(10) Outrageous Nature and Contradictions of U.S. Hegemonism

1. The 20th Congress warned that the United States was intensifying both its military and economic hegemonist policy throughout the world following the dissolution of the Soviet Union. Subsequent developments show that the outrageous nature of U.S. hegemonism has grown unabated.

Its dangerous true nature was exposed when the United States attacked Iraq with missiles in September 1996. These were unlawful attacks with no basis in any UN decision and an outrageous act without regard for international law. It is true that the Iraqi government is problematic as shown by its repression of the Kurds in the Kurdish "autonomous" area, which must be criticized. But this does not mean that the United States has the right to arbitrarily judge Iraq and impose military sanctions on the country.

These military attacks were not accidental. With the collapse of the Soviet Union, the United States lost the Soviet threats as the rationale for maintaining its huge war-fighting force. To replace the Soviet threat argument the United States has raised the question of what they call the "rogue states," which are North Korea, Iran, Iraq, Libya, and the like. They say the behavior of these states is unpredictable, and the United States must continue to maintain powerful military alliances and nuclear weapons in order to deal with the threats from these "rogue states" and the United States can even impose military sanctions on these countries whenever it thinks it necessary. This is the world strategy which the United States officially pursues today.

The United States is proposing to further strengthen its worldwide network of military blocs. The Japan-U.S. military alliance which is to be extended to take on a global role, and NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organization) which is being expanded toward Eastern Europe, are two cornerstones of this network. But these "rogue states" whose military forces are incomparably smaller than those of the former Soviet Union, and any threats from them can hardly be used as the justification for such a gigantic network of military alliances. It is increasingly clear that defense against this or that threat is not the true aim of the military alliances led by the United States; these military alliances are instruments for the United States, which proclaims itself as "the world's only superpower," to maintain its world hegemony.

The nuclear-weapons states led by the United States forced through the indefinite extension of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) in May 1995. What is clearer than ever is the collective hegemonist approach of the nuclear- weapons states who maintain the privilege of possessing nuclear weapons for ever. The United States has adopted what it calls the "counterproliferation initiative" which includes the pre-emptive use of nuclear weapons to preserve the monopoly of nuclear weapons. The United States recently deployed the new nuclear bomb called the B61/11 for use in destroying underground facilities. U.S. government officials have explained that it is "a nuclear weapon aimed at the rogue states." Also, it is forcibly conducting subcritical nuclear tests with the aim of sustaining and reinforcing its nuclear forces.

2. U.S. imperialism is thus assuming its most outrageous and arrogant form ever during its own post-WWII history. But this is just an adverse current at a time in history when the world is taking strides toward peace and self-determination. The outrageous nature of the United States is aggravating the already deep contradictions between them and the international community in various fields.

The unlawful military attack on Iraq last year was followed by international rejection and criticism. France was reluctant to support the U.S. military action, and Russia and China strongly denounced the U.S. incursion. The Middle East countries, except Kuwait, were critical of the U.S. action, and Saudi Arabia said that it would refuse to allow U.S. forces to use their bases in Saudi Arabia. The United States and Britain tried to get the UN Security Council to endorse the military action, but they met the strong opposition of many countries and were forced to abandon their attempt. This reasonable reaction throughout the world was in sharp contrast to the subservient attitude of the Japanese government which totally supported the unlawful military action by allowing U.S. forces to freely use their bases in Japan for the attack on Iraq.

There has been a major qualitative advance in international opinion for the elimination of nuclear weapons against the forces clinging to nuclear weapons. The UN 50th General Assembly in December 1995 adopted a resolution explicitly demanding the elimination of nuclear weapons in a set time, the first such resolution in UNGA history. And the UN 51st General Assembly in December 1996, also for the first time in UN history, adopted a resolution calling for negotiations to start, aimed at the early conclusion of a treaty to totally ban and eliminate nuclear weapons. These are epoch-making events to the extent that there is an emerging international consensus for the elimination of nuclear weapons in a set time to be made an urgent task.

This advance in the United Nations has been helped by the positive effect of the development of the movement and opinion of the world's people and the non-aligned movement. The Non-Aligned countries have submitted to the Conference on Disarmament in Geneva an "Action Plan for the Elimination of Nuclear Weapons" in specific terms: the complete abolition of nuclear weapons in three stages by the year 2020.

Despite the fact that Japan is the only country ever to be attacked with nuclear weapons, its government continues to consider the elimination of nuclear weapons as being on the back-burner, saying it should be the ultimate goal. This position of the Japanese government is in contradistinction to the advance in the international community on nuclear weapons, and is shameful.

