Prises de position - Prese di posizione - Toma de posición - Statements - Prohlášení - Заявления

China, in this May 2026, has officially risen to the highest position as the political fulcrum of the world. Within the space of a week, the court of “Emperor Xi Jinping” first hosted “King Trump” and then “Tsar Putin.”

Trump would have liked to meet Xi Jinping with a winning card in his hand in the war against Iran, that is, after having brought the Islamic Republic to its knees with a few weeks of more or less targeted bombing and threats of every kind concerning the disappearance of Persian civilisation. But Tehran’s military resistance, despite the fact that domestic repression has never let up, has taken both the Pentagon and Trump by surprise.

The American tycoon, beyond his customary all-round bluster, nevertheless represents an economic, financial, political and military superpower that, even today, has no equal in the world, although over the past forty years it has lost its absolute dominance. This has been due not only to the rise of economic powers such as Germany and Japan, which have challenged it industrially and economically, but also because, alongside a Russia diminished following the collapse of the USSR in 1989–91, a genuine and dangerous competitor has emerged: China.

Over the past ten years, China has consolidated its position as the world’s second-largest economic power, overtaking Germany, Japan, the United Kingdom, France and, naturally, Russia. The world’s factory was once England, then the United States; now it is China. And China is not merely a “factory”: it is also a financial power. In fact, it has become a decisive linchpin for the survival not only of the various imperialisms, but of world capitalism as a whole. It is the largest industrial producer, holds the world’s largest reserves of 14 mineral resources essential to the world’s major industries, is the leading consumer of raw materials, has the world’s second-largest military after the United States, and is one of the most advanced countries in the fields of artificial intelligence and space. This is more than sufficient reason for Washington to fear China while, at the same time, attempting to approach Beijing on an “equal footing.”

The fact remains that Trump’s trip to Beijing, accompanied by a squadron made up of the leading figures from the giants of finance, technology, aerospace, agribusiness and biogenetics, did not immediately produce any lucrative contracts between Chinese and American companies (Apple, BlackRock, Meta, Boeing, Visa, BlackStone, Goldman Sachs, Mastercard, Illumina, GE Aerospace, Coherent, Cargill, Tesla, Nvidia). Perhaps a special agreement in the agrifood sector was reached concerning soybeans and meat, but nothing official has yet emerged. Naturally, Trump and Xi Jinping discussed tariffs, rare earths and the war against Iran. On tariffs, some progress was made (the United States will lower them from 57% to 47%). As for rare earths, in whose refining China is the world leader, China will allow their export to continue without restrictions for one year, with the agreement subject to annual review. In the semiconductor sector, the United States continues to block exports to China, with the exception of certain products related to artificial intelligence chips.

On Taiwan, however, it was China that warned Trump not to cross the “red line,” stressing that it is better to be partners than rivals. Trump, not being in a position to throw his weight around, as he usually does with weaker heads of state (Ukraine, Iran, Venezuela, Cuba, etc.), did not touch on the subject. For the time being, he merely suspended the shipment of weapons to Taiwan under an agreement providing for a US supply worth $14 billion. Xi Jinping reminded him that China and the United States of America are at a crossroads: the conflicts intensifying around the world could lead to a future confrontation between the two superpowers. In this connection, he reminded Trump of the “Thucydides Trap” (Xi Jinping knows ancient history, but Trump may not, so some White House adviser must have explained to him that this reference – to the war between Athens and Sparta in the famous Peloponnesian War – amounts to a veiled threat): the rising power (Sparta, that is, China) is challenged by the dominant power (Athens, that is, the United States) and ultimately emerges victorious.

As usual, Trump has blown the meeting out of proportion, promoting it as a historic encounter, as though a fundamental change in the world order were genuinely to be expected, not only in Sino-American relations, but also in relations among all other countries, beginning, naturally, with Europe; as though, thanks to an understanding between the two superpowers, the peoples of the world could look forward to a future of peace. But the future approaching us is, in reality, one of world imperialist war, as all the conflicts that have been accumulating for years now portend.

Today, according to figures reported about a year ago (1), as many as 56 wars of varying intensity and scope are being fought around the world, involving, directly or indirectly, more than 92 countries (including Italy), from Palestine to Ukraine, from Mexico to Myanmar, from Pakistan to India, from Sudan to the Sahel, the Horn of Africa and Lebanon, from Yemen to Iran, from Thailand to the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Kosovo, not to mention the parallel wars waged by drug cartels in Colombia, Haiti, Venezuela and Mexico. No imperialist power, not even the mighty United States, is capable of controlling the course of all these conflicts. For the most part, even when they are not directly instigated by imperialist countries, whether openly (in a few cases) or behind the scenes (in most cases), the imperialists undoubtedly seek to exploit them, because wherever there is war, there is business: mountains of profits to pocket, competitors to weaken or crush, and economic territories to conquer. The globe is proving increasingly small in relation to imperialism’s insatiable greed. Consequently, the growing number of competitors seeking to wrest pieces of an increasingly saturated market, overflowing with goods and capital, from one another is heightening the factors driving armed conflict. What is still not on the agenda of the great imperialist powers today is direct confrontation among them. They are still seeking more or less temporary solutions to postpone the confrontation that will determine a new partition of the world market. This is the objective of every capitalist war, all the more so in the imperialist phase of capitalist development.

