Structural power redux: geoeconomic rivalry in a networked world

The US and China are locked in a spiralling geopolitical competition to renegotiate globalization. This competition centres on establishing control over the transnational financial, infrastructure, digital and production networks that have taken shape after the Cold War. We historicize how US structural power became ‘networked’ in the neoliberal era, and theorize how these networks shape current superpower competition. We contend that contemporary structural power flows from the integration of transnational networks. Infrastructure is paramount within US and Chinese global strategies, but it is increasingly bundled with investments in digital and production networks, supported by exclusionary financing. We introduce two examples of ‘network bundling’. China fuses Sino-centric port infrastructure and digital networks by expanding the use of LOGINK. Along the Lobito Corridor, the US steers infrastructure investments in attempts to reconfigure critical minerals value chains. Through bundling, superpowers aspire to leverage power across networks and to lock third countries into new dependencies.