this post was submitted on 19 Nov 2024
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True anarchist stance is when your geopolitical opinions about the US's rivals coincidentally align perfectly with that of the US State Department. It's always the other side that is propagandized.
Stop with the strawmen. When did I say I agree with US propaganda? When did I say that I consider myself on the same side as the US?
Tell us how these "tankies" are "parroting" propaganda and we'll tell you exactly how your geopolitical opinions align with the US State Dept.
For starters, right here where you showed your whole ass and said: "If China is a socialist state worth supporting then I'm a donkey with a laser dick"
You do seem to be quite a donkey but clearly it's just overconfident false advertisement about the laser.
If China is so great then why does it feel the need to dictate over Hong Kong and Taiwan? Does China have gay marriage? Trans rights perhaps?
I'm not saying China is as bad as the West claims it is. I'm just saying it's not something to get wild about. It's a nation state (a far too big one at that), which are by definition tools of oppression.
Are we having a discussion of geopolitics or a schoolyard gossip fight?
Why do you have strong opinions about this topic when you clearly do not know any history about China?
China, more specifically the Qing Dynasty, was colonized (mostly by the British) through a series of imperialist ventures thst included the Opium Wars. The result was the designation of Hong Kong, already an existing Chinese city, as a British imperial trade hub where resources and wealth extracted from the rest of the country was traded, as well as later serving as a finsncial hub for the rest of the imperialized region. But, to put it simply, the British stole Hong Kong in 1841-1843.
When China threw off all of its imperial masters in its national liberation fight against the Japanese, it then had a civil war due to the KMT attacking the communists. Obviously, the communists won. As part of this, they reclaimed Hong Kong just a little over 100 years after it was stolen, but using the legal definition that had been imposed by the British, who had given themselves a 100-year lease that ended in 1997.
Hong Kong is a Chinese city that was colonized by the British and is being reintegrated, as yiu would expect from a sovereign country. You claimed elsewhere that you are against Western hegemony, but this is a crystal clear example of anticolonial action and you're siding with the colonists that write breathless propaganda about how unfair it is that China is governing a Chinese city.
Again, just basic history. When the communists were reconsolidating their country, they were also expelling KMT forces. At the end, the KMT looted wealth and cultural artifacts and fled to Taiwan, where they set up a military dictatorship and began oppressing the indigenous people there. The PRC was set to invade Taiwan and finish their civil war, but the US set up a blockade and the PRC opted to vow a later return rather than force the Americans out. The first question you should have is why the US was meddling in their civil war.
Both the PRC and the KMT have long held that the civil war has never ended, with the PRC claiming Taiwan and the KMT claiming all of msinlsnd China and also Mongolia. The PRC holds a consistent line of reunification being the end goal.
The US uses Taiwan to harass the PRC and wants to use it to escalate tensions. It may even try to turn it into another Ukraine, doing everything it can to push China over red lines militarily until it finally decides that Taiwan is an intolerable threat just a few miles off its coast and very close to Shenzhen. If that happened, would you yet again go after the target if US imperialism like your masters tell you to, calling it an unprovoked aggression? Would you have new names for people that correctly blame the US for using their proxies as puppets to harass other nations? The US is already trying to derisk from Taiwan by exportinh its chip production facilities but it isn't going well because the US is so finsncislized that it can't barely build productive capacity at even 10X the cost of elsewhere.
This is another example of why someone would call you a liberal. Pinkwashing imperialist takes. What is your logic on what is permitted to be done to other countries if they don't have a legal recognition of gay marriage? On what basis do other cultures need to mirror your own preferences in order for them to be free of your chauvinism? Any real county will have reactionary elements, some old, some new. Your country, and you, have reactionary elements.
There is a populsr struggle for gay marriage in China and it is going pretty well. It is mostly jist old people who are against it. You should exoect to see it legalized in the next decade or so. But you will have had nothing to do with thst, as your contribution here is to sneer at the entire country for not doing what this Westerner baby leftist demands.
Incidentally, if the CPC did force through legalized gay marriage and it elicited some negative response, like protests, you can be certain this would be characterized as an authoritarian overreach and how dare they disregard the will of the people. Some "socialists", huh!?
China has better trans rights than your country, most likely. It has less transphobia to begin with, had major out and truly popular trans celebrities before the US did, and provides gender-affirming care of all kinds in a way that is truly accessible for the vast majority of people. Compare this to the US where trans kids are often exiled by their families and given no support, leading to high rates of homelessness, hard drug use, and death.
China does not have the same culture wars as the US, it doesn't have the same need for capital to create and maintain marginalization to distract from material decline. China is materially advancing and ending extreme poverty.
