Its like Hillary walking into a working class kitchen for the first time.
They've been shielded from even critical support of China and other AES for so long they literally, not figuratively, literally cannot process that people exist that have beliefs that aren't Reddit Approved. They immediately assume it's bots or wumao. Human beings can't possibly hold these beliefs, so they must be Oriental hordes or actual robots.
China is a capitalist country. I don't disagree with that. However, if you get your head out of your ass and actually read some theory, you will realize that the form of capitalism that is being practiced in China is actually a left-liberal classical capitalism, fundementally grounded in principles of industrial growth discussed by Adam Smith, David Ricardo and Karl Marx, that, if it overtakes the U.S. as global hegemon, actually has the potential to transition into a socialist society.
Their poverty reduction, infrastructure building, and general wheeling and dealing with underdeveloped countries is laudable and far outstrips the history and ability of the West, and while I don't really like their foreign policy stances, particularly on MLM issues, refusing to actually analyze what is going on there and what has the potential to go on there is a sure sign of the typical, unread, left-com martyrdom complex where you have the audacity to criticize the projects of others without ever having done anything particularly productive or revolutionary yourself.
LMFAO I've read plenty of Marx and it clearly does not.
Maybe tinges of social democracy in a fast-growing economy accompanied by mass human rights abuse.
Ah yes because Xi is doing it out of the goodness of his heart, totally not getting anything out of it like imperialist influence in Africa and interest money.
Marx was incorrect about alot of socio-political things, in particular his specific model of social revolution. You clearly believe this otherwise you wouldn't still be a Catholic.
However his historical model for capitalist industrial development is sound, and eventually the internal contradictions will have to be solved, one way or another. My hope that it isn't a violent struggle that overthrows the CPC, but it very well may be. It's either that, aggressive internal reform (which wouldn't be the first time that occured) or they will take a neo-liberal turn themselves and then I will re-evaluate my position, which will also be reflected in the mass degradation of living standards if they take that route. And who knows, that may happen. But it hasn't yet.
'Mass human rights abuses'. Ah yes, the country with a 90% approval rating even by Western studies is the one participating in mass human rights abuses. How is Zenz doing these days?
Who the fuck ever said it was out of the goodness of his heart? It's for multi-polarity, resource access and ally building. Again, as critical as I am in that regard, it is the diplomatic move to make if you are in China's global position. They don't need to shake the boat, because ultimately time is on their side. They are very cynical in that regard.
Lol 'imperialist influence in Africa', where are the military bases? Where is the limited occupations, training camps, invasions and coups? Heaven forbid the Chinese build the things that they are paid to build. No please, keep spouting off IMF talking points.
could you be more specific, because if you're talking about what I think you are ooh boy do I have a pasta for you
You can just send me the pasta and I'll read it and see if it makes sense from my general understanding of Marx and Engels.
lol nice try
I mean you should have just straight up posted it rather than prefaced it. I'm sure I've probably seen it before unless it is one of JoeySteel's or BMF's more obscure posts.
there was so much snark in this thread I got a little carried away there, sorry. let's save it for another time in a calmer, in-group context
Look, there was friendly-fire in r/cth all the time, it was an assumed part of the deal, ans we are getting used to it again.
your source chain:
mainstream articles, citing -> the victims of communism fund, citing -> adrien zens, citing -> "an anonymous source told me bro"
go actually follow up on this shit you read
7% of 10-15 year olds are child laborers in China but keep pretending shit isn't happening. "If a western website says it is must be false!"
The 7% statistic seems credible to me at a glance, though somewhat dated. The data are from Peking University's 2010 China Family Panel Study, not RFA or Zenz pulling numbers out of their ass
https://docs.iza.org/dp9976.pdf https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/China_Family_Panel_Studies
I’ll wager this statistic is declining over time, but I don’t know. I’m about to go to bed or I would do a deeper literature search.
For me the more important question is: Why? Why is China like this? Why did China liberalize under Deng? What is the worldwide political and economic context? Is child labor in China possibly a difficult problem to address, when we look at the whole situation? What measures have been taken so far? I hope you are at least wondering.
I’m no expert, but I’ll point out two things:
1 ) Not long ago, China was still dirt poor and fighting tooth and nail to industrialize and modernize as fast as possible. China’s economic power today is a fairly recent development.
2 ) China liberalized in order to survive in a hostile global economy. Liberalizing brought in a huge influx of foreign investment and industry expertise. The alternative was to be politically and economically strangled like most other socialist states have been. There’s only so much you can do with a self-contained economy in a hostile world.
Source?
Consider:
https://www.news.com.au/finance/economy/china-forgives-debt-for-17-african-nations/news-story/28ab7f45440142634ff8efd0360b2fec
https://fair.org/home/why-comparing-chinese-africa-investment-to-western-colonialism-is-no-joke/
Ok, they're nicer than the west, that doesn't mean it's not still imperialism. Most of the time they don't forgive debt and when they do it's corrupt; they're trying to win them over to become satellite states one day.
Almost like some kind of unfalsifiable orthodoxy is being used to make the judgement here
What do you mean when you say their debt forgiveness is "corrupt"? And why do you believe that they want to win them over as "satellite states" and not as regular-old geopolitical allies?
What about it makes it imperialism to you? Do you see any difference at all between lending money for development projects and imperialism? How does forgiving loans facilitate economic domination of these places?
From that news.com australian article I posted: "But the concept of a Chinese “debt trap” has also been criticised, with a study in 2020 finding China had restructured or refinanced about $21 billion of debt in Africa between 2000 and 2019. The study also noted there was no evidence of “asset seizures”and that Chinese lenders had not used courts to enforce payments, or applied penalty interest rates to distressed borrowers." For a go at economic imperialism, they don't seem keen on putting the choke-hold on.
Should they instead be cultivating enemies that will try to destroy everything they've done to alleviate poverty?
So if you make your friend pay you back the $10 you lent them you're imperialist, ok.
It's more like your billionaire friends gives you a $100k loan to buy a house and expects you to pay them back with interest.
That's literally America lmao
From that news.com australian article I posted: "But the concept of a Chinese “debt trap” has also been criticised, with a study in 2020 finding China had restructured or refinanced about $21 billion of debt in Africa between 2000 and 2019. The study also noted there was no evidence of “asset seizures”and that Chinese lenders had not used courts to enforce payments, or applied penalty interest rates to distressed borrowers. [emphasis mine]"
They've had the opportunity to really milk these countries if they wanted, and actively chosen not to.
EDIT: Here's the study being referenced in that paragraph i quoted: https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3745021