Re: subimperial practices Re: Overseas investment by China's private and public corporations

Right then, some summaries of much longer arguments by these Marxist 
critics of subimperialism, are below.

>> • Immanuel Wallerstein’s World-Systems ‘semi-periphery’ (1975)
>> • Ibbo Mandaza’s warning about subimperialism practices of the apartheid-era South African state and capital (1980)
>> • David Harvey’s application of the subimperialism concept to post-1970s footloose capital’s ‘spatial fix’ (2003)
>> • Sam Moyo’s and Paris Yeros’ application of Marini’s theory to the BRICS (2013)
>> • Samir Amin’s labelling of post-apartheid South Africa as ‘subimperialist’ (2019)
>> • Gorden Moyo’s confirmation that in the African economy, BRICS are subimperial (2024)
>>
>> Please do.
>> thanks, Mark

Imperialism, according to Luxemburg in 1913, originally stemmed from an 
underlying capitalist crisis tendency – the ‘overaccumulation of 
capital’ – and capital’s need for wider-ranging super-exploitation, due 
to the

ceaseless flow of capital from one branch of production to another… in 
the periodical and cyclical swings of [capitalism’s] reproduction 
between overproduction and crisis… Accumulation of capital periodically 
bursts out in crises and spurs capital on to a continual extension of 
the market… Capital cannot accumulate without the aid of non-capitalist 
relations, nor … can it tolerate their continued existence side by side 
with itself. Only the continuous and progressive disintegration of 
non-capitalist relations makes accumulation of capital possible.

This is not, though, a Global North versus Global South problem, as was 
explained by Dani Nabudere (1977), because of a group of economies /in 
between/:

Imperialism is not a centre-periphery phenomenon, but a world system. 
The investment of capital in, or export of goods to, the other 
capitalist countries will not be any less imperialistic if those other 
countries are less developed. Imperialism knows neither geographical nor 
racial barrier and to present it as solely a centre-periphery phenomenon 
is to display a strange conception of imperialism. Just as imperialism 
divides up the backward world and subjugates the peoples in these 
countries to its own needs, so it also subjugates other weaker 
capitalist states, exploiting them and their resources for the same 
purpose.

Nabudere drew upon insights from Lenin’s booklet /Imperialism/ (1916):

Finance capital and its foreign policy, which is the struggle of the 
great powers for the economic and political division of the world, give 
rise to a number of transitional forms of state dependence. Not only are 
the two main groups of countries, those owning colonies, and the 
colonies themselves, but also the diverse forms of dependent countries 
which, politically, are formally independent, but in fact, are enmeshed 
in the net of financial and diplomatic dependence, typical of this epoch.

Brazilian dependency theorist Ruy Mauro Marini (1965) believed that this 
category could be termed subimperialism: “It is not a question of 
passively accepting North American power (although the actual 
correlation of forces often leads to that result), but expansion the 
position of a key nation.” The World Systems perspective that emerged 
from such insights, as defined by Immanuel Wallerstein (1975), divided 
the world into the category core, semi-periphery and periphery; which 
overlap to a close extent with a semi-peripheral BRICS.

Applying capital-flow analysis to this framework, David Harvey (2004) 
identified a crucial middle layer:

Global capitalism has experienced a chronic and enduring problem of 
over-accumulation since the 1970s. I interpret the volatility of 
international capitalism during these years, however, as a series of 
temporary spatio- temporal fixes that failed even in the medium run to 
deal with problems of over-accumulation… The opening up of global 
markets in both commodities and capital created openings for other 
states to insert themselves into the global economy, first as absorbers 
but then as producers of surplus capitals. They then became competitors 
on the world stage. What might be called ‘subimperialisms’ arose… each 
developing centre of capital accumulation sought out systematic 
spatio-temporal fixes for its own surplus capital by defining 
territorial spheres of influence.

*South African subimperialism*

The subimperial layer was already apparent in the 1970s, according to an 
assessment by Ibbo Mandaza of apartheid-era South Africa (1980),

There appears to be no crucial reason why the concept of 
‘subimperialism’ cannot be used as meaning a ‘sub-form’ of imperialism; 
but still dependent upon, as an appendage of, and as part and parcel of, 
imperialism. This is certainly the meaning we attach to the concept of 
‘subimperialism’; and precludes inferring ‘autonomy’ of the South 
African State nor capital being ‘national’ within the confines of the 
latter… The creation of the Union of South Africa in 1910 was a 
reflection of the acute importance that imperialism by this time 
attached to South Africa, particularly in the course of the 
industrialisation process triggered by the discovery of gold and 
diamonds in the nineteenth century. At any rate it was this advance in 
the discovery and exploitation of mineral resources that laid the basis 
for the subsequent economic dependence on South Africa of the 
neighbouring territories.

Equally, it is this economic dominance which accounts for the continued 
and intensifying interest in South Africa on the part of imperialism as 
a country offering among the most favourable conditions for the 
super-exploitation of labour by capital; and places the South African 
state in a special relationship with the U.S. and other Western European 
capitalist countries in the joint venture to maximise the process of 
surplus accumulation and appropriation in Southern Africa as a whole.

