China as an imperialist country

[Die Neue Zeit]

Much has been said about China being a rising economic and geopolitical power, but much has also been said about China not being imperialistic in the tradition of Kautsky, Hilferding, and Lenin (i.e., finance capital). Well, it seems China's headed in that direction now:

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601080&sid=anvcU96EdHPI&refer=asia


Feb. 20 (Bloomberg) -- China Petroleum & Chemical Corp., the nation’s biggest refiner, may benefit the most among domestic oil-processors from the oil-for-loans agreements the government signed with Brazil, Venezuela and Russia this week.

“The deals will help China Petroleum more as it is a net user of oil when it’s quite expensive to extract domestic resources,” said Lorraine Tan, deputy director of equity research at Standard & Poor’s. Sinopec, as China Petroleum is known, relies on imports to meet 70 percent of its crude requirements while its largest rival PetroChina Co. is almost self-sufficient, according to calculations by Bloomberg News.

China entered into an oil-for-loans accord with Brazil yesterday -- its third such deal in three days -- tapping the nation’s $1.95 trillion foreign-exchange reserves at a time when credit is scarce. In all, the world’s second-largest oil user will get about 600,000 barrels a day, equal to 17 percent of its imports last year, in return for providing $39 billion of loans.

“It’s a smart move for the Chinese government to take this step as energy security is the number one priority now,” Tan said by telephone from Singapore. More of such deals can be expected this year because of the global recession, she said.

The cost of borrowing in dollars for three months held at the highest level in five weeks. The London interbank offered rate, or Libor, that banks say they charge each other for three- month loans in dollars stayed at 1.25 percent yesterday, the highest level since Jan. 9, according to the British Bankers’ Association. The Libor-OIS spread, a gauge of banks’ reluctance to lend, was little changed at 99 basis points.

Oil and Loans

Petroleo Brasileiro SA, Brazil’s state-controlled oil company, agreed to a $10 billion loan from state-run China Development Bank Corp. and supply as much as 100,000 barrels of oil a day to Sinopec, Chief Executive Officer Jose Sergio Gabrielli said in Brasilia yesterday.

“The deal could open up opportunity for Sinopec to tap into deepwater oil-gas exploration in offshore Brazil, leveraging on Petrobras’ proven track record,” Gordon Kwan, head of China research at CLSA Ltd., said in e-mailed comments.

China agreed on Feb. 17 to provide Russia with $25 billion of loans in return for 300,000 barrels a day of oil for 20 years. Venezuela’s Petroleos de Venezuela, known as PDVSA, will provide 200,000 barrels a day to the Asian country to pay down a $4 billion loan from China Development Bank. Venezuela’s oil is “at the service of China,” President Hugo Chavez said Feb. 18.

‘Financial War Chest’

“Chinese oil companies are lucky to be able to leverage on their government’s vast financial war chest to acquire overseas assets, hopefully at the bottom of the oil price cycle,” said CLSA’s Kwan.

Sinopec shares fell 1.6 percent to close at HK$4.23 in Hong Kong trading today, while PetroChina dropped 3 percent to HK$5.74. The Hang Seng Index declined 2.5 percent.

The deals place China and the oil-producing countries in a win-win position, said Zhu He, vice chief engineer of the Economic and Development Research Institute under China Petrochemical Corp., Sinopec’s parent.

“We will get access to their oil and they got their oil sold, though the cost of transporting oil from Venezuela and Brazil would be relatively high,” Zhu said.

[Qayin]

Tibet?

[Niccolò Rossi]

Much has been said about China being a rising economic and geopolitical power, but much has also been said about China not being imperialistic in the tradition of Kautsky, Hilferding, and Lenin (i.e., finance capital). Well, it seems China's headed in that direction now[/URL]

China is not only headed in that direction - china is an imperialist power, even when viewed from the tradition of Lenin re imperialism:


