this post was submitted on 28 Jun 2023
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"support"
You keep using this word, but do you really think any of the people you call tankies have actually done anything to support these countries? Or, more likely, are you using "support" to mean "refuse to condemn/disavow"?
Well, count me in to that group.
I will not join the imperialist dogpile against China. My opinions about their government is irrelevant at best, and at worst by joining in the echo chamber of "China Bad!" then I am helping America pave the way for a war it so obviously wants.
If you want to call that support, then I have to ask why supposed "socialists" are joining America in attacking China!
I couldn't care less if tankies "only" refused to condemn China/Russia/DPRK or whatever oppressive regime they think is anti-imperialist – indeed, I wouldn't even describe this group as tankies. The cold-war "tankies" weren't passive or neutral either.
The tankies you see here, even in this thread, actively dehumanize and gaslight people resisting these regimes, and attempt to delegitimize any act of resistance against them, even if indigenous. These are the kind of people who would smear actual leftist activists in Russia, China or Iran as "CIA Agents" in the hope that said regimes continue existing, to take revenge against the US. This worldview espouses that nobody has any agency except the US (and its authoritarian adversaries), because every opponent of these regimes has to be agent of the US.
Refusing to condemn something isn't the same as lending support. Gaslighting people about the Tianamen Massacre, about the treatment of Uighurs, or about creeping authoritarianism in HK is, however, definitely a form of support.
Socialists who oppose the CCP tend to do that for entirely different reasons than the US. Not that there is much socialism to support there. Labour rights and protections under the CCP are inferior to the average European country, with the rampant 996 culture and very few instances of collective labor action, which is seen as undesirable and suppressed by the party.
As the saying goes, you can't be neutral on a moving train.
By refusing to condemn China, I must therefore support it. That's how it works. You can't just be a third positionist about this and say "I oppose everybody with my own special snowflake socialism!"
My country managed to legislate better labor rights and worker protections under milquetoast SocDem governments than whatever the CCP managed to implement in China. So the CCP's brand of "socialism" is not appealing to me.
This is literally the tankie position, so I'm not sure why modern tankies take offense at being labeled so. Even in 1968, socialists & communists disagreed over the squashing of the Prague Spring, but tankies now still demand unconditional loyalty for their anti-US crusade, with little regard for anything else.
Your country extracted super profits from the exploitation of the third world and then redistributed a small portion of that stolen wealth to pacify the workers. Mine did that too and that's nothing to be proud of!
Imperialism is the highest stage of capitalism, which means the contradictions of US hegemony are the highest contradictions and take precedence!
It doesn't matter if I personally disagree with how China is responding to Muslim extremism or how it responds to protesters or how it is supposedly "developing the means of production" with state capitalism, because China is still an ally in the fight against empire.
When the empire is dead we can deal with the lesser contradictions.
And the CCP wholeheartedly supports that. Companies such as VW even set up a factory in Xinjiang to take advantage of Uyghur slave labour, with full CCP acquiescence. The CCP itself has no issue with exploiting workers, exploiting its own population, or that of the 3rd world either.
I fail to see the advantage of replacing US hegemony with CCP hegemony. Substituting an empire with another is pointless.
For that to be true, one would have to believe in the idea that the CCP is interested in solving the contradictions of capitalism. Is there any evidence that this is the case? At this point, the CCP has abandoned socialism in favour of state capitalism & nationalism. A pivot back to socialism after the end of imperialism is within the realm of historical alt-timeline fiction.
Tankies may think of the CCP as an ally, but that view might not be mutual. Once the empire is dead, their role will end. They are only useful to Stalinist regimes insofar they run interference for them and undermine any democratic opposition. Beyond that, they have no use. Attempting to "deal with lesser contradictions" under these undemocratic revisionist regimes will simply result in purges.
To be clear, nobody will be dealing with any contradiction under the CCP. It's a totalitarian, statist regime which has squashed, and will squash any glimmer of dissent. Bringing up contradictions at any level is likely to result in a futile re-enactment of the cultural revolution, with predictably similar results. There will be one option: To follow the party line to the letter.
I don't believe Chinese hegemony is possible. US hegemony is a historical anomaly created by the very specific circumstances of colonialism, slavery, and then the post-WW2 period that saw all the old empires destroyed.
Once this empire is dead, there won't ever be another. The material conditions won't allow for it.
