How Sri Lanka Became a US Colony in 1948

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How Sri Lanka Became a US Colony in 1948

e-Con e-News 25-31 October 2020

Not Yet Nidhahasa  – Towering effigies of Ravana were burned across India on October 25, celebrating their annual Dussehra Festival. A fine week for US warmongers to descend on the continent, swinging over to Lanka with their tails on fire, chattering like chimps about cold wars in the Himalayas.

     Our Foreign Minister, while greeting US Secretary for State Mike Pompeo, noted, much of Sri Lanka’s exports go to the USA. Perhaps the Foreign Minister can now explain to Sri Lankans, how many of these exports depend on US inputs of fuel, machinery, parts, and expertise? When Sri Lanka tried to control their corporate oil monopolies, the US and English governments ignited sanctions, coups, and terrorism (see ee 03 May 2020).

• Sri Lanka became a colony of the USA in 1948, in all but name. England had imposed the Soulbury Constitution, setting us up as only a “dominion”, not a republic. Dominion status meant we couldn’t control our economy, nor make economic treaties with other countries, unless London agreed.

     The English however were now beholden to Yankee bankers. US Lend-Lease policy had financed England’s savage World War 2, sending the English into debt bondage. The US then demanded that England hand over their colonies.

After 1948, the US, mimicking the old English policy of “imperial preferences”, kept sabotaging our relationship with socialist and independent countries. The US threats, delivered by Pompeo, this week? Nothing new! Europe & the US have always been waging war on us (see Random Notes)

• In 1947, England imposed the Anglo-Ceylonese Defence Agreement, to cage the country, prior to fake ‘independence’. In 1949, Army Act No.17 was passed with English Brigadier James Sinclair appointed Commandant of the Ceylon Army. England still controlled police, judiciary, bureaucracy, & army. Judges appointed by England controlled the high courts, with final decisions made in London.

     The US kept demanding military bases in Sri Lanka, and the Sri Lankan government kept stalling saying there were England military bases still here.

     In 1956 when England and France invaded to grab the Suez Canal for themselves, US President Eisenhower blocked the IMF from granting England emergency loans until it withdrew. England became Washington’s poodle.

     In 1957, SWRD kicked the English bases out out of Lanka, but still refused US bases. The US made the Oxford graduate pay the capital price for going beyond their Yankee ‘English syllabus’.

     In 1965, the English and US-backed leaders of the 1962 coup against Sirimavo Bandaranaike were freed by a London Privy Council. In 1971, the leaders and members of the adventurist JVP had to be charged with overthrowing the Queen of England.

     22 years after India, Sri Lanka finally became a republic in 1972. But it was Not Yet Nidhahasa…

• In 1950, within 2 years of SL ‘granted’ dominion status, the US had captured SL’s Central Bank – ‘The Bank of Banks’ which controls monetary policy (interest rate, money supply).

     The US Treasury, and a governor of its Federal Reserve, John Exter, designed and headed SL’s Central Bank. They straitjacketed the CB, opposing our economic independence, which meant opposing modern industrialization. Exter’s main plan was to continue the colonial import-export plantation system, and prevent any bank – Bank of Ceylon etc – from becoming development banks, from investing in modern industry. The CBSL opposed relations with the USSR & other socialist COMECON countries (who attempted to help us industrialize). The CB also opposed Sri Lanka’s most successful trade pact, the SL-China, Rubber-Rice Treaty (see ee 4 Aug 2019)

• China this week announced its 14^th Five-Year Plan. While the US, England, EU, etc., prevent us from any long-term plans. It was SBD de Silva who first alerted ee to Saul Adler’s classic, The Chinese Economy, and its vital relevance to Lanka. It is SB’s pencil underlining and near-unreadable notes in Adler’s book we now highlight. This ee focuses on Chapter 5 The First 5-Year Plan in Industry, a fascinating look into the process and the implementation of the plan:

     “Russia, the pioneer of socialist industrialization had to pay the penalty of being first, just as England did as the pioneer of capitalist industrialization… China obtained large amounts of investment goods from Russia and the Eastern Bloc countries on relatively favorable terms. The most important aid Russia provided to China was technical assistance such as planners, surveyors, designers, consultants, and other higher-grade technicians for capital construction…”

Contents:

A1. Reader Comments

• Quadri MNCs? • Beware of Presidential Spread • Enter the 20^th • Independent ee-Pendant • Neutralizing NAM

A2. Quotes of the Week

• What’s wrong if a directly elected president exercises executive powers? • Tokyo Trap & US Swamp • Port City Win-Win • Remember Obama-Biden’s 7 Wars?

A3. Random Notes

No Economic Independence Yet • Unilever Grabbed our Home Market • India Invades Goa •  Banks Never Supported Independence • No Development Banks Allowed • IMF & Debt •  Bank of Ceylon Fraud • US Disliked Senanayakes? • China’s CP or SL Independence? • Media Monopolizes Fake News • Ratings & Politics • Sermons on Covid & Human Rights • US at War All its Life • US Missionaries & Opium • Manifest Destiny Globalized • Jacksonian Mass Murder • Sermons on SMEs • No Economic Plan, No Foreign Policy? • Sex & Economists

B. ee Focus       

B1. China’s 1^st 5-Year Plan in Industry – Saul Adler

C. News Index

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A1. Reader Comments

• ee thanks Readers who send articles of interest. Please excerpt or summarize what is important about any article sent, or your comments, and place the e-link at the end. It’s better to email.

• “Is the quadrilateral military alliance ranged against SL & China, an alliance of Caltex & Brandix, Tata & Bajaj, Toyota & Honda, Diseased Australian Cows & Dubious Down-Under Degrees?”

“The so-called ultra-rightwing and pro-high-inequality club of leaders had 3 members infected (Trump, BoJo, Bolsanaro)… Strange, that more-caring leaders too are exposing themselves more to infection.”

• “I hope the USA don’t enter now like 20A. I’m against the MCC.”

• “Re: An independent foreign policy to pursue economic development?” Adoh, I have no pendant to mortgage coz I’m poor. So I’m truly in-de-pendant. But ee is not independent, machan…”

• “They are trying to present the NonAligned Movement for something that it isn’t… It suits the current ‘neutrality’ policy that does not bind Sri Lanka to respecting the principles of multilateralism…”

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A2. Quotes of the Week_

• “Re: 20A, Much ado about nothing. Quintessentially, this is a return to the 1978 constitution under JR. What’s wrong if a directly elected president exercises executive powers? France, Russia, Brazil, Turkey, etc.” – twitter.com/BhadraPunchline/status/1321093626919899139

• “Sri Lanka was made to walk into a trap in the early noughties, when the Tokyo Co-Chairs tied an aid pledge (USD4.5bn) to progress to be made in peace talks between the then UNP-led government and the LTTE… the US and other Co-Chairs (the EU, Japan, Norway) made SL stick to a fragile truce… SL has been caught in a human-rights trap, which the US laid in the form of a country-specific resolution, in Geneva, and cannot extricate itself try as it might.” (see ee Sovereignty, Noughties)

• “Port City is a US$1.4billion FDI – the largest in Sri Lanka’s history. Not a cent of debt was accumulated in the transaction. It added 269 new hectares of land under the direct sovereignty of SL. Once operational it’s expected to generate 200,000 jobs and attract $US739mn annually. China hasn’t made any profits from the project since breaking ground in 2014. In fact, our political system has brought them significant losses. A Chinese SOE will get 43% of the new landmass on lease for a period of 99 years. Sounds like a win-win deal to me.” – Rathmalanay Xira

• “Biden-Harris would be Obama-Biden 3.0. Remember those seven wars. Remember the surges. Remember the kill lists. Remember Libya. Remember Syria. Remember “soft coup” Brazil. Remember Maidan. You have all been warned.”

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A3. Random Notes (‘Seeing Number in Chaos’)_

• The Bank of Ceylon was set up in 1939 because no English bank would lend to Sinhala people, except through south Indian Chettiar and north Indian Afghan moneylenders, who borrowed from English banks, and lent at exorbitant rates to Lankans. Though the BoC still operated ‘independently’ until it was nationalized in 1961, it still failed to lend to rural people.

     In 1972, the Sirimavo government passed the Agricultural Productivity Law, which forced the bank to open Agrarian Service Centre branches in almost all villages here, but again, it failed to challenge the rule of moneylenders. As Philip Gunawardena noted, the Bank of Ceylon had been strangled by the colonial office at birth, being “controlled by prosperous lawyers and other sharks”. The People’s Bank, the so-called successor to the Cooperative Development Bank, established in 1961, became more or less a commercial bank. Now we have the rule of so-called NBFIs, larger sharks 

     The World Bank, IMF etc, set up 5 years before the CBSL, to control a country’s economic priorities and access to foreign investment, now have their officials in every SL ministry, including in the Central Bank. WB/IMF officials are also agents of the US Treasury. The present head of the World Bank is Trump’s former Under Secretary of the Treasury for International Affairs.

     Those who parrot nonsense about China’s ‘debt trap’, usually have little idea about how the IMF imposed structural adjustment and never-ending debt on Sri Lanka, constantly demanding sale of public resources and enterprises, and devaluation of the rupee. Nor do they acknowledge the more massive debts SL owes to US and English banks.

     China’s assistance has been largely towards productive infrastructure, not to resolve Balance of Payment issues, based on massive imports of industrial goods, which end up de-industrializing SL.

Economic independence still eludes us. England impoverished our peasantry, who, as the rural majority, would provide the home market for industrial renaissance. English multinationals like Unilever have captured this home market, prevented investment in rural agriculture, promoting the rule of merchants and moneylenders, who enriched English banks. The Central Bank was unable to control English plantation agency houses & banks,to prevent bleeding of money and smuggling of goods abroad. Nor can they control the multinational corporations now.

     We differed from the US, Canada, Australia, etc, which were composed almost wholly of settlers, where resident investors predominated. The white dominions outgrew their colonial status quite early and became developed economies. The other imperial possessions continued as colonies… extensions of the metropolitan economy. Falling sick when they sneezed. Refusing to see international reality, SL media keep wailing for imports, exports, tourism.

     In Africa, they cried, “Not Yet Uhuru!” The Indian Communist Party rallying cry was “Yeh Azaadi Jhoothi Hain” – “This freedom is a fake.”

     The idea of dominion status ‘suffocated and strangled’. So Nehru, India’s first PM claimed: Indians did not have real power, unless the English gave up military and economic control. India then declared itself a Republic, 2 years later in 1950, Pakistan in 1956. In 1961 India invaded and evicted Portugal from Goa. Only SL and the USSR supported India at the UN. Why would India now prevent our independence? Or is it that we do not know that independence requires modern industrialization?

• Bourgeois economists insist Central Banks should be ‘independent’, free of democratic control. These economists demand separation between monetary policy (money supply, interest rates) made by the CBSL, and fiscal policy – government taxation and spending decided by the legislature. This recalls the mythical separation between executive, legislature and judiciary. Yet all these powers promote the rule of the merchant and moneylender oligarchy: themselves poodles of large US/EU and other ‘quadrilateral’ multinationals and banks. Now, during another crisis of capitalism (falsely blamed on Covid), the banks and corporations are crying for bailout by the state. The CBSL is combining both monetary and fiscal functions, we’re told. Yet when will they support true independence?

• No Development Banks Allowed – An indication of what happened to those banks that were even called ‘development’ banks, was again reinforced this week, when DFCC (Development Finance Corporation of Ceylon!) proudly partnered with the sinking Havelock City (owned by Singapore’s Overseas Realty), built on the graveyard of the Wellawatte Spinning & Weaving Mills, which employed 1000s of workers. WSWM could have been invested in, but was instead run into the ground, its land turned into luxury condos, now in trouble. WSWM ghosts have a fine story about underdevelopment and deindustrialization, yet to be told.

• Yet, the USA has never fully had its way in SL. This is most evident in their inability to prevent the Rubber-Rice Pact with China, despite strong US opposition. Evidence is now slowly emerging how they were dissatisfied with both DS Senanayake and Dudley Senanayake. The English had reposed great faith in the Senanayake family at first. They were a better alternative to materially grounded nationalists such as DJ Wimalasurendra, and rising socialist movements. But when they opposed US dictat to cut relations with China, they too were moved out of the way.

