Labour Party of Turkey (EMEP)
The People’s Republic of China, which almost no one even remotely tries to associate with socialism anymore, was founded after the end of the Japanese occupation and the victory of democracy in the civil war. It was content with the expropriation of the property of a small number of collaborationist families of a monopolist character, which Mao defined as compradors, and no attempt was ever made to liquidate the so-called “national” bourgeoisie. Therefore, China could not go beyond the democratic revolution and, unfortunately, never attempted to build socialism. As a result, the process of the development of capitalism, which Mao directed and Deng Hsiao Ping accelerated with his “reforms”, was crowned with imperialism in a historically short period of time. By making good use of foreign capital investments and its relations with the West, it has become today’s second largest imperialist power, with a leap of development.
Except for NATO and the EU, China is a member of all international organizations such as the World Bank, the World Trade Organization and the United Nations. In the UN, it is a member of the Security Council with veto power, and the “Global Development Initiative” (GDI) it proposed – which envisages “poverty reduction, food security, financing for development”, etc. – received the support of the UN Secretary-General and more than a hundred countries, and the number of countries that joined the UN Group of Friends of the GDI in 2022 reached 68. China also proposed a “Global Security Initiative” which calls for “mutual respect for the sovereignty and territorial integrity of all countries, rejection of the cold war mentality, opposition to unilateralism and confrontation between rival blocs, respect for the legitimate security concerns of all nations, seeking to resolve differences through dialogue, and joint coordination to manage traditional and non-traditional security challenges”, and this has also won broad support at the UN. Both initiatives were put forward to create the image of China as a “friend of the peoples” who cares about and values the development and security of their countries. These are attempts to spread China’s influence among countries and peoples, many of them seemingly independent but financially and economically dependent.
Not only through its initiatives at the UN, China is trying to turn all possible relationships, developed or undeveloped, strong or weak, into pillars of its expansion, and to continuously increase its share of the world’s division at the expense of its rivals. This is what the recent expansion of BRICS signals. China is the main power behind this expansion, for which it tends to use such new relations as a basis.
By forming at least three different kinds of alliances with various countries, China is trying to make advances not just regionally but also globally, to the detriment of the US and European imperialists. It has formed a purely strategic alliance with Russia, between which a number of issues remain unresolved. It considers its relations with North Korea, Iran and Brazil, which also have a relatively advanced political context, within the framework of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization and BRICS-type platforms. In its expansion, it is also trying to take advantage of the economic, financial and commercial relations it has developed with people like the Crown Prince Salman and Khalifa bin Zayed of Saudi Arabia and the UAE respectively, and countries such as these, which also have political aspects. All this has been made possible by China’s rapid industrial breakthroughs, aided by the US and Europeans who have invested significant capital in the country. In just a few decades, China has achieved a remarkable industrialization on a modern technical base, almost rivalling the U.S. economy. Relying on its giant industrial and financial monopolies, which have established themselves among the world’s largest, China is now ahead of its rivals in terms of capital investments, loans and credits, and the volume of trade on all continents except North America.
This in itself is exacerbating the struggle over the redivision of the world. The rivals are making move after move against each other.
Unconcealable imperialist character
In reality, all this is obvious and visible to the naked eye. However, there are more than a few efforts to cover up the obvious facts about Russia and especially China and their expansion with views and theories based on political needs and conditioned by class interests.
The truth is that Russia and China are imperialist countries which formed a bloc and which are engaged in a struggle with their rivals for the redivision of the world. This is exactly what is being covered up and distorted.
It is claimed that Russia is not imperialist because it lacks the economic power and the five characteristics that Lenin underlined in his definition of imperialism, which are assumed to be necessary to be an imperialist country.[1] This claim is based on the weakness of Russia’s economy and the fact that, despite its long-established monopolies and the dominance of finance capital, it is unable to export capital, and hence its lower and inadequate position in the economic division of the world. Aside from the falsity of the claims about Russia, none of what is claimed as proof that this country is not imperialist is even remotely proof for China. It is not economically weak, nor are its capital exports insufficient, nor is its position in the redivision of the world insignificant. On the contrary, China is the world’s second largest economic power, growing much faster than its rival US which is in the first position. Its direct and portfolio investments abroad are too numerous to mention; this is common knowledge and a point of pride for Chinese propaganda. China’s direct and joint investments under the “Belt and Road Initiative”, launched in 2013, have already attracted hundreds of billions of dollars. In recent years, China has surpassed most of its competitors with its high level of capital exports, and its total stock of exported capital in the market that it has been entering for several decades has approached that of the United States. In terms of lending and borrowing, trade volume and overall economic, financial and commercial activity, China has been ahead of its competitors on almost all continents for at least 4 to 5 years. Therefore, arguments such as “economic weakness” and “insufficient capital exports” could not and do not serve as proof that China is not an imperialist country.
