Yeah I saw this in Cambodia when I lived there. Sihanoukville had become a Chinese enclave almost completely.
Different to the way that French colonialism worked, though. Less direct government, more influence of existing power structures and respect for the local government.
There is definitely an argument that this is plain business investment - China has a lot of foreign currency to invest because of its trade surplus, and there isn't the opportunity within China to invest it all, so it is engaging with trade partners to invest in their economies so that they can increase future trade with China.
You can also make the argument that this is not benign and China is trying to create control over foreign governments with this investment.
I'm kinda "both can be true, but either are better than how we did it"
> Reversing last year’s trend, a slim majority of ASEAN respondents selected China (52.0%) over the US (48.0%) if the region were forced to align itself with one of the two strategic rivals.
I’ve only been to Vietnam but the answer there is it’s… complicated.
They’re culturally part of the sinosphere but of course constantly living in the shadow of your much, much bigger neighbour to the north does breed some ill feeling.
The USA on the other hand, well, they’re not particularly popular either for obvious reasons
The irony is much of the China-ASEA acrimony seems to be over China's aggressive territorial claims in the South China Sea.
Which was a dumb move because, given Chinese economic superiority, they could have just quietly negotiated 99 year military base leases and oil/gas extraction with the UN-recognized territorial owners.
Same outcome, less bad blood.
Seems a bit of an own goal to militarily force the issue and antagonize its neighbors, who it's trying to convert to its sphere of influence.
Yes the whole "wolf warrior diplomacy" stuff in the late 2010s was massively counterproductive for China and just pushed everyone else in the pacific back into the arms of the Americans.
The mask (if there ever was one) slipped and they revealed a lot of information they probably should have kept hidden about their intentions for no real reason.
However they did eventually realise this, they've completely changed tack and they're having a lot more success (helped by the US adopting their own failed policy).
You're right though, I'd imagine politicians in SEA countries haven't forgotten
We don’t want anyone to colonize us just like you don’t want your country to be colonized. China offers business opportunities while the USA and Europe seem to always look down on everyone else and impose their own values on others. China does not give a shit about how we run our countries as long as they can trust that deals will be honored. We don’t want to be taught how great your democracy is or whatever, we want our countries to become better by our own efforts, with fair deals when dealing with other nations.
Yes, of course, sorry for the expression. I just mirrored the expression used in the parent comment. What I mean is that the US have caused a lot of pain in Latin America.
And the other half wants to be China's instead. Clearly they are a strategic partner when it comes to AI technology, as for other areas I'm not convinced they would be an improvement.
They've mostly been concerned with resource extraction rather than colonial exploitation like the West. And in fact, they've ditched most of their infra and tech projects in Africa, because of inherent instability in dealing with tinpot dictatorships.
On the other hand, every one in Asia is wary of too much Chinese presence and influence.
Single counterexample for single counterexample: Belgium's Leopold - not sure if Western colonialism is so much better (and notice I didn't even bring up "western India")
Not so much better but better in general compared to the middle eastern/eastern colonialism.. westerners have good competiton that the atrocities will be self corrected by itself but middle eastern/eastern colonies needed external western support like Korean war, hiroshima/nagasaki.. main example I can think of opposite is china under deng but there too deng had become relatively capitalist to fix the issues.
Yeah for the ones who get colonized, western ones were better than eastern ones. Japanese ones would've made Britishers look like kids when they were occupying eastern India.
You just put Russia and Japan as "Eastern"; they have nothing to do with each (and I would consider both as more Western than Eastern regarding imperial/colonial matters) other nor with China. China is a massive country that has always been massive and rich. Their style is more like the tribute systems they had before, as it is being observed in the BRI and other projects.
I understand China but in no way were japan and Russia close to western. IJA, MAO and soviet union makes westerners look like chuds. Russians still have the wagner group shit which is nowhere near what western countries have currently.
First, sadly, the west is full of similar examples, like Leopold II in Congo, Nazi Germany, the Bengal and Irish famines in the British empire, transatlantic slave trade... Not to talk about similar genocides perpetrated by third nations but with the support of the west like the Indonesian mass killings of 1965-66. I see quite a lot of similarities. The West is not a moral example of anything at all, but the opposite.
But second, Russia is not Eastern, it was more European than anything else until the Soviet Union. And Japanese Empire drew inspiration in the Western nations, even if they took it a even more horrible twist. So blaming this on "the East" is racist and reductionist.
