What should be the Marxist perspective on this? I feel conflicted because on the one hand having two large nations like Russia and China facilitate a widespread shuddering of the dollar in favor of national currencies will significantly challenge US imperial power but on the other this might just trigger a scenario wherein a series of proxy wars are fought which escalate into actual wars with Russia and China, not to mention the fact that Putin is an unrepentant porky and Xi's status as a socialist in practice is dubuous as best, which means this might just lead to the acceleration of America's collapse as the predominant imperial power but the rise of China and Russia as a new one.
Don't get me wrong btw I want to believe China wouldn't become imperialist but idk if Xi has really demonstrated a true commitment to socialism beyond the memes
death to the west death to globalism nazbol gods awaken
Nathaniel Turner
Marxist perspective is that these are two national bourgeoisies aligning with eachother to fight more national bourgeoisies.
Nolan Cruz
This. BRICS vs the West is an inter-imperialist rivalry, and while the rise of the former does have some advantages (like weakening US unipolar hegemony) ultimately we should practice revolutionary defeatism.
Samuel Price
If we take what historical they did, then expect Russia to be outright imperialism with despotic puppet regimes set up. A situation that's very much unwanted. China will probably just demand few gibs but leave the nations autonomous besides that. They are non-interventionist for the most part.
Isaiah Carter
I would probably consider China to be more imperialist than Russia at this point tbh. You don’t need to be interventionist to engage in neocolonial relations with other countries.
Thomas Lopez
Tbf not all the BRICS are even minor imperial powers: India, Brazil, and South Africa are subjects to economic imperialism. India, while beginning to chart a national course of its own, has no imperial control over any states apart from perhaps Nepal (and even that is very tenuous). It's like Meiji-era pre-Taiwan Japan in that sense.
This is basically US imperialist pre-WWII though.
Colton Edwards
omg, why are you guys such pussies
grow some courage and be active, you fucking bitch
Wyatt Rodriguez
wut?
Nolan Evans
you/the guy should just go and kill yourself/themself
Jordan Wright
Fair enough but I think it’s clear that Russia and China have already developed imperialist tendencies, and it’s only a matter of time before India does as well imo. It’s also the case than many members of the western bloc aren’t particularly imperialist, but are still aligned with imperialist states.
Thomas Lewis
What do you think revolutionary defeatism means?
Jonathan Howard
К
Cooper Sanchez
being a revolutionary and having no hope of actually succeeding
you want to have your country in a conflict because it will be as destructive as ww1 or 2 and a great chance to achieve a revolution
Nathan Powell
Yeah. Should be noted that the Russo-Chinese alliance is 100% one of convenience and tbh it is likely to break apart. For China their influence in Russia is based almost solely on MacKinder's concept of the "World Island". Where if the resources of Siberia and Central Asia can be unlocked by a world power they could be used to dominate Eurasia and thus the world. While this may be outdated in some aspects it makes sense in what China is doding: especially with the whole belt and road initiative is almost directly designed to do 50% of what MacKinder prescribed: develop the infrastructure of "the great plain". The issue is that the other 50% of what MacKinder described was mass population of these areas: which he recommended through literal colonialism & colonisation. Thing is, is that China can't colonise Russia with migrant labourers without approve from Russia which it is never gonna get. Which is where the two will come to blows. Also the second reason is that Russian foreign policy under Putin has been pretty simple: expand the border. Not the literal borders of Russia, but the geopolitical border of its sphere of influence. The further away that border is from core Russia, the safer Russia is. It's why Putin annexed Crimea: Euromaidan pushed the geopolitical border of Russia closer to Russia proper, so he expanded it back out to a degree by annexing Crimea and sponsoring the rebels in Donbass (although it should be noted that in a fair referendum Crimea would have probs voted for union with Russia, and the Donbass rebels came into being on their own). Russia's policy towards Iran and China is basically the same: make them at-least cordial so the border is pusher out further. However if China pushes against Russia's interests in a way that threaten its sphere of influence then it will react accordingly. All it takes is a few guns to the Uyghurs. But yeah, China's geopolicy is based on being a global superpower, Russia's is based on being a regional great power (think Japan before WWII).
