USAID, a front for the CIA, helped foment the Hong Kong protests that put Lee Cheuk-yan in prison

(Lee Cheuk-yan in his Hong Kong office in 2013)

 

President Trump’s current crackdown on USAID (U.S. Agency for International Development) and revelations of its close relationship with the CIA and its efforts to undermine foreign governments brought back memories of my time in Hong Kong back in 2013 when I witnessed the huge pro-democracy protests there that years later led to a severe crackdown by the Beijing government.

 

Huge protests in 2019 succeeded in getting the city’s government to drop a hated extradition bill that would have sent criminal suspects to mainland China. However, the protests continued and broadened into a giant, ill-fated movement that Beijing could no longer tolerate. They continued in part due to the meddling of organizations like USAID and the National Endowment for Democracy.

 

A trip down memory lane …

 

Lee Cheuk-yan was a busy man the day I interviewed him at his Hong Kong office in 2013. A member of the Legislative Council of Hong Kong as well as chair of the Hong Kong Labour Party and leading democratic activist, he had to interrupt the interview to swing over to the council in session in the same building to make brief comments on an issue under consideration.

 

We talked about the recent 40-day dockworkers strike and his role in organizing the annual pro-democracy vigil in Hong Kong’s Victoria Park.

 

“We have to support independent unions, and at the same time, democratic rights,” Lee told me. “We also have the need to support democracy in China. Unless there is democracy in China, it will be far more difficult for Hong Kong to have a real democracy.”

 

Today Lee Cheuk-yan sits in prison, serving two concurrent 18-month sentences for his role in pro-democracy rallies. He has been in prison since early 2021.

 

Lee is one of several leading activists who ended up in prison after the massive pro-democracy protests of 2019 led to Beijing’s crackdown.  Rallies such as that in Victoria Park are now banned, and their leaders are behind bars.

 

Lee might not be in prison if the National Endowment for Democracy and USAID, both fronts for the CIA in its efforts to promote subversion in areas not committed to Western interests, had not interfered.

 

Journalist Dave Lindorff, a veteran China watcher, insists the pro-democracy movement in Hong Kong was always home-grown and home-led, but he acknowledges Western organizations likely interfered.

 

“Clearly, the agents of US imperialism are tireless—and utterly without principle … in their efforts to use people,” Lindorff wrote in Counterpunch way back in 2014.  “What we on the left who oppose US empire should be doing is … working to insist that the US government and its secretive agencies of imperialism butt out of Hong Kong.”

 

Although mainstream media has largely ignored USAID’s close ties to CIA subversion, alternative media abound in reports of how the $40 billion-plus organization has been key to efforts over the decades to foment pro-West protest and rebellion in nations such as Ukraine, Cuba, Georgia, Bolivia, Peru, and Haiti.

 

What mainstream media report is USAID’s role in feeding hungry children in Africa and working to contain AIDS and other diseases. They say nothing about how it helped fund the coup that overthrew President Jean-Bertrand Aristide in Haiti in 1991 and 2004, worked to overthrow the Castro regime in Cuba, worked behind the scenes to make sure opposition parties didn’t challenge the Philippines’ close relationship to the U.S.

 

Trump has fired the inspector general for USAID and appears to be working to dismantle the organization entirely and move its operations into the State Department.

 

If all USAID did was feed hungry children in Africa, it might not have come under the scrutiny of the Trump Administration.  USAID’s bloated budget, more than its covert activities, likely inspired Trump’s attack on the agency.  

 

Still, Trump’s actions have pulled the cover off USAID and exposed its role in interfering with the politics and governance of nations around the world. You won’t read or hear about it in the mainstream media, but who reads or listens to them any more anyway?

 

Donald Trump's moment of truth--workers and peace, or billionaires and war

Nearly one month into the new year of 2025 we have a new president already casting clouds over the promises and expectations of the blue-collar friendly, peacemaker tone of his campaign. Along with jobs and an end to paralyzing inflation, he promised an end to the war in Ukraine. Impressively just before taking office, he forced Israeli leader Netanyahu into a temporary peace deal with Hamas in the Gaza strip.

 

Then on inauguration day Donald Trump peopled the podium behind him with union-busting billionaires. Not much later he was criticizing Russian leader Vladimir Putin for his “ridiculous” war in Ukraine. Meanwhile, Israel, with little opposition from the new president, continues its bloody rage on the West Bank and in Lebanon even if its guns have stopped firing in Gaza for the time being.

 

The roundup of undocumented migrants in the U.S. has begun as Trump promised even though there seems to be dissension within his inner circle as to which migrants are desirable and which are not.

 

Labor South is following these issues, and as it reported after the November election, the working-class voters who elected Trump are also watching. After being essentially ignored and taken for granted by the Democratic Party for decades, workers in the United States show no inclination to return to the party once gloriously helmed by Franklin Roosevelt. As they now jostle for space among all those Republican billionaires, they must remember they have the power to elect and to defeat.

 

Will Trump revert back to traditional Republican instincts that always favor the managerial class at the expense of workers? Already he has fired National Labor Relations Board member Gwinne Wilcox and NLRB General Counsel Jennifer Abruzzo, both viewed as pro-labor voices on the board. Wilcox is fighting the action in court.

 

Will he truly push for peace if Putin decides he doesn’t like Trump’s terms?

 

Meanwhile the failed Democratic Party continues to flounder in the wake of its devastating losses last November. Its own billionaire backers are unlikely to pursue the path Bernie Sanders tried to carve out a few years ago. More likely it will move even more to the right on economic issues. On other issues its malaise deepens as its members try to come to term with the long overdue death of identity politics. Only most of the recent candidates to lead the Democratic National Committee and the millionaire winners of the recent Grammy awards believe identity politics are still viable. Further, the party couldn’t even rely on the abortion issue to pull it over the top. What’s left?

 

Trump’s greatest promise is change. He says he’s the man to make it happen. The Deep State abhors change, and it has formidable powers to resist it. For all his bluster and big talk, Trump now has the opportunity to show the world the stuff he’s made of, who he really is. The world awaits.