China doesn’t even imperialize as hard as America. They have this slow thing on taiwan and some of the nearby countries but they’re not going to like Iran and bombing the shit out of it

Fuck them both.

Don’t let perfect be the enemy of good

LOL yup

China: persues peaceful reunification with Taiwan

The West: “LOOK!!! THEY’RE LIKE US! WORSE THAN US!!!” invades nation illegally

Okay, buddy.

It’s beyond me how after seeing the past years of overt Zionist propaganda denying genocide in most western media, anyone here is still willing to listen to western media on international affairs. Like, haven’t you seen them take the mask off already? How are you trusting BBC’s reporting on China?

I literally said this to a tankie on here once, and they responded “Yes, unironically.”

Removed by mod

It’s not that the west practices “bad imperialism” while China practices “good imperialism,” China isn’t imperialist to begin with. In order to understand why, though, we need to understand what imperialism is to begin with, as well as what causes it.

As capitalism monopolizes, it is compelled to expand outward in order to fight falling rates of profit by raising absolute profits. The merging of bank and industrial capital into finance capital leads to export of capital, ie outsourcing. This process allows super-exploitation for super-profits, and is known as imperialism. The domination of financial capital in an economy is what compels a country towards outward expansion, forcing privatization and market expansion via diplomacy on the one hand, and bombs in the other.

This is undeniably true of western countries, who have reached the imperialist stage of capitalism by around the late 19th century, especially the UK, Germany, France, and the US Empire. After World War II, the US Empire became hegemonic, and the western countries vassalized. What’s important is that none of this applies to China.

China is a socialist country. Public ownership is the principal aspect of the economy, it governs the large firms and key industries and dominates the overall character of the economy. Private ownership exists, but is secondary to that, filling in the gaps left behind by the huge state driven industries in secondary and underdeveloped areas, and is folded into the public sector as it grows. The capitalist class is not allowed to gain political power, and the working classes control the state.

The key takeaway here for the purposes of imperialism, is that China’s banks are overwhelmingly publicly owned, as are its large firms and key industries, and thus there isn’t the same compulsion towards dominating the global south for profit. Instead, China has mutual cooperation agreements, such as the Belt and Road Initiative and placing zero tariffs on 53 African countries.

The US Empire alone has hundreds of overseas millitary bases, while China has ~3. The US Empire bombed and destroyed countless countries over the last few decades alone, such as Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Iran, is embargoing Venezuela and especially Cuba, and more. China is not. The US Empire practices unequal exchange via maintaining monopoly on higher tech, China does not.

China’s position in the global stage facilitates south-south trade, which bypasses unequal exchange, where the global north maintains monopolies on high tech industries so as to consistently charge monopoly prices in exchange with the global south. China charges non-monopoly prices, and this is why exchange with China, alongside the rise of the Belt and Road Initiative, has resulted in dramatic development in African and Latin American countries. This is ultimately the single greatest contributor to the downfall of imperialism globally, and is why right now there is such a large cold war with China.

China is not debt trapping poor African nations. We can see that this isn’t the case when we can observe countries in BRI engaging in rapid development and industrializing, and this is confirmed by China forgiving tons of debt. The goal of China isn’t to make countries reliant on them, or to earn money from debt, it’s because China gains personally through mutual development. Here are some articles debunking the “debt trap” myth:

• Five Imperialist Myths About China’s Role in Africa

• China debt trap? PH an ‘expert in bad loans,’ Locsin says

• Deborah Brautigam Debunks the Chinese Debt Trap Theory in New Research Paper

• China’s Debt Relief for Africa: Emerging Deliberations

There are many more examples I can use. China isn’t doing this out of the goodness of their own heart, but because they stand to gain from mutual development. A more developed global south means China is less reliant on the US Empire as a customer, provides new avenues to facilitate trade, and creates more markets for customers. The west harvests the global south for cheap labor and resources, and we can see hard comparisons in data between BRI participants and those imperialized by the west to see fundamentally different results.

It’s clear at this point: participation in BRI results in sustained and rapid development and mutual cooperation, and working with the west results in sustained impoverishment. China gains from this mutual cooperation, but so do African countries, and unlike the west China doesn’t force trade at the barrel of a gun. That’s part of why it’s mutally beneficial, and results in development in Africa, vs underdevelopment and western enrichment.

The simple reason why China isn’t economically compelled to imperialize is because it isn’t dominated by finance capital, and thus prioritizes long-term results, as we saw in the beginning. It’s simply better for everyone for there to be mutual cooperation, but western countries are dominated by the profit motive and finance capital, which compels them to take short term gains via looting the global south.

All in all, trying to equate western imperialism with China’s trade agreements and multi-national projects is the height of projection, and highlights an utter lack of materialist analysis.

Same behavior, different branding… people just pick their favorite version 😅

“Both sides bad” vibes projected onto geopolitics.

If Israel treated Palestine like China treats the Uyghurs then Kamala would be president.

Thanks for the post. I got so many tankies blocked

Westerners feel that way when the propaganda/ideology is threatened. They also often have issues not thinking in all or nothing terms, so they need these dichotomies.

Seeing from the heavily upvoted comments removed by the mods, this ain’t changing anytime soon, lol.

At least China uses the metric system, which makes them better than the US /j

China isn’t imperialist. It seems mutual cooperation with the world, instead of the West’s desire to extract from the Global South, leaving them poor in goods (in/tangible) and services and the West rich.

Once again, neolibs cope that their empire is righteous and excellent while ignoring reality completely.