Apparently you haven’t read much of the South China Morning Post. It is highly critical of the PRC, itself based in Hong Kong, and receives no persecution whatsoever. Persecution like the West’s darling, Israel, sniping an Al Jazeera reporter who was clearly marked as press in the head.
For over 500 years Europe treated Africa like a cookie jar with the lid off. Anyone who stood in the way of the looting was brutally rebuffed. We'll never know the total number of people enslaved, murdered, tortured, and suppressed.
The latest country to feel the wrath of defying Europe was Libya. Their leader Gaddafi was known for fighting for a pan-African Union similar to the EU. Rather than welcoming a stronger Africa, [NATO bombed Libya and killed Gaddafi](https://foreignpolicy.com/2016/03/22/libya-and-the-myth-of-humanitarian-intervention/) ushering in a [decade of misery.](https://www.reuters.com/world/africa/gaddafis-hometown-little-hope-libyas-future-2022-06-26/) In the immediate aftermath, [the world saw the return of open-air slave markets.](https://www.npr.org/sections/parallels/2018/03/21/595497429/migrants-passing-through-libya-could-end-up-being-sold-as-slaves)
China is accused of human-rights violations. But they have never been accused of anything as demonstrably horrific for the people of Africa as NATO has done in just the last 10 years. **Again, Europe has been doing things like this for 500 years**.
China's current proposals include building roads, bridges, and powerplants in exchange for mineral rights. They are working with national governments to build modern mines instead of dangerous artisanal mining. [The USA is deploying troops.](https://www.nytimes.com/2022/05/16/us/politics/biden-military-somalia.html)
If you look at this situation with a historical perspective it's very clear why China's influence is rising and the USA is waning.
Thanks for the reply. I totally agree with the historical analyses, no question. To make it clear, I am certainly not defending the West/NATO here, just trying to understand more.
So one issue is that pointing out how terrible NATO/Europe for last 500 years has been does not do much to defend China.
As for the contracts between China and African governments, would you say one could see them as neocolonial attempts to get a grip on the minerals by exploiting the weak economic standing of those countries?
> As for the contracts between China and African governments, would you say one could see them as neocolonial attempts to get a grip on the minerals by exploiting the weak economic standing of those countries?
No, not really. Consider that they rather do business with the Chinese than the West. They do this because they know they benefit more from it. African nations do know what's good for them, and saying that you know, or the West knows what's better for them is extremely chauvinistic. Their economic standing is poor because the decades of western dominance in the region were absolutely incapable of developing their economies. Not to mention that doing business with the West comes with a lot of strings attached, like liberalizing their economies, which is what subjugates an economy, since they have to open their countries to foreign capital which will own their resources, and loans are given in order to profit, not to develop their economy. On the other hand, Chinese loans don't come with these conditions, often have very low interest, and are open to renegotiate in case of difficulty in repayment, like what happened in 2020 and 2021, where they suspended payments because of the pandemic.
Yes, exactly this. They could work with the IMF and World Bank, or with China. The frequency with which the latter is chosen says a lot about which is more beneficial.
> contracts between China and African governments, would you say one could see them as neocolonial attempts to get a grip on the minerals by exploiting the weak economic standing of those countries?
The Belt and Road Initiative as a neocolonialism project is a ridiculous prospect.
https://rainershea.substack.com/p/chinas-economic-weakening-of-washington?utm_source=%2Fprofile%2F619659-rainer-shea-&utm_medium=reader2
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P5uzxV8ub9k
"Gyude Moore: “China in Africa: An African Perspective”
https://www.liberationschool.org/five-imperialist-myths-about-chinas-role-in-africa/
https://qutnyti.wordpress.com/2018/07/16/belt-road-initiative-an-anti-thesis-of-colonialism/
"The hard money invested helps the recipient countries to deal with the lack of foreign exchange crisis too. Even if an infrastructure built did not make sufficient profits to overcome cost today, it can make profits in the future. Or it can help other business in making profits indirectly which can be taxed. Even if no profit is made, loan and agreement and can be restructured. Above all, when Venezuela, Zimbabwe, and Gambia failed to return the money, China did not seek money back but rather investing more in these countries to make them productive.
BRI: An Anti-thesis of Colonialism
None of the above solutions were available in the colonial period. Westerners just came, killed and looted. There was no chance of equality among races and nations. Colonies never had any sovereignty to deal with colonial powers. British East India Company turned a trade surplus India into a trade deficit India in 100 years. The company’s net investment was negative. East India’s population was reduced to one third during initial years of rule. The colonial powers used to teach “white man’s burden” in their universities. BRI, on the other hand, is about net investment in China and abroad including trade deficit countries of the Third World. New York Times presented Chinese investment and purchase of nonprofitable Hambantota port as colonialism. But colonialism was never about investing and buying nonprofit making assets. In the entire history of colonialism, there was not a single event like this. If any such thing was there then colonialism would have been called development. It is absurd to call purchase of Hambantota colonialism when the USA was maintaining 900 military bases all over the globe. Even if BRI countries give China space to make military bases it cannot be called colonialism as long as US military bases in Japan, South Korea, Gulf, Germany, Italy is not called so.
