Under Lock & Key

On 15 April 2023, a clash between two military forces broke out in the capital city of Khartoum in Sudan.(1) Two military generals, Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo and Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, head each of the sides involved. Out of the two military factions, the more “regular” armed troops of Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) are led by Burhan, with the militia oriented Rapid Support Forces (RSF) led by Dagalo.(2)

The Political-Economic Prelude to the 2023 Conflict

On 30 June 1989, Omar al-Bashir came to power in Sudan in a coup d’etat. For three decades Bashir ruled Sudan under a military dictatorship where Dagalo gained prominence as a General of the Sudanese Armed Forces. Under Bashir, the Rapid Support Forces grew out of the Janjaweed militias mostly compromising of the southern Sudanese peasantry. In the early 2000s, the RSF helped the SAF crush the rebellion in the western region of Darfur.(3)

Under the military dictatorship of Bashir, Dagalo received gold mines for his actions in the RSF. Burhan also had close ties politically with Bashir.(4) However, with the turbulent political climate that the military dictatorship of Bashir created among the civilian population, the SAF and the RSF have ousted Bashir and the military dictatorship alongside civilian protests. This Sudanese revolution, birthed a short-lived civilian government that went by the name of the Transitional Sovereignty Council (TSC) led by Prime Minister Abdalla Hamdok with elections to have originally taken place in 2023. Despite Hamdok’s appeals to the people’s movement at the time, he has also had backing from the U.$. imperialists aimed to make sure the new governing force in Sudan remained friendly to the United $tates. Previously, al-Bashir had defied the Clinton regime in the U.$. by harboring Al-Qaeda’s Osama Bin-Laden during the military dictator’s reign.

In October 2021, al-Burhan along with Dagalo led a coup d’etat against Hamdok which ended the two year long civilian rule born out of the people-power revolution.

Current Situation

Most of the current fighting is being done in Khartoum, the capital of Sudan. On the second day of the conflict, the Central Committee of Sudan Doctors have reported that 56 people were killed and nearly 600 were injured. The World Health Organization (WHO) said in a statement on 16 April 2023:

“There are also reports of shortages of specialized medical personnel, including anesthesiologists. Water and power cuts are affecting the functionality of health facilities, and shortages of fuel for hospital generators are also being reported.”(5)

The Russian imperialists have taken a stake in this conflict with the Wagner Group’s support for Dagalo’s RSF giving the militia surface-to-air missiles and military training to the RSF.(6) On the eve of Russia’s war with Ukraine, the Sudanese military’s lapdogs of Russian imperialism granted Russia access to Sudan’s gold in exchange for military and political support.(7)

The Chinese and the U.$. imperialists (alongside many other countries such as Egypt) have taken a more reserved stance on this conflict with more focus towards evacuating their countries’ personnel. Hundreds of Amerikan and other western imperialist countries have taken part in evacuation plans.(8)

On 27 April 2023, the civilian death toll has surpassed 500 with more than 5,000 injured and still counting according to The New York Times.(9) The bourgeoisie portray Africa as a chaos-torn continent with myriads of countries filled with constant violence, but we must remember that political-economic forces and class struggle drive the violence. The beef between Dagalo and al-Burhan is between a disagreement in assimilating Dagalo’s RSF to al-Burhan’s Sudanese military proper. While bourgeois rhetoric portrays this as humanity’s woes of famine, plague, and war that are embedded within our nature, the more scientific way to look at this picture is that the comprador-bourgeoisie (both Dagalo and al-Burhan) always struggle among themselves to be the principal lapdog for foreign imperialist forces (in this case primarily Russian). This is typical of neo-colonialism where multiple imperialist forces oftentimes have stake in a single semi-feudal neo-colony. Mao understood this for his country during semi-feudal China when the Japanese invaded, the western powers won’t let go of China without a fight. This led to the birth of a strategy by the people of having two imperialist forces fight amongst each other while the people maintain independence. While the current fighting is between anti-people forces, the workers and peasants of Sudan and Africa overall have the historical duty of ending these wars of the imperialists and compradors with revolutionary war of the proletariat.

