A relatively short article with some key assertions. The first paragraph is definitely going to irritate some people here. But the main thrust of the article is presented later, which is -
China’s late Cold War role as the great anti-communist power in the East, and its subsequent role in financing the American empire as it invaded Afghanistan and Iraq.
The article lays out a lot of history as it relates to the Sino-Soviet relations and shows how as a result -
The CCP picked the side of capital in the Cold War, doomed the international communist movement in the process
Most important is this paragraph w.r.t the Cold War -
The first sign of betrayal was China’s active role in supporting Pakistan during the 1971 genocide in Bangladesh By 1972, Mao’s meeting with Richard Nixon signaled that the full anti-communist pivot was complete. With this pivot, China became a close American ally and the bulwark of anti-communism in East Asia and beyond. By the middle of the decade, the CCP was giving out loans to Pinochet, supporting UNITA in Angola alongside South Africa and the US against Cuba and the Soviet Union and had opened diplomatic relations with reactionary capitalist powers, from the Marcos regime in the Philippines to Japan. Deng Xiaoping sealed this alliance by invading Vietnam in 1979 in defense of the US-backed Khmer Rouge which the Vietnamese government had been attempting to overthrow. The CCP claims to have killed 100,000 Vietnamese communists in that war, which broke the back of the communist movement in East Asia and essentially ended it as a Cold War front , thus allowing the US to fully pivot to its massacres in Latin America and Africa in addition to the defense of Europe against the USSR and domestic communist movements.
And in the post-Soviet world -
Unlike other major American bond purchasers (Japan, South Korea, Germany) who are American military protectorates and can thus even be coerced into increasing the value of their currency, China subsidizes the American war machine ... CCP funds America’s wars in order to maintain the high value of the dollar relative to the yuan, which gives China a massive competitive edge in manufacturing and is a critical source of China’s massive economic growth.
In coalition with the East Asian American military protectorates, China filled the massive budget shortfalls that resulted from the combination of the Iraq War, Bush era tax cuts, and the early 2000s recession, propping up the flailing US economy as the war commenced. Chinese bond purchases intensified with US spending in both Afghanistan and Iraq. Indeed, the CCP became an eager participant in the new War on Terror by allying closely with Israel, adopting American counterinsurgency techniques and technologies from the rapidly burgeoning trade, and eventually hiring American mercenary Erik Prince for themselves for deployment in “Xinjiang.”
It's a reason I'm quite critical of Mao along with his 3 worlds theory. He still stands as a giant in the Communist movement but as he got older he made some quite glaring decisions. You can read letters from Mao to Nixon and Kissenger here.
If you wanted a further more critique of Mao you can read here https://espressostalinist.com/marxism-leninism-versus-revisionism/chinese-revisionism/
My opinion is the CPC has made many mistakes both under Mao then subsequent leaders but any Communist Party that is not behind the CPC in 2021 can go die in a ditch as far as I'm concerned. This is the principle battleground of the 21st century and it's the reason CIA outlets like Lausan write this stuff.
The aim of the article is to get you dislike China from a "left" perspective. To do this they've raked over dead issues over 40-60 years old to produce an emotional response in you. By bringing up Chinas previously terrible foreign policy. Afterall China also supported Polpot (who was funded by CIA and would never have come to power had the US not dropped so many bombs on Cambodia allowing a demagogue like this to come to power).
The CPC corrected their line on foreign policy and have not been at war since 1979 so it's easy to see the game the author is playing.
As stated...The CPC corrected their line on foreign policy and most communists were against their ultra leftism at the time. And the ends do justify the means. With the passage of time if you ask most French whether it was better to cut the heads off the monarchy...Most French walking around in 2021 will be like "yeah of course."
I see that, yeah. If that was all the article did, I don't think I would've made a post about it. As you said, China (unlike US) hasn't bombed or invaded a dozen different countries in the past 20 years.
