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It’s not just a strike on a Chinese asset. It’s very directly a strike against China by squeezing its access to oil.
Israel wants to squeeze China in the same way Iran is squeezing the west.
Squeezing your second largest trading partner who controls access to a lot of key materials is definitely a decision that can be made
Israel also shot at Italian troops in Lebanon so they’re also happy to scratch the EU pretty damn hard.
The only trade partner that seems to matter to Israel is the weapons trade.
Israel have killed European peacekeepers several times over the years and it gets covered up
They've killed americams before too when they blew up the u.s.s. liberty
At least they said "sorry" that time (even though the president allegedly ordered it covered up as an accident despite evidence that it was not)
They've killed Americans even besides that, and more recently: https://dawnmena.org/u-s-citizens-killed-by-israel-soldiers-and-settlers-in-palestine/
Journalists, aid workers, people just visiting relatives.
Squeeze them for what? China isn’t the one bombing Israel, they’re Israel’s second biggest trade partner, they’re one of the only things keeping Israel afloat.
Might not be quite “biting the hand that feeds you” but definitely biting the hand of the assistant zookeeper that feeds you on weekends.
3rd. It goes US, Ireland, China. It's even more stark if you take the EU as a bloc which then makes it EU, US, China.
No that would be Washington and Brussels and their billions in "aid" and massive diplomatic cover.
Also:
“Trade isn’t support” which is why BDS argues against cutting off economic activity with Israel, because that would be unnecessary and trade doesn’t help the entity at all!
BDS exists because trade is support.
There are different levels, obviously it’s not the same to buy necessary fuel from an enemy to heat your people’s homes as to buy blood diamonds. But Israel produces no crucial resources, and if China cut off all economic activity with them - Boycott them, divested from their businesses, and implemented sanctions - China wouldn’t even notice while it would hurt Israel significantly.
Thats my bad, I’ve seen them cited as 2nd many times and haven’t gone and looked at the economics papers myself. Also wtf Ireland.
Sometimes Mao was wrong. Mao also famously sided with the United States against the USSR, and supported the Khmer Rouge against Vietnam. His decision making on foreign policy was questionable to say the least.
China accounts for less than 15% of Israel's goods imports when Hong Kong is included, and under 8% when HK is excluded which makes sense when analysing Chinese policy given Hong Kong's ongoing reunification and special status given it's history. China represents a marginal share of Israel's external circulation, not a structural pillar.
The composition confirms this marginality. Chinese exports to Israel are consumer goods, machinery, and electric vehicles. Israeli exports to China are diamonds, optical equipment, and declining semiconductor shipments. None of this touches Israel's core state capacities: intelligence, cyber warfare, military R&D, financial services. These sectors are integrated into US and EU capital circuits and protected by Washington's security architecture. Meanwhile China actively undermines Israeli comparative advantages: lab grown diamonds have crashed the natural diamond market that Israel depends on, and Chinese technological advances render Israeli service exports increasingly obsolete.
Also treating Israel as an autonomous actor ignores its position as a subordinate node in US imperialist command. Any unilateral Chinese rupture would trigger coordinated reprisals from Washington, Brussels, Tokyo. More dangerously, it would likely accelerate imperialist backing for separatist forces targeting China: increased funding for ETIM, intensified DPP militarization, and expanded intelligence sharing with reactionary forces on China's periphery. This is not speculation; it is the observed pattern of capitalist core discipline against any perceived deviation.
So long as the West secures Israel militarily and economically, symbolic sanctions have no material meaning. They only serve as a form of catharsis and moral posturing. They confuse form for content. The correct line is to utilize trade to develop productive forces, secure technological channels, and maintain strategic autonomy, while directing material support to the Axis of Resistance through separate circuits. This is not contradiction; it is dialectical coordination. Commercial engagement with a client state is not political endorsement when the broader anti imperialist front advances.
I await Israel's historical dissolution and wish China could adopt a more militant posture. But the current approach rests on concrete analysis of concrete conditions, not moral abstraction. Sound strategy proceeds from the balance of forces, not from voluntarist gestures that cede ground to capital.