Kevin Perry
And why would that be? The only reason Russia isn't imperialist is because it's weak at the moment. I don't get where the Chinese imperialism comes from. To quote from one of first pages from "The Specter Of Global China"
Today I learned opium wars took place after WW2.
Angel Lee
Revolutionary defeatism (in other countries) should only be done when America has completely collapsed and it has ZERO ability to exercise its power again. Sorry if that makes you upset catposter :(.
Dylan Morales
Chinese companies profit from African resources and labour, and China will inevitably work to protect those interests. It’s also why China has become one of Africa’s biggest arms dealers. China is a capitalist state and as such it inevitably develops imperialist tendencies. The only alternative is that Chinese porkies are investing in Africa out of the goodness of their hearts and not to extract wealth from the continent. China not developing imperialist tendencies would make it a historical aberration. In Russia’s case it’s even more obvious, since in some central Asian countries Tajikistan they literally have thousands of troops guarding Russian owned oil fields.
Easton Williams
t. The SPD in 1914
Parker Morales
Fuck, you haven't learned a thing. Definite agenda here.
Xavier Campbell
Instability and conflict are better for revolution though
Nathaniel Watson
They do, but unlike how the western powers did it, it's a two way deal. It's not like Africa doesn't benefit from the infrastructure build there. The Chinese porkies too have a much less of a word about the nation there than in west. Pretty much being a libtard there will get you arrested at best or outright killed at worst. It's really much more so a rule of the party than one of the porky. I don't get people who hate on China. I have yet to see them do one thing worse than the west besides political freedom.
Justin Ramirez
It is the only way. With porky at peace he can channel all his strength into destroying revolutionary movements. With porky fighting each other revolutions can come to be.
John Allen
t. Person with Down’s syndrome
Ryan Jones
but muh china HAS NO FREEZE PEACH
Easton Perez
That’s also true, but all this means is that it’s less intense exploitation. Keep in mind that all this infrastructure is being funded with Chinese loans, which of course increases Chinese influence in the long term even if the terms of the loans aren’t particularly harsh. It’s also important to remember that Chinese porkies are outsourcing sweatshop labour to Africa. However all this really means is that China is adopting a honey rather than a vinegar strategy, taking advantage of the shitty treatment of Africa by the West to offer less shitty treatment and bring the continent closer to Chinese orbit. It’s entirely self serving and cynical, and as soon as Chinese porkies can begin to get away with Western style exploitation they will. They haven’t really done anything better either. They’re a capitalist power like any other and should be treated as such.
David Howard
Nobody of us here has any means of supporting or not supporting these states other than writing an angry post. We're not part of a war we can lose on purpose.
Alexander Walker
In practice this means supporting the big capitalists, generals, and the State against the workers. Who do you think actually fights wars?
The total destruction of Russia in both WW1 and WW2 led to the weakness of the Left, not its strength.
On principle if being a bloodthirsty maniac who supports war is socialism, then being anti-socialist would make sense. But Lenin and the Bolsheviks actively won support due to their anti-war position, so I doubt that anyone supporting WW3 will be looked on in a sympathetic way by the working class.
Jose Baker
If your country is imperialist and gets involved in a conflict with another imperialist power then you can build an anti-war movement.
Wyatt Howard
Based cat poster once again revealing that Chinaboos are just anti-Western nationalists.
Owen Lee
No. What you're saying only happens if you're a piece of shit and sit on your ass all day. If you actually do PRACTICE based on CORRECT THEORY your talking points have already reached other workers before an armed conflict started and when they are given weapons in their hands they will start the revolution just like the Russian soldiers did during WW1.
But if you're an SPD MORON then yes, you just send workers to their deaths for porky.
As far as geopolitical power goes all that is happening is a return to normal from a historic point of view. America only became the single dominant super power because, Europe(WW2) Russia(Soviet collapse) and China(century of humiliation/opium-war) got knocked over, while America didn't.