     At the same time, as previous ee showed, through assassination (1959), coup (1962), pogroms, terrorism, massmurder, the US (with the English & EU, their local whites and brown sahibs) have managed to prevent true independence.

     Is it China’s Communist Party they’re warning us against? Or is it that the US/EU and England, and all their quadrilateral horses and all their quadrilateral women and men, do not wish us to escape their colonial stranglehold?

• Public Media in a capitalist society exists to throw people and their leaders off balance, through rumors, lies, diversions. The corporate capture of media meant they also moved quickly to discredit social media by flooding it with fake news. They may blame conspiracy theorists, but capitalists do not wish people to analyze or plan to overcome exploitation and the oppression it requires.

     This week alongside US Foreign War Secretary Mike Pompeo’s visit and threats, US multinational bank Morgan Stanley, again predicted financial armageddon for SL if we do not return to the fold of a “credible policy anchor like the IMF”. Opposition critics also called on the government to heed Morgan’s warnings. Yet Morgan has been involved in fraud over and over again. In August, France suspended Morgan Stanley as a primary dealer in French bonds, after they caught it manipulating prices, transactions that seriously affected liquidity, and exacerbated Greece’s debt crisis.

     You don’t need an ECG machine to graph the blips linking pronouncements by US/EU politicians that then trigger downturns, with doomsaying by financial ratings agencies, bond markets and the Colombo Stock Exchange. A Financial Times article (see ee Economy, Moody’s Concerns) appears to track these zigzags to politics, and not to any apparent changes in the ‘real’ economy.

     While Moody’s is bearish (negative) on the economy, Fitch gives US-linked Sarvodaya Finance a bullish/good rating. Is there a link between these warm feelings and the fact the Sarvodaya Finance head is also the head of Capital Media (EconomyNext etc) which is linked to the US media multinational Hearst, which owns Fitch?

• While people may hold back laughter if the US and EU, with 100,000s of needless deaths, give us advice on how to handle Covid, why does no one laugh when the US/EU gives us advice on ‘human rights’? Perhaps we feel it more appropriate to cry, or that such bald hypocrisy must be met with a jaw-dropping silence.

     After the USSR withdrew in 1989, the USA and its poodles escalated savage invasions of West Asia and North Africa. Their plan is to control resources, and deny trade, especially with South/East Asia, which is set to recover from centuries of colonialism..

     Europe and its white-settler satellites have been at war with the world for over 500 years. This is a reality few – in the media at least – wish to admit. The US, as Europe’s premier white-settler state, has waged war throughout its entire existence. This daily resort to massmurder is erased in the media.

     Even when the US sent their first Christian missionaries to Ceylon in 1813, they were fighting their first foreign wars in the Mediterranean (setting up the US Marines) to enable shipping of opium. These missionaries from New England were funded by the first US Boston millionaires who made their money from selling Turkish opium in China. Harriet Winslow founded Jaffna’s Uduvil Girls’ School in 1824, the first girls’ boarding school in Asia. Winslow’s great-great-grandsons – Secretary of State John Foster Dulles, and brother, CIA Director Allen Dulles – are ranked among the world’s top mass-murderers in the 1950s, waging wars (Korea, Cuba) and coups against elected governments, as in Guatemala (Arbenz), Iran (Mossadegh), and assassinations of leaders in Sri Lanka (SWRD), Congo, (Lumumba) etc, promoting chaos.

Stealing the lands of the original people of North America, while calling it a ‘divine right’, proclaiming the Monroe Doctrine to oppose European colonialism in the Americas, the US proceeded to rob the rest of the Americas declaring it ‘Manifest Destiny’. This concept is linked to former US President Andrew Jackson. Jackson is ranked among the world’s top mass-murderers, signing the Indian Removal Act to forcibly relocate most original peoples in the US South to “Indian Territory”, and attacking Mexico. A Pollonaruva boy is now teaching the glories of ‘Manifest Destiny’ to US soldiers in bases around the world (see ee Sovereignty, Chapa).

     When Trump became US President in 2017, one of his first acts was to place in his Oval Office a portrait of Andrew Jackson. Manifest Destiny proclaimed, white people had the right to take over and control all of the Americas. This concept has now been extended to the world.

     Robbing the Pacific, the US war-machine arrived at the edge of Asia and the Indian Ocean, the US entered the 20^thC, grabbing Hawaii, Guam, the Philippines, declaring it the ‘will of god’. The US also demanded ‘equal opportunity’ with other Europeans, to rob China, having already profited immensely from the opium trade.

     While Trump has proclaimed Andrew Jackson as his hero, ironically, Jackson is claimed as the originator of the Democratic Party, which was pro-slavery, and still a warmonger, populist and pro-white worker party. The US Republican Party claimed to oppose slavery, even as they planned the mass deportation of Africans to Africa.

• Why does Europe and its settler satellites oppose reconstruction in Sri Lanka? Why do we get constant lectures and bribes to promote SMEs? Especially those SMEs that (like garments) depend on expensive imported inputs, or low-skill (making patties, cutlets). Why don’t our economists compare SMEs here with other industrial countries?

     Why have the attempts to plan our economy and country’s path failed over and over again? Is it due to the power of the merchants and moneylenders who control the country’s vast resources through their agents in both parliament and the state apparatus? So, we’re not allowed our own foreign policy or to plan our own economy.

• Sex & SL Economists – The saturation of media messages about exports and foreign exchange takes its toll. A popular Sinhala video starring a very candid sex worker Himaya Adhikari, declares she too is contributing to exports and FDI through selling sex! Recently, Colombo University Prof Sirimal Abeyratne decried how we rank low in rightwing economic thinktanks (eg US Heritage Foundation) and other dubious “Global Happiness” indices. This sex worker, however, is undaunted. She insists she too can make it like certain Indian and Pakistani porn stars, who also have medical and engineering PhDs, citing their ranking in the “Top 10 Porn Stars of the US”!, and bring in foreign exchange. The Colombo Professor, without doubt, would be proud of such happy endings. Surely FT columnist WA Wijewardena would declare her an ‘entrepreneur’ too. No doubt, the under-the-counter capitalist, late lamented Mahakandure Madush, was all of this and more too.

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B. Special Focus_

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B1. China’s First Five-Year Plan in Industry, 1952-57

China announced its 14^th 5-Year Plan this week, focusing on its home market and on self-reliant hi-tech innovation.  ee presents again an adaptation from Saul Adler’s The Chinese Economy, 1957: on their first Plan, 1952-57, which even in 1954 was still subject to reorientation, as China unified the country, kept collecting statistics, assessing its resources, overcoming setbacks, yet striving forward.

Sri Lanka has funny economics departments and economists who ignore Asia’s real industrial economies. We also have funny ‘socialists’, let alone capitalists, with absolutely no idea what a producer industrial culture would mean, versus the consumer mercantile culture we now suffer. Some Leftists have long abandoned the need for an industrial society. They express this distaste through the most modern imported devices. They are as bad as the corrupt merchant media: They repeat a long list of uninvestigated objections: lack of raw materials, small market, no economy of scale, pollution, etc. Yet others wish for instant change, and do not realize change must be built on a material basis. Still others, that industrialization is matter of making a few tools.

     Also, most forget that all socialist countries continue to be invaded, have to keep industrializing, while diverting investment away towards defense.

Adler’s book was mostly written before (published in) 1957, a year of great changes and controversies in China, especially regarding relations with Russia, as well as the struggles of the Great Leap Forward.

     Some like to forget that science learns more from its failures than its successes. Just as there is no royal road to science, the path is long and hard, but for those who know that world must come together, such setbacks can and must be learned from, and surely overcome.

     Some may think ee is mechanically trying to import and impose other people’s practices. While noting, China’s socialist experiment, involving a quarter of the world’s suffering inhabitants, “cannot be ignored, or, worse still, dismissed as a bad dream”, Adler cautions:

     “The Chinese experience is instructive for the light it throws on the problems of industrialization in underdeveloped and backward countries. The lessons to be learned are admittedly complex in character and in no way imply that Chinese institutions and practices are exportable in toto and without modification. On the contrary, it’s been one of China’s main sources of strength that she has insistently taken her own historical and social background into account and…eschewed doctrinaire prescriptions which Mao Zedong once compared to “the foot-bandages of a slut, long as well as smelly.”

• Definitions – The most important concepts to understand when reading Adler: the difference between capital goods (means of production, machine tools etc) and consumer goods (eaten, used and thrown away). Also: composition – how much of any product is made by machines, and how much by human labor. Communist countries also used different indices for measuring an economy. They excluded financial services, etc. GDP as a measure was discredited after the 2008 capitalist meltdown. French president Sarkozy funded a study by Amartya Sen, Joe Stiglitz etc, to come up with a different measure. Our beloved economists, however, are yet to hear about it.

      ‘China measured its national income as the net value of “material production”. Their gross total output did not include commerce, finance and personal services, whether in the socialist, private or individual sector. The Western definition of GNP or expenditures is broader than the Western definition of national income, and the Communist conception of national income. The items excluded by the Soviet definition and included in the US and English definitions amount to about a third of US national income, and in the USSR to about a 10% of Soviet national income.” (Adler)

So here is Adler’s Chapter Five:

“ The fundamental tasks of China’s First 5-Year Plan (1952-57) were, to lay the preliminary groundwork: For socialist industrialization. For the socialist transformation of agriculture and handicrafts. To lay the foundations for the socialisation of private industry and commerce. They hoped to achieve all this within about 3 5-Year Plans, ending in 1967.

     The first fundamental task of China’s First 5-Year Plan – laying the groundwork for socialist industrialization – entailed the growth of heavy industry to the stage where China becomes a significant industrial power, and approaches that critical point at which industrial expansion becomes self-generating.

     Of the total funds allocated to economic construction, cultural and educational development, over half was for capital construction, and of this 60% was invested in industry. 90% of investment in industry was allocated to heavy industry. A large part of the capital construction funds were invested in transport, trade and education directly linked to the growth of heavy industry.

     Many of the vital heavy industrial projects instituted in the 1^st 5-Year Plan were thought to require 5 years to complete: Major projects included 48 projects in iron & steel, 15 thermal power plants, large hydroelectric stations for millions of kilowatts, 31 huge coal mines, 2 motor car plants and one tractor plant, 2 huge heavy machinery plants, and plants capable of manufacturing huge generators, and also large nonferrous metallurgical, heavy engineering and chemical factories.

     The focus was on fuel, iron & steel and heavy industries, also doubling coal, hydroelectric and power generation, crude oil production, and oil refining, The Anshan iron and steel complex was set up to produce millions of tons of pig iron, ingot steel and rolled steel. China’s first automobile plant only began to produce trucks in 1956, with a second auto plant with double the capacity, scheduled next. The iron and steel complexes were sited next to coal supplies.

     They set a target for steel & crude steel output, for 2 heavy machinery plants to produce every year a complete set of iron-smelting, steel-making, rolling mill and coke oven equipment, for an integrated iron and steel works.

     The First 5-Year Plan called for the building of 2,500 miles of new railway lines and renovation of existing lines. Goals were set to double freight train ton-mileage, and to build 6,250 miles of trunk highways, increase coastal and inland steamship tonnage built by China’s own shipbuilding yards.

     The preliminary foundation of socialist industrialization required training top-level technicians and intermediate technical personnel, producing 20,00 top engineers a year (whereas England at the time had 20,00 graduates in total). 2 out of 5 university students would enter engineering faculties, and one out of 3 graduates would be engineers. University entrants were set to double, 1952-57, to 434,000 (5 times the university population of England). Middle-ranked trained cadres were to be produced by an increase in senior middle, vocational and night schools, etc. Millions of workers would be trained on the job, with supplementary part-time training also. Out of a workforce of 21mn people, over a million were to be transferred from the private sector to the state, cooperative and particularly the joint enterprises. Unemployed urban labour would be transferred to agriculture. Construction projects included educational and other facilities as well as housing for factory and office workers.

     The size of the workforce involved in modern industry and transport was to include all those involved in socialist and semi-socialist sectors in industry and transport, as well as half of those transferred from the private industrial sector to the jointly owned enterprises. during the 5-Year Plan, of about 4 million people. They projected a 64% rise in per-capita labor productivity in state-owned industrial enterprises.

     Large investments were also made in ‘light’ industry, mostly textiles and food-processing. The supplies of textiles to the countryside contribute to raising the supplies of marketed grain. The plan called for a rise of about 80% in the industrial output of consumer goods and retail sales sought to balance the different sectors, avoiding excessively sharp sacrifices of present against future income.

