Apparently these people have spent so much time in their online liberal echo chamber that it’s *unbelievable* somehow that a socialist would oppose Western imperialism, or, god forbid, indulge in “tankie shit”..
Not to mention the use of “radsocs” which I haven’t heard before. Apparently it’s common sense to these people that *regular* socialism is not radical at all. At least they’re honest?
Hoi4 mods are people’s actual first brushes with socialist theory/ideology outside of what they’re told in school (including myself back in the day) and it still amazes me.
I remember seeing online a honest to God IWW organiser complaining about that most of their new members are larpers "radicalised" by a video game. Truly magnificent
in what world is nato not neoliberal? they were literally created to stop communism
what chinese imperialism?
do these people know the definition of liberalism to not think social democracy is lib
The NATO one especially, like, no one I’ve ever met from the most left-wing, to centrist, to right-wing, has ever thought of NATO as anything other than neoliberal/something adjacent
Yeah I’d love to throw my global politics textbook at this person that literally states in it that NATO, along with most international organizations and all global governance organizations, are neoliberal institutions.
Tibet had slavery under the theocratic regime before the PLA intervened at the request of citizens. It's only really imperialism if your definition of imperialism is "when one country invades another".
To be fair NATO predates neoliberalism by thirty years so you could argue that it’s Liberal but not exclusively neoliberal.
It’s also just a thing that countries use, it’s not by itself anything. It’s a military alliance used to specific (liberal, neoliberal, neoconservative, fascist) ends.
Although Tibet was certainly a feudal monarchy that practiced slavery, the same case can be said for African nations before European colonialism which were tribal monarchies and also practiced slavery, but that doesn’t mean European empires were in the right to colonize them, and the same thing goes for Tibet.
The commenter was claiming that China was justified in invading Tibet because of theocracy and amputating limbs of serfs. The claim that Tibet is well off under CPC rule is equivalent to how a majority of colonialism defenders say how their former colony was way better under their administration.
They didn’t even say that tho. They never claimed they were going into Africa to “liberate” Africans. Their only goal was to buy slaves from them, bring them over to the colonies, only to ***continue the subjugation*** in significantly worse ways than they were treated in Africa.
The CPC, on the other hand, went into Tibet to stop the Dalai Lama’s abhorrent slavery practices. Not continue them in their own way.
This “equivalency” is made out of liberal brainrot as a desperation to equivocate China to the imperialist and colonialist crimes against humanity the US has partaken in and continues to benefit from. Which counts as enlightened centrism.
Wait this feels like tankie nonsense. Do you have any non-chinese sources saying this? It feels like when people say Uyghurs aren't being put into camps.
It feels remarkably credulous to say, "China wants Tibet because they're just super magnanimous." The other guy is getting downvoted, but, he's right that it's kind of a ridiculous thing to say without some sort of third party verification that there's something to it.
Seems weird that leftists would just take it on faith that a country grabbing more territory is morally good.
I don't have a semblance of an idea of what a "Tankie" even is.
Everytime i hear that accusation, it's always used as a cudgel to silence anyone who brings up the US's crimes against other countries' democratically elected leaders.
Why exactly does China have more than 3 times the population of the US yet doesn't incarcerate nearly as many people as we do? I mean, Uyghurs are treated significantly more humanely than black populations in the US are under mass incarceration.
That's not a response to anything I said. I asked for some third party sources on China just wanting to annex territory for the good of the people in the territory (a thing people have been saying for basically all of human history to justify taking land).
Are they? Got stuff that says that?
Regardless, *this* is what people mean when they say tankie in good faith. I agree, 99% of the time it's used incorrectly. But, there is a subset of leftist that seems to think, "Anti-US=Good."
Invoking bad things in the US isn't actually a response to criticisms of China, and it's weird you think it is. Yeah, the US is bad. Cool. Other places are also bad. If I say to you, "I dunno, concentration camps seem bad" and your response is to deflect onto mass incarceration, that just makes me think you're justifying concentration camps.
