One of the characteristics of the contemporary world is the sharp competition between the economies of the United States and China, that has been taking place for the last 30 years, and which is also expressed in the political, diplomatic field, but points to a direct military clash not only between these two countries and the blocs of allies of each one, but on the plane of a generalized war, a new world war. Many of the outbreaks of war underway today are a result of this.

Understanding the class character of this conflict is crucial for the workers and peoples, and of course for the international communist movement, which faces a set of difficulties arising from weaknesses, distortions, and theoretical confusions, especially on the question of imperialism.

And we are not thinking only of ideological positions alien to Marxism-Leninism and the communist movement, but of positions that emerged from it, that deform it, turn it into dogma, and promote political lines different from the interests of the working class and peoples, in a very dangerous and unacceptable way.

We are referring to the question of associating imperialism exclusively with the United States, from which other ideological problems and very serious errors of strategy derive. This has nothing to do at all with Lenin's development of Marxism based on the analysis of the transition from capitalism of free competition to capitalism of monopolies, where a new stage is founded for the whole capitalist mode of production, the phase of imperialism, with its characteristics, a phase not for a country or group of countries, but for the entire capitalist system. Imperialism for Marxism-Leninism is not the designation of new empires, a new classification of powerful nations, or the assignment of that role to any particular one, but to point out how capitalism in all countries changed into monopoly capitalism.

Capitalism has uneven development [1], but it is no longer based on free competition, since concentration and centralization have led to monopoly and this is a general feature that has been going on for more than a century, in which nothing remains static, there are constant movements. To make this clear, the Marxist-Leninist theory of imperialism does not seek to describe a geopolitical situation, with dominant centers and dependent oppressed peripheries, but to explain the highest and final stage of capitalism, of the capitalist mode of production as a whole.

A group of economists and theoreticians of the petty bourgeoisie have argued that the issue of imperialism is center/periphery, north/south, and they make dependence an unchangeable absolute value; this has filtered into some sectors of the communist movement that have gradually been replacing Marxism-Leninism and assuming unscientific positions, which is notable in their theoretical publications, their editorial policy, and the educational materials for their cadres, in their strategy, tactics, and political action. Instead of the analysis of each capitalist country within the imperialist system, of the constant movements where some improve their position to the detriment of others – which increases inter-imperialist antagonisms – they incessantly repeat the simplistic formulations of a super-powerful country, of an empire, thus moving away from the class criterion to superimpose the criterion of the national question and interclassism. And so, anti-imperialism understood as the struggle against contemporary capitalism, beginning with the struggle against capitalism in each country, is confined to anti-Americanism.

The United States in the imperialist system has been practically, since the end of the Second World War, the country that occupies the dominant position [2], and its policies of aggression and war, which have increased in recent months, we do not dismiss them, we take them into account, we denounce them and we oppose them [3], but it would be an absolute mistake to whitewash its main rival which is the Chinese economy and consider that the bloc of capitalist countries that it heads can be an ally of the workers and the peoples. The dominant position of the United States has been questioned in the last quarter century by the rise of China, and according to different analyses, continuing a peaceful development of the world situation, it would be on the eve of displacing it from that position.

From one error arises another: anti-imperialism as anti-Americanism leads to the strategic line of alliances with capitalist states, bourgeois forces, social democrats, support for projects and alliances of capitalist states different from or antagonistic to the US imperialist center. Thus, in the last 15 years, multipolarity has been promoted as an alternative choice to unipolarity, that is, the domination of the US in the imperialist system, although multipolarity would not be a break with imperialism, but its continuity by establishing another capitalist state in the dominant position. Years ago, we expressed it: it is not a clash between two worlds, the outdated world of capitalism versus the new world of socialism, but the inter-imperialist clash of two blocs of capitalist countries. The project of multipolarity itself is an alliance, the BRICS, of emerging capitalist countries, and analyzing each of its members we find that they are capitalist states, all of them among the main economies of imperialism, part of the G-20 and other capitalist inter-state alliances.

