BRI isn’t imperialist, because it results in mutual development. Where the west goes in and plunders and underdevelops the global south, countries in BRI see rising wages and industrialization, escaping the endless trap of imperialism. Does China benefit too? Absolutely. Is it imperialism? No. Here are some good articles:

• Five Imperialist Myths About China’s Role in Africa

• China debt trap? PH an ‘expert in bad loans,’ Locsin says

• Deborah Brautigam Debunks the Chinese Debt Trap Theory in New Research Paper

• China’s Debt Relief for Africa: Emerging Deliberations

• Is China doing colonialism in Africa?

I don’t know about opinion polls to measure China’s democracy. The CCP have ways of “persuading” citizens to feel like the government respects them. According to the World Press Freedom Index, China actually has the third worst freedom of press in the world, ahead of only North Korea and Eritrea.

The CPC’s “ways of persuasion” are continuously improving living conditions and development. China does restrict private press, yes, because it’s a socialist country and doesn’t want the capitalists it keeps in check abusing the press to undermine the system. Further, data on public support for China is accurate, and isn’t the result of any undue manipulation.

The idea of Russia getting a free pass as better than the US simply because it can’t do as much damage is interesting, sort of like an equality vs equity argument, but at the moment Russia’s the only one throwing around literal nuke threats like christmas cracker jokes.

The US Empire is the one plundering the entire global south at the moment. Russia doesn’t get a “free pass,” but the idea that it’s worse than the US Empire is deeply misinformed.

The meme comparing Xi Jingping to Winnie the Pooh has its origins in China, so it’s nothing racial.

It exploded in the west far more than in China, and is most commonly used among racist right wingers.

Since you mentioned that Chinese propaganda isn’t good either, I know you’re arguing in good faith. I’ll also say that before 2025 I would have said China was easily worse than the US, but now I’m not so sure. Either way, it’s comparing mouldy apples to mouldy oranges.

I don’t agree that it’s comparing mouldy apples to mouldy oranges. It’s comparing late-stage imperialism to early-mid stage socialism, a dying empire vs a rising socialist power. Socialism doesn’t mean free from problems, but it does mean that it’s fundamentally different and regularly improving.

If you want to learn more about China’s system, I recommend Roland Boer’s Socialism with Chinese Characteristics: A Guide for Foreigners. If you want to learn about Marxism-Leninism, which is what China and other socialist countries use as their baseline ideology, I made an introductory reading list.

So I still don’t see any evidence of Xi being a “strongman,” but instead an extremely popular and influential leader.

Oh duh! Should’ve thought of that /s

China isn’t capitalist, nor is it an imperialist settler colony that gave 1950s white Statesians a better life. It’s a socialist country, the large firms and key industries are overwhelmingly publicly owned and the working classes are in charge of the state. A revolution would be devastating for the Chinese working classes.

Marxism does not limit one’s understanding purely to production and distribution, though, I’m not sure what you’re getting at. Domenico Losurdo’s Class Struggle is a good read.

Do you have an example? The anti-corruption campaigns are immensely popular among the public in China, and they support the government.

China can do wrong, though. I wish they were stronger when it came to foreign policy, and they are lagging in queer rights. However, both the ideas that China is imperialist and that China is worse than the US Empire are absurd.

The US Empire plunders the global south, expropriating vast amounts of resources and super-exploiting foreign labor, while China engages in mutual cooperation and win-win development. Countries imperialized by the US are underdeveloped, while countries in BRI have rapid development. The US has hundreds of overseas millitary bases, and the PRC has no more than 3. The US Empire is kidnapping leaders and threatening to annex Greenland, while China is engaging in mutual trade.

It doesn’t matter what the country pretends to want to be, as soon as it gets too powerful you always end up with some asshole dictator

This doesn’t logically follow. There’s nothing about size of country that correlates to having dictators, Cuba under Batista was small but dictatorial, while China is a democracy with 1.4 billion people. The vast majority of Chinese citizens believe the government represents their interests:

Russia couldn’t be as bad as the US Empire even if it tried, as it lacks the ability to do so. China is a socialist country. The US is the world hegemon and a dying empire. Entirely different scales of evil here.

pooh Bear

I don’t see why it’s funny to use a yellow bear to describe a Chinese man.

So with that said, why the China worship, why the pretence they China can do no wrong? This is literally “US propaganda baaaad, China propaganda goooood”

Nobody believes China can do no wrong or that Chinese propaganda is good. If your entire argument relies on strawmen, then it’s not really anything useful.

What is link aggregation? Just combining network connections of a cloud? What does that have to do with lemmy?

Think reddit, you post links to articles, videos, etc. for the majority of posts.

Why would there by different servers in the first place doesn’t that make the social media smaller for everyone?

Instances can talk to each other, like email. gmail accounts can talk to yahoo accounts. You have a Lemmy.world account, but are talking to me on a Lemmy.ml communiity with my Lemmy.ml account.

What is an instance?

Kinda like a server. Your instance is Lemmy.world, mine is Lemmy.ml. Instances are their own websites with their own communities, but can see other instances they are federated with. Local browsing is your instance, all browsing is for everything you’re federated with.

Isn’t the point of a federalized social media to be better connected?

Yes and no. Not everyone wants to be connected with everyone.

Can I use my account I just made for Lemmy in something like Mastodon?

Sort of. You can interact with Mastodon users, but not in the Mastodon format.

How can I access content from different social media?

Not sure what you mean. Lemmy is a link aggregator, and you interact via Lemmy.

Right now we are on the lemmy.world server, can I take my same account and go to another one?

Lemmy doesn’t support true account migration, but you can open new accounts.