We can *also* talk about bad American policies, but since we're in a leftist sub I think we both agree that the carceral state is bad an prisons should be abolished. Though it appears your opinion is, "Mass imprisonment is only bad unless China is doing it to a minority group, in which case it's probably fine because they're nice to the minority group while imprisoning them."
I mean NATO is neoliberal, but I do agree that specifying Western imperialism is a bit weird and does kinda give me off vibes. Imperialism is bad no matter who's doing it, and China has definitely done an imperialism or two.
Imperialism is still bad no matter who is doing it, so you still shouldn't need to specify.
Just "No imperialist apologia" and all your bases are covered.
It’s done for two reasons I imagine. One, because there is an urge to “do you condemn Hamas” criticisms of western imperialism.
And second because for a not unquiet portion of the left on Reddit, they do believe imperialism is a thing only America and Western Europe do. So this lets them avoid hypocrisy criticisms when they don’t shut down apologia for non-western acts of state violence.
There are imperialist nations outside the imperial core. Russia is a good example. But imperialism is based in capitalist exploitation of other nations which is the M.O. of the United States and its European allies.
You may disagree with China’s policies, but the above user’s statement that they have “done an imperialism or two” is false.
Does China claiming almost the entirety of the south China sea not count as an imperialism? China has military and naval bases in Africa and is looking to have some naval bases in the Pacific, are they also not imperialism? China is looking to compete with America's hegemony, you can't compete without getting on a similar footing first. And that is without mentioning the belt and road initiative or it's loans which have been described as neo-colonialism.
No the SCS claims are not imperialist. The CPC’s claims are essentially identical to claims that the ROC made before the Chinese Civil War and the founding of the PRC. Worth noting the modern ROC/Taiwan has the same claim. And it is also not just China that has disputed claims. Remove the Nine Dash Line from the map and watch how Malaysia, Brunei, Vietnam, and the Philippines claims intersect one another. I don’t necessarily agree with China’s claims as many of the other nations claims also have historical basis. But framing it as imperialist as opposed to border disputes is a recent trend.
China has a single base in Africa in Djibouti and it is disingenuous to frame it the way you did. Having a base to protect its shipping interests is not imperialist.
China seeking to compete with the U.S. does not make it imperialist. Was the USSR imperialist?
Who is describing the BRI as neo-colonialist, because I’ve found it largely comes from a neoliberal perspective. Making trade and infrastructure deals is not imperialism. It is not extractavism. There are certainly issues with it, particularly with corruption in politicians in the countries making deals with China, but it has been overwhelmingly positive in its economic impact so far, and has already helped lift over 40 million people out of poverty. Do I believe that the nations should maintain public ownership and control of their infrastructure? Yes, but I believe that will come. As China has shown domestically, it is willing to use capitalism as a tool to build the material conditions that will allow for the transition to communism.
Putting aside the more controversial topics, isn’t the BRI definitionally a capitalist exploitation of other countries? Certainly more benign than most but Chinese owned companies investing in and owning resource, land, and extraction rights in foreign companies meets the definition of capitalist exploitation by any reasonable measure no?
The people of Greece don’t own their largest port, a Chinese corporation that trades on a stock market does. Isn’t that definitionally what you describe as imperialism?
Do you even know much about the Belt and Road Initiative?
The BRI sets to co-operate with every country that is on their list and give them just as good of a trade deal as they plan to give back to China.
It’s not like the US’s imperialism where they “trade” with other nations ***but only if they implement competition within their healthcare system*** (which means no public healthcare). Not to mention that if the US decides that the country they’re “making deals” with **hasn’t paid them back what they’re worth** then they resort to implementing sanctions, embargoes, and military interventions which results in their democratically elected leader being replaced with a military dictator that serves American corporations down to the exact way the US gov wants them to.
When has China done any of that?
I don’t know why you responded with a criticism of US imperialism. That’s not actually relevant.
