See also the sections dedicated especially to Indonesia, China, and India and Pakistan.

• Asia and the Pacific
• Japan
• South Korea
• Philippines
• Vietnam
• Afghanistan
• New Zealand
• Fundamentalism
• The Colonial Question and Imperialism

Asia and the Pacific

• China, America and the Pacific
  The clash between China and the USA over the crashed spy plane has thrown into sharp relief the tensions between the great powers in Asia. The incident in itself was an accident. But dialectics explains that necessity can be expressed through accident. Underlying the immediate incident lie fundamental contradictions between China and the USA. By Ted Grant and Alan Woods. (April 23, 2001)

Japan

• Japan's Economic Crisis
  "Flat on its back for years and showing few signs of life, Japan's economy was nonetheless still in the world of the living. When we last checked, that is. Reports of its imminent demise are now coming thick and fast. A world that had grown bored with the 'Japan isn't growing' story is suddenly paying attention to the new 'Japan will collapse and take the rest of us with it' story." The Economist, 11/4/98. Phil Mitchinson analyses the reasons behind. (May 1998)

South Korea

• South Korean Police Clash with Workers and Students
  Thousands of riot police marched onto a Seoul university campus Sunday, touching off violent clashes with striking workers and sympathizing students who fought back with rocks and firebombs. (April 16, 1999)

Philippines

• Philippines - Mass Revolt Forces President Estrada to resign
  The events last week looked just like a rerun of the "People's Power" movement in 1986 when the hated dictator Ferdinand Marcos was overthrown by a mass uprising in the cities of the Filipino archipelago. So it will surprise nobody if this extraordinary sequence of events has been dubbed the "People's Power 2" movement by local activists and by the media. By Jean Duval. (January 23, 2001)

Vietnam

• The new "Tet Offensive"
  Vietnamese correspondent NK reports on the apalling conditions workers face in "socialist" Vietnam, the recent waves of strikes, and the confused attempts of the bureaucracy to follow the Chinese route and introduce "free market" policies. (January 21, 2001)

• Vietnam 1945 - The Derailed Revolution
  In 1975 the Vietnamese people gained a historic victory, driving out the US armed forces and liberating the south. After 28 years of war the country was reunited and capitalism and landlordism abolished throughout. With these heroic sacrifices, the Vietnamese workers and peasants paid the price for the defeat of the revolution of 1945, when they had power in their grasp. Why was this opportunity lost in 1945? What are the lessons of this defeat for the workers' struggle today?

Afghanistan

• Bracing for a new Afghan war
  "The dark clouds of war and destruction loom large over Afghanistan and Pakistan. As time clicks away the atmosphere of speculation, uncertainty, confusion and deep fear grips these impoverished societies. The threat of Imperialist aggression in the aftermath of the attacks in New York and Washington is dangling like a sword over the heads of the people." Lal Khan, editor of the Marxist paper Jeddo Judh (Class Struggle) in Pakistan, explains the background to the coming to power of the Taliban, their relationship with the Western oil companies, who is Osama Bin laden and finally reports on the mood in Pakistan and the effects a war could have on the Musharraf regime.

New Zealand

• Elections in New Zealand
  We have just received the following report on the recent elections in New Zealand. We are reproducing it here because of the interesting information and analysis of these developments which, as far as we know, have not been covered seriously from a Marxist point of view elsewhere.  (November, 1999)

Fundamentalism

• Fundamentalist Resurgence: Causes and Prospects
  The collapse of the Soviet Union has resulted in one of the most turbulent and disturbed periods in human history. Instead of being the precursor of "The end of history," capitalism is enmeshed in a crisis yet unforeseen. There is not a single region of the planet which is not engulfed in social, economic or political crisis. Capitalism on a world scale has proved to be incapable of resolving this crisis, and develop society further.As a reaction to these crises new, and some not so new, phenomenon have emerged on the political horizons of most countries. In most of the "Third world," "Islamic" countries there is the resurgence of Islamic fundamentalism. This article written in October 1994 by Lal Khan, editor of the Pakistani Marxist paper The Struggle, analyses fundamentalism, its causes, history and prospects.

The Colonial Question and Imperialism

• Marxism and the Struggle Against Imperialism
  It is nearly seven years since George Bush, the then president of the US, made his famous "New World Order" speech. This was in 1991. In the build-up to the Gulf War the main imperialist power on earth promised a world without wars, without dictatorships and, of course, a world firmly under the control of a single all-powerful world policeman--the US. After the fall of Stalinism, US imperialism really thought that the world would be firmly under their command and they would be able to dictate the destiny of each and every country. Now all these dreams have been reduced to rubble. In this document Ted Grant and Alan Woods make an in-depth analysis of the history of the imperialist domination of the Third World and the way.  (June 1998)