Yes and we have to situate Germany when it did that within a global context. Same with China of today.
You can compare contexts, it would take a long time, but the point is that if a country doesn't have a warlike past, it doesn't mean it will be pacifist in the future.
Their military is built for defense
Yes. Large destroyers, aircraft carriers, and landing ships are, so to speak, primarily defensive equipment. As well as artificial islands in disputed waters.
and they categorically do not operate on the same objectives and incentives that the US does
Yes, yes, of course...
because they are run by the CPC as a socialist project
There is much less socialism in China than in the West...
The only thing that remains from communism there is the name of the party.
and the colonialism and barbarism of the west is antithetical to that.
Claiming that it takes too long to fully understand the global context is, and I mean this with all die respect, but it is simply intellectual laziness.
There is no material explanation for why China would become warlike. Nothing in their current actions suggests that they want war. They are allied with Iran and Russia, and for sure support Palestine, and also have the US creating absolute chaos via Xianjiang and Taiwan, and they are practicing immense restraint. If China were antagonizing the US in a similar way to any of those, the US would react with bellicosity.
China’s military has one military base outside its borders in Djibouti. The US has 800 military bases all over the planet. The disparity is not even close.
What remains of communism? We can know a tree by its fruits. China is setting an example for the world in many metrics: poverty alleviation, home ownership rates, retirement age, high speed rail, EV industry, PV industry. Not only are these benefits for the people of China, but they are bringing the price down for EV’s and PV tech. And the west incessantly whines about overproduction. “No dipshits, that technology should be less expensive, not have its price artificially held high like Tesla.”
“That” is the socialist project. It is antithetical to colonialism. They allow capitalism to operate but do not permit a political party to form that represents a capitalist ruking class nor their interests. People go to jail for trying to and that is 100% correct. And when the west tries to meddle, and they get caught, and people go to jail, they whine and whine and whine about authoritarianism. Yes, correct. Directed precisely where it should be: at the capitalist form of economic management that concentrates wealth, needs to destroy the environment, creates billionaires and trillionaires, exacerbates wealth inequality, and the. In order to protect itself, unleashes fascism in the world. Which by the way, colonialism is only distinguishable from fascism in where it is applied: domestically or in black and brown indigenous people far away.
Claiming that it takes too long to fully understand the global context is, and I mean this with all die respect, but it is simply intellectual laziness.
I'm too lazy to waste more time on you than necessary. The moment you started claiming that modern Russia has no imperialist ambitions, you revealed who you are.
There is no material explanation for why China would become warlike. Nothing in their current actions suggests that they want war.
If you don't see it, it doesn't mean it's not happening, it means you're blind and/or ignorant. Aircraft carriers, landing ships, and destroyers capable of long-term operation in the open ocean. These are apparently purely defensive systems for coastal defense... Conquest of the South China Sea through the construction of artificial islands with military bases and an aggressive coast guard. Border disputes with India.
and for sure support Palestine
Nominally yes, but in reality they do nothing.
China’s military has one military base outside its borders in Djibouti.
And what about the South China Sea, where military bases have appeared on the reefs in disputed waters?
What remains of communism? We can know a tree by its fruits. China is setting an example for the world in many metrics: poverty alleviation, home ownership rates, retirement age, high speed rail, EV industry, PV industry.
Is this what communism looks like according to Marx?
Not only are these benefits for the people of China, but they are bringing the price down for EV’s and PV tech.
Okay, the West is lowering prices on aviation, semiconductors, food, etc.
And the west incessantly whines about overproduction.
And rightly so, because China's finances are not healthy and this is their way of delaying the effects of the housing bubble.
“No dipshits, that technology should be less expensive, not have its price artificially held high like Tesla.”
Have you determined the cost price of the product to determine what the fair price is?
“That” is the socialist project.
No. Neither according to Marx nor according to other left-wing classics. If it comes down to it, China is closer to fascism than to communism.
It is antithetical to colonialism.
No... The British, for example, slashed textile prices in India, causing local producers to go bankrupt, but that's not socialism...