The only geographic location from which to be a unipolar hegemonic super-power probably is Northern America. (With the other candidate being a merger of central Europe and western Russia, which is politically unlikely) The US could have had a 2 century empire if they had continued their new-deal policies, but they went with neo-liberal policy and therefore they got a 1 century empire.
While China has the economic power to become a empire, it lacks the geography for that. So far it appears that China seeks power parity not domination. The increase in Eurasian economic integration is being sped up by US "full spectrum dominance" foreign policy. Russian geopolitical strategy revolves around maintaining buffer zones. They lack military/economic-power and the geography to be imperialist. A chinease-russian cooperation on financial transaction systems that erodes the US Dollar's hegemoic position, might be a good thing, because that will probably result in a reduction of the budget for the US military-industrial complex, which means a global reduction in military spending becomes possible as well as more domestic soc-dem policies for US citizens.
The wild card here is whether the US ruling class will go the militarist rout of ending an empire or go the fading dignified way.
Nobody said that. It's obvious that the dominant military power is the US, and that the dominant imperialist bloc is the Western bloc. What I don't understand in the vulgar anti-imperialist mentality is why this makes a fundamental difference. Obviously there are differences in details between the situation in 1914 and today, but they are outweighed by the similarities. In both cases there was a dominant imperialist bloc (Britain and France) being challenged by a weaker, but rising imperialist bloc (led by Germany) who was covetous of the #1 spot. As Debs said, "Britain owns the world and Germany wants it." In both cases the dominant bloc holds unquestioned naval supremacy, even as the secondary bloc scrambles to catch up. In both cases the dominant bloc has superior power projection, more imperial holdings, and poses a far greater threat to the secondary bloc than the secondary bloc poses to the dominant one. Now I will admit that the disparity between China and the US is probably greater than between Germany and Britain, but the principle still holds. The fundamental question that we need to ask is, if China and the US were to go to war, would the working class benefit from a victory of either side? Say we humor the Chinaboos in here, and say we all side with China, and say China wins. What then? Do you guys seriously think that China won't just fill the gap left by the US within a decade? Will this really advance the cause of socialism and worker's liberation? All it will accomplish is killing millions of proles and exchanging one kabal of porkies for another, one colonial master for another. With all this being said, I do of course see the value in Russia and China's rise, and the return of multipolarity. However we should remember exactly WHY this is a good thing. It's not a good thing because China will be less predatory than the US, or because Chinese billionaries give a shit about proles. It's a good thing because it will further weaken the global bourgeoisie by pitting them against each other along the lines of rival imperialist coalitions. It will allow worker's movements and smaller countries to play the two off against one another. In other words, China isn't our friend any more than the US, a war between them and the US would be a meat grinder from which the working class could not benefit, and their rise is only beneficial insofar as it can be used by the workers and by colonial countries for our own ends.
You do realize that Russia having legitimate national security interests doesn't preclude them from also having imperialist tendencies and ambitions correct?
Hunter Scott
Lenin was the OG revolutionary defeatist, though.
Leo Garcia
Most US military is regionally locked up, which means they can't bring all their might to bare in one spot with out loosing ground in another, and in that scenario Chinese military power is a significant enough to repel regional power projection by the US.
That's all we care about, to get these people stuck to the point where they can't produce war that kills large amounts of people.
Blake Stewart
The only reason all these people dislike the PRC is because of racism. The PRC is not great or anything but to equate it to the US and day that it's the same thing is retarded the USSR was just as unmarxist and more brutal than the PRC and most leftists didnt go around saying that we should support war between the US and USSR because they are both the same and might as well kill each other
Hunter Young
Get caught by a suicide net.
Easton Thompson
Okay zionist.
Dylan Miller
Implying it's not muh racism. The propaganda against China is all over the place and its racist and dehumanizing. Right wingers all support Putin and Russia but hate China litteraly because of racism. Same here western leftists all fap to the USSR but hate the PRC and the only reason I can think of that makes sense is racism
Luis Lee
It can't be helped, Russians are just so much more attractive
how did this thread turn into such a steaming pile of shit
Isaiah Cooper
china shills, when will they learn? marx cries tears of blood in heaven, looking down upon his children worshiping a kingdom of satan, literal fucking totalitarian capitalist state, the engine of world capitalist order, it's rotten heart
now riddle me this - who OWNS this infrastructure?