     The size of the food surplus imposes an upper limit on the scale of investment. In China and Russia, the success of the Revolution would have been impossible without land reform. Yet land reform also brought an increase in the peasant consumption of grain and standard of living, yet peasants were not anxious to sell their surplus grain. The Russians adopted the drastic solution of the liquidation of the kulaks as a class, and the collectivization-cum-mechanization of agriculture. In China, the rich peasants were a small and relatively unimportant group, and thoroughgoing mechanized collectivization was going to take a long time. China’s Communists would have to rely on other means.

       During the industrialization process, modern industrial output increases at a rapid rate both absolutely and relatively compared to other output as a whole. The process of industrialization therefore entails changes in the composition of industrial output. The output of means of production went from 28.8% of gross industrial output in 1949, to 46% in 1955, reflecting the growing importance of heavy industry as the base for further sustained industrial expansion.

     The changes in the composition of industrial output also reflect the growth of net and gross investment in relation to total output. There is not only growth in the production of means of production but also the scale of the budgetary expenditures on economic construction. Expenditure on capital construction clearly belongs to the category of net investment (which increases the availability of fixed capital goods or means of production and goods inventories), while government expenditure of economic construction belongs to some form of gross investment (which also includes real-estate).

     US economists like Rostow, claimed there was no gross investment in private industry, even as they had to admit rapid rates of growth in Communist China. Yet the tax structure and policy of allocating a definite proportion of profits to a reserve fund were specifically designed to stimulate private investment.

     Within a process of industrialization, disparity is inevitable in the rates of growth between industrial and all other output, between the output in means of production and output in consumer goods, while disparity between the industrial output of the state sector and private sector industrial output is part of socialist industrialization.

     China’s original industrial base was slender, so first, it was essential to use existing capacity to the utmost; second, to enlarge existing plants; and, third, to construct entirely new plants. though there was no sharp dividing lines between these phases.

     Despite the continuing importance of the original industrial bases, the creation of new capacity increasingly becomes the focal point of economic development during large-scale industrialization.

     By 1953, new projects completed included: Heavy steel rolling and seamless steel tubing mills and 2 blast furnaces, an open-cast coal mine, several power plants, a hydroelectric station. One blast furnace at Anshan, designed by the German Wolff Co for the Japanese in 1939, was not technically advanced: It was then made anew and fully electrified. In 1954, Anshan produced 1.5 million tons of pig iron, 200,000 tons more than under Japanese occupation. By 1955, several coal mines and power stations, a steel metal mill, open-hearth furnace, aluminum plant, pneumatic tool plant, machine-tool factory, 12 sugar refineries, 28 major textile projects.

     Progress in machine building and heavy & light machinery was noteworthy. Within 3 years, pig iron and steel capacity increased by 2.5 million tons. According to 1956 targets, 60% of machinery and 80% of steel requirements were to be covered by internal production during the first 5-Year Plan. 1957 targets for steel and machine tools were also revised.

     Progress was both qualitative & quantitative. By 1952, China had produced automatic looms, her first fully equipped 240-kwt generator, and her first 375-horsepower steam engine. In the same year, pilot production was started for medium-sized lathes, universal milling machines, turbo-generators, electric motors, transformers, air compressors, steel hammers, rotary drills and locomotives. New products in 1953/54 included heavy steel rails, seamless steel tubing, high-grade carbon steel, high-grade alloy structural steel, transformers, heavy-duty and semi-automatic lathes, precision boring, and precision grinding tools, a 2,600 ton cargo vessel, among others. The 1954 Leipzig Fair noted, “The Chinese display as a whole serves to remind the visitor that China is making many more products than he would have supposed, and many of which were Western monopolies not long ago.”

     In 1955, China produced her first automatic hydroelectric 10,000-kwt generator. And with electrical machinery projects, would start manufacturing other classes of generating equipment. In 1956, the first successful trial production of jet-plane engines was carried out. By 1954, China was turning out half the machines needed for large-scale industrialization. While there no doubt about the momentum, the process was still not self-generating. China was still dependent on much foreign machinery, but “she was unmistakably becoming less so.”

     In light industry, textile output expanded with a large-scale textile machinery industry, making 1.5 million spindles and 40,000 looms. There was also growth of the pharmaceutical chemicals industry, installation of the first plastics plant in China, and complete manufacture of radios and parts, typewriters, calculating machines and X-ray apparatus.

     As in other Communist countries, inferior quality and lack of variety were serious problems with respect to light industrial products, presumably due to the focus on heavy industry, difficulties in extending mass production, low initial technical level, and pressure to achieve planned targets. It was hoped that incentives for quality, and an established free market with wider price ranges for some commodities, would ameliorate the problem, but the longterm solution was systematic raising of technical levels in manufacture, design and management.

     Labor productivity was low to begin with, so the major rate of change was no surprise, especially due to the scale of investment, labor efficiency and drive to raise standards of industrial management and administration. Labor efficiency grew with the spread of the emulation movement, extension of piece-rate work, ending the “supply” system in government enterprises and offices, large-scale training enterprises, enhanced political status and general improvement in the living conditions of the urban working class, with added social prestige and labor incentives. Examples of labor productivity cited were average coal output per man-shift. In coalmines, it increased dramatically. The number of spindles per fine yarn worker increased in 1952 to 800, from 250 in 1949. Ordinary looms per worker increased 6 times, and automatic looms, 3 times 1949.

     In the first 2 years of the 5-Year Plan, labor productivity in state and joint industrial enterprises increased by 29%, a little under half the 1957 target.

     Chinese industry in 1957 was still heavily concentrated in 7 coastal cities. One objective of the industrialization program was to reduce this imbalance and dependence, by not developing the big cities further, and developing the medium and small cities in the interior. China’s largest city Shanghai’s significance as an international port and light-industrial centre was reduced, and its economy diversified, embracing machine-tool and other engineering works, chemicals and cement plants, a shipbuilding plant as well as light industry. Beijing became a large industrial as well as administrative centre, and Tianjin the main port, with urban growth not confined to the Northeast and coastal industrial cities.

     Yet China still had a long way to go. The modern industrial sector in 1955, only produced a third of gross total output, or only double the output of all handicraft, including handicraft workshops. Small industry and handicraft would continue to account for a sizeable fraction of industrial production. Some thought handicraft production an asset due to its high aesthetic standards.

     Chinese industry would continue to present a variegated pattern, from great iron and steel complexes, coalmines and automatic textile plants down to small power-driven plants and even petty handicraft. China could be seen as a museum of technological history, but it would not be confined to dead or dying species anymore. It still had labor-intensive methods, that were extinct in the West, but still economically remunerative in China. Yet it now had many capital-intensive plants employing advanced equipment and techniques. At the end of the First 5-Year Plan, they would begin the peaceful utilization of atomic energy, with direct Soviet aid.

     Economic progress is uneven by its very nature. It first invades one process or group of processes without necessarily or immediately affecting others, and only gradually penetrates and permeates the whole fabric of production. What was important was that the heavy industrial base was rapidly expanding, and the gap between modern technical standards and best Chinese practices was being narrowed, that the considerable opportunities for advance in labor-intensive smaller-scale and even petty production was not being neglected, with a conscious effort to synchronize progress. Each individual gain however small could raise the general level and make the next step easier.

     What were the chances of the First 5-Year Plan succeeding? It was necessary to assume a state of peace. Russia’s 4^th 5-Year Plan had to be abandoned, after the Nazis invaded. China would have to do so too in the event of a major war. China railway mileage was still confined to the eastern half of the country, and that too was still rather bare. This was a serious disadvantage as China had to allocate a major part of new investment to railways, which are both capital intensive and competitive with heavy industry in their demand for capital goods. Thus projected investments in transport, mostly railways, accounted for nearly 20% of the total capital construction costs during the First 5-Year Plan. Compared to Russia, China has a single continuous coastline navigable all year around. China also had a potentially first rate inland waterway system. China was also well endowed with coal, iron and non-ferrous metals, sizeable oil reserves and hydroelectric potential.

     Global comparisons are misleading when they ignore big population disparity and the importance of the relative size of the modern industrial sector. While quantitative differences in the progress of urbanization is not itself significant, it could conceal qualitative differences which could be a disadvantage. Also, China’s living standards were quite low to begin with, so appearance of rapid progress could be misleading.

     China was less isolated than Russia during Russia’s first 5-Year Plan in 1927. Russia had to buy foreign capital goods during the Depression, when terms of trade were turning catastrophically against agricultural goods. Russia had no one to trust, and while many foreign technologists were hired, they never enjoyed their employers’ full confidence. Further, Russia had to give the highest priority to national defence because of WW2.

     China in 1949 was not isolated politically. She would obtain large amounts of investment goods from Russia and the Eastern Bloc countries on relatively favorable terms. The most important aid Russia provided to China was technical assistance such as planners, surveyors, designers, consultants, and other higher-grade technicians for capital construction.

     Russia’s foreign advisors had been used to a high capital-labor ratio, and would pronounce certain problems insolvable, which Russia then had to solve for themselves. At first they had a terrible time learning how to handle new equipment, yet Russians soon went beyond their US advisors’ abilities. Russia’s scale of investment was also beyond what Western engineers were familiar with. Whereas Russian advisors to China were more adaptable to the Chinese milieu. While China could at first depend on Russia for defence aid, still defence becomes a major issue when industrializing.

     Russia also faced greater internal opposition since capitalism was stronger there in industry and agriculture. In China, the KMT had discredited itself and strengthened internal political unity, so the Chinese Communists could depend more on persuasion. The KMT with its corruption was “a machine for the manufacture of Communists”. The Russian CP had to emerge from a major internecine conflict to defeat the Trotskyists, and the big purges of rightist & leftist oppositions. The absorption of new members into the CCP on an unprecedented scale especially since 1949, also posed new questions but the social basis of intra-party and non-party opposition appeared much weaker in China. The KMT in Taiwan had no sizeable following inside China and depended fully on US aid.

     Russia, the pioneer of socialist industrialization, had to pay the penalty of being first, just as England did as the pioneer of capitalist industrialization. Russia had to resolve massive tasks from scratch such as establishing correct relations between urban and rural economic development, between agricultural and industrial prices, devising techniques for meeting peasants wants. It could not avoid making many mistakes and false starts. China could learn from Russia’s mistakes.

     China has a bigger population. Russia had a bigger skilled industrial workforce. Russia had to deal with changes in rural society after the transfer of labor from rural agriculture to urban industry. Because of the social structure and technical character of Russian agriculture, adjustment to urban factory conditions caused acute social, economic and psychological problems. The Chinese peasant had a background in garden agriculture, in rural handicrafts, and lived in more densely populated village societies.

     China’s 2^nd 5-Year Plan took the original 1957 targets as a base and aimed to raise national income by 50%, gross total output by 75%, gross agricultural output by 35%, and double the gross industrial output. The main issue was “How much to invest, how much to consume.”

     The 2^nd 5-Year Plan would also give first priority to heavy industry. Major stress was to be laid on doubling machine-tool and metallurgical industries. Machine tools require raising home production to use them. Metallurgical industries required reducing dependence on foreign supplies, such as of high-grade steel alloys. Most noteworthy was the planned expansion in the production of aluminum ingots.

     China still had a long way to go before the bases of industrial power were completed. The absolute levels of the targets seemed to confirm the hypothesis that the critical point in the process of accumulation and industrialization could be passed by the 2^nd 5-Year Plan.

__________________________________________________________

C. News Index______________________________________________

• ee News Index provides headlines and links to gain a sense of the weekly focus of published English ‘business news’ mainly to expose the backwardness of a multinationally controlled ‘local media’:

C1. Sovereignty

(ee is pro-politics, pro-politician, pro-nation-state, anti-corporatist, anti-expert, anti-NGO)

ee Sovereignty news emphasizes sovereignty as economic sovereignty – a strong nation is built on modern industrialization fueled by a producer culture.

• India’s dementia and Lankan dreams

‘The regime change in Sri Lanka was the first of its kind in South Asia and bore striking resemblance to the US’ playbook in Latin America to undermine legitimate governments by using comprador elements and put in power “our s.o.b” (as FDR once derisively called dictator Somoza.)’

