cross-posted from: https://lemmygrad.ml/post/10270361
As you may know, China is rather passive about the recent kidnapping event. Many people I talk to about it believe China and Russia are staying silent because they made a deal with the USA about Venezuela’s oil sources. There are more conspiracy theories about the incident, but it’s for another topic.
Furthermore, Türkiye granted visa-free travel to Chinese nationals, and there’s a residential area being built for the new BYD Auto factory at Manisa city. These developments fueled sinophobia in Türkiye.
I talk about Turkish history here; feel free to skip.
Now, before talking about my question, I should briefly talk about why Türkiye is very xenophobic. Since the foundation of the country, the Turkish government has been pushing the narrative that every person living in Türkiye is Turkish and Muslim. They were teaching how Sumerians and Hittites were Turkic back in my parents’ day to back this claim up. They taught me how Turks have been the legitimate settlers of Anatolia for thousands of years, and we are the true defenders of the faith at every level of my education—even at university.
To strengthen the nationalist ideas, the government purged the Rums (Anatolian Greeks), Armenians, Jews, and non-Muslim Turks, then oppressed and massacred the Alawites and left-wing groups.
Decades under conservative and near-fascist polities made people prone to governmental propaganda. Now, the current government doesn’t push anything against China because they need the money. But when you dictate to people that China was your “historic enemy” and grow them as xenophobic as possible, they will behave like that.
A lot of people here claim China has been pushing its agenda sneakily for years; by the 1980s, China became capitalist, and by the 2010s, it became imperialist. They are putting countries in debt traps and colonizing them by moving their populations to indebted countries and building businesses there. The kidnapping of Maduro inflamed this rhetoric, and now they claim China, Russia, and the USA set a deal for splitting Venezuela, like how the Allied Powers split the Ottoman Empire.
I know, and I try to explain why this isn’t the case, but the conservative/reactionary roots run too deep to convince them. Before anyone tells me to stay away from those people, they should know it is like trying to stay away from the sands in a desert—I’m living in a country full of people like these. I must defend my case in the best way possible so at least they will know I’m not just saying empty words (this last bit would open another can of worms, but again, I’ll refrain from diverting the topic).
Ask them to name what countries China has invaded.
When they say “tibet” tell them that tibet was part of China for over 1000 years and they reaffirmed in a treaty that it was part of China after the revolution. When they say Xinjiang tell them that was part of china 2500 years ago.
If they say Hong Kong or Taiwan inform them that nobody disputes that those are part of China and they haven’t even used military force to make them reintegrate under the Chinese system of government.
When they say “the south china sea” you say that the RoC fascists who lost the civil war, signed the treaties defining the maritime zones of China when they controlled the China’s UN seat, despite the fact that all they controlled was Taiwan.As a Chinese commie, while I wish it was that easy odds are any lib or “leftist”(crakkka) you try this on will simply retreat to calling you a shill or a tankie and not actually engage with any of it.
It’s totally cool if not, but do you have any tips for an American learning Chinese? I’m just starting to get the hang of tones on certain Mandarin characters
While I don’t know how helpful or useful this will be my advice is skip writing unless you have a specific need for it everyone just uses pinyin keyboards nowadays so just focus on character recognition and speaking.
The best way to learn is immersion, find yourself someone to speak in chinese to as often as possible and just consume as much content as possible in Chinese from Peppa pig to kids books to start. Languages tend to be use it or lose it. Best of luck! 加油！我们一直在为你打气。
I’ve been making decent progress using https://www.vidioma.com/ . Its basically just an organized collection of comprehensible input mandarin videos sorted by difficulty.
Yeah, these conversations can really only be had with other socialists who are earnestly trying to detangle themselves from imperialist propaganda of their own accord. Otherwise, it’s fruitless most of the time.
Really, you can extend that to any political discussion. You’re not going to convince anyone of anything if they are primed for debate mode.
retreat to calling you a shill or a tankie
They call you names because they have seen a truth they can’t refute. Every time a westoid calls you a shill or a tankie is like the sound of a Pickaxe hitting a stone. the stone will break we just gotta keep swinging.
