When capitalism is in crisis, when profit rates are falling, when the GDP growth of the most advanced countries is at minimal or zero levels, when states can barely survive under the weight of increasingly unsustainable national debt, when capital flies from the real economy to chase the chimera of easy profits leading to a vicious cycle of speculation that generates financial bubbles and devastating financial crises, then imperialism starts to panic and becomes more voracious and theatres of war open in all four corners of the planet. Who pays for all this? Ultimately, everyone. But the international proletariat pays directly: the subordinate classes, the dispossessed, all of us who in peacetime have to sell our labour power to enable capital to make its profits, and in wartime are sent as cannon fodder to solve the capitalists’ problems. The Russian and Ukrainian governing class are not sending workers off to the slaughter so that they will have better lives. They are simply advancing their own economic interests. Meanwhile, the EU is implementing a war economy so that it can support Kyiv with funding and weapons. At the same time it is suffering the weight of US-imposed sanctions against Russia, Germany first and foremost. For this reason EU states are obliged to impose further cuts on welfare (schools, healthcare, pensions) and impose lower wages even more forcefully and intensify the exploitation of workers. In the Middle East, the deception of nationalism is allowing an epochal massacre to be perpetrated by Israel, on Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank, as well as inhabitants of Lebanon and Yemen. But there is also the danger that the armed conflict will shift to the Indo-Pacific where tensions between the two major imperialisms are skyrocketing. If this were to happen, it would be a catastrophe for all humanity. The task of preventing such tragic barbarity falls on the international proletariat and its revolutionary party by waging war on war. NO TO WAR, YES TO CLASS STRUGGLE.

From 4-6 September the eighth summit of the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation (FOCAC) took place. (With China, the host/organiser, and about fifty African states, FOCAC is held every three years.) In theory, the Forum exists to promote co-operation between participating states and to build a shared future between Beijing and the various African countries. A sort of “equal” political-commercial relationship between a great power that “helps” and a series of developing countries who are rich in raw materials but underdeveloped in economic and technological terms, and which, in turn, should benefit in terms of economic and social development. In fact, the initiatives of Chinese imperialism, including a conspicuous amount of targeted investments, "colonise" half of Africa. ‘Co-operation’ is interpreted in the only way possible for a now long-standing imperialist power: exploit the mineral and energy resources of the cooperating countries to the maximum whilst leaving them up to their necks in debt. This serves the dual purpose of plundering their natural resources at low cost and blackmailing the governments by playing on the interest stacked up on the debts contracted and forcing them into political alignment. According to research by the Global Development Policy Center, an institute at Boston University (USA), between 2000 and 2023 alone, China granted a total of 1,306 loans to 50 African governments for the equivalent of $182.28 billion. Perhaps pressure from debtor countries, notably South Africa, will be able to reduce this huge amount of indebtedness in the coming years and rebalance trade on the basis of less onerous commercial and financial contracts. But we know where these requests end up: the contractually strongest always wins. In exchange, Beijing builds schools, infrastructure, roads and highways that, to a large extent, are more useful to Chinese technicians and the logistics of employing indigenous labour and transporting minerals than for domestic commercial routes, otherwise practically non-existent.

Some examples. Chinese infrastructure has been established in many sub-Saharan African countries up to the Horn of Africa, where railways connecting Addis Ababa to the port of Doraleh near Djibouti have been constructed. Further, there is the urban railway of Addis Ababa, as well as numerous power plants in Ethiopia. In the Sahel, the 120km highway connects the cities of Dosso and Gaya in Niger and a 32km toll highway connects Dakar, the capital of Senegal, and Diamniadio. Further significant schemes are projected to be implemented in Nigeria, such as the Abuja-Kaduna highway, the Abuja railway, the port and related industrial area of Lekki and the strategic Bui dam in Ghana. When necessary, China provides assistance and military facilities to the governments of the day and at the same time lays the foundations to strengthen its own military presence. In addition, it is also worth noting the operational presence of Chinese private security companies, de facto under the political control of Beijing. These companies are tasked with providing security services, and even paramilitary ‘protection’, for all Chinese-financed infrastructure, including control of mines for the extraction and transport of minerals. They also provide defence for technicians, something that is more than necessary in the emergencies that arise for an imperialist godfather which is as rapacious as any other imperialism, but which wants to present itself as a "benefactor" and not as a robber of African wealth. Caught up in this daylight robbery are countries from the west to the east coast, including intrusions into central and southern Africa, from Guinea to Liberia, Ghana, Ivory Coast and the Republic of Congo. Chinese industrial development covets bauxite in Guinea and Ghana and iron in Liberia, while Gabon and the Republic of Congo supply copper and other strategic minerals such as cobalt. In central Africa, trade with Zambia is based on the exploitation of gold, copper and cobalt mines, while on the western coast Eritrea provides Chinese imperialism with gold, cobalt and copper. Finally, in the central Sahel belt, Beijing secures the largest deposits of oil, rare earths, cassiterite (tin dioxide for pharmaceutical use), uranium and lithium. In addition, trade agreements (naturally in favour of China) with Nigeria, the Democratic Republic of Congo, South Africa, Zimbabwe and Mozambique are also of value; not to mention political interference, for strategic purposes, in the highly disputed Djibouti, where Beijing has already created a military garrison in competition with eight other countries, including the USA, France, Japan and Italy.

