not even own a propoganda machine known as tv.However what i do believe is that sooner or later the working classes of all countries will eventually awaken and international revolution will take place.People do hold beliefs and moral imperitives , humans are not just a bundle of nerve endings wich only respond to stimulus.Please awaken to the fact that people do care for each other , and that social revolution will one day happen.