Thread by @IrateBen

Kicking off now! @MomentumInt_ us02web.zoom.us/j/83717779466?…

https://twitter.com/CampaignUyghur/status/1364908687115100160

First @Pete_Radcliff kicks off by explaining the foundation of @labsolidarityhk - motivated by the need to raise the voice of the left and the workers' movement in support of democracy, distinct from the right-wingers using the issue to attack socialism.

Pete: The Chinese state is not socialist. This is an oppressive system, overseen by an exploitative ruling class, including a bunch of billionaires.

Highlights extreme exploitation of workers, long hours - and the strikes and protests with which they fight back.

Pete: There were few democratic rights in Hong Kong under British colonialism either. The pro-CCP Hong Kong government is using British colonial-era laws to repress democracy protesters.

Pete points our attention to the "champions" of the independent unions in Hong Kong - and points to how Thatcher-era British anti-union laws were used by the pro-CCP government against their strikes.

A whole generation of democracy protesters has been created in Hong Kong, says @Pete_Radcliff. There is a depression over the city now, but "I don't think they've been defeated".

Pete says our trade union movement needs to build links with HK and Chinese unions - and to be ready to back them when industrial action kicks off.

And we must target the corporations like HSBC & Jardine Matheson, who are complicit in the CCP repression (incl major Tory donors!)

Now @tahmenaaa recounts the student solidarity campaign organised at her uni by SOAS Uyghur Society of which she is the President - this week, they won the backing of a landslide majority in their student union general meeting.

Tahmena highlights the political struggle over academic teaching and debate, and the need for students and university workers to push for the issues of Hong Kongers, Uyghurs and oppressed ppl in China to be heard and learned about in those spheres.

Tahmena says students are also working to investigate ties, investments and corporate complicity with oppression in their universities.

Are our universities holding shares in companies linked to forced Uyghur labour? Let's hold them to account.

Tahmena says let's interrogate the collaborations our universities enter into with the big tech corporations, who are profiteering from developing tools for racist state surveillance and state repression. #TerrorCapitalism #SurveillanceCapitalism

Next up: @promiseli_, an activist with @lausanhk. Promise highlights how the pro-CCP Hong Kong government has taken advantage of COVID-19 to force citizens to choose between their safety and their political rights.

Promise explains how the HK government is in the process of an aggressive retaliation against both organised workers and pro-democracy leaders.

Promise says the state crackdown, surveillance, infiltration is intimidating Hong Kongers away from organising together.

Promise says that in the international left, the biggest problem is perhaps not the smaller core of very loud pro-CCP types, but the wider chilling effect on large parts of the left that back off and conclude it's too complicated to make solidarity.

Promise says: it's not that China is a worse or better alternative to Western powers - it's no alternative at all.

Promise: We need to highlight the interconnected nature of global capitalism.

Now we're taking a look at the situation of Taiwan with @nabila4hemel.

Nabila recounts some of the recent struggle between pro-reunification and pro-independence political tendencies in Taiwan.

Nabila explains how the mainland Chinese state is working to isolate the Taiwanese state from other countries, and the rising tensions.

John McDonnell has been called away on urgent business but has sent a video

Now @johnmcdonnellMP on Hong Kong - "As socialists, when people are fighting for democracy, our duty is to stand in solidarity."

On the persecution of Uyghurs, @johnmcdonnellMP says yes we have to critically interrogate the information we get - but having done that, it is clear and there is no question -we must stand against this oppression, against the attempt to wipe out an entire culture.

We stand against Stalinists and Stalinism and in solidarity with those struggling against it, says @johnmcdonnellMP - we stand in the true tradition of the Russian revolution, for workers' democracy.

John McDonnell pledges to do everything he can as an MP to help what he believes is a growing movement of solidarity - with Hong Kong democrats, Uyghur freedom, and all those fighting for democratic socialism and basic rights.