I will concede the trade point in a general sense. But the point I was trying to make is that, to our collective dismay I’m sure, the US is tightening a noose around China.
Russia is floating the idea of trading with dollars again in Ukraine negotiations. India recently made a trade deal with the US for oil. Depending on how these things play out, BRICS will be considerably weakened.
The US is moving a large amount of armaments to the Philippines. They are amassing a fleet to strike Iran. South Korea is still… South Korea.
I disagree with what I assume is you and your comrades support of China’s lack of direct support for socialist movements abroad. It looks to me as though they will soon be in a very weak position on the global playing field. In my opinion, that direct support could have made a difference. Reeling in trade with their ideological enemies could as well. Should this play out in favor of the US, they will likely have to make more concessions to the bourgeoisie than they already have.
Unless the US economy finally gives way to the rot that has been spreading across it’s foundations. Which China may be banking on. The “gamble” I mentioned previously.
You’re identifying the same contradiction I am, just seemingly analysing it differently and drawing different conclusions from it.
The U.S. is clearly attempting to tighten the noose but that’s not new. That’s been the defining feature of China’s external environment since at least 2011, and realistically since 1949. Encirclement, sanctions pressure, proxy wars, tech embargoes, financial warfare, the standard imperialist containment. What’s different now is simply that China is large enough to be treated as an existential rival rather than a manageable subordinate.
Despite agreeing on this I heavily disagree with your analysis and conclusions. You’re assuming that earlier or more direct revolutionary intervention abroad would have meaningfully altered this trajectory. I see no historical basis for that.
The USSR tried exactly what you’re proposing: massive material support to militant movements, open alignment, heavy military commitments across multiple continents. What did that produce? Overextension, economic strain, internal stagnation, and ultimately collapse under imperialist pressure. It’s important to remember that we don’t need to speculate on the what if of the soviet road, there is already a concrete historical outcome.
China clearly learned from the Soviet collapse. The CPC’s post Chairman Mao strategy hasn’t been “abandon internationalism.” as many proclaim. In reality it’s redefining it to prioritize domestic development, industrial capacity, technological sovereignty, and long-term resilience first, because without those, everything else collapses. Revolutionary solidarity means nothing if your own state gets strangled or balkanized and also the Chinese people must come first for the CPC just as the Cuban people must come first for the Cuban government etc.
You also say direct support “could have made a difference.” Made a difference how, exactly? Which movements, specifically, would now be in power and capable of resisting NATO-level pressure? With what industrial base? What logistics? What air defense? What energy independence?
There is a persistent fantasy in some parts of the left that revolutionary movements just need more weapons or money and then history bends. That has unfortunately never been historically true. States survive through production, infrastructure, supply chains, and control over development pathways not donations. Look at what happened to the Soviet backed movements post collapse, they all quickly followed suit.
On BRICS: yes, it’s incredibly fragile. Of course it is. It’s a loose coordination mechanism between mostly bourgeois-national states with competing interests. It is absolutely not a unified socialist bloc. Expecting ideological coherence there is a category error. But even limited dedollarization, parallel payment systems, alternative development finance, and South to South trade corridors materially weaken U.S. monopoly power. That’s a world of difference from before it’s creation even if it has many many issues of it’s own.
Russia flirting with dollars again doesn’t mean “multipolarity is collapsing.” It means Russia is a capitalist state negotiating under wartime pressure. India cutting oil deals with the U.S. means India remains as always India: opportunist, comprador-leaning, and strategically unreliable. None of this is new information to us or to the CPC.
What is new historically is that dozens of Global South countries now have non-IMF, non-imperealist financing and development options, Chinese-built ports, power grids, rail, telecom, and industrial zones. That materially erodes imperial leverage far more than headline-grabbing arms shipments ever could.