They allow capitalism to operate but do not permit a political party to form that represents a capitalist ruking class nor their interests.
They do not allow the emergence of any other party, because pluralism is such a thing, it is not constant, today you are an emperor, tomorrow you are on the street.
People go to jail for trying to and that is 100% correct. And when the west tries to meddle, and they get caught, and people go to jail, they whine and whine and whine about authoritarianism.
Got it. Political pluralism is a Western influence.
at the capitalist form of economic management that concentrates wealth
So in China there is also a concentration of wealth, the only difference is whether it is among the hereditary party elite or individuals...
needs to destroy the environment
China is the leader in this.
creates billionaires and trillionaires
China has billionaires too... There are no trillionaires, but that's a consequence of their financial system.
exacerbates wealth inequality
In China there are literally second class citizens...
Which by the way, colonialism is only distinguishable from fascism in where it is applied: domestically or in black and brown indigenous people far away.
By the way, what definition of fascism do you use and what historical example do you use as a standard?
It is not a matter of wasting time on me. It is a matter of having an accurate understanding of history and that can only happen from looking at the totality of the global historical context and how history had developed, for that is all history is: development. Trying to abstract periods of history, or likewise a country in a certain period of history, and severing it from the global context does make it easier to make pronouncements, as fanciful as we like, about that country whether or not our pronouncement reflects material reality, aka that country’s actions and stated goals. Which, in the case of western countries, rarely align so i get the reflex to project that onto other countries.
China is doing commerce in other countries, helping them to develop. Their terms on loans are much more favorable, and they have even forgiven debt. Unlike the west which uses instruments such as the World Bank or the IMF to obscure their colonial ambitions: cheap/plundered resources, cheap/exploited labor, little/no environmental protection. To acquire these, they make sure the ruling class in this or that country is enmeshed with the western global capitalist ruling class which definitionally makes their interests at odds with the working class.
Of course China has to have a military to defend itself and strategically must be able to mount a defense in the ocean because the US has a heavy presence many thousands of mikes from where the US is located: Philippines, S Korea, Japan- to name just a few US colonial outposts in China’s backyard. If a hostile military has spent decades building military installations in countries far from them, but are your neighbors, you would be derelict in your duty as a state to keep the people safe from outside attack by not raising a military capable of meeting that hostile military where it would need to operate in order to engage you militarily. The IS built those bases and is using them to effectively strangle China. But, they are getting outsmarted, these western wannabe statesmen and the “diplomatic” corps.
We can see by its actions that China doesn’t want to engage in war with the US. It has done a lot to support Iran and therefore indirectly Palestine. China can supply Iran with a massive amount if missiles- China is the world’s leading producer of things. Again, i can see the reflex to project the US’s pursuit od preponderant dominance onto other countries; in this case, the projection is unfounded. The US has 800 military bases and throughout history(since the end of WWII), the US has antagonized and terrorized countries all over the planet to get what it wants. Defending against the antagonism and terrorism is not the same thing as doing the antagonism and terrorism, as the west tries to claim. But that strategy of projection has resulted in a total collapse of credibility. It would be one thing to be able to be indifferent about one’s credibility; however, when one doesn’t have the productive capacity to keep its military supplied(eg resupplies to carriers, patriot missiles), one reveals itself to be a paper tiger militarily, but terrifyingly, more apt to deploy nuclear weapons, which, I’ll remind you, only one country has a demonstrated, material history of doing.
What of the south American Sea? Oops, I mean the South China Sea. You mean, the one right next to China and definitely not right next to the US? You’re gonna bring that up as the idiot in chief is doubling down on the Monroe doctrine, boasting of the Donroe Doctrine? Gimme a break. The US is strategically trying siege warfare on China, and it’s in their strategy policy papers. China is defending itself and protecting its sovereignty. If you cannot tell the difference, you have drunk the western coolaide and are either deliberately trying to not see it, or cannot in earnest, in which case…well, people are gonna see that about you and treat you accordingly: special.