In the last decade of the twentieth century the African continent was torn apart by wars, with millions of refugees, and half the population living on less than $1 per day. The continent had become a net exporter of capital to the central capitalist countries and its share of world trade and foreign investment has declined relentlessly [URL="http://www.ibrp.org/en/articles/2008-09-01/chinese-imperialism-a-new-force-in-africa#fn1"][1] (http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601080&sid=anvcU96EdHPI&refer=asia). The Western capitalist powers who controlled the flow of capital to Africa had imposed Structural Adjustment Plans as conditions for loans. In most cases these plans had led to Western capital taking over the profitable sectors of the economies, and had only made the situation of poorer African states worse. The debt forgiveness programmes adopted by the G8 group of major capitalist powers [2] (http://www.ibrp.org/en/articles/2008-09-01/chinese-imperialism-a-new-force-in-africa#fn2) is an implicit recognition of this. In addition to debt relief, there has also been some attempts to bring an end to some of Africa’s wars, most of which are caused by the catastrophic economic situation. The last four years have seen a revival of economic growth, which nominally averaged 5.5%, and an increase in capital investment.
Much of this growth has been brought about by a rise in prices of raw materials, such as oil and minerals, and the countries which possess these resources have experienced the highest growth. [3] (http://www.ibrp.org/en/articles/2008-09-01/chinese-imperialism-a-new-force-in-africa#fn3) While the rise in demand for raw materials is itself a consequence of the rapid economic growth in China, India and other Asian countries, the growth in African economies has been spurred by massive Chinese investment in the continent. Chinese capitalism is desperate to get its hands on Africa’s raw materials and has mounted a massive campaign of investment which has resulted in total Chinese investment in Africa now being approximately $9bn. Although this amount is only approximately half that of the total US capital investment, the annual rate of Chinese investment of around $1.2bn is now greater than that of the US. In addition trade between Africa and China, which in 2007 amounted to $70bn, now exceeds that of the US with Africa. It is clear that China is emerging as an economic power challenging the dominance of the US and European powers in Africa. Such a challenge is, at root, part of the general struggle for the division of the surplus value produced by the world’s working class and will, in time, be translated into an imperialist struggle. Already regions of conflict are emerging where China is frustrating the US and Europe in order to protect its own interests. Sudan and Zimbabwe are cases in point…
China has developed the Sudanese oil industry, from the primary work of drilling and finding oil, to that of building pipelines and an oil refinery. Sudanese oil output is now over 500 000 barrels per day, two thirds of which goes to China. China supplies the regime with weapons and has deployed some of its own soldiers to protect the thousands of Chinese workers in the country. All this has outraged the US since US oil companies were previously the ones exploiting Sudanese oil fields. US attempts to isolate and overthrow the Sudanese regime, which materialise in demands for oil embargoes at the UN, never see the light of day because of the threat of Chinese veto. This is probably why the International Criminal Court of Justice has been persuaded to indict the President of Sudan, Omar Bashir on war crimes charges over Darfur. [4] (http://www.ibrp.org/en/articles/2008-09-01/chinese-imperialism-a-new-force-in-africa#fn4)
In a similar way, the Chinese are exploiting the US and Europe’s quarrel with Zimbabwe and providing the Mugabe with fuel and foreign exchange in return for minerals [5] (http://www.ibrp.org/en/articles/2008-09-01/chinese-imperialism-a-new-force-in-africa#fn5). Recently, China and Russia vetoed a US resolution at the UN calling for an arms embargo and sanctions on the leadership of the regime. The suffering that this conflict of interests is producing in terms of economic collapse is now unimaginable. Inflation has reached 16 000 000% as illustrated by the photograph of a Zimbabwean cheque which we publish below.
Although the forces driving Chinese imperialism in Africa are fundamentally similar to those impelling the older imperialist powers, the form which Chinese imperialism takes is slightly different from that of US and European imperialism both past and present. This gives the Chinese an advantage over their rivals. To understand how this has come about it is necessary to briefly consider the economic rise of China and what lies behind this.


From the article Chinese Imperialism - A New Force in Africa published by the IBRP. The full article can be found here (http://www.ibrp.org/en/articles/2008-09-01/chinese-imperialism-a-new-force-in-africa)

I eagerly await Bob's Chinese apologism.

