Thoughts?
Is this imperialism by China, a country which is supposed to be left-wing? Leftists are normally anti-imperialism. Wouldn’t it be better to let Taiwan democratically decide whether they want to be part of China or not?
Leftists are normally anti-imperialism.
Extreme left is the same as extreme right. Soviet Union was also left wing but they were very imperialist as well and oppressing. Basically like the Nazis but in denial.
Authoritarianism and leftism are incompatible ideologies. The PRC and USSR both failed at their worker revolutions and swiftly ended up with corrupt oligarchy still controlling the means of production and hoarding the fruits of production. That’s not left-wing, that’s the far-right con game.
You are saying the same thing. He just skips the bullshit everyone peddles on purpose or still eats up the propaganda.
Soviets and bolsheviks were never communists.
They were fascists all along.
You think nazis did not believe they were doing it for the good of all? Come the fuck on.
Stalinism, of which China uses a modernized version of, is the conservatism of leftism. It might have some leftist goals, but otherwise its main goal is conserving the status quo.
Dude. No.
Extreme right equates to genocide of anyone deemed unworthy.
Extreme left equates to a lot of regulations to keep any company from treating people differently based on group affiliation. Often blindly and without understanding there are exceptions. Basically a belief in left wing social progression but extreme and without an understanding of the why.
They aren’t the same. At all.
Dude yes, don’t be a tankie. Soviet Union for instance was not kind to Jews, Poles, homosexuals, or people with a faith exactly the same way as Nazi Germany, just replace labour camp with gulag. They literally kept countries under Russian thumb with tanks and the second they could get freedom everyone choose independence.
You are confusing authoritarianism with social politics.
Authoritarianism can exist in both far right. Right. Center. Left. And far left.
It’s independent of that aspect of political affiliation.
The Nazis weren’t left. And neither was Russia.
You have an actual example of pro diversity and inclusion people killing groups they don’t like?
Auth left and auth right share many similarities
There’s no such thing as Auth Left, they’re just Right Wingers in love with collectivization who tell people they’re Left
China isn’t leftist.not even a bit.
Lol calling China Leftist isn’t quite the thing. They are technically “communist” but no more so than the National Socialist German Workers’ Party was socialist.
Yeah, and no wonder why hardline Maoists hate Mainland China for what it is now, completely deviant from Maoism and becoming the very enemy they tried to destroy.
China is a socialist country, and a developing country as well. China belongs to the Third World. Consistently following Chairman Mao’s teachings, the Chinese Government and people firmly support all oppressed peoples and oppressed nations in their struggle to win or defend national independence, develop the national economy and oppose colonialism, imperialism and hegemonism. This is our bounden internationalist duty. China is not a superpower, nor will she ever seek to be one.
What is a superpower? A superpower is an imperialist country which everywhere subjects other countries to its aggression, interference, control, subversion or plunder and strives for world hegemony. If capitalism is restored in a big socialist country, it will inevitably become a superpower. The Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution, which has been carried out in China in recent years, and the campaign of criticizing Lin Piao and Confucius now under way throughout China, are both aimed at preventing capitalist restoration and ensuring that socialist China will never change her colour and will always stand by the oppressed peoples and oppressed nations.
If one day China should change her colour and turn into a superpower, if she too should play the tyrant in the world, and everywhere subject others to her bullying, aggression and exploitation, the people of the world should identify her as social-imperialism, expose it, oppose it and work together with the Chinese people to overthrow it.
https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/deng-xiaoping/1974/04/10.htm
Also, fuck the 996 System.
China isn’t technically communist. The Communist Party of China is technically communist in ideology. They have implemented a type of a mixed state that has both socialist and capitalist parts, decently described by the term - socialist market economy. Or socialism with Chinese characteristics as it’s been called in the past. Why socialism? Because the socialist part controls the capitalist part of the economy. Why socialist? Because it’s controlled by the CPC/CCP which has over 100M members and growing, which means the wider society is decently represented within the party that controls the state.
A horse can call itself a duck, but that doesn’t make it a duck; it’s still a horse.
Likewise, a country that calls itself communist while practicing capitalism under a hierarchical ruling party isn’t communist. Even if every member of the CCP had equal say in the country’s policies and direction, 8% of the total population is far from representing the working class, let alone being led by them.