Multipolarity with its correcting positions of an outdated capitalism (alternative banks, new financial systems, end of the dollar and replacement by a new currency, new economic, political, military alliances, etc.) is considered an anti-imperialist tendency by considerable parts of the international communist movement that have even trampled on the principle of proletarian internationalism by supporting the imperialist war between Russia and Ukraine. But we insist, each of its components is a capitalist economy where the exploitation of wage labor rules, the private appropriation of socially produced wealth, flourishing monopolies, the export of capital, and the interests of accumulation, the tendency to war.

The opportunist currents argue something else, that is, in addition to being an anti-imperialist front, the participation of Russia and China is a guarantee in favor of peoples. The crude set-up of the ruling class in Russia to appropriate the heritage of socialist construction and its victories only surprises children who watch Red Square stagings of Red Army parades, designed by those who contributed to the temporary overthrow of the USSR and socialism in 1991, where Putin and others openly collaborated with Yeltsin, yet that is not what we want to refer to, but rather the place of Russia, whether it expresses a position in favor of the workers and peoples or strictly represents the interests of its monopolies. It seems to us that there is no one who denies its capitalist character [4], but it comes back to the point that there are capitalist countries that would not be in the highest and last phase, that would not be part of the imperialist system and that would be "anti-imperialist". By raising the possibility of capitalist countries being allies, of some bourgeoisies being allies against others, capitalism is absolved in general, although in particular it faces some ways of managing it; in the case of communists, such a policy is not only a serious mistake, but the abjuration of cardinal principles that are not negotiable, a tragedy, like what is happening in the current inter-imperialist conflicts, with the alignment of communist parties supporting one side of imperialism, that of multipolarity, attacking strikes and proletarian struggles, and demanding their cancellation, for example, in Kazakhstan, so as not to harm the "multipolar anti-imperialist initiative of the Belt and Road"; a decadence that only has resemblance to the decomposition of the Second International.

The last big argument is that China is a socialist country. Yes, in China, under the influence of the October Revolution and the activity of the Communist International, a communist party was created that for many years heroically fulfilled its role as the revolutionary party of the working class, that despite many mistakes and under favorable international conditions was able to conquer power in 1949, but that under the disastrous theory of the primacy of national specificities was distancing itself from general laws of socialist construction, until in the late 1970s, Deng Xiaoping, then president of the Central Military Commission of the CCP, put forward the thesis of market socialism, the unprincipled pragmatic policy of "one country, two systems", and special economic zones embarked on an economic and political course of promoting and encouraging market relations, which have been making their way, imposing and consolidating.

The implementation of this policy by the leadership of the CP of China led to a shift in the first years from collective work in the countryside to the hiring of agricultural workers and land rent, to the disappearance of communes and the establishment of agricultural trade based on private property and the constant deregulation of agricultural prices to the point that mercantilism prevails in this area today; State ownership of land was displaced and in 2007 it opened the way for peasants to sell or lease their land to the point that today it is dominated by private companies.

The door was opened to foreign capital, the SEZs, and a reform for the autonomy of state-owned enterprises was promoted that generated the conditions for privatization, and as the market advanced, planning was reduced.

During the 1980s, the policy of permanent employment in state enterprises was abandoned and the possibility of dismissal of workers was authorized, and a process of privatization of public enterprises began, which accelerated in the 90s and early 2000s under the slogan "grab the big, let go of the small", thousands of companies were privatized and the State only retained some key companies such as: financial services, telecommunications, energy and transport. These companies have merged to create large state monopolies with ample power, a large part of their profits are used in the reinvestment of these state enterprises. 

By 2001 China joined the World Trade Organization and in 2005 the GDP of private companies surpassed the GDP of companies under state property. In 1983 foreign direct investment amounted to 2.3 billion dollars, by 1997 it was already 45.3 billion dollars, in 2013 it reached its historical peak with 290 billion dollars, and in constant growth.

But capital investment not only allowed the establishment, growth, and profit of foreign capitalist companies, at the same time, the elements were created for a bourgeoisie of their own to begin their rapid growth. [5]

In China, the number of billionaires is growing rapidly and is already second only to the United States. [6] It is true that during the last decades China has managed to lift a large number of its population out of poverty, but at the same time inequality within society has grown; in China there is a bourgeoisie that expands and enriches itself rapidly and that acts – like all bourgeoisie – in the search for maximum profit. A report by Xinhua, China's news agency, reports this:

"The number of Chinese private enterprises has quadrupled in the past decade amid efforts to optimize the business environment, the country's top economic planner said Tuesday.

