A new trade war is unfolding between the United States and China – and once again, Southeast Asia is one of its battlegrounds. For the workers and youth of Malaysia and Singapore, this is not a chess match between distant powers, but a struggle over jobs, futures, and independence.
The reality of this balancing act is that Malaysians and Singaporeans are being encouraged to choose between their preferred imperialist – or otherwise, to back their own ruling class as they try to preserve their own interests on the international stage. The working class are told to choose a side, but working class interests are not on the agenda. Marxists decisively condemn this false choice, and call for the unity of the working class around the world against imperialism, no matter what flag it waves.
The US-China Trade War
Since 1991, the United States has stood as the world’s sole superpower – dominant militarily, economically, technologically, and diplomatically. That same year, China was largely isolated from the world market, maintaining an inward-looking stance. It had not yet joined the World Trade Organisation, and its GDP was smaller than Italy’s. The decades since have reshaped the global balance of power.
The 2008 financial crash marked a turning point, bringing a half-century of economic growth to decisive end. While the crisis devastated the United States and much of the Western world, China emerged relatively unscathed. Using massive state intervention and infrastructure spending to expand its influence across the Global South and stabilise its economy, China has positioned itself at the centre of an expanding sphere of influence in Asia and across the world.
The rivalry intensified, and successive US administrations have lurched from free trade to protectionism, cooperation to confrontation, as they have struggled in turns to compel China’s incorporation or subordination to Western capitalism. All of these efforts have failed: the Chinese government stands as its own pole on the international stage. American empire now stands as an obstacle to this new imperialist power’s ambitions.
It is against this backdrop that the 2025 trade war has emerged – marking the latest American attempt to break Chinese influence over not only the American economy, but the economy of the world.
China: Geopolitics and Exporting the Crisis
China today is not a socialist or anti-imperialist power. Since the restoration of capitalism in the late 20th century, the bureaucracy has transformed into a ruling capitalist class, complete with the second highest number of billionaires of any country. Its government is motivated by rivalry to oppose and displace US imperialism – it seeks markets to exploit and governments to align behind its interests. This policy towards the rest of the world is demanded by its domestic situation.
The Chinese bureaucracy seeks support for its geopolitical projects – winning over Singaporean and Malaysian government support for their position on the Taiwan Question, and their silence as China continues to expand its hold on the South China Sea.
Moreover, China’s economic growth is slowing. Once registering record GDP growth, it is now facing sovereign credit downgrades, rapidly rising government debt, and a slowing consumer price index – a clear sign of overproduction, stagnation, and deflationary pressure that indicates overproduction and low demand. Over 25% of its industry cannot be used due to overproduction: steel, cement, solar panels all sit unsold in warehouses. This is leading to mass lay-offs and instability.
To offset this difficult domestic situation, China is exporting its economic crisis. Through the Belt and Road Initiative and political deals, tens of billions in US dollars have been invested into transport infrastructure, industrial parks, logistics, and more across both Singapore and Malaysia. These investments provide an outlet for Chinese capital which, facing economic headwinds at home, hopes to find and exploit new markets and new workers.
United States: Empire in Decline
As China has begun to exert its influence more strongly over other nations, it has naturally found that its growing sphere of influence conflicts with the established influence of the United States. The US wants to preserve its control over trade routes (including the Straits of Malacca), its military partnerships, and its own capital flows out of Southeast Asia.
However, American imperialism is not what it once was. Headlines are now dominated by stories of the decline of its industrial sector, the chaotic finance and trade policy of the Trump administration, its soaring national debt which stands at US$ 37 trillion (increasing 520% in just 25 years), and the revelation that a “minimal quality of life” is out of reach of the bottom 60% of US households. While this has been a relative decline and the United States retains a dominant military and financial position, it has nevertheless been forced to narrow its once globe-encompassing focus to Asia, hoping to contain China and preserve its own regional dominance.
American capitalism decisively recognises that this is not a question of superficial geopolitical positioning. The United States’ sphere of influence provides access to resources for extraction, markets to consume the output of the US economy, and workers to be exploited for the further enrichment of the billionaires. The conflict between the United States and China is the conflict of two imperialist blocs – one in which Southeast Asia is the battlefield.
Between the Blocs
Malaysia and Singapore have taken approaches that appear different at first glance. But their common attitude isn’t just one of shifting between the blocs. It’s one dictated by the comprador national bourgeoisie – junior partners chasing national gain, but still trapped within the logic of imperialism.
Singapore’s Minister of Home Affairs, K Shanmugam, recently put it succinctly, saying:
there are more powers playing the game as it were … and in such a context, small countries … have to develop even deeper relationships
The Malaysian government has combined its approach of deepening economic ties with China and positioning to joint the BRICS bloc with one of strengthening its military presence in the Borneo states of Sabah and Sarawak to counter China’s territorial ambitions in the South China Sea – notably operating US-supplied long range radars and unmanned aerial drones.
The Singaporean government claims to have adopted a policy of “neutrality”, but this itself is a tactic of strategic alignment, simultaneously positioning itself as a vital diplomatic and trade partner to China, with new deals worth US$ 240 million signed this summer; while also an enduring and central military partner to the Taiwanese government for the past 50 years, sending thousands of troops each year for training and field exercises under Project Starlight.
In both Malaysia and Singapore, the ruling class profits by manoeuvring between the two giants: opening up new investment channels, opportunities for military cooperation, and export contracts. But for workers, this means insecurity, price hikes, and cuts.
Malaysia and Singapore are not developing on their own terms. Imperialism has deeply shaped them over centuries, building them into economic dependents. Every leap forward in technology or trade has been shaped by the demands of foreign capital. This is uneven and combined development – where global capitalism determines the tempo and direction of national growth. At the hands of local capitalists as junior partners to imperialism, the workers are exploited – for everything from fossil fuels, rubber, and cheap labour; to port access, financial services, and tech know-how. At the same time, the issues facing the working class like the affordable housing crisis, rising costs and stagnant wages in both Malaysia and Singapore, and the suppression of political dissent continue to intensify.
A Class Alternative
Western capitalism can only offer instability and inequality, while Chinese capitalism can offer no rescue for the workers of Malaysia and Singapore. In the best cases, the industries oriented towards US supply chains will be re-oriented towards Chinese suppliers as exploitation continues under a new flag. For other industries, it will mean losing their place in the supply chain when the bosses gamble and lose the shifting game between imperialist powers, throwing thousands of workers into unemployment, and families into poverty.
The only solution for the workers and youth of Malaysia and Singapore is to stand independent of both imperialist blocs, and of their own capitalists. We don’t want a seat at the imperialist table – we want to turn the table over. Exploitation must end, and imperialism must end with it. The only way to build a free Malaysia and a free Singapore is for the workers to own the means of production for themselves, and to be able to democratically plan production as part of a socialist planned economy. Interlinked within a Socialist Federation of Southeast Asia, our development strategy could harness the power of the economy to address the needs of society, instead of gathering profit for the billionaires.
It is imperative that we reject all calls to side opportunistically with either imperialist bloc, or with the local capitalists who profit from playing both sides. The workers must form their own revolutionary party – armed with a revolutionary programme – to end the rule of the billionaires and the blocs. Organise, fight, and join us in building the party of the workers.
