The IMF and Chinese Imperialism

Workers have gone on strike at 130 factories in China so far this year. That’s triple the number for all of 2022. Most are in factories that make electronic devices for export. (Pictured is a Foxconn strike last December). The rest are mainly in the garment, toy, and automotive industries.  The main issue is money. Many factory managers respond to a business slowdown by finding ways to avoid paying workers. Just as in El Salvador, South Africa, and other places. Late paychecks. Layoffs (redundancies) with no severance pay. Finding loopholes in labor laws. As in the US, Chinese bosses call workers “independent contractors.”  The capitalists who run China call themselves “communists.” But one day, masses of workers led by real communists will overthrow them and their money system. And build real communism. 

Down With the Money System! Defeat All Imperialists!

“In decades past, the International Monetary Fund was the only source of cash for nations that struggled to pay their bills. China has since emerged as a major lender for countries from Asia to Africa to Latin America” – New York Times, June 26, 2023

The US created the IMF after World War II and still dominates it. But Chinese capitalists now play a growing role. The struggle between US and Chinese imperialists is sharpening within the IMF as well as in the South China Sea.

They fight over which will suck more blood from the international working class.  But both China and the US, through the IMF, are fully complicit in IMF attacks on workers worldwide.  And the IMF cannot keep functioning as it has for 80 years as a front for US imperialism.

We need to get rid of all Imperialists.

China? Imperialist?

After 1949, the Chinese Communist Party fought over the “capitalist road” versus the “communist road.” By 1978, capitalists had won.

Industrial capitalism boomed.  State-run monopolies cornered domestic markets.  Industrial capital linked with finance capital (banks). Huge amounts of workers’ stolen labor piled up.  Opportunities to invest profitably within China shrank. Chinese capitalists looked overseas.

First, direct investments in factories and mines.  Then investments in infrastructure (the “Belt and Road Initiative”).  Now loans to governments overwhelmed with debt.

Chinese imperialists currently have the world’s largest standing army and navy. They have the second-largest active combat aircraft fleet.

This is typical imperialist development. Newer Chinese imperialism is “rising” to challenge older US imperialism. Both are deadly for our international working class.

This conflict can’t be resolved without war. It’s either imperialist war for profits, or workers’ revolution for communism.

IMF: Unity and Struggle of Opposites Creates Global Instability

Pakistani capitalists asked Chinese, Saudi, and Emirati capitalists for loans in 2018. Only then did they negotiate with the IMF. They have since borrowed $billions from China. Mainly this is for infrastructure. And $billions more from the IMF. This is mainly to pay interest on previous debt. The masses pay for this with cuts in subsidies and services, higher prices and unemployment and taxes.

Suriname is one of many nations squeezed by the war in Ukraine, the pandemic, and the rulers’ greed.  Its currency tanked. Prices soared. Its economy almost collapsed.  It was at the mercy of imperialist loan sharks.

The IMF demanded drastic budget cuts in return for new loans to make interest payments on previous Chinese infrastructure loans.  But it also demanded that Chinese banks restructure those loans.

Suriname – like many other countries — was caught between rival imperialists.

The Chinese yuan has been an IMF reserve currency since 2016.  Many Chinese bank loans go through the IMF.  That’s why the US can use the IMF to make demands on China. But that also makes the IMF itself a battleground.

Almost every country belongs to the IMF. Their voting power depends on the “quota” each pays.  For example, El Salvador has 0.09% of the votes.

The US has the largest share: 16.5%.  It can block votes on important changes, which require 85% agreement.  Japan, with 6.47% of the votes, is next.  The major European Union countries together have about 12%.  The US and its closest allies can block other votes requiring 70% agreement.

China, with 6.08%, has the third-largest share.  The BRICS bloc (Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa) has altogether 14.15%. That’s almost veto power.  Indonesia (0.98%) or a few smaller countries could make the difference.

The IMF quotes Harvard’s Jeffrey Sachs: “The situation is out of hand…It defies logic to believe the small group of 1,000 economists in Washington should dictate the economic conditions of life to 75 developing countries with around 1.4 billion people.” 

It’s Time for Communism

No capitalists should dictate the conditions of life of billions around the world.  But every country on earth today is a capitalist dictatorship. No matter if it is “authoritarian” or “democratic” or calls itself “communist.”

We can and must change that.  We can’t live the way things are now.  And the climate crisis, the economic crisis, and widening wars are rapidly making things worse.

A real communist society will have no dollars, no yuan, no money at all.    No imperialists, no loan sharks.  Communism won’t need loans to rebuild our new society on the ashes of the old.  We’ll need our collectively organized labor.

Our labor creates everything of value.  In communism we’ll produce and share everything we need. Read this paper carefully to learn more about how the International Communist Workers’ Party organizes to mobilize masses for communism today.  Ask questions. Discuss it with friends. Help make ICWP massive enough, in enough places, to lead the communist revolution we need.  As soon as possible!

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