They’re not communist, correct. They’re capitalist.
8% of the total population is far from representing the working class, let alone being led by them.
Yup, it can and it should be much larger. I saw a chart showing membership growth of 2-3% per year. That said even at the present numbers it means every third family or so has a party member.
Again, China isn’t calling itself communist. And I don’t think they’re. That said capital is subordinate to state control, which is subordinate to an org that most people can participate in, so personally I grant them the socialist (market economy) label that they tend to use. But I do understand why not everyone does.
To be clear, if you’re not communist, it doesn’t mean you’re capitalist. There’s a lot in between and it’s often a matter of degree of one thing or another. Feudalism didn’t turn into capitalism the moment the fist capitalist firm formed. It transitioned to capitalism as more and more production became capitalist, at some point becoming the dominant mode of production.
That said even at the present numbers it means every third family or so has a party member.
This is assuming an even distrubution. I have seen no reason to believe this. Certain segments of society are likely far more represented, which means the others are far less represented.
You mean like the parts that weren’t Mandarin Han Chinese decent?
Yeah it’s impossible to ignore what The CCP has done to vulnerable populations that they have decided need to be assimilated into their idea of a dominant culture.
Nice deflection, as all discussion of economic policy is nothing more. Authoritarianism (coercion through power) is right wing by definition.
Isn’t any democratic structure performing coercion through power on people who comprise the minority opinion, by doing what the majority decides?
Authoritarianism (and all Right Wing politics) is about the minority performing coercion on the Majority. A political elite makes decisions. The further Right you go, the smaller the minority.
Sure, when the conservatniks are in power. Some of us still fight for progress for them and for you, even though you try endlessly to destabilize us from afar.
What the hell are you talking about? Who is “us” and who is “you” and who’s destabilizing who, and from where?
socialism with Chinese characteristics
It’s literally the same functional mechanics as free market capitalization EXCEPT that the state owns a part of every company. The people don’t. The state does. And only uses it for authoritarian control, which is the Chinese characteristic. China is functionally a capitalist market with state owned companies.
If China controlled the 3rd party companies in the country then maybe it could be construed as socialist but they own nothing about Apple or NVidia yet billions of dollars flow through them. China is an open market that uses subsidies to offset poor management in those companies. Basically the same thing America did to failing companies in 2008 (looking at you GM).
China has a large fully state-owned sector which tends to operate key industries. They also have outsized control over private firms because the banks doling out capital are state-owned. It’s how they can effectively direct the private sector to build EVs, chips or whatever other strategic commodity is desired, in addition to having partial ownership in large private firms. Yes Apple and NVIDIA aren’t state-owned. You can read about the state owned sector and how it affects the economy. The structure is very differrnt than the US today. It resembles somewhat FDR’s US in the 1940s but with even more state control and direction.
So it’s like a merger of state and corporate power?
Putin 2.0
IMO china is making a mistake here. there’s one way to poison yourself and that is to eat something that does not want to be eaten. and the same is the case here. china is a successful country and they could just call that a win and leave it at that. instead, they (think they) have to swallow taiwan, and they will poison themselves. they will get a lot of people into their country that do not want to become a part of china, and they will seek to destroy china from the inside, which is much easier to do than from the outside, and this could become a real danger to china. china should not seek to conquer taiwan against the will of its people.
I understand your point, but they seem to have subjugated Hong Kong pretty successfully. I would agree with you more if that hadn’t recently happened.
Well the PLA has barracks inside HK since the handover from the UK. On the other hand, blockading or invading Taiwan would be the largest amphibious invasion in human history
Hong Kong is a small tax haven - Taiwan is a full independent country. I really think we’ve past the point where physical annexation can work with guerilla warfare and sabotage being so easily accessible in this day and age. I think CCP agrees that’s why it’ll take a decade to wear Taiwan down still
China has some really big domestic issues right now with record unemployment rates so naturally their drumming up nationalism to distract people. Though AI boom is carrying China through and I really hope they back down.
From what I see on Tiktok right now the propaganda machine is in full swing. Every video on Taiwan is spammed by bots saying “Taiwan is China”. With Taiwan’s opposition blocking defense budget it 100% seems like China will go through political offense first before invading.
