Assistant general secretary of the General Federation of Trade Unions HENRY FOWLER reports on day 1 from the GFTU’s residential Summer School at Quorn Grange Hotel
ON the afternoon of June 29, the international delegation from Britain, Ireland, Norway, Finland, Sweden, Denmark, the US, Canada and Australia flew to Beijing to stay at the state-owned and splendidly refurbished Wanshou Hotel, east of the city centre.
Our first meeting on Friday morning was with a long-standing friend, director-general of the CPC international department’s North American, Oceanian and Nordic Affairs bureau, Zhou Rongguo, his deputy Wang Yingchun and younger bureau officials.
They were keen to learn more about how people in developed Western countries live, deal with their problems and fight injustices. How are our communist parties doing, what are their prospects and those for the advance to socialism?
They also welcomed suggestions about how the Communist Party of China (CPC) might counter lies and smears. How could we improve relations between our respective peoples, avoid a new cold war, and strengthen relations between our Communist parties?
BEN CHACKO welcomes a masterful analysis that puts class struggle back at the heart of our understanding of China’s revolution
STEPHEN BELL reports from a delegation that traced the steps of China’s socialist revolution from its first modest meetings to the Red Army’s epic 9,000km battle to create the modern nation that today defies every capitalist assumption
A chance find when clearing out our old office led us to renew a friendship across 5,000 miles and almost nine decades of history, explains ROGER McKENZIE
From anonymous surveys claiming Chinese students are spying on each other to a meltdown about the size of China’s London embassy, the evidence is everywhere that Britain is embracing full spectrum Sinophobia as the war clouds gather, writes CARLOS MARTINEZ


