New Cold War Archives - Friends of Socialist China

US Defense Secretary Hegseth wants to overthrow China’s government, in ‘crusade’ against left (and Islam)

In the following article on Geopolitical Economy, Ben Norton exposes the extreme anti-China views of US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth.

Ben notes that, in his 2020 book American Crusade: Our Fight to Stay Free, Hegseth describes the Chinese as “literally the villains of our generation” and warns: “If we don’t stand up to communist China now, we will be standing for the Chinese anthem someday”.

This anti-China sentiment is not restricted to the past. “As defense secretary, Pete Hegseth has pushed for extremely aggressive policies against Beijing”, commenting just this month on Fox News that the United States is prepared to go to war with China. He calls for the US to stop trading with China and to do everything within its power to stop China’s rise.

These alarming views are combined with flagrant islamophobia, misogyny and homophobia.

Hegseth is not the only China hawk in Trump’s cabinet. As we have noted previously, “Marco Rubio is an anti-China fanatic, who stands for more tariffs, more sanctions, more slander, more support for Taiwanese separatism, more provocations in the South China Sea, and more destabilisation in Hong Kong and Xinjiang. Mike Waltz has long pushed for closer military cooperation with India, Japan, Australia and other countries in the region in preparation for war against China.”

Increasingly, there is consensus within US policy circles in favour of an escalation of the campaign to encircle and contain China. Progressive and anti-war movements in the West must resist this dangerous trajectory.

US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth is a self-declared “crusader” who believes the United States is in a “holy war” against the left, China, and Islam.

In his 2020 book American Crusade: Our Fight to Stay Free, Hegseth vowed that, if Trump could return to the White House and Republicans could take power, “Communist China will fall—and lick its wounds for another two hundred years”.

Hegseth declared that the Chinese “are literally the villains of our generation”, and warned, “If we don’t stand up to communist China now, we will be standing for the Chinese anthem someday”.

In Hegseth’s conspiratorial worldview, Chinese communists and the international left are conspiring with Islamists against the United States and Israel, which are sacred countries blessed by God.

Under Trump’s leadership, Hegseth promised, “Israel and America will form an even tighter bond, fighting the scourge of Islamism and international leftism that will never fully abate”.

“Islamists will never get a nuclear weapon but will be preemptively bombed back to the 700s when they try”, he added.

In the book, Hegseth heaped praise upon the medieval Crusaders, and he argued that Western conservatives in the 21st century should continue the holy war they started a millennium ago.

One of his chapters is titled “Make the Crusade Great Again”.

On the first page of the book, Hegseth proudly said his “American crusade” is a “holy war”, and he insisted that leftists are not “mere political opponents. We are foes. Either we win, or they win—we agree on nothing else”.

Hegseth also stated with certainty that there will soon be a civil war in the United States, between the right and left.

TikTok and the threat to cultural hegemony

The following article by Carlos Martinez responds to a recent article in The Times complaining about TikTok users not being sufficiently anti-China. The only explanation the Times journalist can muster is that TikTok’s algorithms must be weighted to promote pro-CPC content.

Carlos observes that TikTok users are predominantly young, and posits that young people are less vulnerable to anti-China hysteria than older generations – at least in part due to China’s leading role in the battle against climate breakdown; its concerted efforts to reduce poverty and improve living standards; and its orientation towards peace, which contrasts starkly with the West’s orientation towards war.

Carlos concludes that imperialist cultural hegemony is under threat:

Throughout the Western world, people are learning to question and reject the crass propaganda pumped out by the mainstream media’s State Department stenographers in relation to Palestine, China, Russia, Cuba, Venezuela, Nicaragua, Iran, the DPRK and more. This is an entirely welcome development.

A recent article in The Times, entitled Why TikTok ‘makes people more eager to visit China’, worries that “people who spend hours scrolling on TikTok are more likely to want to visit China — possibly because the platform censors material that portrays the country in a negative light”. The article’s author is particularly concerned that TikTok users might “see an airbrushed view of China and its human rights record”.

Researchers found that, horrifyingly, users searching on TikTok for terms such as “Tiananmen” or “Tibet” were exposed to a significant number of results that failed to denounce the Communist Party of China. Indeed, it seems that heavy TikTok users typically rate China’s human rights record as “medium”, whereas non-TikTok users rate it as “poor”.

Lee Jussim, a co-author of the research on which the Times article is based, said: “We did the studies because there was ample reason long before our studies to suspect CCP manipulation of TikTok. It’s one thing to suspect, it’s quite another to find it empirically.” He concludes: “Social media companies should be required to publicly disclose how their algorithms determine what content users can access.”

Imperialist propaganda losing its impact?

Edward Herman and Noam Chomsky’s classic 1988 work Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media explores the connection between the economic interests of the ruling class and the ideas that are communicated via mass media: “The media serve, and propagandise on behalf of, the powerful societal interests that control and finance them. The representatives of these interests have important agendas and principles that they want to advance, and they are well positioned to shape and constrain media policy.”

Western media hostility to China has reached fever pitch in recent years. The accusation that China is committing a genocide (or “cultural genocide”) in Xinjiang has been repeated so often as to acquire the force of truth, in spite of the notable absence of any meaningful evidence in its support. Rioters in Hong Kong are presented as saintly defenders of democratic principles. Chinese weather balloons, kettles and smart TVs are all spying on us, and inscrutable Chinese scientists are sending our secrets directly to the People’s Liberation Army.

Fu Manchu is back, and this time he wants to take our freedoms away.

In Britain as in the US, the bourgeoisie is divided on many issues, but there is a clear consensus when it comes to waging a propaganda war on China. And yet it seems that anti-China propaganda is losing its impact, particularly among young people.

The statistical categories presented by the authors of the research are “those who don’t use TikTok” and “those who spent more than three hours a day on the platform”. Age is fairly obviously a confounding variable here: a significant majority of TikTok users are under 30, and only 27 percent are over the age of 45. Young adults (18-24 years) make up over half of TikTok content creators.

So inasmuch as we can derive anything useful from the research, it’s that younger generations are less invested than their grandparents in idiotic Cold War narratives. That may be partly a reflection of the fact that TikTok’s algorithms – in flagrant violation of the well-known and universal rules of social media – don’t actively boost anti-China content and suppress pro-China content. But it also speaks to the genuine concerns and interests of young people.

For example, surveys consistently show that young people are more worried about the prospect of climate breakdown and are more likely to consider the environmental crisis as an existential threat to humanity. As such, they might be expected to welcome the news that China will account for 60 percent of all renewable energy capacity installed worldwide between now and 2030 (according to the International Energy Agency); that China has likely already reached its 2030 goal of peaking carbon emissions; that China is fast phasing out fossil fuel vehicles; that China leads the world in afforestation and biodiversity protection; and that China’s investment in renewables has led to a 80 percent reduction in the cost of solar and wind energy globally.

Furthermore, young people are notorious for having a curious predilection for peace, and perhaps many of them are impressed by the fact that China hasn’t been to war in over four decades; that it has one overseas military base, compared to the US’s 800; that it has a consistent policy of no first use of nuclear weapons, while the US has a consistent policy of nuclear bullying; that it has worked diligently towards peace in Gaza and Ukraine, while the US has been financing, arming and promoting genocide and war.

While TikTok doesn’t actively suppress negative stories about China, what makes it unique among major social media apps is that it also doesn’t suppress positive stories about China. Users are exposed to a variety of voices, including those who highlight China’s extraordinary development, its contributions to climate change solutions, its successes tackling poverty, and its appeal as a travel destination.

Statement: Say no to Trump’s tariffs and anti-China policy

The following statement has been issued by the Friends of Socialist China US Committee in response to the Trump administration’s announcement of new tariffs on Chinese imports.

The Trump administration’s decision to slap additional tariffs on the People’s Republic of China is something that should be condemned by every person who cares about peace and progress. These moves are making the world a more dangerous place and are part of a larger anti-China policy being pursued by the Trump administration – a policy begun under the Obama administration and deepened during the Biden administration.

These tariffs are in effect a tax on working people here in the United States and will result in rising prices for our necessities and wants. They will have no impact whatsoever on the lifestyles of the billionaires. Indeed, the money raised from increased prices will be used to fund the Trump regime’s tax cuts for the super-rich. Furthermore, these tariffs will harm the U.S. economy more than China’s. People’s China has a more diversified economy, more trading partners, and a greater share of world trade.

To quote Mao Zedong, “Lifting a rock only to drop it on one’s own feet is a Chinese folk saying to describe the behavior of certain fools.” This certainly applies to Trump and his wealthy backers.

The tariffs against China exist in a larger context. The U.S. empire is in a state of stagnation and decline, while People’s China is developing at an incredible speed. Wall Street and the Pentagon are working to “contain” and encircle China. They are increasing the spending for war preparations, attempting to draw countries in the region into hostile alliances aimed at China, and encouraging separatist forces in Taiwan, Tibet and Xinjiang. The tariffs supplement the hundreds of U.S. sanctions against China in textiles, solar energy, computers and more.

For the past decade, U.S. policy makers have talked about “decoupling” the U.S. economy from that of China. Washington DC’s trade war is a part of that process, and it cannot be separated from preparations for other kinds of war in the Pacific, including those fought by military means.

Socialist China has made incredible achievements. China has waged a real war on poverty, while the U.S. government is waging a war on working people. China is by far the world leader in renewable energy production, electric transport, biodiversity protection and afforestation. China takes public health seriously. That’s why its life expectancy consistently goes up. Here in the U.S., we have measles outbreaks, and vaccine “skeptics” running the show. China wants peace. No serious person can say that about the U.S. today.

We demand that the tariffs directed at China be rolled back. We oppose the Trump administration’s anti-China policy, including any and all preparations for war. And we stand in solidarity with socialist China as it heads into a bright future.

