Rethinking Globalization and the Transnational Capitalist Class: China, the United States, and Twenty-First Century Imperialist Rivalry

Abstract

The arrest of Meng Wanzhou and the Huawei prosecution have revealed a mounting battle for high-tech supremacy between the United States and China. The ongoing technology war and the trade war are merely one dimension of a far-reaching and accelerating imperialist rivalry. The changing reality on the world stage has urged a reconsideration of the transnational capitalist class (TCC) thesis and the theory of globalization in general. By reviewing the historical debate between the globalist and critical realist schools, I argue that William Carroll's theoretical frame of global capitalism grounded in corporate network research through emphasizing a dialectical process of the “making” of the TCC is better equipped to explain the unfolding Sino–U. S. conflict. Corporate network research has unveiled a highly regionalized and uneven TCC network: the transnational interlocks of both Chinese and Western corporate directorates are relatively sparse while regional and national ties dominate. It affirms the fragility of the TCC, its internal friction and potential decomposition. It also provides the material ground for analyzing the Sino–U. S. imperialist rivalry as a structural development out of global capitalism and its class relations.