I recently read some of the book “Chinese Revolution of 1945-49” by Michael Lynch (I believe, not sure tho) and the shit I learned about ROC/KMT was SOOO bad, like they were funded by Hitler (before he allied w Japan)to kill Communists and when they fled to Taiwan they killed several thousand indigenous Taiwanese people who weren’t serving any threat to them whatsoever. I didn’t even read the full thing yet so I still have more horrors to discover
What about when they say Vietnam
They were defending their allies in Cambodia. It was a mistake but it wasn’t an act of imperialism.
Rather disturbingly, when this topic came up in China with a group of people I befriended over there, they claimed that Vietnam invaded China. I didn’t really know what to say. When I asked for their sources they have me some shitty jpg image with text all over it. Sadly I had no idea how to respond other than, that’s not what I had been told. They told me it was Western propaganda, and I told them that that would make no sense because China and America were allies at the time and in the region, so why would they paint China as the aggressors. Anyway, I was a little disappointed to come face to face with Chinese brain worms.
There are a few popular Chinese nationalist takes on history that are still questionable. Like on Rednote, for example, you’ll run into the narrative a lot that the Soviets became imperialists and tried to invade/nuke China. Lots of Chinese also still think nuking Japanese citizens twice was necessary, even though it’s pretty well established with further analysis that Japan was eventually going to surrender to the US or the USSR anyway without the use of nuclear weapons.
The nuking Japan thing is pretty much gospel in the west too
Friends of socialist China has a good article on this topic:
https://socialistchina.org/2024/02/22/to-be-a-socialist-one-must-be-an-anti-imperialist/
Brief teaser:
First, let’s be clear on what imperialism means. Understanding the link between imperialism and monopoly capitalism is essential. Indeed, imperialism and monopoly capitalism aren’t just linked, they’re synonymous. Failing to understand this, some people think any kind of big country is an empire and that any empire is imperialist, from ancient Rome to socialist China. But this is an idealist and metaphysical view.
This is a good source on what communists mean by imperialism and why China does not fall under that: https://en.prolewiki.org/wiki/Imperialism#Chinese_"imperialism"
You may need to explain both to people because I know some people have this idea of imperialism that it is something like “a country is big and influential beyond itself and has a desire to conquer”, which misses the entirety of why a country is influential, what helpful or exploitative influence can look like, and where a motive to conquer derives from (if one can’t explain where it comes from and they’re claiming it about a country in today’s world that is not predominantly “white”, there’s probably racism involved in the worldview).
To compare:
israel has a motive to “conquer” in the region it inhabits because it’s a colonial project based on occupation and expansion, and is an extension of the western empire more broadly, who not only can benefit from having more land, labor, and resources to exploit, but is systematized to the point of being propped up on this parasitic relationship with the rest of the world.
China, in contrast, does not have any such motive. They are, as far as I know, largely self-sustaining in access to resources, lifted 800 million people out of poverty locally, and have plenty of internal work to do still toward their socialist/communist development goals, none of which is improved by undermining the international working class. What they are doing fits with a country that saw the USSR fall, saw countless countries suffer sanctions, coups, and bombings under the global imperialist and anti-communist campaign of the west over decades, and sees some of that still going on now. They are reinforcing sovereignty (such as in tech), they build mutually beneficial ties with other countries where possible which makes it that much harder for the west to isolate and encircle them and is also just something that strengthens both them and other countries.
Of course they are accused of these ties being exploitative because the western empire doesn’t want people escaping dependency on them and doesn’t want China being powerful in general.
We also need to keep in mind how racist narratives work, the nature of responsibility, and the difference between something explicitly designed and enforced by the CPC, versus something that happens outside of its direct control. The global order is still largely a capitalist one and as such, the movements within it are going to have capitalist characteristics that go with them some of the time. CPC China cannot extricate itself from this reality anymore than anyone else can. The options are to engage with it and the contradictions involved, try to exist outside it and attack it from the outside which risks fast decline and annihilation, or try to exist outside it and survive it which risks isolation and encirclement. China since the reform and opening up policy chose the option to engage with it and the contradictions involved.