US hegemony is not a "historical anomaly". It is the logical consequence of the imperial center i.e. the US/UK/Europe winning the geographical lottery. The triangular slave/goods/textile trading scheme in the Atlantic resulted in rapidly developing markets and massive extraction of wealth, ensuring US dominance. These geographical factors have become less important in the 21st century, however.
That is because orthodox Marxist discourse hasn't evolved in any meaningful way since the cold war. It's just people repeating the same platitudes with almost-religious fervor, willfully ignoring newer research.
Not only is Chinese hegemony possible, but trends suggest that it is poised to inherit the role of the imperial center possibly by the end of the century. Ian Morris' "Why the West Rules—For Now" graphs the development of China and the West based on the amount of energy each civilization can capture, and extrapolation suggests that China will overtake the US by no later than 2100, possibly even earlier.
In the very least, that wouldn't have been a regression if China wasn't controlled by the CCP. But as things are currently, Chinese hegemony is synonymous with CCP hegemony. Some people attempt to argue otherwise, but that's just sophistry. The hypercentralized statism of the CCP and its propensity to use all available technological means to coerce will leave little room for reform or discussion.
It can only be an anomaly, because not only did the US/UK/Europe win the geographical lottery (making it an anomaly that can't be repeated) but also the Atlantic slave trade and the rapid expansion into the so-called New World was another anomaly. Then, like I said, the World Wars created another anomaly that saw literally every other empire fall and the US gobble them all up with only the USSR around to challenge them. Then the USSR fell and the US became the sole global hegemon, another anomaly that, combined with intercontinental flight and communication, created the first global empire in history!
China doesn't have the same geographical advantages. China doesn't have the opportunity to steal trillions in wealth from native lands and native peoples. China can't make a new slave trade. China will be forced to compete with other powers, like the declining US and EU as well as regional rivals like India and Russia. China can't recreate US global hegemony, and neither can any other country because all the low-hanging fruit has already been eaten. US hegemony is collapsing because it's an unsustainable form of geopolitics. There's no bonanza of resources to exploit anymore, it's all gone, and now we'll be entering a post-neoliberal world with permanent multipolarity.
Let us not forget that global warming is going to continue to destabilize the entire world with billions forced to migrate. Country after country will collapse into uninhabitable dead zones. China isn't going to build an empire in the ashes left by this particular epoch, no one will and no one can.
This is a new situation and I obviously could be wrong, but unless China figures out cold fusion or asteroid mining or something I don't see them becoming the new global empire. We're at the end of an era and something new is happening.
These geographical advantages aren't as important today as they were at the beginning of industrialization. As for the other things: They're all ethical issues and "international norms" established under US hegemony. The reason the slave trade isn't a thing anymore is because the US/UK-led global empire decided to collectively abolish it in the first place. The same goes for old-fashioned colonialist conquest & plundering, which the old European powers were forced to abandon under US pressure (among other factors).
All the things you're describing are features and consequences of the US global order, so why would anyone expect any of them to remain intact if that global order gives way to something else? The reason almost every single state, even totalitarian ones, adhere to "international norms" on slavery, colonialism, or nuclear weapon usage is because the consequences of breaking these norms would be highly disadvantageous, and would result in punitive action in the current global order. The reason why almost every single state - even the most totalitarian - holds elections (even if "fake" ones) and attempts a facsimile of democracy is because the current global order inherently lends democracies more legitimacy than autocracies.
Assuming the current global order disappears, why wouldn't totalitarianism, slavery, disenfranchisement of women, or even colonialist conquest make a comeback? There would be nothing to enforce the norms against these at that point – and any actor could easily break them with no consequence whatsoever.
External pressure is just as likely to incentivize empire building. Physical domination and control of habitable land at any cost will likely become very important, if not essential, and everyone will get away with it.
They don't need to figure out any of that. They simply need to be able to capture more energy than their adversaries, and that is possible without cold fusion or asteroid mining. The CCP only need maintain its current trajectory of development to be able to overtake the US by the end of the century. Unlike western liberal democracies, a high-tech totalitarian society like CCP-controlled China can expand and maintain stability even in a collapsing environment without being constrained by norms or concepts such as the rule of law.
That's really what you think, huh? They just abolished slavery because they decided to? For what? Because they're so nice? lol
Does the motive matter that much? It was the result of US/European abolitionist movements' success, who ended the practice within their respective empires, and which eventually extended into a global ban. The point is that the practice was banned & ended worldwide.
