For some time, military parades were obscure remnants of the past. American imperialism was too powerful. Any other country showcasing its military might for the world to see would merely underline the large discrepancy between the US and everyone else. Not any more.

Last week’s military parade in Beijing, the largest in Chinese history, marked an important change. Ten thousand soldiers marched alongside hundreds of vehicles, planes, submarines, and other military hardware with Olympic-level accuracy and rigor. In comparison, Donald Trump’s recent military parade in Washington looked like a band of children marching through a fun fair.

[Originally published on Marxist.com]

Donald Trump’s response to the Chinese parade seems to have been to rename the Department of Defense to the Department of War. A change that signifies nothing, except for bringing the name into alignment with its true purpose.

Meanwhile, commentary in the western press has ranged from the hysterical to the absurd. The liberals, as usual, lamented the large number of “authoritarian leaders” in China during the parade and the preceding meeting of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization.

But since when has the US had any problems with authoritarian leaders? US imperialism has supported some of the most reactionary and authoritarian regimes in history. One need only mention Saudi Arabia, the fountainhead of Islamic fundamentalism; or the Israeli state—the “only democracy in the Middle East”!—which has been carrying out a genocidal war on Gaza for almost two years.

Rapid gains

This moralistic disapproval was nothing but a smokescreen for the gravity of the situation, which was expressed by the shock of the more serious commentators.

For decades none of these had underplayed China’s military might. But Foreign Policy magazine went so far in the headline of its article on the parade to state that China’s Military Is Now Leading. The magazine wrote:

Among the highlights was the display of aircraft that will serve aboard China’s growing fleet of aircraft carriers, which numbers three ships at present but is likely to be joined in coming years by at least one nuclear-powered supercarrier, just as large and capable as the U.S. Navy’s new Gerald Ford class. Four new types of “loyal wingman” drones were unveiled—stealthy unpiloted planes designed to fly alongside crewed aircraft and be tasked by them. And at least four previously unseen anti-ship and ground-attack missile systems were on display, as well as a new uncrewed submarine and new torpedoes.

The parade, of course, is only a snapshot of what China wants to reveal. But it is a snapshot that clearly displays the direction of things. Let us take aircraft carriers, the most complex weapons ever made with the ability to send what amounts to a small but very powerful air force, anywhere across the globe. There are 21 operational carriers in the world with a tonnage larger than 65,000. The US has 11 of them, followed by China with three.

In addition, the US has nine amphibious assault ships which are slightly smaller, but which can carry several thousand troops as an expeditionary force along with dozens of aircraft and helicopters as support.

This is where we need to put the snapshot into the context of a moving picture. China only acquired its first aircraft carrier, Liaoning, in 2012. The ship was a laughing stock amongst commentators because it was built on the unfinished hull of an old Soviet carrier that had been rusting away in Ukraine for two decades. Only a few years later, in 2019, China launched its second carrier, Shandong. This was an entirely domestically-built ship although it was modeled on the old Soviet design of the Liaoning.

In 2022, China launched the Fujian, an entirely domestically-designed carrier, which also had electromagnetic catapults, an important technology that only the US previously possessed. At the same time the country is developing at least one nuclear-powered supercarrier, which will probably be the largest in the world. Again, only the US and France have nuclear-powered carriers.

The things to note, however, are the quantitative and qualitative strides that China is taking, and importantly the speed of these strides.

In other areas, such as stealth, integrated systems, propulsion systems and logistics, the US is probably some way ahead. Moreover, the US benefits from extensive operational experience and superior integration of forces, which provide strategic advantages beyond raw numbers or technology.

But the story remains: China is catching up.

Drones, robots, and missiles

Meanwhile, when it comes to drones, robotics and missiles—technologies which are changing war as we know it—China is leading the way.

China is the biggest exporter of military drones in the world, and has now developed technologies that would put its most advanced drones close to or on par with the most advanced American drones, which cost multiple times more. It is also far ahead of the US in terms of developing and integrating drones into its armed forces.

The parade also showed off the world’s first combat-ready “loyal wingman” drone, capable of escorting fighter jets as independent support drones. The US is looking to field one this year. Another important development is the Jiu Tian drone carrier, a massive drone that can carry up to 100 smaller drones for up to 7,000 km.

In terms of smaller drones and drone components, which have played the most important part in changing the battlefield in the Ukraine war for instance, China sits on 80–90% of the world market. Here it is private companies, such as DJI, which are driving development. However, production, as in many other areas of industry, is directed for dual use.

In like manner, we now see a massive boom in robot production where China is now the second producer in the world after Japan. This has been accompanied with huge developments in robot adaptation in the People’s Liberation Army. Not only does China control the full-supply chain of these weapons, it also integrates them with the latest developments within AI and 5G, in which the country is also a world leader.

