Critique

China’s Rise as a Great Power and the Marxist Theory of Imperialism

Michael Pröbsting on 29 March 2025 - Online exclusive

Every age has its great questions. In the early 20^th century both Marxists as well as non-Marxists discussed the issue of imperialism and war. In the 1930s, Stalinism and fascism were new questions which were hotly debated. In the last decade, the class character of China has been in the focus of numerous controversies. Is it “socialist” – as the supporters of its regime claim – or is it capitalist? Has it become an imperialist power? Furthermore, for socialists, these issues are closely related to the understanding of the Marxist theory of capitalism and imperialism.

The author of these lines has published a number of works on this issue and participated in various debates. In this essay I would like to summarise the main findings of our analysis of China as a capitalist and imperialist power and discuss some arguments which have been raised by critics.¹

Part I: Is China still “socialist”?

A number of Marxist academics continue to call China a “socialist country”. For example, Immanuel Ness, a Professor of Political Science at the City University of New York, recently published an essay in which he characterised “China, along with Cuba, North Korea, Laos, and Vietnam” as “actually existing socialism”. Consequently, he denounces me, as well as some other writers, as “neo-conservative Marxists” who supposedly would aid the reactionary war-drive and expansionism of Western imperialism.²

Usually, the defenders of the thesis that China is a socialist state advocate two main arguments:

1) that China’s economy remains dominated by the state sectors which would operate on a non-capitalist basis;

2) that China would be socialist because the ruling party adheres to the “Communist” ideology.

Both arguments are fundamentally wrong – empirically and theoretically. Let’s start with the character of China’s economy.

The capitalist character of China’s economy

While nobody dares to deny that there exists a broad private capitalist sector in China’s economy, pro-Beijing academics claim that one should take into account the central role of the so-called State-Owned Enterprises (SOEs) which supposedly would operate on a non-capitalist basis. However, these writers underestimate the massive decrease of their role and the rise of private corporations in the past three decades.³

According to a study the SOEs share of industrial output declined from almost four-fifths in 1978 to 20% in 2015.⁴ A working paper from the World Economic Forum – a prestigious Western imperialist think-tank which organizes the annual summits in Davos attended by numerous state leaders – recently noted: “China’s private sector - which has been revving up since the global financial crisis - is now serving as the main driver of China’s economic growth. The combination of numbers 60/70/80/90 are frequently used to describe the private sector's contribution to the Chinese economy: they contribute 60% of China’s GDP, and are responsible for 70% of innovation, 80% of urban employment and provide 90% of new jobs. Private wealth is also responsible for 70% of investment and 90% of exports. The portion of exports from private enterprises might diminish as SOEs undertake more infrastructure projects in countries involved in the Belt and Road Initiative, increasing their public stakes in China’s exports.”⁵

However, it is certainly true that the SOEs, despite the decline of its share, continue to constitute an important sector of China’s economy – in particular among its monopolies. A recently published study published by the World Bank gives the following assessment: “In conclusion, estimations in this note suggest that the share of SOEs in China’s GDP should be 23-28% and their share in employment can be anywhere between 5% and 16% in 2017. It is worth to note that there are more straightforward data for the shares of SOEs in industrial output and employment. In 2017, SOEs accounted for 39% of assets, 23% sales revenue of core businesses and 18% of employment of industrial (mining, manufacturing and utilities) enterprises whose sale revenue was above a cutoff scale of RMB20 million.”⁶

Not only did the share of State-Owned Enterprises in China’s economy decrease, its character also drastically changed. They do no longer operate as part of a bureaucratically planned economy as it was the case before capitalist restoration took place in the early 1990s. Since then, through a series of reforms, China’s SOEs were radically transformed and are operating on the basis of the capitalist law of value.

Many enterprises were restructured, fused with others or closed. As a result, the number of SOE’s was drastically reduced. Between 1998 and 2006, the number of SOEs declined from 64,737 to 24,961.⁷ In 2017, there were still 18,806 SOEs.⁸ As a result, the share of employment in the state sector (this includes employment in SOEs as well as employment in government and public organizations) was massively reduced. As Table 1 shows, state sector employment as a share of total urban employment declined from 78.3% (1978) to 61.0% (1992) and 22.7% (2006).

Table 1. State Sector Employment as a Share of Total Urban Employment, 1978-2006 ⁹

When we look only to the SOEs (i.e. without the public administration sector), we can see that SOE employment as a share of total urban employment declined from 17.3% (1998) to 6.4% (2006).¹⁰

This was the result of a radical process of mass sackings in the SOEs so that they operate on the basis of the capitalist law of value. According to official figures, about 50 million workers were laid off between 1993 and 2004. “On average, from 1993 to 1997, about 3 million workers in the state sector were laid off annually. (…) As a result, the number of layoffs reached a peak, in which about 7 million urban workers in SOEs were laid off every year from 1997 to 1999. From 1993 to 2004, more than 50 million of workers in the state sector were laid off.”¹¹

As a result, profits massively increased in the SOE. While its Return on Assets was only 0.7% in 1998, this figure rose to 6.3% in 2006.¹² The World Bank – one of the core institutions of world imperialism which can hardly be suspected of pro-Beijing sympathies – wrote: “Many SOEs were corporatized, radically restructured (including labor shedding), and expected to operate at a profit. (…) As a result, the profitability of China’s SOEs increased.”¹³ According to China’s official statistics, the state-owned enterprises “posted their best profitability performance in 2018, even as the country’s GDP growth has slowed, as initial reforms yielded results and provided solid support to the world’s second-largest economy. In 2018, aggregate revenues of the country’s nearly 100 centrally administered SOEs increased 10.1 percent year-on-year to 29.1 trillion yuan ($4.29 trillion). (...) Profit growth was even better, reaching 1.7 trillion yuan with an increase of 16.7 percent, the best results since these figures were first collected.”¹⁴

An international comparison shows that the profit rate of China’s monopolies is not in bad shape in relation to their Western rivals. While China’s corporations in the Fortune Global 500 list – of which two-third are state-owned – had a lower profitability than those from the US or UK in 2020, it was higher or similar to that of their Japan and Western European rivals. (See Table 2)

Table 2. Profit Margin of the Fortune Global 500 Corporations, 2020 ¹⁵

These SOEs, despite their official public character, are closely related with private capitalists. An article on China’s new class of super-rich observed already in 2013: “What’s unique about China’s super-rich is that most of their fortune come from stakes in some of China’s 145,000 state-owned enterprises (SOEs), which dominate the economy.”¹⁶

And two other researchers noted: “[P]rivate capitalists participated in shareholding with state corporations through direct purchase of shares or via financial holding companies, investment funds, and insurance companies. This new bourgeoisie pressed for further capital opening of large SOEs under central management, most of which are now listed in stock markets with limits to non-tradable shares. Investment funds and new holdings were established to allow for the sale of shares and became fast vehicles for the formation of large fortunes.”¹⁷

The rise of the Chinese bourgeoisie

Naturally, the development of capitalist restoration went hand in hand with the emergence of a huge class of millions of entrepreneurs and numerous large corporations. As a result, the share of small and large capitalists (including the self-employed) among China’s urban population increased from less than 1% of the population in 1988 to 12.3% in 2013.¹⁸