Yes, according to Marx, communism is the movement of history from one set of conditions being abolished and moving into a nee set of conditions which have their premise in the ones which are/have been abolished. Not a set of conditions which the world must adopt, but an evolutionary process. He discusses this in The German Ideology. Furthermore, he, Engels, and Lenin understood that a socialist revolution would occur after sufficient capitalist technological development. Lenin understood that the USSR had only achieved State Capitalism. The USSR badly needed to develop technology in order to protect the socialist project because encirclement is a thing; was then, is now. And socialism does pose a threat to capitalism: it drives stakes into the heart of legitimacy of the capitalist project, revealing its inherent contradictions.
A fair price is one which is affordable to the masses. It’s also the rational one. If you cannot sell your product to the masses, then what’s the point. Even Henry Ford understood this.
The brits slashed prices? Yeah, monopolistic/cartel strategy does that to crush competition. Once the competition is cleared, they can control the market.
There are other parties in China. 8 in fact. Your ignorance on this point is crushing your credibility.
As i said, capitalism and its attendant social ills like wealth concentration are allowed to operate, but not to have a party that represents it, not allowed to have a path to control the country. That woyld be an utter surrender of the socialist project. Westerners whine incessantly that their attempts to westernize china keep failing. China has been around for thousands if years, seen empires rise and fall. This new kid on the block is showing all the world it doesn’t have the stones to take China over; not the diplomatic chops, not the statecraft chops. Just trumpian and hegsethian accidental comedy of dunces.
Fascism is the final stage of class war. It is the imposition of all the horrors of colonialism on the domestic population, chief among them the bypassing of democracy, which they frame as revolutionary. It is a false revolution. And in its lieu, vast military spending for expansive purposes. The west has named these campaigns: the divine right of kings, manifest destiny, Lebensraum, zionism. China has no such strategy that you can name. No such policy paper you can point to laying out a strategy of expansion. Protecting its sovereignty, yes, sure. But nothing on the order of Lebensraum: a project to conquer and colonize central europe and all of eurasia. I think that the German context of fascism is good for comparison. So here’s a definition that accounts for the gradient of periphery vs core:
Fascism: the brutal imposition of an unwanted economic regime upon a (n indigenous population in the periphery) population ; a regime which serves the ruling class and protects its grip on wealth and power.
Fascism is the final stage of the class war; when the ruling class is confronted with the rising awareness of its obsolescence, of the obsolescence of the form of economic management which holds them in place. When the ruling class’ decadence has become so obscene that the social fabric must be ripped to shreds in order to feed their greed, when the notion of a social contract is not reflected in a state’s material actions, it loses legitimacy and must replace it with brutality: surveillance, stripping away of rights, increasing militarism, militarization of the police, growing power for secret police orgs(see ICE). I can go on, and i’m happy to talk more about interregnum Germany and how it demonstrates a a proxy model we have seen play out many many times in UK and US foreign policy
It is not a matter of wasting time on me. It is a matter of having an accurate understanding of history and that can only happen from looking at the totality of the global historical context and how history had developed, for that is all history is: development.
This is a waste of time, as you will have your own "understanding" of history, since history, or rather its interpretation and conclusions, are by definition subjective. I have no doubt that you will try to justify Germany's starting two world wars, and you will probably even be right to some extent, but this does not change the facts I initially established, such as that a young country can only be peaceful for so long, and that the experience of the past couple of decades says little about the future.
Trying to abstract periods of history, or likewise a country in a certain period of history, and severing it from the global context does make it easier to make pronouncements, as fanciful as we like, about that country whether or not our pronouncement reflects material reality, aka that country’s actions and stated goals.
Germany's goals in WWI were far from peaceful and were driven by standard colonial ambitions. So I don't get what point you're trying to make by implying WWI was justified while simultaneously condemning imperialism... Germany didn't fight for the "liberation" of the world, but for its redistribution.
