• D61 [any]
    ·
    4 months ago

    Why couldn't China just do that and support revolution elsewhere?

    The amount of terrorism that the USA can do against China is immense, either directly along its very huge land borders or indirectly through any other country that China is working with. As Biggay said, remember the USSR and Afghanistan? What if there were like 10 proxy wars against China going on simultaneously?

    Other things are kinda sucky though, like taking a backseat on openly supporting Palestine. Then again, Chinese weaponry is winding up in the hands of the resistance, so... shrug-outta-hecks

    • Barx [none/use name]
      ·
      4 months ago

      The US has already been doing that, of course. They'll do whatever they can regardless of China's posturing. Though material engagements do absolutely have costs, so actually participating in a resistance movement is far from nothing. At the same time it does align more or less perfectly with their massive industrial capacity. The key is to choose the right battles, e.g. Palestine, where participation is does not translate into, "China is going to fund revolutionaries in my country so I'll prop up these right wing paramilitaries and get even more US bases", as would definitely happen in India or The Philippines. Leading the charge on Palestine would probably improve China's international position. Even just in their neighborhood this would be very popular in Malaysia and Indonesia.

      Of course, this is just expressing a frustration from a Western person in the imperial core. We should remind ourselves that when thinking about the possibility for even better outcomes by states controlled by communist parties, we are literally in the states fighting to ensure the imperialist system and the genocide of Palestine. We should spend most of our time thinking about how to position ourselves to best fight that system and that genocide, not nag about states for not doing enough.

      • D61 [any]
        ·
        4 months ago

        The US has already been doing that...

        I'm more thinking of from the perspective of the Chinese people. Engaging in an open military operation in support of a state that seems like it would be open to the possibility allying with China or embracing communism with overt and direct material support from China and it turning into a 20 year war of attrition between imperial proxy forces and Chinese forces in 5 or 10 or 20 places... how long would the Chinese people be okay with that? Us USA-ians got tired of Iraq and Afghanistan after a handful of years and we're supposed to be the blood thirsty ones, I'd think that the people of China might want to find a different strategy than "attrition and a prayer."

        ... frustration from a Western person in the imperial core...

        Definitely.

        • Barx [none/use name]
          ·
          4 months ago

          Well I don't want China to bog itself down in 10-20 locations, of course. I think it should strategically pick one (1) fight for national liberation and support it more fully and openly, e.g. Palestine. The US will of course try to make this as painful as possible for anyone daring to push back on them.

          I don't even mean sending troops. Right now, the status quo with China internationally is that the capitalist empire is committing a genocide to keep its keystone to the domination of a subcontinent politically viable and the response of states with whom we are meant to have affinity are politely registering complaints. This is leaving all of the direct work to liberals and neighboring national liberation movements (or those who recently won national liberation). China's contribution, which is massive, is to create the baseline of multipolarity that makes all of that possible. However, China could, for example, begin leading a push to isolate Israel. Outcomes that would substantially undermine empire in Palestine include fully funding UNRWA and doing a full push to sanction or even blockade Israel. China should be getting practice in doing PR on this because they suck at it. Hire Al Jazeera reporters and learn how to craft angles from them. Etc etc.

          I think they avoid this because the main good factions are well aware of how weak China was very recently and they understand that their project is overall still fairly fragile. They also see storm clouds in destabilizing the US. I think they have adopted an approach that is so conservative it is actually counterproductive, though.

          • D61 [any]
            ·
            4 months ago

            No disagreements from me.