Reformist movements don't and can't exist under CCP rule period. An anti-exploitation movement in China would be crushed immediately, if it were even allowed to develop at all.
Orientalism.
Irrelevant. Most abolitionist movements were religiously- or ethically motivated and never cared about that (Are Quakers orientialist?). Complete self-emancipation only happened in one instance (Haiti). That aside, the atlantic trade was indeed controlled & driven by oriental powers, so the main abolitionist efforts could have only been centered around the oriental powers.
Abolitionist activism developed organically and was eventually institutionalized by the imperial powers. Totalitarian Maoist/Stalinist ideology is in practice hostile to any form of organic or independent activism. It is a dead-end in term of societal development and no emancipatory movement could ever develop from it.
You seem to think that China is some kind of hive colony and that all dissent from the masses is crushed with zero hope for any sort of change ever happening. As if China has solved the human equation and can maintain perfect dominance despite internal contradictions.
I strongly disagree. It maybe appears that way because we're entering a new Cold War, but in reality politics is still possible in China and people can still do things to force changes.
We actually saw this! China was set to maintain their zero COVID policy for as long as the virus was a threat, but internal protests drove them to follow the rest of the world into reopening. If you were right then zero COVID would have never ended.
Personally, I think zero COVID was a net positive and disagree with the protests, but I can at least recognize that people hated it and that China eventually listened to protesters as all governments eventually must. No government can maintain perfect domination. You are far too pessimistic about China.
Zero COVID was only lifted after it became clear that it dealt significant, undeniable damage to the Chinese economy and threatened growth prospects. If anything, it proves the uncompromising worldview of the forces driving China.
Sure, there were protests which carried on for an entire year (!), but nothing suggests that they were relevant to the decision. Growth and exports slowing down to a crawl due to the policy had a much greater effect than anything else. China's state-backed capitalist class also complained, and their complaints have much greater reach within the CCP than any protests. Interestingly, protesters who criticized the policy were repressed, whereas the Foxconn CEO got away with it.
This pattern of behaviour isn't specific to China, or to the new/old Cold War. Stalinist/Maoist totalitarianism in general always attempts to enforce self-destructive and frankly insane policies such as the Cultural Revolution or the Great Leap Forward long after the harmful effects become evident. Yes, the policies were lifted and the victims rehabilitated decades later, after an incredible social and human cost.
The nonsensical part of Zero COVID is that the policy itself wasn't even necessary. The EU offered China free vaccines (in an attempt to bring trade flows back to normal), which was rebuffed by China for no logical reason.
Why would anyone be optimistic about the CCP in the light of all that? There is literally nothing optimistic about CCP-brand Maoism. If the CCP had embraced democratic socialism, or at least followed a more scientific approach, it would have itself more proponents. But as things stand, it's no different than any other bourgeois nationalist regime that opposes the US.
China's zero COVID policy saved countless lives, possibly millions, while Americans were marched to our deaths to make widgets as "essential workers". That's what the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie does - social murder.
How the hell could you look at that and then conclude "zero COVID was insane"? Or that it's no different than bourgeois nationalism? They literally put the lives of workers above economic productivity! That's clearly the behavior of a worker state.
The CCP initially denied the existence of COVID, then disappeared and jailed medical workers and journalists who dared even report on it. After the disease became undeniable, they switched gears to "zero COVID" and welding people's doors shut in their residences. Is disappearing & jailing medical workers also the behaviour of a worker's state? Or is that just specific to the CCP's "worker state"?
Meanwhile, the rest of the world (including the West) followed a sensible policy of mass vaccination & localized lockdowns, which was proven right in the end: Vaccination rates were higher than 2/3 in most western countries by the end of 2021, whereas China was still attempting Zero COVID a year later, near the end of 2022. It is impossible anyway to determine exactly how ineffective the CCP's COVID efforts were, since the figures the CCP reports are statistically and mathematically implausible.
It's insane because it was ineffective and unnecessary. The CCP chose to continue pursuing lockdowns while fudging the numbers instead of mass vaccination, which is bad enough. But the worst of all is that they spread misinformation about clearly effective western vaccines and boxed themselves into a situation where they couldn't accept them, while simultaneously adding wind to the sails of antivaxxer nutters worldwide.
Let's just assume that the data you're using here is trustworthy, since that makes this a very simple discussion.