– https://indianpunchline.com/indias-dementia-and-lankan-dreams/

• Dimensions of a ‘Sri Lanka First’ policy regime

– dailymirror.lk/opinion/Dimensions-of-a-Sri-Lanka-First-policy-regime/172-198857

• Sri Lanka was made to walk into a trap in the early noughties

– island.lk/traps-and-duplicity/

• JVP silent on US aggression against China

– https://gammiris.lk/jvp-silent-on-us-aggression-against-china/

• Pompeo slams China for being a ‘predator’ on Sri Lanka visit

– lankaweb.com/news/items/2020/10/28/pompeo-slams-china-for-being-a-predator-on-sri-lanka-visit/

• China is a predator, Pompeo tells Sri Lanka

– thehindu.com/news/international/us-vision-of-sri-lanka-very-different-from-predator-china-pompeo/article32962148.ece

• Not interested in “Alien Vs Predator game invitation”: China to Pompeo

– dailymirror.lk/breaking_news/Not-interested-in-AlienVsPredator-game-invitation-China-to-Pompeo/108-198850

• Withstanding Great Power Bullying

‘It is unfortunate that India chose to invite US geo-political rivalries into the Indian Ocean region.’

– ceylontoday.lk/news/withstanding-great-power-bullying

• Keep kneeling, Mike. Me too wishes to breathe

– gammiris.lk/keep-kneeling-mike-me-too-wishes-to-breathe/

• Mike Pompeo (mentally unstable, carrying knife) murdered by Black Philly Cops

 – gammiris.lk/mike-pompeo-mentally-unstable-carrying-knife-murdered-by-black-philly-cops/

 • Not ready to compromise independence, sovereignty, territorial integrity, Gota to Pompeo

– dailymirror.lk/breaking_news/Not-ready-to-compromise-independence-sovereignty-territorial-integrity-Gota-to-Pompeo/108-198839

• Chinese ‘debt trap’: President sets record straight

‘The US Ambassador to Sri Lanka Alaina Teplitz, Under Secretary of State Brian Bulatao, Chief Assistant Deputy Secretary at Bureau of South and Central Asian Affairs Dean Thompson, Senior Advisor to the State Secretary Mary Kissel were the other members of the US delegation.’

– island.lk/chinese-debt-trap-president-sets-record-straight/

• Pompeo Visit: Gotabaya refused to toe US line on China but sought US investments

– lankaweb.com/news/items/2020/10/28/pompeo-visit-gotabaya-refused-to-toe-us-line-on-china-but-sought-us-investments/

• Foreign Secretary Admiral Professor Jayanath Colambage on Foreign Policy

– youtu.be/apUiG0mqr5M

• US wants President Gotabaya to fulfill promises made at his inauguration

‘Brands like Coke and Oracle and IBM are here certifying – or excuse me, creating high-quality jobs’

– island.lk/us-wants-president-gotabaya-to-fulfill-promises-made-at-his-inauguration/

• US troops and intel agents here for crucial Pompeo visit

– sundaytimes.lk/201025/columns/us-troops-and-intel-agents-here-for-crucial-pompeo-visit-421140.html

• US trying to establish military bases around China : Prof. Tissa Vitarana

– newsfirst.lk/2020/10/26/us-trying-to-establish-military-bases-around-china-prof-tissa-vitarana/

• Lanka shows it won’t fall for imperialist propaganda – Sri Lanka China Friendship Association

– island.lk/sri-lanka-has-shown-it-will-not-fall-for-imperialist-propaganda-president-slcfa/

• Come in Peace Mister Pompeo and we shall talk

– gammiris.lk/come-in-peace-mister-pompeo-and-we-shall-talk/

• Why don’t the Quad (US-India-Japan & Australia) just break trade ties with China?

– lankaweb.com/news/items/2020/10/29/why-dont-the-quad-us-india-japan-australia-just-break-trade-ties-with-china/

• Is Sri Lanka Fighting Someone Else’s War?

– youtube.com/watch?v=45M57ffpxLM

• US visit to Sri Lanka aimed at anti-China alliance, former senior diplomat says

– newsfirst.lk/2020/10/26/us-visit-to-sri-lanka-aimed-at-anti-china-alliance-former-senior-diplomat-says/

• Lanka not getting entangled in tussle between US and China- Amaraweera

– island.lk/lanka-not-getting-entangled-in-tussle-between-us-and-china-amaraweera/

• US-India Expected to Sign Military Pact as China Prompts Closer Ties

– wsj.com/articles/u-s-india-expected-to-sign-military-pact-as-china-prompts-closer-ties-11603623601

• Pompeo’s Sri Lanka visit underscores brewing US-China battle in Indo-Pacific

– lankaweb.com/news/items/2020/10/27/pompeos-sri-lanka-visit-underscores-brewing-us-china-battle-in-indo-pacific/

• Modi playing a high-risk game as he stands firm with US and takes aim at China

– lankaweb.com/news/items/2020/10/27/modi-playing-a-high-risk-game-as-he-stands-firm-with-us-and-takes-aim-at-china/

• India, U.S. clinch defence pact on satellite data as Pompeo, Esper hold talks

– sundaytimes.lk/article/1127461/india-u-s-clinch-defence-pact-on-satellite-data-as-pompeo-esper-hold-talks

• Pompeo says US, India must focus on threat posed by China

– ft.lk/news/Pompeo-says-US-India-must-focus-on-threat-posed-by-China/56-708170

• Pompeo arrives in India for talks on China ‘threats’

– ft.lk/front-page/Pompeo-arrives-in-India-for-talks-on-China-threats/44-708097

• Plaudits and pre-warning from Pompeo

– ft.lk/top-story/Plaudits-and-pre-warning-from-Pompeo/26-708221

• Secretary Michael R. Pompeo With Indeewari Amuwatte of Derana TV

– lankaweb.com/news/items/2020/10/28/secretary-michael-r-pompeo-with-indeewari-amuwatte-of-derana-tv/

• Wither India’s Sovereignty: signed, sealed & owned by US?

– lankaweb.com/news/items/2020/10/29/wither-indias-sovereignty-signed-sealed-owned-by-us/

• US turning on soft targets

– island.lk/us-turning-on-soft-targets/

• Lanka at the centre of US-China feud over strategic alliances

– sundaytimes.lk/201025/news/lanka-at-the-centre-of-us-china-feud-over-strategic-alliances-421174.html

• Pompeo will not have his way in Sri Lanka

– lankaweb.com/news/items/2020/10/25/pompeo-will-not-have-his-way-in-sri-lanka/

• Pompeo’s Indo-Pacific trip won’t succeed in ‘containing’ China

– lankaweb.com/news/items/2020/10/25/pompeos-indo-pacific-trip-wont-succeed-in-containing-china/

• Pompeo’s last foreign tour will be no victory lap: Global Times editorial

‘Indonesia is the largest country in Southeast Asia. It once bought military jets from the US and had to withstand a cessation in the supply of jet components due to US sanctions. Jakarta will not forget that.’

– lankaweb.com/news/items/2020/10/25/pompeos-last-foreign-tour-will-be-no-victory-lap-global-times-editorial/

• JVP asks Govt. to state its stand on Pompeo’s Sri Lanka visit

– island.lk/jvp-asks-govt-to-state-its-stand-on-pompeos-sri-lanka-visit/

• SL mustn’t be used as scapegoat between US and China : MP Ranawaka

– newsfirst.lk/2020/10/26/sl-mustnt-be-used-as-scapegoat-between-us-and-china-mp-ranawaka/

• Security, economic development to feature in talks with Pompeo

– dailymirror.lk/breaking_news/Security-economic-development-to-feature-in-talks-with-Pompeo/108-198786

• China to figure prominently in Pompeo’s talks with Gotabaya, Mahinda

– island.lk/china-to-figure-prominently-in-pompeos-talks-with-gotabaya-mahinda/

• China responds to US State Secretary’s visit to Sri Lanka

– newsfirst.lk/2020/10/26/china-responds-to-us-state-secretarys-visit-to-sri-lanka/

• China responds to US Pompeo’s remarks; offers insights into ties with SL

– ft.lk/front-page/China-responds-to-US-Pompeo-s-remarks-offers-insights-into-ties-with-SL/44-708098

• Lying about China puts US to shame:

– lankaweb.com/news/items/2020/10/27/lying-about-china-puts-us-to-shame/

• New Chinese Ambassador arrives

– dailymirror.lk/breaking_news/New-Chinese-Ambassador-arrives/108-198973

• Prez assured Cabinet MCC won’t be signed – Wimal

– island.lk/prez-assured-cabinet-mcc-wont-be-signed-wimal/

• “Will MCC be signed in secret on 28 October”? Sri Lankans are asking!

– lankaweb.com/news/items/2020/10/24/will-mcc-be-signed-in-secret-on-28-october-sri-lankans-are-asking/

• The MCC Compact Method of Creating more Poverty: The USA can definitely do better.

– lankaweb.com/news/items/2020/10/26/the-mcc-compact-method-of-creating-more-poverty-the-usa-can-definitely-do-better/

• As Chair of MCC & US Secretary of State, Mike Pompeo arrives – Demands & Choices for SL

– lankaweb.com/news/items/2020/10/25/as-chair-of-mcc-us-secretary-of-state-mike-pompeo-arrives-demands-choices-for-sri-lanka/

• SL feelers on MCC?

‘The MCC economic grant is on the cards. Sri Lanka has already sent feelers, it is learnt, if the grant can be without the Land Deeds component and have only the Transportation aspect of the offer. The already inked ACSA (Acquisition and Cross-Servicing Agreement) and to be negotiated SOFA (Status of Forces Agreement) military engagement pacts are not on the official agenda.’

– sundaytimes.lk/201025/editorial/just-ram-it-thru-421157.html

• Right of Reply: Sri Lanka is lucky to lose MCC

‘This is a right of reply to an article appearing on Daily FT titled History repeating – Are we going to lose MCC or not?” by an anonymous international development expert on 22 October 2020.’

– lankaweb.com/news/items/2020/10/25/right-of-reply-sri-lanka-is-lucky-to-lose-mcc/

• Disagreement on MCC won’t undermine US-Lanka relations – Pompeo

– island.lk/disagreement-on-mcc-wont-undermine-us-lanka-relations-pompeo/

• Sri Lanka’s newfound optimism in its India First Policy

– ft.lk/columns/Sri-Lanka-s-newfound-optimism-in-its-India-First-Policy/4-707970

• US makes various requests for Pompeo’s visit including emergent road construction – China

– dailymirror.lk/breaking_news/US-has-made-various-request-for-Pompeos-visit-including-emergent-road-construction-China/108-198744

• China responds to US Pompeo’s remarks; offers insights into ties with SL

– ft.lk/front-page/China-responds-to-US-Pompeo-s-remarks-offers-insights-into-ties-with-SL/44-708098

• US Advice to SL on Picking Sides in US-China Rivalry Kicks Up a Storm, Rebuked by Beijing.

– lankaweb.com/news/items/2020/10/27/us-advice-to-sri-lanka-on-picking-sides-in-us-china-rivalry-kicks-up-a-storm-rebuked-by-beijing/

• No need for Sri Lanka to take sides if US doesn’t force it to

– lankaweb.com/news/items/2020/10/27/no-need-for-sri-lanka-to-take-sides-if-us-doesnt-force-it-to/

• US can’t offer what China can to Sri Lanka: expert

– lankaweb.com/news/items/2020/10/28/us-cant-offer-what-china-can-to-sri-lanka-expert/

• Sampanthan worried about continuing US, China interventions here

‘Sampanthan said that Premier Modi should be here to inaugurate the Indian funded cultural centre in Jaffna under construction (adjoining the Jaffna Public Library- Pullukulum)…”

– island.lk/sampanthan-worried-about-continuing-us-china-interventions-here/

• Appeal against LTTE ban: Lanka’s London HC offers help to Home Office to rectify flaws

– sundaytimes.lk/201025/news/appeal-against-ltte-ban-lankas-london-hc-offers-help-to-home-office-to-rectify-flaws-421168.html

• English High Commission hosts panel discussion on the role of women in peacebuilding

– colombopage.com/archive_20B/Oct29_1603983507CH.php

• Killing us with laughter: President of TIGERLAND is appealing to Secretary Pompeo

– lankaweb.com/news/items/2020/10/28/killing-us-with-laughter-president-of-tigerland-is-appealing-to-secretary-pompeo/

• “Waterloo Suresh”: wants a license from the Law Society of Ontario to practice Law

– lankaweb.com/news/items/2020/10/27/waterloo-suresh-wants-a-license-from-the-law-society-of-ontario-to-practice-law/

• A Proposal for a new Paradigm in Foreign Policy for Sri Lanka

‘The Pivot to Asia” by the U.S. poses challenges that Sri Lanka simply cannot face alone. The BRI offers a basis for an alliance with nations similarly situated to Sri Lanka, which it is in this country’s interest to explore.’