But you don't seem to know anything about China. Why have an opinion at all? Why not hold your tongue until you have done some reading or talked nicely to Chinese people?
Sure, but what of it? Do you think we are in a position to have a societu free of oppression, including nation states? With you and whose army?
Socialists must build revolution in the real world, with what is materially in front of us. Tell us how you would, say, end China's status as a nation state without it just getting immediately recolonized, probably by the country in which you live, work, and to which you contribute.
Okay so violently beating down protesters is okay because it's in the name of anticolonialism? This line of reasoning goes exactly the same as US imperialism. It's always some harmful ideology that is enslaving the poor people of some place and they must be freed by being forced to join the empire.
I don't get where you're trying to take this conversation. You don't have to prove to me that some things about China are great. In this comment alone you admitted three times that China isn't perfect. Which means, China should be criticized. Like any other nation state. And I am saying, there are shills who run around and won't let anybody criticize China because for some reason they got emotionally attached to a nation state. Everybody who says they don't want to deepthroat Mao's shlong for breakfast gets called a liberal. Any and all words uttered by a human that has even looked at the US on a map is liberal slop, and everything coming from the Russian state department is gospel. And I call those people tankies. That's all I'm saying.
do some self crit
you were given answers in earnest, and you are not engaging with them in a sincere way
sorry, I'm trying
First, before I respond point-by-point, I would like to point out thst you have ignored nearly all of my response. I offered you information, history, and context, in part because it is informative, but mostly because it provides you the opportunity to recognize (vocally or not) your ignorance of this topic and instead redirect your attention yo actually questioning your knowledge and opinions and doing some reading instead of lashing out or doubling down.
Instead, you are doubling down on seeking conflict and sharing, yet again, that your only knowledge of this topic is what you were recemtly told to believe by capitalist media propagandists. And that this is so superior to my knowledge that you don't even need to acknowledge what I've said and can just continue on trying to be contrarian.
Do you think it would be fair to call your behavior insufferable, as you have called tankies? To be clear, I do expect an answer to this question.
Oh, so you aren't even really responding to what I said, which is about Westerners being outraged that China was governing China. I thought you might not understand what I meant by that, but I wanted to give you the benefit of the doubt.
Anyways this is a srraw man and I will ignore it.
You're just talking to yourself about all of this. It has nothing to do with what I said.
Are you ready to have an actual conversation or are you so deep into liberalism that you can only imagine fighting and winning rather than questioning your own ignorance?
Let's say you go to a bar and there are some Nazis at the next table. You hear them say, "and fuck those communists, they will get what is coming to them". Are you going to go over there and say, "yeah, fuck those tankies! They're insufferable authoritarians"? Because all that means is that you're going out of your way to validate Nazis trying to kill communists and aligning yourself with them. When someone says, "what the fuck, punch those Nazis, don't validate them" are you going up say, "ergo, communists should be criticized".
Your entire social context is those Nazis in that bar. And your criticisms aren't even informed, they're the bullshit spread by the Nazi propagandists. And then you tell everyone you're on the left.
If you ever spent time among communists, you would find they are very critical of China. But their criticisms are differemt from yours becsyse yours are warmed over cold war talking points and uncritical readings of the media. And they are intentional about their outward criticisms, becayse again, our entire social context is the Nazi bar.
Nonsense. Speak to and of the tankies right in front of you right now. What, exactly, are we doing?
Hey look it's that homophobia I mentioned liberals doing in another comment. You asked me what a liberal is, well there you go. A liberal us, for exple, someone that attacks China for not having legalized gay marriage but then uses homophobic insults.
Do self-crit.
You do tell a lot of vague stories but they have no relation to what people are actually doing.
It is not coincidental that you ignored the vast majority of what I said, as it was concrete history.
I thought I was having one. I'm just disagreeing with you on some things and you somehow seem to think that means I'm not engaging. I'm trying.
Woah no and I'm sorry if I've given the impression I would do something like that. I consider marxist-leninist communists to be misguided comrades, and I hope you can think of me the same way.
How is that homophobia? I think you're construing something here.
It is not coincidental that I skimmed this comment as well because it is really fucking long. sorry
No, you are being self-serving and selective in your responses and have dropped straw men repeatedly. Rather than respond to that when called out, you are just straight-up ignoring most of what is said in response. I don't care if you are "busy", you can just not reply and stop saying large swaths of bullshit if you don't have the capacity to continue. Nobody is making you behave like this.
