What Do We Have in Common with China? What Isn't Said About China

Last week we saw the vice president of the People’s Republic of China visiting an oil subsidiary in Anzoátegui state. He spoke of wanting to work with Venezuela to turn crude into refined products, said all the cooperation was based on equality and was producing satisfactory results, and said China wanted to help Venezuela rehabilitate or build railways and build housing. I also read that a political alliance had been announced with the Chinese Communist Party to strengthen the training of Venezuela’s ruling-party activists. Diosdado Cabello said decisions had been made so that PSUV members could be trained and instructed by the Chinese Communist Party in their political and social formation.

For several years I have been reading very sad news about the abuses committed in the People’s Republic of China, especially against peasants, workers and women. For anyone who doesn’t know, and who believes we Venezuelans might have something in common with Chinese policies, let me tell you that in China women are forced to abort baby girls, because of the one-child policy. That law, which took effect in 1971, has led to 336 million abortions!, the great majority of them girls. The tragedy is such that there are now 34 million more men than women. I ask: what would the brave women and mothers of the Venezuelan people think of that murderous policy of the Chinese government? What do our Venezuelan men think of it?

I also find a great deal of ignorance in some people who talk about China’s marvelous “capitalist” progress, how wonderful it is to travel to China and see the luxury of the buildings, highways, hotels and so on in its big cities! The thing is that these people have not seen, for example, the reports and photos published by Aid to the Church in Need, which constantly denounces the terrible persecution Christians, and Catholics in particular, suffer there. Photos of country people praying the rosary in hiding, in poverty so extreme that it cannot be compared with the worst poverty that may exist in Venezuela today.

Others talk about how wonderful Chinese products are, how well they imitate the brands and how cheap they are. Can it be that these people don’t know about the mistreatment and exploitation Chinese workers, men and women, are subjected to? In the People’s Republic of China, while a small group lives like kings off big business deals, millions of exploited Chinese workers live as if in the age of slavery. Anyone (except the exploited Chinese themselves, who are barred from using the internet) can look up images and articles about the exploitation of Chinese workers. It is good to read and truly learn what is happening in that country, and how millions of human beings are suffering there.

I ask you: do you think Venezuelan workers, who enjoy one of the most generous labor laws in the world, are going to accept Chinese economic policies that combine the most rigid ideological communism with a brutal, savage capitalism never seen before, not even in the United States? I honestly don’t think so, because the Venezuelan people won’t put up with it! Here is one example. A few weeks ago about three hundred Venezuelan workers at a Belarusian company in Aragua state protested because the contractor had not honored their collective agreement; one of the workers said they had been fooled into thinking the company belonged to them, but they were being exploited and their contract was not being honored. It seems those who want to make these agreements do not know the Venezuelan people. Our brave people (and especially our fierce women) will not allow exploitation, much less discrimination. That simply won’t fly here, gentlemen!

I hope there will be a change of heart, and that it will be understood once and for all that Venezuela has more than enough! capable, efficient, trained and educated! people to do any kind of work that needs doing. We do not need help from foreigners, much less to hand them our oil industry and our companies so that they can exploit our beloved people and carry off our resources! Reconsider, and think carefully about what you are doing and what you plan to do. We Venezuelans will not allow our country to be handed over to foreign powers, wherever they come from. I ask God to enlighten you, and very soon!, for the good of our beloved Venezuela.