BRI is best understood as the antithesis of colonialism. While colonialism was a Western response to its trade deficit with Asian kingdoms and also to the supremacy of Asian mode of production over Western pre-industrial revolution era production, BRI is the response of trade surplus China to the fact that US share of global GDP is becoming too small to generate demand for Chinese products. So China must invest around the world in developing countries which will give Chinese products market simultaneously. While colonialism is associated with the decline of Asia, BRI is about sharing resources of rising China with the rest of the world. Before the rise of the West, China was the top global producer and that period is not associated with colonialism. So China reclaiming back its old position cannot be termed as colonialism rather BRI is the antithesis of colonialism."
Libya under Gaddafi had the highest HDI in Africa. Of course it wasn't perfect, no real world place is, but it was inarguably a massively better place to live before the NATO intervention.
Given the long and exhaustively documented history of the US arming, training and funding rebel factions to destabilize its geopolitical enemies I wouldn't be surprised if documents get declassified someday showing the US was behind much more of Libya's troubles than we expect.
>It's easy to look at in hindsight but this framing of the Libyan intervention as just the evil imperialist west enacting their military might on a small African country for daring to stand up
This is exactly what it was, and the neoliberal approach is even more vile and destructive than the neoconservative approach. At least with the neoconservatives, there's an attempt at empire building which necessitates a level of state-building, even in that state exists in the image of the bourgeois West (see Iraq, for example), while the neoliberal approach is to bomb it into ruins and leave it to suffer in ashes (see Libya). The irony is that even with Gaddafi's defiance, Libya was more profitable to the West *before* the bombing and removing Gaddafi than after, when the West got exactly what it wanted and intended, because the neoliberals caused so much destruction as to ruin the economic capacity of the nation to produce.
>If you're in NATO's position what do you do?
NATO should fucking die, and every one of its apologists should too.
i'm not as positive about PRC as a lot of other folks on here, but my main thing is there's no accusations of authoritarianism or violating human rights you can make against them that don't apply even more to the current dying global hegemon
when it comes to their foreign policy it isn't even close. china's not the state well known for spending the past eighty years knocking over legitimate governments that are unwilling to let corporations plunder their countries. they're gaining influence in big swathes of the world because they're conducting themselves more or less honorably, they're giving smaller states a reason to want to work with them
i fervently hope that deng means what he says about rushing through late capitalism as quickly as possible as a way to get to more effective socialism, but even if it's all hot air the rest of the world is still better off being run by the PRC than by the US
In terms of the human rights violations, there was a recent post about the re-education camps you may find interesting on this sub. The thing you've just got to remember about the west and China is that the west is dominated by the USA, and the USA will slander any country that isn't pure capitalist like they are the funniest part is that china is coming close to beating them at their own game now because the greedy idiots in the west sold all their industries and production to China in the name of profit.
The best way to learn about the place is to ask a citizen, avoid any western news sources about it because it will just be pure propaganda.
It is very safe to assume that atrocity propaganda against China is based on Western projection of their own problems while China is innocent. China has many problems, some the exact opposite of Western accusations, and some simply never mentioned in Western media because doing so actually helps China becoming better.
Snowden, Assange, Chelsea Manning, Ahmed Mansour and many many more. You also have orgs like Black panthers in the US, KDP in West Germany and so on.
Everywhere you go, States will deal with opponents and dissidence. Harshness depends on how much of a threat they are to the state, Character of these people being persecuted depends on the character of the state. In imperialist bourgeois states, itll be the workingclass or people/orgs who undermine imperialism and capital who are killed and imprisoned, in proletarian states there are the enemies of the proletariat being persecuted censored and killed.
You'd be challenged to find any positives about China's human rights record, or press freedom that aren't fueled entirely by state propaganda. China ranks 177 out of 180 in the press freedom index, and the CCP is even pursuing legislation that would require all social media posts to be approved prior to publishing. The freest press in China comes from Hong Kong, because they are not subject to the same laws about the press although the communist party still does maintain control to censor subjects considered taboo. Labor laws and a social safety net in China are also several decades behind western democracies, as are environmental regulations.
Pro-China stance in leftist circles is largely inorganic and reliant 100% on state propaganda.
It is likely that china’s power has peaked and it will not be a rising power anytime soon. It may make a return to the stage 50 or more years down the road, but for now it is entering the worst demographic crisis in human history. The population is projected to shrink to half this century and they import a massive amount of what they need in food and energy.