And again, you have ignored most of my reply. Including the part where I pointed out that you had ignored my reply, and why I had provided that context in the first place. No acknowledgement from you that any of that has happened. I don't think it is expecting too much that you demonstrate the most basic aspects of good faith engagement.
I have no idea what you're talking about. What do you want me to do with you when you just omit most of what I've said and ignore it? Do you want me to treat you like someone that is doing that intentionally (i.e. bad faith) or like someone too unaware of what is happening to know that's counterproductive? How do you treat people that act that way?
You are doing something like that. You are mindlessly repeating anti-China propaganda, anti-Russia propaganda. The Nazis are your entire social context. They provide consent for the maximum pressure campaigns. They support the coup following Euromaidan, the non-implementation of the Minsk agreements. If you say any of these things to liberals, they only understand it as a confirmation of their racist and xenophobic views in support of domination. And again, they are largely falsehoods or otherwise presented in an absurdly biased fashion.
I am confident that you are not a comrade yet. You are a liberal that likes some of the things they've heard leftists say. But you can't be a comrade without shedding your liberalism and actually getting involved and learning theory. It is painfully clear that you have not done those things. You might become a comrade eventually, but your confidence despite ignorance will be a serious roadblock, you may never actually get there until you learn how to do some self-crit and ask questions instead of fighting.
You do not see how treating sucking a man's dick is used homophobically? Did you grow up on Mars? Its context as an insult is straight guys telling other straight guys to do a gay thing. I don't think you need me to explain this to you. I think if you stepped back and actually did the self-crit I just told you to do, you could figure it out yourself. So go do that. Stop making excuses and stop fighting pointlessly and do some thinking.
It is not very long. It takes 3-5 minutes to read and I have given you no deadlines. If you can't respond to direct criticisms, maybe you aren't ready to have these discussions. I think that is probably the case. You should go do some reading and self-crit and come back with questions.
Obviously violent “protesters” can’t be allowed to terrorize a city. But that’s not the narrative imperial core media spun about it. They spun a story about “freedom fighters”. It’s what they always do.
Behind a made-for-TV Hong Kong protest narrative, Washington is backing nativism and mob violence
Hm why does this narrative of violent protesters terrorizing cities feel so familiar? I wonder where I've heard that before
I don’t know, where? Vagueposting isn’t cute.
Sorry haha got a little carried away with the sarcasm. This narrative is used by the US a lot, for example Black Lives Matter protests
The nuances of the PRC's desire for a One China policy largely stem from the Marxist theory of Nations, along with a desire to throw off all western colonizers. Without understanding the depths of the "century of humiliation" you can't hope to understand the desire for a unified China.
Secondly, the PRC's process means social change comes slowly, but it has been improving. Notably, Xin Jing, a transgender woman, is one of China's top celebrities. Change is slow, but is happening at different rates across different sections of the PRC. Social change comes from improvements in productive forces and focusing on people as a priority.
Thirdly, nobody is saying the PRC is Anarchist, but your insistence that everyone agree with you saying the government is by definition a tool of oppression despite 90%+ approval rates stands at direct odds with the people themselves. Like it or not, you must face the reality that it is Marxism that has brought great improvements to China's conditions, and these improvements are continuing at a rapid pace, and thus has widespread support.
I can face that reality I think.
All fair points, but what about Taiwan and Hong Kong? What about the treatment of minorities?
You mean the island where the fascist fled after they lost the Chinese civil war and now acts as a base of US military hegemony?
What about Hong Kong? The UK leased it after they won a colonialist war in the 19th century. The last British governor of Hong Kong was a white dude appointed from London. What about Hong Kong?
"Only 17% of Hong Kongers say they want independence from China with just 20% saying China has abused the “one country, two systems” model to favor Beijing, a Reuters poll released on December 31 shows."
Could you give us examples?
So what? Imperialism is suddenly okay if you don't like the ruling ideology there? That is the same logic underlying US imperialism, and coincidentally, fits the old definition of the word tankie.
You may recall protests being violently repressed.
Many uighurs have been imprisoned for example.
Also your screenshot once again, just tries to prove China is awesome, because the US is bad. I'm not trying to compare the two.
What are you trying to prove to me? That China is perfect? I know you don't believe that.
My brother in NED, it's not just about a "ruling ideology", Taiwan is literally a US stronghold against China, and if you recall your geography lessons from high school, you might remember that the United States is in North America on the other side of the Pacific Ocean. If any country does imperialism on that side of the globe it's the USA, since Taiwan is called Republic of China, and most countries don't recognize ROC as the "true" China.