– lankaweb.com/news/items/2020/10/25/a-proposal-for-a-new-paradigm-in-foreign-policy-for-sri-lanka/

• COVID wildfire, 20th Amendment, Mark Pompeo’s threat, resurgent MCC & SOFA; Signs that planetary alignment is not in the country’s favour?

– lankaweb.com/news/items/2020/10/24/covid-wild-fire-20th-amendment-mark-pompeos-threat-resurgent-mcc-signs-that-planetary-alignment-is-not-in-the-countrys-favour/

• USAID’s National Peace Council calls for inclusivity in governance post-20th Amendment

– ft.lk/news/National-Peace-Council-calls-for-inclusivity-in-governance-post-20th-Amendment/56-708055

• US-China and the mutable matrix of authoritarianism and tyranny – Jayatilleka

– ft.lk/columns/US-China-and-the-mutable-matrix-of-authoritarianism-and-tyranny/4-708177

• South Asian Great Game a challenge to Lanka’s neutrality

‘Sri Lanka has managed to buy time till the next dialogue in Washington some time next year, while winking at China. This is no neutrality.’

– dailymirror.lk/opinion/South-Asian-Great-Game-a-challenge-to-Lankas-neutrality/172-198912

• The Chapa Interview with US military professor Dr. Mendis: US policy in Sri Lanka

‘See how a Sri Lankan young man straight out of a Pollonaruwa school system gets educated in the US via a scholarship to becomes a complete supporter of the American Manifest Destiny” that he teaches to US soldiers.’

– lankaweb.com/news/items/2020/10/26/the-chapa-interview-with-us-military-professor-dr-mendis-us-policy-in-sri-lanka/

• China and the Quad both need Sri Lanka: An opportune moment to realise potential

– ft.lk/columns/China-and-the-Quad-both-need-Sri-Lanka-An-opportune-moment-to-realise-potential/4-708179

• Secretary of State Pompeo’s Visit / A Refreshing Contrast To UNHCR Resolution or David Cameron’s Antics at CHOGM

– lankaweb.com/news/items/2020/10/28/secretary-of-state-pompeos-visit-a-refreshing-contrast-to-unhcr-resolution-or-david-camerons-antics-at-chogm/

• After Bandung:

– island.lk/after-bandung/

• Why NSA Doval and his men are asserting themselves in Nepal, rather than MEA

‘PM Modi wants relationship with Nepal fixed. So R&AW chief Samant Goel and his team boarded a special aircraft to the Himalayan republic.’

– theprint.in/opinion/global-print/why-nsa-doval-and-team-are-asserting-themselves-in-indias-neighbourhood/531594/

• Boundary issue with India is bilateral, no space for third party intervention

– island.lk/boundary-issue-with-india-is-bilateral-no-space-for-third-party-intervention/

• Emerging contours of the US-Indian military alliance

‘Pentagon has a “tool kit” fort his purpose, which consists of intensively and cultivating senior military officials in foreign militaries and the Foreign Military Sales programme.’

– indianpunchline.com/emerging-contours-of-the-us-indian-military-alliance/

• India’s remains of the day in Ladakh

– indianpunchline.com/indias-remains-of-the-day-in-ladakh/

• A Sixth Eye to spy on Tibet, Xinjiang

– indianpunchline.com/a-sixth-eye-to-spy-on-tibet-xinjiang/

• Indonesia spells out terms of engagement with US

 “This is not because we are afraid of China, but Indonesia needs both the US and China, and Indonesia will forever keep its free and active foreign policy intact.”

– https://indianpunchline.com/indonesia-spells-out-terms-of-engagement-with-us/

• Mauritian PM labels UK and USA ‘hypocrites’ over Chagos Islands dispute

– mronline.org/2020/10/22/mauritian-pm-labels-uk-and-u-s-hypocrites-over-chagos-islands-dispute/

• Opposition’s Ramkalawan wins Seychelles presidential vote

– ft.lk/news/Opposition-s-Ramkalawan-wins-Seychelles-presidential-vote/56-708035

• China draws the analogy of Korean war to warn US

‘All indications are that Beijing is prepared to live with a nuclear DPRK. This can only mean that the US-China convergence on the common goal of North Korea’s denuclearisation no longer exists. The tectonic plates are shifting in the geopolitics of Northeast Asia.’

– indianpunchline.com/china-draws-the-analogy-of-korean-war-to-warn-us/

• Is China Imperialist, Socialist, Neither or Both

– youtube.com/watch?v=Rnr9JmVYD7o

• The USA Imposes Hybrid War on Asia

 ‘The first public online meeting of the No Cold War campaign took place on Saturday 25 July 2020, with speakers from eight countries – the US, China, Britain, India, Russia, Canada, Venezuela and Brazil – speaking out against the rising tide of aggression and hostility directed against China by the US and its allies.’

– youtube.com/watch?v=Q6G18WncbZo&ab_channel=NoColdWar

• Cuba makes joint statement from 45 countries at UN to support China’s measures in Xinjiang

– xinhuanet.com/english/2020-10/07/c_139422664.htm

• 70 countries support China at UN General Assembly regarding HK and Xinjiang: FM

– globaltimes.cn/content/1202794.shtml

• Trump Announces Sudan Will Move to Normalize Relations With Israel

‘The deal, however, appeared to stop short of establishing full diplomatic recognition between the two countries, as Israel recently has with the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain’

– nytimes.com/2020/10/23/world/middleeast/sudan-israel-trump-terrorism.html

• Algeria may take France to arbitration over ‘stolen’ archive

‘The Algerian authorities say that during the colonial period (1830-1962) the French forces smuggled hundreds of thousands of maps and historical documents, including those dating back to the Ottoman era (1518-1830). However, the French authorities say that the documents related to the colonial period of Algeria are part of the country’s sovereignty.’

 – aa.com.tr/en/africa/algeria-may-take-france-to-arbitration-over-stolen-archive/2020973

 • Erdogan Is Again Under Pressure And Therefore Likely To Escalate

– moonofalabama.org/2020/10/erdogan-is-again-under-pressure-and-therefore-likely-to-escalate.html#more

• Why Israel is allowing F-35 sale to UAE

Israel also got a ‘bonus’ from the UAE — virtual consent to set up a full-fledged Mossad station in the Emirates…and… a visa free travel regime…There is no better place on the planet than Dubai for the Mossad to monitor Iranian activities.’

– indianpunchline.com/why-israel-is-allowing-f-35-sale-to-uae/

• The Endgame in Belarus is in view

– indianpunchline.com/the-endgame-in-belarus-is-in-view/

• Belarus – Opposition Call For ‘Crippling General Strike’ Fails To Reach Workers

– moonofalabama.org/2020/10/belarus-opposition-call-for-crippling-general-strike-fails-to-reach-workers.html#more

• Putin’s Speech At 17th Annual Valdai Club Meeting

‘Vladimir Putin at the 17th Annual Meeting of the Valdai International Discussion Club’

– youtube.com/watch?v=Mp1fJzvKB5g

– en.kremlin.ru/events/president/news/64261

– valdaiclub.com/events/posts/articles/vladimir-putin-meets-with-members-of-the-valdai-club-transcript-17th-annual-meeting/

• New START: Putin’s “win-win” with Trump

 ‘Russia’s alliance with China has its unique characteristics but a balance between the Eurasian and Western vectors of Russian diplomacy is to its optimal advantage in the present international environment’

– indianpunchline.com/new-start-putins-win-win-with-trump/

• Strengthening US alliances and partnerships in an era of great-power competition: A conversation with US Secretary of Defense Mark Esper – Atlantic Council

‘The Scowcroft Center recently published a foundational “primer on hypersonic weapons in the Indo-Pacific region,”, which considers the potential contributions of existing US allies like Japan and Australia, along with additional potential partners like Singapore and India in this growing category of strategic weapon…Last year, we conducted our first-ever tri-service military exercise – TIGER TRIUMPH – with India. And in July, the USS Nimitz conducted a combined exercise with the Indian Navy as it transited the Indian Ocean. We also held our first ever U.S.-India defense cyber dialogue in September… Defense Minister Ben Wallace and I had a very good conversation. But they’re putting the Queen Elizabeth to sea, their carrier. And she has plans to sail to the Pacific next year with, by the way, US Marine Corps F-35s on board…Last week we had a Five Eyes forum, right, the US, New Zealand, UK, Canada and Australia, where “we talked about the challenges in the Indo-Pacific, …Atlantic Council for a long time has been calling for something like a Mideast NATO…’

– atlanticcouncil.org/commentary/transcript/transcript-strengthening-us-alliances-and-partnerships-with-us-secretary-of-defense-mark-esper/

• NATO 20/2020: Twenty bold ideas to reimagine the Alliance after the 2020 US election

– atlanticcouncil.org/nato20-2020/

• A Democratic Presidency means The Return of the Blob

– http://thesaker.is/a-dem-presidency-means-the-return-of-the-blob/

• Return of the ‘Democratic’ Warmongers

‘The Democratic White House team (Clinton, Blinken, Rice, Flournoy) would be an assembly of well known war mongers who all argue for hawkish policies. The main ‘enemies’, Russia and China, would be the same as under Trump. Syria, Venezuela, Iran and others would stay on the U.S. target list”

– https://www.moonofalabama.org/

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C2. Security (the state beyond ‘a pair of handcuffs’, monopolies of legitimate violence)

ee Security section focuses on the state (a pair of handcuffs, which sposedly has the monopoly of legitimate violence), and how the ‘national security’ doctrine is undermined by private interests, with no interest in divulging or fighting the real enemy, whose chief aim is to prevent an industrial renaissance as the basis of a truly independent nation.

• Santa has claws, clauses & eyes

‘According to Edward Snowden, the 5 Eyes even have 9 junior eyes: Germany, Israel, Singapore, South Korea, Japan, Denmark, France, Netherlands and Norway. The 14 eyes are now eyeball-to-eyeball with China, but they look down on us all.’

– https://gammiris.lk/santa-has-claws-clauses-eyes/

• US wants to get Shavendra ban ‘technically, factually and legally right’

– island.lk/us-wants-to-get-it-technicallyfactually-and-legally-right/

• Terrorism Link to Big Nations cannot be revealed

– island.lk/terrorism-and-hidden-hands

• Japan grants USD 636,363 to HALO Trust for demining in North

– island.lk/japan-grants-usd-636363-to-halo-trust-for-demining-in-north/

• SOFA: The reality in Iran under the Shah?

– island.lk/sofa-the-reality-in-iran-under-the-shah/

• Government to transform Defense Sector after Presidential Commission report on Easter Sunday attack

– colombopage.com/archive_20B/Oct26_1603736264CH.php

• New Air Force Commander assumes duties on Monday

‘In 2002, he became the first Sri Lankan Air Force Officer to obtain the Masters in Operational Art and Science awarded by the Air University, Alabama in the United States.’