Western countries have good internal competition that the atrocities they commit can be stopped by themselves whereas middle eastern/eastern ones needed external support for reformation famously hiroshima, deng reforms, soviet dissolution, korean war.. west is superior in terms of liberalism and capitalism that any successful country you can think of now has roots in utilising its ideas.. this is not to downplay atrocities committed by westerners but to think that somehow western nations are worse than eastern is being in denial. Russia was more european before the communists started their revolution and made themselves anti-west. They support many kinds of anti western movements like their war crimes in Africa, support for iranian/Islamist regimes, support dictatorship of china etc. these are all happening right now.. you are talking as though churchil wantedly cause famine in India when there's limited resource and he had to take care of his country before shipping to India and there was some amount of corruption too in Bengal at that time.. I'm not saying that they're blame free but it's a complex issue with multiple causes..
even the AI that was trained on mostly using western data and infrastructure that chinese models distill and all..
I did not say Eastern are better, but rather that they are not worse. And having good economies (that started with colonization, slavery and imperialism) has nothing to do with morals, rather the opposite. You can be extremelly efficient at exploiting people. Western genocides are complex, but Eastern ones are pure evil? That is what I mean, this is just racism.
Then you mean they are equal right? Which is also blatantly false. Capitalism and liberalism alone would compensate for many of the drawbacks caused by western atrocities. You talk as though colonisation, slavery, imperialism was only done by western when eastern/non-capitalist countries do that routinely since ancient times. Those are human nature and any system u can imagine has its traces rooted in ancient civilizations. I'm also from India and I know what the British did was bad but even before that there were issues within ourselves. But it was nothing to what the Japanese alone did when they occupied just a few parts of India. Exploiting people lol.. as though there aren't different levels of exploitation between now and then and the freedom to choose to work in different places now.. this is just plain old Marxism.. i must have internalized racism jz cz West is better in terms of liberalism and prosperity and reform than East..
Even with all the downsides of being colonized by Britain, it was still far better than being colonized by Belgium. Heck, being colonized by pretty much anybody but Belgium was better than being colonized by Belgium. Read up on the Belgian Congo sometime: it was a parade of horrors.
GP was making a relative comparison; pointing out that both were bad in absolute terms does not negate the point. -2 is still greater than -17.
For the love of God, you guys are brain broken.. there's a limited resource and churchill didn't want to provide to India because of that and add that there's some major corruption in Bengal at that time that caused it.. you guys don't see nuance at all..
India had a system in place to handle famines, Brits decided to do away with it setting the stage to allow millions to die. Was it also just corruption that caused millions to die during the Irish famine?
How do you not know about the policies like prioritising calcutta and ignore other regions of Bengal, surrounding states restrictions to supply food to bengal, price controls, local shortages + 1942 cyclone + british prioritizing their own citizens all caused such issues.. jz doing a cursory research would have provided you these details.. if churchill wanted to intentionally induce famine, how does that explain him asking FDR to provide as they surplus and why FDR had to not do that.. please jz do a cursory glance regarding irish famine too.. some folks jz can't do pros and cons of their own views as well which is a shame..
What a disingenuous question. Par for the course for the likes of you. Just because I view the west as less evil than the east doesn't mean we like to get colonised. These are my views:
1. We would not like to get colonised.
2. But history shows that the world was a place where you conquer or be conquered.
3. Mughals first invaded and as they were falling then, Europeans occupied, which is par for the course if you view the world history at those times.
4. It would've been better if they left early but they were better than japanese imperialists and nazis who bose was cozying up to.
5. The japanese were super violent to indians. I can't imagine the nightmare scenarios if japanese enacted what they did in nanjing/Andaman/few east indian places but they were weak at that time and British + indian army repelled them which is good.
6. After colonisation, nehru, being fabian, failed to open up the economy and he sympathised with soviets/china which exacerbated many economic and military issues at the border.
7. 1991 reforms changed india for the better and it would be better even if they pivot to green energy so that they can pivot off of Russia and Ally with west which biden and dems were trying but now trump worsened the relationship.