Wyatt Ortiz
nope nice assumptions tho
Juan Carter
it had a class of bureaucrats who functioned pretty much the same way as capitalist bosses and it absolutely and plenty of neoclonial projects going. The only difference is that China actually managed to do Dengism and not collapse while the USSR tried to do the exact same thing under Andropov who then died and got replaced by an openly Western liberal shill
Brandon Martin
I like slavs and underdevoloped anorexic bodies
Austin Diaz
Jack Ma is a member of the communist party who stated that his goal is to use new tech and big data to achieve a planned economy
Litteraly wait like 5-10 years you fucking asshole. China was an impoverished trash eating third world joke in the beginning of the 90s and now it's the second or first largest economy with millions pulled out of poverty
Jeremiah Gonzalez
yea, which is why they were so hellbent on disintegrating soviet economy and ultimately privatizing it in the end soviet help never came with a debt cabal, they invaded afghanistan not for opium poppy fields
Juan Morgan
DRUE GOMMUNIS WID JACK MA CHARADERISDICS IN 廿 YEERS GUIS I SWEAR :—DDDD
Eli Smith
I have yet to actually see the so called "neo-colonialism" you talk about. The only thing I found is that it's shared by both nations. You could only make the argument that some countries are in massive debt to China, but I hope you aren't such a big brain to say that is the same as literal colonialism .
Jack Ma didn't mean that kind of planet economy. He pretty much meant cybernetic fascism. Still, the state newspaper actually disagrees with him, so it isn't like he is taken that seriously there.
Daniel Hernandez
Planed economy.
Ethan Gomez
Forgetting about the imperialism debate for now. Economically, if this agreement goes through and China and Russia do start trading extensively in their national currencies it means that both countries expect that there will be commodities they want to purchase from each other. The only use China has for Rubles is to buy Russian goods and the only use Russia has for Yuan is to buy Chinese goods. Neither currency is an international reserve currency yet so they cannot spend yuan or rubles in trade with other countries.
As for what the two countries will be trading, I think it is fairly obvious. Russia wants Chinese consumer goods and industrial equipment. China wants Russian natural resources, farm goods, and weapons. I think this relationship can last for a few decades so this currency deal will not be a short term agreement. Another possible direction is Russia and China want to make their currencies into reserve currencies for international trade. It makes sense to start accumulating each others currency to prepare for the transition.
Another possibility is they are trading in gold instead which means the two countries are not interested in accumulating each other's currency. It's easier to stop trading with gold if things go sour since the gold will still be useful in international trade. If they are using gold and not national currency then perhaps the two want a non-committed relationship instead of a more permanent marriage.
China has no bases for Imperialism, since that requires a state of monopoly capitalism, wich doesn't exist, since Monopolies are state and worker controlled. Russia is another thing though, it could and will probably become imperialist after US fall.
But overall it is based since the Imperial core takes another beating and we can finally overcome the eternal superpower that is (and soon was) the USA
to worker busting his ass 72 hours a week for pennies: I don't know if this deserves a gulag or just straight up execution, would reeducation even work
But Trade unions in America don't have comitees that control their workplace, no?
Sebastian Evans
I’m sick of people responding to criticisms of China with “yeah well it’s worse in America.” That’s a pretty fucking low bar m8.
Grayson Wilson
No, the difference is that in China trade unions function differently than in America, in China they control the Workplace through workers and the unions, workers elect a represantive comitee and have all say in the leading of the workplace
Jaxson Jenkins
If the state run trade unions are capable of meeting their concerns then why is there a growing trend of independent labour action in China? Let me guess, CIA?
Isaiah Barnes
Well those are probably mainly in the private sectors of economy I suppose?
Oliver Gomez
also yeah some part of student activist groups and hong kong protesters are definetly CIA
Alexander Hernandez
I was talking more about workers who have been launching wildcat strikes and the Maoist groups that have been helping them.