China's private enterprises rose from 10.85 million in 2012 to 44.57 million last year, Su Wei, deputy secretary-general of the National Development and Reform Commission, said at a press conference.

Su attributed the expansion of private enterprises to the improved business environment for the non-public sector, as the country has vigorously pushed forward the development of various economic entities during the decade.

The private sector contributes more than 50% of tax revenues, more than 60% of GDP, and more than 70% of technological innovations. It also provides more than 80 percent of urban employment and accounts for more than 90 percent of market entities in China." [7]

Before the reforms, 80% of workers were in public companies, and currently only 9% [8]; The vast majority of Chinese workers sell their labor power subject to capitalist commodity laws, subordinated to the law of capitalist accumulation.

The reforms have borne fruit, a functional market has been achieved that is inserted in the world capitalist market and that acts under the same parameters, seeking to maximize its profits. China is not a weak economy with a low development in its productive forces, China is the second largest economy in relation to GDP, only surpassed by the US and by the flow of FDI received it is positioned only behind the US.

Even more important is the data on Chinese capital investments abroad, as it reflects the ability to compete not only in the production of goods but also in the export of capital.

China's growth is not that of a socialist economy at all, but that of a capitalist economy. In China, capitalist relations predominate, since market socialism is objectively a path of capitalist development. And it is on the characteristics of this economic development that China's foreign policy is based, its place in the world, in the international economy, with which it displaced Japan and Germany, positioning itself as the second economic power, on the rise and in the prospect of displacing the US from its primacy in the imperialist system. "Socialism with Chinese characteristics" in the international arena operates, in fact, as state capitalism, where state-owned enterprises act as agents of capitalist accumulation on a global scale.

In the competition within the imperialist system, China has been articulating alliances with other capitalist states, in addition to being integrated into imperialist mechanisms such as the WTO, G-20. It promotes a plan of economic and commercial expansion that is The New Silk Road and The Belt and Road that involves three continents. In the export of capital, an essential characteristic of the imperialist phase of capitalism, China has a preponderant role, not only as an exporter, since it became the main trading partner of almost 70% of the countries in the world, displacing the United States [9]. Under the façade of a development bank, covered as a fraternal friend of peoples that donates and exchanges services, there is an accelerated process of capital export and extraction of the surplus value of the international working class, with a specialization in the control of high-tech companies, logistics, control over energy and key minerals. In Asia, China is the main issuer of capital, in Africa it has largely displaced the US in the commercial sphere and controls mining and rare earths through investments and loans.

We made this brief tour to expose the class character of the Chinese economy and its corresponding domestic and foreign policy. It is evident that it is a highly developed capitalist country, in fierce competition with the US, and one of its settings of confrontation is Latin America, an international competition under the Law of capitalist accumulation.

We therefore rule out that China's economic presence has anything to do with the development of socialism; placing, for example, the economic presence of the USSR as one of cooperation with peoples, supporting development and in conditions of mutual benefit among those involved, the best expression being the case of Cuba; China's logic is the profit and expansion of its economy and infrastructure, as well as the control of resources, routes, and markets.

Until 1990 the Chinese presence in the region was minimal and although it began to grow, it was not until the beginning of the 21st century that it took a leap. China's economic exchange with Latin America exceeds 500 billion dollars in 2025, this is 35 times more than in 2000. It is already above the US as an economic partner in Brazil, Peru, Chile and Uruguay. Brazil, for example, sends 28% of its exports to China, while 13% to the US. The increasing Chinese investments are growing. The growth of exports in the last twenty years has been 1100% and Latin American imports to the country by 1400%. [10]

Loans from Chinese banks also grew and important infrastructure works were being developed, such as the port of Chankay [11] in Peru, managed by the Cosco monopoly, as well as investments aimed at being decisive in the Panama Canal. They have deployed very strong investments in the automotive, renewable energy, artificial intelligence, mining and telecommunications industries. They are in charge of railway projects, road, and bridge construction.