China praise
The effort to cover up the reality of China, which has become completely obvious, is being made in an organized fashion.
The main driver of this effort is the Chinese state itself, which devotes considerable resources to deceptive propaganda. The Chinese Party has mobilized the state apparatus, including universities and publishers, such as Renmin University Press, for this purpose, while Canut International and Canut Books Publisher, with its international offshoots in Berlin and London, publishes in order to “enlighten” the peoples of the world with theoretical products in philosophy, political-economy, politics and culture. China also produces a large number of online publications, books and magazines, and uses propaganda opportunities such as the Istanbul TÜYAP Book Fair held in October last year to spread its influence internationally.
Chinese propaganda is not limited to the Chinese state; it has paid and voluntary supporters in many countries. Among the bearers of this country’s propaganda are the companies that have commercial relations with China and are looking for their future in this direction, and a number of revisionist, opportunist, bourgeois, and petty-bourgeois political parties, organizations, associations, etc., which are partisan or consider China and its aims not harmful but even beneficial for their countries, and certain intellectuals. They either praise it directly or justify it and consider it at least acceptable for the world, for their country and for themselves.
The most extreme is the praise of China. Those who praise it think that it is not an imperialist country; on the contrary, some of them consider it socialist, others, the majority, are not interested in its class character, and claim that China is a “friend of the peoples”.
China and different examples of debt and credit
They base their claims on various things. The main argument is that China is surely “helping” the peoples and the countries in which it invests, lends and borrows. The peoples of the underdeveloped countries, who have suffered a lot from the U.S., British and French imperialists, who have been subjected to severe persecution, including torture and mass killings, whose resources have been plundered by the colonial imperialists, are influenced by the positive propaganda by China and by their rulers who have entered into cooperation with China. In the face of the plundering by cruel imperialists of the recent past and present, China, which seeks to compete with them and expand economically, is perceived as a “benevolent” country that supports their liberation from plunder and oppression.
This perception of a “friendly” and “benevolent China” is facilitated by the fact that colonialism has collapsed and China uses neo-colonialist methods, just as U.S. imperialism did when it replaced British and French imperialism. These methods involve dealing with ostensibly independent states, even if they are financially and economically dependent, and respecting their independence and sovereignty, not resorting to occupation and annexation. The fact that China does not immediately attempt to directly seize the oil and gas, gold and diamonds of these countries, as the colonizers of the past did, may be perceived as “friendship” and “benevolence” in the short term. However, the fact that it tends to make the economies of the countries with which it has relations dependent on itself through loans and debts, direct and joint investments, which also create “cronies” and gradually collaborators, will cause, in the long run, the peoples of these countries to react against Chinese imperialism and embark on a struggle for independence.
Yes, China does not engage in open and visible plundering of natural resources in the same way as the British and French imperialists did in Southeast Asia and Africa, because times and conditions are different now. It prioritizes infrastructure investments, such as the construction of ports, railroads, dams and power plants, and the provision of loans for such investments, as well as projects that can be considered “normal” and “natural” and that will make the plundering of the riches of backward countries acceptable, at least in the short term. This provides it with additional opportunities.
Here, the criteria for distinguishing between imperialists and friends of the peoples becomes important. Which relations are dependent imperialist relations and which are really relations of aid and friendship – what is the criterion?
The fact that one country lends money to an underdeveloped country in need does not automatically imply imperialism. The loans and credits of an imperialist nature that are intended to create dependency are those with high interest rates and those with conditions. Yet, the socialist USSR, too, starting from the years when it was still in its infancy, gave loans and credits as aid to Turkey, for example, which was fighting against imperialist occupation.