The creation and expansion of the Chinese bourgeoisie is also reflected in massive growth of social inequality and concentration of income and wealth in the hands of the ruling class and the upper middle layer. Before the beginning of the reform process in 1978, the share of national income going to the top 10% of the population was 27%, equal to the share going to the bottom 50%. This changed massively in the following decades and by 2015, the income share of the bottom half was just below 15% while the share of the top decile had increased to 41%.¹⁹ The elite’s share of national wealth has increased even more. The top 10% own 67.8% and the top 1% own 30.5%! (See Table 3)

Table 3. Income and Wealth Distribution in China, 2021²⁰

As a research team around the progressive economist Thomas Piketty has demonstrated in a recently published book that the level of private wealth in China is now nearly the same as in India and similar to that in North America and Western Europe. In India, the top 1% own about 33% of private wealth, in the US the share is 35% and in Western Europe it is about 22%.²¹ Likewise, as Piketty, Yang and Zucman note in another paper, the Chinese top decile has a wealth share (67% in 2015) which is getting close to that of the United States (72%) and is much higher than in a country like France (50%).²²

“China has had the largest increase in private wealth in recent decades. At the time of the “opening-up” reforms in 1978, private wealth in China amounted to just over 120% of national income; by 2020, it had reached 530%. Most of this increase was due to housing (which went from 50% private ownership to near 100% in that period), and corporate ownership (from 0% privately owned in 1978 to 30% today). These increases bring the overall level of private wealth in China, relative to national income, to levels similar to those found in the US and France.”²³

It is therefore hardly surprising that China’s capitalist class has become strong enough to play a global role – both in terms of corporations as well as individual billionaires. Consequently, by now it is able to challenge the hegemonic position of its American rivals. (See Tables 4-6)

Table 4. Top 10 Countries with the Ranking of Fortune Global 500 Companies (2023)²⁴

Table 5. Top 5 Countries of the Forbes Billionaires 2023 List²⁵

Table 6. Top 10 Countries of the Hurun Global Rich List 2024²⁶

Can a “Communist” Party facilitate capitalist restoration?

The second main objection against our thesis that China has become capitalist is that its ruling party adheres to the “Communist” ideology. In itself, this argument lacks a materialist basis. The self-proclaimed ideology does not reveal much about the class character of a given regime. Not all governments formally adhering to the principles of Christianity and humanity act according to the spirit of charity. But, critics object, how can one and the same regime first administer one mode of production and later another one?²⁷

The Communist Party of China (CPC), founded as a revolutionary party in 1921, became Stalinist in the late 1920s – parallel to the process of bureaucratic degeneration of the USSR and the Communist International. Under the leadership of Mao Tse-tung it led a bureaucratically controlled social revolution in 1949 and created a degenerated workers state on the basis of Stalinist dictatorship and a nationalised and bureaucratically planned economy. After the death of Mao and with the Stalinist economy stuck in stagnation, the party leadership under Deng Xiaoping began to introduce market reforms in 1978. However, while these reforms enabled the economy to experience a lasting period of growth, it also resulted in massive acceleration of social contradictions. Eventually, this process provoked the dramatic uprising of workers and student on Tiananmen Square in May-June 1989 which was crushed by the regime. Under such circumstances and with some internal divisions, the CPC opted to begin the restoration of capitalism in the early 1990s.

The argument that one and the same regime can not serve two different modes of production is undialectical and historically wrong. There exist a number of examples in history where one and the same regime, one and the same state apparatus did, first, administer and defend one set of relations of production and, later, managed the transformation to another one. In other words, the form of the regime can remain the same while the character of the economy on which it is based has changed.

The Byzantine Empire which lasted from the fourth century until 1453 was initially based on the slave-holder economy as it initially formed the Eastern part of the Roman Empire. However, between the 6^th and 9^th century the ruling imperial dynasties oversaw the development of feudal property relations.

Likewise did dynasties like the Hohenzollern in Prussia/Germany, the Habsburgs in Austria-Hungary or the Romanovs in Russia rule their empires for centuries. Their state apparatus, based on the nobility and linked with large landowners, ruled and administered these territories first in the period of feudalism. However, in the course of the 19^th century, they - in varying degrees – encouraged the creation of a bourgeoisie and capitalist property relations, opened the country for foreign investors, etc. In short, the old regime – initially based on feudalism – introduced new capitalist relations of production. They first served the class of the feudal landowner and, later, they served the bourgeoisie.

The Chinese Qing dynasty and the sultanate of the Ottoman Empire are further examples. These regimes also lasted for centuries–until 1911 and 1918 respectively–and were initially based on specific property relations which Marx called the Asiatic Mode of Production (combined with varying elements of feudalism). However, because of economic decline and domestic turmoil, these regimes were forced to open their territories to foreign powers which, in turn, resulted in the expansion of capitalist relations of production. Here too, we can see one and the same type of regime which, first, serves the despotic bureaucracy and nobility and, later, also serves the class of foreign capitalists.

Furthermore, to return to the realm of empirical evidence, the development of China’s economy on a capitalist basis and the creation of a monopoly bourgeoisie have demonstrated that the CPC now serves the interests of capitalism.

Part II: Some thoughts on the Marxist theory of imperialism in light of historical experience

China has not only become capitalist in the 1990s but – after two decades of rapid capital accumulation, formation of monopolies and global expansion and after the Great Recession in 2008 which opened a period of depression for Western capitalism, and which accelerated the decline of the long-time hegemon US – it also transformed into an imperialist power. However, before we summarise our analysis of Chinese imperialism, it makes sense to briefly discuss the Marxist theory of imperialism as it was elaborated by W. I. Lenin.

Imperialism as a world system of capitalist exploitation and domination

Lenin described the essential characteristic of imperialism as the formation of monopolies which dominate the economy. Related to this, he pointed out the fusion of banking and industrial capital into financial capital, the increase in capital export alongside the export of commodities, and the struggle for spheres of influence, specifically (semi-)colonies.

