Is China imperialism?

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Peter Chan Socialist Action

Since the restoration of capitalism and its emergence as the world's second largest economy, China has played a pivotal role in global capitalism. At a time of historic conflict between China and the United States, the question of whether China is imperialism has become a hotly debated issue on the left at home and abroad. This article aims to clear up some of these misunderstandings so that we can draw correct political conclusions.

Definition of imperialism

When we discuss imperialism, we must first be clear about the definition given by Marxism. Let's revisit Lenin's definition in "Imperialism is the highest stage of capitalism":

"If imperialism had to be defined as briefly as possible, it should be said that imperialism is the monopoly stage of capitalism. Such a definition would cover the most important points, since, on the one hand, finance capital is in a monopoly alliance with industrialists. The bank capital of the few largest monopolistic banks that have been integrated by capital; on the other hand, the partition of the world is the transition from the colonial policy of unhindered expansion to areas not occupied by any capitalist power to monopoly possession and the partition has been completed. colonial policy of world territories."

It can be seen that this does not refer to the mainstream definition of purely military aggression and occupation, but to the concept of political economy, which is the result of capitalism’s inevitable tendency to transcend the boundaries of the nation-state and develop to the highest level. Lenin also mentioned five basic characteristics of imperialism, let's see if they fit today's China:

(1) The concentration of production and capital has grown to such a degree that monopoly organizations are created which play a decisive role in economic life

There is no doubt about the degree of concentration of production and capital in China today. In the 2020 Fortune Global 500 list, China has become the country with the most names on the list for the second consecutive year, with 135 companies, an increase of 11 companies from 2019. Compared with the United States, there are only 122.

(2) Bank capital and industrial capital have merged, forming a financial oligarchy on the basis of this "financial capital"

China's four largest banks (ICBC, CCB, ABC, and Bank of China) are also the four largest banks in the world. Although these are state-owned enterprises, they are also listed companies for profit.

As for China's largest oligarchic enterprises, in addition to their own core industries, they are also extensively involved in financial businesses, such as Alibaba's Ant Financial Services, Tencent's Tencent Financial Technology, and Evergrande's Evergrande Financial Wealth Management.

China also has one of the largest stock and securities markets in the world. In terms of market capitalization, the Shanghai stock market is the third largest in the world, the fourth largest in Hong Kong, and the seventh largest in Shenzhen. The Chinese government officially opened the country's fourth Beijing stock market in November last year. It can be seen that despite the increasing competition from Western capital markets, China's financial capital is still expanding.

(3) Capital export, which is different from commodity export, is of particular importance

Commodity exports are of course the backbone of China's economy, supporting China's long-term economic take-off. Capital exports have also become increasingly important in recent years. Among them, the "One Belt, One Road" can be said to be an important part of the development of China's capital export strategy, and it was even written into the CCP constitution in 2017. This is the only foreign policy written into the party constitution.

Under the global epidemic in 2020, China's foreign direct investment (FDI) amount has become the first in the world. The proportion of China's FDI in global investment has also increased, reaching 20.2%, exceeding 10% for five consecutive years.

(4) The international monopoly capital consortium that divides the world has been formed

This refers to what we call multinational corporations. According to "Global Data", among the 2,190 multinational companies with the highest global turnover in 2020, 10% are from China, ranking the third largest country after the United States (33%) and Japan (12%). after. This shows the weight of Chinese multinational corporations in global capitalism.

(5) The largest capitalist powers have carved up the world's territories

The division of the world here includes the traditional colonial policy of military occupation, as well as the more modern neo-colonialism of political and economic dominance. China has both. Internally, along with the process of capitalist restoration, China implemented brutal Han colonial and racist policies in ethnic minority areas such as Xinjiang and Tibet. Externally, through the above-mentioned “Belt and Road” exporting capital to seize the market, it also makes other countries fall into debt traps to exercise economic domination, and at the same time, there are more frequent military provocations and territorial expansion ambitions in the Taiwan Strait and the South China Sea.

In the past, we have described the "Belt and Road" as "imperialism with Chinese characteristics", how China exported its own capital, debt and excess production capacity to the world. China's infrastructure investment and lending to other countries are not charitable causes, but all for profit. As for the “Belt and Road” initiative, due to China’s own economic crisis in recent years, it has encountered problems such as capital reduction and unfinished projects, and even encountered local protests in various places. We will discuss it later, but this further proves the imperialist nature of these projects.

It can be seen that today's China quite conforms to Lenin's definition of imperialism. In fact, generally only the strongest imperialist countries meet all the above characteristics.

Capitalism, but not imperialism?

However, some parts of the left have different opinions on whether China is an imperialist country. One example is the article "Is China an Imperialist Country?" published by Australian leftist Sam King on several leftist websites. " article expresses another position. He believes that China has indeed restored capitalism, but it is not an imperialist country.

He believes that China is not imperialism under Lenin's definition because Chinese multinational corporations are not "monopolistic". In other words, he argues that while China has the largest companies in the world, these companies generally do not hold important technological patents.

China is still dependent on advanced capitalist countries in key areas such as energy, communications, chips. He cited Huawei as an example. Although they are one of the few multinational companies in China that can go global, they still rely on chips from advanced countries, whether for mobile phones or 5G network systems. Since the throat-locking sanctions of the United States, this leading Chinese company has been stagnant.

