Analysis | Are the United States and China the same? – The Jump

That the multidimensional competition between China and the United States is the main contradiction of the international order in the current situation is hardly debatable, but the definitions given to this dispute differ enormously, even within theoretical frameworks close to each other. What China is and, above all, at what stage its capitalist development model oriented towards socialism and its relations with the peripheral regions often called the Global South are two of the main keys to answering the question of whether the struggle between the United States and the United States and China is a conflict between equals. Is the Beijing-Washington conflict an inter-imperialist conflict? Are American pressures in the Asia-Pacific region part of a strategy of international domination or a simple confrontation with the other major actor in the world system?

United States and allies

Certainly, to outline some fundamental elements of understanding the international situation, it is necessary, first of all, to define American hegemony. Washington dominates the international structure by mediating a dense and interconnected system of alliances, a sort of collective imperialism which includes European actors (notably Germany, France and Italy), the Anglo-American axis (United Kingdom, Australia and Canada), Israel, the Asia-Pacific allies (Japan, South Korea or the Philippines) and, temporarily, peripheral states whose governments opt for a dynamic of subordinate alignment (such as Javier Milei's Argentina).

In historical terms, Washington and a good part of its allies, especially those with an imperialist past, have developed and consolidated their power on the basis of historical dynamics of violence and oppression against the peripheries and against the national workers' movement, such as the trade in slaves, the physical colonization of territories, internal genocides, the formation of settler governments, the imperialist partition and distribution of Africa or the monopolistic exploitation of the peripheries of the capitalist world system.

By 2022, three-quarters of global military spending was being carried out by the imperialist axis led by Washington, with China accounting for 10%, Russia 3% and India 3%.

Currently, the American bloc and its allies are immersed in a process of militarization. By 2022, three-quarters of the world's military spending was being carried out by the imperialist axis led by Washington, while China accounted for 10%, Russia 3% and India 3%. The goals of this sustained militarization are not only compelling; in Taiwan, the United States and its regional allies are putting pressure on Beijing through military moves and through their military bases in territories such as South Korea, Japan, Guam, the Philippines or the Northern Mariana Islands.

Joint military exercises in East Asia Tokyo-Salt-Washington They aspire to force the collapse of the North Korean system or trigger an escalation of the war between the two Koreas. On the other hand, the expansion of the NATO bloc to the East through Ukraine laid the foundation for the Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 and the war that followed and is still ongoing today. In the Middle East, the tacit support of the American bloc and its allies for the genocide that the State of Israel has been perpetrating against the Palestinian people since October 7, 2023, clearly reflects the colonial and aggressive pretensions of the imperialist axis.

Analysis

North Korea

Basic Guide to Understanding North Korea

Besides the particular history of the Korean peninsula, three aspects are fundamental to understanding the country: the ideology of Juche (or Korean-style Marxism-Leninism), the Songun doctrine (military priority) and the Kim family.

The transformation of China

During the years when imperialism governed much of the logic of the world system, China occupied the position of victim much more often than that of executioner. Moreover, some of the territorial implications of imperialism in China have repercussions to this day: the British occupation of Hong Kong or the separation of mainland China from China. Taiwan Island (whose de facto independence was maintained only thanks to American financial and military support) are just two examples of this process. Although the century of humiliation (1839-1949) was theoretically overcome after the Communist Party's victory in the civil war (1949), in practice China has since come under severe pressure from the imperialist axis.

After the end of the Maoist era in the People's Republic of China came the period of opening of Deng Xiaoping, who had been at the head of the country since 1978. The strategic turn taken by the Chinese Communist Party during Deng's term not only reflected the divergent branches that coexist within the party, but it truly represents a new era in the global insertion of the Asian giant. From that moment on, the Chinese economy began to receive foreign capital and established mechanisms for its partial retention and reinvestment in the country's internal productive circuits. In fact, this has been the central key to the development of Chinese national capitalism.

Although foreign private capital was allowed to enter, a good portion of the profits was retained and allowed the development of Chinese industry (public and private).

The United States saw a double opportunity in this process: on the one hand, its large monopolistic companies could take advantage of a huge market for cheap labor at the time; China already had a population of close to a billion people that would be decisive in North American manufacturing chains; on the other hand, Washington understood that China's economic opening was the first step toward a political opening that would either turn into a liberal party system or result in the Communist Party shifting toward liberal positions close to the American global power model.

Even though the United States managed to benefit for a few years from China's economic opening, it really made a mistake in its political diagnosis. While it is true that China has become peripheral, there have never been major questions about the political direction of the Communist Party or about the a priori transitional character of the capitalist model. Even if foreign private capital was allowed to enter, a good part of the profits was retained and allowed the development of Chinese industry (public and private) and the internal legitimization of the party.

China in the world

On the other hand, China's economic development is significantly different from that of the United States and its allies. The processes of diversion of capital from the peripheries of capitalism to the European and North American centers during the 19th and 20th centuries occurred mainly on the basis of physical aggression against anti-imperialist revolutionary movements. The Congolese genocide of the Belgian Empire, the slave trade, the US coups and invasions in Central America, the Caribbean and South America, the violent Japanese aggression against the peoples of East Asia and the subsequent penetration of monopoly Western capitals, the imperialist wars in Southeast Asia or the support for counter-revolutionary movements on the African continent are just some of the mechanisms through which, directly or indirectly, the European, Anglo-American and other variants of axis capitalism were consolidated.

In honor of truth, and so on as he explained Claudio Katz, China's economic expansion has so far been completed without a single shot being fired outside its borders. Thanks to the Belt and Road Initiative (or New Silk Road) and other infrastructure cooperation and investment projects, China plays an important role in many national economies. However, the win-win relationships that Beijing builds with other actors in the South in Asia, Africa, and Latin America are often based on a logic of unequal exchange. At the same time, the loans that the People's Republic of China offers to the peripheries are politically more flexible than those of internationalized financial organizations such as the International Monetary Fund (IMF).

China aspires to lead the Global South and that is why it promotes and plays a leading role in organizations such as BRICS+ (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa), maintains active ties with multilateral organizations of regional weight such as ASEAN (Association of Southeast Asian Nations) and maintains an ambivalent, even explicit, position in anti-imperialist conflicts around the world (Venezuela, Cuba, Korea or the Sahel). In an attempt to expand its ties with actors in the South and broaden the base of the ambiguous non-American axis, Beijing continues to define itself as a developing country – a definition that, to a certain extent, still corresponds to its productive matrix. Furthermore, unlike the United States and other Axis powers, China is not in the habit of deploying military bases beyond its zone of influence, with the exception of Yibutiin the Red Sea.

Thus, even if China and the United States are immersed in a conflict between powers, on a qualitative level, the two countries still show notable differences in their international military projection, in the specific character of their foreign policy, in their links with the peripheries, in their pressure measures to defend their interests, in their imperialist past (non-imperialist in the case of China) or in their deployment of bases. Although the project of the Communist Party could perfectly become a project of an imperialist capitalist nature, the country is in the current situation in a transition phase that differentiates it from Washington, consolidated since 1945 as a central element of the great collective imperialist machine.