But what do you feel about this part of the article -
The author is hoping you don't know enough about economics here and is doing a shotgun of nonsense. They're presenting the fact China buys US treasury bonds whilst neglecting to tell you this is how the USA has organised the world economy. There is nothing for other countries to buy except US treasury loans - what in essence underlies the petrol-dollar and what is enforced by the US military. This gives United States teh ability to kick their "debt ceiling" down the road every year. It will never be fixed and when it is "fixed" it'll be because the petrol dollar has collapsed and the US economy with it
You can download Michael Hudsons book Super Imperialism which explains this exact process that the author is berating China for doing!
Here's Michael hudson in a 50 minute interview explaining how the US essentially gets countries to pay for their own encirclement https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=paUgY6SGlgY
I've provided the whole video I expect you to watch (if you want to learn the intricate details in how US does this) but here's the bit I'm referring to
The author is neglecting to tell you every country does this and if they didn't they'd probably have the US army in their capital by midnight
China would be subsidising the American war machine either way - the USA has essentially turned the world economy into a casino where everyone pays for their own military encirclement. China may as well have their manufacturing become competitive to undercut USA.
I think the article mentions the same process in a different way -
It's claim is that China profits off of this. As you said -
Which the article frames as -
So, I think everyone's in agreement here?
The point then becomes is to what end is all this happening? And while this Great Powers dance is going around, what is happening to the world? I don't really know. If you believe the end result will be a China that is socialist (once it is powerful enough to be independent) then it might seem worth it. But that calculation depends on how much (and how directly) you're effected by all this. China's involvement with Israel or their deals with Erik Prince are just two of the issues mentioned that complicate matters.
The author doesn't provide any solutions other than an idealistic "anti-imperialist" one. I suspect they don't really have a solution to this dilemma.
Edit - Oh also, thanks for the book and the interview. I'm definitely interested in learning more.
Is an incredibly disingenuous way of putting it and why the author is CIA or NED funded or whatever shitty NGO the US is funding to create chaos in China with HK protests.
They are funding Americas wars because they are forced to (like every other country on the planet except Cuba and DPRK). Both China and Russia have reduced reliance on the US dollar by huge amounts in the last year. This isn't a position neither Russia or China want to be in
https://www.scmp.com/economy/global-economy/article/3013246/china-russia-urged-continue-efforts-defang-us-dollar
And even then Gold Money ran a great piece on how China is killing the dollar - or rather putting the US in a position to kill their own dollar as a form of "active defence"
https://www.goldmoney.com/research/goldmoney-insights/china-is-killing-the-dollar
:amerikkka:
Thanks for your replies. Both you and @skeletorsass have been very good.
Like KKE?
I think kke are one of the best parties in Europe dont get me wrong but there stance on China being "no different to the imperialist powers" is nonsense (doing same thing as this article...highlighting their poor foreign policy prior to 1979) and their epiiogue on China is the same conclusion as all the other decent communist parties have drawn: that the market will inevitably lead back to counter revolutoon
You don't think there is any substance to that argument?
China has not been at war for 42 years whilst Usa has only seen 19 years of peace in its entire existence
Theres substance to that argument if you ignore the last 42 years
otoh, you can argue that it is the US' global dominance that allows it to go to war without any repercussions whereas if China had tried it would have resulted in severe reprisals. And that isn't an argument for what happens when the time comes to roll back these market reforms.
They are not highlighting the foreign policy prior to 1979? That's not their main concern. They don't like what China is doing now, not 40 years ago...
In particular, here's an article from KKE's central committee outlining their takes on China's international relevance: https://www.komep.gr/m-article/O-DIETINIS-ROLOS-TIS-KINAS/
It's in Greek but you can translate it. I'm not saying I agree with it fully, it's just that it really isn't about their pre-1979 foreign policy, which is not remotely the point of emphasis.
Hey comm this is same article I was referring to (written in 2010 by same author) but I read the english translation
https://inter.kke.gr/en/articles/The-International-role-of-China/
So when I said"no difference to china and the imperialist powers i was referring to this piece"
I think 11 years on from this article and it is quite obvious that China has behaved very differently toward the 3rd world
I'd like to see an article by KKE written in the last year or 2 and see if their stance has shifted.
deleted by creator
Lol I was just saying that because I remember JoeySteel citing KKE etc and KKE is very anti CPC.