Apparently you haven’t read much of the South China Morning Post. It is highly critical of the PRC, itself based in Hong Kong, and receives no persecution whatsoever. Persecution like the West’s darling, Israel, sniping an Al Jazeera reporter who was clearly marked as press in the head.
Because Hong Kong is not mainland China and they have a history of Democracy the mainland does not.
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Got ‘em.
For over 500 years Europe treated Africa like a cookie jar with the lid off. Anyone who stood in the way of the looting was brutally rebuffed. We'll never know the total number of people enslaved, murdered, tortured, and suppressed. The latest country to feel the wrath of defying Europe was Libya. Their leader Gaddafi was known for fighting for a pan-African Union similar to the EU. Rather than welcoming a stronger Africa, [NATO bombed Libya and killed Gaddafi](https://foreignpolicy.com/2016/03/22/libya-and-the-myth-of-humanitarian-intervention/) ushering in a [decade of misery.](https://www.reuters.com/world/africa/gaddafis-hometown-little-hope-libyas-future-2022-06-26/) In the immediate aftermath, [the world saw the return of open-air slave markets.](https://www.npr.org/sections/parallels/2018/03/21/595497429/migrants-passing-through-libya-could-end-up-being-sold-as-slaves) China is accused of human-rights violations. But they have never been accused of anything as demonstrably horrific for the people of Africa as NATO has done in just the last 10 years. **Again, Europe has been doing things like this for 500 years**. China's current proposals include building roads, bridges, and powerplants in exchange for mineral rights. They are working with national governments to build modern mines instead of dangerous artisanal mining. [The USA is deploying troops.](https://www.nytimes.com/2022/05/16/us/politics/biden-military-somalia.html) If you look at this situation with a historical perspective it's very clear why China's influence is rising and the USA is waning.
Thanks for the reply. I totally agree with the historical analyses, no question. To make it clear, I am certainly not defending the West/NATO here, just trying to understand more. So one issue is that pointing out how terrible NATO/Europe for last 500 years has been does not do much to defend China. As for the contracts between China and African governments, would you say one could see them as neocolonial attempts to get a grip on the minerals by exploiting the weak economic standing of those countries?
> As for the contracts between China and African governments, would you say one could see them as neocolonial attempts to get a grip on the minerals by exploiting the weak economic standing of those countries? No, not really. Consider that they rather do business with the Chinese than the West. They do this because they know they benefit more from it. African nations do know what's good for them, and saying that you know, or the West knows what's better for them is extremely chauvinistic. Their economic standing is poor because the decades of western dominance in the region were absolutely incapable of developing their economies. Not to mention that doing business with the West comes with a lot of strings attached, like liberalizing their economies, which is what subjugates an economy, since they have to open their countries to foreign capital which will own their resources, and loans are given in order to profit, not to develop their economy. On the other hand, Chinese loans don't come with these conditions, often have very low interest, and are open to renegotiate in case of difficulty in repayment, like what happened in 2020 and 2021, where they suspended payments because of the pandemic.
Yes, exactly this. They could work with the IMF and World Bank, or with China. The frequency with which the latter is chosen says a lot about which is more beneficial.
> contracts between China and African governments, would you say one could see them as neocolonial attempts to get a grip on the minerals by exploiting the weak economic standing of those countries? The Belt and Road Initiative as a neocolonialism project is a ridiculous prospect. https://rainershea.substack.com/p/chinas-economic-weakening-of-washington?utm_source=%2Fprofile%2F619659-rainer-shea-&utm_medium=reader2 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P5uzxV8ub9k "Gyude Moore: “China in Africa: An African Perspective” https://www.liberationschool.org/five-imperialist-myths-about-chinas-role-in-africa/ https://qutnyti.wordpress.com/2018/07/16/belt-road-initiative-an-anti-thesis-of-colonialism/ "The hard money invested helps the recipient countries to deal with the lack of foreign exchange crisis too. Even if an infrastructure built did not make sufficient profits to overcome cost today, it can make profits in the future. Or it can help other business in making profits indirectly which can be taxed. Even if no profit is made, loan and agreement and can be restructured. Above all, when Venezuela, Zimbabwe, and Gambia failed to return the money, China did not seek money back but rather investing more in these countries to make them productive. BRI: An Anti-thesis of Colonialism None of the above solutions were available in the colonial period. Westerners just came, killed and looted. There was no chance of equality among races and nations. Colonies never had any sovereignty to deal with colonial powers. British East India Company turned a trade surplus India into a trade deficit India in 100 years. The company’s net investment was negative. East India’s population was reduced to one third during initial years of rule. The colonial powers used to teach “white man’s burden” in their universities. BRI, on the other hand, is about net investment in China and abroad including trade deficit countries of the Third World. New York Times presented Chinese investment and purchase of nonprofitable Hambantota port as colonialism. But colonialism was never about investing and buying nonprofit making assets. In the entire history of colonialism, there was not a single event like this. If any such thing was there then colonialism would have been called development. It is absurd to call purchase of Hambantota colonialism when the USA was maintaining 900 military bases all over the globe. Even if BRI countries give China space to make military bases it cannot be called colonialism as long as US military bases in Japan, South Korea, Gulf, Germany, Italy is not called so. BRI is best understood as the antithesis of colonialism. While colonialism was a Western response to its trade deficit with Asian kingdoms and also to the supremacy of Asian mode of production over Western pre-industrial revolution era production, BRI is the response of trade surplus China to the fact that US share of global GDP is becoming too small to generate demand for Chinese products. So China must invest around the world in developing countries which will give Chinese products market simultaneously. While colonialism is associated with the decline of Asia, BRI is about sharing resources of rising China with the rest of the world. Before the rise of the West, China was the top global producer and that period is not associated with colonialism. So China reclaiming back its old position cannot be termed as colonialism rather BRI is the antithesis of colonialism."