For example, immediately after the establishment of the Ankara Government, the then Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic sent Turkey 6,000 rifles with millions of rounds of ammunition, a few months later, more than 200 kilos of gold bullion, and 6 months later thousands of bombs. Not only were there no political considerations or interest, they were simple grants. In 1921-22, the Soviet Government sent to Turkey, again as a grant, tens of thousands of rifles with ammunition, more than three hundred machine guns, more than 50 cannons with more than a hundred thousand artillery shells and a total of 10 million roubles in gold.
In 1932, the USSR and Turkey signed the first loan agreement for 8 million dollars. It was “conditional”: It was to be spent on building factories. The Kayseri and Nazilli Sümerbank fabric mills and printeries were established with this loan. It was interest-free and had a 20-year term. Repayment was to be made in agricultural products.
After the agreement with the USSR, another example of a loan agreement was the one signed with the British in 1936. According to different sources, the agreement was for 2.5 or 13 million pounds sterling, repayable in 10 or 15 years, and related to the construction of the Karabük Iron and Steel Plant. The British Brassert monopoly won the contract, beating the German Krupp monopoly, but the loan negotiations were conducted between the governments. The British pressed hard for the first loan agreement with Kemalist Turkey. For example, in the same year, King Edward VIII visited Turkey. The agreement was signed at the turning point of the transition from rapprochement with the USSR to rapprochement with the British and the West. In conjunction with the loan agreement, which was referred to as “the loan agreement signed with the British on favourable terms”, which are not mentioned in any source, the following agreements were reached between Turkey and Britain: 1) Turkey would buy the weapons to be used in the defence of the Straits from the British, 2) British experts began to “work” in public institutions. Moreover, in the same year, despite the objections of the Soviet Union, the Montreux Treaty renewed the provisions of the Lausanne Treaty on the rights of passage and security of the Straits.
Other examples related to Turkey are the loan agreements with Russia which became social-imperialist under the rule of modern revisionism in the period of the restoration of capitalism that began with Khrushchev. In contrast to the interest-free and unconditional Soviet loans, these agreements had increasingly harsh conditions.
In 1957, the USSR had an agreement with İşbank to build a glass factory in Çayırova, which involved a loan of 3.4 million roubles with a repayment period of 3 years at 2.5% interest, the period of “loans with interest” began between the two countries, and the repayment period was significantly shortened.
In 1966, with a new agreement, the USSR extended a loan of 225 million dollars to Turkey for 15 years, again at 2.5% interest. The loan amount increased, but the interest rate remained the same.
Chinese loans and credits: “Help” or trap?
If we come back to today’s China…
Last year, China postponed the maturity of a $2 billion loan to Pakistan, a country with a deteriorating balance of payments and with stalled negotiations with the IMF, to prevent a default. With such political rather than economic motives, China has shown that its image as a “friend of the peoples” and a “benevolent country” does not depend solely on the success of its propaganda, but that it does not avoid facing economic consequences. China has done the same by writing off African countries’ interest-free debts totalling $2.1 billion that they should have repaid by the end of 2020. It is aware of the needs of its economic expansion and is flexible in its lending, maturities and deferrals.
However, these flexibilities do not reflect “benevolence” but rather a willingness to spend a little for big gains. It must be remembered that similar flexibilities are practiced by the United States, even with billions of dollars of grants, as in the cases of Egypt and Israel, and loans, such as the Marshall Plan after World War II. This plan aimed to establish U.S. hegemony over Europe and countries such as Turkey, and a significant part of it was made under the guise of being free. However, it should be clear that “generosity” aimed at creating dependency cannot be considered as a sign or proof of “friendship”.
On the other hand, China’s “generosity” of this kind is a face-saving measure and is not widespread. China is now the largest creditor on all continents, having extended 240 billion dollars in loans to 22 underdeveloped and dependent countries over the last 20 years as a lever for its expansion. According to the John Hopkins University China-Africa Research Initiative, the Chinese government and banks lent a total of $143 billion to African countries between 2000 and 2017. In Asia alone, China has loaned $200 billion to governments, reinforcing their dependency relations in addition to China’s capital exports.
