On the one hand, hooray for supporting the development of infrastructure in Africa and stuff. On the other hand, booooo for being a top trading partner with the Zionist Entity, and selling drones to Indonesia, and all that.

So what the Hell do you make of it all! Like I get that there's this term called "realpolitik" which is somehow relevant, but I'd like a longer explanation than just one word. Like how does the good and the bad fit together at its core?

You could certainly write tomes about this topic — many people have done exactly that — and maybe I'm being a bit incurious to expect someone to serve me a quick answer on a silver platter instead of diving into as many articles and PDF books as I can get my hands on... But I'm also just kind of tired of having such extremely underdeveloped views on the most populous AES state and country in general, after I came to unlearn or mistrust whichever views I'd had on China previously.

  • AssortedBiscuits [they/them]
    ·
    8 hours ago

    That’s all you need to know. The history of modern PRC is shaped by its unique position of being on a precipice and caught between the imperialist struggles between the US and the USSR during the Cold War.

    The history of the CPC was allying with another party that had spend almost a decade trying and almost succeeding in exterminating the CPC, only for the CPC to turn against that party once their common foe has been defeated and the other party had outlived its usefulness.