China stunned the world last month with its largest-ever military parade. Advanced arms flooded Chang’an Avenue in Beijing, including 47 newly unveiled weapons. Accompanying them were 12,000 Chinese soldiers marching in tight formation. Their discipline and precision struck a stark contrast to the lackadaisical farce of the US military parade in June.

Foreign Policy magazine summed up the fears of the American imperialists in an article titled “China’s Military Is Now Leading”:

It is no longer enough to say that China’s military … is catching up or that it is copying foreign military equipment designs. China is now innovating, and it is leading. In the process, the regional military balance that has for decades favored the US and its partners is being irrevocably changed.

“Alternative world order”

The parade to celebrate the 80th anniversary of the defeat of Imperial Japan in World War II capped off the 2025 Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) meeting in Tianjin. Over 20 heads of state attended the summit, which showcased the unprecedented unity between Russia, China, and India. In the words of The New York Times, “The bonhomie between Mr. Xi and Mr. Putin was meant to convey a close bond between them as leaders of an alternative world order challenging the United States.”

Biden provoked the Ukraine War in 2022 in an effort to weaken Russian imperialism. But the proxy war and sanctions levied by American and European imperialists against Russia backfired, pushing Russia and China closer than ever. Now, the growing unity between China and India has compounded the American ruling class’s dilemma.

After the fall of the Soviet Union, the Indian ruling class saw the US as a favorable trading partner. American imports of Indian goods grew from $266 million in 1991 to $7.3 billion in 2024. But the Indian capitalists hedged their bets, forming the BRICS bloc with Russia and China in 2009. They maintained a policy of “strategic autonomy,” refusing to fully align themselves with either the US or China.

This arrangement began to unravel earlier this year. Since 2022, India has defied Western sanctions on Russia. They bought and refined some $53 billion worth of Russian oil last year alone, some of which they exported to Europe. Hoping to bully Modi into falling in line, Trump doubled tariffs on Indian imports to 50% in August. His attacks on the H-1B visa program are also aimed, in part, at India. Indian workers in the US sent back $135 billion worth in remittances in 2024—and 71% of H-1B holders are from India.

Trump gambled that a longstanding border dispute between China and India—combined with China’s strategic partnership with Pakistan—would prevent the two powers from finding an accommodation. But the SCO showed how badly his plan has backfired.

Economic power

China’s newfound diplomatic and military might flows from the strengthening of its economy relative to the US.

The country has benefitted from what Trotsky called “the privilege of backwardness.” In short, relatively backwards societies can sometimes leapfrog over certain stages of economic growth by adopting the latest modern technologies, bypassing the arduous process that led to their original development. Meanwhile, older, more advanced countries are hamstrung by aging infrastructure and industries that lose their edge, but are costly to replace. Over time, this leads to slowing economic growth.

China also benefits from the lingering legacy of the deformed workers’ state and centrally planned economy that emerged from its 1949 revolution. Unlike Russia, where the restoration of capitalism was sudden and chaotic, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) oversaw a controlled capitalist counterrevolution over decades. The Chinese capitalist class didn’t build its own state apparatus from scratch. Instead, the capitalists were allowed to grow in strength with the kind permission of the CCP—and have now fully merged with the state.

After decades of arrogance and hubris, the American capitalists are learning that their anarchic drive for short-term profits can’t compete with the Chinese state’s ability to direct investment towards long-term goals. As Trump posted on Truth Social, “China has a 50 to 100 year view on management of a company, whereas we run our companies on a quarterly basis??? Not good!!!”

Imperialist competition for cutting-edge markets and technologies including AI, superconductors, rare earths, and more demands enormous investment. China’s state-owned banking sector is able to aggregate astounding amounts of capital. The combined holdings of Chinese banks currently stand at $58.5 trillion, more than double those of American banks.

The Chinese state also ensures that more of the country’s wealth is plowed back into investments in machinery, technology, increasingly efficient supply chains for sourcing raw materials, etc.

One way to measure this is gross fixed capital formation (GFCF). It’s the total value of investments in fixed assets—like machinery, buildings, and equipment—that are used in the production of goods and services for more than one year. It indicates how much new value is invested in an economy’s future productive capacity. In 1969, GFCF was 22% of US GDP compared to 21% of Chinese GDP. Last year, the US GFCF was still 22% of GDP, while China’s been averaging 42% over the last 15 years.

In other words, China invests almost double in developing its forces of production compared to the US. As a result, over the last five years, the Chinese economy has produced three times as many cars, 12 times as much steel, and twice as much electricity as the US.

World revolution

All this formidable wealth has been amassed through the blood, sweat, and toil of the nearly 800 million-strong Chinese working class. Meanwhile, the American ruling class’s only hope of reestablishing its competitiveness on the world market is by bullying its rivals and attacking the wages and conditions of American workers. Neither the American nor the Chinese proletariat has an interest in continuing to enrich their respective ruling classes.

Around the world, workers and youth are rightly celebrating the decline of American imperialism—the most reactionary force in world history. At the same time, we should have no illusions in the Chinese ruling class. Despite its impressive state sector, in the last analysis, it represents the same system as the American ruling class: capitalism. Only the world working class, united under the banner of the world socialist revolution, can bring down the edifice of capitalism and imperialism, once and for all.