Trump’s bellicose rhetoric and the prospects for US-China relations

Embedded below is the video of a recent live panel discussion, hosted by Friends of Socialist China co-founder Danny Haiphong, exploring the geopolitical tensions between China and the United States, particularly in the context of Trump’s trade policies, military escalation, and hostile media narratives. The panel features journalists and analysts Carl Zha (host of the Silk & Steel Podcast), Li Jingjing (CGTN), and KJ Noh (peace activist and co-host of The China Report), each offering insights into China’s March 2025 “Two Sessions” and the ongoing developments in US-China relations.

A key theme was China’s foreign ministry taking a more assertive position in response to US aggression. While China still seeks friendship and mutually beneficial cooperation, and maintains a clear orientation towards peace, its leadership is making clear that China will not simply buckle in the face of bullying and that China is prepared to defend itself from any kind of attack.

Carl Zha emphasised how China has been preparing for US tariffs since Trump’s first term, diversifying its economy and reducing reliance on the US market. He further noted that China’s economy is not heavily dependent on exports to, or investment from, the US.

Li Jingjing, reporting from the National People’s Congress, highlighted that China’s priority is domestic economic development, technological advancement and improving rural livelihoods. Military spending is a small part of the agenda compared to investments in infrastructure, rural wellbeing and AI.

KJ Noh analysed the US’s military strategy, pointing to its war games in the Asia-Pacific, its consolidation of the First Island Chain, and its overall strategy to weaken China. He argued that the US military-industrial complex fuels war rhetoric, even as China prioritises peace and economic growth.

The discussion also addressed Western media misrepresentations of China and the rising anti-China hysteria based on the US ruling class’s fear of China’s challenge to Western dominance and hegemonism.

The video originally appeared on Danny Haiphong’s YouTube channel.

Resist the escalating New Cold War on China

The following text is based on a speech given by Friends of Socialist China co-editor Carlos Martinez at the Stop the War Cymru AGM, held on Saturday 8 March 2025. Carlos participated in the panel Imperialism’s Drive to War: Middle East, Ukraine, Russia, China, Cuba, alongside Andrew Murray (Deputy President of Stop the War Coalition), Bethan Sayed (former Member of the Senedd [Welsh parliament] for Plaid Cymru) and Ismara Mercedes Vargas Walter (Cuban Ambassador to the UK). The session was chaired by David McKnight (co-chair of Stop the War Cymru).

The speech takes up the questions of the Trump administration’s strategic orientation towards confrontation with China; whether the global working class should take sides in a conflict between the US and China; and what the tasks of the British anti-war movement are in relation to the US-led New Cold War on China.

Likelihood of a further escalation of the New Cold War

What can we expect in terms of the US-China relationship in the coming months and years?

First, we need to consider the Trump administration’s moves towards extricating itself from the quagmire in Ukraine. Presumably most people understand that Trump and his cabinet are not motivated by any abstract love of peace; they’re not attempting to recreate the spirit of Woodstock and “make love not war”. Rather, they are carrying out a strategic reorientation to fight a New Cold War on one main front instead of two. This means reducing conflict with Russia in order to focus their efforts and resources on the project of containing and encircling China.

A number of commentators have pointed to the parallels with Henry Kissinger’s “triangular diplomacy” of the early 1970s, in which the US sought to befriend China in order to concentrate on attacking their number one strategic enemy at the time: the Soviet Union.

Half a century later, the People’s Republic of China is considered the greatest threat to the long-term interests of US imperialism. China is the world’s largest economy in purchasing power parity (PPP) terms. It’s the major trading partner of over two-thirds of the world’s countries. It’s catching up with – and indeed surpassing – the US in a number of crucial areas of technology and science. Furthermore, China is at the core of the trajectory towards a multipolar world.

In a recent article, Ben Norton cites various statements from Trump and his team indicating that a strategic reorientation towards aggression against China is precisely what they are planning. For example, in an interview with Tucker Carlson last year, Trump stated that “you never want Russia and China uniting… I’m going to have to un-unite them, and I think I can do that, too. I have to un-unite them.” Similarly, Marco Rubio, the secretary of state, said in his Senate hearing last year: “The Chinese see great benefit in Ukraine because they view it as: the more time and money we spend there, the less time, and money, and focus we have on them.”

Trump’s cabinet is packed with China hawks. Marco Rubio is an anti-China fanatic who stands for increased tariffs, more sanctions, more slander, more support for Taiwanese separatism, more provocations in the South China Sea, and more destabilisation in Hong Kong and Xinjiang. Mike Waltz (national security advisor) has long pushed for closer military cooperation with India, Japan, Australia and other countries in the region in preparation for war against China. Pete Hegseth, defence secretary, says that the US is “prepared to go to war with China”.

Panama Canal: the next flashpoint of US imperialism?

In this eyewitness account, Tan Wah Piow reports on the mood in Panama, along with the background to the issue, following US President Donald Trump’s brazen threats to “take back” the canal that connects the Atlantic and Pacific oceans.

Referring to Trump’s “audacity”, Wah Piow notes that: “This is a thriving sovereign nation, a regional financial powerhouse, and, as of January 2025, a newly elected [non-permanent] member of the UN Security Council.”

Citing a vast field of Panamanian flags he saw from his taxi, he notes: “His [the taxi driver’s] words brought back memories of the Museo Canal exhibit on the 1964 Martyrs Day incident when US troops killed 21 Panamanian students for asserting their right to raise the national flag in the US-controlled Canal Zone. The 1964 incident remains deeply ingrained in Panamanian consciousness, symbolising the people’s struggle for independence and control of the Canal.

“That incident was a rallying cry for international solidarity against US imperialism in Latin America. Even Chairman Mao of China issued a statement on January 12, 1964, published in Hong Qi, the Chinese Communist Party’s official organ, supporting the ‘great patriotic struggle’ of the Panamanian people. Back then, China had no diplomatic ties in the region beyond Cuba, and there was no Chinese shipping through the Canal.

“The 1964 Martyrs Day protests ultimately led to the 1977 Torrijos-Carter Treaties, which ceded sovereignty of the Canal to Panama. Under these agreements, Panama gained full control of the Canal in perpetuity.”

Trump’s remarks, he explains, were not merely a one-off provocation or a bargaining tactic, followed as they were by a threatening visit by Secretary of State Marco Rubio.

“Today,” Wah Piow notes, “the Panama Canal sees 14,000 vessels annually, handling 5 per cent of global shipping. China-US trade accounts for about 20 per cent of its traffic, while China-Latin American trade represents another 15-20 per cent. Studies suggest this volume is set to rise, with China already having surpassed the US as the primary trading partner of countries such as Brazil, Chile, and Peru. Trump’s renewed interest in the Canal appears driven by the fear that China is outpacing the US in Latin America.”

He calls on the international community to defend Panamanian sovereignty, “otherwise, a US power play to uphold its imperialist interests could threaten not just Panama but the economic stability of an entire region long hindered by dependence on Washington.”

Tan Wah Piow, a retired London lawyer, has been in exile from Singapore since 1976. He was imprisoned as a student leader for his activism and is Singapore’s most well-known exile. He is also a member of the Friends of Socialist China Advisory Group. He visited Panama in February 2025. This article was originally published in the Morning Star.

Leaving the Museo Canal at Panama Viejo, a Unesco World Heritage Site, I made my way to the Miraflores visitor centre — now a popular spot to witness US imperialism’s refocus on its Central and South American backyard.

It was a pleasant drive along a well-landscaped avenue lined with modern office buildings, banks, and shopping centres that reflect Panama’s booming economy. The ride quickly transitions from the historic ruins of the first European city on the Pacific coast to the sleek skyline of Costa del Este, a planned urban district filled with glass skyscrapers, luxury condos, and multinational corporate headquarters.

The Pacific Ocean stretches toward the horizon, and on the right, high-rise buildings tower in the distance. Downtown Panama City, with its unmistakable F&F Tower’s twisting glass structure, the gleaming towers of global banks, upscale malls, and five-star hotels — symbol of Panama’s role as an international trade hub.

Panama City stands as a testament to the country’s modernity; some may say it is a trophy of neoliberalism. Home to about 55 per cent of Panama’s 4.5 million people, this is hardly the image of a forgotten backwater.

As I took in the urban skyline, I wondered how US President Donald Trump could have the audacity to utter his “take back the Canal” rhetoric as though Panama was some insignificant, godforsaken failed state. This is a thriving sovereign nation, a regional financial powerhouse, and, as of January 2025, a newly elected member of the UN security council.

Approaching Miraflores, my Uber driver pointed out a striking sight — a vast field of Panamanian flags planted on the lawn. At first, I thought it was a modernist art installation. “Planting flags very popular — after Trump’s ‘Recuperar el Canal’ and ‘tomar el Canal de nuevo,’” he explained in broken English. Even without full knowledge of Spanish, I got the gist.

His words brought back memories of the Museo Canal exhibit on the 1964 Martyrs Day incident when US troops killed 21 Panamanian students for asserting their right to raise the national flag in the US-controlled Canal Zone. The 1964 incident remains deeply ingrained in Panamanian consciousness, symbolising the people’s struggle for independence and control of the Canal.

Martyrs Day is still a public holiday, commemorating the sacrifices made to reclaim national sovereignty. The flag-raising dispute even made the cover of Newsweek on January 24, 1964.

That incident was a rallying cry for international solidarity against US imperialism in Latin America. Even Chairman Mao of China issued a statement on January 12, 1964, published in HongQi, the Chinese Communist Party’s official organ, supporting the “great patriotic struggle” of the Panamanian people. Back then, China had no diplomatic ties in the region beyond Cuba, and there was no Chinese shipping through the Canal.

The 1964 Martyrs Day protests ultimately led to the 1977 Torrijos-Carter Treaties, which ceded sovereignty of the Canal to Panama. Under these agreements, Panama gained full control of the Canal in perpetuity, nullifying any lingering US claims of unilateral intervention. At the formal handover ceremony on December 14, 1999, former US president Jimmy Carter told Panama’s President Mireya Moscoso, “It’s yours.”

For Panamanians, the 50-mile-long Panama Canal is a powerful symbol of national sovereignty and identity, serving as the foundation of their nation’s role as a vital link between the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans. Hence, when Trump in January 2025 described the Canal’s transfer as a “disgrace” and alleged that it had fallen under Chinese influence, it reignited painful memories of the 1964 massacre.