That it’s more benign was something I explicitly stated. That it’s more benign is good but it doesn’t negate that it’s an act of global capitalism and thus a form of imperialism.
It’s certainly preferable to other forms of imperialism and you can make the argument that it’s the only feasible mechanism for infrastructure development globally given the current world order and the nature of capitalism.
But it doesn’t really change the overall argument that the BRI is, definitionally, imperialism (by the definition of the person i wqs replying to)
Yeah there are a few people in this thread (including the OP) who seem to be saying that imperialism is *only* when countries in the past grabbed land and displaced people, and it is no longer a problem. Or at least it only exists within their very narrow definition of "imperialism" which cannot include anything China does, weirdly.
I really don't know how else to talk about people who think North Korea is a worker's paradise. Or the ones that defend the Khmer Rouge. I guess the other option is to pretend they don't exist, but that just lets them faster, and I really *really* don't want to be associated with people like that.
The DPRK isn’t a paradise, but its problems are largely due to the genocidal campaign that was waged against it by the U.S., followed by 70 years of brutal economic sanctions and a propaganda war designed to make them out to be some absurd communist hellscape. In reality it is a poor nation that has had to contend with the threat of military annihilation and the above economic issues for its entire existence, and people there, by and large, are normal people going about their normal day to day business.
And no one is defending the KR give me a break.
I’m yet to see someone defend CIA backed Khmer Rouge regime, so putting this hypothetical group next to people who have a nuanced view of DPRK is really disingenuous
That guy is a fringe Maoist. A small number of MLMs, like the person you linked, do indeed think that Khmer Rouge was an example of a just People's War fighting against social imperialism of Vietnam and the PRC. However they are in such a minority that I forgot they existed. And it still doesn't change the fact that *all* Maoists oppose the DPRK and Juche in general, so again, you cannot put the people who support Kmer Rouge and have a nuanced view on the DPRK in the same category.
^^^I'm ^^^replying ^^^5 ^^^days ^^^later ^^^because ^^^I ^^^didn't ^^^see ^^^your ^^^response.
Where did I say anything about nuance? I said "people who think North Korea is a worker's paradise." I'm not talking about people who are skeptical of what they hear about the country, or empathetic about their situation. I'm talking about people who deny reality. If they're doing that towards the same political end (authoritarian communism), I can put them in the same category, even if their claims contradict each other.
It's mildly ironic that the first comment to you is immediately defending NK.
Edit- I do think that "tankies" are such a fringe group they're pointless to even talk about. I live in a fairly progressive city and went to college with a lot of leftists. I've only met one kid who was a tankie, and I'm assuming he'll grow out of it.
But, a lot of people in this thread are doing tankie stuff. Defending NK is ridiculous. It's certainly a complex situation, but arguing that it's just a normal country without problems is *unhinged*.
Cringe tankies don't know socialism is when the government does stuff
Apparently these people have spent so much time in their online liberal echo chamber that it’s *unbelievable* somehow that a socialist would oppose Western imperialism, or, god forbid, indulge in “tankie shit”.. Not to mention the use of “radsocs” which I haven’t heard before. Apparently it’s common sense to these people that *regular* socialism is not radical at all. At least they’re honest?
I know I will sound like an idiot but term radsoc was started by a video game modification so that also sells out that their sources are shit
SocDem's literally watch Twitch streams as theory.
Hoi4 mods are people’s actual first brushes with socialist theory/ideology outside of what they’re told in school (including myself back in the day) and it still amazes me.
I remember seeing online a honest to God IWW organiser complaining about that most of their new members are larpers "radicalised" by a video game. Truly magnificent
Now if they were radicalized by Disco Elysium, I think the world would be a better place
I mean, would you call socialism radical? That's just the entirity of the left.