While true in the broadest sense (70/30 etc etc). This account flattens a highly complex rupture. The Sino-Soviet split did not emerge simply from “Mao being wrong,” but from deep ideological, strategic, and state-to-state contradictions, especially Moscow’s increasingly paternal and subordinating posture toward Beijing, which sharpened tensions into an open break. It also ignores the substantial material and political support China gave Vietnam for years, particularly during the anti-imperialist struggle against the United States, and obscures the fact that some of the harshest and most distorted expressions of the anti-Soviet line in regional policy (such as the 1979 war) were developed and executed later, under Deng-era conditions, not simply under Mao himself. None of that means Mao was infallible, but it does mean the split and its consequences have to be understood as historically conditioned contradictions within the socialist camp, not reduced to an individualized story of irrational foreign-policy error.
Edit: I forgot to mention I fully support BDS because its material strength lies in severing Israel from the imperial core’s reproduction networks. The movement functions by making institutional cooperation economically and politically untenable within the metropole, where financial integration, military supply chains, and diplomatic cover actually sustain the settler colonial apparatus. Applying that same tactic to China inverts the concrete conditions. Beijing’s commercial ties represent a marginal civilian fraction of Israel’s external circulation. Severing them would be simply performative moral purity while leaving imperialist command structures untouched. It would also most likely trigger coordinated capital redirection and systemic reprisals from Washington and its allied blocs, punishing Chinese strategic autonomy and hardening imperialist discipline. Different positions in the global division of labor require different methods of struggle. Backing mass boycotts in the core while the resistance and its support maintain calibrated trade channels reflects in my eyes a correct reading of where Israel actually draws its lifeblood.
Israel losing 15% of its imports would be catastrophic for the settler project, that's hardly marginal.
I think we can acknowledge that trade is support, but also recognize that China is making a hard strategic choice between the costs and benefits of cutting off Israel against the well-being of its people (because, like you said, China would be inviting reprisal on itself if it cut off trade). We don't need to avoid confronting the ugly material reality of commercial engagement with Israel by just handwaving it as unimportant. Otherwise, if it didn't matter, why would you wish for China to adopt a more militant posture?
By militant I meant more direct military deployment and open mass arming of the Resistance. I wish it were already possible. I hope it will become possible. Right now it is not. Crossing that threshold guarantees world war three. Wishing for a higher stage of struggle does not justify ignoring the current balance of forces.
The share sits under 8 percent when excluding Hong Kong. Hong Kong operates as a separate customs territory under the SAR framework. Mainland commercial policy does not dictate its trade flows, so it falls outside Chinese macroeconomic planning. Even at 15% the shock would likely be easily absorbed. Israel remains structurally embedded in the Euro American bloc. Washington is pushing a defense budget past one trillion dollars alongside direct military transfers. The EU coordinates diplomatic shielding and economic substitution to protect Tel Aviv. Any gap from reduced Chinese goods would likely instantly fill with imperialist capital (not to mind a likely increase in the billions in "aid"). Washington and Brussels would pour billions more into Israel to combat the dastardly commies and insulate the settler state. The regime does not rely on Chinese consumer goods to survive. It relies on Western security and economic guarantees.
Trade is circulation. It is not political endorsement. Commercial exchange with a client state does not equal support for its colonial project. That does not make the arrangement clean. It is morally ugly. But material analysis requires weighing concrete conditions against abstract morality. China uses these channels to build productive forces and maintain strategic autonomy while material support flows to the Resistance through separate circuits. Symbolic rupture without breaking the imperialist security architecture only weakens the anti hegemonic front. The correct line prioritizes actual disruption of capital accumulation networks over performative boycotts that serve no purpose beyond catharsis and posture.
So, you seem to be equating material support for endorsement. Those aren't the same thing.
We can say that China supports Israel with trade relations without actually endorsing them.