The Chinese embassy in Panama swiftly rejected the accusation, as did Hong Kong-based Hutchison, which manages two Panamanian ports. Notably, Hutchison, a publicly traded company, does not control the Panama Canal’s operations.

At the Miraflores Locks, as a massive vessel passed through, a taped announcement reassured visitors that the Panama Canal was under the sole control of the Panama Canal Authority, an independent Panamanian entity. The message emphasised that all vessels transiting the Canal must be piloted by Panamanian captains, who know “every inch” of the waterway. The repetition of this assurance suggested it was directed at US tourists, encouraging them to counter misinformation back home.

Unfortunately, Trump’s remarks were not merely a one-off provocation or a bargaining tactic for free US shipping passage. He complained about transit fees despite all nations paying the same rates. More alarmingly, he dispatched Secretary of State Marco Rubio to Panama with a message that Washington wanted to reclaim control of the Canal, citing alleged Chinese influence. Rubio warned that unless there were “immediate changes,” the US would take necessary steps to “safeguard its rights.”

Even before Rubio’s arrival, protests erupted. The Tico Times reported that demonstrators “categorically reject the US attempts to turn Panama into a protectorate and a colony again.” Teachers’ union leader Diogenes Sanchez declared, “We are going to fight to defend our national sovereignty.”

Meanwhile, Senator Ted Cruz spearheaded a parallel attack from the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. A veteran anti-China hawk, Cruz made unsubstantiated claims about China’s threat to the neutrality of the Canal, stating, “The Panama Canal is too important to be left vulnerable to Chinese influence. The US has a responsibility to ensure that the Canal remains neutral and secure, even if that means taking decisive action.”

Panamanian President Jose Raul Mulino firmly asserted that the Canal’s sovereignty is “non-negotiable,” yet some domestic critics accused him of yielding to US pressure. Mulino denied claims that US government vessels were exempted from transit fees, calling such reports “lies and falsehoods” propagated by the US State Department. Although Rubio did not repeat the “free transit” claim, he protested that the fees were “absurd.”

Up to 15 per cent of Panama’s GDP is derived from the Canal and its related industries, and with the country’s dollarised economy making the US its largest trading partner, Washington has leverage to exert economic blackmail. Newsweek reported in January 2025 that Panama had abruptly decided not to renew a trade and development agreement with China — a decision President Mulino attributed to “external pressures.”

Had a non-Western nation applied such coercion, the US and European capitals would have responded with deafening condemnations. Yet, Western champions of the “rules-based international order” remain conspicuous in their silence.

Today, the Panama Canal sees 14,000 vessels annually, handling 5 per cent of global shipping. China-US trade accounts for about 20 per cent of its traffic, while China-Latin American trade represents another 15-20 per cent. Studies suggest this volume is set to rise, with China already having surpassed the US as the primary trading partner of countries such as Brazil, Chile, and Peru.

Trump’s renewed interest in the Canal appears driven by the fear that China is outpacing the US in Latin America. The global community, especially the EU and Britain — which claim to uphold international law — must act decisively to protect the Canal’s neutrality and, most importantly, Panama’s sovereignty.

Otherwise, a US power play to uphold its imperialist interests could threaten not just Panama but the economic stability of an entire region long hindered by dependence on Washington.

Donald Trump’s Reverse Kissinger strategy

In the following article, Vijay Prashad analyses what is being referred to as Donald Trump’s ‘Reverse Kissinger Strategy’, namely an apparent attempt to end the conflict in Ukraine and improve relations with Russia to a certain extent, with a view to concentrating US firepower on China.

Vijay first outlines Trump’s moves regarding Ukraine and NATO and towards the arms industry at home and continues:

There is a fundamental misreading of these moves by the Trump administration. They are sometimes seen as the idiosyncratic flailing of a far-right president who is committed to putting ‘America First’ and so is unwilling to pursue expensive wars that are not in its interest. But this is a short-sighted and erroneous assessment of Trump’s phone call with Putin on Ukraine and approach to the US military. Rather than see this as an isolationist manoeuvre, it is important to understand that Trump is attempting to pursue a ‘Reverse Kissinger Strategy’, namely, to befriend Russia to isolate China.

According to Vijay, Trump understands that Russia is not an existential threat to the United States. “However, China’s rapid development of technology and science as well as of the new productive forces genuinely poses a threat to US domination of the key sectors of the global economy. It is the US perceived ‘threat’ from China that motivates Trump’s approach to alliances and enemies.”

He notes that both US President Richard Nixon and his Secretary of State Henry Kissinger closely followed the steadily worsening split between the Soviet Union and China: “When Nixon became president, the USSR-PRC border dispute around Zhenbao Island almost escalated with a potential Soviet nuclear strike against Beijing.” It was this tragic division that provided the opening for the United States. “Nixon’s epochal visit to China was entirely driven by US interests to divide Russia and China so that the US could establish its power around the Asian continent.”

Vijay concludes that what the United States is now doing is to attempt to break the relation established between China and Russia since 2007, but:

It is worth remembering Kissinger’s assessment of the Chinese leadership in 1971: ‘Their interest is 100 percent political… Remember, these are men of ideological purity. Zhou Enlai joined the Communist Party in France in 1920… before there was a Chinese Communist Party. This generation didn’t fight for 50 years and go on the Long March for trade’. This view captures not only Zhou Enlai and Mao Zedong, but also Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping. They too have been steeled in a struggle against the United States over the course of the past decade. It is unlikely that a few baubles will attract Putin to adopt Trump’s ‘Reverse Kissinger Strategy’.

The article was originally published by No Cold War.

US President Donald Trump called Russia’s President Vladimir Putin and told him that his government is committed to a peace process in Ukraine. As part of the deal, Trump’s administration made it clear that sections of eastern Ukraine and the Crimea would remain in Russian hands. Speaking at the headquarters of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO), Trump’s Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth said that it was ‘unrealistic’ to assume that Ukraine would return to its pre-2014 borders, which means that Crimea would not be part of any negotiations with Russia. NATO membership for Ukraine, he said, was not going to be possible as far as the United States was concerned. The United States, Hegseth told NATO, was not ‘primarily focused’ on European security, but on putting its own national interests first and foremost. The best that the European leaders at NATO could do was to demand that Ukraine have a seat at the talks, but there was very little said against the US pressure that Russia be given concessions to come to the table. Ukraine and Europe can have their say, Hegseth said, but Trump would set the agenda. ‘What he decides to allow and not allow is at the purview of the leader of the free world, of President Trump’, Hegseth said with characteristic midwestern swagger. The cowboys, he said with his body language, are back in charge.

While Hegseth was in Brussels, Trump was in Washington, DC with his close ally Elon Musk. Both are on a rampage to cut government spending. Over the past five decades, the US government has already shrunk, particularly when it comes to social welfare provision. What remains are areas that have been jealously guarded by the large corporations, such as the arms industry. It had always seemed as if this industry was inviolate and that cuts in military spending in the United States would be impossible to sustain. But the arms industry can rest easy (except Lockheed Martin, which might lose its subsidy for the F-35 fighter jet); Musk and his team are not going to cut military contracts but go after the military and civilian employees. During his confirmation hearing, Hegseth told the Senators that during World War II the United States had seven four-star generals and now it has forty-four of them. ‘There is an inverse relationship between the size of staffs and victory on the battlefield. We do not need more bureaucracy at the top. We need more war fighters empowered at the bottom’. He said that the ‘fat can be cut, so [the US military] can go toward lethality’.

Cold Peace with Russia / Cold War with China: Trump’s foreign policy agenda

The following article by C.J. Atkins, published first in People’s World, analyses the apparently drastic differences between the Trump and Biden administrations’ foreign policy agendas, explaining the underlying strategic and ideological agenda behind Trump’s pivot on Ukraine, and debunking the assorted “simplistic hot takes centered on Trump’s admiration for strongmen or conspiratorial allegations that hinge on Russian blackmail and compromising material”.

Atkins gets to the heart of the issue by pointing out that the differences between Republicans and Democrats over Ukraine are “evidence of a split within the US ruling class which has exploded into the open. At the heart of that split are differences over how to resolve the long-term crisis of US capitalism and confront China’s rise to prominence in the world economy.” He explains that the Washington foreign policy establishment has spent years attempting to weaken Russia, seeing “the further extension of US power in Europe as an important milestone along the road to dealing with China”. Trump on the other hand aims to “take confrontation with Russia off the table”, considering it an “expensive distraction”.

The author further opines that Trump’s tariffs and coercive measures against Canada, Mexico, and Latin America are aimed at bringing those parts of the world “into a tighter embrace with the US economy”, consolidating a trade bloc that excludes and attempts to isolate China. That is, they extend the “decoupling” agenda pursued during Trump 1.0 as well as by the Biden administration.

With US monopoly capital increasingly feeling the competition from China, “the foreign policy being pursued by the Trump administration is an expression of the fears of a large section of the capitalist class, and those fears are why we have witnessed a rush toward the Trump camp by industrial sectors which had previously been skeptical of or neutral toward him.”

If the war in Ukraine can be swiftly ended, this is undoubtedly positive. But people should not think Trump’s overtures to Russia reflect some overarching orientation towards peace. Aggression against Russia is set to be replaced with “a new Cold War against China, the carving up of the world into blocs on behalf of big corporations, more destruction in the Middle East, and the ditching of democracy at home—along with all the things that entails, like labor laws, women’s rights, racial equality, and more.”

Trump labeled President Volodymyr Zelensky a “dictator” and called him out for not holding elections earlier this week. He said the Ukrainian leader only wants to “keep the gravy train” of U.S. money rolling in, and blamed him for starting the war with Russia.

Vladimir Putin, meanwhile, was said to be committed to “common sense.” The White House declared him to be someone Trump can “work together” with “very closely.”

What a world of difference from just a few months ago when a different U.S. president called Zelensky a “courageous and determined” defender of democracy and denounced Putin as a “war criminal.”

