RKOB
4th September 2012, 08:31
The Revolutionary Communist International Tendency (RCIT) has published an extensive study on China‘s transformation into an imperialist power in the recent past. The author, Michael Pröbsting, shows - using many sources and presenting numerous statistics - how China's new bourgeoisie succeeded in super-exploiting its working class and creating monopolies which not only dominate the Chinese market but also play increasingly a significant global role.
Below we reprint the summary of the study. The study can be read as a pdf file on the website of the RCIT at the link www(dot)thecommunists(dot)net/theory/why-china-is-imperialist
* * *
Let us summarize the results of our study: After restoring capitalism in the early 1990s, China developed into a growing capitalist power. In the late 2000s it transformed into an emerging imperialist power.
The main reasons for China’s successful development into an imperialist power were:
i) The continuing existence of a strong, centralized Stalinist bureaucracy which could suppress the working class and ensure its super-exploitation.
ii) The historic defeat of China’s working class in 1989 when the bureaucracy bloodily crushed the mass uprising at the Tiananmen Square and in the whole country.
iii) The decline of US imperialism which opened the space for new powers.
This continuing existence of a strong, centralized Stalinist bureaucracy and the historic defeat of China’s working class in 1989 enabled the new capitalist ruling class to subjugate the majority of the massively growing proletariat to super-exploitation. Based on this the capitalists – both Chinese and foreign – could extract a massive surplus value for capital accumulation. While foreign imperialist monopolies profited from this super-exploitation of the working class, it was the Chinese bourgeoisie that was the main beneficiary.
As a result Chinese capital developed monopolies which play an important role not only on the domestic market but increasingly also on the world market. Today China’s monopolies are amongst the most important capital exporters.
China is not only an emerging economic power but also a political and military power. It has already the second biggest military budget. In addition it is the fifth biggest nuclear power and the sixth-biggest arms-exporting country.
There should be no illusions about a peaceful settlement of the inner-imperialist rivalry of the Great Powers. An imperialist war between the great powers USA and China is increasingly becoming nearly unavoidable in the coming decade. Both powers need control over Eastern Asia which is central for world capitalist value production as well as trade.
For this reason it is nearly inevitable that imperialist powers will try to influence and exploit conflicts and wars. (e.g. conflicts in the South China (or East) Sea, Libya, Syria, Iran).
The RCIT considers both the USA as well as China as imperialist powers. In a military conflict between the two, we Bolshevik-Communists will reject taking side of one of the two rivaling imperialist powers. It would be a war of the respective ruling class to raise its hegemony and super-exploitation of the semi-colonial countries. The correct tactic in such a conflict therefore is the revolutionary defeatism where workers in both camps raise the slogan “The main enemy is at home” and strive to turn the imperialist war into a civil war against their own ruling class.
In a conflict between an imperialist power and a semi-colonial country in the South China (or East) Sea, Marxists have to analyze every war concretely. They have to work out if the imperialist drive to subjugate a given (semi-)colonial nation is the dominant aspect in the war or if a just national defense struggle is subordinated to a proxy war for an imperialist power. From this follows if the Bolshevik-Communists take revolutionary defeatist or a revolutionary defensist position concerning the struggle of the (semi-)colonial nation.
Below we reprint the summary of the study. The study can be read as a pdf file on the website of the RCIT at the link www(dot)thecommunists(dot)net/theory/why-china-is-imperialist
* * *
Let us summarize the results of our study: After restoring capitalism in the early 1990s, China developed into a growing capitalist power. In the late 2000s it transformed into an emerging imperialist power.
The main reasons for China’s successful development into an imperialist power were:
i) The continuing existence of a strong, centralized Stalinist bureaucracy which could suppress the working class and ensure its super-exploitation.
ii) The historic defeat of China’s working class in 1989 when the bureaucracy bloodily crushed the mass uprising at the Tiananmen Square and in the whole country.
iii) The decline of US imperialism which opened the space for new powers.
This continuing existence of a strong, centralized Stalinist bureaucracy and the historic defeat of China’s working class in 1989 enabled the new capitalist ruling class to subjugate the majority of the massively growing proletariat to super-exploitation. Based on this the capitalists – both Chinese and foreign – could extract a massive surplus value for capital accumulation. While foreign imperialist monopolies profited from this super-exploitation of the working class, it was the Chinese bourgeoisie that was the main beneficiary.
As a result Chinese capital developed monopolies which play an important role not only on the domestic market but increasingly also on the world market. Today China’s monopolies are amongst the most important capital exporters.
China is not only an emerging economic power but also a political and military power. It has already the second biggest military budget. In addition it is the fifth biggest nuclear power and the sixth-biggest arms-exporting country.
There should be no illusions about a peaceful settlement of the inner-imperialist rivalry of the Great Powers. An imperialist war between the great powers USA and China is increasingly becoming nearly unavoidable in the coming decade. Both powers need control over Eastern Asia which is central for world capitalist value production as well as trade.
For this reason it is nearly inevitable that imperialist powers will try to influence and exploit conflicts and wars. (e.g. conflicts in the South China (or East) Sea, Libya, Syria, Iran).
The RCIT considers both the USA as well as China as imperialist powers. In a military conflict between the two, we Bolshevik-Communists will reject taking side of one of the two rivaling imperialist powers. It would be a war of the respective ruling class to raise its hegemony and super-exploitation of the semi-colonial countries. The correct tactic in such a conflict therefore is the revolutionary defeatism where workers in both camps raise the slogan “The main enemy is at home” and strive to turn the imperialist war into a civil war against their own ruling class.
In a conflict between an imperialist power and a semi-colonial country in the South China (or East) Sea, Marxists have to analyze every war concretely. They have to work out if the imperialist drive to subjugate a given (semi-)colonial nation is the dominant aspect in the war or if a just national defense struggle is subordinated to a proxy war for an imperialist power. From this follows if the Bolshevik-Communists take revolutionary defeatist or a revolutionary defensist position concerning the struggle of the (semi-)colonial nation.