– island.lk/new-air-force-commander-assumes-duties-on-monday/

• 36 countries to participate in Pathfinder Foundation’s Indian Ocean Security Conference

‘Ambassador Shivshankar Menon, former Secretary of the Ministry of External Affairs and National Security Advisor of India and Distinguished Fellow of the Centre for Social and Economic Progress and Ambassador. Bernard Goonetilleke, Chairman, Pathfinder Foundation will co-chair the event. Ambassador Robert Blake, former US Ambassador in Sri Lanka; Dr. Raja C. Mohan, Director, Institute of South Asian Studies, National University of Singapore; and Dr. Frederic Grare, who formerly led the Asia Bureau at the Centre for Analysis, Planning and Strategy, a think tank associated with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, France, will serve as moderators…’

– sundaytimes.lk/article/1127652/36-countries-to-participate-in-pathfinder-foundations-indian-ocean-security-conference

• New IPS report on ‘Elasticity Estimates for Cigarettes in Sri Lanka’

– island.lk/new-ips-report-on-elasticity-estimates-for-cigarettes-in-sri-lanka/

• Killing of Premachandra and conviction of Duminda Silva

– dailymirror.lk/opinion/Killing-of-Premachandra-and-conviction-of-Duminda-Silva/172-198981

• “Taliban-produced drugs entering Sri Lanka through Pakistan” -Ashraf Haidari

– dailymirror.lk/opinion/Taliban-produced-drugs-entering-Sri-Lanka-through-Pakistan-Ashraf-Haidari/172-198737

• STF, Intelligence Units deployed to safeguard Ceylon Tea Brand – State Minister Herath

– dailynews.lk/2020/10/28/local/232522/stf-intelligence-units-deployed-safeguard-ceylon-tea-brand-%E2%80%93-state-minister

• Sri Lanka’s legislative skullduggery without judicial review at ‘committee stage’ exposed

– economynext.com/sri-lankas-legislative-skullduggery-without-judicial-review-at-committee-stage-exposed-75134/

• Thieves posing as PHIs drug residents and rob jewellery

– dailymirror.lk/breaking_news/Thieves-posing-as-PHIs-drug-residents-and-rob-jewellery/108-198961

• EU says WHO should have more power to investigate outbreaks

– adaderana.lk/news/68636/eu-says-who-should-have-more-power-to-investigate-outbreaks

• Unveiled: CIA’s ‘Top Secret’ Program to buy Russian Fighter Jets that Dogfight US Warplanes

– eurasiantimes.com/unveiled-cias-top-secret-program-to-acquire-russian-fighter-jets-for-dogfighting-against-us-warplanes/

• The quest for a treaty prohibiting nuclear weapons

– lankaweb.com/news/items/2020/10/26/the-quest-for-a-treaty-prohibiting-nuclear-weapons

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C3. Economists (Study the Economists before you study the Economics)

ee Economists shows how paid capitalist/academic ‘professionals’ confuse (misdefinitions, etc) and divert (with false indices, etc) from the steps needed to achieve an industrial country.

• Dollar banknotes: Unlike China, US Won’t Support Massive Infrastructure Investments

‘Beijing is the largest foreign source of investment in Pakistan, Myanmar, Sri Lanka and Maldives’

– lankaweb.com/news/items/2020/10/28/dollar-banknotesunlike-china-us-wont-support-massive-infrastructure-investments-in-south-asia-analyst-says/

• IPS Compendium of policy analysis to revive COVID-affected economy – Wijewardena

‘Self-defeating import controls in the long run’

– ft.lk/columns/IPS-State-of-the-Economy-2020-report-Compendium-of-policy-analysis-to-revive-COVID-affected-economy/4-708007

• Increase Exports – Sanderatne’s Song

– sundaytimes.lk/201025/columns/silver-linings-among-the-dark-covid-clouds-421057.html

• Sri Lanka happiness comparable to mostly African countries – Reductio ad Abeyratnum

– sundaytimes.lk/201025/business-times/sri-lankans-are-you-happy-420877.html

• US Verite: 41% of policy proposals in Budget 2019 failed to be implemented

– ft.lk/front-page/Budget-2019-hit-severe-delivery-snags-Report/44-708127

• Call to ensure credible implementation of budget-2021 proposals

– island.lk/call-to-ensure-credible-implementation-of-budget-2021-proposals/

• Sovereign default risks to rise further in 2021: Goldman Sachs

– bizenglish.adaderana.lk/sovereign-default-risks-to-rise-further-in-2021-goldman-sachs/

• Pathfinder-Singapore Webinar on creating investment climate in Sri Lanka

‘Pathfinder Foundation and Institute of South Asian Studies, of National University of Singapore’

– ft.lk/business/Webinar-on-creating-a-compelling-investment-climate-in-Sri-Lanka/34-708275

• COVID-19 pandemic darkens South Asia: World Bank

“Finding ways to assist workers will be critical to addressing the welfare losses from the pandemic.”

– island.lk/covid-19-pandemic-darkens-south-asia-world-bank/

• Global economic rebound at risk from rising coronavirus cases: Poll

– bizenglish.adaderana.lk/global-economic-rebound-at-risk-from-rising-coronavirus-cases-poll/

• GEW 2020 to build Sri Lanka’s entrepreneurial ecosystem

– ft.lk/business/GEW-2020-to-build-Sri-Lanka-s-entrepreneurial-ecosystem/34-708192

• Pompeo & Misconceptions on Investment In Sri Lanka

– lankaweb.com/news/items/2020/10/31/the-visit-of-mike-pompeo-the-secretary-of-state-and-misconceptions-on-investment-in-sri-lanka/

• Indonesia’s return to an authoritarian developmental state

‘On the other hand, labour laws and minimum wage regulation were more and more flexiblised. For instance, since 2015, workers and trade unions are no longer able to negotiate minimum wages. Moreover, on 5 October 2020, Indonesia’s House of Representatives passed the Omnibus Law on Job Creation despite massive public protest.’

– mronline.org/2020/10/22/indonesias-return-to-an-authoritarian-developmental-state/

• Putin on the Role of The State in The Economy

– moonofalabama.org/2020/10/putin-on-the-role-of-the-state-in-the-economy-1.html#more

• Karl Marx’s debt to people of African descent

‘Karl Marx was among the few European theorists of his time who did not try to conceal his ‘debt’ to Africa but celebrated such knowledge as foundational. People of African descent were central to the theory, practice and writings of Marx. Marxism is not a Eurocentric ideology.’

– mronline.org/2020/10/23/karl-marxs-debt-to-people-of-african-descent/

• Modern Monetary Theory and the Crisis of Capitalism: Part One

‘Review of: The Deficit Myth by Stephanie Kelton…According to Proudhonists, the social diseases of capitalism could be overcome if only gold & other precious metals were removed from their privileged status as money & reduced to status of ordinary commodities. . If that were done, the inequality of the exchange between capital & labour could be ended & the natural equality of all forms of labour restored.’ Not true.

– wsws.org/en/articles/2020/10/24/kel1-o24.html

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C4. Economy (Usually reported in monetary terms)

ee Economy section shows how the economy is usually measured by false indices like GDP, etc, and in monetary terms, confusing money and capital, while calling for privatization and deregulation, etc.

• Inflation in Sri Lanka capital Colombo remains unchanged at 4.0 percent in October 2020

– colombopage.com/archive_20B/Oct30_1604038947CH.php

– island.lk/inflation-stagnant/

• Government faces new spending pressure amidst COVID-19

– sundaytimes.lk/201025/business-times/government-faces-new-spending-pressure-amidst-covid-19-420887.html

• A key weakness for Sri Lanka is high proportion of short-term debt: Morgan Stanley

‘Morgan Stanley analyst Jaiparan S Khurana said: “in the absence of a credible policy anchor like the IMF, debt-sustainability concerns would be the overarching theme….’

– bizenglish.adaderana.lk/a-key-weakness-for-sri-lanka-is-high-proportion-of-short-term-debt-morgan-stanley/

• Bank of Ceylon Furthers National Economic Development Focus Disbursing Rs.42.8 Billion Under CBSL-Led ‘Saubagya COVID-19 Working Capital Loan scheme

– bizenglish.adaderana.lk/bank-of-ceylon-furthers-national-economic-development-focus-disbursing-rs-42-8-billion-under-cbsl-led-saubagya-covid-19-working-capital-loan-scheme/

• Foreigners get forex risk cover in investing in securities

– sundaytimes.lk/201025/business-times/foreigners-get-forex-risk-cover-in-investing-in-securities-420893.html

• Cabraal stresses need to be mindful of country’s economic health

– island.lk/cabraal-stresses-need-to-be-mindful-of-countrys-economic-health/

• State Minister Cabraal dispels fears about Sri Lanka’s debt service capacity

– island.lk/state-minister-cabraal-dispels-fears-about-sri-lankas-debt-service-capacity/

• Statistics office says 2Q national accounts release could be further delayed

– dailymirror.lk/business-news/Statistics-office-says-2Q-national-accounts-release-could-be-further-delayed/273-198880

• The government is hiding bad news about the economy – Champika

– economynext.com/the-government-is-hiding-bad-news-about-the-economy-champika-75201/

• Sri Lanka’s bonds hammered as U.S. dubs China ’’predator’’

– dailymirror.lk/business/Sri-Lankas-bonds-hammered-as-U-S-dubs-China-predator/215-198841

• Moody’s in fresh report reiterates SL’s credit risk challenge

– ft.lk/business/Moody-s-in-fresh-report-reiterates-SL-s-credit-risk-challenge/34-708164

• Moody’s concerns: Do politicians and advisors realise the critical situation?: Parts 1 & 2

– ft.lk/columns/Moody-s-concerns-Do-politicians-and-advisors-realise-the-critical-situation-Part-1/4-708146

– ft.lk/columns/Moody-s-concerns-Do-politicians-and-advisors-realise-the-critical-situation/4-708173

• United States support promised for SL’s development needs

– dailymirror.lk/business__main/United-States-support-promised-for-SLs-development-needs/245-198882

• Get ready for global technology war & end of globalization – China unveils 5-year plan

– rt.com/op-ed/505073-china-five-year-plan/

• China’s Upcoming 14th Five-Year Plan policy package attracts wide attention

– globaltimes.cn/content/1197065.shtml

• UBS: What to expect from China’s 14th Five-Year Plan

– news.cgtn.com/news/2020-09-25/UBS-What-to-expect-from-China-s-14th-Five-Year-Plan–U4WJo9IoWA/index.html

• China’s 14th Five-Year Plan

– facebook.com/XinhuaNewsAgency/videos/351446976114836/

• WB & IMF reports real US GDP declined by record 32.9% in the second quarter of 2020

– ft.lk/columns/Mike-Pompeo-welcome/4-708143

_________________________________________________________________________

C5. Workers (Inadequate Stats, Wasteful Transport, Unmodern Plantations, Services)

ee Workers attempts to correct the massive gaps and disinformation about workers, urban and rural and their representatives (trade unions, etc), and to highlight the need for organized worker power

• Country on verge of community spread, warns GMOA

– island.lk/country-on-verge-of-community-spread-warns-gmoa/

• GMOA faults Govt. for not increasing daily PCR testing to 10,000 persons

– island.lk/gmoa-faults-govt-for-not-increasing-daily-pcr-testing-to-10000-persons/

• Army inquiring into alleged incident in Welioya that led to Doctors’ protest

 – economynext.com/army-inquiring-into-alleged-incident-in-welioya-that-led-to-doctors-protest-75372

• Trade unions, civil society groups say manpower workers in self-quarantine face crisis

‘13 trade unions and civil society groups working on behalf of FTZ and manpower workers are calling on the Government – Ministry of Health, Ministry of Labour, the Presidential Task Force to combat COVID-19, the Board of Investment (BOI) and the Ministry Level (Tripartite) Task Force to respond to the impacts of COVID-19 on employment.’

– ft.lk/news/Trade-unions-civil-society-groups-say-manpower-workers-in-self-quarantine-face-crisis/56-708107

– sundaytimes.lk/article/1127421/trade-unions-want-govt-to-address-issues-of-workers-hit-by-covid

• Most garment workers under self-quarantine left to fend for themselves

‘Most of these workers are undergoing self-quarantine at their boarding places, which also house individuals who still work in garment factories’

– island.lk/most-garment-workers-under-self-quarantine-left-to-fend-for-themselves/

• Govt. must intervene to protect estate workers – MONLAR

– island.lk/govt-must-intervene-to-protect-estate-workers-monlar/

• Some parties with vested interests giving manipulated interpretations to our work: SLPA

‘There is a risk of spreading unnecessary fear in the society, including among stakeholders and other interested parties in shipping and maritime industry”

– lankabusinessonline.com/some-parties-with-vested-interests-giving-manipulated-interpretations-to-our-work-slpa/

• Lanka exemplary in curtailing first wave of COVID-19 crisis – IPS

– dailynews.lk/2020/10/29/finance/232541/lanka-exemplary-curtailing-first-wave-covid-19-crisis-ips

• The Plight Of Doctors In Sri Lanka

‘And that’s what keeps the Sri Lankan health service going. That’s what make the farmers that bring rice to your plate get the healthcare they need. That’s what makes the country breathe.’