(11) World Capitalist Economy Faces New Increasing Contradictions

1. Since the 1980s the JCP has pointed out that the world capitalist economy faces serious contradictions, and the old economic policy based on Keynesian economics--the policy by which governments attempt to stimulate the growth of the economy based on major corporations, by pumping huge amounts of official money into the economy--has lost any efficacy, and no new firmly-based alternative has been found to replace Keynesian economics. Essentially, this situation still exists today.

When Keynesian economics ran out of steam, a new economic policy and theory which can be described as "deregulation as the panacea" came into vogue, following the coming into power of governments in some developed capitalist countries such as the Reagan administration in 1981 in the United States, the Thatcher government in 1979 in Britain, and the Nakasone government in 1982 in Japan. Based on the idea that only the "forces of the free market" stimulated by "deregulation" can "revitalize" the economy, this new policy set about ending economic restrictions on the activity of major corporations, adversely revising labor legislation, cutting social security, privatization of public corporations, and cuts in corporation tax and income tax substituted by huge increases in indirect taxation. Such measures were designed to allow the big companies which have become the major transnational corporations to do what they liked to perpetrate their outrageous activity and to enable monopoly capital to accumulate and concentrate on a global scale.

Internationally the U.S. Clinton administration, in the name of "globalization," has pressed "deregulation" on other countries, the main aim of which has been to increase the interests of U.S.-based transnational corporations. To achieve its objectives the Clinton administration has used twin tactics: one the control of other countries through international organizations, such as the IMF (International Monetary Fund), the World Bank, the OECD (Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development), and the WTO (World Trade Organization), and the other imposing its will on other countries through bilateral consultation, in which it used the threat of invoking Super 301 provisions of the U.S. Trade Act. "Deregulation" and "globalization" being carried out throughout the world under U.S. leadership is not just aimed at a "return to free competition" but at removing obstacles in the way of the activity of transnational corporations to create a new international order which will enable them to grow still bigger at the expense of the people in both the developed and developing countries. The self-centered activity of U.S. economic hegemonism by which it tries to impose on the whole world U.S.-style economic policy, is meeting hostile reaction from the European countries who have formed the EU (European Union) as their own economic sphere and is also causing serious contradictions among the developing countries.

2. By "deregulation" and "globalization," world capitalism has not succeeded in restoring the steady development it had before the 1970s. Instead, it faces more serious contradictions:

--Unemployment has increased to a historical record level. There are some 23 million out of work in the seven summit countries; a total of 36 million are looking for work in the 29 OECD countries, the most developed capitalist countries in the world; the World figure of unemployed is estimated to be some 120 million. In no period of human history has the world had such a large number of unemployed people;

--The gap between the rich and the poor has got drastically wider. In the United States the difference in income between the top 20% and the bottom 20% is now historically at its highest level, with the total income of the top 20% being 13.4 times greater than the bottom 20%. A well-known U.S. economist has said, "No country (...) has probably ever had as rapid or as widespread an increase in inequality as has occurred in the United States in the past two decades. Never before have Americans seen the current pattern of real-wage reductions in the face of a rising per capita GDP." Continuous decline in real wages, which started in the United States, is now prevailing throughout the world. In the developed capitalist countries, or the 29 OECD countries, in particular, there are over 100 million people living below the poverty line and over 5 million people homeless;

--The gap between the income of the developed and developing countries has also increased. The gap between the income of the world's wealthiest 20% and the poorest 20% has in the last 30-odd years increased from 30-fold to 78-fold. Such differences have increased not only between developed and developing countries but also between developing countries. The south Saharan African countries are now the poorest in the world, and 43% of their populations suffer from hunger and malnutrition;

--Financial speculation is sweeping across the whole world. Money equivalent to 1,300 billion dollars is being bought and sold every day in the foreign currency exchange markets around the world. The total annual value of world trade is only 3 trillion yen, and this accounts for only two days money trading in the foreign currency exchange markets. Global financial services liberalization has created vast round-the-clock speculation which has no connection with trade, and this has changed the financial markets into gigantic gambling places. Large-scale economic crime has become commonplace and people in every country are victims of exploitation by international finance capital.

The economic policy based on the theory of "deregulation as the panacea" deepens the contradictions with the people in the countries which have adopted it. This has been shown by the judgment of the voters in recent elections in these countries: in May's general election in Britain the conservative party suffered an historic defeat, and in June's general election in France the ruling conservative union suffered a crushing defeat; in India, the National Congress party suffered an historic defeat in the May 1996 general election.

