So why did you reply? lol

He wasn’t figuratively lynched either lmao.

It’s literally the definition of a civil war.

No, it isn’t lmao. A huge number of people who fought against the CPC in the civil war went on to live in China afterwards. Some people switched sides. A civil war is fought for control over a country for many reasons, it’s not “a giant fucking war against people who were ready to die to prevent themselves from being part of” the country afterwards. The only reason to frame the Chinese Civil War like this other than ignorance is to soft-pedal glorification of or apologia for the KMT, painting them as some kind of popular resistance movement against the CPC.

Is the difference that ita colonialism if you need a boat to get there? Because I should point out Taiwan is an island.

“at least some of the differences”

And this would be that cherrypicking I mentioned. I don’t fault that, because every method is cherrypicking, because there isn’t a “true” or “best” system.

I’m not advocating a true or best system, this is a thread about the hypocrisy of an American nationalist on twitter. However, if you think that the Chinese Civil War wasn’t vastly “better” than colonialism (the comparison you seem to insist on making, for some reason), I think we have very little to say to each other.

China as it is now was formed by having a giant fucking war against people who were ready to die to prevent themselves from being part of China as it is now. Just like pretty much every other country in all of history.

This is an extremely strange way to describe the Chinese Civil War and the Second Sino-Japanese War. At best reductive in the extreme and at worst comically misleading.

The difference between china (and pretty much every other country in Europe and Asia) and the is that those wars were at least mostly fought by people who actually lived there.

OK, so you do understand at least some of the differences between civil war and settler colonialism.

My point is, you can’t just say “this country is X years old”, because it almost never is, and it always depends on cherry picking. You can say Germany turns 36 this year, or you can say it turns 1226. Italy was either created in 1946, or the 3600 years ago at the founding of Rome. China can start with the Zhou dynasty 3000 years ago, or with Mao 70 years ago.

You don’t seem to understand the concept of a nation and are mixing it up with the concept of a state.

A nation is a historically constituted, stable community of people, formed on the basis of a common language, territory, economic life, and psychological make-up manifested in a common culture.

• Joseph Stalin, Marxism and the National Question.

The Chinese nation is unquestionably older than any European or North American nation embodied in the current European and North American states, because there is unquestionably a Chinese culture that can be traced from those previous polities, which considered themselves Chinese. Even just considering a Chinese state/independent polity it would be ridiculous to say that it was founded 70 years ago. On the other hand, it’s trivial to tell that the oldest possible date for the founding of America is very recent by comparison, so the person in the twitter screenshot is obviously a hypocrite, which is the whole point of the post.

None of those are completely true, and yet they aren’t entirely wrong either. Thats why these maps are stupid. Proclaiming your state to be the best because some people had a state where yours now is is pretty dumb.

So you do understand the point of the post.

And ALL of them got where they are by killing people who didn’t want to be part of their state. Every single one.

You’ve reduced all the complexities of history to a single sentence which serves only to obscure the crimes of settler-colonialism.

The US has been evil since pretty much always

Same for China

Same for Russia

lemmy.ca

lmao

This is historiography without object permanence. By your logic, France only exists since 1958. Russia only exists since 1991. Germany only exists since 1990. You’re being even more ridiculous than the person in the twitter screenshot.

Not sure how there was any game being played.

I’m assuming you’ve never seen anything Noah Smith said before (I wish that was me). Look at the flags in his twitter handle. He’s an American nationalist and a NATO imperialist. It’s very clear that this is a fantasy about balkanizing China.

Death to the settler-colonial entity know us “The United States of America”, sometimes called AmeriKKKa.

Do you not think you’re able to improve and do better by others? If you do, don’t you think others are human as well and can also do so? If you don’t, don’t you think you should be more ashamed about it?

This kind of misanthropy is either pointless doomerism or telling on yourself.

capitalism

Whenever I hear Americans say this, I mentally translate it to Honest English by replacing whatever comes in the position of the noun with “untermenschen”.

My concern is that in a global crisis like the complete collapse of the US, China and others would take the opportunity to expand in a similar fashion.

I personally think this is largely a hypothetical at this point. As you say, the BRI isn’t really the same as the historical colonialism/imperialism we’re discussing and I haven’t really seen anything from China that indicates that they have a desire to interfere in the internal affairs of other countries. If anything, they’re often (rightfully, sometimes) accused of not interfering enough internationally against US influence.