This is all in “discreet” competition with its Russian ally (the former Wagner Group now the under Kremlin control as the “Africa Corps”), which operates militarily in Libya supporting Haftar, the Central African Republic, Niger, Mali, Burkina Faso and Sudan. China and Russia are both in bitter conflict with the US strategically (control of the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden) and economically (minerals, gas, oil and rare earths). It goes without saying that the two components of the conflict on the African continent never fail to play a tragically interconnected role that, very often, results in proxy wars, or externally sponsored coups, passed off as internal or tribal wars, but with weapons that come from Moscow, Beijing and Washington. France, and its project to reconnect with the old African colonies, seems to have vanished, both militarily and financially, under the blows of the most aggressive imperialist powers. Only with Chad does Paris still have some contact, but in cohabitation with Russia, and it partially maintains its previously mentioned presence in Djibouti, but with a now clearly minor role. In addition to these aspects, the voluntary or forced support of African states will be useful to China, in the event of increased friction with the US. It would be useful on the “Taiwan question”, on the continuation of the construction of the “Silk Road”, on the effort to make the yuan a currency capable of countering the power of the dollar and, last but not least, to arrive “triumphantly” at that fateful 2035, the date that should mark for Beijing the economic overtaking of China with respect to the US. Ultimately, it would serve as a very important political factor, an indispensable support base to count on in case of need, in the aforementioned historical phase in which world capitalism is suffering from a structural crisis causing imperialisms in various markets to fibrillate, from the financial one to that of the control of gas and oil deposits, from commercial ones to the control of strategic nodes both for the commercial routes of raw materials and goods, and for the military one of the seas, such as the Mediterranean, increasingly the object of conflict between China, Russia, Europe and the American VI fleet, all in different ways interested in the Middle Eastern crisis. Returning to the situation in Africa, though elsewhere too, Beijing imposes the initially temporary but then long-lasting possibility of using port infrastructures that provide safe outposts along the pharaonic project of “its” Silk Road, in addition to the mining and energy exploitation obtained with debt blackmail and the ever-effective weapon of government corruption. Towards a similar objective, Beijing has been acting in the Mediterranean for two decades. It secured the management of Port Said in 2005, followed by the Nile Delta two years later to “guard” the strategic Suez Canal. It then added, through forms of corporate participation that reach up to 50% of the share package, the management of the ports of Valencia in Spain (2017), Haifa in Israel (2021), el-Hamdania in Algeria, Zarzis in Tunisia and Kumpart in Turkey (2015). In this regard, it must also be said, however, that the relationship between China and Turkey, with regard to their respective presences in the major ports of the Mediterranean, is very transactional to the point of calling into question the agreements signed. In fact, the Turkish government would like to be the only, or the most important, hub in the Mediterranean, both for the management of oil pipelines and for an undisturbed naval military presence that would guarantee it strategic superiority in what it considers "its" sea. So agreements with Turkey have been made but Erdoğan would readily desert them if they no longer correspond to safeguarding Turkey’s interests, behaviour to which he has long accustomed us. Thanks to the financial availability of its operating centres, such as China Merchant, China purchased the port of Piraeus (2009) directly from the Greek government, taking advantage of the deep economic and financial crisis, which still dogs it. Also in the Mediterranean, Beijing has acquired important stakes in the ports of Rijeka in Croatia, Marseilles in France, Malta, and the new Moroccan port in Tangier, still under construction. Added to these is Sines in Portugal, as well as the usability of a couple of Italian ports such as Savona (Vado Gateway, 2019) and Taranto. It also unsuccessfully negotiated for the ports of Genoa and Trieste. However, there are a series of strategic problems over Taranto, just over ten kilometres from the NATO Standing Naval Forces base, so US pressure will not be long in making itself felt. It goes without saying that all these projects (mostly complete), will be met by countermeasures of US imperialism. Some of these countermeasures are already in place. Under previous American administrations, for over a decade now, Western companies that did not practice the protectionist rule of a 60% tax on all goods imported from Beijing are penalised and there are heavy political and economic reprisals for those who intend to trade with currencies other than the dollar.

