EU-China summit: Bigger profits on the backs of Chinese workers

Joe Higgins speaking in the European Parliament on 21st September 2010 on the EU-China summit

Joe Higgins (GUE/NGL). – Madam President, the EU-China summit is seen as very important by European-based transnational corporations which want more flexibility to reap bigger profits from their Chinese operations – bigger profits made on the backs of Chinese workers, tens of millions of whom are appallingly exploited, migrants in their own land without human rights or workers’ rights, and costing big business only 2.7% of the cost of their American counterparts.

The summit is also important for the Chinese regime, which wants to intensify its trade with the EU. Never mind the diplomatic language of the Trade Commissioner: this is a viciously repressive regime which routinely crushes human rights, political rights and workers’ rights. However, Chinese workers are now struggling for free and independent trade unions to fight for their real interests.

In recent months, young Chinese workers in particular have led a wave of strikes throughout the country, announcing to the regime and to Western big business that they will no longer be treated as faceless cogs in the ruthless wheel of capitalist production and profit-taking by Western big business. May European workers support them all the way in their struggle for justice.

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