I would argue that there is not a substantive material difference between imperialism since the 1900s and Rome. Each replacement empire brings new spins on the same formulas. The US empire isn’t much different at this point than feudal empires of the past, just with monopolies instead of aristocracy.

I would argue there are substantial important differences. Imperialism is different in both form and function than colonialism and neither are the same as the Roman empire. A notable thing about (Western) Rome as an example, though, is that its collapse did not immediately lead to a different empire taking over all its territories. I guess it can be argued that the “barbarian kingdoms” tried, but they failed. The Western Roman Empire faded away and was never unified again.

I think you’re right and we just have a disagreement on the inevitability of empire and the speed at which it would happen. Thank you for discussing, though! /genuine

but exploitation in Africa is not primarily being done by the US currently so I wouldn’t expect to see massive shakeups there.

Debatable, the US is involved a lot in Africa. So are the Europeans, of course, as well as “Israel” and the gulf monarchies, but all of these are propped up to varying degrees by the American world order (except perhaps the French, but their empire is fading as we speak).

I’m not sure if you meant to imply that China was the primary exploiter of Africa (and I don’t want to assume you were saying that), but if so I disagree with the assertion that any degree of Chinese exploitation which might exist compares with what I’ve described in my previous paragraph (these countries routinely openly topple governments and start/support wars and genocides in Africa for their own benefit - in Sudan being the most well-known current example but not even close to the only one).

I would say that I am extrapolating from basically all of human history rather than doomerism, but I suppose that is a matter of perspective.

I think “all of human history” is a bit of a thought-terminating cliche in this case. Many things throughout history have been aesthetically similar (and in some ways functionally similar), but the material basis and therefore specific mechanisms were different. Imperialism in the financial capital sense (as in Lenin’s description) is a very recent thing, historically speaking (perhaps the past few centuries, approximately).

Europe invented third world intervention, and after the US took that over from them most of Europe lost most of its ability to do it independantly. Most third world intervention today is done by the US, if the US collapses it won’t be replaced immediately by Europeans who can all of a sudden magically project power into Latin America.

Ask China’s neighbors and any country with fishable ocean how non-expansionist and non-interference they are.

Don’t compare what the US empire does to anything happening in the South China Sea, that’s a ridiculous thing to say. Even the very bad things China has done so far (for example, war with Vietnam) don’t come close to things the US does on a regular basis.

The US collapsing would create a huge imperialist power vacuum that would at least take time to fill, if that filling ever happened. I’ll quote my original comment you were replying to here.

However, I think the perspective of people from outside the US, especially in the Global South has to be considered. For them, AmeriKKKan “wars, bloody conflicts, authoritarian crackdowns” are already the reality and have been for a long time. America dying is purely beneficial to them, the slow death and thrashing from their perspective will just be the same thing America has always been, but less and less effective over time.

What you’re saying in response to this is, at best, pointless doomerism based on vague hypotheticals. I’m talking about the reality of the world today, which is that America is the only country with both a significant ability to carry out these interventions worldwide and a significant history of doing so.

The Europeans have much less capability to intervene in the Third World than America, though they do do so on a smaller scale. I’ll entertain arguments about Asian countries when any of them are actually doing anything that even approaches the things America does. It’s very clear to anyone looking that the largest and most influential imperial power in the world right now is America by far, with the Europeans a distant second.

For those of you cheering on the death of the American Empire and the rise of communism from its ashes… You know you’re never going to live to see that day, right? Maybe your children will, more likely your grandchildren if it happens at all. But between now and then, there will be a new Dark Age and it will last for DECADES minimum.

This might or might not be true and overall I think your comment is a good point (the empire will keep doing damage as it dies).

However, I think the perspective of people from outside the US, especially in the Global South has to be considered. For them, AmeriKKKan “wars, bloody conflicts, authoritarian crackdowns” are already the reality and have been for a long time. America dying is purely beneficial to them, the slow death and thrashing from their perspective will just be the same thing America has always been, but less and less effective over time.

AmeriKKKan KKKracKKKers can’t even see a cool anti-America meme without having a western fragility crashout in the comments, lmao.

You would achieve communism in one Lemmy instance for the few dozen remaining users.

I really don’t understand why a lot of people left reddit only to try to re-create all the worst parts, lol.

Fucking please.

You’re welcome?