Since Trump came to power, “economic wars” have been discussed on every platform. While the US’s insistence on increasing customs duties has caused problems in many countries around the world, major economies such as China, the EU and Canada are trying to implement a rest-rest policy. Trump had started quickly. His statement that he would solve the Ukraine-Russia crisis in 24 hours has not yielded any results in three months. The only important thing he has achieved is to share in Ukraine’s valuable elements. This attempt led me to Immanuel Wallerstein’s “World System Theory”. World System Theory is an important perspective for social sciences. The originator of the theory, Immanuel Maurice Wallerstein, was an important sociologist and historian of economic policies. He was greatly inspired by Marx. With his theory, Wallerstein divides the global economic system into the center, the periphery and the semi-periphery. The center is composed of industrialized countries that control a large portion of the world’s resources and dominate the global economy.
The periphery consists of poorer and less industrialized countries that are dependent on the center and generally provide raw materials and cheap labor. The semi-periphery includes countries that are not as rich as the center and not as poor as the periphery. It is between the center and the periphery. The theory argues that the global economy is shaped by the interaction between regions and how they integrate into the system. The theory also sees the global economy as unequal and suggests that it is an exploitative system in which the center benefits from the periphery and semi-periphery countries.
There have been many criticisms of the theory. The one I care about the most is the one made by Marxists. According to them, it is wrong for Wallerstein to define the modern world system not through production relations and mode of production, but on the basis of the integration of countries and regions with the market network.
The point we have reached today is whether the order created by economic dependencies within the global system will be disrupted or not. Therefore, the market network has taken precedence over production relations and mode of production. Trump's desire to move production to his country is almost impossible within this network. Factors such as labor wages, people's approach to work, raw materials, and the marketing of produced goods in the domestic market and the immediate vicinity have entered the picture.
China is an important example in terms of change. China, as defined by the theory, has experienced a process extending from a peripheral country to a semi-peripheral country and from there to a central country. China, which was forced to open up to the world in the 19th century, was subjected to exploitation by the central countries of the period in what they call the “century of shame”.
It was rewarded with opium in exchange for its tea, silk and natural resources. China’s positioning in the economic system changed when Deng Xioping became the head of the Communist Party. The policy Deng followed was in line with the requirements of the capital system. According to him, it did not matter whether the cat was black or white, the issue was catching the mouse. In other words, it did not matter whether the system was capitalist or socialist, the issue was to increase the welfare of the people.
While doing this, this time it opened up to the world not by force but with its own state planning. The country became the center of foreign investment and world production. Thus, it found a place for itself in the near-periphery in a very short time. Today, China is the second largest economy in the world in economic terms. Its Gross National Product (GNP) is 19 trillion dollars. It accounts for nearly 20% of the world's GNP. In 1990, it was in 12th place with a GNP of 394.5 billion dollars. Today, it has a GNP per capita of nearly 13 thousand dollars. In 1990, this figure was only 318 dollars. China's total trade was only 87.6 billion dollars in 1990, but it will be 5.6 trillion dollars in 2024.
China's economic policies have become a part of its foreign policy. Buying production areas in Africa and thus owning the resource on site, creating debt diplomacy on countries with investments made outside China with the Belt and Road Project, solving the unemployment problem in China with the money of that country with Chinese workers it carries with these investments, establishing military bases to protect investments in countries in debt traps, renting ports, forcing countries to rely on its own goods with an export-import imbalance, and not paying any attention to the political structure in the other countries while doing these constitute the basis of the policies China follows. China today falls within Wallerstein’s definition of a core country. It is one of the leading industrialized countries that dominate the global economy. Although it seems to carry out every project it undertakes with the slogan “let’s win together,” it is a part of today’s exploitation system. It seems that the US’s concern is the emergence of someone who exploits more than it does.
