• gammison [none/use name]
    ·
    edit-2
    3 years ago

    Yeah I mean let's not forget, it's extremely important for Bolivia to maintain a good relationship with China and Russia. It's part of their participation in global capitalism, you choose the lesser evil (and Chinese finance deals are better than the US right now) always. No prominent leader in South America is just gonna go hard in public against them, even if it's objectively true they are part of a global system of inter-competing financial empire. The unfortunate thing is that it's not really viable imo for challenging global capitalism, it gives no path forward.

    Also note though that Russia and China just don't have the capability to project imperial power like the US does. They can at best do it to their immediate borders, so it's not like Bolivia sees the imperial boot of Russia like the Caucuses does. Bolivia's most imperial territorial conflict is with Brazil (in fact there was some rather severe strain between MAS and PT over it like 10 years ago).

    • blobjim [he/him]
      ·
      edit-2
      3 years ago

      It's not like China or anyone would turn them down or something if he said they were imperialist. Also, if it's the Bolivian government asking for economic relations with them on their own volition to improve their own economy, it could hardly be called imperialism. He's right that there's basically no "bullying" from Russia and China (no military bases, no structural adjustment), which you see so often from the west.

      • gammison [none/use name]
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        edit-2
        3 years ago

        Yeah Russia certainly does, just not on a global scale yet. AFAIK they're principally active in the parts of Eurasia close to Russia and the other former soviet republics.

      • gammison [none/use name]
        ·
        edit-2
        3 years ago

        IIRC it was not a border dispute but a dispute over some cross border power generation or some other industry. However there is also an ongoing dispute regarding pacific ocean access with Chile (this was actually one of Moraeles big public policy blunders during his last term btw, he way overhyped Bolivia's chances of getting a good ruling in the Hague).