China also revealed a slate of new missiles, many of which are hypersonic. This means that they can travel more than five times the speed of sound. China has an undisputed lead in hypersonic missile technology with a variety of models in operation, while the US has only recently fielded its first such system. These missiles are very difficult to shoot down by air defenses and form a serious threat to American aircraft carriers and military bases in the region.

Another revelation was the DF-5C intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBM), which can travel at high speeds, has a range of 20,000 km (i.e. the entire globe), and can carry multiple nuclear warheads. The US relies on a single land-based ICBM, the Minuteman III, which has been in service since 1970. It has a range of over 6,000 miles and carries one nuclear warhead, though it has the capacity for more.

A recent paper in International Security, indicates that Chinese land-based missiles alone could take out 45% of American planes fielded in East Asia. That, to be sure, would be the best case scenario for the Americans, assuming their defenses and jamming capabilities are upgraded significantly.

Industrial base

The key to all of these advances do not lie in military technology, but in the general development of the Chinese economy. In the past ten years, the country has developed a whole series of advanced sectors such as AI, green technologies (EVs, solar, batteries), high-speed rail, robotics, 5G, AI biopharmaceuticals, and nuclear power. Advances in military technology are a reflection of these general advances of the Chinese economy.

They acquire a much higher significance when they are coupled with the sheer production capacity that the country has built. Let us continue in the same vein of shipbuilding. The American fleet of warships, while smaller in number of ships, has a water displacement capacity of 2,758,175 tons—displacement is a standard metric for naval fleets. The Chinese Navy is now the world’s number two with a displacement of 1,198,419 tons.

In these terms, the US Navy is more than twice as powerful as the Chinese one. But the picture starts to look very different when you consider that Chinese shipyards have approximately 230 times more capacity than American shipyards according to recent estimates, and that a large part of them are built for dual use: military and civilian.

Research by CSIS shows that from 2019 to 2023, four major Chinese shipyards produced 39 warships, displacing a combined 550,000 tons. In contrast, the UK’s Royal Navy has an estimated total displacement of about 399,000 tons. That is, in four years Chinese shipyards produced a greater tonnage of military vessels than the whole Royal Navy. These figures are remarkable. But they highlight something far more important, namely China’s vast capacity to replenish its losses, should it enter a war.

As we can see in the Ukraine war, in an actual military confrontation between industrial and military powers, it is precisely this industrial capacity, along with population size, which in the last analysis determines the outcome.

Combined and uneven development

China’s industrial base is able to grow at such rates because it enjoys what Trotsky called “the privilege of backwardness.” This means that societies with a low level of economic development can sometimes leapfrog certain growth stages by adopting modern technology, bypassing the arduous process that led to their original invention.

In like manner, old, more advanced countries are hampered by aging infrastructure and industries which lose their edge, but which are still profitable but costly to replace by new more advanced ones. Hence, over time, development slows down. This is the bottom line of the inertia that we are experiencing in western imperialism and which is leading to a major shift in the world situation.

After the Soviet Union was disbanded, US imperialism remained as the sole superpower on the planet. Russia was in a state of total economic collapse and China was still relatively economically backward. No power anywhere could challenge the US.

But in the following decades of general world economic boom, and on the basis of massive western investments, Chinese capitalism began to develop. So too did a host of smaller economies such as Turkey, Brazil, Indonesia, Russia, and other so-called emerging markets. This development was one of the key pillars of the world economic boom in the previous period. Western capital had found new markets for investment, goods were produced more cheaply to be sold in western markets, and the capitalists were all getting richer.

But the effect on western economies was corrosive: deindustrialization, further financialization and slowing productivity growth. Meanwhile, it prepared the path for a formidable competitor to rise in the East.

This is not the first time an old dependency takes on its former masters—after all, the US itself was once a colony of Britain. China has become an important economic and industrial power on the world stage and it is now raising a military machine to match this. In doing so, it is challenging US imperialism and hence also the world that was ordered around it.

Foreign Policy magazine drew a damning conclusion of the direction things are going:

To address the deteriorating military balance in East Asia, the United States could massively expand its presence there, yet there seems little prospect of it. China has been modernizing its military for over 30 years now, without a substantial US response. Why would we expect that to change now? And even if Washington could overcome its inertia, which Asian country would agree to host all these forces, and which would offer the US a guarantee that it would allow its territory to be used in a war against China?

 

Finally, if those barriers were overcome, China would almost certainly respond with increased military spending of its own. And as the military parade in Beijing reminded the world this week, an arms race would now play to Beijing’s strengths, not to Washington’s.

This has consequences. It is yet another sign that matters cannot continue the way they have since the collapse of the Soviet Union.

A new hegemon?