In the global situation that has taken shape over the last quarter-century, since the attack on the Twin Towers in 2001, every opportunity for partial and regional armed conflict has been seized by each imperialist country to test its own strength and that of the other countries involved.

Every advanced country has undertaken an endless series of technical and technological innovations to modernise its industrial apparatus and weaponry as much as possible, while simultaneously building up substantial stocks of raw materials (and in this field China has shown itself to be no less prepared than the United States). At the same time, the importance of controlling vital reserves of energy resources and minerals essential to advanced technology, such as rare earths, has become increasingly apparent.

Thus, the war for control of oil and gas reserves, mines, maritime and land transport routes, and space is becoming the most important war of this century.

The issue is not merely one of wresting land and sea from adversaries. It is also a matter of preventing them from transporting, without major obstacles, the billions of tonnes of raw materials required to keep the real economy, both industrial and agricultural, alive from one part of the world to another. This is the only economy that makes it possible to exploit the wage-earning workforce of every country to the limit and extract from it that most precious surplus value which is the indispensable foundation of capitalist profit.

All the grand declarations about the pursuit of peace, which are now based not on all competitors giving up shares of power and profit in order to ease tensions and find balanced solutions (as the popes of Rome would always like), but on threats of war and on local and regional wars continually fueled by every bourgeoisie, merely demonstrate that these declarations are nothing but empty words. Those who are least convinced by them are precisely the people who proclaim them to the world and demand the support of the people and, above all, of the proletarians.

Thus, Moscow’s rhetoric about the war against Nazi-fascism, for which 25 million soldiers were slaughtered, fills the mouths of those in power who decide over life and death, not only for their own people but also for other peoples, as yesterday in the Caucasus, today in Ukraine, and tomorrow where? This rhetoric goes hand in hand with Washington’s rhetoric, which has poured out enormous quantities of words about democracy, the fight against tyranny, liberation from poverty and prosperity within everyone’s reach... all in stark contrast to the reality of wars continually unleashed in every corner of the world wherever American interests were deemed to be in danger. In reality, the interests at stake were, are and will always be those of the giant corporations that move the political pieces on the chessboard of every government occupying the White House.

If Trump, beyond his habitual self-aggrandisement, has returned to Washington from his visit to Beijing with a half-empty bag, but with confirmation that Chinese imperialism will not allow itself to be pushed around, and never will, the more pragmatic Putin, also summoned to Xi Jinping’s court to ascertain whether the “friendship” relations signed over the years have a future that is advantageous to both parties, but above all to China, can only thank Xi Jinping for supporting him by purchasing oil, gas and other commodities during the years of deep crisis, when Russia was subjected to Western sanctions and its sales of raw materials to Europe had been drastically curtailed.

The war in Ukraine, and the conflict over Ukraine’s tendency to align itself with the European and American West, was already written into the events that followed the collapse of the USSR and its East European dominions, with the consequent rapid weakening of Moscow, not only in relation to Europe and America, but also in relation to China, whose imperialist power was growing with few obstacles. Within two decades, Beijing had become the true counterpart of American imperialism in matters concerning global economic and political relations. The so-called friendship between Trump and Putin is a friendship with an expiry date, all the more so if China and Russia were to find a strong and lasting common interest in forming a bloc against the United States/Europe/India/Japan. Indeed, judging by what the media have written about the latest meeting between Xi Jinping and Putin, an axis between the two powers is being strengthened with a view to redefining international relations among the major imperialist powers, not only Western ones, but Eastern ones as well, given the weight India is assuming in its relations with the United States and Europe, and the significance of the alliance between the United States, Japan and Australia (2) across the vast Indo-Pacific region.

With Putin’s Russia, Xi Jinping’s China is also strengthening the “energy dossier,” which has emerged as the true cornerstone of relations between Moscow and Beijing. Indeed, although the agreement still needs to be finalised with regard to costs and contractual terms, the deal for the planned Power of Siberia 2 gas pipeline is nearing completion, through which gas supplies to Beijing will be increased. It is evident that Russia needs China for its economy, while Beijing wants to secure stable energy supplies at affordable prices, enabling it to expand and deepen its influence not only in Asia but also in Europe. Whereas the United States has so far obtained little more than economic agreements in the agrifood sector, Putin returns to Moscow with around twenty agreements signed with Beijing in his pocket, but without the most important one: precisely the Power of Siberia 2 gas pipeline, which China is keeping on hold in order to maintain pressure on Russia and demonstrate to Washington that it also calls the shots when dealing with an ally of such importance. This, too, is a further signal from Beijing to Washington: the more the West opposes Russian interests in Europe, the stronger the Russian-Chinese bond becomes.

(1) See: https://www.geopop.it/panoramica-dei-56-conflitti-in-corso-nel-monmdo-e-davvero-la-terza-guerra-mondiale-a-pezzi

(2) With regard to Australia, there is a treaty known as AUKUS, signed in 2019 between the United States, Great Britain and Australia. It is both an economic and a military agreement through which the three countries have sought to contain Chinese expansionism in Asia and the Pacific. Naturally, the Chinese regime has interpreted this agreement as a direct threat to China and to what Beijing calls “regional stability.”

Il comunista - le prolétaire - el proletario - proletarian - programme communiste - el programa comunista - Communist Program