In Imperialism and the Split in Socialism – his most comprehensive theoretical essay on imperialism in which he could express himself freely²⁸ – Lenin gave the following definition of imperialism:

“We have to begin with as precise and full a definition of imperialism as possible. Imperialism is a specific historical stage of capitalism. Its specific character is threefold: imperialism is monopoly capitalism; parasitic, or decaying capitalism; moribund capitalism. The supplanting of free competition by monopoly is the fundamental economic feature, the quintessence of imperialism. Monopoly manifests itself in five principal forms: (1) cartels, syndicates and trusts—the concentration of production has reached a degree which gives rise to these monopolistic associations of capitalists; (2) the monopolistic position of the big banks—three, four or five giant banks manipulate the whole economic life of America, France, Germany; (3) seizure of the sources of raw material by the trusts and the financial oligarchy (finance capital is monopoly industrial capital merged with bank capital); (4) the (economic) partition of the world by the international cartels has begun. There are already over one hundred such international cartels, which command the entire world market and divide it “amicably” among themselves—until war redivides it. The export of capital, as distinct from the export of commodities under non-monopoly capitalism, is a highly characteristic phenomenon and is closely linked with the economic and territorial-political partition of the world; (5) the territorial partition of the world (colonies) is completed.”²⁹

A widespread flaw in defining the class character of states is to attempt analysing it in isolation. One takes this or that figure of wealth, this or that number of corporations and derives from these the supposed class character of a given state. However, such an approach is insufficient and undialectical. The Marxist method requires to analyze each thing, each phenomenon not in isolation but in relation to others. Abram Deborin, the leading Marxist philosopher in the USSR in the 1920s before the Stalinist clampdown, wrote the following aphorism: “Nothing in the world exists in and of itself but everything exists in relation to the rest of the totality.”³⁰

Approaching things, including states, by analysing them in relation to others is the fundamental basis to arrive at a correct understanding. Thus, a given state must be viewed not only as a separate unit, but first and foremost in its relation to other states and nations. Similarly, by the way, classes can only be understood in relation to others. This is self-evident since states, by definition, could not exist in isolation but only because other states exist too. The same in the case of classes: There is no bourgeoisie without a working class. There are no big landowners without rural workers and peasants. Likewise, there are no imperialist states without colonies and semi-colonies. There is no single Great Power but several Great Powers which are in rivalry to each other.

The formation of monopolies and Great Powers has led to the division of the entire world into different spheres of influence among the rival imperialist states and the subjugation of most countries under these few powers. From this follows an essential feature of Lenin’s analysis of imperialism: the characterization of the relations between the imperialist nations and the huge majority of people living in the capitalistically less developed countries – colonies or semi-colonies – as a relationship of oppression. Lenin, and following him, Trotsky too, emphasised that such division of the world’s nations into oppressor and oppressed nations is one of the most important characteristics of the imperialist epoch:

“Imperialism means the progressively mounting oppression of the nations of the world by a handful of Great Powers.”³¹

From this, Lenin concluded that the division between oppressed and oppressor nations must constitute a key feature of the Marxist program: “That is why the focal point in the Social-Democratic programme must be that division of nations into oppressor and oppressed which forms the essence of imperialism.”³²

The economic basis of the relationship between imperialist and semi-colonial states is what Lenin called the super-exploitation of these oppressed nations by the imperialist monopolies. Because of such super-exploitation, monopoly capital can appropriate – in addition to the average profit rate – an extra profit. These extra-profits are important additions to the profits which monopoly capital already extracts from the workers in rich countries. They are, by the way, an essential source to bribe the upper, aristocratic sectors of the working class and in particular the labour bureaucracy in the imperialist countries – features which help to strengthen the rule of monopoly capital.

In our book, The Great Robbery of the South (see Note 1), we have elaborated basically four different forms of super-exploitation by which monopoly capital obtains extra profits from colonial and semi-colonial countries:

i) Capital export as productive investment

ii) Capital export as money capital (loans, currency reserves, speculation, etc.)

iii) Value transfer via unequal exchange

iv) Value transfer via migration (based on the super-exploitation of migrants, a nationally oppressed layer of the working class)³³

The relationship between states has to be seen always within the totality of its economic, political, and military features – “the entire totality of the manifold relations of this thing to others” (Lenin).³⁴ An imperialist state usually enters a relationship with other states and nations which it, in one way or another, oppresses and super-exploits. However, this has to be viewed in its totality. If, for example, a state gains certain profits from foreign investment but has to pay much more (debt service, profit repatriation, etc.) to other countries’ foreign investment, loans etc., this state can usually not be considered as imperialist. Likewise, the different forms of oppression and super-exploitation can occur in various combinations or only in one but not another form. Smaller imperialist states usually do not attack or threaten semi-colonies by armed forces. This can be even true for a Great Power like Japan. The latter, however, super-exploits many oppressed people via capital export but only to a very small degree via migration. On the other hand, such super-exploitation of migrants figures prominently in Russia, which, however, exports much less capital than Japan.

Historical analogies

Naturally, it is not sufficient to divide countries into categories of imperialist or semi-colonial states. There are of course many different shades within these categories. For example, there are Great Powers like the strongest one, the US, but also others which were economically strong but militarily much weaker in recent decades (like Japan or Germany). As said above, one needs to consider the totality of a state’s economic, political, and military position in the global hierarchy of states. Thus, we can consider a given state as imperialist even it is economically weaker but still possesses a relatively strong political and military position (like Russia before 1917 and, again, since the early 2000s).³⁵ Such a strong political and military position can be used to oppress other countries and nations and to appropriate capitalist value from them.

Lenin and other Marxist theoreticians were fully aware that the unevenness in historical developments resulted in the situation that old, “mature” imperialist powers (like Britain or France) existed as well as newer, rising powers (like the US or Germany at that time) or more backward powers (like Russia, Austrian-Hungary Empire, Italy or Japan). In his Notebooks on Imperialism, Lenin suggested a “hierarchization” among the Great Powers. For example, he differentiated between three categories of imperialist states:

“I. Three chief (fully independent) countries: Great Britain, Germany, United States

II. Secondary (first class, but not fully independent): France, Russia, Japan

III. Italy, Austria-Hungary”³⁶

This point is particularly important in the actual debates among Marxists because a number of our opponents justify their refusal to recognise China’s (and Russia’s) imperialist character by comparing them with the US. Since the Eastern Great Powers do not match the strength of American imperialism in all areas, they would not constitute imperialist powers, according to our critics.

However, as a matter of fact, modern capitalism has always been characterized by uneven development. ³⁷ Hence, Great Powers were never equal as there always existed stronger and weaker powers. They were in rivalry against each other, created alliances with some, threatened others and sometimes waged wars – either for the conquest of colonies or against each other. Some have been relatively strong on the economic but weak on the military level (e.g. smaller Western European states, Germany and Japan after 1945). Others were relatively strong on the military but weak on the economic level (e.g. Russia or Austria-Hungary before 1917, Japan or Italy before 1945).

In addition, these Great Powers had quite different positions in world politics. Britain and France did possess large colonial empires. Germany, Italy and the US had only relatively small colonial possessions and Austria-Hungary had none (if we leave aside its internal colonies). Between the years 1919 and 1938 Germany did not possess any colonies. In fact, between 1933 and 1938 Berlin was focused to get back German territories which it had lost as a result of its defeat in World War I.

The following Tables 7, 8 and 9 demonstrate the uneven nature of imperialist powers in the early 20^th century.