Therefore, Sam King argues that Chinese companies cannot make "super profits" from monopoly technology by outsourcing low-end production to exploit cheap labor from other countries. He believes that the rise of American and German imperialism in the 19th century was about monopolizing technologies such as electricity, chemicals, and automobiles, enabling them to compete with the old British and French powers.

In other words, Sam King believes that China is not an "oppressor state" and therefore cannot be an imperialist state. He also tried to prove that China only has low-end scientific research and low-value-added production by citing that China's per capita GDP level is still at the level of Brazil and Mexico, and is still far behind the advanced capitalist countries in Europe and the United States.

Dialectically look at imperialism

But Lenin's analysis never mentions the need for a high per capita GDP or a high standard of living as a defining characteristic of imperialism.

The most prominent counter-example is Tsarist Russia before the 1917 revolution. Lenin analyzed that at that time Russia was a semi-colonial country (subject to British and French capital), but at the same time it had the duality of an imperialist country (for China, Persia, Poland, Finland, etc.). However, in pre-revolutionary Russia, per capita GDP was not comparable to Poland, only comparable to Mexico and South Africa.

The other is the country that Lenin cited in the book "Emperor" in order to avoid the censorship of Tsarist Russia - Japan. It is an indisputable fact that Japan at the end of the 19th century was an imperialist country. In 1900, Japan, which had just finished the Sino-Japanese War and colonized Taiwan and Korea, had a per capita GDP far behind the Western European powers, even lower than that of Tsarist Russia at that time. Even before the Manchurian Incident in 1930, Japan's per capita GDP was still the level of Poland and Mexico. Whether it was the Tsarist Russia or the Japanese Emperor, neither of them obtained monopoly technology, which shows that Sam King's theory of technology is untenable.

In fact, the example of Tsarist Russia at the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th century proves that imperialism is not a simple black-and-white binary of “rich vs. poor” and “oppressed vs. oppressed” countries, but can have both elements in some cases.

With the comprehensive development of global capitalism around the world, coupled with the anti-colonial and anti-war struggles of the last century, the imperialist powers cannot fully continue the traditional colonial conquest. Regional imperialist state of dual nature.

On the one hand, these capitalist countries are dominated by old imperialist countries such as Europe and the United States, but at the same time they expand the influence of their own bourgeoisie in the region. Especially in the context of conflicting powers, these late-developing countries will try to balance between different camps, so that they have room to exert a certain degree of imperialist expansion in their own regions.

Some examples include India and Pakistan to South Asia; Turkey to Kurdistan, the Middle East; Saudi Arabia to the entire Gulf region; Malaysia to Indonesia, Indonesia to East Timor and West Papua, and more.

We can also see that Taiwan is politically oppressed by Chinese and American imperialists, but at the same time, it also has an imperialist nature of capital exporting to Vietnam, Southeast Asia, and China.

Hence, simply dividing the state into a binary state of oppressors and oppressed states is rigid and undialectical. Even if China is technologically inferior to the United States, it does not prove that it cannot be at least a regional imperialist, or even a global imperialist state.

Capitalism means imperialism!

When Lenin refuted Kautsky's "ultra-imperialist theory" (the idea that the world could be divided peacefully and stably among the great powers, thus avoiding imperialist wars for a long time), he wrote:

"Because under the capitalist system, the division of spheres of influence, interests, colonies, etc., cannot be conceived on the basis of the strength of the divider, that is, the strength of the economy, finance, military, etc., as a whole. And the changes in the power of these dividers vary, because under capitalism, the development of individual enterprises, individual trusts, individual industrial sectors, and individual countries cannot be balanced. Compared with the strength of Britain at that time, Germany was still pitifully small, and Japan compared with Russia. Is it "conceivable" that a decade or two later, the power balance of the imperialist powers will remain unchanged? Absolutely not. Can."

Lenin made it very clear that imperialism divides the world on the basis of "the strength of the entire economy, finance, military, etc.", rather than narrowly based on per capita GDP or technological level. Today, China's economic aggregate has reached the second largest in the world, and the level of financial and military development is also one of the best in the world. Such a scale of development is hard to imagine under capitalism without imperialism.

Moreover, Lenin also emphasized that imperialism is not a "policy" that capitalism can choose or cancel, but a "special stage" when capitalism develops to a certain level, in order to overcome its own contradictions and transcend the boundaries of the domestic market. Socialists often say "capitalism means war", and we can also say "capitalism means imperialism". As long as any capitalist country develops to a considerable extent, it will inevitably move in the direction of imperialism. When the imperialist interests of various countries collide with each other, imperialist conflicts will arise, and China is no exception.

Moreover, "the development of each country cannot be balanced", and the development of each imperialism is also unbalanced. We also have to see trends across countries. In recent decades, China has been developing towards becoming a global top power. The national power gap between China and the United States is constantly narrowing. In the future, the overall strength cannot be ruled out to surpass that of the United States. This is why the United States wants to preemptively contain China now.

We can say that when China began to restore capitalism 40 years ago, it was destined to eventually embark on the road of imperialism. This is the logic of capitalist development pointed out by Lenin. Any discourse that downplays Chinese imperialism tends to lead to the wrong and dangerous political conclusion that the working class should take the side of the "oppressed" China in today's Sino-US conflict, rather than take a politically independent position from all imperialism .

China's key role in the global capitalist economy, coupled with its rise as the world's second largest financial power, shows that its development is not an "exception" to the historical experience of capitalism. In turn, China's rise as an imperialist power is fully in line with Lenin's and Marxist analyses of the actual situation in the 21st century.