– http://femasiamagazine.com/the-plight-of-doctors-in-sri-lanka/

• Tripartite deal to prorate wages extended till Dec. 31

‘EFC says employees and trade union representatives retain right to furnish any grievance directly to Labour Commissioner’

– dailymirror.lk/business__main/Tripartite-deal-to-prorate-wages-extended-till-Dec-31/245-198752

• Pro-rate wages to continue till Dec.

– ft.lk/front-page/Pro-rate-wages-to-continue-till-Dec/44-708130

• Unemployment benefits for COVID-19 job losses

– sundaytimes.lk/201025/business-times/unemployment-benefits-for-covid-19-job-losses-420899.html

• Whither Sri Lanka’s Trade Union movement? – Editorial

‘Today between 250,000 to 300,000 daily wage earners, have lost their means of sustenance.’

– dailymirror.lk/opinion/Whither-Sri-Lankas-Trade-Union-movement-EDITORIAL/172-198645

• One million Sri Lankan expatriates (a subset are dual citizens) remit USD 7 billion annually

– island.lk/duel-with-dual-citizenship/

• HR guru Prof Dave Ulrich to address ICCSL-Daily FT webinar

‘The International Chamber of Commerce of Sri Lanka (ICCSL), the Daily Financial Times , ACCA and the Association of Human Resource Practitioners have organised the webinar. The panel will consist of Dr. Ramon B. Segismundo – President, People Management, Association of the Philippines for 2017 and former Global VP – HR – GlaxoSmithKline and Wyeth Pharmaceuticals; AIA Sri Lanka’s CEO Nikhil Advani; Gaurav Lahiri – Human Capital Leader – Deloitte India; Sunil Sethi – Executive Chairman Dixcy Textiles Ltd. and Gokaldas Intimateware Ltd. and former CEO Fonterra – Indian Sub-Continent; Dr. Chintha Dissanayake – Founder and Director of Oxford Psychometrics Ltd.

ICC Chairman Dinesh Weerakkody and Great Place to Work Institute Sri Lanka CEO Kshanika Ratnayaka will moderate’

– ft.lk/business/HR-guru-Prof-Dave-Ulrich-to-address-ICCSL-Daily-FT-webinar/34-708195

• Females in SL’s private sector more productive working from home: World Bank’s IFC study

‘The report, Gendered Impacts of COVID-19 on Employment in the Private Sector, by Women in Work, a partnership of IFC – a member of the World Bank Group – & the Australian government’

– dailymirror.lk/business-news/Females-in-SLs-private-sector-more-productive-working-from-home-IFC-study/273-198924

• CEJ warns of danger to health from lead in paints

‘Lead is found in some imported plastic and rubber toys, stationery, paints on porcelain, cosmetics and artificial jewelry. People working in; e-waste recycling plants, lead-acid battery/ car battery recycling plants, metal smelting, construction and demolition work are highly vulnerable to lead exposure.’

– island.lk/cej-warns-of-danger-to-health-from-lead-in-paints/

• The Revolutionary Lives and Careers of Siva, Doreen, Vivi and Sirima

– island.lk/women-in-power/

• JMOs and Police conducting forced anal and vaginal examinations on LGBT people

– dailymirror.lk/news-features/JMOs-and-Police-conducting-forced-anal-and-vaginal-examinations-on-LGBT-people/131-198911

• Forced anal probe on LGBT people: Justice Minister disturbed

– dailymirror.lk/breaking_news/Forced-anal-probe-on-LGBT-people-Justice-Minister-disturbed/108-198954

• What’s the Plan?

‘There is also Child poverty in NZ… Ranging from children not having lunches to take to school, to not having shoes to wear to school and older children leaving school early to work and earn money to support their families. This of course almost exclusively among the Maori and Pacific Islander communities… This level of unemployment is blamed on the work ethic or lack thereof among the Maori and Pacific Island communities but there is a deeper connotation to this.’

– island.lk/whats-the-plan/

_________________________________________________________________________

C6. Agriculture (Robbery of rural home market; Machines, if used, mainly imported)

ee Agriculture emphasizes the failure to industrialize on an agriculture that keeps the cultivator impoverished under moneylender and merchant, and the need to protect the rural home market. Also, importation of agricultural machinery, lack of rural monetization and commercialization, etc.

• Bim Saviya – Does it serve Sri Lanka or a foreign interest?

‘This Act goes against the grain of Sri Lankan culture and its community understandings. It has no way of dealing with what is very traditionally Sri Lankan like anda goviya” or tenant farmer or sharecroppers, shared water resources and land paths. This is probably why Bim Saviya has failed.’

– lankaweb.com/news/items/2020/10/28/bim-saviya-does-it-serve-sri-lanka-or-a-foreign-interest/

• Sri Lankan Lawyers Deliberately Kept Out?

‘Sri Lankans may not be aware that changes to our land law was pushed by the World Bank as far back from 1960s’

– lankaweb.com/news/items/2020/10/28/sri-lankan-lawyers-deliberately-kept-out/

• Focus on Opportunities in Developing Agriculture at Sri Lanka Economic Summit 2020

‘The presenters include Dr. Nafees Meah – IRRI Representative – South Asia, International Rice Research Institute and Major Gen. (Rtd) Sumedha Perera – Secretary, Ministry Agriculture. The presenters will be joined by Mr. Vish Govindasamy – Group Managing Director, Sunshine Holdings PLC, Ms. Jayanthi Dharmasena – Executive Director, Hayleys PLC – Mr. Prashanth Premakumar – Director & CEO, Agrithmics, Mr. Irfan Thassim – Founder, Oceanpick Pvt Ltd . The session will be moderated by Mr. Rizvi Zaheed – Director, Vidullanka PLC’

– bizenglish.adaderana.lk/focus-on-opportunities-in-developing-agriculture-to-be-explored-at-sri-lanka-economic-summit-2020/

• Reconstruction work of 5000 barren tanks begins in Mahaweli L zone

– colombopage.com/archive_20B/Oct30_1604079547CH.php

• Reconstruction of old tanks in Puttalam District to meet water needs of people

– colombopage.com/archive_20B/Oct26_1603735037CH.php

• MAGA completes civil works of Kelani Right-Bank Water Supply Project, Stage II

‘The project was implemented by the National Water Supply and Drainage Board (NWSDB) with the Main Contractor Suez of France’

– bizenglish.adaderana.lk/maga-completes-civil-works-of-kelani-right-bank-water-supply-project-stage-ii/

• Suitable locations in the Kilinochchi District identified for large scale aquaculture projects

– colombopage.com/archive_20B/Oct30_1604041351CH.php

• High rice yield in heavy saline-alkali soil of NE China

– china.org.cn/china/2020-10/13/content_76801809.htm

• Sorry state of rubber industry in SL

– island.lk/sorry-state-of-rubber-industry-in-sl/

• Coconut – the Tree of Life

– island.lk/coconut-the-tree-of-life/

• Coconut Bad Again – Sunday Times

– sundaytimes.lk/201025/news/now-coconut-oil-is-bad-for-your-heart-421138.html

• Government will purchase fish stocks – Co-Cabinet Spokesman

– dailynews.lk/2020/10/28/local/232516/government-will-purchase-fish-stocks-co-cabinet-spokesman

• Special survey on cattle rearing in Batticaloa district

– colombopage.com/archive_20B/Oct26_1603733211CH.php

• Fertiliser subsidy to be provided for tea and by-products from next year

– dailynews.lk/2020/10/28/local/232522/stf-intelligence-units-deployed-safeguard-ceylon-tea-brand-%E2%80%93-state-minister

• No more illegal filling of Muturajawela?

– island.lk/no-more-illegal-filling-of-muturajawela/

• Forest cover, wildlife conservation and roadside trees

– island.lk/forest-cover-wildlife-conservation-and-roadside-trees/

_____________________________________________________________________

C7. Industry (False definitions, anti-industrial sermons, rentier/entrepreneur, etc)

ee Industry section notes the ignorance about industrialization, the buying of foreign machinery, the need to make machines that make machines, build a producer culture. False definitions of industry, entrepreneur, etc, abound.

• A Bouquet to President Gotabhaya and his team for bringing back Valachenai to life

– lankaweb.com/news/items/2020/10/29/a-boquet-to-president-gotabhaya-and-his-team/

• Sri Lanka awaiting foreign expert to fix Coronavirus PCR machine, Covid-19 total tops 9000

– economynext.com/sri-lanka-awaiting-foreign-expert-to-fix-coronavirus-pcr-machine-covid-19-total-tops-9000-75345

– adaderana.lk/news/68587/one-faulty-pcr-machine-caused-delays-in-test-results-army-chief

• Dutch Vitol gets $18.4 m deal to supply aviation fuel for SriLankan Airlines at Melbourne

– ft.lk/front-page/Vitol-gets-18-4-m-deal-to-supply-aviation-fuel-for-SriLankan-Airlines-at-Melbourne/44-708094

• Construction of Mannar wind power plant to be completed in 2021

– bizenglish.adaderana.lk/construction-of-mannar-wind-power-plant-to-be-completed-in-2021/

• BOI approves Malaysian feasibility study for $ 2.7 b electric rail project

‘Shinan Bank, South Korea’s second largest bank has pledged it could commit 200 million euros in funding towards this project, which I have communicated. I am engaging experts like Ernst & Young to put up a good financial model, and also some prominent companies in China…I am not looking very much at the Chinese funding system, there are enough other equity funds from very large financial houses like in the UK for instance,”

– ft.lk/front-page/BOI-approves-feasibility-study-for-2-7-b-electric-rail-project/44-708061

• MTD Walkers reviving with new Rs. 858 m Kurunegala road construction project

– ft.lk/business/MTD-Walkers-reviving-with-new-Rs-858-m-worth-construction-project/34-708044

• SLPA commissions much-delayed ECT; timing intrigues shipping industry

‘The commissioning of ECT yesterday took place amidst these developments and coincidentally few hours ahead of US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s visit to Colombo from India’

– ft.lk/front-page/SLPA-commissions-much-delayed-ECT-timing-intrigues-shipping-industry/44-708128

– newsfirst.lk/2020/10/27/operations-at-colombo-ports-ect-resumes-after-five-years/

• Cabinet greenlights $ 90 m CICT capacity expansion

– ft.lk/front-page/Cabinet-green-lights-90-m-CICT-capacity-expansion/44-708129

• Escalating freight charges pose fresh challenge for exporters

‘The top five export destination for Sri Lanka for the January – September 2020 period are; USA (US$ 1,892 mn), UK (US$ 664 mn) India (US$ 453 mn), Germany (US$ 430 mn) and Italy (US$ 330 mn). The five destinations absorbed over 50 percent of the country’s exports.’

– dailymirror.lk/business__main/Escalating-freight-charges-pose-fresh-challenge-for-exporters/245-198928

• Multiple arrests made for the illegal possession of firearms

‘Sri Lanka Police arrested 07 suspects for the possession of 08 locally manufactured weapons in Thirukkovil’

– newsfirst.lk/2020/10/30/multiple-arrests-made-for-the-illegal-possession-of-firearms/

• Sri Lanka, Oman collaboration in manufacturing fiberglass products mooted

‘Al Hilal Fiber & Acrylic Industry LLC, a popular manufacturer of fiberglass and acrylic finished products in Oman, and the Sri Lankan companies namely, Neil Fernando & Co. Ltd., Danusha Group of Companies, Northwest Marine Ltd. and Sealanie Boat Yard Ltd. participated in the webinar.’

– ft.lk/business/Sri-Lanka-Oman-collaboration-in-manufacturing-fiberglass-products-mooted/34-708166

• Improvements to Kelani Valley Railway

– island.lk/improvements-to-kelani-valley-railway/

• INSEE Cement to buy State Engineering Corporation Dolomite from Matale

– island.lk/insee-cement-signs-landmark-agreement-with-state-engineering-corporation/

• Medarata Pehekam Piyasa: Textile Facility in perilous state

‘There were three female workers, well past middle age, operating the ancient machines…They are paid Rs.130 /= per meter produced and the maximum output per person for a day is said to be 04 meters. This means Rs. 420/= per day, which is obviously not sufficient…’

– island.lk/medarata-pehekam-piyasa-textile-facility-in-perilous-state/

• Boosting Productivity And Competitiveness of Garment Industry in Sri Lanka

‘The major consideration should be reducing the dependency on the import of input to the industry. In this area, the import of clothing materials, sewing threads, sewing machines, garment buttons, zips, machine parts should massively reduce until they are domestically produced and ensure the quality of products.’