According to 2020 data from Harvard Business Review, the Chinese government, state-owned banks and private companies have extended a total of $1.5 trillion in loans to more than 150 countries, the highest amount in the world. Countries such as Djibouti, DR Congo, Niger, Zambia, Kyrgyzstan, Cambodia, Laos and Mongolia owe China more than 20% of their GDP.
China claims that its loans and credits have no political conditions and are not politically motivated. This is, of course, not true; the borrowing countries become dependent on China, as in the case of Pakistan, and even coups and change of governments are not enough to change sides between imperialist rivals, let alone end the dependency.
Euronews reported on a study conducted by researchers from the US-based University, College and Center for Global Development, the Kiel Institute and the Peterson Institute for International Economics in Germany. The study says that the terms of China’s loan agreements are “unusually secretive” and impose “priority for repayments to Chinese state-owned banks” – which is not at all similar to, for example, the 1932 Turkey-USSR loan agreement. According to the study, the terms of the agreements include “confidentiality clauses that prevent borrowers from disclosing the terms of the agreement”, “informal collateral arrangements that give Chinese creditors priority over other creditors”, “guarantees that prevent debt restructurings” and the ability for China to “cancel loans and accelerate repayments”, all of which contravene international commitments ratified by China.
Moreover, the Chinese are “good money-lenders”, with IMF loans usually bearing interest rates of 1.5-2.5%, while the average interest rate on Chinese loans is in the range of 3-5%.
Most of China’s loans and credits have come under the “Belt and Road Initiative”, which is marketed as “helping countries along the route to development” and “liberate themselves from the US”, but is itself a key instrument of China’s economic expansion for the redivision of the world.
One result of Chinese loans and debts – no doubt foreseen and even characterized as a “debt trap” – is the outright seizure of the enterprises to which the loans were extended in return for unrepayable debts, which is typical of imperialism.
In the context of the “Belt and Road Initiative”, the main example of the ports and railroads that are of most interest to China is the Sri Lankan port of Hambantota. Rajapaksa, who was forced to flee the country after a popular uprising in 2022, had been running the country’s economy on foreign debt for years, and in 2016, 61% of the budget deficit was financed by foreign debt. Prior to the uprising, the country’s foreign debt was about 35 billion dollars, 3.4 billion of which was owed to China and 4.4 billion to the Asian Development Bank, of which China is a partner, and had become unpayable. The solution was the sale of 80% of the shares in the $1.3 billion Hambantota port, opened in 2010, to the Chinese state monopoly China Merchant Port Holdings. Following big protests, the contract was changed to a 99-year lease on the port to a joint investment between the Chinese monopoly and the Sri Lanka Ports Authority, with the Chinese monopoly holding 70% of the shares.[2]
The second example is the Greek port of Piraeus. This time, not because of Chinese debts, but as a result of the debt crisis into which Greece was plunged, the Greek government put its assets up for sale due to the impositions of the troika of the European Central Bank, the IMF and the European Commission. In this context, the port became China’s, with 51% and then 67% of its shares being sold in an agreement signed with the Chinese monopoly COSCO in 2016.