All this to defend American commercial interests, the supremacy of the dollar and the hegemonic role of the USA on an international scale. Therefore the real arena of conflict between the two major imperialist powers is not in Eastern Europe (the war in Ukraine supported by NATO and the USA), nor in the Middle East between Israel (supported by the USA, Europe, Germany in particular) and the Islamist galaxy (Hamas, Hezbollah, Iraqi Shiites and Houthis) with the disturbing shadow of the Republic of the Ayatollahs behind them, but, rather, is in the Indo-Pacific. This does not mean that the imperialist confrontation between Russia, Iran and the USA is not part of the war tragedy that international capitalism is currently imposing on the world. Otherwise, the economic and financial sanctions demanded by Washington against Moscow and the huge military aid to Kyiv, to weaken the Russian economy and, consequently, alarm its Chinese ally, could not be explained. Nor would it make sense for Washington to fully support the carnage that the State of Israel is perpetrating against the Palestinian and Lebanese people under the pretext of avenging 7 October. Despite Biden’s repeated formal verbal references to the Netanyahu government’s policy of “excessive defence,” babbling the stale refrain of “two peoples and two states,” when the UN was deciding on a resolution condemning Israel, the US President once again used his right of veto to save his main ally in the Middle East. He repeated this attitude more recently over the “pagers” tampered with by Israeli intelligence in yet another settling of scores with the Hezbollah militias. A settling that went as far as eliminating all of its political and military leaders, not caring about the consequences for the civilian population. Again Biden, at the end of September, while the UN Secretary General and the International Criminal Court were denouncing the government of Tel Aviv for crimes against humanity and “genocide,” allocated eight billion dollars in sophisticated weapons to the Israeli executioner. None of this obscures the fact that the real clash remains in the Indo-Pacific, where the primary interests of the two major imperialist powers are at stake, namely the reunification of mainland China and the island state of Taiwan.

It is not just a question of banal nationalism, but also of economic necessity, taking into account that 65% of the world's microchips are produced in Taiwan. At stake is the domination of the trade routes of goods in the China Sea, of access to the most advanced technologies, of the free passage of warships that Beijing claims without half measures, even at the cost of a head-on clash with its enemy number one, US imperialism, which responds in kind. Also at stake is the supremacy of the dollar over the yuan in international transactions on gas and oil, as well as on the supply of high-tech material. The game is also about who, in a decade’s time, will lead the world economy and which imperialist power will be best equipped to dominate the world – a capitalist world, troubled like never before by its contradictions, with an economy perpetually in crisis that pushes everything and everyone towards human and ecological catastrophe.

This is why Chinese penetration into Africa and the southern coasts of the Mediterranean, in addition to the economic and strategic aspects mentioned, gives Beijing the opportunity to present itself as the champion of the Global South against the old Western imperialism. A good example is provided by UN resolution 2758 of 1971 which definitively recognised the People's Republic of China as the sole representative of China at the United Nations in place of Taiwan. This resolution was also approved thanks to the support of many African countries. Although it must be said that, at that time, the US favoured China's entry into the UN, to the point of granting it a place among the permanent members of the Security Council, as an anti-USSR ploy. Today, times have changed in the balance of power and in the alliances between the big imperialists, but the support of African states continues to be important.

China wants to claim that only the Americans with the galaxy of Western countries in tow is imperialist, while Beijing can present itself on the international scene as the only power defending the countries of the Global South, including BRICS, and as the only champion of their defence against Washington's arrogance. The usual petty game according to which imperialist policy is always the prerogative of the adversary and never one's own. And if the tensions between the two imperialisms were to transform into war actions with the usual inhuman barbarity, China would hope to have a very large consensus, if not political support, at its disposal in its mortal duel with the USA. Both Beijing and Washington know very well that the war crises, currently underway, are important, but they also know that the game of Taiwan and the Indo-Pacific will be played with violent determination on both sides. It is here that the opposing interests of the two imperialisms, with their respective ranks of allies, co-interested or exploited, could explode, giving rise to a more immediate conflict with frightening consequences for the whole of humanity.

NO WAR BUT THE CLASS WAR. No to war, yes to class struggle, is the only possible response to this catastrophic prospect.

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Image: GovernmentZA (CC BY-ND 2.0), flickr.com