^{Notes 1. The New York Times, “Chaos in Sudan: Who Is Battling for Power, and Why It Hasn’t Stopped” April 27, 2023.}

^{2. Ibid.}

^{3. Elian Peltier and Abdi Latif Dahir, “Who are the Rapid Support Forces, the paramilitaries fighting Sudan’s Army?” New York Times April 17, 2023}

^{4. Ibid.}

^{5. CNN, “Fighting between Sudan military rivals enters a second day, with dozens dead” April 17, 2023.}

^{6. Ibid. (The Wagner Group is a Russian paramilitary organization that first appeared in Ukraine as part of Russia’s seizure of territory there.)}

^{7. CNN, “Russia is plundering gold in Sudan to boost Putin’s war effort in Ukraine” July 29, 2022}

^{8. Jennifer Hansler, “US has evacuated American diplomatic personnel from Sudan” CNN April 24, 2023}

^{9. Ibid.}

On 7 March 2023, China’s new foreign minister Qin Gang, in his first public appearance, delivered denouncements and warnings that “conflict and confrontation” with the United $tates is inevitable if the U.$. imperialists do not change their course.(1) Before becoming China’s new foreign minister, Qin Gang was an ambassador to the United $tates known for eir non-confrontational and diplomatic approaches to eir job.(2) This new public statement marks a clear shift in tone from the diplomatic and cautious reputation that Qin has built as eir time as ambassador. On the National People’s Congress in Beijing, Qin has said the following:

“If the United States does not hit the brakes, but continues to speed down the wrong path, no amount of guardrails can prevent derailing, and there will surely be conflict and confrontation.”(3)

Alongside these comments, Qin has condemned the “Indo-Pacific Strategy” of the United $tates which ey claims is sparking discourse and a new cold war in Asia and seeks the containment of China as a country.

One day after, on 8 March 2023, U.$. ambassador to Japan Rahm Emanuel made a response to Qin’s claims that China should not be surprised at all that Washington and its allies are deepening military ties in reaction to China’s aggression:

“You look at India, you look at the Philippines, you look at Australia, you look at the United States, Canada or Japan. They [China] have had in just the last three months a military or some type of confrontation with every country. And then they’re shocked that countries are taking their own steps for deterrence to protect themselves. What did they think they were going to do?”(4)

Emanuel responded to Qin’s claims that the Amerikans’ Indo-Pacific strategy is not in fact containment of China but a “deterrence” of China’s aggression in the previous months. In the past three months, Chinese ships harassed the Filipino navy;(5) conducted military drills near Taiwan and fired missiles (those missiles landed on Japan’s territorial waters);(6) and have had border skirmishes in the Himalayas with India.(7)

The Indo-Pacific Strategy of the U.$. imperialists

The Indo-Pacific strategy of the United $tates was a particular target of Foreign Minister Qin’s condemnations. The Indo-Pacific strategy is a political-economic program launched by the Biden administration which has highlighted the economic importance of the region of Northeast Asia, Southeast Asia, South Asia, and the Pacific. In the program, the U.$. imperialists also highlight the “aggressive forces” of the Indo-Pacific region – namely China and the DPRK – which the program claims furthers destabilization.(8)

“The United States is an Indo-Pacific power. The region, stretching from our Pacific coastline to the Indian Ocean, is home to more than half of the world’s people, nearly two-thirds of the world’s economy, and seven of the world’s largest militaries. More members of the U.S. military are based in the region than in any other outside the United States. It supports more than three million American jobs and is the source of nearly $900 billion in foreign direct investment in the United States. In the years ahead, as the region drives as much as two-thirds of global economic growth, its influence will only grow—as will its importance to the United States.” - The Indo-Pacific’s Promise (The Indo-Pacific Strategy of the United States, February 2022). (9)

This pamphlet of the U.$. imperialists lays a clear plan for the shape of things to come. The question is whether the U.$. imperialism can defeat rising new star Chinese social-imperialism who is also looking to pierce their fangs into the region.

Qin Gang has made the claim that this strategy of the United $tates is the Southeast Asian version of the NATO; asserting China’s position parallel to that of the USSR and the countries of India, Japan, South Korea, and Australia as the NATO alliance which plays the part of Western Europe.

We see these particular trends among today’s big imperialist powers as incredibly worrying due to the similarities to the political-economic contradictions among the imperialist forces of the early twentieth century, which resulted in the first World War.

One difference/advantage that Amerikkka always will have over China or Russia is battle hardened experience. The Amerikkkan empire have been at war (against other imperialist powers during the two world wars and against colonies fighting for self-determination alike) for nearly all of the 20th century. While China and Russia have had some military conflicts with other nations during their post-socialist capitalist restoration era (namely in Southeast Asia and Eastern Europe respectively) these little post-capitalist restoration wars are nowhere near the level of experience the United $tates have had against Nazi Germany, Korea, Vietnam, Iraq, Syria, and Afghanistan. Cracking down on Chechnyan “terrorist” cells in Eastern Europe by the Russian Armed Forces, or beating up revolting farmers/ethnic minorities on the countryside by the so-called “People’s Liberation Army” is a cakewalk compared to the genocidal wars Amerika waged throughout the 20th century.