This dramatic turnaround is just the latest example of the about-face that’s happened in U.S. foreign policy over the last several weeks—a change that’s sparked confusion and bewilderment as 80 years of U.S. imperial strategy is seemingly being thrown overboard.

In Europe, Vice President J.D. Vance recently trashed political leaders there for not working together with fascists and initiated what one commentator called “the opening salvo in a trans-Atlantic divorce proceeding.” Snubbing German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, Trump’s V.P. met with Alice Weidel, leader of the neo-Nazi Alternative for Germany party, instead.

China’s DeepSeek AI reveals advantages of socialism

The following article by Hugo East, originally published in Workers World, describes the rapid rise of DeepSeek’s R1 model, the corresponding stock devaluation of the US tech giants, and the role played by China’s socialist market economy in fostering innovation.

Hugo writes that “DeepSeek owes its efficacy to the socialist character of the People’s Republic of China… Socialist planning has enabled the PRC’s meteoric rise as a world power rivaling the US, as evidenced by the success of DeepSeek.” He relates the emergence of DeepSeek to the inauguration ten years ago of the Made in China 2025 initiative, which sought to transform China from an exporter of relatively low-cost manufactured goods into a global leader in innovation.

Citing the Critical Technology Tracker (published by the think tank Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI)) the article notes that in the period from 2017 to 2023, China was the leading country in 57 of 64 critical technologies. The author writes that Made in China 2025 “fits squarely within China’s socialist economic development as first initiated by the Communist Party of China (CPC) in 1949 under the leadership of its then-leader Chairman Mao Zedong”.

The article also points out that DeepSeek’s success proves the ineffectiveness of US sanctions against China, which have only served to accelerate China’s technological development. “Just like the PRC’s recent ascendency in automotive manufacturing, DeepSeek has found success despite the U.S.’s attempts to starve China’s AI industry of supposedly vital resources through a targeted trade embargo.”

With computing power limited by the US government’s semiconductor war, Chinese researchers have had to rely on “algorithmic innovation” – which has also “had the effect of making DeepSeek much less expensive, both in direct financial cost and in energy consumption”.

Hugo concludes:

DeepSeek is just one of several technological and scientific innovations developed under a socialist economy that challenges capitalist profits while benefiting the whole world.

The Chinese company DeepSeek released its artificial intelligence (AI) chatbot to the U.S. market on Jan. 20. By the following week, it was the most downloaded app on the iOS App Store, surpassing Open AI’s ChatGPT.

The rapid rise of DeepSeek caused an unprecedented crash in the valuation of multiple U.S. tech companies, wiping out close to $1 trillion in combined market value from chip giant Nvidia Corp. and other peers. The loss to Nvidia was by far the largest, fastest devaluation of a U.S. company in history.

Socialist economic planning behind DeepSeek’s success

DeepSeek owes its efficacy to the socialist character of the People’s Republic of China (PRC), in which it was developed. The PRC’s economic central planning, through which it seeks to combine the advantages of strictly regulated capitalistic markets with state-owned enterprises designed for the benefit of the Chinese people, conforms to socialist methods of planning initiated by its first leader Mao Zedong. Socialist planning has enabled the PRC’s meteoric rise as a world power rivaling the U.S., as evidenced by the success of DeepSeek.

The latest iteration of that socialist planning is a ten-year initiative that began in 2015 called “Made in China 2025” (MIC 2025). In a report issued in 2017, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce said of MIC 2025: “Contrary to key elements of the Third Plenum Decision [PRC’s previous central economic plan], in which the Chinese leadership called for markets to play a decisive role in the allocation of resources across the economy, MIC 2025 instead appears to reaffirm the government’s central role in economic planning.”

Trump’s threats against Chinese immigrants and the history of Chinese Exclusion in the US

Amidst the tsunami of proto-fascist measures unleashed by the Trump-Vance-Musk regime’s ‘carnival of reaction’, a central place is taken by the threats to deport millions of migrant workers and their families – a threat that has already become grim reality for thousands arrested, terrorised, humiliated, and flown, shackled and handcuffed, in military planes to their countries of origin. This obscene spectacle of performative sadism has also already been aped in Britain by the Starmer ‘Labour’ government.

Trailing this policy during the election campaign, Trump claimed that tens of thousands of undocumented Chinese migrants had recently entered the US, warning his audience that “they’re all military age and they are mostly men.” Trump accused these immigrants of “trying to build a little army in our country.”

In a historical essay, published by the World Socialist Website eight days before Trump’s inauguration, and which we reprint below, Paul Montgomery notes:

“In portraying Chinese immigrants as an invading army, Trump and [his ‘border czar’ Tom] Homan echo the worst rhetoric of the Yellow Peril and Chinese Exclusion era of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. It is an escalation of the anti-Chinese rhetoric Trump used throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, and it seeks to place the US ever more openly on a war footing against China.”

Drawing critically, in the first instance, on recent material produced by the National Public Radio (NPR), the author outlines the history of the Chinese Exclusion era, which lasted from the passage of the Chinese Exclusion Act in 1882 to its repeal in 1943. During this period, federal law prevented Chinese immigrants from entering the United States.

However, he correctly points out that: “To understand Chinese Exclusion, it must be placed in the context of the development of capitalism in the United States and the early development of US imperialism in the Pacific and East Asia.” And goes on to quote Karl Marx writing to Friedrich Engels in 1858:

“The real task of bourgeois society is the creation, at least in outline, of a world market, and of a type of production resting on this basis. Since the world is round, this task seems to have been brought to a conclusion with the colonisation of California and Australia and the inclusion of China and Japan.”

Montgomery quotes the late Asian-American historian Ronald Takaki: “Capital used Chinese laborers as a transnational industrial reserve army to weigh down white workers during periods of economic expansion and to hold white labor in check during periods of overproduction.” By recruiting Chinese laborers, employers could “boost the supply of labor and drive down the wages of both Chinese and white workers. The resulting racial antagonism generated between the two groups helped to ensure a divided working class and a dominant employer class.”

This accords with the similar observation of Karl Marx writing to Sigfrid Meyer and August Vogt in April 1870:

And most important of all! Every industrial and commercial centre in England now possesses a working class divided into two hostile camps, English proletarians and Irish proletarians. The ordinary English worker hates the Irish worker as a competitor who lowers his standard of life. In relation to the Irish worker, he regards himself as a member of the ruling nation and consequently he becomes a tool of the English aristocrats and capitalists against Ireland, thus strengthening their domination over himself. He cherishes religious, social, and national prejudices against the Irish worker. His attitude towards him is much the same as that of the ‘poor whites’ to the Negroes in the former slave states of the USA. The Irishman pays him back with interest in his own money. He sees in the English worker both the accomplice and the stupid tool of the English rulers in Ireland.

This antagonism is artificially kept alive and intensified by the press, the pulpit, the comic papers, in short, by all the means at the disposal of the ruling classes. This antagonism is the secret of the impotence of the English working class, despite its organisation. It is the secret by which the capitalist class maintains its power. And the latter is quite aware of this.

In this regard, the article highlights the reactionary role of the early labour aristocratic trade union movement in fuelling and perpetuating anti-Chinese racism:

“Leading labor organizations of this period, formed by craft unions and claiming hundreds of thousands of members, also directed workers toward the anti-Chinese position. The American Federation of Labor (AFL) and the Knights of Labor both called for the exclusion of Chinese workers. At its founding conference in Pittsburgh in 1881, the AFL, then known as the Federation of Organized Trades and Labor Unions, adopted a resolution that declared ‘the presence of Chinese, and their competition with free white labor’ to be ‘one of the greatest evils with which any country can be afflicted.’ The AFL pledged to use its ‘best efforts to get rid of this monstrous evil.’”

One important criticism made by Montgomery of the NPR material is its ignoring of the anti-Chinese and racist positions taken by the Democratic Party in California in the period under review.

He writes: “Absent from NPR’s analysis is the Democratic Party, which championed anti-Chinese policies from the moment California became a state. Portraying the apparent cowardice of the Republican Party before anti-Chinese mobs while ignoring the reactionary politics of the Democratic Party is more convenient for the political aims and assumptions of NPR writers and podcasters. But the Republican Party of the 1870s and 1880s was only adapting itself to positions held by the Democratic Party since the 1850s.”

Drawing on the work of a respected Chinese American historian, he continues: “The Chinese Question, writes historian Mae Ngai, ‘became a bedrock principle of the Democratic Party in California.’ Among the major early advocates for exclusion was Democrat John Bigler, an attorney whose political ambitions led him to become California’s third governor. In an 1852 address to the California legislature, Bigler called for ‘measures to be adopted’ that would halt the ‘tide of Asiatic immigration.’ Insisting that the ‘Chinese Question’ required a national solution, Bigler called on the United States Congress to use its power to ‘entirely exclude this class of Asiatic immigrants.’”

The article concludes:

The anti-Chinese positions now expressed by Donald Trump and Tom Homan, like those of the exclusion era, are clearly racist and xenophobic. But that is not all they are. They come in the midst of growing class struggles and in the context of escalating conflict between US imperialism and the Chinese state. That Trump now claims a Chinese threat lurks behind the Panama Canal, which he proposes to annex by force, if necessary, is enough to demonstrate that the anti-Chinese rhetoric of his past and future administration, just as in the exclusion era, is significant for reasons that extend far beyond the question of racism in the United States. The attempt to portray Chinese immigrants, once again, as an invading army is the domestic expression of the Trump administration’s drive to reassert US global hegemony through a direct confrontation with China.

The incoming Trump administration is preparing to initiate a program of mass deportations and attacks against the rights of immigrants. There are growing indications that Chinese immigrants will be among the first targeted.

Why Donald Trump’s obsession with Greenland is all about China

In the following article, which was originally published on TomDispatch, Joshua Frank dissects the reasons behind US President Donald Trump’s repeated threats to seize, possibly by armed force, the Danish colony of Greenland.