Isn’t it just such a fucking coincidence you have all these assholes coming to the same conclusions at the same time?
Putin invaded Ukraine and would love to Hitler his way across Europe in the name of “unity.”
Trump invades Venezuela, yet pretends to be an antiwar isolationist only taking necessary action to protect the U.S. from the flow of fentanyl (which has never been coming from Venezuela, but why let facts get in the way of a shitty narrative).
Now China will invade Taiwan and the U.S. will refuse to get involved because Trump is totally an “isolationist.” (At least when it comes to other continents).
Yep. Totally a coincidence and not a shared strategy for a global fascist takeover by a new axis of evil.
WW3 all the imperialists are acting at once
Xi Jinping is an evil scumbag whose goal is to destabilize the world. China needs and deserves Taiwan just as little as Russia needs Crimea.
Taiwan’s sovereign status should be ratified in UN asap.
Unfortunately that won’t happen unless Republic of China declares to become an independent state of Taiwan. In their current form, they claim to be the legitimate government of mainland People’s Republic of China too. I think it’s safe to assume that they won’t get their lands back, but it is not up to me to advise govt affairs.
Correct me if I’m wrong but I’m pretty sure that Taiwan would be happy to be just Taiwan instead of Republic of China, if that got them their UN recognition.
Constitution of the Republic of China (Taiwan) : Constitution of the Republic of China (Taiwan)
Sure.
If People’s Republic of China agreed to ratify their UN membership and ratify them as a country if they just changed their name to Taiwan, you think they couldn’t get 75% of their government & 50% of the people to vote for the name change?
I claim that their name has nothing to do with why People’s Republic of China is threatening them with an invasion and forceful annexation.
You are wrong.
Does me saying that help you notice that you are wrong?
They call themselves oficially the “true” govern of China to this day, and their internal diplomacy is based on that.
No-one in the government of Taiwan considers themselves the true government of China. But they’re stuck with the old constitutional claims from the 1940s still on the paper because any change to reflect reality would be called a “declaration of independence” by China, and trigger a military reaction.
they claim to be the legitimate government of mainland
They have a better claim then the government in Beijing but ultimately lack the force to back it up. They should have just dropped the pipe dream years ago.
They lost a civil war and retreated from the land. How is that a better claim?
Xi’s claim to legitimacy is based on the threat of violence. The President of Taiwan’s legitimacy is based on being chosen by the people. It’s called Consent; something the Beijing regime has always lacked and been indifferent to.
Winning an election in Taiwan doesn’t give them a claim to mainland China. This isn’t relevant.
And not winning any elections doesn’t give Xi Jinping any claim to mainland China either.
Winning the civil war and controlling the land does.
China will give Trump something to look the other way when they re-take Taiwan, and he’ll do it. There will be a huge outcry from both sides, but he will order Hegseth to stand down, and since he’s Commander-In-Chief, Hegseth will do it.
There might be an impeachment, but no conviction, and the American people don’t know or care enough about Taiwan to want to go to war against China, and eventually it will blow over, and leave another black mark on Trump’s legacy, which he won’t care about because he got a plane, or a boat, or a pile of money, or permission to build a Trump Tower in Taiwan, or something.
This would be the course if TSMC would have a fab in the US. But since all the tech bros visiting Trump have convinced him that the fabs there are vital for the US silicon hegemony, he will not surrender Taiwan. So it’s the old US can’t afford to lose it, China cannot afford to not have it stalemate until someone somewhere is able to build some modern fabs.
Unless he really is the russo-chinese agent he appears to be. Then all bets are off.
We’ve already seen this scenario over and over, in Syria, in Qatar, etc. He is up for sale, and EVERYBODY knows it.
In Trump’s world, there’s a price tag on EVERYTHING, and China can afford it. They know that this would be their easiest chance to get it, and I doubt they’ll let that opportunity pass.
If the only issue is chips, they’ll promise him access to the chips, as well as the bribe. He’ll take that without hesitation, they’ll renege on their promise, but it will be too late to do anything about it.
Better look out for 500 old ladies to help over the street to get back to a neutral social credit score 😅😆
My social credit is like my financial credit - solidly on the road to Chapter 7.
Alternative headline:
China’s authoritarian leader Xi Jinping reiterates intent to subjugate neighboring country Taiwan in New Year’s Eve speech.
