You can make the argument for Russia but I really don’t understand how China, a country that has been at peace for over 40 years and which is developing an alternative economic sphere such that countries are not forced to accept whatever conditions the West imposes, could possibly be considered “imperialist.”
Any conflict between the US and China in the Pacific Rim is described as “US Imperialism” from the Chinese perspective and “Chinese Imperialism” from the US perspective.
Any claim China makes along its border regions is Imperialism. Any naval actions made by the Chinese military is Imperialism. Any police action inside the recognized territory of China is imperialism. The entire 1.4B person population is routinely described as a Han monoculture.
The national economic plan is at once a failed project, doomed to collapse within the year, and a sinister plot to steal global market share for the most villainous purposes imaginable. China is, at once, the world’s biggest polluter and the perpetuator of a string of environmentalist “hoaxes”. It’s producing commodities, like consumer electronics and cars and steel girders and plastic widgets, too cheaply and quickly. But it’s also dogged by inefficient bureaucracy and COVID restrictions and an inherent cultural disinterest in entrepreneurship, so the country is constantly lacking essentials.
So they need to go out and steal other people’s stuff, whether its Taiwanese semiconductors or Middle Eastern fossil fuels or East African mineral wealth. And the government accomplishes this by tricking idiot liberals into doing business with them, while secretly infiltrating their societies with the most black-handed saboteurs and spies and assassins.
China is ontologically evil. Its politics is so authoritarian that the people don’t even realize they are being oppressed. But also the people DO realize they are oppressed and yearn for freedom. And if you don’t understand all of this to be true, you’re either an idiot or a LLM programmed to ignore the obvious and trick other people just like an Evil Chinese would.
Any conflict between the US and China in the Pacific Rim is described as “US Imperialism” from the Chinese perspective and “Chinese Imperialism” from the US perspective.
Which is hilarious because there’s absolutely no equivalency here. China is not running warships through the Florida Keys or in the Long Island Sound. The US is running warships off the coast of China and has Marines stationed 4 miles off the coast inside a territory that the UN recognizes as a province of the state of China. The US are clearly in the wrong here. This both-sides position is ridiculous
Any claim China makes along its border regions is Imperialism.
For those who don’t know, this statement is completely untrue, with ZERO historical basis, and ZERO consistency. This is intellectual dishonesty when spoken by people with knowledge. It’s just parroting propaganda when ignorant people say it.
China is ontologically evil
And people question why we say that the USA is the most propagandized people on the planet.
Which is hilarious because there’s absolutely no equivalency here. China is not running warships through the Florida Keys or in the Long Island Sound. The US is running warships off the coast of China and has Marines stationed 4 miles off the coast inside a territory that the UN recognizes as a province of the state of China. The US are clearly in the wrong here. This both-sides position is ridiculous
I can’t help map the history of Taiwan against the history of Cuba, when it comes to the topic of “imperialism”.
On the one hand, you have an island that was actually and repeatedly invaded by Western governments, conquered and liberated and conquered again. Bombed, embargoed, sabotaged, sanctioned, its leaders subjected to hundreds of assassination attempts. The explicit stated goal of the imperial neighbor is “regime change”. The implicit unstated goal is subjugation leading to a full-on ethnic cleansing, to clear the way for a new generation of colonial settlers to occupy vacant real estate.
On the other, you have an island that is heavily incorporated into its neighbor’s economic ecosystem. People freely travel to and from the mainland. Citizenship is muddy by design, because the Eastern government wants to encourage islanders to recognize themselves as full citizens of the neighboring state. And Taiwanese businesses are happy to take advantage of this arrangement, exploiting their special status to function as a bridge between mainland businesses (under sanction by Western governments) and Western customers (hungry for cheap, high quality Chinese goods).
Cuba is impoverished as a matter of US foreign policy.
Taiwan is enriched as a matter of Chinese foreign and domestic policies.
One of these countries has been in the headlines for decades, with hysterical predictions of an imminent military occupation. And it isn’t Cuba.
And people question why we say that the USA is the most propagandized people on the planet.
The ways chauvanism can manifest and reassert itself, even when people rational recognize it as a bad thing in the abstract, are so crazy. The internalized indoctrination works like some kind of demon constantly whispering in people’s heads, trying to get them to come back around to “America #1!”
Criticism will either be overly specific, “This is just because of Trump, I miss when we had respectable Republicans like Bush,” or it will be overly general, “Yes, the US is bad, but only in the sense that all governments are bad.” Anything to avoid the conclusion that the US just fucking sucks.
If the American government fails it must either be an exception, or an inherent flaw in all governments, because we’re the smartest, best, most moral and freedom-loving people in the world. Impossible that foreigners could succeed where we failed, if we failed, it could only be because the task is impossible. That’s how the chauvanists think, and so the conclusion is already determined before a single actual fact is considered.
Anything to avoid the conclusion that the US just fucking sucks.
Even that is overly broad and kinda skitters over what it is that makes US empire a global horror.
Like, “ah bummer man the US sucks” doesn’t do justice to the pile of bloody backpacks at the Minab school attack. It feels almost trite to say “The child murder needs to stop”, but so much US policy - foreign and domestic - is about slaughtering children by the millions. It’s not just a “aw shucks things are bad”. It’s a global campaign of eugenics, driven by a handful of plutocrats who have pegged their collective future on the advent of Computer God.
Impossible that foreigners could succeed where we failed
Unless they’re Norwegian, for some reason. Only the Scandinavians - the whitest of the white Europeans - are allowed to claim anything approaching “Functional Socialism”. And only when they build their society on the back of a petro-state.
It feels almost trite to say “The child murder needs to stop”, but so much US policy - foreign and domestic - is about slaughtering children by the millions.