You may recall that the CIA literally foments colour revolutions against geopolitical rivals or countries who don't swear fealty to the US. Have you heard of Jacobo Arbenz? Mossadegh? and so on?
You may recall that hours ago I literally quoted that 83% of Hongkongers want to belong to China.
The point is, since it eludes you for some reason, is that it's pure projection from the West of accusing China of bad minority policies, when the West is worse in many many ways. Not that China is "perfect" whatever that means in real world policies, but the West want you to think China = BAD. And the only reason you do this hand-wringing about minorities in China is because US State Department think tanks implanted that thought in your head some time ago by bombarding you with anti-China propaganda.
The other point is that anarchists crying about tankies are just useful idiots, since the real threat to capitalist hegemony is the actually existing socialist countries. That's why the FBI and the CIA was always more concerned about Leninists than about anarchists.
House passes $1.6 billion to deliver anti-China propaganda overseas
It doesn't elude me that the West tries to paint China worse than it is. Although I have learned a thing or two today.
Others have done far more research on those subjects and can answer them better than I can, so rather than contribute to the spread of nonsense I will refrain from speaking outside of what I factually know.
What, specifically, are you asking about?
Hong Kong has experienced violent oppression from China when there were protests. Taiwan wants to be independent but is not recognized as such by China. While Western media has certainly exaggerated claims, there are credible reports of uyghurs being repressed. I'm not saying this behavior is worse than Western imperialist behavior. I'm saying these are imperialist behaviors, and just like the US, the Chinese government tries to cover them up or pretend they aren't happening, or comes up with some reason for it.
What I'm saying is that there are some people who buy into that, and will shut down any criticism of it.
Could you link one that is not from Adrian Zenz or from ASPI or the US NGO-industrial complex?
edit:
some lurkers might have missed this all timer AMA on reddit when a literal CIA agent from Guantanamo Bay started lecturing about the "Uyghur genocide"
Would Al Jazeera suffice? https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2018/8/10/one-million-muslim-uighurs-held-in-secret-china-camps-un-panel
It's literally just an American politician at the UN in 2018 citing "credible reports"
As an anarchist, do you often believe what US bureaucrats say? Because if you do I can give you plenty of links from other bureaucrats who don't agree with her
It's not just one guy, the article cites several sources.
There's a lot going on here, so I will go section by section.
The scale of the violence against protestors is exaggerated, and much of the protests were directly funded by Hong Kong bourgeoisie and Western NGOs and States, like the US. Currently, less than a quarter want independence. This is because Hong Kong was a british colony and financially is totally enmeshed with mainland China.
Both Taiwan and the PRC claim legitimate rule to the entirety of China. However, Taiwan's historical background is as a runaway retreat for the Kuomintang, a Nationalist party that was at war with the much more popular CPC. Taiwan also serves as a staging ground for the US to exert pressure on the PRC.
This is a topic I don't know enough about, and reserve the right not to speak. However, I will say that claims of "genocide" come from the fascist Adrian Zenz, and moreover travel to Xinjiang is open and freely permissible. In addition, Uyghurs were exempt from the One Child Policy, as all minority populations were. I cannot speak on the treatment within the re-education camps, however, as I have not done the research necessary.
When Marxists speak of Imperialism, they speak of Lenin's definition and outlining, which refers to a specific stage in Capitalism where Industrial and Financial Capital are exported to super-exploit for super-profits. These actions by the PRC do not constitute Imperialism from that standpoint.
I am not aware of the CPC covering up or censoring discussion of these topics.
It doesn't. Taiwan and Hong Kong ARE China. If anything the high level of autonomy that China allows reactionary regional governments to have is what should be criticized.
China allows for civil unions for LGBTQ. https://www.globaltimes.cn/content/1162943.shtml It made civil unions legal across the nation before USA made gay marriage legal in every state. Like all places in the world (some more than others) China has a long way to go on LGBTQ rights. But that's just it, China is improving along those lines, while the US is rapidly regressing. China is improving with trans rights and has been punishing companies that violate them. So yes, we should absolutely support China in continuing to move in the correct direction.
Lol, by whose definition? A state is only as good or bad as the ruling class that wields it. A bourgeois (capitalist) state will always be oppressive. As a socialist state (and China is a socialist state), the CPC uses its power to suppress the constant attempts of the bourgeois to oppress the working class.
Imperialism much?
That's fair, but it's once again an argument based entirely on comparing China to the US. The US being bad doesn't make China good. To get back to my original argument, I'm just saying that the word 'tankie' refers to China or Russia simps. There is no nation in this world worth simping for.
It is imperialism to let proxy governments for the UK and US maintain a colonial foothold in China actually.