One feature of subimperialism highlighted by Marini was local 
‘super-exploitation,’ in which labour reproduction was augmented by 
subsidisation beyond wages (which were not enough to provide for a 
worker and their family’s living expensions, thus requiring 
subsidisation mainly by women’s unpaid labour). Super-exploitation was 
vital to capitalism under apartheid systems of domination, but was 
retained after 1994, according to Patricia McFadden (2010):

South African society looks as much a neocolonial African socioeconomic 
and political formation as its counterparts across the Southern African 
region. The claims of exceptionalism, which characterised the earlier 
years after apartheid, have been steadily eroded… The fact that 
post-apartheid South Africa did not even attempt to implement the 
mildest of social democratic reforms, in spite of having inherited the 
most fractured society on the entire continent, is a glaring expression 
of the internalisation of exceptionalism among the neocolonial elites… 
By imposing the GEAR (Growth, Employment, and Redistribution) Program in 
the early years of independence, the elites reinforced an already 
existing structural adjustment program. Thus the new ruling class 
re-entrenched the apartheid systems and relationships of white control 
over the economy, with blacks now occupying the political terrain. Not 
much else changed... Neocolonial elites frantically entered into 
alliances with all sorts of configurations of white and multinational 
capital and used the neocolonial state to ensure the emergence of a 
black ruling class that is still largely situated in the environs of 
state-based institutions.

Much of the original labour force for mining came from the region, as 
Samir Amin explained in his (2019) posthumous autobiography:

South Africa, freed from odious apartheid, is now confronted with a 
truly formidable challenge: how to go beyond the facade of multiracial 
democracy to transform society profoundly? The choices of the ANC 
government have, up to now, evaded the question and, as a result, 
nothing has changed. South Africa’s subimperialist role has been 
reinforced, still dominated as it is by the Anglo-American 
mining monopolies.

One military thinktank, Stratfor (known as a ‘private-sector CIA’), 
explained a broader logic in a confidential 2009 report obtained by 
WikiLeaks:

South Africa’s geopolitical imperatives are grounded in a hundred odd 
years of expansion and conquest occurring during the 19th century. These 
continue to drive the country’s internal behaviour and its relations 
with neighbouring and foreign states… Despite being led by a 
democratically-elected government, the core imperatives of South Africa 
remain: maintenance of a liberal regime that permits the free flow of 
labour and capital to and from the southern Africa region, and 
maintenance of a superior security capability able to project into 
south-central Africa…

South Africa still depends on an abundant and freely flowing supply of 
labour migrating from neighbouring states to service its labour 
requirements. South African produced goods are exported into the 
southern African region. South African mining houses both large and 
small still dominate the mining sector of southern and central 
Africa…the ANC government knows that it can bring its influence to bear 
to present South African companies favourably to gain mining concessions…

Pretoria will intervene in a neighbouring state should the free flow of 
labour into South Africa be disrupted. It will intervene in case a 
critical supply of infrastructure is impeded (such was the case of the 
supply of water… from the Lesotho Highlands Water Project during 
Lesotho’s near-civil war in 1998). Pretoria will strong-arm negotiations 
with neighbouring states in order to extract best possible commercial 
concessions.

*Applying the concept of subimperialism to the BRICS*

The BRICS member economies became a major force within global capitalism 
by the time the bloc expanded in the early 2010s, followed by further 
2023-25 expansions and the creation of a new category, ‘partner.’

With the rise of the BRICS as a formal bloc, especially with South 
Africa’s membership in 2010, Sam Moyo and Paris Yeros (2013) recognised

a new set of contradictions. The internationalisation of production has 
continued to differentiate the South among peripheries, 
semi-peripheries, and now ‘emerging’ semi-peripheries. One of the key 
questions is what role do semi-peripheries, and especially the 
‘emerging’ ones, play in the system. Semi-peripheries have in the past 
been seen as systemic safety-valves, by which monopoly capital 
outsources its production to areas with cheaper labour and natural 
resources…

The most precious proxy, then as today, was Israel, but there were other 
important ones, like Brazil, where the phenomenon was termed 
‘subimperialism,’ that is, an attempt to go beyond semi-peripheral 
conveyor-belt functions. The term called attention to a new 
contradiction, not only between peripheries and semi-peripheries, but 
also between centres and the emerging semi-peripheries of the time, 
regardless of their ideological orientation (Brazil was under a 
right-wing dictatorship). The concrete result today is a new wave of 
natural resource grabs and new military interventions in the 
peripheries, accompanied by the demise of social pacts in the centres of 
the system…

The term also called attention to the fact that whatever emergence 
occurred under monopoly capitalism, and its financial and technological 
domination, it could only be based on the super-exploitation of domestic 
labour (not the social pacts characterising the centres of imperialism). 
It was this internal relation that intensified external dependence, 
creating the need for export markets for semi-peripheral manufactures 
and exertion of regional political- military influence, so as to resolve 
its chronic profit realisation crisis. The subsequent ‘reconversion’ of 
semi-peripheries generally has produced contradictory effects, whereby a 
process of privatisation, enhanced extroversion, and de- nationalisation 
has accentuated internal class conflicts, but also led to the formation 
of new giant blocs of domestic capitals, which are once again vying for 
a place in the sun. They are no longer simply looking to export 
manufactures but also capital.

