Comment by cthalupa
18 hours ago
The one we live in, where they have control over a wide swathe of land mass through imperialism and have actively resisted relinquishing it?
The one we live in, where they are constantly surpassing international law in international waters in the South China Sea?
The one we live in, where they are constantly rattling sabers at South Korea and Japan when it comes to military expansion?
The one we live in, where they brutally cracked down on Hong Kong when they did not abide by the 50 year one country two systems deal, not even making it half of the way through the agreed period?
The one we live in, where there is constant threat to Taiwan?
It may have been a lazy post you're responding to, but anyone that is paying attention to this topic enough to talk about it is going to either say 'Of course China is imperialist, the same as every other global power' or take some sort of tankie approach to justify it.
I'm well informed on all of these but no, if we compare to other global power like US or Russia, or historically British, France, Spain, etc, China is 100% not an imperialist or colonialist, not by a large margin. Those issues are largely exaggerated by media and anyone had a decent exposure to history and international politics wouldn't say they are the same.
I disagree on China. What would you call China's behavior[1] in the South China Sea with regards to fishing vessels and other non-military boats?
[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hzZrcqf826E
Sure China has some disputes with neighboring country in South China Sea, the worst conflict they had is fishing boats running into each other. 0 death toll last time I checked. Meanwhile US killed at least 126 people with alleged drug strike in the Caribbean Sea since last year, WITHOUT trial. Anyone believing these're equivalent imperialism activity is hypocrite at best.
[1] https://apnews.com/article/boat-strikes-military-death-toll-...
2 replies →
Obviously self defense with nobel peace price worthy restraint.
Considering it's PRC claimed territory. Literally 100% of PRC claims are inherited from ROC, i.e. PRC has expanded no claims, and actively settled 12/14 land borders (most on earth) essentially all with 50%+ concessions, i.e. PRC ceded more land in negotiations. That OBJECTIVELY, makes PRC the most benevolent rising power in recorded history. Any gov losing land to so many border settlements is committing treason. Also note PCA ruling is not international law, so what PRC does in SCS is not even legally wrong (as in they legally can't be wrong since UNCLOS cannot rule on sovereignty). Or that PRC was last to militarize SCS islands (except Brunai who is good boi), and PRC conceded ROC/TW's original 11dash to 9dash, which even in SCS disputes makes PRC the only party to have made concessions.
PRC is objectively the LEAST imperialistic rising power, by actual non retarded definitions, i.e. expanding on territories outside it's claims, that PRC didn't even make, but again inherited from ROC when UN recognition changed.
What China is doing in the South China Sea? The South China Sea.
Let's just compare to the Monroe Doctrine [1]. What this actually means has gone through several iterations by since I think Teddy Roosevelt's time, it's that the United States views the Americas (being North and South America) to be the sole domain of the United States.
This was a convenient excuse for any number of regime changes in Central and South America since 1945. The US almost started World War Three over Cuba in 1962 after the USSR retaliated to the US putting nuclear MRBMs in Turkey. We've starved Cuba for 60+ years for having the audacity to overthrow our puppet government and nationalize some mob casinos. Recently, we kidnapped the head of state of Venezuela because reasons.
But sure, let's focus on China militarizing its territorial waters.
[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monroe_Doctrine
3 replies →
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sino-Vietnamese_Wars
You forgot Tibet and the Uyghurs https://worldwithoutgenocide.org/genocides-and-conflicts/gen...
> where they have control over a wide swathe of land mass through imperialism and have actively resisted relinquishing it?
Was referring to Tibet.
The Uyghurs are also a major problem from a social perspective but not directly related to imperalism/expansionism/military industrial complex stuff.
Yes but the guy at the end of the street beats his wife too!
“One country two systems” is definitionally not imperialism, and given that “One China” is still an internationally recognized thing, neither is Taiwan. “Imperialism” is not a synonym for “morally repugnant government policy”.
I can see the argument for Hong Kong. I don't agree, really, but I can understand it. Under the strictest of definitions, perhaps it isn't.
But Taiwan is very obviously a totally separate country no matter what fictions anyone employs. If you are trying to talk about the thin veneer of everyone going "Uh huh, sure, China, yep Taiwan is totally part of you, wink wink, nudge nudge" as somehow making China not imperialist when Taiwan basically lives under the perpetual threat of a Chinese military invasion and having their own democratic form of government overthrown and replaced with the CCP, then... I don't really know what to say.
I suppose we could argue about imperialism being more of an economic thing - in which case this all still holds up - China's investments in Africa are effectively the same playbook the US has run out in developing nations for years. The US learned it from prior imperialist nations but belts and roads is nearly a carbon copy of what the US has done in other places.
But let's look at what the original poster was actually talking about - saying that China is safe because they don't have a military industrial complex because they're not imperialist. The proper word to use, if we want to get down to the semantics of it all, would be expansionist - but it's still not true. China has the 2nd largest military industrial complex in the world, and the gap is shrinking every day between them and the US. And if you were to look at wartime capacity, where China's dual-use shipyards could be swapped to naval production instead of commercial, a huge portion of that gap disappears immediately.