According to that article, COVID may have resulted in a million deaths in China above the long-term trend line in the last 3 years. This is known as the excess mortality rate, which we can directly compare to other countries even if China lied about COVID mortality (and hey, maybe they did - it would be in their own interests so it's plausible)
According to this article, since the pandemic began the US's excess deaths have also sparked sharply even as the COVID mortality rate falls in official government data (sound familiar?) FTA: Since the pandemic began, excess deaths are up by more than 1.25 million in the U.S., about 15% higher than in the pre-pandemic years. That's worse even when you don't take populations into account!
Now we can do excess deaths per capita to compare these two policies:
China's population is notoriously huge, with currently 1.412 billion people living in China. 1 million excess deaths among 1.412 billion people gives us an excess death rate of ~0.07%
America is a much smaller country, with 331.9 million people. 1.25 million excess deaths among 331.9 million gives us an excess death rate of ~0.38%
That means America's policies were 5x worse on a per capita basis. This is why American life expectancy has fallen behind Chinese life expediency. "Ineffective and unnecessary" by what measure?
If China had responded as badly as the US and had an excess death rate of ~0.38% then over 5 million people would have died. Even if we take your pessimistic numbers at face value, zero COVID saved so many lives that Chinese life expectancy actually rose above American life expectancy!
America is the worst of its cohorts, but the rest of the West failed too!
France had 151,000 excess deaths. At that rate China would have lost over 3 million
Germany had 254,000 excess deaths . At that rate China would have lost over 4 million
Britain had 237,000 excess deaths. At that rate China would have lost just under 5 million.
In fairness, according to your data, China only barely outcompeted South Korea at 42,000 excess deaths - at that rate China would have lost 1.14 million instead of a measly 1 million. That's still 140,000 lives that were saved because of zero COVID that would have died with South Korean policies.
In conclusion, China is a positive force in the world and I know which side I'm on in the next Cold War.
You can have the last word. Pick a side lib.
The data is literally from the CCP itself, so you don't need to question it. You trust the CCP right? The CCP claims a COVID mortality rate of 0 after April 2020, which is downright idiotic and requires the suspension of disbelief to work with. Based on that, I won't even make an effort to believe that the CCP's figures are in any way trustworthy.
The entire reason why this isn't a simple discussion, and why we have to use the "excess mortality" as a proxy metric in the first place, is because the CCP lied and fudged the data into order to present "zero covid" as a success. Had the CCP simply shared the actual COVID death rate, this would've been a matter of simple comparison, but they didn't.
However, that is fine. Data scientists can construct statistical models to account for the discrepancies. The Economist's Model illustrates this well. While estimates for the US, Germany closely track the actual numbers reported with some specific gap, CCP-China's estimates diverge sharply from their reports. The average estimate for China is worse than US or any other Western nation, unless you pick the "massaged" figures they have reported, which are certainly false. Only the lower bound of the estimate can be considered better.
This claim is hilarious in any context, but even moreso in the context of COVID. China has been gaslighting people about the pandemic from the very beginning, and repressed whistleblowers who attempted to warn the world about it. The world lost crucial weeks and months of much-needed response time because of the CCP's obsession with controlling the narrative even when the extent of the problem was obvious. Why jail medical workers who spoke out? Pointless cruelty, especially considering the news was all over the place at that point. Why spread misinformation about vaccines? And why bother fudge the numbers when the discrepancy is obvious to any observer?
I've already made it clear I'm not on your side, or the CCP's side, Ms./Mr. Tankie. There's a reason why tankies are, and continue to be, a fringe movement within the left almost everywhere: You're faced with the Sisyphean task of attempting to sell the CCP as a force for good, which is extremely difficult considering the fact that the entire world is aware of the CCP's nature as a repressive, totalitarian regime.
Call me "lib" all you want, at least non-Tankie leftists are actually somewhat effective at improving conditions of the working class (compared to CCP's "achievements", which are a sad joke). European socialists can point to successes in both labor rights and on the social front (LGBT rights in China are an even sadder joke). The only thing tankies succeed at these days is shilling for the CCP, for Russia, for the Taliban, or for whatever regressive, repressive, authoritarian "anti-western" / "anti-US" force is popular nowadays. My bad, they're also remarkably successful in alienating people from the wider leftist movement - but thankfully, tankies are still seen as a joke and beyond parody in most of Europe, so we don't have this problem over here yet.