Why would I change my server when there are already different communities here? Isn‘t changing your server more tedious than just clicking on another community?

Some instances are themed, like Mander.xyz is themed around science, Lemmygrad.ml is themed around Marxism-Leninism, etc. Scrolling locally can curate your experience. Lemmy.world has defederated from some instances such as Hexbear.net and Lemmygrad.ml, so you can’t see their content from your account, while I can from Lemmy.ml. It’s worth checking the vibe of an instance before joining for the long term.

Excellent! Glad to see it, it’s nice to have a space where this is the norm.

Lol yea.

Yep, they should just admit that they are moving to a place that better reflects their views, not that it censors less.

That would be a bit too egotistical, haha.

The west assisting the USSR in defeating the Nazis is good influence, and “imperialist” according to your definition. Same with the Statesian north abolishing slavery in the Statesian south (similar to the PLA abolishing slavery and serfdom in Tibet). Western influence isn’t overwhelmingly negative because it’s western or influence, but because the west is “extractionary imperialist” and this influence nearly always is in service of that, such as kidnapping Maduro in order to steal Venezuela’s oil.

Disengage, this conversation is running in circles and is impossible for anyone to follow. We aren’t going to agree and we aren’t going to come to a mutual understanding.

You’re using Lenin’s definition of imperialism. Lenin’s definition focuses on economic domination, not military or territorial control, so for the PRC’s invasion, which was “liberation,” it’s better to use the modern definition of imperialism, which most people reading this will be doing anyway.

Your definition, which you call “modern,” is neither modern nor useful. As you already said, by your chosen definition, all countries have “imperialized” others, but that doesn’t explain the mechanisms of how some countries plunder vast resources from others, or how to stop this.

If we use the “influence” definition, then I don’t think “influence” is a bad thing in all cases, while this form of international extraction is what we communists specifically take issue with and are arguing against. If you’re trying to talk about a point I made using Lenin’s analysis of imperialism, it doesn’t make sense to try to change the definition to argue.

Tibet was also a serfdom, not a slave society, there is a distinct difference. Serfdom binds a person to land. Slavery treats them entirely as movable property. One is labour, one is chains. Calling it liberation is also extremely negligent and steeped in bias, the US military uses this excuse all the time, that they are liberators instead of imperialist forces.

Tibet had serfs and slaves. Go back and read the excerpts I linked from Friendly Feudalism: The Tibet Myth. Calling it liberation is accurate, as Tibet has been uplifted and life metrics are skyrocketing, slavery and serfdom abolished, and culture preserved. Tibet is not having its resources extracted or labor super-exploited by the PRC. The US Empire destroys the countries it “liberates,” this is qualitatively different.

But ultimately this all avoids the question of whether or not the Tibetan population wanted integration with China, that’s the crucial part that makes it imperialist, the inability for the Tibetans to decide for themselves.

It isn’t actually what makes it imperialist or not, but Tibetans are quite happy to be freed from slavery and serfdom.

Which, again, you’re making a false conflation. We’ve established that Europe is imperialist, yes. We’ve established that the US is imperialist, yes. But then you’re including the PRC in an attempt to make it appear anti-imperialist – Which it mostly wasn’t. It’s a very camp argument. Imperialism is imperialism, it doesn’t matter who’s doing it and for what reason.

You’re changing the definition of imperialism to make your point. If your point is that imperialism is “influence,” and Lenin’s definition is “extractionism,” then my point is that every country is “influence imperialist” and not all “influence imperialism” is a bad thing, but all “extractionist imperialism” is bad. It isn’t camp, I oppose this brutal system of international extractionism, and you’re dodging it by taking issue with me calling that imperialism and not agreeing that influence can be good.

Redsails is also not a good source, it’s openly from an ML perspective, so it’s not neutral, which you absolutely have to be when discussing history. It’s also under no pretence to be academic or accurate either, Redsails is ideologically driven rather than factually driven - so it won’t ever be critical of the ML perspective. You can use redsails to talk theory, absolutely, but not as a historical or factual source, it’s dishonest.

Dr. Michael Parenti has well-sourced arguments and historical data. There’s no such thing as a neutral historian. Red Sails is merely hosting Dr. Michael Parenti’s work, which is both ideologically and factually driven. Dr. Michael Parenti is a Statesian historian, not really a theorist.

China is also not entirely socialist, either, it’s state-capitalist with socialist rhetoric. They still have private property.

Socialism is not the absence of private property, just like capitalism is not the absence of public property. Socialism is a mode of production and distribution where public ownership is principle, ie governs the large firms and key industries. The US Empire is capitalist not because everything is private, but because private ownership dominates the large firms and key industries. No mode of production is “pure.” From a Marxist perspective, it simply doesn’t make sense to socialize the sole proprietorships and small industries, as the basis of socialist production is large scale industry, and to socialize the small firms as they grow. This is repeated by Marx and Engels.

Where are you getting your ideas of socialism from?

You can’t definitively say that Rimu’s views have no impact on his work, when we know they do.

We are beyond max comment depth, and aren’t going to agree. No point in continuing.

Based on how Lemmy.world has given their views on why they defederated Hexbear and Grad, I don’t think this is unreasonable to expect PieFed instances to behave at all.

We are well beyond max comment depth, no need to continue. We aren’t going to agree.

I never once said Rimu is personally attacking me, but building tools to shut out minority opinions and fostering a space where liberalism is the majority.

“Death to America,” “China is socialist,” etc. are all possibilities I can see to try to “curb tankie influence,” but these are obviously hypotheticals and don’t currently exist. That’s why I’m saying a slur filter is fine.