You’re also underestimating the retaliation China would face. China openly backing armed movements or unilaterally fully severing trade with “Israel” wouldn’t be some isolated moral gesture. It would immediately escalate to financial sanctions, maritime interdictions, tech embargoes, asset seizures, and possibly kinetic confrontation. And unlike the U.S., China does not yet control the global reserve currency, insurance markets, shipping chokepoints, SWIFT or hold global hegemony. Not to mind the lack of power projection capability within the current PLA. However that is slowly changing along with the other issues mentioned, but the qualitative shift is still likely more than a decade away, if we’re being realistic.
Internationalism under imperialism is constrained by force relations. Pretending otherwise is not serious.
You then say China risks being weakened later and forced into bourgeois concessions. That risk exists regardless. The difference is whether China enters that confrontation with: the world’s largest industrial base, growing technological autonomy, energy diversification, strategic food reserves, alternative trade networks and internal political stability. Or without those things. The CPC has clearly chosen the former which I think we can all agree is the better one.
Finally, on the “gamble” point: yes, China is seemingly betting that U.S. internal decay outpaces its ability to maintain global dominance. But I would heavily disagree with the assertion of some that this is naive, it seems more grounded in observable material trends: deindustrialization, debt saturation, political fragmentation, infrastructure rot, and declining real productive capacity.
They are clearly not passively waiting. It’s much more similar to buying time while building strength(similar in idea to the Molotov-Ribbbentrop).
To reiterate the end of my other comment: this is clearly extremely ugly realpolitik. It’s slow. It’s frustrating. It doesn’t provide emotional catharsis. But it’s consistent with a long-term material strategy aimed at breaking Western monopoly power without triggering premature war that could very likely escalate.
Wanting China to behave like a romanticized 20th-century Soviet Union ignores both historical lessons and present conditions. Scientific socialism means adapting strategy to concrete reality, not demanding heroic gestures that feel righteous but materially weaken the only currently existing pole capable of offering an alternative to and eventually dismantling U.S. hegemony.
No need to apologize, I appreciate the effort towards genuine discourse.
The US has historically leaned heavily on “soft power.” Relying on statecraft, various levels of espionage, and throwing around it’s economic muscle. They have always been militarily imperialist as well, but this has been increasing steadily since the turn of the century. Rapidly in the last year as it descends into outright fascism.
I will not deny the merits of this overall strategy, nor the benefits it has provided up until now. But the beast it now faces is very different from the one it dealt with in the past.
I hold no ill will towards China. On the contrary, I hope they succeed. I disagree with some of their revisions and methods, but there are no other bearers of the torch of progress, so to speak.
I fear China is going to far with it’s isolationism. I’ve yet to see them show concrete support for their “allies” beyond promises of said support (except Russia if you count supplies for their war effort, but that looks more like it’s supporting the continuation of the war to keep attention on that part of the world).
What hope does it have to gain allies in the future if it maintains this course? The Molotov-Ribbentrop analogy may prove to be accurate in time, but if it did come to a end in the same horrific fashion, they may stand alone.
We’re veering into speculation, but I believe the destabilization and chaos caused by the new US regime both internally and externally could’ve been capitalized on to a much greater degree. Latin American governments are becoming predominantly right-wing. Maduro was kidnapped and Venezuela is now mostly conceding to US demands. Cuba is under siege. Israel is expanding outwards, Saudi Arabia as well (by proxy). Both the US and Israel are launching military strikes into East Africa, and other Arabian nations are supporting regime change. Iran is in the cross hairs.
Only time will tell and things can turn around as we saw in WW2. But while the Soviet Union predominantly defeated Nazi Germany, it took the Allies to complete the job in it’s entirety. The peripheral dominos appear to be falling. China appears to be taking a stronger stance in support of Iran. Hopefully it’s not too little too late.