Did the Soviet Union support the Nazis by trading grain for machine tools between 1939 and 1941? Did they support imperialism by importing Western technology throughout the Cold War? No. I and many others would say it was quite the opposite. The same materialist logic applies here. China trades/traded commercial goods for semiconductors, diamonds, and optical equipment that cannot/could not be sourced elsewhere due to imperialist pressure and technological containment. This is not support.
Support is defined by net strategic effect, not mechanical commodity flows. The net effect is: China materially supports the Axis of Resistance while maintaining marginal civilian trade with a US client state.
The net effect is: Israel's economy continues to function with China's material support, they would be in a worse position if they were deprived of Chinese trade. Even if we disregard Hong Kong, 8% would be a serious shock - especially under current conditions! Then China could began pressuring its own trading partners to also stop trading with Israel; Hong Kong might even follow. This would have a serious cost to China, though, and they have likely determined the cost is too high and the risks too great.
What they're doing now, supporting the Axis of Resistance while avoiding Western retaliation, is likely the best strategic option.
But that doesn't mean we should just disregard trade as having material impact. We're materialists, not moralists. We can accept that China is materially supporting Israel through trade while also understanding that this isn't some kind of moral failing, and that there are additional considerations that are being made to inform their overall strategy towards Israel.
Presumably squeezing them to put pressure on Iran to make a deal, or even just tit-for-tat the closure of the Strait.
The only thing keeping Israel afloat right now that really matters is the supply of missile interceptors.
America is keeping their unsinkable carrier afloat by itself. Trade is not support.
Why is “Boycott” a part of BDS then? Trade is absolutely support
Because we are not countries? Consumption is not trade.
Also, this requires you to believe that China is playing both sides here which nakes no sense considering how important Iran is for China and how unimportant Israel is for them.
The “Boycott” part of BDS doesn’t just apply to consumers though, the bigger part is to pressure organizations and the state do boycott all economic activity with the Zionist entity, in the same way that countries cut off economic activity with South Africa.
The ideal goal isn’t just you the consumer not buying Sabra hummus from your local grocery store, it’s your grocery store not having it to sell you because your government has banned the import of Israeli products.
Trade IS support, in particular when it’s completely unnecessary. It’s one thing to buy crucial energy supplies or something like that, but Israel doesn’t produce anything important, just weapons. China gains little to nothing by having a relationship with Israel except another (small) market. Israel gains quite a lot by having a relationship with China, they get to purchase goods to improve the lives of their settler population.
Hell that’s exactly what sanctions are! Cutting off trade! And that’s the biggest goal of BDS!
I don’t think it’s a stretch to say that China’s relationship with Israel is one of the worst things they do, and in general they are perfectly willing to do business with the worst criminals on earth and refuse to use their economic weight to push for anything except China making more money.
The thing is, boycotts have never really worked. Some companies might agree to the demands, but even then it has a tinge of "this is good for PR" to it.
Has any government dropped Israel as a trading partner? Would it matter? The US and Germany seem to be supplying the entire arsenal of Israel and they most certainly are not going to stop because of some boycott.
Sanctions also never really work unless it is american lead against a poor, small nation like Cuba or the DPRK. As soon as the sanctioned country is stronger than that it just doesn't work. Russia seems to be okay and they had been sanctioned as well and even the DPRK is doing fine-ish thanks to nukes and Russia & China.
Especially the genocidal, unsinkable aircraft carrier called Israel is obviously going to be okay throughout Chinese sanctions. They just get a blank cheque from the EU and US anyway because Israel is the most important imperial tool they have.
Additionally, this entire thread has people talking about China doing an american style sanction with pressuring other countries into stopping trade with Israel as well. That will absolutely be considered an act of war by the west and i hope i don't need to explain why that is a terrible idea.
Another part is that China is ML and analyses history through diamat and know that an empire that is crashing is extremely volatile, so attacking their most important control element directly would be disastrous.
Your entire comment hinges on the fact that china is just doing this one random unspeakable evil (in your mind) for...money? It seems like you have not understood China as an anti-imperialist, socialist state yet.
