Claudio Katz: China: Neither imperialist nor part of the Global South

Claudio Katz argues that China is neither imperialist nor part of the Global South.

Dependency presupposes the existence of a state subject to external orders, requirements or conditioning, while imperialism implies the opposite: international supremacy and a high degree of external interventionism. These should not be intermingled in the same formula. In China the lack of subordination to another power coexists alongside great restraint in its involvement with other countries. This is neither dependency nor imperialism.

Katz is arguing is that China is not an imperialist power as it does not intervene directly in the affairs of other nations through the use of military force or economic coercion. This is a big change from the period prior to the 1990's when China tried to invade Vietnam, supported Maoist guerillas, and intervened directly into the Korean conflict.

Nor is China a dependent power like Australia in which we have to follow the lead of the USA in military and political matters.

Those who are unaware of this difference tend to denounce China and the United States alike as aggressive powers. They situate the two contenders on the same plane and stress that they intervene indifferently in those conflicts.

But this neutralism fails to note who is primarily responsible for the tensions that shake the planet. It fails to see that the United States sends warships to its rival’s coast and raises the tone of its accusations in order to generate a climate of growing conflict.

Katz is arguing that China is acting defensively. This defensiveness has to be seen in the presence of US bases in South Korea, Japan, Guam, and others. China has no comparable presence near the USA.

China does not suffer the outflows that typically drain the dependent countries. It is exempt from the trade imbalance, technological deficiency, scarcity of investment or strangling of purchasing power. There are no data from today’s China suggesting that its stunning economic might constitutes a mere statistical fiction.

This trade surplus allows some freedom of action for China on the world stage. And it is this freedom that is an affront to the US.

But these cheerful portraits overlook the fact that the consolidation of capitalism accentuates in China all of the imbalances already generated by overproduction and surplus capital. These tensions, in turn, accentuate inequality and deterioration of the environment. Ignoring these contradictions prevents us from noting how China’s defensive international strategy is undermined by the competitive pressure imposed by capitalism

Katz puts this contradiction as the core problem for China. While Capitalism has delivered stunning economic growth and properity for China, the need for ever-expanding markets brings it into sharp conflict with the hegemonic power of the USA.

In the short term, there is the robust rise of China in the face of an obvious decline of the United States. China is winning the dispute in all areas and its recent management of the pandemic is a confirmation of this. Beijing quickly achieved control over the spread of the infection while Washington coped with an overflow of cases that left the country with one of the highest numbers of deaths.

The pandemic has hastened the decline of the USA. And it is this decline that makes the USA more dangerous as it tries to maintain its hegemony. But we should also be wary of China as the Capitalist contradictions impel it towards imperialism.