CHINA'S PEACEFUL RISE OR A NEW ERA OF CONFLICTS BETWEEN POWERS?

Abstract

In this article, we seek to explore the concrete coordinates in the dispute between the United States and China. We discuss the particularities of this conflict as a stage in the new rivalry between powers, within the framework of the exhaustion of the neoliberal cycle inherited from the Cold War. This conception provides a critical counterpoint to the thesis of supposedly benign multipolarity, according to which the hegemonic dispute in capitalism can take place without military and revolutionary upheavals, and which presents Xi Jinping's China as a progressive alternative to the violence of US imperialism. We maintain that the eventuality of an open conflict between the two nations, in the context of this rivalry between dissimilar capitalist powers, presents a retrograde picture for humanity, and does not show a progressive camp to defend. We point out, therefore, the importance of the class struggle as a factor in China, and the solidarity of its workers with the oppressed peoples of the world as an irreducible component for an independent way out of the policies pursued in Washington and Beijing.