A new era of antagonism between the US and China has emerged in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic. This is seen in the mounting rhetoric of "strategic competition" escalating military expenditures and efforts at alliance building such as AUKUS. Increasingly important are the US's efforts to contain China economically, as seen in the US CHIPS Act that restricts exports of US and Taiwanese semiconductors and advanced technological components. However, at the heart of worsening relations between the US and China is a paradox: the US and China are integrated into global capitalism and deeply interdependent in processes of accumulation. The major fault line of international antagonism no longer lies between the capitalist world and its external enemies as in the last Cold War, rather it is between the two major capitalist powers.
It was this puzzle of antagonism amidst integration, that I sought to unknot in my Honours thesis in the Department of Political Economy at the University of Sydney.