Frank looks in some detail at the influence of military bases and strategy, fossil fuels, and minerals, particularly those needed in green technologies, on Trump’s calculations and designs, but his essential conclusion is that, “it’s all about China”:

He wants to boost US mining of critical minerals because he knows that China, his archnemesis, is leading the global charge for their acquisition. [Note: This is one of a couple of places in the article where we believe the argument could have been better phrased. This, however, does not negate its essential validity or importance.] Trump doesn’t seem to understand that it’s hard to stimulate investment in critical minerals if the future appetite for the technologies they support remains uncertain. As a result of his battle against electric vehicles, manufacturing expectations are already being slashed.

While he may not comprehend how contradictory that is or even care, he certainly understands that the US depends on China for many of the critical minerals it consumes. Around 60% of the metals required for renewable technologies come directly from China or Chinese companies. Trump’s tariffs on China have even worried his buddy (and electric car producer) Elon Musk, who’s been working behind the scenes to block additional tariffs on graphite imports. Chinese graphite, an essential component of the lithium-ion batteries in his Teslas, may face new tariffs of as high as – and no, this is not a misprint – 920%. Such pandemonium around imports of critical minerals from China may be the true factor driving Trump’s impetus to steal Greenland from the clutches of Denmark.

Explaining Greenland’s colonial history and status, Frank writes: “Greenland’s Indigenous Inuit people, the Kalaallit, account for 88% of that island’s population of 56,000. They have endured vicious forms of colonisation for centuries. In the 12th century, Norwegians first landed in Greenland and built early colonies that lasted 200 years before they retreated to Iceland. By the 1700s, they returned to take ownership of that vast island, a territory that would be transferred to Denmark in 1814.

“In 1953, the Kalaallit were granted Danish citizenship, which involved a process of forced assimilation in which they were removed from their homes and sent to Demark for reeducation. Recently uncovered documents show that, in the 1960s, Danish authorities forcibly inserted intrauterine devices (IUDs) in Kalaallit women, including children, which post-colonial scholars describe as a ‘silent genocide’.

“In other words, the colonisation of Greenland, like that of the United States, was rooted in violence and still thrives today through ongoing systemic oppression. The Kalaallit want out. In 2016, 68% of Greenlanders supported independence from Denmark, and today, 85% oppose Trump’s neocolonial efforts to steal the territory.”

He quotes the island’s autonomous prime minister, Múte Egede, who leads the democratic socialist Inuit Ataqatigiit party, as saying, “Greenland is ours. We are not for sale and will never be for sale.” [Note: The article mistakenly states that Inuit Ataqatigiit won 80% of the votes in Greenland’s last general election. In fact, whilst pro-independence parties, did win 80% backing, the support for Inuit Ataqatigiit was 36.6%. Siumut, like Inuit Ataqatigiit a left-wing pro-independence party, won 29.4%. Another pro-independence party, Naleraq, came third with 12.0% of the votes. Nunatta Qitornai, which advocates a more rapid transition to independence, won 2.4% of the votes but lost its sole parliamentary representative. These results gave pro-independence parties 26 parliamentary seats against five for the unionist parties. A detailed account of the outcome of the April 2021 election can be found here.]

So, for Frank, Egede’s statement “brings us back to what this imperialist struggle is all about. The island is loaded with critical minerals, including rare earth minerals, lithium, graphite, copper, nickel, zinc, and other materials used in green technologies. Some estimates suggest that Greenland has six million tons of graphite, 106 kilotons of copper, and 235 kilotons of lithium. It holds 25 of the 34 minerals in the European Union’s official list of critical raw materials, all of which exist along its rocky coastline, generally accessible for mining operations.”

He concludes: “Greenland and its resources are merely the latest potential casualty of Trump’s quest for global domination and his fear of China’s economic power. His interest in the green energy sector does not signify a change of heart regarding the dangers of climate chaos or the value of renewables but rather a drive for global financial supremacy. Like the billionaires around him, he desires it all – the oil, the gas, and the critical minerals essential for the global energy transition, while China is pushed aside. Regarding the Kalaallits and their aspirations, he could care less.”

Joshua Frank is the author of Atomic Days: The Untold Story of the Most Toxic Place in America.

A viewpoint from one of Denmark’s communist parties, supporting Greenland’s right to self-determination, may be read here.

In early January, Donald Trump Jr.’s private plane landed on a snowy airfield in Greenland. There was little fanfare upon his arrival, but his 14 million social-media fans were certainly tagging along.

“Greenland coming in hot…well, actually really really cold!!!” President Trump’s eldest son captioned a video he posted on X. It was shot from the cockpit of the plane, where a “Trumpinator” bobblehead (a figurine of his father as the Terminator) rattled on the aircraft’s dashboard as it descended over icy blue seas.

It was a stunt of MAGA proportions. Don Jr. was arriving in Greenland on behalf of his father who, along with his new buddy Elon Musk, had announced a desire to seize that vast Arctic landmass from Denmark through strong will or even, potentially, by force. There’s been plenty of speculation as to why Trump wants to make Greenland, the largest island on this planet, a new territory of the United States. And yes, his inflated ego is undoubtedly part of the reason, but an urge for geopolitical dominance also drives Trump’s ambitions.

His fascination with Greenland can be traced back to his first administration when, in late 2019, he signed the 2020 National Defense Authorization Act establishing the U.S. Space Force. “There are grave threats to our national security,” he said shortly after signing the bill. “American superiority in space is absolutely vital. The Space Force will help us deter aggression and control the ultimate high ground.”

AI for the people? How China’s AI development challenges US big tech

In the following article for Struggle La Lucha, based on a talk given at our recent webinar DeepSeek and the challenge to US technological hegemony, Gary Wilson makes a number of important points about the US’s tech war on China.

He notes, firstly, that this tech war – part of a broader New Cold War that also involves a significant military component – has been going on for more than a decade. “It really began in 2011 with Barack Obama’s Pivot to Asia, a Cold War-style containment policy. The Pivot to Asia was primarily a military operation but also introduced export controls on advanced technologies… The tech war escalated significantly during Donald Trump’s first presidency with trade restrictions and sanctions on Chinese firms, including Huawei and ZTE. Then, with Joe Biden, even more severe restrictions were imposed.”

Gary goes on to explain that “semiconductors are the foundation of modern technology — enabling the functionality of virtually every device and system we use every day”, and this is the reason the US is so keen to prevent China from becoming a major player in this field. Nevertheless, “despite the restrictions, China has been making significant strides in semiconductor technology. Huawei is developing advanced high-powered chips, and the performance of its new Ascend 910C compares to Nvidia’s H20, the GPU used to build DeepSeek R1. While DeepSeek was trained on the Nvidia H20, it used the Ascend 910C for inference, the process where a trained AI model draws conclusions.”

In general, the West’s attempts to suppress China’s technological rise have been singularly unsuccessful. The author points out that, when the Pivot to Asia began in 2011, the US led in 60 of 64 key technologies globally. By 2022, China had surpassed the US in 52 of those technologies. “China has built entire high-tech industries that now dominate globally: Huawei is the world’s leading 5G telecommunications company. BYD is the world’s top electric vehicle maker. CATL leads in advanced battery technology. Tongwei is tops in solar power. DJI is the world’s largest commercial drone maker.”

The article observes that China’s economic model and political system allow it to dedicate enormous resources to key projects, and to focus on prioritise on meeting human needs. “Unlike the US, which focuses on AI for corporate profits, China sees AI as a driver of economic transformation — a way to modernize its economy.” Furthermore, the Chinese government is dedicated to ensuring that the benefits of AI are shared by the people, rather than being monopolised by a few big corporations. “The potential benefits of treating AI as a public utility are immense. Rather than displacing workers or driving inequality, open-access AI can be used for equitable planning of production and distribution.”

Gary concludes:

Despite US restrictions, China continues to advance in AI, semiconductors, and other high-tech industries. China is shaping the future of global technology, and AI could play a key role in the economic planning of production and services to meet people’s needs.

Let’s start with the U.S. tech war against China. Some call it a New Cold War. A problem with that term is there’s no guarantee it will stay “cold.” There is a major U.S. military buildup around China, with a U.S. Army drone warfare Green Beret unit now stationed in Taiwan, and aircraft carriers from the U.S., France and Japan conducting “war games” in the South China Sea.

Nancy Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan in 2022, the first high-level U.S. official visit since the 1990s, was a provocation challenging China’s sovereignty, that was backed with an unprecedented escalation in U.S. military activity in the region that came dangerously close to sparking a “hot war.”

Anyway, whatever we call it, a New Cold War, an economic war, trade war or tech war — the U.S. has made China’s science and technology a target. The U.S. has imposed strict limits on technology transfers, restricted access to semiconductors, sanctioned Chinese tech companies, blocked academic and research collaboration, and halted many scientific exchanges.

This tech war didn’t just start. It really began in 2011 with Barack Obama’s Pivot to Asia, a Cold War-style containment policy. The Pivot to Asia was primarily a military operation but also introduced export controls on advanced technologies.

As a military operation, it involved moving 60% of U.S. naval forces into the Asia-Pacific region, militarily surrounding China, and expanding military exercises like RIMPAC, the world’s largest naval war games.

The tech war escalated significantly during Donald Trump’s first presidency with trade restrictions and sanctions on Chinese firms, including Huawei and ZTE.

Then, with Joe Biden, even more severe restrictions were imposed. The U.S. also expanded military and technology alliances against China, like AUKUS – some call it the Asian NATO — and the U.S.-Japan-South Korea trilateral pact.

A new multipolar world or a new cold war? Latin America, China and the rising global South

In the following article, Ben Chacko, Editor of the Morning Star, analyses the position of Latin America as a frontline in the struggle for multipolarity, a struggle which is heavily impacted by the rise of China.

Ben notes that: “Many of the Latin American revolutionary projects that inspire us… are independence struggles as well as class struggles. The two are bound together… Decolonisation remained partial if it was not accompanied by social revolution because formal independence did not necessarily give a country control of its own resources if private property relations, maintaining ultimate Western ownership in many cases, stayed in place… This explains the close association between communist and decolonisation movements through the 20th century.”

The confrontation between the Global North and the Global South runs through the class struggle in country after country in Latin America, reflected not least through the prism of race – the struggle in Venezuela, Peru, Bolivia and other countries of the Afro-descendant and Indigenous oppressed against white supremacism – as well as being key to the continent’s relationship with the United States.

