• some pirate@lemmy.dbzer0.comOP
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    11 months ago

    This all feels so contradictory, you can’t be anti imperialist and pro China at the same time. Chinese capitalists are colonizing my country right now, we can’t just say “oh it’s OK because they aren’t Americans” the outcome is the same for local people

    Also, and my main conflict here, how can someone somewhat support Russia but suddenly oppose Israel, politically they are almost the same: far right authoritarian regimes, working for the same goal, profiting from the war. My point is this messiness of been picky of what colonizers are best or worse is exactly what been used to spread misinformation, instead of focusing on colonization itself

    • axont [she/her, comrade/them]@hexbear.net
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      11 months ago

      China doing commerce in your country isn’t colonization, don’t be dramatic. I have no idea where you’re from, but I know a Bolivian person who also complains that China is conquering their country, which is absolutely ludicrous compared to what the CIA did to Bolivia.

      • some pirate@lemmy.dbzer0.comOP
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        11 months ago

        What you saying is so messed up, they are destroying the last piece of natural resources for cheap, so you can have cheap phones while making the wealthy more wealthy, how is that not colonization? the CIA also did a coup in my country in the last century but it isn’t related

        • axont [she/her, comrade/them]@hexbear.net
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          11 months ago

          Yeah the world still operates on a capitalist framework and China buys and sells things on a global market. Unless China is carving borders, installing puppet leaders, making aggressive demands for how another nation’s government should operate, forcibly moving people in other nations, using agencies like the IMF or World Bank to squeeze money out of national funds, demanding austerity, or creating a vassal state, unless China is doing a single one of those things it’s entirely dramatic to say they’re colonizing. Buying and selling things for cheap is what commerce is. Is it unfair China has a lot of money to use for trade? Is having more money in a trade agreement itself an act of colonization or what?

          It’s especially dramatic compared to the CIA, which has done multiple coups in Bolivia in the name of oil. You’re comparing a country buying lithium on terms set by Bolivia to a country funding a military revolt directed by Gulf Oil.

          Yes destruction of natural resources is regrettable and hopefully we can reach a position where there’s no longer a need to get involved in a destructive global market. Honestly the market I’d criticize China the most for is how they never boycotted Israel, and in fact have sold guns/artillery to the IDF. They also sell guns to both sides of the Kashmir conflict. You’d have a much better case to claim China is colonizing Palestine than anywhere in Latin America.

        • Awoo [she/her]@hexbear.net
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          11 months ago

          how is that not colonization?

          I’m going to assume good faith here and that you’ve just never actually bothered to read a book but it’s really really hard not to insult you for this shit. Colonisation is what happened to Palestine. Colonisation is settling a land, often owned by someone else, and stealing it from them, usually while engaging in ethnic cleansing.

          If this is not what you mean then you need to stop calling it this because it’s complete and utter bullshit.

    • uralsolo [he/him]@hexbear.net
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      11 months ago

      How many countries has China invaded or bombed from afar in the last forty years? How do China’s loan conditions compare to those of the World Bank and IMF? The notion that they’re “colonizing” anyone is completely daffy - they have long-running border disputes with some of their neighbors and a long-running leadership dispute with what remains of the previous government of China, those are completely different types of conflict.

      As for Russia and Israel, the difference is that the people in the Donbas who seceded from Ukraine back in 2014 weren’t placed there to displace Ukrainians as a Russian colonial project. They’re the same people who lived in Donbas going back to the USSR’s dissolution, and they had a series of legitimate grievances when the rest of Ukraine elected a government that was actively hostile to them.

      • Nakoichi [they/them]@hexbear.net
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        11 months ago

        That last part also applies to Crimea.

        That happened when I was in the midst of a completely shattered understanding of geopolitics and was piecing things back together with the help of Lenin and co. but I distinctly remember thinking back then “this seems really important but I am distrustful of the narrative that Russia is this cartoon villain invading and annexing people at gunpoint without firing a shot” simply because I had seen how that works in practice the many times the US has ultimately tried to do the same thing (or at least that was always the stated intent with narratives around “Nation Building”).

        Now obviously Russia is not an altruistic actor here and the Russian government is extremely socially reactionary and corrupt, but that doesn’t matter when you’re in eastern Ukraine seeking self determination and under siege by a bunch of fascist paramilitaries with the tacit approval of their US backed government that rose to power in a CIA coup.

        • uralsolo [he/him]@hexbear.net
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          11 months ago

          Russia is not an altruistic actor here

          Always worth bearing in mind. The reason Crimea got taken over in 2014 and Donbas didn’t is pretty clearly because of its relatively higher strategic importance - it took a lot of provocation from NATO and Azov for Putin to change his mind about that calculation, I’ll never forget how bloodthirsty the media was especially in the month leading up to the invasion.

    • Summzashi@lemmy.one
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      11 months ago

      Don’t argue with the brainwashed tankies dude. You’re absolutely correct. They will never even consider your point of view, there’s no reason in wasting energy.

          • Spooty@lemmy.ml
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            11 months ago

            “You’re all brainwashed and won’t consider their PoV”

            “no u”

            “Excuse me you don’t know who I am!!!”

            Do you see the hypocrisy in that retort? You don’t know who any of these people are either. So don’t write them off so stupidly.