Table 7. Relative GDP per capita (column A) and relative levels of industrialization (column B) in 1913 ³⁸

Table 8. Great Powers’ Share in Industrial Production, Trade and Capital Export, 1913 ³⁹

Table 9. Warship Tonnage of the European Powers in 1914 ⁴⁰

To summarize, it is impossible to understand imperialism without recognizing the unevenness of world capitalism, which includes also understanding the uneven development among the Great Powers themselves. It is not for nothing that Trotsky considered unevenness as “the most general law of the historic process.” ⁴¹

In conclusion, how shall Marxists define an imperialist state? The formula, which we have elaborated in our works, and which seems to us the most precise, is the following: An imperialist state is a capitalist state whose monopolies and state apparatus have a position in the world order where they first and foremost dominate other states and nations. As a result, they gain extra-profits and other economic, political and/or military advantages from such a relationship based on super-exploitation and oppression. ⁴²

Empire vs. imperialism: the debate with Claudio Katz

Another, more theoretical objection to our analysis of China and Russia as rising imperialist states and the accelerating Great Power rivalry, has been raised by Claudio Katz, a professor at the University of Buenos Aires and a high-profile left-wing economist.⁴³ He argues that the character of imperialism itself has changed and that since 1945 imperialism has been transformed into a US-dominated Empire. Hence, new powers – like China and Russia – can not be imperialist as they are not part of this Empire.

In the last three years, I have been engaged in an extensive debate with Katz which has been published in several languages. At this place, I have to limit myself to a brief summary of those arguments which are relevant for this essay.⁴⁴

Fundamentally, Katz replaces Lenin’s theory of imperialism with a conception influenced by the so-called “world-system theory”. He divides the world into a core (the US and its allies) which dominates the rest of the world (the semi-periphery and the periphery). Such a concept ignores the nature of capitalism which rests on private property and national states and which, therefore, is characterized by the domination of the world by a small number of capitalist monopolies and Great Powers. Imperialism is not a single core which dominates the world, but it is a global system which is characterized by the contradictions between the dominating monopolies and Great Powers which are, at the same time, rivaling for a greater share of profit and spheres of influence. Essentially, Katz’s theory has strong similarities with the revisionist theory of “ultra-imperialism” of Karl Kautsky, a leading social democrat theoretician.

In order to justify his denial of China’s and Russia’s imperialist character, Katz defines “imperialism” as aggressive foreign policy. Since the US has invaded more countries than Russia (or China), the first is imperialist and the others are not. Other Western powers which have also been hardly engaged in military invasions abroad (like several Western European countries, Japan or Australia) are imperialist only because the belong to the “US Empire”. Such a redefinition of imperialism disembowels this category from its material basis – the domination of monopolies and, more generally, the economic, political, and military class basis of Great Powers.

The Argentinean economist further argues that imperialism as a system of rivalling Great Powers had ended by 1945 and was replaced by a US-led “Empire” in which Washington dominates other Western states. As a result, the inter-imperialist contradictions have been removed. This is a mistaken interpretation of the historical development since World War II. In fact, the inter-imperialist contradictions did not disappear but were temporarily subordinated to the overriding contradiction between the imperialist powers and the degenerated workers states, the Stalinist bloc led by the USSR. After the collapse of Stalinism in 1991, the US became the absolute hegemon. However, this brief period ended with the Great Recession in 2008 as new imperialist powers in the East did emerge – China and Russia. Currently, the main inter-imperialist contradictions are between the Western and the Eastern blocs. However, this does not mean that these would constitute homogenous alliances, and it is quite possible that frictions within both blocs could emerge in the coming period (as the current threats of Trump against Canada and the EU demonstrate).

Katz makes an analogy of the US-led “Empire” with Tsarist Russia in the 19^th century. As a logical consequence, he advocates the application of Marx’s tactic, i.e. that socialists should focus to oppose the main enemy, the US-led “Empire” (similar to the approach of Marx to Tsarist Russia in 1848 and the decades after). However, we do not live in a US-dominated unipolar world and, furthermore, it is rather the dictatorships of Putin and Xi that most resemble the Tsarist autocracy. But this analogy is also wrong because it is deeply unhistoric and applies an approach to states and wars that was justified in the epoch of transition from feudalism to capitalism to the epoch of decaying capitalism. In the epoch of rising capitalism, the bourgeoisie of various Great Powers in Europe played a certain progressive role and their struggle against Tsarist Russia — the main bastion of feudalism — had to be supported. In the epoch of decaying capitalism, the bourgeoisies of all imperialist powers have a thoroughly reactionary character.

Part III: China as an imperialist power

In this final part we shall elaborate why we consider China as an imperialist power. Due to the rapid process of capital accumulation in the past decades and the formation of monopolies which dominate the domestic economy – and the parallel decline of the Western imperialist powers – China has become one of the dominating powers in the capitalist world economy and, consequently, also in world politics. ⁴⁵

In the past decade, China had become the leading nation in world manufacturing – the heart of global capitalist value production. By 2023 it accounts for 31.8% of global manufacturing output. The US ranks as second with 15%. (See Table 10) Likewise, it has become the leading economy in world exports and is in a nearly equal position with the US in terms of imports. (See Table 11)

Table 10. Top Six Countries in Global Manufacturing, 2000 and 2023⁴⁶

Table 11. Leading Exporters and Importers in World Merchandise Trade (excluding intra-EU Trade), 2023 ⁴⁷

China’s increasing capital export

Some of our critics argue that China plays the role of a cheap producer of commodities for the world market where other imperialist monopolies appropriate a surplus value. Sam King, in his book “Imperialism and the development myth”, rejects our analysis of China and claims that, quite contrary, the country “remains utterly unable to break the imperialist stranglehold”. Hence, he speaks about the “imperialist exploitation of China” ⁴⁸

It is the case that a certain process of value appropriation takes place to some degree where Western corporations run factories in China. However, a dialectical thinker has to differentiate the essential from the non-essential and quantitative from qualitative developments. The prevailing character of China’s capitalist value production is that its surplus is primarily and increasingly appropriated by domestic, and not foreign, corporations. As a result, foreign companies play a decreasing role on the Chinese market while Chinese monopolies dramatically expanded their role on the world market.

For the same reason, China has become number one or two in the ranking of global corporations and capitalists, only rivalled by the US (see Table 4-6 above). Likewise, China has become a leading exporter of capital ahead of all Western imperialist powers except the US (see Table 12).

Table 12. Foreign Direct Investment Outward Stock by Country in 2023 (in Millions of $US and as Share of Global FDI Outward Stock) ⁴⁹

Sam King, after quoting me on the relevance of China’s outward Foreign Direct Investment (FDI), relativized the significance of this development by saying: “But today foreign direct investment is a common trait not just of China but of even the poorest Third World economies. Papua New Guinea, Guatemala and Timor Leste all engage in FDI.” ⁵⁰ However, such an objection is not very serious because the outward FDI of countries like the mentioned small and poor semi-colonies does not play any role on the world market. In contrast, China, as we did show, has become the second-largest exporter of capital!

This is even more the case as FDI represents only one form of capital export. Foreign portfolio and other investments also play a major role in China’s capital export. Minqi Li, a Chinese Marxist economist and professor at the University of Utah, reports:

“From 2004 to 2018, China’s total foreign assets increased from $929 billion to $7.32 trillion. During the same period, China’s total foreign liabilities (that is, total foreign investment in China) increased from $693 billion to $5.19 trillion. This means China had a net investment position of $2.13 trillion at the end of 2018. That is, China has not only accumulated trillions of dollars of overseas assets but also become a large net creditor in the global capital market.” ⁵¹

The stubborn ignorance of our critics makes them incapable to explain why have China’s monopolies and capitalists become so much stronger and richer in the two decades – compared to their Western rivals – if Western capital would profit much more from China’s value production than China’s capital itself?!