This boom in capital exports has had three phases. 

Phase 1: Acquisition of resources (2000-2009)

- Annual flows grew, and by 2000 there was an accumulated investment of around 500 million dollars; this rose to 7,330 million dollars in 2009. [12]

- Focus on securing raw materials for China's industrialization

- Acceleration after the 2008 financial crisis

Phase 2: Infrastructure boom (2010-2019)

- In 2010, investment reached 15 billion dollars and was sustained during the whole decade in a range between 8 billion and 15.979 billion dollars, reaching its peak in 2016.

- Integration of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) from 2018 [13]

Phase 3: Green technology and diversification (2020-2024)

- Recovery from the COVID-19 crash (USD 650M in 2020)

- Shift to renewables, electric vehicles, and critical minerals

- Resurgence 2023-2024 with focus on lithium and solar energy

Chinese capital in Latin America shows a trajectory marked by the step from the search for raw resources towards investments in infrastructure and, most recently, in technological and strategic sectors. This pattern permits the identification of general traits of its regional behavior. Nevertheless, the case requires deeper study.

Since the 2000s, and particularly since 2010, China has become a net exporter of capital. The data show exponential growth: from 12.261 billion dollars in 2005 to more than 170 billion in 2016, positioning itself as the second world source of FDI after the United States. Starting in 2016, these flows began to contract. [14] Between 2020 and 2024, they remained at levels between 150 and 160 billion dollars per year. In Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC), Chinese FDI has shown patterns consistent with capital exports. 

A. Pursuit of superior profitability

Investments are concentrated in extractive sectors (mining, oil, soybeans) and infrastructure. Flows privilege Brazil and Peru (approximately 75% of the regional total). Growth in infrastructure provision by Chinese firms has "more than tripled as a proportion of LAC's GDP" over the past decade.

B. Capital surplus and overcapacity

The "excess of over accumulated capital pushed China to initiate a policy of capital exports". The particular origin of this capital arises from sectors such as construction, steel and energy. Evidence shows that China is carrying out capital exports as a response to domestic overaccumulation, the search for cheap raw materials, and the creation of spheres of economic influence.

Competition for Markets

Chinese companies compete aggressively with Western capital for projects in Latin America and the Caribbean, resorting to concessional financing (loans from the China Development Bank, China Exim Bank) that seek to secure natural resource flows.

Search for raw materials

China's Policy document towards Latin America and the Caribbean (2008) explicitly points to the region as a "provider of vital resources for China's domestic development" Implicit conditionality: Chinese infrastructure projects (roads, railways, dams) are designed to facilitate resource extraction, not to integrate local production chains, the intention of hegemonizing control of rare earths, of critical minerals. [15]

Chinese capital competes with each other and with Western companies for projects in the region. Investments seek rates of return comparable to international capital, not the satisfaction of planned social needs. China uses financial mechanisms typical of the imperialist system: concessional loans that generate debt dependence, Contract conditionalities: Chinese projects require contractors and Chinese labor, limiting technology transfer, Latin American states assume risks while Chinese companies ensure profitability.

Although the US still has a majority presence in the continental economy, it is clearly affected by the rise of Chinese capital in the world and in the region. This intensifies the clash between these two capitalist economies.

During Donald Trump's first term in office, which championed the protectionist management of capitalism, the first manifestations of a more intense clash between these two rivals appeared. The North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) used by Chinese capital as a platform to dominate the auto parts market of the North American auto industry leads the large assembly companies, the North American automotive monopolies, to propose to Trump to put a stop, so his administration therefore imposes a renegotiation, with which not only comes a new name to that capitalist interstate agreement in North America, but also the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA/T-MEC) closes windows to Chinese dumping on U.S. automakers. Once the new version of the Treaty is approved, the then social democratic president of Mexico, López Obrador, expressed with total frankness that it is a new agreement to economically defeat Chinese capital. [16]

In the United States, the political alternation between Democrats and Republicans did not mean any change. Joe Biden's policy towards China showed a clear continuity with respect to Donald Trump's first term. He maintained much of the tariffs imposed during the trade war started in 2018, the strengthening of technological restrictions against Chinese companies, particularly in sectors such as semiconductors, artificial intelligence, and telecommunications, both administrations promoted measures aimed at reinforcing U.S. capacity in the face of China's economic rise. But it is in this second term of Trump where competition sharpens.