I would push back heavily on the idea that U.S. violence abroad has fundamentally changed. The methods cycle between covert and overt, but the underlying imperial practice has been remarkably consistent. From Vietnam and Korea to Iraq, Libya, Afghanistan, and the permanent siege of Iran and Cuba, the U.S. has always combined soft power with mass violence, sanctions/economic warfare, regime change, and proxy conflicts. There has never been a peaceful liberal phase since it’s inception, just periods where the repression was more deniable. It’s important to remember that since it’s inception the US has been involved in direct military conflict for all but 17 years of it’s roughly 250years of existence.
There’s also Chile, Peru, Somalia and many others. Coups, death squads, structural adjustment, drone campaigns, and engineered instability. This is the standard operating procedure of the empire. What I think makes this feel new is simply that the U.S. is losing its uncontested dominance, so the coercion is becoming louder and less subtle(despite how unsubtle it already was for the most part).
This tone shift isn’t because the beast has transformed, it more goes to show its margins are shrinking. When soft power stops working, hard power has always filled the gap. China isn’t facing a qualitatively different empire(yet), it’s facing a declining one. This is exactly why I believe the CPC is prioritizing industrial strength, internal stability, and alternative development networks over dramatic confrontations. They don’t seem to be underestimating U.S. brutality but rather focused on building strength while surviving it long enough for its material base to erode(for the quantitative to add up to the qualitative) and for the inevitable shift in balance of forces that will come with that.
I agree with your first point. The US has essentially always been at war. It may not have changed it’s modus operandi, but it certainly has both accelerated and intensified. I, for one, don’t believe I can recall so many operations within the span of one year. Neither have they been done so brazenly. But such is nature of rising fascism.
I do stand firm in thinking the beast has transformed though. The empire is certainly in decline as you said (the inevitable outcome of an imperialist state). But I think that has turned the angry, hungry dog into a cornered angry, hungry dog.
Taking a step back for a moment, who could possibly say what the right course of action would be against something so wild and unpredictable?
All that being said, I don’t necessarily support dramatic action being taken by China (depending on your definition of such), but providing more support to nations that have good relations opens the possibility of providing them the means of prolonged resistance. This in turn would benefit China in the long run. If nothing else, it would buy them more time.
I will concede the trade point in a general sense. But the point I was trying to make is that, to our collective dismay I’m sure, the US is tightening a noose around China.
Russia is floating the idea of trading with dollars again in Ukraine negotiations. India recently made a trade deal with the US for oil. Depending on how these things play out, BRICS will be considerably weakened.
The US is moving a large amount of armaments to the Philippines. They are amassing a fleet to strike Iran. South Korea is still… South Korea.
I disagree with what I assume is you and your comrades support of China’s lack of direct support for socialist movements abroad. It looks to me as though they will soon be in a very weak position on the global playing field. In my opinion, that direct support could have made a difference. Reeling in trade with their ideological enemies could as well. Should this play out in favor of the US, they will likely have to make more concessions to the bourgeoisie than they already have.
Unless the US economy finally gives way to the rot that has been spreading across it’s foundations. Which China may be banking on. The “gamble” I mentioned previously.
Apologies for the long effort post incoming.
You’re identifying the same contradiction I am, just seemingly analysing it differently and drawing different conclusions from it.
The U.S. is clearly attempting to tighten the noose but that’s not new. That’s been the defining feature of China’s external environment since at least 2011, and realistically since 1949. Encirclement, sanctions pressure, proxy wars, tech embargoes, financial warfare, the standard imperialist containment. What’s different now is simply that China is large enough to be treated as an existential rival rather than a manageable subordinate.
Despite agreeing on this I heavily disagree with your analysis and conclusions. You’re assuming that earlier or more direct revolutionary intervention abroad would have meaningfully altered this trajectory. I see no historical basis for that.
The USSR tried exactly what you’re proposing: massive material support to militant movements, open alignment, heavy military commitments across multiple continents. What did that produce? Overextension, economic strain, internal stagnation, and ultimately collapse under imperialist pressure. It’s important to remember that we don’t need to speculate on the what if of the soviet road, there is already a concrete historical outcome.