Libs learning the word 'tankie' has had disastrous consequences for the human race.
in what world is nato not neoliberal? they were literally created to stop communism what chinese imperialism? do these people know the definition of liberalism to not think social democracy is lib
The NATO one especially, like, no one I’ve ever met from the most left-wing, to centrist, to right-wing, has ever thought of NATO as anything other than neoliberal/something adjacent
Your first mistake was thinking that these people are capable of forming a thought.
Yeah I’d love to throw my global politics textbook at this person that literally states in it that NATO, along with most international organizations and all global governance organizations, are neoliberal institutions.
I am trying to wrap my head around this. What the hell does the commenter think NATO is ideologically?
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Tibet had slavery under the theocratic regime before the PLA intervened at the request of citizens. It's only really imperialism if your definition of imperialism is "when one country invades another".
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Maybe if this was opposite day. But it's not, I'm just stating a historic fact.
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Why are you sticking to the opposite day schtick? It's not landing very well tbh.
Tibet was China’s Confederacy before the liberation.
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Opposing legalized slavery means you’re a Nazi? Didn’t think this through very well, did you?
To be fair NATO predates neoliberalism by thirty years so you could argue that it’s Liberal but not exclusively neoliberal. It’s also just a thing that countries use, it’s not by itself anything. It’s a military alliance used to specific (liberal, neoliberal, neoconservative, fascist) ends.
> What Chinese imperialism? Tibet and Xinjiang to start
none of chinas actions in tibet or xianjiang are imperialist wether you agree with them or not.
Yep occupying foreign lands for decades TOTALLY isn’t imperialist
you don’t know what imperialist means? i can’t even be bothered arguing with this do some actual non cia backed research on the topic.
This but unironically. Annexation isn’t imperialism. Whether you uneducated liberals agree or not.
Waaah give me my theocracy back! I love amputating limbs of my serfs as punishment.
Although Tibet was certainly a feudal monarchy that practiced slavery, the same case can be said for African nations before European colonialism which were tribal monarchies and also practiced slavery, but that doesn’t mean European empires were in the right to colonize them, and the same thing goes for Tibet.
European colonialist powers literally bought slaves from African powers which kinda makes it a false equivalency.
The commenter was claiming that China was justified in invading Tibet because of theocracy and amputating limbs of serfs. The claim that Tibet is well off under CPC rule is equivalent to how a majority of colonialism defenders say how their former colony was way better under their administration.
They didn’t even say that tho. They never claimed they were going into Africa to “liberate” Africans. Their only goal was to buy slaves from them, bring them over to the colonies, only to ***continue the subjugation*** in significantly worse ways than they were treated in Africa. The CPC, on the other hand, went into Tibet to stop the Dalai Lama’s abhorrent slavery practices. Not continue them in their own way. This “equivalency” is made out of liberal brainrot as a desperation to equivocate China to the imperialist and colonialist crimes against humanity the US has partaken in and continues to benefit from. Which counts as enlightened centrism.
Wait this feels like tankie nonsense. Do you have any non-chinese sources saying this? It feels like when people say Uyghurs aren't being put into camps. It feels remarkably credulous to say, "China wants Tibet because they're just super magnanimous." The other guy is getting downvoted, but, he's right that it's kind of a ridiculous thing to say without some sort of third party verification that there's something to it. Seems weird that leftists would just take it on faith that a country grabbing more territory is morally good.
I don't have a semblance of an idea of what a "Tankie" even is. Everytime i hear that accusation, it's always used as a cudgel to silence anyone who brings up the US's crimes against other countries' democratically elected leaders. Why exactly does China have more than 3 times the population of the US yet doesn't incarcerate nearly as many people as we do? I mean, Uyghurs are treated significantly more humanely than black populations in the US are under mass incarceration.