The third example is Kenya’s Mombasa port. From 2010 to 2020, Chinese loans and credits to low- and middle-income countries grew from $40 billion to $170 billion, more than half of which went to sub-Saharan Africa. Kenya occupied a special place among them, and the “Belt and Road” envisaged the construction of trade routes across the Indian Ocean from Kenya (through the port of Mombasa and the capital Nairobi) to Uganda, Tanzania, South Sudan, Ethiopia and Congo by rail, for which billions of dollars’ worth of loans were disbursed. Railroad construction has only advanced 120 km beyond Nairobi and has not yet crossed Kenya’s borders. As a result, returns on investments are not being realized and Kenya has both seen losses and was extremely tight on loan repayments since the port opened in 2017. At the end of 2018, the Kenyan and Chinese governments denied the rumours that the port would be sold to China due to unpaid debts, and it was stated that Kenya did not pledge the port as collateral for its $3.6 billion debt. But for at least a year now, a desperate Kenya has been “seeking investors to take over the operation and management of five critical ports in Mombasa, aiming to boost the competitiveness of the maritime sector and generate $10 billion in revenue for the financially struggling government”.[3]
Another example is Zambia, which defaulted on its $13 billion foreign debt in 2020. China was the largest creditor and, through its Exim Bank and many other monopolies, had big investments and financing in the country. According to a 2019 Deutsche Welle (DW) news report titled “China’s controversial stake in Zambia’s broadcast media”, Zambia’s national broadcaster ZNBC made a joint investment with Chinese monopoly StarTimes as Zambia switched from analogue to digital TV. The joint investment, TopStar, was 60% owned by the Chinese monopoly and 40% by ZNBC. The investment was financed with a $232 million loan from China’s state-owned Exim Bank, while the “benevolent” StarTimes lent the partnership capital to the cash-strapped ZNBC, seemingly creating a “win-win” situation. But when Zambians, unable to reap the benefits of the digital switchover, accused the monopoly of “creating a monopoly both as a distributor and a signal provider”, the government tried to defend itself with the lie that “StarTimes does not run TopStar” and that once the loan was repaid to Exim Bank, “NBC would become the majority shareholder and StarTimes the minority”.[4]
China’s export capacity as a basis for dependency relations
One of the main pillars of China’s economic expansion is its export potential, and while the country surpassed all its competitors in 2009, its exports in 2020 amounted to 2,591 billion dollars, far outstripping the US and Germany, which were below 1.5 trillion dollars.[5] In 2023, these figures stood at 3,380 billion dollars, with Germany at 1,668 billion and the US at 2 trillion dollars.[6]
China’s first place in exports is based on its clear superiority in manufacturing. In 2022, against Japan’s production of approximately 800 billion dollars and Germany’s 750 billion dollars, China is again at the top with a production of approximately 5 trillion dollars.[7] The US manufacturing in the same year was about 2.5 trillion dollars.[8]
Moreover, as a direct result of the advanced technical basis of its economy, China is again far ahead in the production and export of high-tech products. While Germany ranks 2nd in this field with approximately 223 billion dollars’ worth of high-tech exports and the US ranks 4th with 166.5 billion dollars, China ranks first with approximately 770 billion dollars, exceeding the sum of the other two. The significant share of high-tech products, machinery and parts and infrastructure investment products in Chinese exports creates and reinforces dependency, especially by creating standardization and conditioning the import of spare parts and related intermediate goods by the importing countries.
China’s superiority in foreign trade facilitates the development of relations of economic dependency with underdeveloped and dependent countries. There is a direct link between loans and debts and foreign trade partnerships, as the loans and debts it extends to these countries are conditional on imports from China; if the terms are not dictated in the loan agreements, under the guise of spontaneity, they require imports from China, and the two feed on each other.
Chinese capital exports as a tool of expansion
It should be emphasized that China’s exported capital investments play a primary role in its establishment of dependent international relations.
The export of capital, as is known and defined by Lenin, is one of the distinctive features of imperialism. The “surplus” of capital in developed capitalist countries seeks profitable areas for investment and flows out of the country in search of higher profits.[9] A socialist country can also lend money and extend credit to other countries – provided that it is unconditional and without quid pro quo – and it cannot be argued that this is contrary to socialism. However, this is lending or borrowing money, making direct or portfolio investments in other countries – the ownership of which is in the hands of the investor, alone or with local partnerships – or making joint investments by establishing capital partnerships, with the aim of making profits on the backs of the working peoples. First of all, this indicates the domination of financial capital, and secondly, for a country like China, which has been exporting capital to an extent that has surpassed all other countries in recent years, it indicates only imperialism.
Many capitalist countries such as Turkey, Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Greece, etc. also export certain amounts of capital, but this is extremely small in scale compared to the imperialist countries. Although the export of capital alone is not the measure of imperialism, it cannot be claimed that China, which exports more capital than all its rivals, is a medium-sized capitalist country like Turkey or Greece. Moreover, even Turkey and Greece, regardless of their size, are trying to create dependency relations by imposing conditions on certain countries in Africa and the Balkans to which they export capital.
China continued to attract foreign capital investment, increasing slightly to $189 billion in 2022 from a year earlier, and although it lost its first place to the US a few years ago, its capital exports – including from Hong Kong – still exceeded $250 billion.[10] The possibility of an ordinary capitalist country exporting this much capital is non-existent.