– lankaweb.com/news/items/2020/10/25/boosting-the-productivity-and-competitiveness-of-the-garment-industry-in-sri-lanka/

• Key vehicle importers enter buying and selling of cars for survival

– sundaytimes.lk/201025/business-times/key-vehicle-importers-enter-buying-and-selling-of-cars-for-survival-420874.html

• What More UK: Burnley firm unveils Sri Lanka export deal

‘Good produced at the company’s facility in Altham include storage boxes, kitchen and cookware, garden ware and products for the home laundry and utility room.’

– lankaweb.com/news/items/2020/10/24/what-more-uk-burnley-firm-unveils-sri-lanka-export-deal

• Japan donates PPE to solid waste management workers

– island.lk/japan-donates-ppe-to-solid-waste-management-workers/

• First used carbon pen tubes, toothbrushes recycling container presented to President

‘Carbon pen tubes discarded from schools per day is around 80 kg and is estimated to exceed 29,000 kg per annum. The quantity discharged from public and private institutions has not yet been calculated. Environmentalists point out that used pens and toothbrushes take between 100-500 years to decay.’

– ft.lk/news/First-used-carbon-pen-tubes-toothbrushes-recycling-container-presented-to-President/56-708271

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C8. Finance (Making money from money, banks, lack of investment in modernity)

ee Finance tracks the effects of financialization, the curious role of ratings agencies, false indices, etc.

• Western Union at Seylan Bank

– ft.lk/business/Western-Union-at-Seylan-Bank/34-708277

• Bourse turns negative in wake of WP curfew

– island.lk/bourse-turns-negative-in-wake-of-wp-curfew/

• Tokyo Cement and Chevron Lubricants boost market, 2 NBFIs Merge

‘2 finance companies are going to merge to meet the co-capital requirement of the Central Bank, which is, Rs. 2 billion; they are Nation Lanka Finance and Sinhaputhra Finance.’

– island.lk/tokyo-cement-and-chevron-lubricants-quarterly-results-boost-market/

• New SEC Bill gets Cabinet approval

– ft.lk/front-page/New-SEC-Bill-gets-Cabinet-approval/44-708214

• Ire over delay in listing of LAUGFS subsidiaries

‘Buhardeen’s holding in LGL is via Almas Organisation, and Carlines Holdings, which as at 30 June was 4.2 million voting shares or 1.12% stake. LAUGFS Holdings holds 74% stake in LGL and EPF owns 17.3%. Public holding of LGL is 25%. Buhardeen also holds 4.3 million of non-voting shares.’

– ft.lk/front-page/Ire-over-delay-in-listing-of-LAUGFS-subsidiaries/44-708132

• Health crisis exacerbates downside risks to Finance and Leasing Companies

– island.lk/health-crisis-exacerbates-downside-risks-to-flcs/

• Fitch Assigns Sarvodaya Development Finance First-Time ‘B+(lka)’; Outlook Stable

– colombopage.com/archive_20B/Oct29_1603955120CH.php

• Union Bank profits Rs. 751 Mn for the quarter

– island.lk/union-bank-records-resilient-performance-despite-challenging-environment-in-3q/

• MMBL-Pathfinder JV forex earnings to hit US $200 million in 2020

– island.lk/mmbl-pathfinder-jv-forex-earnings-to-hit-us-200-million-in-2020/

• NSB goes for Rs. 5 b hybrid bond

– ft.lk/front-page/NSB-goes-for-Rs-5-b-hybrid-bond/44-708210

• HNB secures US$ 60mn loan from France’s PROPARCO

‘This is the second HNB partnering with PROPARCO since 2015’

– dailymirror.lk/business_247/HNB-secures-US-60mn-loan-from-Frances-PROPARCO/395-198775

– ft.lk/front-page/HNB-secures-60-m-funding-for-SMEs-from-France-s-PROPARCO/44-708133

• Indian Axis Bank’s SL licence cancelled on request

– bizenglish.adaderana.lk/axis-banks-sl-licence-cancelled-on-request/

• Development assistance from Norwegian Investment Fund to Sri Lanka

‘Norwegian Government, it has already signed agreements with Sri Lankan Financial Institutes such as Hatton National Bank and Softlogic’

– bizenglish.adaderana.lk/development-assistance-from-norwegian-investment-fund-to-sri-lanka/

• Sri Lanka Treasuries auction yields recover from anomaly

– economynext.com/sri-lanka-treasuries-auction-yields-recover-from-anomaly-75268/

• DFCC Bank partners Havelock City to finance commercial development.

– island.lk/dfcc-bank-partners-havelock-city-to-finance-commercial-development/

• HNB partners Bristol Institute of Business Management

– dailynews.lk/2020/10/31/finance/232646/hnb-partners-bristol-institute-business-management

• Ant Group to raise up to $34.4 b in world’s biggest IPO

‘Chinese financial technology giant Ant Group has set terms for a dual listing aimed at raising up to $ 34.4 billion from the world’s largest stock market debut’

– ft.lk/front-page/Ant-Group-to-raise-up-to-34-4-b-in-world-s-biggest-IPO/44-708093

• Global stocks steady after second-wave turmoil

– bizenglish.adaderana.lk/global-stocks-steady-after-second-wave-turmoil/

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C9. Business (Rentierism: money via imports, real-estate, tourism, insurance, fear, privatization)

ee Business aka ee Rentier focuses on diversions of the oligarchy, making money from unproductive land sales, tourism, insurance, advertising, etc. – the charade of press releases disguised as ‘news’

• Sri Lanka rental yields falling on expat exit, but low rates help real estate buys

– economynext.com/sri-lanka-rental-yields-falling-on-expat-exit-but-low-rates-help-real-estate-buys-75179/

• Investment potential in property development remains strong

– dailynews.lk/2020/10/27/finance/232397/investment-potential-property-development-remains-strong

• Sri Lanka’s native tribe halts tourism as Coronavirus ‘ledder podge-jer’ spreads

‘Veddahs of Dambana have a hunter-gatherer (now diversified with agriculture and tourism) ancestor worshipping (nae yakku) culture which was gradually displaced or assimilated by colonists from mainland India. Most other Veddah groups in the island are almost totally assimilated in to mainstream society made up of largely a Hindu-Bhuddhist Indianized culture.’

– economynext.com/sri-lankas-native-tribe-halts-tourism-as-coronavirus-ledder-podge-jer-spreads-75159/

• Raja Edirisuriya new Executive Project Management Director for Port City

– bizenglish.adaderana.lk/raja-edirisuriya-new-executive-project-management-director-for-port-city/

• Chinese FTA to be pursued aggressively – Sri Lankan Ambassador to China

– dailynews.lk/2020/10/29/finance/232537/chinese-fta-be-pursued-aggressively-sri-lankan-ambassador-china

• Swiss Ambassador calls on Prime Minister, discusses trade, tourism, investment and Covid

‘Switzerland is currently the 8th largest investor in Sri Lanka…. Currently, major exports from Sri Lanka to Switzerland include apparel, black tea, seafood, and gems and jewelry.

– colombopage.com/archive_20B/Oct26_1603723917CH.php

• Sri Lanka-Canada Business Council of The Ceylon Chamber of Commerce holds 29th AGM

‘Rajah Abeysinghe, CEO, Hydromec International was elected as the President of the Council

Priyantha Padmasiri and Ong Jhon Seon were elected Vice Presidents while Lionel Silva serves as Immediate Past President. Abans PLC, Ceyline Shipping, MAC Holdings, Mclarens Holdings, Samsons Rubber Products were elected from the membership to serve on the Executive Committee of the Council. Avanti Coonghe, Trade Commissioner; Saroshi Dubash, Abans; Mahesh Kurukulasuriya, Mclarens Holdings; Sajith Rajapaksa, Samson Rubber Products; Mr. Gayan Maddumarachchi, MAC Holdings; Gayan Gunawardena, Ceyline Shipping, Absent: Mr. Harith Jayasuriya, MAC Holdings’

– bizenglish.adaderana.lk/sri-lanka-canada-business-council-holds-29th-agm/

______________________________________________________

C10. Politics (Anti-parliament discourse, unelected constitution)

ee Politics points to the constant media diversions and the mercantile and financial forces behind the political actors, of policy taken over by private interests minus public oversight.

• 14A Violates People’s Franchise and Sovereignty – DEW

– island.lk/learn-from-the-past/\

 The Pohottuwa Government of Sri Lanka Part 2 A 2, 3 & 4

– lankaweb.com/news/items/2020/10/25/the-pohottuwa-government-of-sri-lanka-part-2-a-2/

– lankaweb.com/news/items/2020/10/26/the-pohottuwa-government-of-sri-lanka-part-2-a2/

– lankaweb.com/news/items/2020/10/26/the-pohottuwa-government-of-sri-lanka-part-2-a-4/

• Silent death of constitutional holy cows

– island.lk/silent-death-of-constitutional-holy-cows/

• Executive presidency or premiership?

– island.lk/executive-presidency-or-premiership/

• President gets JR’s double edged Sword of Excalibur – Sunday Times

“20A enshrined with a little help from Muslim turncoats”

– sundaytimes.lk/201025/columns/president-gets-jrs-double-edged-sword-of-excalibur-420998.html

• After debate and deception, Govt. steamrolls 20A through parliament

“Basil Rajapaksa is not a racist. He is well liked by the Muslim community because he supports them and knows how to develop the country. It is the Sinhala racists who oppose him being in Parliament. So, I thought of voting for this clause from a personal standpoint. It is not the view of my party,”

– sundaytimes.lk/201025/columns/after-debate-and-deception-govt-steamrolls-20a-through-parliament-421110.html

• Chrysanthemums and Dual Citizens

– bizenglish.adaderana.lk/chrysanthemums-and-dual-citizens/

• Going Guaidó’s way: Lessons for the Opposition

– dailymirror.lk/opinion/Going-Guaid%C3%B3s-way-Lessons-for-the-Opposition/172-198979

• A new Constitution cannot be made by partisan lawyers

– ft.lk/columns/A-new-Constitution-cannot-be-made-by-partisan-lawyers/4-708242

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C11. Media (Mis/Coverage of economics, technology, science and art)

ee Media shows how corporate media monopoly determines what is news, art, culture, etc. The media is part of the public relations (corporate propaganda) industry. The failure to highlight our priorities, the need to read between the lines. To set new perspectives and priorities.

• Yaka and Halloween

‘The day we can all give thanks is yet to come. Until then, let us see how modern Yaksha should greet a broke NATO, slobbering, “Trick or treat!” at our door.’

– gammiris.lk/yakhanda-2-yaka-and-halloween/

• National Trust lecture on British rule and Lankan historiography

‘Colonial knowledge formation under British rule and modern SL historiography’ – Gamini Keerawella.

– sundaytimes.lk/201025/plus/national-trust-lecture-on-british-rule-and-lankan-historiography-420680.html

• Getting used to life in cell, thinking of karma and performing yoga

– island.lk/getting-used-to-life-in-cell-thinking-of-karma-and-performing-yoga/

• String of Archeological Sites on the East Coast and Other Articles

– island.lk/a-fascinating-selection-of-essays/

• Neuro-science that underlies Buddhist philosophy

– island.lk/neuro-science-that-underlies-buddhist-philosophy/

• Why Are These Anti-Russian And Anti-Chinese Narratives So Similar?

‘Russiagate was about narrative managing the USA into a new cold war with Russia with the ultimate target being its far more powerful ally China, and ensuring that Trump played along with that agenda.’

– https://www.moonofalabama.org/

• Glenn Greenwald resigns from E-Bay Omidyar’s Intercept.

– https://www.moonofalabama.org/2020/10/it-was-high-time-for-glenn-greenwald-to-resign-from-the-intercept-.html#more

• Article on Joe and Hunter Biden Censored By The Intercept

– https://greenwald.substack.com/p/article-on-joe-and-hunter-biden-censored

• Tougher new rules for tech giants, more power to enforcers: EU’s Vestager

– dailymirror.lk/business-news/Tougher-new-rules-for-tech-giants-more-power-to-enforcers-EUs-Vestager/273-198925

• The CIA Reads French Theory: On the Intellectual Labor of Dismantling the Cultural Left

– thephilosophicalsalon.com/the-cia-reads-french-theory-on-the-intellectual-labor-of-dismantling-the-cultural-left/