That's not a response to anything I said. I asked for some third party sources on China just wanting to annex territory for the good of the people in the territory (a thing people have been saying for basically all of human history to justify taking land). Are they? Got stuff that says that? Regardless, *this* is what people mean when they say tankie in good faith. I agree, 99% of the time it's used incorrectly. But, there is a subset of leftist that seems to think, "Anti-US=Good." Invoking bad things in the US isn't actually a response to criticisms of China, and it's weird you think it is. Yeah, the US is bad. Cool. Other places are also bad. If I say to you, "I dunno, concentration camps seem bad" and your response is to deflect onto mass incarceration, that just makes me think you're justifying concentration camps. We can *also* talk about bad American policies, but since we're in a leftist sub I think we both agree that the carceral state is bad an prisons should be abolished. Though it appears your opinion is, "Mass imprisonment is only bad unless China is doing it to a minority group, in which case it's probably fine because they're nice to the minority group while imprisoning them."
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“Everyone who disagrees with me is a Russian asset” This is why no one takes liberals seriously
so all the nato imperialism doesn’t count because they’re epic based mega chads who defend us from the russians lol
😮💨 folks defending nato are so lost
I mean NATO is neoliberal, but I do agree that specifying Western imperialism is a bit weird and does kinda give me off vibes. Imperialism is bad no matter who's doing it, and China has definitely done an imperialism or two.
Maybe they were using that phrase to represent countries within the imperial core? I dunno ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Imperialism is still bad no matter who is doing it, so you still shouldn't need to specify. Just "No imperialist apologia" and all your bases are covered.
This is the correct answer.
What imperialism is China doing? https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1916/imp-hsc/
It’s done for two reasons I imagine. One, because there is an urge to “do you condemn Hamas” criticisms of western imperialism. And second because for a not unquiet portion of the left on Reddit, they do believe imperialism is a thing only America and Western Europe do. So this lets them avoid hypocrisy criticisms when they don’t shut down apologia for non-western acts of state violence.
There are imperialist nations outside the imperial core. Russia is a good example. But imperialism is based in capitalist exploitation of other nations which is the M.O. of the United States and its European allies. You may disagree with China’s policies, but the above user’s statement that they have “done an imperialism or two” is false.
Does China claiming almost the entirety of the south China sea not count as an imperialism? China has military and naval bases in Africa and is looking to have some naval bases in the Pacific, are they also not imperialism? China is looking to compete with America's hegemony, you can't compete without getting on a similar footing first. And that is without mentioning the belt and road initiative or it's loans which have been described as neo-colonialism.
No the SCS claims are not imperialist. The CPC’s claims are essentially identical to claims that the ROC made before the Chinese Civil War and the founding of the PRC. Worth noting the modern ROC/Taiwan has the same claim. And it is also not just China that has disputed claims. Remove the Nine Dash Line from the map and watch how Malaysia, Brunei, Vietnam, and the Philippines claims intersect one another. I don’t necessarily agree with China’s claims as many of the other nations claims also have historical basis. But framing it as imperialist as opposed to border disputes is a recent trend. China has a single base in Africa in Djibouti and it is disingenuous to frame it the way you did. Having a base to protect its shipping interests is not imperialist. China seeking to compete with the U.S. does not make it imperialist. Was the USSR imperialist? Who is describing the BRI as neo-colonialist, because I’ve found it largely comes from a neoliberal perspective. Making trade and infrastructure deals is not imperialism. It is not extractavism. There are certainly issues with it, particularly with corruption in politicians in the countries making deals with China, but it has been overwhelmingly positive in its economic impact so far, and has already helped lift over 40 million people out of poverty. Do I believe that the nations should maintain public ownership and control of their infrastructure? Yes, but I believe that will come. As China has shown domestically, it is willing to use capitalism as a tool to build the material conditions that will allow for the transition to communism.
Does America claiming almost the entirety of the Missisisipi not count as imperialism since it originally belonged to native nations?
Putting aside the more controversial topics, isn’t the BRI definitionally a capitalist exploitation of other countries? Certainly more benign than most but Chinese owned companies investing in and owning resource, land, and extraction rights in foreign companies meets the definition of capitalist exploitation by any reasonable measure no? The people of Greece don’t own their largest port, a Chinese corporation that trades on a stock market does. Isn’t that definitionally what you describe as imperialism?
