China, U.S. Imperialists On Collision Course

The U.S. is in decline relative to China, the primary emerging imperialist rival. The U.S. ruling class is faced with massive unemployment, a continuing financial mess, a thinly spread and poorly functioning military, and an inability to enforce discipline within their own class. At the same, China displays an increasingly aggressive imperialism, challenging U.S. hegemony. Bosses are rarely hesitant to sacrifice the lives of workers in order to claim their piece of the capitalist pie, and so, as China’s rulers demand a reordering of the world with them on top, imperialist war could lie in the future. Workers of the world have nothing to win from backing one group of capitalists over the other. Transforming this potential future imperialist war into communist revolution is the long-term outlook of PLP.

Industry is the centerpiece of capitalist economy. Industrial workers produce real value, and unlike the financial manipulations that are increasingly at the center of the U.S. economy, China’s industrial might has skyrocketed. The economic crisis has certainly hit China and just as in the U.S., the Chinese bosses are making the working class pay. The net income of 400 million people has stagnated in the last decade and poverty levels have increased. But in the absence of a REAL communist party (unlike the profit-driven fake Chinese Communist Party) aimed at destroying capitalism, the bosses will salvage their system, and it appears that China might be on top of the pile when the dust clears.

Chinese Dominance Grows In Key Industries

Chinese oil companies have exerted their influence across the globe. The China National Petroleum Corporation has contracts in 29 countries around the world, including Iraq, Iran, Syria, Venezuela, Ecuador, and Burma.

Or consider steel. There is a dispute about how much steel China produced in 2010. The official figure — likely an underestimate — is 627 million tons, 44% of the world output and 50% more than Europe, the U.S., Japan and Russia COMBINED. Even if the lower official numbers are correct, the growth in China’s steel output from 2007 to 2010 exceeded the total U.S. steel output in 2010: China’s output in those three years grew by 131 million tons, whereas U.S. output in 2010 was 81 million tons.

In the auto industry the situation is similar. In 2010, the U.S. produced 7.8 million cars while China made 18.3 million, double the number in 2008 and nine times the number it produced in 2000. Again, the growth in auto production outstrips U.S. production. From 2000 to 2010 China’s auto industry output grew by 16.2 million cars. The U.S. produced 7.8 million cars in 2010. However, a goodly portion of the profits from China’s production goes to international auto companies like Ford, GM, and Nissan.

Battle Over Profits

In other basic industries, China’s share of world output is around 40%. For instance, China makes 44% of the world’s cement. Their dominance is even more complete in many other products. By some estimates, 90% of the world’s shoes are made in China. All told, over the last ten years, the Chinese share of world manufacturing has risen to 19.7% from 7%. Meanwhile, the U.S. share went down from 27% to 19%. The U.S. has lost 5.7 million manufacturing jobs in the last ten years.

The picture is not complete, however, without understanding what happens to the profit that this manufacturing generates. Companies that simply manufacture their products in China but export the profit are not contributing to the rise of the Chinese ruling class.  In some cases, the profits leave China. For example nearly all of Apple Computer’s products are assembled in China. Most of the profit, however, leaves the country. Apple makes eight times more in profit than it spends in China.

However, in industry after industry — including the ones cited above — China has gone from low-cost assembler to controlling the entire process: raw materials, basic manufacturing, assembly and sales.  And not only are these manufactured goods controlled by Chinese companies, a large percentage are directly controlled by the government, through state-owned enterprises (SOEs).

About 80% of the bank loans in China go to SOEs, which get discounted rates compared to privately owned companies. There are 150 central and 120,000 local SOEs, which account for the vast majority of manufacturing in the country. The 150 central SOEs generate more than two-thirds of China’s GDP and more than half of the country’s wealth. This profit can be funneled directly into build-up of industry, infrastructure and military.

Compare this to the U.S., where Warren Buffet, the ringleader of the liberal ruling class, has to beg and plead to the Tea Party-influenced government to raise taxes on the rich so that the U.S. can face its imperialist rivals in the future. The increase in taxes that Buffet is calling for is one aspect of the move towards fascism. Fascism is not just a ferocious attack on workers, using increased racism, nationalism and sexism to discipline the working class during crises. Another aspect of fascism is the attempt to forcefully impose discipline on the ruling class.

Industrial Battles Eventually Turn Into Military Battles

What Buffet and Obama are planning for, to some degree, is a potential future where the U.S. and China drag the working class into the hell of imperialist war. And they are worried that this future could be turning in the favor of the Chinese bosses. The Chinese Navy is already much larger than the U.S. forces in the Pacific. If current trends continue, within the next decade the Chinese Navy will be larger than the U.S. Navy in every category except aircraft carriers and nuclear submarines. They will likely have more attack submarines, destroyers, frigates, troop landing craft and smaller missile-carrying ships. The U.S. equipment is often more sophisticated, but it appears that the Chinese military has been quick to update to the latest technology. One thing is clear: the Chinese bosses think that they are catching up with the U.S. military and will soon pass it. 

A century ago, the Russian communist Vladimir Lenin showed that modern capitalism has entered the era of imperialism and therefore war, as the imperialists fight over how to re-divide the world.

U.S. Wars Encircle the Globe 

Ever since World War II, the main source of imperialist war has been the United States: Korea, Vietnam, Nicaragua, Kuwait, Somalia, Iraq, Afghanistan, etc. The reason was not because the United States rulers are uniquely evil, but because of the nature of imperialism. For the first 40 years, U.S. bosses were desperately trying to stop the advance of communist ideas. After the implosion of the Soviet Union, they wielded their singular imperialist power to make others fall in line. Now, the world is changing as China’s bosses’ aggressive push for power challenges the U.S. position.

Both U.S. and Chinese bosses will be feverishly attempting to build political support among “their” workers for a potential world war. Already, there is a growing amount of anti-Chinese rhetoric coming from the U.S. bosses and their lackies in the industrial unions. The international working class has nothing to gain and absolutely everything to lose from aligning with one set of bosses over another. They are all bloodsuckers, willing to sacrifice the lives of workers on the altar of profit and imperialist war. Our class needs no bosses! Workers have no country!J