It’s not a neighbouring country, it’s the same country. Ask Taiwan.
Okay, I looked at what the current President of Taiwan has to say. He says this:
Taiwan is already a sovereign, independent country called the Republic of China.
That’s not the same as the PRC.
archive.is seems to be down right now.
The People’s Republic of China and the Republic of China are two different governments that both claim sovereignty over mainland China and Taiwan.
They both want to unite China, but only one of them is in the position to do it.
Internal to Taiwan, there are parties that support reunification and support independence (opposing views), but Taiwan has not yet reneged on its claim of mainland China.
As @stickly@lemmy.world pointed out, polling shows that Taiwanese people mostly want the status quo (de facto independence of Taiwan from the PRC) or they lean towards formally declaring independence.
As for Taiwan claiming sovereignty over China, maybe that is still in their constitution, I don’t know. But I’m pretty sure modern Taiwanese leaders are not asserting this claim. Instead they seek to preserve the status quo, where Taiwan is de facto independent.
Their president reneged it like 30+ years ago but that doesn’t mean much because it’s basically baked into their constitution. Changing the constitution to reflect their real borders would require triggering a vote and a bunch of formal processes that would absolutely instigate a conflict with the PRC.
Nobody wants that, including the voting population. Thus you see a milquetoast shuffling between independence and reunification parties in order to maintain the status quo (independence for all practical purposes) without being too radical for Beijing. In terms of polling:
- 48.9% are pro-[eventual]-independence
- 11.8% are pro-unification
- 26.9% want status quo
And when forced out of status quo, independence support jumps to out 60%. But for now they’re caught in a Catch-22 that allows the PRC to spit out this propaganda that people gobble up.
So Winnie the Pooh wants to challenge pedo donny for the Nobel peace price?
He’ll win the next FIFA Peace Prize.
Yes, it is imperialism. Also, China has an authoritarian state controlled by a privileged ruling class and is therefore far-right.
What do you mean? 99.99% of the chinese people are charing 0.000001% of their countrie’s wealth like true communists.
/s
Was just about to say the same.
Authoritarian state-capitalism is not a leftist ideology.
Could you please provide us with some data regarding wealth inequality between citizens and politicians in China vs, say, the USA for comparison?
Since China carefully controls access to information, that’s functionally impossible but traditionally corruption by party officials in China was notorious and wide spread. China’s only recently been able to tackle it, partially thru advances in technology, but the true extent of their success is difficult to gauge. Critics have also argued that eliminating rivals and ensuring loyalty was the true purpose of anti-coruption efforts. It’s suspected that Xi Jinping’s extended family has amassed a hidden fortune of around a Billion Dollars.
This is a declaration of war IMO. By one old dude against the whole world order (the international laws).
As the US has known for some time, the international order only applies to poor countries. Like a spiders web ensnares the fly but allows the pig to tear straight through
Why does every fucking topic, no matter how far it is from US, ends up with someone ranting about US?
Because the US just sold them $11b worth of weapons? You act like the US is not involved in any way.
Downvote and move on friend
whataboutism isn’t to dismiss the point. whataboutism is to put things into context and establish proportionality.
what was the reaction internationally when the US invaded other countries? that allows you an approximate estimate of what will happen when china invades other countries.
I’m not excusing the USA, two bad does not make right.
It doesn’t but this is the real fucking world
As an American I’m happy to see China kept in its place until it can compete with America on the human rights it gives its citizens. America might exercise ill-acquired and unethical hegemony over the world at times but apart from maybe the EU theres not another superpower candidate I’d trust more with that hegemony.
As an American I want my tax dollars to go toward something other than murdering civilians overseas
I’m happy to see China kept in its place until it can compete with America on the human rights it gives its citizens
You mean the disappearing of tens of thousands of people who get kidnapped on the streets by militarized fascist police? Or are we talking about the highest imprisonment on Earth, with 1 in 5 black men going through prison?
China and Taiwan are already at war. The Chinese civil war never had any truce, armistice, surrender, or anything. ROC pulled back to Taiwan, PRC didn’t follow, and then it just stopped.
Chinese imperialists will stop at nothing to hurt working class people. Luckily Taiwan isnt intimidated by bullies.