China clearly learned from the Soviet collapse. The CPC’s post Chairman Mao strategy hasn’t been “abandon internationalism.” as many proclaim. In reality it’s redefining it to prioritize domestic development, industrial capacity, technological sovereignty, and long-term resilience first, because without those, everything else collapses. Revolutionary solidarity means nothing if your own state gets strangled or balkanized and also the Chinese people must come first for the CPC just as the Cuban people must come first for the Cuban government etc.
You also say direct support “could have made a difference.” Made a difference how, exactly? Which movements, specifically, would now be in power and capable of resisting NATO-level pressure? With what industrial base? What logistics? What air defense? What energy independence? There is a persistent fantasy in some parts of the left that revolutionary movements just need more weapons or money and then history bends. That has unfortunately never been historically true. States survive through production, infrastructure, supply chains, and control over development pathways not donations. Look at what happened to the Soviet backed movements post collapse, they all quickly followed suit.
On BRICS: yes, it’s incredibly fragile. Of course it is. It’s a loose coordination mechanism between mostly bourgeois-national states with competing interests. It is absolutely not a unified socialist bloc. Expecting ideological coherence there is a category error. But even limited dedollarization, parallel payment systems, alternative development finance, and South to South trade corridors materially weaken U.S. monopoly power. That’s a world of difference from before it’s creation even if it has many many issues of it’s own.
Russia flirting with dollars again doesn’t mean “multipolarity is collapsing.” It means Russia is a capitalist state negotiating under wartime pressure. India cutting oil deals with the U.S. means India remains as always India: opportunist, comprador-leaning, and strategically unreliable. None of this is new information to us or to the CPC.
What is new historically is that dozens of Global South countries now have non-IMF, non-imperealist financing and development options, Chinese-built ports, power grids, rail, telecom, and industrial zones. That materially erodes imperial leverage far more than headline-grabbing arms shipments ever could.
You’re also underestimating the retaliation China would face. China openly backing armed movements or unilaterally fully severing trade with “Israel” wouldn’t be some isolated moral gesture. It would immediately escalate to financial sanctions, maritime interdictions, tech embargoes, asset seizures, and possibly kinetic confrontation. And unlike the U.S., China does not yet control the global reserve currency, insurance markets, shipping chokepoints, SWIFT or hold global hegemony. Not to mind the lack of power projection capability within the current PLA. However that is slowly changing along with the other issues mentioned, but the qualitative shift is still likely more than a decade away, if we’re being realistic. Internationalism under imperialism is constrained by force relations. Pretending otherwise is not serious.
You then say China risks being weakened later and forced into bourgeois concessions. That risk exists regardless. The difference is whether China enters that confrontation with: the world’s largest industrial base, growing technological autonomy, energy diversification, strategic food reserves, alternative trade networks and internal political stability. Or without those things. The CPC has clearly chosen the former which I think we can all agree is the better one.
Finally, on the “gamble” point: yes, China is seemingly betting that U.S. internal decay outpaces its ability to maintain global dominance. But I would heavily disagree with the assertion of some that this is naive, it seems more grounded in observable material trends: deindustrialization, debt saturation, political fragmentation, infrastructure rot, and declining real productive capacity. They are clearly not passively waiting. It’s much more similar to buying time while building strength(similar in idea to the Molotov-Ribbbentrop).
To reiterate the end of my other comment: this is clearly extremely ugly realpolitik. It’s slow. It’s frustrating. It doesn’t provide emotional catharsis. But it’s consistent with a long-term material strategy aimed at breaking Western monopoly power without triggering premature war that could very likely escalate.
Wanting China to behave like a romanticized 20th-century Soviet Union ignores both historical lessons and present conditions. Scientific socialism means adapting strategy to concrete reality, not demanding heroic gestures that feel righteous but materially weaken the only currently existing pole capable of offering an alternative to and eventually dismantling U.S. hegemony.
No need to apologize, I appreciate the effort towards genuine discourse.