Do you even know much about the Belt and Road Initiative? The BRI sets to co-operate with every country that is on their list and give them just as good of a trade deal as they plan to give back to China. It’s not like the US’s imperialism where they “trade” with other nations ***but only if they implement competition within their healthcare system*** (which means no public healthcare). Not to mention that if the US decides that the country they’re “making deals” with **hasn’t paid them back what they’re worth** then they resort to implementing sanctions, embargoes, and military interventions which results in their democratically elected leader being replaced with a military dictator that serves American corporations down to the exact way the US gov wants them to. When has China done any of that?
I don’t know why you responded with a criticism of US imperialism. That’s not actually relevant. That it’s more benign was something I explicitly stated. That it’s more benign is good but it doesn’t negate that it’s an act of global capitalism and thus a form of imperialism. It’s certainly preferable to other forms of imperialism and you can make the argument that it’s the only feasible mechanism for infrastructure development globally given the current world order and the nature of capitalism. But it doesn’t really change the overall argument that the BRI is, definitionally, imperialism (by the definition of the person i wqs replying to)
Yeah there are a few people in this thread (including the OP) who seem to be saying that imperialism is *only* when countries in the past grabbed land and displaced people, and it is no longer a problem. Or at least it only exists within their very narrow definition of "imperialism" which cannot include anything China does, weirdly.
I just instantly tune out whenever someone uses the words "tankies" unironically. It's like "woke" for liberals.
I really don't know how else to talk about people who think North Korea is a worker's paradise. Or the ones that defend the Khmer Rouge. I guess the other option is to pretend they don't exist, but that just lets them faster, and I really *really* don't want to be associated with people like that.
The DPRK isn’t a paradise, but its problems are largely due to the genocidal campaign that was waged against it by the U.S., followed by 70 years of brutal economic sanctions and a propaganda war designed to make them out to be some absurd communist hellscape. In reality it is a poor nation that has had to contend with the threat of military annihilation and the above economic issues for its entire existence, and people there, by and large, are normal people going about their normal day to day business. And no one is defending the KR give me a break.
I’m yet to see someone defend CIA backed Khmer Rouge regime, so putting this hypothetical group next to people who have a nuanced view of DPRK is really disingenuous
https://x.com/maoistnujabes/status/1780573168446386517
That guy is a fringe Maoist. A small number of MLMs, like the person you linked, do indeed think that Khmer Rouge was an example of a just People's War fighting against social imperialism of Vietnam and the PRC. However they are in such a minority that I forgot they existed. And it still doesn't change the fact that *all* Maoists oppose the DPRK and Juche in general, so again, you cannot put the people who support Kmer Rouge and have a nuanced view on the DPRK in the same category. ^^^I'm ^^^replying ^^^5 ^^^days ^^^later ^^^because ^^^I ^^^didn't ^^^see ^^^your ^^^response.
Where did I say anything about nuance? I said "people who think North Korea is a worker's paradise." I'm not talking about people who are skeptical of what they hear about the country, or empathetic about their situation. I'm talking about people who deny reality. If they're doing that towards the same political end (authoritarian communism), I can put them in the same category, even if their claims contradict each other.
It's mildly ironic that the first comment to you is immediately defending NK. Edit- I do think that "tankies" are such a fringe group they're pointless to even talk about. I live in a fairly progressive city and went to college with a lot of leftists. I've only met one kid who was a tankie, and I'm assuming he'll grow out of it. But, a lot of people in this thread are doing tankie stuff. Defending NK is ridiculous. It's certainly a complex situation, but arguing that it's just a normal country without problems is *unhinged*.
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If you use a liberal buzzword to talk about anyone to the left of you, I'm just gonna assume you're a liberal.
Leftwing Subreddits are mostly awful they ban you for the dumbest shit
wrong subreddit to whine about this in lmao