Is China’s economy backward?

In a debate with Esteban Mercatante, a left-wing university lecturer at the Universidad Nacional de San Martín (Argentina), the latter raised the objection that there are “many Chinas within China” and that large parts of China’s economy are rather backward. Hence, he concluded, that China is not imperialist, at least “not yet”. ⁵²

It is certainly true that the general productivity of China is much lower than that of Western economies. Still, as I argued in our debate, the argument does not constitute a valid objection to our thesis for the following reasons. First, yes, China’s general productivity is significantly lower than that of the US. According to the ILO, China’s GDP per hour worked in 2023 was about 21% of that of the US.⁵³ However, as we explained above, the class character of a state is derived from the totality of its features. There are not only imperialist powers with a highly advanced technological economy but also others with one more backward. This is the reason why Lenin did consider not only Britain, the US and Germany as imperialist but also more backward ones like Russia, Austria-Hungary, Japan or Italy.

Second, China’s economy is indeed diverse with both provinces dominated by modern industries as well as those with mainly agriculture or by backward industries. However, the Middle Kingdom has also has very advanced sectors and corporations which can rival their competitors on the world market. China’s smartphone industry or its Electric Vehicles producers are well known and highly competitive. Another example is China’s rapidly expanding stock of industrial robots – one of the key areas of economic-technological power. While its share of industrial robots was merely 3.2% in 2010, it increased to 31% within ten years. In contrast, the share of the so-called “Industrialized Economies” – this is a bourgeois economic category for Western imperialist countries – declined in the same period from 95% to 63%. (See Table 13)

Table 13. Share in Total Stocks of Industrial Robots, 2010 vs. 2020 ⁵⁴

This means that by now, China alone has half as many industrial robots as all Western imperialist countries – the US, Western Europe, Japan, South Korea, Australia, etc. – combined! From this follows, logically, that China has become the world's economy with the largest number of industrial robots operating!

One might be tempted to think that this is solely explained by the vast size of China’s economy. However, this is not true. As a recently published study of the International Federation of Robotics shows, China has now the third-highest robot density in manufacturing industry – only behind South Korea and Singapore but ahead of Japan and Germany. While China had 470 units per 10,000 employees by 2023, the US has only 295, ranking eleventh in the world. ⁵⁵

And industrial robots are not an isolated example. In fact, China has become the No. 1 or 2 in various crucial trendsetting industries like Artificial Intelligence, renewable energy, or medical research – to name only a few examples. ⁵⁶ To make a historical analogy: China is a is a late bloomer in the current phase of imperialism, as Japan and South Korea were before and as Germany was in the late 19^th and early 20^th century.

Once again, we emphasise that one has to look at the totality. If China’s economy would be so backward and super-exploited by Western powers, how do its corporations and capitalists manage to increase their position in the top ranks year after year while that of their Western rivals decline?! How is it possible that the supposed imperialist super-exploitation of the US, EU and Japan make China stronger and the supposed Western profiteers weaker?!

China’s political and military role in the world

China’s rise as an imperialist power is not limited to the economic field but is also visible in terms of political and military power. Again, US was and remains the largest military power. However, China has experienced a rapid process of catching-up as one can see from Tables 14 and 15. Beijing’s military spending is the second highest in the world after the United States and it has the third-largest stock of nuclear weapons (behind Russia and the US). Furthermore, it is rapidly expanding its military expenditure. The renowned Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) observed in 2021: “Chinese spending has risen for 26 consecutive years – the longest streak of uninterrupted increases by any country in the SIPRI Military Expenditure Database.” ⁵⁷

Table 14. World Nuclear Forces, 2024⁵⁸

Table 15. The US and China as the World’s largest Military Spenders ⁵⁹

Add to this that, according to a Pentagon report, China has now the largest navy in the world. “The PRC has numerically the largest navy in the world with an overall battle force of approximately 355 ships and submarines, including approximately more than 145 major surface combatants. As of 2020, the PLAN is largely composed of modern multi-role platforms.” ⁶⁰

Of course, such development must be viewed in context. While the US Navy's battle force numbers approximately 293 ships as of early 2020, it remains far ahead in the key metric of tonnage, meaning the US Navy operates much larger warships than China. The Chinese navy approaches 2 million tons, while the US Navy tops 4.6 million tons, according to a 2019 estimate by the Center for International Maritime Security. However, this difference is also related to different combat missions. “Analysts say part of the reason why China's navy is lighter is because it is heavily concentrated on building a force to secure regional spheres of influence in what Beijing considers Chinese sovereign waters, like the South China Sea and the East China Sea. The US Navy operates larger vessels, like its 11 aircraft carriers, to project force around the world, and China doesn't necessarily need a blue-water navy right now to deter access to the South China Sea.” ⁶¹

As a result of its economic as well as military rise, China plays a central role in world politics. This is reflected not only in the fact that it is one of the five veto powers in the United Nations. It is also reflected in the central role of China’s Belt & Road Initiative – Beijing’s version of the Marshall Plan, so to say. As is known, numerous countries of the South on all continents have joined – or want to join – the BRI initiative.

Expanding BRICS alliance

Likewise, the BRICS alliance – which is led by China and Russia – has massively expanded in the past few years. At the beginning of 2024, four states – Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran and United Arab Emirates – formally joined the five original members (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa). More recently, Indonesia – the fourth most populous country in the world – has also joined the alliance. And in October 2024, 12 other states became so-called “partner countries” (Algeria, Belarus, Bolivia, Cuba, Kazakhstan, Malaysia, Nigeria, Thailand, Türkiye, Uganda, Uzbekistan, and Vietnam).

Sure, this alliance is not a homogenous and centralized bloc. Several states have conflicts among each other, some have more and other less close relations with Western powers. As Yassamine Mather, an Iranian scholar at the University of Oxford, points out, BRICS+ “is not a solid alliance. Their cooperation is often reactive and lacks the deeper, institutional framework needed to form a strong partnership.”⁶²

It is however useful to bear in mind that the contradictions within Western alliances are also increasing. New US President Trump has made clear that he wants to impose tariffs on imports from other countries – including from Canada and Europe. And, as mentioned above, he also expressed his desire to annex America’s northern neighbour as well as Greenland, which belongs to Denmark, a member of the EU.

Modi and Putin recently said that BRICS “is not an anti-western group, it is a non-western group.” This reflects the contradictory dynamic of this alliance whose main feature is that it is an expanding group which is not dominated by the old imperialist hegemons. Hence, the Eastern-dominated alliance is objectively the by far strongest political, economic and military rival for the Western powers and is seen by the latter as such.⁶³

And indeed, Western powers have reasons to fear the BRICS+ alliance. Most importantly, China has become the largest or second largest power in terms of economic output, industrial production, and trade. Russia and China are the second and third-largest military powers. And albeit the alliance is not a monolithic bloc, the very fact that dozens of countries have shown interest in joining it demonstrates the two Eastern powers are massively expanding their spheres of influence.