So the Taiwanese all desperately want to join the DPRC? Last I checked Taiwan was a sovereign nation. Capitalism has a foothold there but the British no longer rule there. Justifying imperialism with imperialism also doesn't magically make it okay
Please, check again
Disputes about Taiwan's sovereignty is the most famous fact about Taiwan. You are deeply unserious.
Okay I may have worded that wrong but that is also misleading. China is a huge power (I say this is a problem as you may recall). Having diplomatic ties with China is necessary for most nations. China refuses to have diplomatic ties with anyone who recognizes Taiwan as a sovereign nation. So, everybody pretends they don't recognize it, officially. In reality Taiwan has its own government and isn't ruled over by China. In 1991, Taiwan/ROC even recognized the DPRC.
No they just installed a friendly neocolonial government. Jesus Christ do some basic investigation. If the British invaded part of your hometown and installed a puppet government, would you call it imperialism for it to be taken back by your town?
by my town no. By another country overseas, yes
So your argument is the geographical boundaries mean when a country is split it is imperialism to unite it again?
Imagine if the confederacy retreated to the keys islands, that's sort of the level of ridiculous here. The right wing losers of a civil war retreated to an island that was and is considered part of the country.
I would go even further. If a country exists and everybody has a national identity, all happy citizens. Then one region decides to become separatist. If the rest of the country doesn't let them separate, I would qualify that as imperialism as well.
Have you read anything on what imperialism actually is?
I would suggest reading Lenin's "Imperialism"
Wut? Oh, you think that's imperialism? Stating the fact that Taiwan is part of China and that Hong Kong is also just a region (SAR if you even know what that is) of China? All this shows is you have no fucking clue what imperialism even is. You literally don't know what that word means. Not by ML standards clearly, but not even by general layman standards. And it shows you know absolutely nothing about the history of this situation, which is typical of the sinophobic liberal. Taiwan is ran by a fascist nationalist government that tried to wipe out the workers movements and that still claims to be the "rightful" rulers not only of all of China but also other sovereign nations like Mongolia. And you're saying that China allowing them to continue to operate while slowly working towards future reunification is "imperialism." That's just sick. Take a look at what the US via the IMF and World Bank does to impoverished global south nations (that are impoverished solely because the US impoverished them for the purpose of subjugation and unequal exchange) to begin to understand what imperialism looks like. Then come back and tell me China's lenient position on Taiwan is "imperialism."
Never said it did. BUT part of why China is good is because it is overtaking the US which is unambiguously bad. This is one of the many things China is doing (in this case passively, but it does a hell of a lot of active good too) that is beneficial to humanity.
I don't know what you think "simping" for a country even means, given it's a slang term involving romantic attraction, but if by "simping" for a nation, you mean "expressing vocal approval and ideologically supporting it," then yes, there are nations absolutely worth "simping" for. Cuba immediately comes to mind as the obvious one. But China also deserves the vocal approval and support of leftists since it is in fact a socialist state and is in fact doing much good in the world, both for the masses of people living within it as well as for most of the rest of the world through BRI and the fact that it is undermining the actual imperialist's ability to beat the global south into submission. Russia deserves critical support for the latter bit as well, seeing as it is doing more than any other state to actively fight imperialism and the monopolarity of US hegemony.
Alright, please elaborate on your critical stance on China that is different from what is mainstream in US politics & journalism.
That is the dumbest argument ever. Hitler liked dogs, liking dogs doesn't make you a nazi. That's not to say I agree with the US stance on China, but why would this even matter
again, do some self crit
the point was that many anarchists are indistinguishable from centrists when it comes to actual geopolitical issues, because they have internalized western propaganda about the West's rivals
propaganda is not just lies (though some of it is actual lies), but emphasis
nothing you've written in this thread is a genuine engagement with people who try to refute western propaganda about the west's rivals, and you've written nothing that would indicate that you're not a liberal who just likes anarchist aesthetics with a vague handwavy criticism of "nation states"
simply gotta disagree. anarchists reject empire and authority. Centrists often support imperialism so long as it is favoring their own country. Anarchists typically oppose the imperialism of their own countries more than anything else.
I'm really trying to engage with people here and I've conceded multiple good points. I've learned some things and I'm seeing new perspectives.
Also why do you care so much about finding a way to call me a liberal it's obsessive :P
First step in purging your inner liberal is recognizing that you are a liberal hahaha
lmao I'll keep searching for that inner liberal then
Pretty easy to see your views on China, which sound an awful lot like the State Department's. If I'm reading too much into what you're saying, tell us what you really think about the PRC.