ONURCAN ÜLKER: Since the mid-2010s, there have been ongoing discussions within China’s new Maoist movement regarding the “Chinese imperialism theory” (中帝论 Zhongdilun). There are also various divergent views within the global left regarding whether China constitutes a new imperialist or social-imperialist superpower. You are one of the leading intellectuals contributing to these debates in both Chinese and English literature. In a long Monthly Review article a few years ago, you argued that China is not an imperialist country and, at best, falls somewhere between the core and the periphery. Do you still hold this view, and could you briefly elaborate on it?
MINQI LI: Since the beginning of this century, Chinese Marxists have reached a consensus that contemporary China has completed the transition to capitalism and the capitalist relations of production dominate today’s Chinese society. However, Chinese Marxists, as well as some Marxists outside of China, have debated the nature of Chinese capitalism and its position in the capitalist world system. Those who argue that today’s China is best characterized as an imperialist country rely upon a certain understanding of Lenin’s theory of imperialism. According to the advocates of the “Chinese imperialism theory,” imperialism means monopoly capitalism and exports of capital. Since the Chinese economy today is dominated by various large corporations and China has made massive investments abroad, China must therefore be an imperialist country.
What advocates of the “Chinese imperialism theory” fail to understand is that, since the end of the Second World War, capitalist relations of production have developed substantially throughout the world. Today, it is difficult to find a country without an economy dominated by some form of “monopoly capital.” Moreover, in the age of globalized capitalism, almost every country has made some investments abroad while receiving investments from the rest of the world.
Back to 1920, in the preface to the French and German editions of Imperialism: The Highest Stage of Capitalism, Lenin already pointed out that it is one of the defining characteristics of the imperialist countries that they constitute the wealthiest and most powerful countries in the world with populations amounting to between one-tenth and one-fifth of the world total. According to Lenin, the imperialist countries are able to reap superprofits from the rest of the world and use the superprofits to buy off “labor aristocracies” to maintain domestic social compromise.
While China has made lots of foreign investments, the average rate of return on China overseas assets has been about 3 percent. By comparison, the average rate of return on foreign investment in China has been about 6 percent. Although China’s overseas assets are greater than its liabilities, China has to make greater payments of profits and interests to foreign capitalists than Chinese capitalists receive from abroad. Rather than being a recipient of superprofits, China continues to be exploited by the imperialist countries.
China’s direct investment in Southeast and South Asia, Africa, and Latin America accounts for a very small fraction of the total investment made by Chinese capitalists and does not have a significant impact on China’s domestic economy.
But couldn’t one object that Lenin did not treat imperialism as a uniform or homogeneous system? He also counted relatively “backward” powers like Tsarist Russia, Italy, and Japan among the imperialist states. Along similar lines, some critics on the Chinese left argue that world-systems approaches can make the hierarchy of the system seem too fixed, as if upward movement from the semi-periphery were ruled out in advance. Some also suggest that this risks implying an overly stable or even “symbiotic” relationship between China and the United States, in a way reminiscent of Kautsky. How would you respond to those criticisms?
Lenin did not see the imperialist system as a homogeneous entity. But Lenin clearly argued that ALL imperialist countries were able to appropriate superprofits from colonies and semi-colonies. In the contemporary context, that would mean the imperialist countries are those which are able to exploit the periphery and semi-periphery and reap superprofits as a result. Those who dispute this need to re-read Chapter 8 of Imperialism as well as Lenin’s Preface to the French and German editions in 1920.
Of course, the imperialist system is not solidified, just as the capitalist economic system is not solidified. A few workers, with greed and luck, may rise to the rank of the capitalist class in one day. But it would be absurd for a Marxist to argue that something like one-fifth of the working class can join the capitalist class. That’s not a Marxist argument. It’s a bourgeois argument for “class mobility.” Similarly, I do not think that China (with nearly one-fifth of the world population) can someday become a part of the top layer of the capitalist world system.
I do not recall that Karl Kautsky made any comment about the symbiotic relationship between China and the United States. So I cannot comment on this part of the “criticism.”
Let me stay with that line of argument. Against the view that rising capital exports show China taking on an imperialist character, you have stressed how heavily China’s ODI data is shaped by round-tripping and offshoring through Hong Kong, Macao, Singapore, and tax havens. Still, Chinese investment in developing countries across Asia, Africa, and Latin America has also increased substantially in recent years, especially since the Belt and Road Initiative. So how do you interpret this outward expansion of Chinese capital, and how does it relate to pressures within China’s domestic economy?
