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The rise of China and the end of the American century AGAINST THE STREAM

Against The Stream · 2025-04-24

Core Argument

The central thesis is that the United States is engaged in a strategic, multi-front war against China — not merely a trade war — because China has developed from a low-cost manufacturing hub into a genuine imperialist competitor capable of challenging US dominance across advanced industrial sectors. The episode argues that Trump's tariffs, his push for a Ukraine settlement, and his attempts to isolate China diplomatically are all expressions of US imperialism's weakness, not strength. The US cannot compete with China on productivity and technological innovation, so it resorts to protectionism, sanctions, and geopolitical pressure. The hosts contend that this conflict is the defining feature of the current conjuncture and that it will deepen the crisis of global capitalism, preparing the ground for intensified class struggle in both the West and China.

Theoretical Grounding

The analysis draws on several classical Marxist concepts:

  • Combined and uneven development (Trotsky): China's ability to leapfrog Western competitors in sectors like electric vehicles and 5G precisely because it lacked an entrenched industrial base in older technologies (e.g., internal combustion engines). The hosts use this to explain why China could overtake established automakers.

  • Imperialism as rivalry (Lenin): The US-China conflict is framed as the struggle between two imperialist powers for domination of the world market, consistent with Lenin's analysis in Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism. The episode explicitly rejects the notion that this is a trade dispute — it is a war for technological and industrial supremacy.

  • The role of the state in capitalist development: The hosts contrast China's state-directed industrial policy (subsidies, state-owned banks, five-year plans) with the short-termism and financialisation of Western capitalism. This is not presented as socialism but as a more effective form of capitalist development — one that demonstrates the superiority of planning over the anarchy of the market, even within capitalism.

  • Overaccumulation and crisis: China's massive overproduction in steel, cars, and other sectors is identified as a symptom of capitalism's internal contradictions. The hosts note that China's debt-to-GDP ratio has risen sharply since 2008, and that each stimulus package merely postpones a larger crisis.

  • The tendency of the rate of profit to fall is implicit in the discussion of Western capitalism's declining investment in productive capacity and its turn to financial speculation. The hosts argue that Western capital no longer finds sufficient profitable outlets in productive investment, hence the turn to stock buybacks and speculation.

The episode sits within the Trotskyist tradition, particularly the analysis of state capitalism in China and the rejection of any notion that China represents a socialist or progressive alternative to US imperialism. The RCI's position — that China is a capitalist, imperialist power — is treated as settled.

Conjunctural Relevance

The episode is tightly anchored to events in April 2025:

  • Ukraine negotiations: The hosts analyse the collapse of the London meeting between US, European, and Ukrainian representatives. They argue that Zelensky's refusal to concede Crimea is an attempt to sabotage talks, and that Trump's threat to walk away is genuine because the US needs a deal to focus on China.

  • Tariff escalation: Trump's 145% tariffs on China (245% on some products) are contrasted with the 90-day pause for other countries. The hosts note that China has responded uncompromisingly, demanding the US unilaterally rescind all tariffs before any negotiations.

  • China's technological advances: The episode provides detailed evidence of China's industrial dominance — 29% of global manufacturing value added, more than the next four largest economies combined; leadership in EVs, 5G infrastructure, solar panels, nuclear power, and robotics; and the development of the Ascend 910C chip to circumvent US sanctions.

  • Europe's predicament: The hosts note that European capitals are divided — some want tariffs on Chinese EVs, others (like Spain) are actively courting Chinese investment. The Draghi report is cited as evidence that European capitalism recognises its own decline.

  • The working class in both camps: The episode identifies the Chinese working class as 470 million strong, with 30% in industry, and warns that this young, concentrated proletariat will eventually rebel. In the West, the hosts argue that the ruling class will use the China threat to attack workers' living standards.

Where the Argument Continues

The episode deliberately leaves open several threads:

  • The internal contradictions of Chinese capitalism: The hosts acknowledge that China's growth is slowing (from 14% to 5%) and that its debt burden is rising, but they do not predict when or how a crisis will break. This is developed in other Against the Stream episodes on the Chinese economy and in the broader RCI corpus on the crisis of global capitalism.

  • The trajectory of the Ukraine war: The episode treats the negotiations as ongoing and unresolved. The argument about US-Russia rapprochement as a strategy to isolate China is a thread that continues in subsequent episodes covering the Ukraine conflict.

  • The response of the Western working class: The hosts criticise US union leaders like Shawn Fain for supporting tariffs, and call for a class-struggle response. This is a recurring theme across the Against the Stream series, particularly in episodes on trade union strategy and the fight against nationalism.

  • The potential for revolution in China: The comparison to Russia in 1905 is suggestive but not developed. The RCI's theoretical journal, The Spectre of Communism, has published more extended analyses of the Chinese working class and the prospects for socialist revolution.

Connections

  • Lenin, Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism — The theoretical foundation for understanding inter-imperialist rivalry.
  • Trotsky, The History of the Russian Revolution — For the analysis of combined and uneven development and the revolutionary potential of a young, concentrated working class.
  • Daniel Morley, "US-China trade war: Who holds the cards?" (Marxist.com) — The article referenced in the episode, providing detailed data on China's leverage.
  • Mario Draghi, The Future of European Competitiveness (2024) — The report cited as evidence that European capitalism recognises its own decline but cannot reverse it within existing class relations.
  • Other Against the Stream episodes: The series on the Ukraine war, the crisis of European capitalism, and the nature of the Chinese state.
  • Alan Woods, The Chinese Revolution and the Nature of the Chinese State — For the broader theoretical position on China as state capitalist.

Key Quotes

  1. "This is the process that Lenin described in his book on imperialism, the highest stage of capitalism. He said that you see the rise and fall of imperialist powers and in this case we see the rise of China as an imperialist power competing with the United States."

  2. "The United States is not going to abandon the scene of history without conflict with trying to protect itself. But that's a sign of weakness. That's a sign that they are losing the competitive battle. Because they're not so much trying to compete by actually raising innovation... It's raising barriers to protect those old mastodons, those old monopolies."

  3. "It is as if we were looking at the ocean and we see calm waves. But over the horizon is a tsunami of hundreds of strong, innovative and lower-cost Chinese firms in dozens of industries seeking to seize Western leaders' global market share."

  4. "The size of the urban wage earners, which is mainly the proletariat in China, is 470 million people. That's almost half a billion people. Close to half of the entire population. A working class which only one generation ago were predominantly peasants... Huge working class concentrated in massive workplaces, massive factories of tens of thousands or even 100,000 in some cases."

  5. "Our task is to use this crisis to rally the class struggle, the inevitable attacks which are going to come against the working class, and to fight for a socialist revolution in the west which then inevitably will get an echo in China and in the rest of the world as well."