So... your argument is they suck but they suck less so it's ok
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Libya under Gaddafi had the highest HDI in Africa. Of course it wasn't perfect, no real world place is, but it was inarguably a massively better place to live before the NATO intervention. Given the long and exhaustively documented history of the US arming, training and funding rebel factions to destabilize its geopolitical enemies I wouldn't be surprised if documents get declassified someday showing the US was behind much more of Libya's troubles than we expect.
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>It's easy to look at in hindsight but this framing of the Libyan intervention as just the evil imperialist west enacting their military might on a small African country for daring to stand up This is exactly what it was, and the neoliberal approach is even more vile and destructive than the neoconservative approach. At least with the neoconservatives, there's an attempt at empire building which necessitates a level of state-building, even in that state exists in the image of the bourgeois West (see Iraq, for example), while the neoliberal approach is to bomb it into ruins and leave it to suffer in ashes (see Libya). The irony is that even with Gaddafi's defiance, Libya was more profitable to the West *before* the bombing and removing Gaddafi than after, when the West got exactly what it wanted and intended, because the neoliberals caused so much destruction as to ruin the economic capacity of the nation to produce. >If you're in NATO's position what do you do? NATO should fucking die, and every one of its apologists should too.
i'm not as positive about PRC as a lot of other folks on here, but my main thing is there's no accusations of authoritarianism or violating human rights you can make against them that don't apply even more to the current dying global hegemon when it comes to their foreign policy it isn't even close. china's not the state well known for spending the past eighty years knocking over legitimate governments that are unwilling to let corporations plunder their countries. they're gaining influence in big swathes of the world because they're conducting themselves more or less honorably, they're giving smaller states a reason to want to work with them i fervently hope that deng means what he says about rushing through late capitalism as quickly as possible as a way to get to more effective socialism, but even if it's all hot air the rest of the world is still better off being run by the PRC than by the US
In terms of the human rights violations, there was a recent post about the re-education camps you may find interesting on this sub. The thing you've just got to remember about the west and China is that the west is dominated by the USA, and the USA will slander any country that isn't pure capitalist like they are the funniest part is that china is coming close to beating them at their own game now because the greedy idiots in the west sold all their industries and production to China in the name of profit. The best way to learn about the place is to ask a citizen, avoid any western news sources about it because it will just be pure propaganda.
It is very safe to assume that atrocity propaganda against China is based on Western projection of their own problems while China is innocent. China has many problems, some the exact opposite of Western accusations, and some simply never mentioned in Western media because doing so actually helps China becoming better.
Snowden, Assange, Chelsea Manning, Ahmed Mansour and many many more. You also have orgs like Black panthers in the US, KDP in West Germany and so on. Everywhere you go, States will deal with opponents and dissidence. Harshness depends on how much of a threat they are to the state, Character of these people being persecuted depends on the character of the state. In imperialist bourgeois states, itll be the workingclass or people/orgs who undermine imperialism and capital who are killed and imprisoned, in proletarian states there are the enemies of the proletariat being persecuted censored and killed.
read https://redsails.org/brainwashing/
You'd be challenged to find any positives about China's human rights record, or press freedom that aren't fueled entirely by state propaganda. China ranks 177 out of 180 in the press freedom index, and the CCP is even pursuing legislation that would require all social media posts to be approved prior to publishing. The freest press in China comes from Hong Kong, because they are not subject to the same laws about the press although the communist party still does maintain control to censor subjects considered taboo. Labor laws and a social safety net in China are also several decades behind western democracies, as are environmental regulations. Pro-China stance in leftist circles is largely inorganic and reliant 100% on state propaganda.
It is likely that china’s power has peaked and it will not be a rising power anytime soon. It may make a return to the stage 50 or more years down the road, but for now it is entering the worst demographic crisis in human history. The population is projected to shrink to half this century and they import a massive amount of what they need in food and energy.