• mrbigcheese [he/him]
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    4 years ago

    China has had a strict non interventionist foreign policy for decades, and Maoists groups throughout the region have been staunchly opposed to China since the 80s too. The Philippines has massive strategic geopolitical implications for China and US involvement in the area increasing is not good for anyone, China is not gonna just not have trade relations with the Philippines. Its a shit situation for sure though.

    • cracksmoke2020 [none/use name]
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      4 years ago

      It's one thing to be anti interventionist, it's another thing to provide massive economic support to a nation actively suppressing their local communist movement. That's called being interventionist in support of the regime.

      • mrbigcheese [he/him]
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        4 years ago

        China is not going to just not engage in any sort of trade with one of the most important geopolitical places in the region, regardless of what internal struggles exist. Maintaining a strict boycott of the Philippines would just leave it open to US intervention and influence. They engage with the Philippine through the BRI the same as any other country.

        • cracksmoke2020 [none/use name]
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          4 years ago

          Yeah this is a bad take if you're saying this in an argument to still think of China as being good.

          Communists should not be supportive of real politik as a broad strategy for international affairs. As this action is completely devoid of any sort of ideological end goal, if China wanted to exert major influence in the philippines they absolutely have the resources to make it a reality.

          • mrbigcheese [he/him]
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            4 years ago

            Revolving this discussion around the childish and western-centric ideal of bestowing your approval upon countries as though the world revolves around our every inclination makes this an entirely inane conversation, and it is in many ways a sort of remnant of a colonial imperialist mindset that makes westerners think their approval and "support" of this or that country to be of some sort of crucial importance. I support the efforts of the CPP but I have no delusions to their situation, and I don't expect China to either. They had materially supported the efforts of the CPP for decades until the 80s and then finally cut ties in the 2000s once the situation became more apparent as the internal conflicts within the CPP fractured and impaired the movement. The Philippines is a major economy and has a strategic importance to China and the region as a whole, of course they're going to trade with them, i'm not sure what you're envisioning the alternative as exactly because the US would love to swoop in and provide direct support instead.

            • cracksmoke2020 [none/use name]
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              4 years ago

              Leftist support for a country should stem from the belief that they represent a model of governance that should be emulated by other countries and their own country. This isn't about should you be happy in the event of regime change or not, as obviously it would be bad if the CCP collapsed.

              I think that is not consistently true one way or another for China. There are some things I think they do that are good, but for others, they act no differently than America would react in the same situation and I still think it's okay to say that's bad on a leftist forum.

              Just like I said it was bad that Vietnam was giving up their sovergnty by joining the TPP and was downvoted for that.

              • mrbigcheese [he/him]
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                4 years ago

                I'm just saying this:

                to still think of China as being good

                is a very tiring way to frame things, especially when you consider the context of the existential threat to which the west has posed to these countries historically. Revolving your discussions around whether China or Vietnam or Venezuela or the DPRK are to be deemed good or bad or should be supported or not is a way of thinking that leftists need to be more critical of because it carries a lot of gross colonialist implications people often don't consider.

                There's things to criticize about China, their foreign policy has always been less than ideal, but there's also a lot of history in the area to consider in this as well. I don't really see how China could uphold a non interventionist foreign policy while directly then punishing the Philippines with sanctions or tariffs or cutting trade on the basis of internal conflicts. How does that help the CPP if Duterte just turns to the US instead for support?

                • cracksmoke2020 [none/use name]
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                  4 years ago

                  I'm more educated than that and I'm totally aware of the sorts of constraints that these countries are under, we're no longer on reddit and need to defend these countries to people who have no idea about the above constraints. But I generally do not believe contemporary China is under the same constraints as other contemporary socialist nation's are.

                  China is more powerful than you're giving credit for and the philippines is already US aligned by default due to the imperial legacy. China siding with Duerte is irrelevant as the US will then just try and push him out should they get a real foothold in there. They need a longer term solution anyways and supporting a neofascist is a very bad look. Communist nation's should at an absolute minimum be actively providing resources for countries that are actively suppressing communists (both electorally and against them in the streets).

                  They simply either just don't care or have more pressing short term concerns like how the philippines joined the TPP.

                  • mrbigcheese [he/him]
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                    4 years ago

                    The Philippines is part of the NAM, so they are not aligned with any major power bloc, but they have had a historical relationship with the US which is exactly what China had been worried about and why its looking to counter that in order to diminish the influence the Quad has in the region. This recent relation with China is new in terms of its scope as the Philippines has been looking to move away from American influence recently. I think you might be underestimating the threat to which China is actually facing, we've seen the sort of attempts made by the west through things like the HK protests and Xinjiang and how they've escalated recently, as well as with Tibet and the Indian border. China is by no means a regional hegemon, and it still faces continual conflicts, so its understandable that it would need to have relations with all countries in the area to maintain influence. I'm not sure theres any such simple solution to this, China is going to follow its interests in surviving and developing.

    • GVAGUY3 [he/him]
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      4 years ago

      I can't help but feel if China does fund communists there, there would be a massive proxy war that would fuck things up worse. Maybe their foreign policy could change as China becomes the worlds largest economy, but what do I know? My hope is the CPP at least makes some gains and survive for a while at minimum. If they do the thing, then fuck yeah.

      • spectre [he/him]
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        4 years ago

        They don't necessarily need to find the communists, but they should take a different stance toward Duterte

        • cracksmoke2020 [none/use name]
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          4 years ago

          Yeah it's very different to be non interventionist than actively supporting right wing governments.