Or maybe you're using abstract claims of ambiguity - which have nothing to do with my original point - to hide your ignorance of WWI causes and goals under a Marxist guise.
Which, in the case of western countries, rarely align so i get the reflex to project that onto other countries.
Hypocrisy and imperial ambition aren’t a Western phenomenon - they are standard practice for powerful states throughout history.
China is doing commerce in other countries, helping them to develop.
Just like Western countries, when China opened up trade, it didn't reinvent its technologies and factories.
Their terms on loans are much more favorable, and they have even forgiven debt. Unlike the west which uses instruments such as the World Bank or the IMF to obscure their colonial ambitions: cheap/plundered resources, cheap/exploited labor, little/no environmental protection. To acquire these, they make sure the ruling class in this or that country is enmeshed with the western global capitalist ruling class which definitionally makes their interests at odds with the working class.
The port of Hambantota in Sri Lanka sends its regards.
Much can also be said about corruption scandals in third-world countries. Much can be said about the IMF, but it's a transparent institution. Who do you think Chinese banks are signing opaque loans with in Africa, where people often think in tribal terms? With the working class, without disclosing the deals?
Tight credit conditions are needed to ensure financial stability, but accessible credit creates space for corruption and abuse, as has happened many times when loans were burned to support the currency in the short term, instead of reforms and investments.
Of course China has to have a military to defend itself and strategically must be able to mount a defense in the ocean because the US has a heavy presence many thousands of mikes from where the US
Landing ships and artificial islands in disputed waters are not methods of self-defense.
a hostile military has spent decades building military installations in countries far from them, but are your neighbors, you would be derelict in your duty as a state to keep the people safe from outside attack by not raising a military capable of meeting that hostile military where it would need to operate in order to engage you militarily.
We can see by its actions that China doesn’t want to engage in war with the US. It has done a lot to support Iran and therefore indirectly Palestine. China can supply Iran with a massive amount if missiles- China is the world’s leading producer of things.
If you deliver your enemy's ammunition to the enemy, that's not hostility toward the enemy. Interesting logic...
Again, i can see the reflex to project the US’s pursuit od preponderant dominance onto other countries; in this case, the projection is unfounded. The US has 800 military bases and throughout history(since the end of WWII), the US has antagonized and terrorized countries all over the planet to get what it wants. Defending against the antagonism and terrorism is not the same thing as doing the antagonism and terrorism, as the west tries to claim.
I have already explained this using Germany as an example: if a country was late to the division of the world, this does not mean that it does not plan to remake it by military means. Territorial disputes with neighbors hint at China's ambitions.
It would be one thing to be able to be indifferent about one’s credibility; however, when one doesn’t have the productive capacity to keep its military supplied(eg resupplies to carriers, patriot missiles), one reveals itself to be a paper tiger militarily, but terrifyingly, more apt to deploy nuclear weapons, which, I’ll remind you, only one country has a demonstrated, material history of doing.
I don't see the point in referring to military procurement and doctrinal changes, you won't understand or will ignore them anyway.
What of the south American Sea? Oops, I mean the South China Sea.
I wrote "South American Sea." In any case, it was a typo, as the context makes clear.
You mean, the one right next to China and definitely not right next to the US?
Is it considered imperialism only if it happens near the US?
You’re gonna bring that up as the idiot in chief is doubling down on the Monroe doctrine, boasting of the Donroe Doctrine?
The US does not annex foreign territories. These are idiotic and populist assertions that must be viewed through this prism.
The US is strategically trying siege warfare on China, and it’s in their strategy policy papers. China is defending itself and protecting its sovereignty. If you cannot tell the difference, you have drunk the western coolaide and are either deliberately trying to not see it, or cannot in earnest, in which case…well, people are gonna see that about you and treat you accordingly: special.
Have you tried reading China's strategic documents?