What is the relation of forces between the Western- and the Eastern-dominated alliance? There is a significant difference in calculating the size of the two blocs, depending on the measures of calculation. Nominal GDP is measured in US-Dollar with market-rate currency conversion, while the PPP-adjusted GDP uses international dollars (using the US as a base country for calculations) which better account for cost of living and inflation. In nominal terms, the G7 – the Western imperialist alliance – has still a larger economic output while calculated in PPP terms, BRICS+ has already surpassed the Western powers. Note that the figures in both Tables below are for the original 5 member states of BRICS+, i.e. before the alliance was expanded by 5 additional member states and 12 partner countries. In any case, there is no doubt that the BRICS states have much higher growth rates and are in process of catching up or even surpassing the “old” imperialists. (See Table 16 and 17)

Table 16. Nominal GDP and PPP GDP of G7 and BRICS (original 5 States) in trillion US-Dollar, 2023⁶⁴

Table 17. Share of G7 and BRICS (original 5 States) in Global GDP, 1992-2022 (PPP-adjusted) ⁶⁵

BRICS growing clout is also evident by various other indicators. When it expanded in 2023 to nine member states, it had a combined population of about 3.5 billion, or 45% of the world’s people. As for energy sources, the BRICS+ members own 47% of the world’s oil reserves and 50% of its natural gas reserves.⁶⁶ As of 2024, the BRICS, along with their new members, control approximately 72% of the world’s rare earth metal reserves.⁶⁷

In conclusion, we can summarise that China has experienced a rapid rise as a capitalist power in the past decades. This has transformed not only the country itself but also international economic and political relations. It has ended the long-term unipolar domination of global capitalism by the US

It is only logical that all capitalist governments consider China as a Great Power. Washington has identified Beijing as its main rival – what is this if not a recognition by its chief enemy that China has become a Great Power?! When the imperialist governments of the European Union discuss their foreign policy, the main issues are a) their relations with the US and b) their relations with China. Obviously, imperialism has been sufficiently constructed in China for being recognized as a serious rival by the Western powers!

In summary, it is evident that China has become one of the leading Great Powers in every aspect – in the world economy, in international politics as well as a in the global arms race. In other words, it is an imperialist state.

Notes

1. I will refer to my main works on these issues in the course of this essay. For a comprehensive discussion of China and the Marxist theory of imperialism, I refer to two of my books: Anti-Imperialism in the Age of Great Power Rivalry. The Factors behind the Accelerating Rivalry between the US, China, Russia, EU and Japan. A Critique of the Left’s Analysis and an Outline of the Marxist Perspective, RCIT Books, Vienna 2019, https://www.thecommunists.net/theory/anti-imperialism-in-the-age-of-great-power-rivalry/; The Great Robbery of the South. Continuity and Changes in the Super-Exploitation of the Semi-Colonial World by Monopoly Capital. Consequences for the Marxist Theory of Imperialism, RCIT Books, 2013, https://www.thecommunists.net/theory/great-robbery-of-the-south/ 🡅

2. Immanuel Ness: Western Marxism, anti-communism and imperialism, in: International Critical Thought, Volume 14, Issue 4 (2024), pp. 493-518, https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/21598282.2024.2431960; republished by Monthly Review Online, 28 December 2024, https://mronline.org/2024/12/28/western-marxism-anti-communism-and-imperialism/ 🡅

3. My main works on capitalist restoration in China are: China: On the specific class character of China’s ruling bureaucracy and its transformation in the past decades, 15 September, 2024, https://links.org.au/specific-class-character-chinas-ruling-bureaucracy-and-its-transformation-past-decades; On the transformation of social property relations under China’s party-state regime, 28 September, 2024, https://links.org.au/transformation-social-property-relations-under-chinas-party-state-regime; How is it possible that some Marxists still Doubt that China has Become Capitalist? An analysis of the capitalist character of China’s State-Owned Enterprises and its political consequences, 18 September 2020, https://www.thecommunists.net/theory/pts-ft-and-chinese-imperialism-2/. 🡅

4. Nicholas Lardy: Private sector development, in: Ross Garnaut, Ligang Song and Cai Fang (Editors): China’s 40 Years of Reform and Development 1978–2018, Published by the Australian National University Press and the Social Sciences Academic Press (China), ANU Press, Acton 2018, p. 333 🡅

5. Amir Guluzade: The role of China's state-owned companies explained, Chief Operating Officer, Private Wealth Institute, Ahmadoff & Co, 07 May 2019, https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2019/05/why-chinas-state-owned-companies-still-have-a-key-role-to-play/ 🡅

6. Chunlin Zhang: How Much Do State-Owned Enterprises Contribute to China’s GDP and Employment? July 15, 2019, https://documents.worldbank.org/en/publication/documents-reports/documentdetail/449701565248091726/how-much-do-state-owned-enterprises-contribute-to-china-s-gdp-and-employment, p. 10 🡅

7. Yunhua Liu: A Comparison of China's State-Owned Enterprises and Their Counterparts in the United States: Performance and Regulatory Policy, in: Public Administration Review, December 2009, Vol. 69, Supplement to Volume 69: Comparative Chinese/American Public Administration (Dec., 2009), p. S47 🡅

8. Ligang Song: State-owned enterprise reform in China: Past, present and prospects, in: Ross Garnaut, Ligang Song and Cai Fang (Editors): China’s 40 Years of Reform and Development 1978–2018, Published by the Australian National University Press and the Social Sciences Academic Press (China), Australia, p. 371 🡅

9. Yunhua Liu: A Comparison of China's State-Owned Enterprises and Their Counterparts in the United States: Performance and Regulatory Policy, p. S47 🡅

10. Ibid, p. S47 🡅

11. Zhi Li, Congming Ding, Zhenqiao Liang: Growing Up in China's SOEs Reform: The massive layoffs and public trust in government, 2016, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=2799076, pp. 4-5 🡅

12. Yunhua Liu: A Comparison of China's State-Owned Enterprises and Their Counterparts in the United States: Performance and Regulatory Policy, p. S47 🡅

13. China 2030. Building a Modern, Harmonious, and Creative High-Income Society (2012), published by The World Bank and the Development Research Center of the State Council, the People’s Republic of China, p. 111 🡅

14. Chu Daye and Zhang Dan: Results underpin economy amid downward pressure, Global Times, 17.01.2019, http://www.globaltimes.cn/content/1136176.shtml 🡅

15. Ibid 🡅

16. Lily Kuo: China’s mega-rich are worth more than the annual output of South Korea and Taiwan, 25 January 2013, https://qz.com/47292/chinas-mega-rich-are-worth-more-than-the-annual-output-of-south-korea-and-taiwan/ 🡅

17. Isabela Nogueira and Hao Qi: State and Capitalist Class in China’s Economic Transition: From Great Compromise to Strained Alliance, September 2018, Political Economy Research Institute, Working Paper Series No. 467, pp. 17-18 🡅

