As U.S. and Chinese bosses shut down each other’s consulates and jockey to create the first Covid-19 vaccine, the rivalry between the two capitalist superpowers is quickly accelerating toward armed conflict. The world is changing before our eyes. As U.S. rulers expose their disunity and decay in their chaotic response to Covid-19, Chinese rulers are growing bolder by the day—politically, economically, militarily. As modern history shows, a dramatic power shift among the biggest imperialists can be settled only by global war. It’s as inevitable—and unstoppable—as an earthquake.
 For the international working class, it is more urgent than ever to organize and fight back against all bosses. Workers have no stake in supporting either side of this power struggle. Led by Progressive Labor Party (PLP), we must turn the guns around. We must transform the capitalist parasites’ imperialist wars into a class war for communist revolution!
 On July 21, the Chinese consulate in Houston was closed by the U.S. and accused of medical and scientific espionage. In retaliation, the CCP (Chinese Communist Party) shut down the U.S. embassy in Chengdu. These events followed a series of “conflicts over trade, technology, Hong Kong, spying accusations and complaints of abuses against Chinese Muslims” (Time, 7/25). They point to the end of an era of U.S.-China capitalist cooperation and engagement—and a new period of openly adversarial competition.
 The global pandemic, on track to kill millions of workers for the sake of capitalist profits, both raises the stakes and makes war more imminent. Whoever develops the first coronavirus vaccine can use it—or withhold it—to wield enormous geopolitical power (Washington Post, 3/19). At an April World Health Organization conference calling for worldwide cooperation for vaccine development and distribution, both the U.S. and China refused to sign on (Pharmaphorum, 4/27). Under communism—a system built around workers’ needs, not profit and competition—all medical advances would benefit the entire working class.
 As Lenin pointed out, imperialist war is how imperialist powers redivide their control over the globe. But one thing they can’t control is when the shooting breaks out. World War I was not planned. Against a backdrop of competition between Britain and Germany, along with political volatility in the Balkans, a Serbian nationalist lit the fuse by assassinating the heir to the Austro-Hungarian empire. No one can be certain what will trigger the next world war between China and the U.S. The flashpoints are many: Hong Kong, Taiwan, the South China Sea, cyberspace, and a sharpening trade war, as well as the pandemic. But no matter how it unfolds, the working class will be expected to fight and die to resolve the bosses’ conflicts.
 Imploding U.S. imperialism must resort to war
 As its global dominance wanes, the U.S. capitalist ruling class is increasingly desperate to hold on to power and profits. Their disastrous mishandling of Covid-19 is an international humiliation. Their economy is in shambles. They’ve been unwilling to sacrifice short-term profits or discipline the likes of Facebook for the imperialist needs of their class. As a result, the U.S. bosses are at a major disadvantage next to China’s extreme discipline, centralized economy, and more full-blown fascism (see back page). The most dangerous superpower is a declining superpower. “The once unthinkable outcome—actual armed conflict between the United States and China—now appears possible for the first time since the end of the Korean War. In other words, we are confronting the prospect of not just a new Cold War, but a hot one as well” (Foreign Affairs, 8/3).
While deranged Donald Trump keeps making things worse by denying the healthcare crisis and pushing for a reckless reopening, the finance capital main wing laid the foundations for where we are today. Democratic Party liberals like New York Governor Andrew Cuomo led the charge to close hundreds of unprofitable hospitals; ex-president Barack Obama slashed billions from Medicaid and Medicare. Besides leading to thousands of preventable deaths, these anti-worker attacks have laid bare the racist inequalities of the profit system.
Rising Chinese imperialism preparing for war
U.S. decline has opened the door for China to escalate its imperialist aggressions: “In the months since the pandemic first engulfed the world, China’s government has engaged in an unprecedented diplomatic offensive on virtually every foreign policy front” (Foreign Affairs, 7/15). President Xi Jinping’s budding alliance with Iran, a proposed $400 billion economic and security deal, would defy U.S. sanctions and  threaten “U.S. security and energy interests in the Middle East and Eurasia” (forbes.com, 7/17).
Proposed port facilities in Iran would give China a strategic advantage over a critical passageway for much of the world’s oil. After a recent military exercise involving China, Iran, and Russia, Iran’s Navy commander, Hossein Khanzadi, declared that “the era of American invasions in the region is over” (New York Times, 7/11).
China has ramped up their activity in the South China Sea, home to a third of the world’s shipping, food supply for millions, and large reserves of oil and gas. In “recent months…China has sharply escalated its coercive activities…. [T]he Department of Defense voiced concern about the Chinese Navy’s decision to seal off an area around the Paracel Islands to conduct naval exercises” (New York Times, 7/27). The U.S. responded by stepping up its own naval exercises in the contested waters. The close proximity of rival ships increases the odds of military confrontation, a combustibile scenario that could spark a wider war.
China is also expanding its nuclear weapons arsenal, with the U.S. expected to respond in kind: “Increased U.S. nuclear force requirements to ensure credible deterrence against China would affect the United States-Russia strategic nuclear balance and threaten to undermine the prospects for further negotiated reductions...China’s nuclear expansion and its refusal to engage in meaningful dialogue will affect stability on multiple levels” (New York Times, 7/29).
Though Beijing’s bosses still use the word “Communist” in their ruling party’s name, the country long ago degenerated into state-run capitalism—a devastating loss for the working class of China and the world. The CCP’s concentration camps for Uighur Muslim workers and their surveillance and repression of  protestors mirrors the U.S. rulers’ fascist internment of migrant workers and brutal attacks on anti-racist demonstrators. Workers have no stake in supporting either imperialist power.
We have a world to win
As their contradictions near a breaking point, imperialist war is the only solution for the world’s capitalist rulers. For the international working class, communism is the only solution to end our conflict with the ruling class—to smash the capitalism that bleeds us dry, once and for all. The first two World Wars were followed by the two great communist-led revolutions, in Russia and then in China. But this didn’t happen spontaneously. Decades of struggle and organizing built a fighting working class that could defeat the bosses’ armies. With the international communist leadership of PLP, the workers of the world can turn imperialist war into class war—“the final conflict.” Whenever we fight back against racist and sexist attacks and the rulers’ criminal exploitation, we take important steps toward that day. Whenever we expose the bosses’ nationalism as a murderous tool of our oppressors, we help workers build the international class unity that is more powerful than any imperialist army. Fight for communism! Join Progressive Labor Party!