The US has historically leaned heavily on “soft power.” Relying on statecraft, various levels of espionage, and throwing around it’s economic muscle. They have always been militarily imperialist as well, but this has been increasing steadily since the turn of the century. Rapidly in the last year as it descends into outright fascism.
I will not deny the merits of this overall strategy, nor the benefits it has provided up until now. But the beast it now faces is very different from the one it dealt with in the past.
I hold no ill will towards China. On the contrary, I hope they succeed. I disagree with some of their revisions and methods, but there are no other bearers of the torch of progress, so to speak.
I fear China is going to far with it’s isolationism. I’ve yet to see them show concrete support for their “allies” beyond promises of said support (except Russia if you count supplies for their war effort, but that looks more like it’s supporting the continuation of the war to keep attention on that part of the world).
What hope does it have to gain allies in the future if it maintains this course? The Molotov-Ribbentrop analogy may prove to be accurate in time, but if it did come to a end in the same horrific fashion, they may stand alone.
We’re veering into speculation, but I believe the destabilization and chaos caused by the new US regime both internally and externally could’ve been capitalized on to a much greater degree. Latin American governments are becoming predominantly right-wing. Maduro was kidnapped and Venezuela is now mostly conceding to US demands. Cuba is under siege. Israel is expanding outwards, Saudi Arabia as well (by proxy). Both the US and Israel are launching military strikes into East Africa, and other Arabian nations are supporting regime change. Iran is in the cross hairs.
Only time will tell and things can turn around as we saw in WW2. But while the Soviet Union predominantly defeated Nazi Germany, it took the Allies to complete the job in it’s entirety. The peripheral dominos appear to be falling. China appears to be taking a stronger stance in support of Iran. Hopefully it’s not too little too late.
I would push back heavily on the idea that U.S. violence abroad has fundamentally changed. The methods cycle between covert and overt, but the underlying imperial practice has been remarkably consistent. From Vietnam and Korea to Iraq, Libya, Afghanistan, and the permanent siege of Iran and Cuba, the U.S. has always combined soft power with mass violence, sanctions/economic warfare, regime change, and proxy conflicts. There has never been a peaceful liberal phase since it’s inception, just periods where the repression was more deniable. It’s important to remember that since it’s inception the US has been involved in direct military conflict for all but 17 years of it’s roughly 250years of existence.
There’s also Chile, Peru, Somalia and many others. Coups, death squads, structural adjustment, drone campaigns, and engineered instability. This is the standard operating procedure of the empire. What I think makes this feel new is simply that the U.S. is losing its uncontested dominance, so the coercion is becoming louder and less subtle(despite how unsubtle it already was for the most part).
This tone shift isn’t because the beast has transformed, it more goes to show its margins are shrinking. When soft power stops working, hard power has always filled the gap. China isn’t facing a qualitatively different empire(yet), it’s facing a declining one. This is exactly why I believe the CPC is prioritizing industrial strength, internal stability, and alternative development networks over dramatic confrontations. They don’t seem to be underestimating U.S. brutality but rather focused on building strength while surviving it long enough for its material base to erode(for the quantitative to add up to the qualitative) and for the inevitable shift in balance of forces that will come with that.
I agree with your first point. The US has essentially always been at war. It may not have changed it’s modus operandi, but it certainly has both accelerated and intensified. I, for one, don’t believe I can recall so many operations within the span of one year. Neither have they been done so brazenly. But such is nature of rising fascism.
I do stand firm in thinking the beast has transformed though. The empire is certainly in decline as you said (the inevitable outcome of an imperialist state). But I think that has turned the angry, hungry dog into a cornered angry, hungry dog.
Taking a step back for a moment, who could possibly say what the right course of action would be against something so wild and unpredictable?
All that being said, I don’t necessarily support dramatic action being taken by China (depending on your definition of such), but providing more support to nations that have good relations opens the possibility of providing them the means of prolonged resistance. This in turn would benefit China in the long run. If nothing else, it would buy them more time.