18. Li Yang, Filip Novokmet and Branko Milanovic: From workers to capitalists in less than two generations: A study of Chinese urban elite transformation between 1988 and 2013, July 2019, WID.world Working Paper N° 2019/10, World Inequality Lab, p. 6 🡅

19. Facundo Alvaredo, Lucas Chancel, Thomas Piketty, Emmanuel Saez, Gabriel Zucman: World Inequality Report 2018, pp. 107-108 🡅

20. Chancel, L., Piketty, T., Saez, E., Zucman, G. et al.: World Inequality Report 2022, World Inequality Lab., p. 191 🡅

21. Ibid, pp. 93-94 🡅

22. Thomas Piketty, Li Yang, and Gabriel Zucman: Capital Accumulation, Private Property, and Rising Inequality in China, 1978–2015, in: American Economic Review 2019, 109(7), p. 2489, https://doi.org/10.1257/aer.20170973 🡅

23. Chancel, L., Piketty, T., Saez, E., Zucman, G. et al.: World Inequality Report 2022, p. 77 🡅

24. Fortune Global 500, August 2023, https://fortune.com/ranking/global500/2023/ (the figure for the share is our calculation) 🡅

25. Forbes: Forbes Billionaires 2023, https://www.forbes.com/sites/chasewithorn/2023/04/04/forbes-37th-annual-worlds-billionaires-list-facts-and-figures-2023/?sh=23927e7477d7 🡅

26. Hurun Global Rich List 2024, 26.03.2024, https://www.hurun.net/en-US/Info/Detail?num=K851WM942LBU 🡅

27. For a critical discussion of this issue see e.g. Michael Pröbsting: China: Does the Stalinist Regime Support or Oppose Capitalism? 22 September 2024, https://www.thecommunists.net/theory/china-does-the-stalinist-regime-support-or-oppose-capitalism/ 🡅

28. This essay was written for Sbornik Sotsial-Demokrata – the theoretical journal of the Bolshevik Party which was in the time of World War I an illegal publication. In contrast, Lenin wrote his famous book “Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism” for a legal publication in the time of the Tsarist autocracy and, therefore, had to be careful in his expressions, taking into account the strict intervention of the censor. Lenin himself referred to this in his Preface for the edition published after the February Revolution in 1917. (See Lenin Collected Works Vol. 22, pp. 187-188) 🡅

29. V. I. Lenin: Imperialism and the Split in Socialism (1916); in: LCW Vol. 23, pp. 105-106 🡅

30. Abram Deborin: Lenin über Dialektik (1925); in: Unter dem Banner des Marxismus, 1. Jahrgang (1925-26), p. 404 [our translation] 🡅

31. V. I. Lenin: The Revolutionary Proletariat and the Right of Nations to Self-Determination (1915); in: LCW 21, p. 409 🡅

32. Ibid; see also V. I. Lenin: The Socialist Revolution and the Right of Nations to Self-Determination (1916); in: LCW 22, p. 147 🡅

33. See on this e.g. Michael Pröbsting: Migration and Super-exploitation: Marxist Theory and the Role of Migration in the present Period of Capitalist Decay, Critique (Glasgow), 2015, Vol.43 (3-4), p. 329-346, http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/03017605.2015.1099846 🡅

34. V. I. Lenin: Conspectus of Hegel’s Science of Logic (1914); in: Collected Works Vol. 38, p. 220 🡅

35. I have published a number of works about capitalism in Russia and its rise to an imperialist power. The most comprehensive ones are the following pamphlets: The Peculiar Features of Russian Imperialism. A Study of Russia’s Monopolies, Capital Export and Super-Exploitation in the Light of Marxist Theory, 10 August 2021, https://www.thecommunists.net/theory/the-peculiar-features-of-russian-imperialism/; Lenin’s Theory of Imperialism and the Rise of Russia as a Great Power. On the Understanding and Misunderstanding of Today’s Inter-Imperialist Rivalry in the Light of Lenin’s Theory of Imperialism. Another Reply to Our Critics Who Deny Russia’s Imperialist Character, August 2014, http://www.thecommunists.net/theory/imperialism-theory-and-russia/; Russia as a Great Imperialist Power. The formation of Russian Monopoly Capital and its Empire, 18 March 2014, http://www.thecommunists.net/theory/imperialist-russia/. 🡅

36. V. I. Lenin: On the Question of Imperialism, in: LCW 39, p. 202 🡅

37. See on this e.g. Michael Pröbsting: Capitalism Today and the Law of Uneven Development: The Marxist Tradition and its Application in the Present Historic Period, in: Critique: Journal of Socialist Theory, Volume 44, Issue 4, (2016), http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/03017605.2016.1236483 🡅

38. François Crouzet: A History of the European Economy, 1000–2000, University Press of Virginia, 2001, p. 148 🡅

39. The columns with the figures for industrial production and world trade are taken from Jürgen Kuczynski: Studien zur Geschichte der Weltwirtschaft, Berlin 1952, p. 35 and p. 43. The column with the figures for overseas investment trade is taken from Paul Bairoch and Richard Kozul-Wright: Globalization Myths: Some Historical Reflections on Integration, Industrialization and Growth in the World Economy, UNCTAD Discussion Papers No. 113, 1996, p. 12. 🡅

40. Niall Ferguson: The Pity of War, Allen Lane, The Penguin Press, London 1998, p. 85. 🡅

41. Leon Trotsky: History of the Russian Revolution (1930), Haymarket Books, Chicago 2008, p. 5. 🡅

42. We think such a definition of an imperialist state is in accordance with the brief definition which Lenin gave in one of his writings on imperialism in 1916: “… imperialist Great Powers (i.e., powers that oppress a whole number of nations and enmesh them in dependence on finance capital, etc.)…“ (V. I. Lenin: A Caricature of Marxism and Imperialist Economism (1916); in: LCW Vol. 23, p. 34) 🡅

43. Most works of Claudio Katz are in Spanish. However, Brill has published an English-language book with a number of his writings: Dependency Theory after Fifty Years. The Continuing Relevance of Latin American Critical Thought, Leiden; Boston 2022 🡅

44. The contributions of Claudio Katz are: Russia an imperialist power? Part I-IV, May-June 2022 (https://katz.lahaine.org/is-russia-an-imperialist-power-part/, https://katz.lahaine.org/is-russia-an-imperialist-power-part-2/, https://katz.lahaine.org/is-russia-an-imperialist-power-part-3/ and https://katz.lahaine.org/is-russia-an-imperialist-power-benevolent/); Desaciertos sobre el imperialismo contemporáneo, 18.09.2022, https://katz.lahaine.org/desaciertos-sobre-el-imperialismo-contemporaneo/; Coincidencias y discrepancias con Lenin, 15.10.2024, https://katz.lahaine.org/coincidencias-y-discrepancias-con-lenin/. My replies are: Russia: An Imperialist Power or a “Non-Hegemonic Empire in Gestation”? A reply to the Argentinean economist Claudio Katz, New Politics, 11 August 2022. https://newpol.org/russia-an-imperialist-power-or-a-non-hegemonic-empire-in-gestation-a-reply-to-the-argentinean-economist-claudio-katz-an-essay-with-8-tables/; “Empire-ism” vs a Marxist analysis of imperialism. Continuing the debate with Argentinian economist Claudio Katz on Great Power rivalry, Russian imperialism and the Ukraine War, LINKS, 3 March 2023, https://links.org.au/empire-ism-vs-marxist-analysis-imperialism-continuing-debate-argentinian-economist-claudio-katz; Age of ‘Empire’ or age of imperialism? 7 December 2024, https://links.org.au/age-empire-or-age-imperialism. 🡅