The Hashimoto cabinet, which is pushing ahead with "reforms" based on "deregulation as the panacea," says, "This is reform for preventing the country from being left behind in the world." Until very recently Japan's business circles were saying, "Let's learn from Thatcherism in Britain." And the "reform" the Hashimoto cabinet is promoting is the same as that which several other governments have pursued only to find themselves facing various contradictions and the severe judgment of their people. The experience in other countries shows that Hashimoto's line is destined to fail.

(12) Toward Developing International Exchange and Solidarity

The Japanese Communist Party will do its utmost to develop activity for international exchange and solidarity for world peace and progress.

1. It will work hard to broaden international joint endeavors for the elimination of nuclear weapons as an urgent and central task for world peace, the dissolution of all military blocs and alliances, and for the removal of foreign military bases. Conditions for developing this movement beyond its existing range are increasing.

The United States and the other nuclear-weapons countries which cling to nuclear weapons have been severely criticized even by former generals who were at the center of U.S. nuclear strategy. In December 1996, these two former generals, followed by 60 former military leaders from 17 countries, issued joint statements calling for the elimination of nuclear weapons. They criticized the "nuclear deterrence" theory and called on the nuclear-weapons countries to pledge that they would promptly eliminate nuclear weapons. Contradictions are deepening to the point of even those who once advocated a "nuclear deterrence" policy are now compelled to denounce it as dangerous and absurd.

These developments, along with the advance in the United Nations on the demand for the elimination of nuclear weapons, show that the direction consistently pursued by the Japanese movement against A & H bombs is now developing even more steadily among international opinion and in movements, and the possibility exists for establishing a common front for the elimination of nuclear weapons on a scale wider than ever before. As shown by the progress made by the World Conference against A & H Bombs, the signature collecting campaign to the "Appeal from Hiroshima and Nagasaki" and the development of the "Association for a Non-nuclear Government" movement, the role of the movements in Japan, which is the only atomic bombed country in the world, is ever more important.

2. Common action and solidarity are important as part of our efforts to protect the rights of working people against the brutality of the transnational corporations, to protect the earth's environment, and to establish economic democracy on an international scale.

During his visit to Japan last April, the American Federation of Labor-Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL-CIO) chairman gave a lecture in Tokyo, in which he pointed to the twenty-year decline in the living standards of U.S. working families. He also said that it had been caused by the economic logic of the "so-called U.S. model"--"a conservative brew of tight money, tax breaks for the rich and cutbacks for the poor, deregulation, flexible labor markets and weakened unions." He urged the Japanese workers to reject the U.S. model, and called for a struggle against the logic of the corporations.

Conditions for the further development of international solidarity are increasing between the working people in the developed countries in the course of struggle against the policy of forcing the people to pay more, a policy being pursued throughout the world on the grounds that "deregulation is the only answer," and also between the developed and developing countries in pursuit of a reasonable solution to the north-south problem.

We will explore ways of developing solidarity to check the tyrannical activity of the transnational corporations and to impose international democratic control on their activities, by means of contact with labor movements and people's democratic movements abroad and by exchanging information with them, and through symposiums to search for solutions to critical problems and the organizing of concerted action around common questions.

3. The JCP 20th Congress noted that "faced with the collapse of the Soviet Union, efforts have begun in respective countries to independently grope for a course toward social progress," and decided to "develop dialogue and solidarity with such forces," and to "develop dialogue and solidarity with forces in respective countries, forces made up of groups and individuals which are independently pursuing the cause of scientific socialism, and sincerely seek world peace and social progress."

Based on this position and course, the party has developed diverse international activity and done its utmost to develop mutual understanding and solidarity. This involves some forces which the party had no previous contact with, including quite a few parties and organizations, plus individuals, with whom the party has established new relations.

Recent moves by the world's progressive forces show that despite various limits and problems, efforts to independently explore ways for social progress have begun in many places and have already achieved some important results. Also worthy of note is the fact that in a number of countries the progressive forces are fighting government assaults on their people's living standards, and are achieving some advances in national and local elections.

These forces support important international common tasks such as the dissolution of military alliances, the elimination of nuclear weapons, and criticism of the tyrannical activities of the transnational corporations. For the JCP to promote mutual understanding and concerted action on common tasks with these parties, organizations and individuals, will have important significance for the worldwide development of the cause of scientific socialism.

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