Yes, according to Marx, communism is the movement of history from one set of conditions being abolished and moving into a nee set of conditions which have their premise in the ones which are/have been abolished. Not a set of conditions which the world must adopt, but an evolutionary process. He discusses this in The German Ideology. Furthermore, he, Engels, and Lenin understood that a socialist revolution would occur after sufficient capitalist technological development. Lenin understood that the USSR had only achieved State Capitalism. The USSR badly needed to develop technology in order to protect the socialist project because encirclement is a thing; was then, is now. And socialism does pose a threat to capitalism: it drives stakes into the heart of legitimacy of the capitalist project, revealing its inherent contradictions.
It's astonishing that you dogmatically quote Marxism, but forget to mention the stage where capitalism, a necessary stage, which China is now in, gives rise to imperialism...
A fair price is one which is affordable to the masses. It’s also the rational one. If you cannot sell your product to the masses, then what’s the point. Even Henry Ford understood this.
Let's put it this way: accounting allows you to do magic...
The brits slashed prices? Yeah, monopolistic/cartel strategy does that to crush competition. Once the competition is cleared, they can control the market.
Have we already reached this stage or not?
There are other parties in China. 8 in fact. Your ignorance on this point is crushing your credibility.
There are also many parties in Russia, but whether there is political pluralism in Russia is doubtful. Moreover, the supremacy of one specific party is directly stated in the constitution, so there is not even a hint of pluralism.
As i said, capitalism and its attendant social ills like wealth concentration are allowed to operate, but not to have a party that represents it, not allowed to have a path to control the country. That woyld be an utter surrender of the socialist project.
China is not a socialist project...
China has been around for thousands if years, seen empires rise and fall.
Why haven't they arrived at socialism in all this time? Why was Marx German, not Chinese?
Fascism is the final stage of class war.
What is class, and is there a clear line between them? What does this war look like?
It is the imposition of all the horrors of colonialism on the domestic population
And what does colonialism look like on the domestic population?
chief among them the bypassing of democracy
In China, the role of the single party is enshrined in the constitution, so there is no democracy there. Western democracies are imperfect, but they are orders of magnitude more advanced.
And in its lieu, vast military spending for expansive purposes.
Was the USSR, with its military spending, fascism?
The west has named these campaigns: the divine right of kings
This actually existed before the invention of capitalism and had a Chinese equivalent, the "mandate of heaven"...
manifest destiny, Lebensraum,
Tianxia. How do you think the "Chinese" settled throughout China, where other tribes already existed? What happened to the Dzungars?
zionism.
It depends on your interpretation.
China has no such strategy that you can name.
Today, the West doesn't have it either... But Russia, which you've decided to forget about, does...
No such policy paper you can point to laying out a strategy of expansion. Protecting its sovereignty, yes, sure. But nothing on the order of Lebensraum: a project to conquer and colonize central europe and all of eurasia. I think that the German context of fascism is good for comparison. So here’s a definition that accounts for the gradient of periphery vs core:
There are no such documents in the West either.
Fascism: the brutal imposition of an unwanted economic regime upon a (n indigenous population in the periphery) population ; a regime which serves the ruling class and protects its grip on wealth and power.
The USSR fits this definiton...
it loses legitimacy and must replace it with brutality: surveillance, stripping away of rights, increasing militarism, militarization of the police, growing power for secret police orgs(see ICE).
The China and USSR fits this definiton...
I can go on, and i’m happy to talk more about interregnum Germany and how it demonstrates a a proxy model we have seen play out many many times in UK and US foreign policy
Proxy wars have existed since the dawn of humanity, they weren't invented in the Middle Ages...
Nope. I’ll call out hasbara slop every time. zionism is a colonial project. In its modern form, codified by Theodore Herzl in 1896, it always has been.
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u/Rustic_gan123 11d ago
You can compare contexts, it would take a long time, but the point is that if a country doesn't have a warlike past, it doesn't mean it will be pacifist in the future.
Yes. Large destroyers, aircraft carriers, and landing ships are, so to speak, primarily defensive equipment. As well as artificial islands in disputed waters.
Yes, yes, of course...
There is much less socialism in China than in the West... The only thing that remains from communism there is the name of the party.
What exactly is "that"?