The White House contributes to altering the correlation of forces with various economic, political and military measures. The first were tariff measures, which have been working in relation to the Mexican government by making it adopt different measures to contain the presence of Chinese capital, but which have not worked in relation to China, which also announced tariffs on the US; there is also a process to diminish progressive processes, processes – with the exception of Mexican social democracy – that have been functional to the increase in Chinese capital in the region; new reactionary governments adopt measures to slow down the Chinese dynamic, for example in Peru, by proposing new measures in relation to the port of Chankay, in Panama to reverse the Chinese presence in the management of the canal, and militarily with the presence of a large fleet in the Caribbean, under the pretext of the fight against drug trafficking.

This shows, moreover, that different social-democratic administrations promoted policies favorable to one side or the other without developing an independent policy that expressed an anti-imperialism beyond discourse.

Last December, through the proclamation of the New National Security Doctrine, they presented their comprehensive strategy for confrontation with China in all fields. In it, they present as their objective continental hegemony to "reverse the continuous damage that foreign actors inflict on the U.S. economy", and at another point it establishes the "reindustrialization of the U.S. economy to control its own supply chains and production capacities. [17] These and other objectives are sought to be achieved by various means, but also through the use of military force.

It is in this context that the events of January 3 in Venezuela are understood: to dislodge the social democracy akin to the relationship with China and replace it with a collaborationist government emanating from the ranks of that same political option. From that moment on, the United States began to have total control of Venezuelan oil and its production. This, of course, is connected to the war they have unleashed against Iran.

As part of this U.S. offensive, threats against Cuba have increased, as well as measures for its energy asphyxiation, and announcements of military aggression.

It is too early to be sure in this competition between these two capitalist economies which will end up prevailing, since Chinese capital has nested enough and uprooting it will not be easy, since they have also forged a network of allied bourgeoisies, some of them in government. What is certain is that in this competition the peoples are simple pieces of exchange, which are of no interest to any of these capitalist powers.

The opportunism that is predominant in the communist movement in Latin America under the orientation of anti-Americanism views with sympathy and supports the expansion of Chinese capital in the region and is one more reason for its subordinate alliance with Latin American social democracy, progressivism. This tendency regularly participates in meetings with the CP of China, assumes the platform of multipolarity, of "market socialism".

For us it is clear that within this dispute the interests of the peoples and workers matter little, and that it is essential to carry out the struggle independently of them and against them, pointing out their responsibilities, and seeking firmness in the class criteria at times like the present one.

The class criterion is the only guarantee that the anti-imperialist struggle does not end up absolving one or the other in this inter-imperialist conflict, and on this basis, the communists must intensify their efforts, the ideological and political struggle, strengthen the conflict with the bourgeoisies in their countries with a strategy that brings together forces for the overthrow of capitalism, for the new socialist society.

The insatiable hunger for profit of the bourgeoisie is driving the world to a breaking point. The dispute among capitalist powers to determine who will take preeminence in the world imperialist system sharpens the fierce competition. But imperialism, the higher stage of capitalism, is also the antechamber of the socialist revolution. In the most recent period, the dispute over Latin America has intensified. In response to the advance of Chinese capital in the region, the United States has responded with the deployment of an aggressive policy; however, the advance of Chinese capital will not yield positions without a fight. Both the 'multipolar' world and the 'free world,' presented by the coryphaei and maenads of the bourgeoisie as ways to ensure peace among peoples, are nothing more than paths to place workers on the side of one or another imperialist pole. They are the path of renunciation of the independence of the labor movement and of the struggle for the revolution. The duty of communists is to organize the proletariat and popular sectors to achieve the overthrow of capitalism and the emergence of socialism-communism. To reach this goal, it is necessary to redouble the work by denouncing opportunistic positions that try to present Chinese capital as an option for the people, that seek to install the idea that China is part of an 'anti-imperialist axis' and that its stance leads to a more just multipolar world for peoples.