All capitalists look for opportunities to make profitable investments, whether those opportunities exist internally or externally. Chinese capitalists are no exception. There is no question that China’s investment in Southeast and South Asia, Africa, and Latin America intends to exploit the cheap labor force and local natural resources in those countries. But as you explained, most of China’s investment abroad went to Hong Kong, Singapore, Cayman Islands, and the British Virgin Islands, not places where you would expect to have a cheap labor force or abundant natural resources. In 2024, the total new foreign direct investment made by Chinese capitalists in the rest of the world excluding Hong Kong, Singapore, the Cayman Islands, and the British Virgin Islands amounted to about 46 billiondollars, or about a quarter of China’s new foreign direct investment. By comparison, in 2024, China’s domestic total investment of fixed assets reached 52 trillion Yuan (or 7.3 trillion dollars). Therefore, China’s direct investment in Southeast and South Asia, Africa, and Latin America accounts for a very small fraction of the total investment made by Chinese capitalists and does not have a significant impact on China’s domestic economy.
Let me turn to the question of state-owned enterprises (SOEs). According to China’s latest official Statistical Bulletin on ODI, SOEs accounted for nearly 65 percent of the country’s total outward direct investment (ODI) by the end of 2024. Similarly, SOEs dominate among Chinese companies on the Forbes “Global 500” list. This is not the case in countries of the dominant imperialist bloc (the U.S., the EU, and Japan). What do these data tell us about the structure of capital and the composition of the capitalist class in China?
State-owned enterprises are often capital-intensive and large enterprises. So it’s not surprising that Chinese state-owned enterprises have a prominent place in the Global 500 list considering that China now is the world’s largest economy measured by purchasing power parity. However, the focus on certain lists of the largest enterprises overstates the importance of state-owned enterprises in today’s Chinese economy. According to data from China’s National Bureau of Statistics, in 2024, state-owned industrial enterprises accounted for only 28 percent of the business revenue and 17 percent of the employment of the Chinese industrial enterprises.
Let me push this a bit further. Mao argued that the danger of capitalist restoration came primarily from the upper layers of the Party and the state bureaucracy. Can that still help us understand post-reform China? More specifically, how should we think about the class character of SOEs today? Even without formal private ownership or inheritance rights, are there mechanisms through which party-state elites can reproduce their control over SOEs and the allocation of resources?
Mao’s argument was about the danger of capitalist restoration in a socialist society. As I explained earlier, today’s China is a capitalist society. In today’s China, state-owned enterprises, as well as foreign and domestic private enterprises, exploit the working class through wage labor and compete against each other in pursuit of surplus value. In this sense, both state-owned enterprises and private enterprises in China now are economic elements that help to produce and reproduce capitalist relations of production. I am not familiar with the particular mechanisms used by individual members of the Chinese ruling elites to control state owned enterprises for their personal benefit.
Another feature often said to distinguish China is the state’s tight control over banking and finance. Some on the left see this as evidence that China still retains elements of socialism. How do you see it? Why has China’s bureaucratic capitalist class been relatively cautious about financial liberalization?
I would not describe the Chinese state control over the banking sector and financial markets as “tight.” State control of the banking sector and regulation of financial markets was a common occurrence among developing capitalist countries in the 1960s and 1970s. If I remember correctly, in the 1970s, most of Turkey’s banking sector was owned by the state under the Kemalist political system. That did not make Turkey a socialist or non-capitalist country.
I also would hesitate to use the term “bureaucratic capitalist class” to describe the Chinese ruling class today because the term “bureaucratic capitalism” can mean many different things in different historical contexts. But certainly China today is ruled by the Chinese capitalist class, regardless of its specific form.
It is true that the Chinese ruling elites have been cautious about financial liberalization and the state-owned banks remain dominant in the financial sector. The short answer to why this has been the case is that the Chinese ruling elites have learned from practice that a state-dominated financial system has served Chinese capitalist accumulation well, in contradiction to the free-market dogma promoted by bourgeois economic theory. In addition to insulating China from global financial crises, state control of the financial sector also helps to keep the real interest rate low, allowing industrial capitalists to retain a larger portion of the surplus value and greater motivations in capital accumulation.
In a recent piece for Science & Society, you argued that the contradictions of Chinese capitalism may push China toward a more state-capitalist configuration, in which SOEs once again play a larger role in the economy. While this would not itself mean socialism, you suggest it could help prepare the ground for a transition beyond capitalism. Does this mean that capitalist restoration in China is already complete? And if a transition back to socialism does become possible, would it take an evolutionary form under the current CPC leadership, or a revolutionary form driven by the Chinese working class?
As I explained earlier, I think capitalist restoration in China was completed several decades ago. Otherwise, the question of transition (back) to socialism would not arise. As for the path of transition to socialism that may take place in China perhaps over the second half of this century, that will depend on the conditions of social contradictions and class struggle by that time. Certainly the capitalist class will not voluntarily give up its power, wealth, and privileges. Thus revolutionary struggle by the working class would be a necessary condition. Although revolutionary struggle does not have to mean armed insurrection. I believe the Chinese working class in the future will find their own practical and effective method of revolution.