There is an interconnection between Chinese investments and joint investments with the countries and companies involved in the “Belt and Road Initiative”, which is projected to exceed 1.3 trillion dollars by 2027 and is carried out in line with a specific strategic plan. It is a fact that the export of capital is in the service of China’s imperialist expansion, which is already carrying out the economic redivision of the world in order to create dependence not only on the scale of countries but also on the scale of regions and the world.
There is no doubt that the dominance of finance capital, with state, state-private partnerships and private monopolies, exporting commodities and capital through loans and credits, which are the instruments of economic expansion, is the characteristic of Chinese imperialism. In the 2022 Forbes “biggest” list, the Bank of China is the 13th largest with assets of more than 4 trillion dollars and a market capitalization of 118 billion. In the top 10, there are 5 American monopolies as well as 3 big Chinese state banks; Industrial and Commercial Bank of China is in 2nd place with assets of $5.5 trillion and a market capitalization of $214 billion, China Construction Bank[11] is in 5th place with assets of $4.75 trillion and a market capitalization of $181 billion, the Agricultural Bank of China is in 8th place with assets of $4.5 trillion and a market capitalization of $133 billion. There are 9 Chinese monopolies in the top 30.
China: Peoples’ problem or not?
There is another category of people who, in terms of their attitude towards Chinese imperialism, consider China and its aims not harmful but even beneficial for their country, thus covering up or distorting the facts and conforming to, if not carrying out, China’s propaganda. Examples abound, especially among the dissidents of the underdeveloped and dependent countries of Latin America and Africa. Maybe they do not praise China directly, and avoid the debate on whether it is right or wrong, but because of the fact that their countries are under the pressure of and dependent on US imperialism and its allies, they argue that these imperialists are a problem for them, and say “Russia and China are not our problem”. The result is that Chinese (and Russian) imperialism, whose interests, aims and orientations they prefer to overlook, is considered acceptable for them.
Their approach and attitude is the same as those who consider China a “friend”: Even if they don’t call it a “friend” and don’t develop the attitudes that friendship requires, they don’t consider it “an imperialist enemy of the peoples”, and they do not take the hostile attitude one should take against imperialism. Above all, this is a position open to compromise with imperialism. This is in conditions when the struggle against the imperialist enemy in the countries dependent on US or, for example, French imperialism is sharpening and the need for broad alliances is increasing. It is thought that it is almost inevitable that benevolent attitudes will develop towards Chinese imperialism, which will not refrain from supporting struggles targeting its rivals, and that these attitudes will gradually turn into a tendency to rely on China and to fight against its rivals by taking strength from it. This is what is happening in the case of Venezuela under Maduro.
Avoiding taking a stance means to be unaware of or indifferent to the aims of Chinese imperialism, its fight with its rivals for the redivision of the world, its economic expansion, and in reality it means being “semi-friendly”. The limited and inconsistent anti-imperialist tendency is typical of the bourgeois strata: it perceives imperialism as a simple tendency to annexation and does not direct the struggle against imperialism to its economic bases. It only targets, for example, its military presence and relations of political dependency. An anti-imperialist tendency that is insensitive to the advantages that imperialism seeks to provide through loans and debts, direct and joint investments and foreign trade as means of expansion can lead, in the Chinese context, to compromise, expectations and a new dependency, instead of warning the working class and peoples against Chinese expansionism. One step further is an impasse and leads to the illusion that by relying on one imperialist one can fight another!
What is said about Chinese loans and debts, foreign capital investments and economic expansionism also applies to this category.
The “poles” of the world and “benevolent” imperialism!
Another category of the attitude towards Chinese imperialism that appears to be “realistic” is the one that supposedly accepts that China is imperialist and takes advantage of the contradiction between imperialists as a starting point. It is aimed at creating a perception and expectation of “benevolent imperialism” by praising imperialist China and its loans and debts, foreign investments and expansion bases such as the “Belt and Road Initiative”, which it considers as “helping the peoples”. It falsifies the theory of imperialism and considers the formation of a “multipolar world” with China and Russia as the driving forces against the “unipolar world” under the hegemony of the US and NATO as a “solution” and “salvation”. It is content with targeting the US and NATO. It asserts the necessity of defending the independence, sovereignty and territorial integrity of countries against the US, regardless of whether they are progressive or reactionary. With its views and approaches that revive the last and most vulgar form of the infamous old “Three Worlds Theory” that considers Soviet social imperialism as the main enemy and the rest of the imperialists as allies or forces to be neutralized and the countries as “the main force of the world revolution”, this position is the most dangerous in its perversion and corruption.