Therefore, Ben argues, “Building a multipolar world is a decolonisation process: one in which countries prevented till now from exercising full sovereignty because their resources are controlled by others are able to ‘stand up,’ as Chairman Mao put it in 1949. They are able to do so because China’s peaceful rise has created an economic counterweight to the West and the network of financial institutions and treaties that maintain Western hegemony.”

The article was originally published in the Morning Star and is based on a talk given by Ben at London’s Latin America Conference held on February 8. The panel, on ‘A new multipolar world or a new Cold War? Latin America, China and the rising Global South’ was also addressed by Friends of Socialist China co-editor Carlos Martinez and Isaac Saney, Associate Professor and Coordinator of Black and African Diaspora Studies at Canada’s Dalhousie University, and author of ‘Cuba, Africa, and Apartheid’s End: Africa’s Children Return!’

During the student-led protests that shook Chile a few years ago, a prominent rallying cry was “neoliberalism was born in Chile and will die in Chile.”

It points to the front-line place Latin America has had when it comes to clashes between economic systems and between imperialism and decolonisation. Many of the Latin American revolutionary projects that inspire us, that lots of us come to Adelante! to hear more about, are independence struggles as well as class struggles.

The two are bound together. The poverty and underdevelopment of much of the Third World is down to the domination of economies by Western corporations controlling their natural resources.

A multipolar world or a New Cold War?

The following text is based on a presentation given by Friends of Socialist China co-editor Carlos Martinez at the Latin America Conference held in London on 8 February 2025. The panel also included Morning Star editor Ben Chacko and Canadian author and academic Isaac Saney; it was chaired by Carole Regan of the Cuba Solidarity Campaign.

The text attempts to clarify what multipolarity is, as well as addressing the role of China and the rising threat of military confrontation between the US and China.

What is multipolarity?

‘Multipolarity’ is a word that is heard increasingly often, but its meaning is not well or widely understood, including on the left.

There are many people who think that multipolarity simply means a return to the era of intense inter-imperialist rivalry that characterised the period leading up to World War 1. In the early 20th century, the situation was ‘multipolar’ in the sense that there was more than one imperialist country; Britain, the US, Germany, France, Russia and Japan all represented poles of power and were competing fiercely among themselves for control of the world’s land, resources, labour and markets. Needless to say, there was nothing progressive or peaceful about this conjuncture.

However, multipolarity as defined in the modern era does not refer simply to a geopolitical situation with more than one major power; it is more than a shift away from the US-dominated unipolarity of the 1990s. Multipolarity includes the rise of the Global South; it insists on the principle of equality between nations; and it envisions an end to the system of hegemony and domination, whereby one country (or group of countries) can impose its will on others.

In this sense, we could say that the situation in 1914 was actually unipolar: it was a world system where power was concentrated among a small handful of imperialist countries, albeit with significant contradictions and rivalry between them.

Multipolarity sees Latin America as a centre of power. It sees Africa, West Asia, South Asia, Central Asia, East Asia, the Caribbean and the Pacific as centres of power. Its multilateral organisations include not just the G7, NATO and EU, but also BRICS, the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO), the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC), the African Union (AU), the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM), the G77, and so on.

This geopolitical shift reflects a rapidly-changing global economic landscape. For example, BRICS countries now have a larger share of the world’s GDP than the G7 countries when measured by purchasing power parity (PPP). This is a dramatic transformation compared to the beginning of the 21st century, when G7 countries made up 43 percent of global GDP by PPP, compared to the BRICS countries’ 21 percent.

So when we talk about multipolarity, we’re not talking simply about a change of cast in the imperialist world system, such as Spanish/Portuguese colonialism giving way to Dutch colonialism, or Dutch colonialism giving way to British colonialism, or British colonialism giving way to US imperialism. Rather, multipolarity represents an end to the whole system of domination and hegemony; an end to the 500-year-old division of the world into oppressor and oppressed nations. It means undermining imperialism and depriving the imperialist countries of their power to determine the fate of the rest of the world.

Trump’s war on China in Latin America

In the following article, Steve Ellner provides a detailed analysis of Donald Trump’s Latin America policy as he embarks on his second presidential term, arguing that its bellicosity is closely related to US imperialism’s increased hostility to China.

According to Ellner: “US President Donald Trump’s threats to take over the Panama Canal, convert Canada into the 51st state and purchase Greenland may not be as ludicrous as they seemed. The proposals, albeit unachievable, lay the groundwork for a more ‘rational’ strategy of targeting China (not so much Russia) and singling out real adversaries (as opposed to Canada and Panama), which include Cuba and Venezuela, with Bolivia not far behind.”

Arguing that much of Trump’s analysis is drawn from the right-wing Heritage Foundation, he draws attention to the think tank’s James Carafano’s advocacy of a “rejuvenation of the Monroe Doctrine”.

Trump’s choice of anti-Cuba zealot Marco Rubio as secretary of state reinforces the perception that the Trump administration’s foreign policy will pay special attention to Latin America and that Latin American policy will prioritise two enemies: China and the continent’s leftist governments. Carafano calls the strategy ‘a pivot to Latin America.’

He notes that the threat to Panama is a reminder that currents on the right and within the Republican Party still denounce the “canal giveaway.” Ronald Reagan warned against it in his attempt to secure the Republican presidential nomination in 1976 and again raised the issue in his successful bid for the presidency four years later.

Drawing attention to what he considers a certain difference in approach from that taken by the US Democratic Party, he observes that, “the McCarthyite new right targets the more leftist Pink Tide leaders such as those of Venezuela and Cuba, but it is not letting moderate ones such as Lula off the hook. Rubio calls Brazil’s Lula a ‘far-left leader,’ while Musk has expressed certainty that he will not be reelected in 2026. Some analysts have raised the possibility that Trump will slap the Lula government with tariffs and sanctions to support the return to power of Jair Bolsonaro and the Brazilian far right.”

Trump’s real target in all three threats [against Panama, Canada and Greenland] was China… Trump made his case for the annexation of the Panama Canal, Canada and Greenland (a gateway to the Arctic) by arguing for the need to block China’s growing presence in the hemisphere…

In the 21st century, China’s investment in and trade with Latin America have increased exponentially. China has now surpassed the US as South America’s top trading partner. Some economists predict that the net value of trade, which in 2022 was valued at $450 billion, will exceed $700 billion by 2035.

When it comes to Washington’s anti-China rhetoric, competition with the US on the economic front receives less attention than it merits. If ever the ‘it’s the economy stupid’ [a phrase made famous by Bill Clinton] statement was apropos, it is in the case of China’s challenge to US hegemony.

The Heritage Foundation’s 38,000-word ‘Plan for Countering China,’ enumerates an endless number of non-economic threats [supposedly] posed by China. Many of the threats put the spotlight on Latin America due to its proximity. For example: ‘China’s role in global drug trafficking, exploiting instability in the US and Latin America caused by illegal migration… The US government should close loopholes in immigration law and policy that China is exploiting.’

Surveying the role played by the Latin American right in this situation, he notes that former Brazilian President Bolsonaro and current Argentine President Milei employed extreme anti-China rhetoric in opposition, only to adopt a more pragmatic approach in office.

“All this indicates that the Trump administration will probably face resistance to its anti-China campaign in Latin America from an unexpected source, namely local business interests.”

This article contains some formulations and opinions with which the editors of this website are not fully in agreement. However, we reproduce it for its detailed factual presentation, interesting analysis and clear anti-imperialist standpoint. It was originally published by Links, an Australian publication which describes itself as an international journal of socialist renewal. A slightly abridged version was first published in Jacobin.

Steve Ellner is an Associate Managing Editor of Latin American Perspectives and a retired professor at the Universidad de Oriente in Venezuela, where he lived for over 40 years.

US President Donald Trump’s threats to take over the Panama Canal, convert Canada into the 51st state and purchase Greenland may not be as ludicrous as they seemed. The proposals, albeit unachievable, lay the groundwork for a more “rational” strategy of targeting China (not so much Russia) and singling out real adversaries (as opposed to Canada and Panama), which include Cuba and Venezuela, with Bolivia not far behind. The strategy is what James Carafano of the Heritage Foundation calls the “Rejuvenation of the Monroe Doctrine,” which, after all, in its day encompassed Canada and Greenland in addition to Latin America.

Trump’s choice of anti-Cuba zealot Marco Rubio as secretary of state reinforces the perception that the Trump administration’s foreign policy will pay special attention to Latin America and that Latin American policy will prioritise two enemies: China and the continent’s leftist governments. Carafano calls the strategy “a pivot to Latin America.”

Political analyst Juan Gabriel Tokatlian writing in Americas Quarterly was more specific. After citing Trump’s plans for military action against Mexico, Cuba and Venezuela in his first administration, Tokatlian reasons “a second Trump White House may well lack some of the more rational voices that averted more rash actions the first time around.”

Chinese solidarity in Panama’s long struggle for sovereignty against US imperialism

Following threats by the Trump administration to illegally seize the Panama Canal, Panama’s right wing government, following a visit by Secretary of State Marco Rubio, has partially acceded to US pressure by deciding to withdraw from its participation in China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI).

In a prompt reaction, on February 7, Chinese Assistant Foreign Minister Zhao Zhiyuan summoned Miguel Humberto Lecaro Barcenas, Panama’s ambassador to China, to lodge solemn representations over Panama’s decision, to which the Chinese side expressed deep regret.

More than 150 countries actively participate in the BRI, with achievements benefiting the people of various nations, including Panama, Zhao said. “Any attempts to reverse course on the BRI and go against the expectations of the Chinese and Panamanian peoples do not align with the vital interests of Panama.”

China respects Panama’s sovereignty and territorial integrity, and advocates for equality among countries of all sizes, mutual respect, and credibility in commitments, Zhao stressed. China firmly opposes the United States wantonly undermining China-Panama relations and discrediting and undermining cooperation under the BRI through pressure and threats.

