“We are confronting the prospect of not just a new cold war, but a hot one,” writes Kevin Rudd, former Australian Prime Minister (Foreign Affairs, August 3). He warns war could break out soon, as Trump and Biden have hardened their stances against Chinese expansion.
“China is a sleeping lion. Let her sleep, for when she wakes, she will shake the world,” predicted Napoleon Bonaparte over 200 years ago.
In 1949, China did awake and shook the world in favor of the international working class. The communist-led Chinese Revolution liberated briefly one fifth of humanity from the yoke of Japanese and US-backed Chinese capitalism.
Following the line of the international movement, the Chinese Communist Party established “New Democracy” and later socialism (state capitalism) instead of communism. This allowed a new Chinese capitalist-imperialist ruling class to rise which today challenges US imperialism for world domination.
This conflict validates US Navy Admiral Mahan’s prophesy over a century ago: “This [Indian Ocean] is the key to the seven seas. In the 21st century, the destiny of the world will be decided on its waters.”
This is what the US-China conflict over the South China Sea (SCS) is about. Humanity’s destiny will be decided by one capitalist-imperialist or another as long as capitalism rules the world.
To take our destiny in our hands we must destroy this murderous racist system by mobilizing the masses to fight directly for communism. Communism will eliminate the wage system and transform social relations, enabling us to build a world without capitalists-imperialists, their money, racism, sexism, borders or nations.
US-China Conflict: Is World War Inevitable? Yes — as long as the world’s main contradiction is inter-imperialist rivalry. China wants to expel the US Navy from the SCS and control the strategic Indian Ocean.
US imperialists’ world domination has long been predicated on their Navy’s mastery of the oceans. They won’t give up their throne without a fight.
The conflict is approaching a boiling point because China has advanced tremendously militarily. It has built the world’s largest modern navy. It can now deny the US Navy access to the SCS.
More alarming to US imperialists, China has expanded its amphibious assault forces to challenge the US for control of the Indian Ocean and beyond. These are small aircraft carriers with their battle groups. They carry Chinese marines with all their supporting weapons. They could be deployed at strategic “commercial” ports China is building. Thus, they would have unimpeded access to all oceans – freed from the SCS where the US controls, at the first island chain, all routes to the Pacific Ocean.
But China would still have a problem. 60% of its import-export goods and 80% of its imported oil must travel through the SCS and the Malacca Strait. War could disrupt this indefinitely, paralyzing both its industry and military.
Thus, China is investing $400 billion in Iran’s oil industry. Most oil will flow through Kazakhstan’s pipelines directly by land to China, bypassing the Malacca Strait.
China is investing another $228 billion for high speed rails to connect its Xinjiang province to Tehran, Iraq, Turkey, and Europe. This railroad and the freight train connecting East China to London will keep China’s import-export goods flowing— war or no war.
Will an Outmaneuvered US Go to War Sooner Rather than Later? Yes! The US can’t wait until China gets all its ducks in a row. By then, it will be fighting a losing battle. But, to go to war US imperialists need two important things: a coalition of the “willing” countries and US workers to fight to make “America Great Again!”
US bosses are in trouble on both counts. Europe, led by Germany, is distancing itself from the US. Russia is allying with China. The South Asian countries needed to trap China in the SCS rejected US Secretary of State Pompeo’s August 7th call to form an anti-China coalition.
Most crucial: US rulers are losing their ideological control over the US masses. The economic crisis, the uncontrolled pandemic and the vicious racist fascist murder of George Floyd have mobilized millions in the US, even worldwide. Among the masses in motion, many are questioning capitalism, and many are open to communism.
This is forcing the US rulers to resort to both fascist tactics and pushing reform and elections. Neither in the US, nor in Russia nor China is there evidence that patriotic workers and youth are ready to fight and die for imperialism.
Ideology is Primary The masses’ ideology must be communist. Their response to Red Flag shows many are open to communism. We must intensify our efforts among the crucial sectors of the youth, industrial workers, and rank-and-file soldiers to turn this potential for revolution into the actual.
It would change the main contradiction in the world to be communism versus capitalism. Only masses mobilizing for communism can stop World War III.
We have a world to win: a world where uncontrolled pandemics and wars will be a distant memory. Victory shall be ours!
Read our pamphlet:
Soldiers, Sailors, Marines: Crucial to a Communist Workers’ Revolution
Available here