Those who want us to hate China want us to believe some confusing things like that: “communism bad” but also “China bad because it’s not communist enough”. Or “capitalism good” but also “China bad because it’s being too capitalist.”
They try to use our own views against us and this is undoubtedly some of where ultra-left positions come from. We have to understand that not every action taken by the CPC or by a Chinese business is going to be saintly in all of its characteristics and that its lack of sainthood does not mean the vanguard has fallen and China is equivalent to the western empire now.
Intention cannot magically transform circumstances for the better. We have to investigate the context of where things come from, the motives involved, and the details of the actions taken. Much of anti-China propaganda depends on people doing none of these things and rolling with a racist narrative that China is a hegemonic extension of the CPC while simultaneously distinct from it and repressed by it, and that the CPC is uh, “bad” “because communism.” While also accusing it of doing very uncommunist-like things… that are more just what capitalists do. But “capitalist good!.. except when it’s China, then bad.” The origins of most anti-China propaganda are not remotely honest, in other words.
i actually asked a similar question some months ago: https://lemmygrad.ml/post/9813455
I guess I should’ve checked the entire Lemmy instead of some communities. Thank you comrade!
its always good to ask questions! i just linked the thread because i thought the resources would be relevant to you. would love to see if anyone has new perspectives or articles on the topic
Good luck explaining the single most divisive issue in modern Marxism. The best argument in China’s defense on the Marxist definition of imperialism is that although its bourgeoisie does engage in the exporting of capital and participate in the dynamics of dependent capitalism, the Chinese state has not used its military to defend the investments of this bourgeoisie and the bourgeoisie is not even dominant over the state itself.
But with regards to Venezuela, even if one were you to be cynical, there wouldn’t be any gain for China in the current arrangement. They have little to gain with a neoliberal Venezuela economically, and geopolitically it removes one opponent from their main opponent. Best they could get is some concession from the US itself, but they’ve already been able to get that without deals. They have basically no incentive to do anything but issue strongly worded complaints, so it wouldn’t make sense for them to be guilty here.
Russia on the other hand had a long term interest in a thriving Venezuela, but have been unable to support their allies since 2022. I’ve seen some plausible speculation that there could be some quid pro quo with Russia not interfering for some greater pressure from the US for Ukraine to accept their deal. Remains to be seen.
However, neither country needs Venezuela’s oil. Russia is already one of the largest producers of oil but are too sanctioned to get any use out of extracting more from a foreign country. China is barely a net importer, and their reliance on oil is becoming even smaller with their drive for green energy and electric vehicles.
I disagree with your comment assesing Venezuela as a “neoliberal” economy. In fact, if it was a Neoliberal economy, it wouldn’t be invaded by the USA and it will just sells itself out to the Zionist and the Yankees like Argentina’s Milei.
Water will be privatized to the Zionist company Mekorot and their wouldn’t be any restriction for Western capital to pillage their land and resources as we are currently seeing in the rest of Latam including your country, Brazil.
For anyone that still believes in that counter revolutionary propaganda that Venezuela is a neoliberal country, check this article from Mision Verdad debunking it https://misionverdad.com/venezuela/maduro-neoliberal
Maybe my wording wasn’t the best, but what I meant there is “Venezuela becoming neoliberal”. Venezuela isn’t neoliberal, and changing that is the main objective of the intervention. China has nothing to gain with that happening.
It’s very difficult to convince people of something that obviously isn’t true.
Maybe if y’all spent half as much time reading theory instead of US state propaganda, we’d all be better off
Define imperialism.
If you apply the analytical tools provided by Lenin, you are obviously wrong. Maybe read the respective book beyond the chapter titles for once? Helps a lot.
You’ve all heard our last great hit “socialism is when government does stuff” well here’s the smash hit sequel “imperialism is when government does stuff internationally”
It is sad to see how a country of people are suffering from liberal/fascist brain-worms.