I keep hearing this and I fail to see any reason to believe that it will be the case. Any empire, in the history of our species, has always had an initial "inward-looking" period prior to becoming a full-fledged imperialist oppressor. Edo-period Japan into Imperial Japan, for example. Rather, what I think any budding empire needs a period of growth to become a large enough fish and also to delude its leadership and population into the convenient mindset that their flavour of imperialism is good and justified ("Hakkou ichiu", "The white man's burden", etc.).
To me, the PRC is at the very end of that process and I recommend anyone doubting this to go and read conversations and listen to the words of the populace that is turning increasingly nationalistic and you will hear the same old tales of revanchism and exceptionalism that we are used to hearing (during my recent visit, I watched the morning news every day for about a week and without fail a military inspection, new ship, new plane, etc. was presented each day). In addition, I think those outside of Asia are very much shielded from the early signs, but go and read about PRC influence and tensions in South Korea, Japan, RoC, Philippines, Vietnam, Laos, Myanmar, India, Pakistan, and Tajikistan and you will see something rather different than "inward-looking". To me, here the PRC is simply testing the waters for the extent of the influence of other powers and how far it can go. Likewise, we are seeing overseas naval bases being constructed which sure is an indication for a desire to project power outwards.
I want to believe that this time it will be different. I really do. Apologists around me say "It will only be Taiwan and the South China Sea, then then it will stop." and I would love to believe them. But can anyone truly internalise the narrative that international utopia will be spearheaded by a deeply authoritarian state that controls information like no other (and gladly exports that technology), disappears its own population at will, spins an increasingly strong nationalistic narrative, etc.? No, sorry, I think the "inward-looking" narrative is simply a convenient way for us to close our eyes and find comfort in ignorance, rather than in facts.
You may well be right, and it's really only that China has been more inward-looking recently, and given the chance it will spread its true colonial wings.
Not sure if "colonial" is the right word though, as we should be careful to think that oppression always takes on the form we have seen in the past (US imperialist oppression for example did not take on the form of the colonialism that preceded it) . Also, be careful with "true" there. I do not think this is some sort of subterfuge, but rather an inherent weakness in us as a species. Vest power in anyone, and before long their morals will give way and an oppressor will be born.
The way I look at it, until Deng the PRC's economic policies and internal instability kept it from growing at the pace of many of its neighbours. Then we had an era of intense growth (which is still to some degree ongoing). However, as a reaction to this era Xi and others needed a narrative to counter the increased corruption and a new unifying myth to replace the cult of growth as the economy would stagnate at some point and could then call into question the authority of CCP to rule. Their choice of nationalism is what scares me and I know PRC citizens (even CCP members) that share this perspective and would rather have seen the Shanghai clique to have remained. It is possible that in this alternative reality we would still end up with "Imperialism with Chinese characteristics" ("中国特色帝国主义"?), but I chose to believe that at the very least the chances of this would have been smaller.
So let’s just guess what China will do once it becomes dominant and act like it already did whatever we conjured up they will do. That’s how you get preventive wars that destroy civilizations without any actual basis on reality.
No, I do not think that is a fair portrayal of my position. Just like I will not say that your position is simply appeasement and hoping for the best. One must always be charitable in a discussion with strangers whose positions you do not fully understand.
Rather, I think we should look hard into ourselves and what is good and bad about the current world order. For example, the people of the RoC have the right to determine which direction they want to go. Regardless of the chauvinistic rhetoric coming out of Beijing. We should all stand up for this, because it is a universal right that we want everyone to enjoy. Similarly, we should push against the Eleven-dash line and support the 2013 ruling. The list goes on and I am sure these issues can be resolved without an outright war if we are careful, yet firm, in our beliefs and also diplomatically preemptive and thoughtful.
Being concerned about PRC imperialism should not be mistaken for the position that their people should "know their place" and be suppressed back to the stone age. They have the right to enjoy the fruits of their labour and pursue happiness, just like everyone else. We simply must be there to remind them (just like we must remind ourselves) that the course of humanity is a collective project if we are to stay clear of the darker sides of our nature as we venture together into the future.
Do you believe the UK has the right to rule over the Maldives?
And the USA has the right to have a military presence in Guam (and nearly all of the Pacific Ocean for that matter)?
The Chinese claims on the South Pacific Islands seem really similar to me.