They mostly help with intel and providing weapons or building their factories, things that can't easily be marketed as an attack on the west. China is building a world where anti-imperialist action can even take place and the US hegemony is dead. They wouldn't be able to do that if they were as aggressive as y'all want them to be.
Has Iran even asked China for this? That's another thing i dislike about Hexbearians, y'all always try to be some saviour. Maybe let the actual anti-imperialists work together how they want?
BDS is modeled on methods that were successful in overthrowing South African apartheid. They worked then.
Yes, several, none of the large important ones though. Syria, Lebanon, and Iran, even prior to the current conflict, have no trade with Israel. I don’t believe Cuba or the DPRK do either. Most Arab states used to, but over the years were pushed by the Americans into normalizing relations.
The point is to disrupt the settler project. Israelis are the biggest treatlerites on the planet, making Americans look like they’ve contentedly taken a vow of poverty. If you disrupt the treats, it becomes a lot harder to get settlers to stay. If China supplies 8% of consumer goods that’s a large portion of the treats.
Israel tiny country! Size of New Jersey!
Well I just fundamentally disagree with your analysis here, I think Israel causes the west far more trouble than it’s worth and is not even helpful for our imperial ambitions, along with causing internal collapse in the imperial core. The strait of Hormuz is closed because of Israel. Oil is approaching $200 a barrel because of Israel. Europeans are going to freeze to death this winter, because of Israel.
The Palestinians have asked for this. BDS is a Palestinian movement, and this is in fact what they ask for.
I believe the more important force here was the organized, militant resistance of the South African working class and oppressed masses. China is offering help in that department already.
Boycotts will not work against Israel though. Israel is deeply integrated into global capitalism, in technology, military hardware, cybersecurity, and finance.
Unlike apartheid South Africa, which was largely a raw materials exporter and therefore more vulnerable to disinvestment.
The US, Germany, and the UK actively shield Israel diplomatically and economically, providing billions in military aid and trade deals that offset boycott effects.
Duh. Not the point. Obviously the direct victims of the genocidal entity won't trade with said entity just for national security reasons alone.
Is the DPRK even allowed to trade with anyone other than China and Russia? Afaik they are sanctioned and blocked by the US and no one can even trade with the DPRK.
That obviously won't be allowed to happen. Do you genuinely think that the settlers and reserve army are just allowed to leave their station? America is calling the shots here. It would just be made illegal to leave and i will be honest, I don't think the settler civillians would leave anyway because they are too invested in Israel.
Did you actually think i meant physical size?😭😭
The fuck you mean "my analysis"? They literally told us over multiple decades that Israel is their most important project. Biden famously said over his entire career that, if Israel didn't exists, they would need to invent it.
Like, how can you look at the entire situation right now and not conclude that the west asian region ("middle east") is very important to control and that Israel is obviously the most vital part in that plan?
God, whenever i switch to Hexbear threads, the quality of analysis just plummets hard.
Mf actually just said that that Israel, the imperialist settler nation created by Germany, UK and the US, is not helpful for their imperial ambitions. Why tf do you think they burn so much money and political goodwill of their own people for Israel? Shits and giggles?
Israel is the last hope of the US to still have hegemony in their claws. These attacks are not random, but rather the US believing that the point of no return is about to be crossed by China and Iran and that they need to act now or fully lose their hegemony and imperial control.
America started this war and genocide. Israel is not to be seen as an independent force. You clearly fell for the "israel is controlling US" propaganda. Please tell me you at least don't believe that Israel is controlling trump via the epstein files😭
Cool. Didn't ask about them though. China is only working via official channels to keep important diplomatic ties alive and as far as i know, the official "state" has not asked for any such thing. Even if they did, China can't do much because of all the other reasons i mentioned
Again, China intervening more than they have already, would be seen as acts of war. Any sanction against Israel is innefective due to the aforementioned protection from the west and any effective sanction would need to include those countries as well.
I, again, hope that i do not need to tell you why that would be disastrous.
Any Hexbear thread of China devolves into people just going "Hey, why doesn't China just casually start WW3?)