As the bases of this position, which praises China despite defining it as imperialist, with a distorted view of the Leninist doctrine of imperialism, have already been dealt with in the context of the praise of China, this should be sufficient, at least for now.
In terms of their position on China, there is another category of the so-called critics who identify China with imperialism, similar to the Maoist-inspired emulators of the “Three Worlds Theory” who elevate the praise of Chinese (as well as Russian) expansionism and its underpinnings to the level of theory because it weakens the US and NATO. While some of the former revisionist parties and groups directly defend China, which they claim to be “socialist”, others such as the KKE of Greece and TKP of Turkey, which have for a long time been taking part in the platform of the “world communist and workers’ parties” together with their “sister party” the CCP, have not been defending it for some time and characterize it as imperialist. However, similar to those who say “it is not our problem” in practice, they remain indifferent to China and are content with targeting the US and NATO and its aggression.
*
Chinese capitalism is fully in line with Lenin’s definition:
- It is a capitalism at a stage of development dominated by finance capital with its monopolies, which rank among the largest in the world, and its unrestrained fluidity, where “the ‘personal union’ of banks and industry” has already been “completed by the ‘personal union’ between them and the government”, especially Xi and his inner circle.
- With hundreds of billions of dollars in loans, credits and more in direct portfolio and joint investments, the export of capital has become of primary importance.
- With its international industrial and financial monopolies, it has spread to the four corners of the world, of which it is attempting to get a share, and it is claiming rights in a new division of the world, the division of whose territory among the largest capitalist countries has already been completed.
With capitalism under these characteristics, it is inconceivable that China can be non-imperialist and of the slightest benefit to the peoples of the world.
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- Lenin, listing these characteristics, all of which apply to Russia today, defined imperialism as follows: “Imperialism is capitalism at that stage of development at which the dominance of monopolies and finance capital is established; in which the export of capital has acquired pronounced importance; in which the division of the world among the international trusts has begun, in which the division of all territories of the globe among the biggest capitalist powers has been completed.” (Lenin, Imperialism, The Highest Stage of Capitalism) ↑
- Financial Times (11.11.2017), “China Signs 99-year lease on Sri Lanka’s Hambantota Port”; https://www.ft.com/content/e150ef0c-de37-11e7-a8a4-0a1e63a52f9c ↑
- The Maritime Executive (4.6.2023), “Kenya Seeks to Generate $10B Leasing Five Ports to Private Investors” ↑
- DW (2019); https://www.dw.com/en/chinas-contentious-stake-in-zambias-broadcast-media/a-49492207 ↑
- Statista (2022), https://www.statista.com/statistics/269328/value-of-exports-of-selected-countries/ ↑
- Statista (2023), https://www.statista.com/statistics/264623/leading-export-countries-worldwide/ ↑
- Macrotrends, Manufacturing Output by Countries; https://www.macrotrends.net/global-metrics/countries/ranking/manufacturing-output?q=What+is+US%27s+industrial+outputs ↑
- National Association of Manufacturers, 2022 US Manufacturing Facts; https://nam.org/state-manufacturing-data/2022-united-states-manufacturing-facts/#:~:text=Manufacturers%20in%20the%20United%20States,employing%208.41%25%20of%20the%20workforce. ↑
- China’s official state agency Xinhua reports that China and its Latin American partners are working together to build a “new model of China-Latin America relations” based, among other things, on “win-win cooperation in economy and trade”, which involves the mutual development of bilateral relations. It is openly admitted that China envisions its relations with underdeveloped countries, which it propagandizes as “aid”, to be profitable for these countries as well as for China. (Xinhua, 22.07, 2024; https://english.news.cn/20240722/1012b8e2ee294003903ac424b1d3d509/c.html) ↑
- UNCTAD, World Investment Report 2023; https://unctad.org/system/files/official-document/wir2023_en.pdf ↑
- Between 2005 and 2013, Bank of America acquired about 10% of the shares of this state-owned bank. ↑