Is China the new world hegemon? No. There are no immediate prospects for this and it is not a part of the calculations of the Chinese ruling class. For one, it would have to challenge the US, which is still a formidable force. The latter is still militarily and economically far stronger than any other nation—and even it is unable to assert complete domination over the whole world in the way it did in the past.

Furthermore, it is not guaranteed at all that Chinese capitalism will follow the same trajectory as the US. For one, the US’ ascent coincided with the start of the postwar upswing—the most powerful economic upswing in world history. China’s ascent is coinciding with the start of the deepest crisis in capitalist history.

The enormous accumulation of overproduction in Chinese industry will go to the world market, as it looks for markets to offload its products. But in a shrinking world market, this will only accelerate the general crisis of the system in the long run. It is not excluded that China could cushion itself from the worst aspects of such a crisis, temporarily. But it will hamper the rate of expansion of Chinese capitalism.

China is not replacing the US. But its growth is displacing the old setup. In East Asia, there is no doubt that China is emerging as the dominant force, not only economically, but also militarily.

Likewise in Central Asia, Eastern Europe, Latin America, Africa and the Middle East, the growth of China is having a profound effect, such that the US is unable to play the dominant role it used to. Everywhere it is being challenged by new political forces and regional powers, who are often leaning on China, and to some extent Russia, as a counterweight. This is changing the entire edifice of world relations.

We are not talking about the dawn of a new era of peace and stability under a new leading force, but increasing turmoil and instability as different powers clash in the struggle for markets, raw materials, and spheres of influence. A struggle which is bound to be intensified by the crisis of world capitalism.

My enemies become friends

Those in the West who lamented the gathering in Beijing were merely expressing impotent rage at the new state of play. Donald Trump, as always, gave a more truthful expression of the sentiment amongst the American ruling class: “Please give my warmest regards to Vladimir Putin, and Kim Jong Un, as you conspire against The United States of America.” That sums up the situation quite well.

In the past, American might was such that its friends would fear stepping out of line, and if they did, mere threats would be enough to bring them to order. But the underlying balance of forces has changed. Thus, American bullying becomes its opposite. It pushes more and more nations into opposition and unites those, like China and India, who have otherwise had a tense relationship.

That was already clear when the US provoked the Ukraine war, pushing Russia and China to form a close detente. Biden’s push to strong arm the world into joining its sanctions on Russia also backfired, with the vast majority of countries refusing.

Over this past summer, we have seen Donald Trump attempting to force India to cut economic relations with Russia. India is an important ally of America against China, and Modi himself has had very warm personal relations with Trump.

But following Trump’s imposition of another 25 percent of punitive tariffs to pressure Modi to accept his request, the relationship appears to have soured significantly. Not only has India maintained its ties with Russia, there have been reports that Modi refused to receive four phone calls from Trump to even discuss the matter.

Instead, he appeared at the Shanghai Coordination Organization in Tianjin on August 31, just before the military parade, where, amongst other things, a host of measures were discussed to circumvent the American-dominated international financial system. This does not mean that India will cut ties with the US entirely, but the relationship has certainly been fraught, and China is benefitting.

With tentacles reaching every corner of the planet, enormous wealth has been channeled into the coffers of the American ruling class. Today, those tentacles have become the conduits for the crisis of the global capitalism system. In other words, the crisis of capitalism has become the crisis of US imperialism. Like a man stuck in quicksand, every move of US imperialism to extricate itself from its deteriorating position, all its attempts to turn back the clock and reestablish itself, only causes it to sink deeper into the morass.

Workers of the world, unite!

The reach of the US empire is unique. No nation has intervened, either by military, political, or economic means in more countries than the United States has in its history. Its ground forces are stationed in 750 military bases around the world, and its naval forces patrol the world’s oceans through hundreds of ships and nuclear armed submarines. With these forces, it has exercised an unchallenged “authoritarian” rule over the world since the fall of the Soviet Union.

The decline of US imperialism is rightfully celebrated by workers and youth all over the world. All the alarmist denunciations of the political regimes in China, Russia and elsewhere are merely to detract from their own crimes and to rally public opinion behind their attempt at maintaining their brutal world domination.

The slogan of the communists in the West therefore is clear: the main enemy is at home! No force is a bigger threat to the working class than US imperialism. We give no support to western interventions in other countries. Whether in China, Russia, India, or anywhere else, the liberation of the working class is the task of the working class itself. We, as communists in the West, will support its struggle by fighting to overthrow our own ruling classes, which have dominated, oppressed and bullied the world proletariat for almost a century.

At the same time, we have no illusions that the Chinese ruling class can somehow lead mankind to a better and more just world. In the last analysis, they represent the same system as the American ruling class: capitalism. Their “anti-imperialism” only goes as far as their own interests. Only the world working class, united under the banner of the world socialist revolution, can once and for all bring down the edifice of capitalism and with it, imperialism.