Opinion Sur
Despite the deafening media and geopolitical noise that accumulates in these turbulent times, some issues seem certain: the decline of the United States and the rise of China are long-lasting, structural trends that may take more or less time to materialize but are, shall we say, inevitable.
The second issue that is becoming crystal clear is that war between nuclear powers is more than likely, with all the terrible consequences it will have for humanity and life on Earth. There was never a hegemonic transition without war.
I cannot elaborate on data on these trends, but I would like to emphasize that China’s mastery of the technologies of the ongoing industrial revolution (such as artificial intelligence, 5G networks, and quantum computing, among others), represent something similar to US dominance, a century ago, over the scientific organization of labor, the adoption of technological advances of that time and their application to the art of war.
There are some differences with respect to the previous transitions, that is, the decline and rise of great powers.
The first is that the decadent power depends on the ascendant, because their economies are intertwined. An example of this is the enormous frustration of the American Boeing, when China has just bought 292 commercial aircraft from its competitor Airbus, which reacted by asking Biden’s government for a productive dialogue with China, because it cannot do without that market ().
Boeing’s statement says it all: Boeing aircraft sales to China historically support tens of thousands of U.S. jobs, and we expect orders and deliveries to resume soon. However, the US government imposed sanctions including the maintenance and repair of Boeing aircraft, hurting one of its major companies.
The second difference is that we are facing a transition that involves regions and nations whose population has different skin colors, that involves a history of colonialism and racism from the West against the East, from the North against the South. Something like this had not happened in previous transitions.
The third is that there will be no world hegemonized by China, or by the United States, or by any other power. We are heading towards a world fractured into two large blocks, with several regions and even continents oscillating between one and the other.
As the transition will be resolved through wars, it is important to note that China’s defense sector is developing new weapons more efficiently and five to six times faster than those of the U.S., according to a senior air force () commander. China’s advantage lies in its industrial base and the scale of its research, while the main exports of the United States are agricultural commodities and weapons.
Although the geopolitical issue is important, and will need to be further deepened for a better understanding of a complex and constantly changing world, I am interested in opening the debate on the repercussions of a possible Chinese hegemony on social conflicts and on the type of movements that will exist in the future, from a perspective focused on Latin America.
A first aspect to take into account is that under the English hegemony skill-based trade unions predominated and under the American one mass unions did. To a large extent, due to the type of company and production that existed in both periods. The great Taylorist and Fordist enterprise replaced the family manufacturing enterprise, where the workers still controlled their times and ways of working.
The second is that, since the world revolution of 1968, the traditional workers’ movement ceased to be the central subject in the anti-capitalist struggle, being replaced by the original people, women who struggle, and blacks, peasants, and urban peripheries peoples. The accumulation by dispossession and the fourth world war, lead peoples, women, and youth to fight to survive, because they are doomed to disappear under this model.
The third is that the kidnapping of nation-states by large multinational companies and one percent richer, means that movements cannot be referenced in that institution, neither to demand it nor to occupy it, opening the paths of autonomies as necessary and possible.
Finally, I find it hard to imagine that there will be a single type of movement and a single way of walking, because trends say that there will be different forms of organization and action. What we do know is that unified and unitary movements will not be emancipatory, because they cannot tune into a profoundly anti-patriarchal and anti-colonial era.
It will be the time of those who risk creating by putting their bodies ahead; and it will be bad times for those looking for manuals.
Article published by La Jornada de México, on 15.07.22
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