China’s Path to an International New Democracy

This article explores the various dimensions of China’s global strategy aimed to gradually wrest power away from the US-led imperialist order into a New International Democratic partnership, a joining of capitalist and socialist forces from the Global South anchored in a wider agenda for peace and development. Examining this mission as set out in Xi Jinping’s three global initiatives, it notes how these sought, amidst multiplying international crises, to harness the momentum for cooperation gathering in the Global South. China’s strategic rationale is shown to grasp the interconnections between the contradictions shaping the multipolar terrain: hegemonism and counter-hegemonism, imperialism and anti-imperialism, and capitalism and socialism. This in turn guides a multi-pronged diplomacy: uniting the Global South as the base, taking the BRICS+ as the key link; engaging in international rule-making; whilst countering the US New Cold war manoeuvring. The analytical underpinning draws from China’s period of New Democracy when, recognising the duality of the national bourgeoisie vacillating between revolution and capitulation, the CPC brought them in to the anti-Japanese alliance under its leadership. By applying this notion of duality to the BRICS, the discussion transcends debates amongst Western Marxists as to their character as sub- or anti-imperialist, advancing the proposition that within the New International Democratic partnership, China’s socialist system offers a stabilising factor amidst wavering among other BRICS members.