Very true. I just see imperialism as primary because it will always be able to enforce class structure as a result of foreign influence. You can’t fight class conflict without fighting imperialism first and that’s mostly what I meant

This @Womanpuncher69

Love u bruv

i did think of sometimes when class struggle isn’t primary like the afghan invasion, japan invasion of china so i was wrong to state always primary.

also got me questioning whats the difference when someone uses capitalism from imperialism in the marxist way are they not one in the same in this day and age

They are two interconnected and interdependent yet distinct systems in the same way use/exchange value are two distinct yet interdependent systems

def an interesting thing i hadnt thought about

puts into context certain things like BRI being a method of resistance against imperialism with only the knock on effects of that resistance resisting capitalism itself

the more books communists read the better oil barons sleep at night

I’d definitely argue that China is engaging in a form imperialism in that they are performing capital extraction but overall the BRI is still a great program that’ll help the third world become economically self sufficient

I think China being a center of capital and trade would end up being a better position than the US / Europe given that china’s run by an ML party

Not to be idealist or presumptive but I think the game plan is to play nice by the capitalists rules until they overtake them then Xi will press the socialism button and destroy the capitalists in their own reactionary wars

Americana China-apologist moment again sorry @Cudderwalks

I believe we should legalize drunk driving

monthlyreview.org/2021/07/01/china-imperialism-or-semi-periphery

drunk driving was a show of proletarian unity during the GPCR

this is what Deng and his cronies took away from you

anarchist!

It’s obvious they’re using imperialism to advance their own power

BUT Is China attempting to advance into the capitalist core to take hegemonic control away from the U.S. / EU or is it to cement itself amongst them

always funny seeing Canadians say China is the main exploiter of Africa

I agree with your first sentence but I think you're also giving them too much credit.

To me the CCP feels like an actual personification of

They're much more stringent on billionaires and their corporations than the US and EU (not saying much but it's something) and their foreign policies seem to encourage co-operation rather than subordination. But overall it feels as if they're slowly scraping off that ML exterior to hunt for more and more economic power.

Whether that power will be used to push a red movement globally or place themselves in a new imperialist core only time will tell. If I was a betting man I'd prob say it's the latter

Do members in the government have their own motivation for this though? Like do people like Xi have money in this places? What about all the banks and real estate companies that get nationalized?

i think there's a lot of interesting info in this essay (ive seen it posted multiple times) but i dont really like the word games and arguments it has. It projects way too much assumption on China and tries to play disconnected number games. I don't really think china is "imperialist" but the essay tries really hard to make these big theoretical arguments that china isn't even capitalist really, many of the arguments use ML citations but aren't really far off from western ESG investment hypotheses ("it's not capitalist because it doesn't make money"). for as much data as goes into the article it's way more ideologically biased than you would expect. It's obvious they also cherrypicked which parts to talk about and not talk about, not talking about things like actual class structure, market structure, etc. but focusing on high level numbers instead. I think the concluding remarks about expectations relative to growth are interesting though overall esp. the climate impact stuff

That being said I think it's also not helpful to say "China" as a whole because the CCP isn't a hivemind and I'm sure the party has a lot of dissidence in what they believe their goals are per member in what they believe achieving a socialist nation really is, or if certain members even care at this point about that rather than strengthening China.

That's not something I think any of us can really answer. We don't live in China (as far as I know) and we're not in tune with the CCP on a personal basis.

But I can tell you that a good chunk of the CCP probably wants to see China succeed and be powerful. Whether or not that comes with whittling down ML values to facilitate that, I guess it depends on the individual member on what their threshold is.