You are also known for your work on the climate crisis, peak oil, and the relation between ecological limits and capitalism’s drive for endless accumulation. China’s renewable energy sector has expanded rapidly in recent years and now plays a growing role in the country’s economy. What lies behind this push toward green energy, and can it meaningfully help mitigate the global climate crisis?
China’s renewable energy sector has grown rapidly. But that has not prevented China’s fossil fuels consumption and carbon dioxide emissions from continuing to grow. Now China accounts for about one-third of the world’s total carbon dioxide emissions. Global climate stabilization cannot be achieved without massive and rapid reduction of China’s carbon dioxide emissions. For that to happen, the growth of renewable energy is not enough. We need to have an end to capital accumulation and economic growth. Of course, this cannot happen under capitalism.
One also needs to recognize that China has been largely neutral between the imperialist camp and the anti-imperialist camp and generally on friendly terms with anti-imperialist countries. But the primary struggle in today’s world is not between US imperialism and Chinese capitalism, but between the US-led imperialist camp and the international anti-imperialist front led by Russia, Iran, and the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.
Last but not least, I would like to ask a question that’s more about current global developments. China is known as the world’s largest crude oil importer. It has long been one of Venezuela’s largest oil customers, reportedly purchasing 400,000 to 500,000 barrels per day. Similarly, some argue that Iran uses a “shadow fleet” of tankers to send 90% of its crude oil exports to China. In the light of this, how do you relate the blatant and brazen activities of the U.S. and its allies, such as the kidnapping of the Venezuelan president or the unprovoked attack on Iran, to the so-called “New Cold War” between the U.S. and China?
Despite many claims that the US sees China as its primary challenger, the Chinese leadership does not see the US as its enemy. This is illustrated by numerous public statements by the Chinese leaders. For example, during his meeting with Trump at Pusan, Korea in October 2025, Xi Jinping maintained that it is not China’s intention to “challenge anyone” or “replace anyone” and China’s success would be compatible with Trump’s project “making America great again.” Xi Jinping hoped that China and the US can cooperate and win together, help each other to succeed, and enjoy prosperity together (合作共赢，相互成就，共同繁荣). While I do not see China as an imperialist country, it would be a mistake to see China as an anti-imperialist country.
That has been said, one also needs to recognize that China has been largely neutral between the imperialist camp and the anti-imperialist camp and generally on friendly terms with anti-imperialist countries. But the primary struggle in today’s world is not between US imperialism and Chinese capitalism, but between the US-led imperialist camp and the international anti-imperialist front led by Russia, Iran, and the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea. After all, hot wars are much more confrontational than cold wars. None of the major hot wars the US is currently engaged in involves China. As for the US-China trade conflicts, similar conflicts have happened between various countries throughout the history of capitalism. Xi Jinping made the above statements about his hope for Sino-US cooperation in October 2025 after many months of intense tariff wars imposed on China. I believe Xi Jinping was speaking truthfully about what he thought.
In light of your answer to the last question, how would you characterize the contrast between Xi Jinping’s conciliatory and moderate stance and the U.S. ruling classes’ increasingly anti-China rhetoric and moves to militarily encircle China across the Pacific?
I do not see US imperialism has a strategy to militarily encircle China. US imperialism definitely has a strategy to “defend” the so-called “first island chain” in the Western Pacific. But mainland China’s land border is much longer than its coastal lines. China is on friendly terms with Russia as well as Southeast Asian countries. Pakistan is a well known Chinese ally. Despite the border dispute, India is not pursuing active military confrontation with China. So the talk that China is “militarily” being encircled is not based on reality.
It is definitely a very interesting question why the US ruling class has been responding to the Chinese leadership’s conciliatory stance with increasingly anti-China rhetoric. There are two possible answers. One is that, despite the US rulers’ anti-China rhetoric, they never meant to have China being their real enemy. Since the Obama administration, the US ruling class has repeatedly talked about “pivot” or “re-pivot” to East Asia, but they have always been “distracted” by something else, be that Russia or the Middle East. So perhaps the real enemy of US imperialism has never been China. Why should we take the words of the imperialists at their face value? Should we not judge their behavior based on what actions they have actually taken?
The second possibility is that, with the decay of American imperialism, the US ruling class has lost the capacity to act according to its own long-term interest (such as pursuing a “G2” strategy Henry Kissinger used to advocate, in which the US and China would “cooperate” to manage the capitalist world system). The current failing US imperialist/Zionist aggression against Iran is the latest evidence that we should not underestimate the stupidity of imperialists as imperialism enters historical decline.
Do you have a final message?
I admire the great works of Textum Dergi and other Turkish comrades and congratulate your achievements under the difficult political conditions of Turkish capitalism. I am confident that, with the solidarity between the Turkish working class, the Chinese working class, and the international working class, we can together overcome all challenges and difficulties and bury the capitalist and imperialist system in the not very distant future. •