The ‘re-emerging’ semi-peripheries are even engaged in the ‘new 
scramble’ for land and natural resources in Africa. Of course, they are 
also being scrambled, which is no paradox, given their persisting 
incorporation into external monopolies. The question has been raised as 
to whether the newly ‘emerging’ semi-peripheries are essentially 
subservient regional stabilisers, or a force antagonistic to 
imperialism. Some have argued that the collective emergence of these 
semi-peripheries implies a system-changing diversification of economic 
partners in the South…

We can pin our hopes neither on the newly shining bourgeoisies nor on 
inexorable historical laws. The immediate question is political, and it 
concerns the type of alliances that are necessary to oppose imperialism, 
especially as it escalates its military project. Thus, we should also be 
asking: are all emerging semi-peripheries equally subservient or 
antagonistic to imperialism?...

The degree of participation in the Western military project is also 
different from one case to the next, although a ‘schizophrenia’ – one 
might say typical of subimperialism – is inherent to all this. 
Ironically, the most reconverted state, South Africa, has signed up to a 
regional mutual defense pact, effectively against Western military 
interference in Southern Africa, while continuing to serve as a conveyor 
belt for Western economic interests on the continent… Whatever one makes 
of the new semi-peripheries, they are certainly not the main agents of 
imperialism, nor are they militarising their foreign policies. Nor, for 
that matter, are they cohesive nations internally, given the ongoing 
super-exploitation on which their extroversion is based.

To ensure the reproduction of the broader system, /The Economist/ 
reflected on neoliberal assimilation in a 2014 interview with Barack Obama:

The Economist: You see countries like China creating a BRICS bank, for 
instance – institutions that seem to be parallel with the system, rather 
– and potentially putting pressure on the system rather than adding to 
it and strengthening it. That is the key issue, whether China ends up 
inside that system or challenging it. That’s the really big issue of our 
times, I think.

Obama: It is. And I think it’s important for the United States and 
Europe to continue to welcome China as a full partner in these 
international norms. It’s important for us to recognise that there are 
going to be times where there are tensions and conflicts. But I think 
those are manageable. And it’s my belief that as China shifts its 
economy away from simply being the low-cost manufacturer of the world to 
wanting to move up the value chain, then suddenly issues like protecting 
intellectual property (IP) become more relevant to their companies, not 
just to US companies.

Obama was right. The 2020 COVID-19 pandemic broke the BRICS: Cyril 
Ramaphosa and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi advocated an IP waiver 
within the WTO; Jair Bolsonaro was against it; Xi Jinping and Vladimir 
Putin had their own vaccines, so did not co-sponsor.

Gorden Moyo (2024) argues that there are other aspects of this 
schizophrenia:

The emergent and emerging economies including Brazil, Russia, India, 
Turkiye, United Arab Emirates (UAE), Saudi Arabia, and China, among 
others, are competing for Africa’s natural resources, markets, and 
military bases just like the France, Germany, the UK, and the USA have 
been doing for several decades. Perhaps the biblical analogy of ‘wolves 
in sheep skin’ may not be off the mark as an appropriate descriptor for 
BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa) and other 
emerging economies in Africa. Their claim to be alternatives to Africa’s 
ex-colonisers is questionable. Bond is right in describing the BRICS as 
subimperial powers that ‘talk left but walk right.’ In fact, the BRICS 
are loud in their anti-imperialist rhetoric while behaving like typical 
global capitalists in their business and commercial transactions. What 
must be emphasised from the outset is that the BRICS… have not so far 
contributed towards the change of the historical locus of Africa as an 
enabler of development in the rest of the world through its commodity 
exports, capital flight, and human capital. Contrary to the growing 
literature that celebrates the rise and re-rise of the BRICS+ countries, 
the arguments contained in this volume cast doubt on the capability of, 
or willingness of, these new powers to reverse the unequal relations 
between Africa and the rest of the world… the traditional Euro-Western 
powers and the BRICS club deploy similar geoeconomic tools, namely, 
debt, data, grants, investment, technology, and trade, to extract 
benefits from Africa and elsewhere in the Global South.

The profound contradictions within the BRICS along ideological and 
material lines became explicit in February 2026, when a split was 
formalised between Washington-alignment and Tehran-solidarity, 
especially after the U.S.-Israeli attack on Iran. One feature was the 
‘Board of Peace’ which, on the one hand, witnessed Egypt, Indonesia, 
Saudi Arabia and the UAE join Trump to recolonise Gaza, with India also 
attending as an observer.




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