45. My main works on China’s rise as an imperialist power are: Chinese Imperialism and the World Economy, an essay published in the second edition of “The Palgrave Encyclopedia of Imperialism and Anti-Imperialism” (edited by Immanuel Ness and Zak Cope), Palgrave Macmillan, Cham, 2020, https://link.springer.com/referenceworkentry/10.1007%2F978-3-319-91206-6_179-1; China: An Imperialist Power … Or Not Yet? 22 January 2022, https://www.thecommunists.net/theory/china-imperialist-power-or-not-yet/; China‘s transformation into an imperialist power. A study of the economic, political and military aspects of China as a Great Power (2012), in: Revolutionary Communism No. 4, https://www.thecommunists.net/publications/revcom-1-10/#anker_4; Unable to See the Wood for the Trees. Eclectic empiricism and the failure of the PTS/FT to recognize the imperialist character of China, 13 August 2020, https://www.thecommunists.net/theory/pts-ft-and-chinese-imperialism/; China’s Emergence as an Imperialist Power (Article in the US journal 'New Politics'), in: “New Politics”, Summer 2014 (Vol:XV-1, Whole #: 57). 🡅

46. Figures for the year 2000: APEC: Regional Trends Analysis, May 2021, p. 2; the figures for Germany and India in the first column are for the year 2005 (UNIDO: Industrial Development Report 2011, p. 194); figures for the year 2023: UNIDO: International Yearbook of Industrial Statistics Edition 2024, p. 99 🡅

47. WTO: Global Trade Outlook and Statistics, April 2024, p. 40 🡅

48. Sam King: Imperialism and the development myth. How rich countries dominate in the twenty-first century, Manchester University Press, Manchester 2021, p. 232 and 262 🡅

49. UNCTAD: World Investment Report 2024, pp. 160-161 🡅

50. Sam King: Imperialism and the development myth, p. 79 🡅

51. Minqi Li: China: Imperialism or Semi-Periphery? Monthly Review, Volume 73, Issue 3 (July-August 2021), https://monthlyreview.org/2021/07/01/china-imperialism-or-semi-periphery/ 🡅

52. For our debate with Esteban Mercatante see El carácter de China y sus consecuencias para la política revolucionaria, https://www.laizquierdadiario.com/El-caracter-de-China-y-sus-consecuencias-para-la-politica-revolucionaria (An English translation can be read here, https://www.thecommunists.net/theory/debate-on-capitalism-in-china/#anker_1). A rejoinder to this debate is my above-mentioned pamphlet “China: An Imperialist Power … Or Not Yet?”. 🡅

53. ILO: Statistics on labour productivity, retrieved on 13 January 2025, https://ilostat.ilo.org/topics/labour-productivity/ 🡅

54. United Nations Industrial Development Organization: Industrial Development Report 2022. The Future of Industrialization in a Post-Pandemic World, Vienna 2021, p. 109 🡅

55. International Federation of Robotics: Global Robot Density in Factories Doubled in Seven Years, 20 November 2024, https://ifr.org/ifr-press-releases/news/global-robot-density-in-factories-doubled-in-seven-years 🡅

56. See on these e.g. Daitian Li, Tony W. Tong, and Yangao Xiao: Is China Emerging as the Global Leader in AI? 18 February 2021, https://hbr.org/2021/02/is-china-emerging-as-the-global-leader-in-ai; Dominic Chiu: The East Is Green: China’s Global Leadership in Renewable Energy, https://www.csis.org/east-green-chinas-global-leadership-renewable-energy; Sintia Radu: U.S., China Compete for Medical Research Leadership, 27 September 2019, https://www.usnews.com/news/best-countries/articles/2019-09-27/china-threatens-the-us-leadership-position-in-medical-research 🡅

57. Stockholm International Peace Research Institute: SIPRI Yearbook 2021. Armaments, Disarmament and International Security, Summary, pp. 12-13 🡅

58. Ibid, p. 272 🡅

59. Stockholm International Peace Research Institute: Trends in World Military Expenditure, 2023, p. 2 🡅

60. Pentagon: Military and Security Developments Involving the People’s Republic of China 2021. Annual Report to Congress, p. 48 🡅

61. Wesley Rahn: China has the world's largest navy — what now for the US? Deutsche Welle, 21.10.2020, https://www.dw.com/en/china-navy-vs-us-navy/a-55347120 🡅

62. Yassamine Mather: An acronym versus the hegemon, in: Weekly Worker, Issue 1517, 28.11.2024, https://weeklyworker.co.uk/worker/1517/an-acronym-versus-the-hegemon/ 🡅

63. See on this e.g. Michael Pröbsting: BRICS+: An Imperialist-Led Alliance. The expansion of BRICS reflects the rise of Chinese and Russian imperialism at the cost of their Western rivals, 29 August 2023, https://www.thecommunists.net/worldwide/global/brics-an-imperialist-led-alliance/ 🡅

64. The figures are taken from James Eagle: Animated Chart: G7 vs. BRICS by GDP (PPP), 27 July 2023, https://www.visualcapitalist.com/cp/animated-chart-g7-vs-brics-by-gdp-ppp/ 🡅

65. The figures are taken from James Eagle: Animated Chart: G7 vs. BRICS by GDP (PPP), 27 July 2023, https://www.visualcapitalist.com/cp/animated-chart-g7-vs-brics-by-gdp-ppp/ 🡅

66. See on this: Henry Meyer, S'thembile Cele, and Simone Iglesias: Putin Hosts BRICS Leaders, Showing He Is Far From Isolated, Bloomberg, 22 October 2024, https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-10-22/putin-hosts-brics-leaders-in-russia-defying-attempts-from-west-to-isolate-him; Dr Kalim Siddiqui: The BRICS Expansion and the End of Western Economic and Geopolitical Dominance, 30 October 2024, https://worldfinancialreview.com/the-brics-expansion-and-the-end-of-western-economic-and-geopolitical-dominance/; Walid Abuhelal: Can the Brics end US hegemony in the Middle East? Middle East Eye, 22 October 2024 https://www.middleeasteye.net/opinion/can-brics-end-us-hegemony-middle-east; Anthoni van Nieuwkerk: BRICS+ wants new world order sans shared values or identity, 30 October 2024 https://asiatimes.com/2024/10/brics-wants-new-world-order-sans-shared-values-or-identity/ 🡅

67. Ben Aris: Can the BRICS beat the G7? Intellinews, 19 October 2024, https://www.intellinews.com/can-the-brics-beat-the-g7-348632/?source=south-africa 🡅

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