The US government’s aggressive economic and foreign policy, including its recent military interventions, have led to a heated debate about the new phase of US imperialism. But the noise and indignation risks to obscure the fact that the position of US capital and state in the world has actually been weakened in recent decades – as the People’s Republic of China (PRC) has become a capitalist global power and rival. The challenge posed by PRC capital and the regime of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) to their US counterparts has, in fact, provoked the US government’s attempts to restrengthen its global hegemonic position.
Since the early 2010s, PRC capital has expanded its economic influence and access to raw materials, labor, and markets on all continents through trade, investments, and credit, supported by state subsidies and frameworks such as the Belt-and-Road-Initiative. The CCP regime has modernized and expanded the PRC’s military forces, including its nuclear arsenal, to such extent that they have become a threat to US military superiority, at least, in the Western Pacific. It has tried to secure its geopolitical position and advance PRC capital’s interests through expanding or strengthening bonds with counterparts in countries such as Russia and Iran and through state alliances such BRICS and the Shanghai Cooperation Organization. And it seeks to increase its soft power influence globally, pushing its own globally active media and foundations, and presenting the economic and political PRC model as an alternative to US hegemony and capitalism.
But how useful are terms such as imperialism or subimperialism when characterizing these strategies and practices of CCP regime and PRC capital vis-á-vis other states and capital interests around the globe? And how do the strategies and practices of PRC actors compare to those of their rival US counterparts?
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Presenter: Ralf Ruckus co-founded gongchao.org, a platform for the research of social unrest in China, and has engaged in the analysis of workers’, migrants’, and women*’s struggles as well as China’s political economy and position in global capitalism for more than two decades. Ralf authored The Communist Road to Capitalism. How Social Unrest and Containment Have Pushed China’s (R)evolution since 1949 (PM Press, 2021) and The Left in China. A Political Cartography (Pluto Press, 2023). A full list of publications can be found on nqch.org.
Event Address: 191A Wentworth Street, Port Kembla.
Food: Supper and other refreshments will be served!
Accessibility: The venue is wheelchair accessible with accessible toilets. Air purifiers will be used during the event and N95 masks will be available for free. Please let us know ahead of time if you have any access requirements and we will make arrangements wherever possible.
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