[Die Neue Zeit]

Yeah I know about the Sudan stuff (and I too look forward to Bob chiming in), but methinks the "capital" invested in Africa so far is mainly of a more, how shall I say, physical type (as opposed to the more financial stuff mentioned in the OP). As the IBRP pointed out, the oil investment in Sudan consists of oil equipment and technical expertise.

[RedStarOverChina]

China is definitely heading towards imperialism...But I think it still has quite a long way. Financially, China is still pretty much dominated by foreign capital. Many if not most Chinese industries are subservient to foreign businesses. Politically, China has traditionally adopted a policy of "non-intervention", which did not permit imperialist interventions.

However, all of the above mentioned factors are being undermined as China steps on the path of every successful capitalist country.


Here's something I was explaining to a capitalist intellectual light-weight:



The products may be assembled in China but often, they, especially the more sophisticated electronics, are not exactly "Chinese". At least 30% of China's electronic exports are fully or partially owned or otherwise controlled by foreign---More specifically, Western capital. As we all know, most of the product manufactured in China are manufactured to satisfy foreign demand. In that sense, Chinese labour is being exploited and the environment, sacrificed, to supply imperialist countries with cheap goods---the profit of which goes mostly to businesses in developed countries.

A study was done on the manufacturing process of Ipod Classic (I forgot which model) which was assembled in China.

Basically the finished product sell for over $200 in the USA. On average, of the 200 dollars, less than 10 dollars go to China factories and workers. About $75 are used to purchase Japanese chips. The rest are divided evenly among American wholesalers and retailers.

It can be successfully argued that Western countries, more specifically Western businesses do not necessarily "compete" against Chinese labourers...They own Chinese labourers and exploit them ruthlessly.

Chinese businesses are clearly, in Lenin's words, subservient to foreign businesses. Meaning that the bulk of profit generated by Chinese labour goes to Western capitalists; meanwhile, they dominate China's manufacturing industry with both financial and technological capital. In other words, the real owners of the means of production in China are foreign businesses, and equally important is the fact that Western capitalists are the price-makers in what is called the "commodity chain".

Now that we got the "details" out of the way, let's draw a rough picture of this process. the "commodity chain" of electronics look something like this:

Western capitalists purchase raw material from third party and transports them to China
--->
Assembles in China at the cost of human labour and environmental degradation, paid and commissioned by Western businesses
--->
Tranported to the West where the bulk of the profit is to be made in wholesale and retail sectors
--->
Wastes return to China causing further environmental degradation.

A more careful look at the process lead to the conclusion that there is little Chinese involvement in the "made in China" products...Except that Chinese labourers and residents get screwed over because of it.

But then again, supporters of global hegemony of Western capital will always find reasons to blame the third world...And I simply don't have the time to debunk every single one of them.
In that sense, China is still merely a gear in the globalized market---and the engine is still USA and Western capital.

Both Chinese nationalists and foreigners fearful of its rise tend to overestimate China.

[Ismail]

Tibet?I believe that China is engaging in nascent imperialism, but Tibet wasn't an imperialist act. The people of Tibet considered themselves in the presence of basically God and didn't care much about Tibet as a country because they had no concept of it as one. The Chinese had laid claim to Tibet since the 1200's and it was only due to the Warlord Era after 1912 that Tibet was able to be so autonomous, along with British imperialism trying to create a buffer state between India and China. No nation on earth (even the British) recognized Tibet as a country, only as a province of China.

Furthermore when the Chinese actually moved in, most were greeted as liberators because one of their first acts was to ban serfdom. The result was much better than if the Kuomintang had won the civil war, since the Kuomintang wasn't big at all on ethnic and cultural diversity. (As a note, Taiwan still claims control over Tibet)

I've seen no evidence to suggest that Tibetans (in Tibet today) want independence aside from obvious types like monks.

http://www.case.edu/affil/tibet/CollectedArticles.htm (specifically http://www.case.edu/affil/tibet/tibetanSociety/documents/TheUnitedStatesTibetandtheColdWar.pdf)
http://www.michaelparenti.org/Tibet.html
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fYEOSCIOnrs
http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/strong-anna-louise/1959/tibet/index.htm

[Qayin]

Michael Parenti's article was a good read
Thanks.