Classic “no way to prevent this” says only nation where this regularly happens. A part of me just wishes that the horrors could be contained to within our borders, but we have to make all of our shit everyone’s problem.
Only the Scandinavians - the whitest of the white Europeans - are allowed to claim anything approaching “Functional Socialism”.
The funniest part about this is how many people will be like, “The best approach is a mixture of socialism and capitalism” which is exactly what China is doing. I’ve tried so many times to get a coherent answer from the “China bad because billionaires” types as to whether the reforms in the 80’s were good or bad. The only response you’ll ever get from most of them is to call you a fascist for asking.
Any conflict between the US and China in the Pacific Rim is described as “US Imperialism” from the Chinese perspective and “Chinese Imperialism” from the US perspective.
Any claim China makes along its border regions is Imperialism. Any naval actions made by the Chinese military is Imperialism. Any police action inside the recognized territory of China is imperialism. The entire 1.4B person population is routinely described as a Han monoculture.
The national economic plan is at once a failed project, doomed to collapse within the year, and a sinister plot to steal global market share for the most villainous purposes imaginable. China is, at once, the world’s biggest polluter and the perpetuator of a string of environmentalist “hoaxes”. It’s producing commodities, like consumer electronics and cars and steel girders and plastic widgets, too cheaply and quickly. But it’s also dogged by inefficient bureaucracy and COVID restrictions and an inherent cultural disinterest in entrepreneurship, so the country is constantly lacking essentials.
So they need to go out and steal other people’s stuff, whether its Taiwanese semiconductors or Middle Eastern fossil fuels or East African mineral wealth. And the government accomplishes this by tricking idiot liberals into doing business with them, while secretly infiltrating their societies with the most black-handed saboteurs and spies and assassins.
China is ontologically evil. Its politics is so authoritarian that the people don’t even realize they are being oppressed. But also the people DO realize they are oppressed and yearn for freedom. And if you don’t understand all of this to be true, you’re either an idiot or a LLM programmed to ignore the obvious and trick other people just like an Evil Chinese would.
Good comment!
Which is hilarious because there’s absolutely no equivalency here. China is not running warships through the Florida Keys or in the Long Island Sound. The US is running warships off the coast of China and has Marines stationed 4 miles off the coast inside a territory that the UN recognizes as a province of the state of China. The US are clearly in the wrong here. This both-sides position is ridiculous
For those who don’t know, this statement is completely untrue, with ZERO historical basis, and ZERO consistency. This is intellectual dishonesty when spoken by people with knowledge. It’s just parroting propaganda when ignorant people say it.
And people question why we say that the USA is the most propagandized people on the planet.
I can’t help map the history of Taiwan against the history of Cuba, when it comes to the topic of “imperialism”.
On the one hand, you have an island that was actually and repeatedly invaded by Western governments, conquered and liberated and conquered again. Bombed, embargoed, sabotaged, sanctioned, its leaders subjected to hundreds of assassination attempts. The explicit stated goal of the imperial neighbor is “regime change”. The implicit unstated goal is subjugation leading to a full-on ethnic cleansing, to clear the way for a new generation of colonial settlers to occupy vacant real estate.
On the other, you have an island that is heavily incorporated into its neighbor’s economic ecosystem. People freely travel to and from the mainland. Citizenship is muddy by design, because the Eastern government wants to encourage islanders to recognize themselves as full citizens of the neighboring state. And Taiwanese businesses are happy to take advantage of this arrangement, exploiting their special status to function as a bridge between mainland businesses (under sanction by Western governments) and Western customers (hungry for cheap, high quality Chinese goods).
Cuba is impoverished as a matter of US foreign policy.
Taiwan is enriched as a matter of Chinese foreign and domestic policies.
One of these countries has been in the headlines for decades, with hysterical predictions of an imminent military occupation. And it isn’t Cuba.
The ways chauvanism can manifest and reassert itself, even when people rational recognize it as a bad thing in the abstract, are so crazy. The internalized indoctrination works like some kind of demon constantly whispering in people’s heads, trying to get them to come back around to “America #1!”
Criticism will either be overly specific, “This is just because of Trump, I miss when we had respectable Republicans like Bush,” or it will be overly general, “Yes, the US is bad, but only in the sense that all governments are bad.” Anything to avoid the conclusion that the US just fucking sucks.
If the American government fails it must either be an exception, or an inherent flaw in all governments, because we’re the smartest, best, most moral and freedom-loving people in the world. Impossible that foreigners could succeed where we failed, if we failed, it could only be because the task is impossible. That’s how the chauvanists think, and so the conclusion is already determined before a single actual fact is considered.
Even that is overly broad and kinda skitters over what it is that makes US empire a global horror.
Like, “ah bummer man the US sucks” doesn’t do justice to the pile of bloody backpacks at the Minab school attack. It feels almost trite to say “The child murder needs to stop”, but so much US policy - foreign and domestic - is about slaughtering children by the millions. It’s not just a “aw shucks things are bad”. It’s a global campaign of eugenics, driven by a handful of plutocrats who have pegged their collective future on the advent of Computer God.
Unless they’re Norwegian, for some reason. Only the Scandinavians - the whitest of the white Europeans - are allowed to claim anything approaching “Functional Socialism”. And only when they build their society on the back of a petro-state.
Classic “no way to prevent this” says only nation where this regularly happens. A part of me just wishes that the horrors could be contained to within our borders, but we have to make all of our shit everyone’s problem.
The funniest part about this is how many people will be like, “The best approach is a mixture of socialism and capitalism” which is exactly what China is doing. I’ve tried so many times to get a coherent answer from the “China bad because billionaires” types as to whether the reforms in the 80’s were good or bad. The only response you’ll ever get from most of them is to call you a fascist for asking.