Lecaro said that Panama values its relationship with China and will promptly report to its government.

That same day, at a regular Foreign Ministry press conference, spokesperson Lin Jian said that China firmly opposes the United States’ actions to smear and sabotage Belt and Road cooperation through pressure and coercion and deeply regrets that Panama will not renew the Memorandum of Understanding on BRI cooperation with China.

China supports Panama’s sovereignty over the Panama Canal and is committed to upholding the Canal’s status as a permanently neutral international waterway, he added. China has never participated in managing or operating the Canal, and never ever has China interfered. The accusation that China has control over the Canal is totally groundless. “The world is not blind to the truth as to who is keeping the Canal neutral and thriving and who keeps threatening to ‘take back’ the Canal.”

It is highly unlikely that this concession by Panama will have the effect of appeasing the Trump administration. If anything, it is likely to further turn the screws on the small Central American country.

In an article published by People’s Dispatch, and also republished by the Morning Star, Tings Chak noted that: “Trump’s rhetoric fits neatly into his vocal expansionist and imperialist ambitions, from annexing Greenland and Canada to ‘taking back’ the Panama Canal, which itself was a product of US interventionism and imperialist interest in the region.”

Tings adds: “Panamanian sovereignty over the Canal Zone became the centre of decades of struggle, coming to a head in January 1964, when students attempted to raise a Panamanian flag there in protest of US imperialism. They were met with brutal repression, and several students were wounded and killed. It wasn’t until the leadership of Omar Torrijo that Panama was finally able to gain its control over the Canal Zone, solidified in the Torrijos-Carter treaties in 1977. As an important victory for Panama’s national sovereignty, the treaties stated that the US would relinquish control of the area in 1979, with the transference of control completed by 1999 – now once again being threatened again by the provocations of Trump’s administration.”

Responding to the events of January 1964, a wave of solidarity swept socialist China, with up to 20 million people taking part in militant anti-imperialist protests. In his statement of support, issued on January 12, 1964, Chairman Mao Zedong declared:

The heroic struggle now being waged by the people of Panama against US aggression and in defence of their national sovereignty is a great patriotic struggle. The Chinese people stand firmly on the side of the Panamanian people and fully support their just action in opposing the US aggressors and seeking to regain sovereignty over the Panama Canal Zone.

US imperialism is the most ferocious enemy of the people of the entire world.

It has not only committed the grave crime of aggression against the Panamanian people, and painstakingly and stubbornly plotted against socialist Cuba, but has continuously been plundering and oppressing the people of the Latin American countries and suppressing the national-democratic revolutionary struggles there.

Significantly, and fully in keeping with his consistent analytical framework when assessing international questions, Mao’s brief survey of the global struggle against US imperialism at the time, also stressed:

Even toward its allies in Western Europe, North America and Oceania, US imperialism is pursuing a policy of the law of the jungle, trying hard to trample them underfoot.

Mao’s statement also formed the centrepiece of a pamphlet published by China’s Foreign Languages Press, whose contents also included the texts of messages from Chinese leaders Liu Shaoqi, Zhou Enlai and Zhu De to their Panamanian counterparts. It should be noted that such messages were sent in the spirit of internationalism and without regard to the fact that Panama had yet to establish diplomatic relations with China. China consistently maintained its principled stand in support of Panama’s anti-imperialist struggle for sovereignty, through all its twists and turns, although bilateral diplomatic relations were not established until 2017.

The following articles are republished from the Xinhua News Agency, People’s Dispatch and the Marxist Internet Archive (MIA).

China lodges solemn representations to Panama over withdrawal from BRI cooperation with China

BEIJING, Feb. 8 (Xinhua) — Assistant Foreign Minister Zhao Zhiyuan on Friday summoned Miguel Humberto Lecaro Barcenas, Panama’s ambassador to China, to lodge solemn representations over Panama’s decision to not renew the Memorandum of Understanding on cooperation with China on the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI).

Panama recently announced the termination of the Memorandum of Understanding on the BRI, to which the Chinese side expressed deep regret, Zhao said.

Under the framework of the BRI, pragmatic cooperation between China and Panama has rapidly developed across various sectors and achieved a series of fruitful results, bringing tangible benefits to Panama and its people, Zhao noted.

China respects Panama’s sovereignty and territorial integrity, and advocates for equality among countries of all sizes, mutual respect, and credibility in commitments, Zhao stressed.

Trump, tariffs and the working class

The two articles below address the tariffs recently announced by the US against China, Canada and Mexico.

The first article, written by Friends of Socialist China advisory group member and International Manifesto Group convenor Radhika Desai, republished from CGTN, points to the cynical economic motives for these tariffs: to rob from the poor to pay the rich. Since the cost of tariffs is passed on to consumers, they constitute a stealth tax on ordinary Americans, and will help make up for the loss of revenue resulting from the Trump regime’s tax cuts for the super-rich.

The cost of the tariffs will be paid by ordinary US consumers. And they will pay in order that the richest US taxpayers can enjoy greater tax cuts, which is the key reason why Trump needs the tariff revenues.

Tariffs will also drive up inflation, further impacting living conditions of the working class.

The putative aim of the tariffs is to bolster US manufacturing. However, “for US capital, given its decades-long reluctance to invest productively at home, it’s going to take a lot more than tariffs. US capital needs to be turned away from the unproductive, predatory and speculative financial ventures in which it is engaged and towards serious productive investment.”

The second article, republished from Workers World, details the likely negative impact of the tariffs on the US economy, and denounces the Trump administration’s threats against the BRICS countries.

Attacks against BRICS are detrimental to workers in G7 countries… BRICS countries are displaying self-sufficiency and independence from Western imperialism and settler colonialism. Relations between China and Russia have also strengthened because of BRICS. Many countries in the Global South have less of a need to trade with the U.S. than they did in previous decades, and therefore they have more leverage to maintain sovereignty.

The article concludes:

Trump’s promotion of tariffs is harmful to workers all over the globe. Imperialist protectionism and isolationism are an obstacle to working-class unity, and they should be opposed. International solidarity is necessary in resisting anti-worker tariffs and defeating the racist, xenophobic “America First” agenda. Workers and oppressed peoples of the world, unite!

Trump’s empty tariff brinkmanship

After days of keeping the world guessing whether he would commit to such a disastrous course, U.S. President Donald Trump has started his trade wars against his country’s three most important trade partners, Canada, Mexico and China.

In announcing the tariffs on exports from these countries, Trump was self-contradictory, claiming they were a negotiating tool designed to deal with U.S. trade deficits, and then that they were not. Their true extent remains unclear: From the apparently blanket tariffs of 25 percent on Canada and Mexico and 10 percent on China, he has already reduced tariffs on oil, natural gas and electricity from Canada to 10 percent, and uncertainty prevails over exactly which goods they will hit, how, and by how much.

The Financial Times called it “a trade war on steroids” while the Washington Post declared it “the dumbest trade war in history.” Many others said these sky-high tariffs could not be expected to last forever.

So, as the world tightens its seatbelt for a bumpy ride through the Trump quadrennial, let’s parse the real wheat from the rhetorical chaff so we can better anticipate the course of the trade wars Trump has started. The key is that Trump’s tariffs are incoherent in conception and applied for the wrong reasons.

Trump is certainly using them as negotiating tools. He claims they are superior to sanctions, which scare other countries from the dollar system he wishes to save. Exactly how adding the weaponization of trade to the weaponization of the dollar is going to help the U.S. is anyone’s guess.

Is DeepSeek China’s Sputnik moment?

In the article below, reprinted from People’s World, CJ Atkins examines the geopolitical significance of the success of China’s DeepSeek R1 model, which has been taking the world by storm in recent weeks, and which was responsible for chip manufacturer Nvidia suffering the biggest ever fall in share price in a single day.

Atkins notes that the Biden administration’s export ban on the most sophisticated microchips has clearly backfired. “The export bans simply spurred Chinese developers to get creative, pushing them to come up with cheaper and more efficient ways of using the older chips they already had access to. They discovered means to train and operate AI models using less memory and less computing power. This resulted in a model that was cheaper to build and less damaging for the planet to operate than those developed by the U.S. tech monopolies.”

Importantly, DeepSeek’s developers made their model open source, allowing anyone to use it for free. “That means they showed their work for the world to see and adapt for further development. Other scientists and coders can build on DeepSeek-R1 to create their own AI models.” The article cites Liang Wenfeng, the founder of DeepSeek, as saying that “our starting point is not the opportunity to make a quick profit, but rather to reach the technical frontier and drive the development of the entire ecosystem”.

The stunning success of DeepSeek’s model highlights the fact that China is now a major player in the global tech industry, and is increasingly setting the pace in terms of innovation. This is testament to the effectiveness of China’s economic model, and calls to mind Deng Xiaoping’s 1984 comment that “the superiority of the socialist system is demonstrated, in the final analysis, by faster and greater development of those forces than under the capitalist system”.

Atkins warns that the DeepSeek phenomenon will likely trigger a deepening of the US’s trade war against China, along with an expansion of its campaign of containment and encirclement. “We can expect a ramping up of military tensions over the long term. The weapons dealers and neocon warhawks will seize the moment to beat the drums of a real war against China. There will be a tightening of U.S. imperialism’s military encirclement of China, and a propaganda onslaught warning of the ‘China threat’ will wash over the American people. Anti-Asian racism will figure prominently, just as it did during the pandemic.”

The article concludes by noting that China’s consistent call is for peaceful coexistence and international cooperation between countries with different social systems. The US and China could and should be working together to push science and technology forward in the service of humanity, but the US ruling class cannot be expected to pursue such a path in the absence of mass pressure. “The tech monopolists will do anything to protect their own profits and power, even if it means keeping the world divided and holding back shared progress.”

In 1978, just months before China initiated the reform and opening up of its economy, Communist Party leader Deng Xiaoping told a meeting of researchers:

“Our science and technology have made enormous progress since the founding of New China…. But we must be clear-sighted and recognize that there is still an enormous gap between our level and that of the most advanced countries and that our scientific and technical forces are still too meager.”