Saber Rattlings in Taiwan

After Taiwan’s president Tsai Ing-Wen met with U.$. house of representative speaker Kevin McCarthy, the so-called “People’s Liberation Army” of China began conducting military drills in Taiwan waters.

Taiwan’s modern history began with the losers of the civil war in China. The Kuomintang (the nationalist party - KMT) of China fled from the people’s wrath and the Communist Party of China (CPC), which had overthrown the KMT’s bourgeois dictatorship, replacing it with a proletarian one. The KMT fugitives have massacred the indigenous people of Taiwan, and began the nation building project sponsored by U.$. imperialism. For many years Taiwan actually held the legitimate position recognized by the international community as “real” China. With the restoration of capitalism in China, the KMT of Taiwan actually seeks to cozy up to the social-imperialist CCP and takes a “moderate” stance on Taiwan independence affirming that Taiwan is still Chinese while the Taiwanese nationalists of the pan-green alliance and the Democratic Progressive Party take a more harder stance on Taiwanese national identity.

After president Tsai Ing-Wen’s meeting with the U.$. imperialists in Los Angeles, China began a 3 day long military exercises on the doorsteps of Taiwan. With precision air strikes designed to intimidate the Taiwanese government, and a naval blockade, the so-called PLA have certainly flexed their muscles on the front. (10)

The official statement from the Chinese military reads as follows:

“The theater’s troops are ready to fight at all times and can fight at any time to resolutely smash any form of ‘Taiwan independence’ and foreign interference attempts.” (11)

On 10 April 2022, Taiwan detected 91 flights by Chinese bombers as well as multiple fighter jets. (12)

Capitalism-Imperialism Makes Inter-Imperialist Conflicts Inevitable

The Indo-Pacific strategy recognizes the economic importance that the region of Southeast Asia and the Pacific holds not only for the United $tates but also for the imperial core overall. China also recognizes this. Under capitalism, where labor in itself is a commodity, the cheap labor and the immense surplus value that the world imperialist system plunders from Southeast Asia is invaluable to China as a new rising imperialist power.

Qin Gang proclaimed warnings that the actions of the U.$. imperialists will cause a new cold war. We at MIM(Prisons) say that the social-imperialist forces of China and the United $tates are creating the precedence for a new world war as the nature of capitalism-imperialism makes it inevitable for the great imperialist powers to eventually battle over and reorganize their respective neo-colonial turfs/territories.(13)

If fascism arrives in the United $tates, then the communists and the revolutionaries will have their duties and work to do just like always. If inter-imperialist conflict breaks out and a new world war enters in our world, then we will have our duties and work to do to as well. The nihilism of impending crisis is common here in the belly of the beast. But Marxists recognize these developments as the inevitable playing out of the inherent contradictions of the capitalist system. Periods of great conflict are when qualitative transformations happen, and this is a good thing. It is our role to understand these changes so that we can move things in the interests of the world’s majority.

<sup>NOTES: 1. Nectar Gan, 8 March 2023, China’s new foreign minister warns of conflict with US, defends Russia ties, CNN.
2. Ibid.
3. Ibid.
4. Brad Lendon, Marc Stewart, 8 March 2023, Exclusive: China’s ‘attacks’ unite region against Beijing, US ambassador to Japan says, CNN.
5. Brad Lendon, 13 February 2023 2022, Philippine Coast Guard says Chinese ship aimed laser at one of its vessels, CNN.
6. Brad Lendon, 4 August 2022, China fires missiles near Taiwan in live-fire drills as PLA encircles island, CNN.
7. Ibid.
8. The White House Washington, 24 September 2021, Indo-Pacific Strategy of the United States.
9. Ibid.
10. Ben Blanchard Yimou Lee, 10 April 2023, China ends Taiwan drills after practicing blockades, precision strikes, Reuters.
11. Ibid.
12. Huizhong Wu, 10 April 2023, China military ‘ready to fight’ after drills near Taiwan, ABC.
13. Wiawimawo, February 2018, China’s Role in Increasing Inter-Imperialist Rivalries, Under Lock & Key No. 60.</sup>