this post was submitted on 21 Jan 2026
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GenZedong
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I may have to reflect on this more, but I'll still try to write something out and see if that clarifies where my head's at. I think this is something that gets more complicated than it might first look, especially when we factor in places that are historically colonized/imperialized vs. not.
In particular, a place that has been exploited by imperialism, it may be all the more imperative that they have a strong native liberation movement, in order to properly shake off the effects of imperialism.
Then there's weird shit like the US. It can technically have a strong working class movement without having a strong decolonial, liberation movement. It won't last that way in the long-term because it's failing to address the contradictions properly, but it can happen and I believe has in certain ways in the past - where white working class got concessions enough for what they wanted and threw non-white under the bus to do it. With how embedded fascism is in its makeup, and how warmongering it is, it may require intervention at some point to purge it of fascists if local efforts aren't successful in doing so, if nothing else to keep its neighbors safe from its terrorism and bullying.
I'm also just not sure the concept of sovereignty works the same way for a country that is founded on settler-colonialism. Indigenous nations need their sovereignty recognized, but the people of the US, that seems more complicated. On the one hand, it's not like 300+ million people can just up and leave and go back to the countries their ancestors came from. On the other hand, any alternative to the US in the region has to be purged/reeducated of chauvinist, colonial tendencies. There has to be a reckoning with the fundamental asymmetry of being the descendants of settlers on land occupied through genocide, who now greatly outnumber the natives.
The other thing I think of is like, Palestine for example has liberation forces of its own. Its people have been fighting for decades. It isn't a question of them being unprepared to fight for, or govern, themselves. They are more than capable of that. The problem is that the occupier has military power that they don't have and is willing to use it against them in the most ruthless and disgusting ways. This is a scenario where, if there were unified, global liberation forces, they could step in and make the difference, and push out the occupier. It's kind of a no-brainer if the organized military power was there and it would sound absurd to argue that doing so would be messing up some kind of struggle process for the Palestinian people.
On the other hand, if the world had such forces and they looked at an imperialized country that is being run by capitalists and struggling to build a socialist movement and said, "We're going to come in and start shooting", that I think more fits what we're talking about in terms of being paternal rather than working in solidarity.
Last thought is I think it's worth noting that China did successfully militarily intervene under Mao, when it helped Korean liberation forces push back US forces (whose forces asked for help, it's also worth noting), and it's possible that if they hadn't, the US would have occupied all of Korea and leveraged the positioning to war directly with China. And even if the US had stopped in its hot war there, it still would have been a much worse situation for the Korean people.
So I would say there is a dramatic difference between allying with existing liberation forces in a country vs. coming in and trying to quickly force development in a paternalistic way. China and its allies could become more equipped to do the first one militarily, but my read (which I think we are more or less in agreement on) is they are trying to minimize the need for it (and the resulting loss of life involved in such direct struggle) by first shifting the balance of power away from imperialism. Edit: And are also trying to ensure that any such effort would not be some over-extending effort they get mired in with no end in sight and undermines their socialist project at home.
This is my thought, but perhaps I need more faith in the US working class.
I guess how I kinda see it is: act like it's possible to overcome and organize for it, but also spend some time and energy thinking about what to do if things get even worse and what kind of options are going to be available. Kinda like how sovereign nations spend time on building and improving things, but also spend time on defensive and offensive tools, protocols, and training, and what they do if directly attacked. I don't think we need to have faith that things will work out, but we do need to have enough belief in the possibility that we're willing to try. One of the important factors here, I think, is keeping "quantitative changes lead to qualitative" in view. Broadly, it can be easy to look at the big picture, not see the desired progress, and adopt a demoralized view. But every bit of progress is changing something, which can lead to other changes, and we need to know better what is going on in the details so that we can move those details further along. Otherwise, we can wind up more as spectators, as in the "weeks where decades happen" feel where the shift to qualitative takes us by surprise.
Well said.
Indeed. And I think that what we have seen is that China is willing to offer help to liberation forces that have already become the dominant force in their country, like what happened in the AES (Sahel) states. But it would be damaging to the struggle if China were to throw their support behind groups that are still in the minority. That would make those groups look like proxies of an outside power, which would undermine their legitimacy.
The situation in Palestine is complicated because the officially recognized representative of the Palestinians is the Palestinian Authority. Moreover, China, just like Russia, cannot give help that has not been asked for. Did for example Iran request direct Chinese help beyond economic engagement? Did Venezuela? China does have military deals with Pakistan and an alliance with the DPRK.
And of course their direct involvement in Korea was absolutely correct. Not only was it in their own immediate security interest, but more importantly it was in aid of the officially recognized government of the DPRK and completely in accordance with what the majority of the people there wanted.