IMO, you should learn how to characterize imperialism, exploitation and socialism in terms of macro-economic indicators.
For example, imperialism is the highest form of capitalism, characterized by the exploitation of an entire country. How would that manifest? Inevitably, there will be disputes between the investor and the state, as contradictions arise between capital concentration/export, and the state’s need to provide for their people. This is tracked through investor-state dispute settlements.
I did a post on this a few years ago.
https://lemmygrad.ml/post/3066117
What’s notable about China is that despite being the country with the second most imports in the world, it has significantly less ISDS cases as a claimant state, less than Russia and comparable to Greece and Belgium. (circa 2023)
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Red Pen, by virtue of not being a ultra.
Yeah S4A called China a “social democracy” and said it was practicing “pseudo-national liberation” (a surprisingly vague term that I do not think was expanded upon in the video that it came from: https://youtu.be/o2AcXOsRkyQ), so they are definitely some ultra. I do not believe I have ever heard Red Pen, though.
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The “China schism” among leftist will be a great divide among the ML people. Revisionism or dialectical evolvement? Even i have been a cautionary skeptic in regards to China. But one thing remains true: regardless we MLs must never stop agitating, educating and organizng. China won’t save humanity but neither will halt it’s progress like the reactionary forces of the world have.
I don’t like the term revisionism. I think in the context of the second international, when there were opportunistic tendencies in the SPD that wanted to deviate from the revolutionary strategy, I think calling out revisionism made a lot of sense. Revisionism was a real danger and basically sabotaged the revolutionary movement in Germany and Europe, which was growing strong at the time.
Afterwards, I think this “revisionism” turned into a senseless accusation that caused many different socialist/communist groups to start factionalizing and splitting into smaller and smaller groups, to the point that all of them became insignificant or isolated.
In the case of China, it’s not as if there aren’t real contradictions in the Chinese development. Yes, China has a bourgeoisie, and many petite bourgeois tendencies growing among the middle classes. Yes, China coexists in the same imperialist system which other neoliberal powers operate. China exports capital to Brazil and to many countries in the Global South and North.
However, China also was able to restrict the bourgeoisie into a cage so they don’t go out of hand. They also seized control of financial capital by the state to avoid the trap of having the economy being dominated by speculators. China’s economy is very reliant on planning, and with this was able to avoid the profit rate pitfall that caused many developed global north nations to desindudtrialize.
So, I’d say that China is just China. It still has many contradictions. The contradiction between capital and labor hasn’t been overcome yet. The contradiction of unequal development still exists between China and other global South countries. But, still we better have China than not have it.
In the end, China is not going to save us. We need to undergo our own revolutionary processes, even if our countries and our movements enter in contradiction with China.
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