If he were alive to witness the events of the last few days, would Deng be shocked?

The release of the DeepSeek-R1 chatbot, a Chinese-developed large language model (LLM), threw the global artificial intelligence industry into chaos and wiped a trillion dollars off the values of some of the biggest tech corporations on the New York Stock Exchange—overnight.

Is this China’s “Sputnik moment,” comparable in historic significance to the Soviet Union’s inauguration of the space age with the launch of the first artificial satellite in 1957?

Back then, U.S. capitalism made the mistake of assuming that blockading the socialist half of the world via trade walls and embargoes would keep it technologically backward forever. The same error is being made again with China.

No chips for China

Export bans on the most sophisticated microchips that power advanced AI applications, along with chip-making equipment and software, were imposed by the Biden administration in 2022, using “national security” as a justification.

With Trump campaigning last year to go even further, Biden toughened his restrictions in December. The graphics processing units (GPUs) that are the go-to for training AIs like ChatGPT and DeepSeek were put on an export blacklist, forbidden from being shipped to China or companies in third countries that do business with the People’s Republic.

But the U.S.’ economic aggression now appears to have backfired. The export bans simply spurred Chinese developers to get creative, pushing them to come up with cheaper and more efficient ways of using the older chips they already had access to.

They discovered means to train and operate AI models using less memory and less computing power. This resulted in a model that was cheaper to build and less damaging for the planet to operate than those developed by the U.S. tech monopolies.

China’s DeepSeek AI scores important victory against US tech hegemony

We republish below three articles about the recent release of DeepSeek R1, an artificial intelligence (AI) model that performs as well as – or better than – its major US-based competitors, but at a fraction of the cost and using relatively low-grade semiconductors.

The first article, by Marxist economist Michael Roberts, notes that DeepSeek R1 is fully open source, meaning that the code behind it is fully visible to programmers around the world and can be freely used and adapted. “This is a real blow to the ‘proprietary’ secrets that OpenAI or Google’s Gemini lock away in a ‘black box’ in order to maximise profits. The analogy here is with branded and generic pharmaceuticals.” Indeed, the whole orientation of DeepSeek is towards scientific research and the production of social goods, rather than the relentless pursuit of profit at all costs.

Michael observes that DeepSeek has caused unprecedented losses to US technology stocks – “chipmaker Nvidia and so-called ‘hyperscalers’ Alphabet, Amazon, Microsoft and Meta Platforms collectively shed almost $750bn of their stock market value in one day” – as it became apparent that the tech giants’ spending of billions of dollars on scaling their computing power is essentially unnecessary. These companies have put all their eggs in the hardware basket, but a small team of researchers in China have shown that the mathematical/algorithmic component is at least as important.

Meanwhile, the DeepSeek phenomenon is a powerful demonstration that the US “chip wars” are not having the desired effect:

What must enrage the tech oligarchs sucking up to Trump is that US sanctions on Chinese companies and bans on chip exports have not stopped China making yet more advances in the tech and chip war with the US. China is managing to make technological leaps in AI despite export controls introduced by the Biden administration intended to deprive it of both the most powerful chips and the advanced tools needed to make them.

Michael further points to the political economy of the situation, noting that “state-led planned investment into technology and tech skills by China works so much better than relying on huge private tech giants led by moguls.” He quotes billionaire tech investor Ray Dalio: “In our system, by and large, we are moving to a more industrial-complex- type of policy in which there is going to be government-mandated and government-influenced activity, because it is so important… Capitalism alone — the profit motive alone — cannot win this battle.”

The second article, by Gary Wilson in Struggle La Lucha, provides a broad overview of the geopolitics of the “chip wars” and the significance of DeepSeek’s success.

DeepSeek’s model outperformed OpenAI’s best, using less data, less computing power, and a fraction of the cost. Even more remarkable, DeepSeek’s model is open-source, meaning anyone can use, modify, and build on it. This stands in stark contrast to OpenAI’s closed, profit-driven approach.

Gary’s article continues to contrast DeepSeek’s business model – and China’s overall approach to AI – with that of the US tech giants:

Corporate rulers want AI to monitor workers, lower wages, bust unions, or shift work to machines altogether, leading to cutbacks and layoffs. The World Economic Forum famously predicted that AI would replace millions of “useless” human workers by 2030. Unlike US tech companies seeking monopoly control, DeepSeek treats AI like electricity or the Internet — a basic tool that should be accessible to everyone… AI, as a public utility, can be used to complement human labor, improve safety, reduce drudgery, and create better-paying jobs rather than eliminate them.

This touches on the broader question of the role of technology in society. Under capitalism, AI is used to maximise profits, which often means replacing human labour with algorithms, thereby deepening unemployment and, ultimately, impacting the long-term viability of the entire system by reducing the rate of profit. Under working class leadership on the other hand, technology can be used to improve the quality of life for all.

An editorial in the Morning Star on 28 January reiterates the blowback effect of US’s tech sanctions on China. “In placing sanctions on microchip exports to China, it forced developers in that country to use their chips more efficiently.”

Furthermore, DeepSeek is indicative of China’s emergence as a technology superpower. “The days are gone when Chinese economic advance largely relied on technical innovations developed elsewhere.” As such, “this week’s events are a landmark in the decline of US hegemony, and in the development of global multipolarity. With all its contradictions and contestations, that can only be welcome.”

AI going DeepSeek

Most readers will know the news by now. DeepSeek, a Chinese AI company, released an AI model called R1 that is comparable in ability to the best models from companies such as OpenAI, Anthropic and Meta, but was trained at a radically lower cost and using less than state-of-the art GPU chips. DeepSeek also made public enough of the details of the model that others can run it on their own computers without charge.

DeepSeek is a torpedo that has hit the Magnificent Seven US hi-tech companies below the water line. DeepSeek did not use the latest and best Nvidia’s chips and software; it did not require huge spending on training its AI model unlike its American rivals; and it offers just as many useful applications.

The US seeks to reverse China’s progress and bring it to heel

The International Manifesto Group (IMG) organised a webinar on ‘Trump’s Presidency and the Prospects for Peace in 2025’ on Sunday 19 January, the day before the US presidential inauguration.

The speakers were:

Ramzy Baroud (Palestine Chronicle)
Jacquie Luqman (Black Alliance for Peace)
Andrew Murray (Stop the War Coalition)
Gabriel Rockhill (Critical Theory Workshop)
Keith Bennett (Friends of Socialist China); and
Sara Flounders (International Action Center)

The event was moderated and introduced by Radhika Desai on behalf of the IMG and was also sponsored and supported by Friends of Socialist China, Palestine Chronicle, Critical Theory Workshop and the International Action Center.

Building for the event, the IMG wrote: “Given that the US is usually the prime instigator of our world’s conflicts and given that Trump sometimes spoke on the campaign trail about ending at least some of them, we ask what prospects the incoming Trump administration offers for peace. Will Trump’s second term be more or less aggressive than his first? Will he honour his campaign promise to end the war in Ukraine? Will he double down on his enthusiastic support for Israeli genocide? Will he escalate the New Cold War on China or attempt another ‘deal’? Will opportunities for peace in Korea and Iran be seized or squandered? What to make of Trump’s bellicose rhetoric in relation to Central America? How will the new administration affect humanity’s trajectory towards peace and multipolarity?”

Keith’s contribution focused on China and Korea and we reproduce his remarks below. Videos of all the contributions can be viewed on the IMG’s YouTube channel.

Meeting on the theme of Trump’s Presidency and the Prospects for Peace in 2025, it is natural we look especially at the war raging in Ukraine for nearly three years and at the situation in West Asia, as a tentative ceasefire emerges after more than 15 months of unrelenting genocide in Gaza. With so many thousands of lives being lost is it self-indulgence or overreach to also turn our attention to the Asia Pacific region?

But today, no bilateral relationship is more important, more strategic and more fraught with dangers of global conflict than that between the United States and China.

Faced with the peaceful rise of China, a rise unparalleled in human history, it has essentially become a consensus among the otherwise contending wings of the US ruling class that the preservation of US global hegemony necessitates taking China as Washington’s principal adversary. From Greenland to the South Pacific. And from semiconductors to social media.

As with Cold War One and the Soviet Union, the US seeks to reverse China’s progress and, at best, bring it to heel, through a combination of a debilitating arms race, ideological subversion and economic and technological strangulation. A key difference is that not only has China drawn lessons from the collapse of the Soviet Union. Whereas the USA and the USSR were essentially economically insulated from one another, China has spent the best part of half a century integrating itself into the global economy, creating such facts on the ground in the process as ever more complex global supply chains, and with China accounting for some 11% of US foreign trade.

So, what does Trump’s return mean for China/US relations?

First, Trump revels in his role as Disruptor-in-Chief, so the first thing we should expect is the unexpected. Certainly, if he carries through on even a fraction of his recent threats regarding tariffs, not only will China face an economic challenge. The entire global economy, in a parlous enough state as it is, and not least the US economy itself, will be plunged into crisis.

But overall, there seems little reason to anticipate a fundamental change of direction. When Biden assumed the presidency, many had hopes for a return to a more rational and constructive China policy in Washington. This did not materialise. Far from reversing Trump’s anti-China measures, the Biden administration ratcheted them up substantially, especially in terms of trying to restrict China’s access to computer chips and other advanced technology.

To the extent there was change under Biden, it came essentially in two areas:

• His administration largely eschewed the openly racist rhetoric of Trump (kung flu, Chinese virus, etc.), which undoubtedly made life somewhat more tolerable for many Chinese and other Asian and Pacific Islander Americans.

• Whereas Trump was an ‘equal opportunities bully’ when it came to insulting and threatening allies and adversaries alike, Biden’s team worked hard, and with a considerable degree of success, to reinforce cohesion in NATO, get the EU onside, and reinvigorate and reinforce old alliances, such as those with Japan, South Korea and the Philippines, all with a view to confronting China, along with Russia, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) and other states in Washington’s crosshairs.

So, even if Trump ups the ante with China, it will not break the essential continuum established by Barack Obama and Hilary Clinton with their 2011 ‘pivot to Asia’.