Taiwan seems like a wholy different matter. It was united with China for hundreds of years until the Japanese colonialists took over. It united again with China after WWII but split up after a few years because of the Chinese civil war (notice it was an internal war). I think it's just fair that China wants to re-unite with Taiwan, though I definitely don't support a military takeover. Hopefully a solution similar to what was done in Hong Kong can be found. The Tibet region had a similar history and it's definitely unfortunate that China had to use military force to bring it under its own control (arguably completely unnecessarily - China would be just as strong today without it), but it's kind of understandable in the context of the time (China was trying to recover from centuries of being preyed on by other nations).
I am saying this because I can't agree that China is acting imperialistic - it's basically claiming sovereignty over its own historical lands - which were taken away from them by force by foreign colonial powers. But I admit that, if you go back far enough, nearly all land was once taken over by aggressors - the USA being just a more recent example of that.
Anyway, thanks for not being an absolutist and trying to understand the "other" side (I must acknowledge I have no relation to China whatsoever, in fact I am from South America and live in Europe).
> Hopefully a solution similar to what was done in Hong Kong can be found.
Citizens of Hong Kong lost their right to free speech and their ability to select their own leaders. If you publicly criticize Xi Jinping in Hong Kong you will go to jail. If you advocate democratic rights in Hong Kong you will go to jail.
China's claims on Taiwan are ethno-nationalist. Ethno-nationalism should be rejected in all forms because it is a rejection of fundamental human rights. Taiwan deserves the world's support because it is functioning democracy. That makes all the difference.
I do not have a stance on the Maldives, Guam, etc. as I lack enough historical and current context. What I always do is try to derive positions based on the human right to self-determination.
About Taiwan. I find the claim that since an absolute monarchy controlled the island 150 years ago, that then a government which was the result of two (is my count correct?) revolutions overthrowing that monarchy and then another government, a government which failed to conquer the land by military means by 1950, and now after people have lived independently for over 75 years (over 25 of which as a democracy) that said government has any right to dictate how said people should live to be simply absurd. If the people of the RoC wants to join with the PRC, that is for them to decide through their own decision processes. Historical claims like this may make sense for unpopulated tracts of land, but here we are talking about the rights to self-determination of more than twenty million people of which the vast majority were born well after 1950. This would set a terrible precedence and, frankly, it feels akin to how emperors and kings of old asserted their "rights" and not how we move towards a more just world.
Also, Hong Kong? If anything, Hong Kong shows that the PRC is a poor custodian for a pluralistic country with multiple parallel systems. I once thought it reasonable for Hong Kong to be "returned" after the historical travesty that were the Opium Wars, but I have heard enough first-hand accounts of the suffering and tragedy that unfolded over the last ten years to reconsider whether I prioritise history over the people that are alive here and now. It was not that Mao and Xi "unfortunately had to use force" against Tibet and Hong Kong. These were calculated choices on their part and history shall judge them the same way we judge any other oppressor for their moral failures.
Africans are more indebted to Western multilateral organizations and private Western bondholders than to the Chinese.
The idea that Africans are being finessed by the Chinese is racist and stems from a "we know what's good for you" imperialistic lens.
I find it unlikely to be a duoply of hegemony for long, some countries to watch are Germany, Japan, India, Nigeria, and Brazil. You could broaden the geography to continents were I expect major players to emerge on each.
We are only a few decades since the "end of history" and much has changed. What do things look like beyond 2050?
Brazil is basically the world's soy farm. It's at least half a century behind the times. I still have no idea how it managed to insert itself into the BRICS economic block. The notion that it's on the same level as China, India or Russia is just comical.
All of the small miracles you listed happened in spite of the culture, not because of it. It's also not a coincidence that both are deeply linked to the most successful brazilian enterprise: the brazilian government.
I'm trying to avoid getting too deep in these Brazil tangents so I'm gonna leave it at that. Anyone who cares enough to know what I think about the subject can just look up my comment history.
Timothy Snyder, in On Tyranny, has a chapter about staying in touch with friends from other countries, and while we are not friends, this thread is in that spirit and I have learned things from you, so thank you!
A lot of AI researchers were just in Brazil due to ICLR. A number of them got robbed in broad daylight in this supposedly nice part of Rio. I think the assesment of Brazil is accurate.
The average German in Nazi Germany probably didnt think the Nazis were too bad either (of course the average citizen wasn't Jewish, gay, communist or other undesirables). That the average Chinese think things are “just fine” doesn’t mean they are.
Unlike Nazis, I don't see that Chinese communists have expansionist goals to seize territory. Nazis wanted all of Europe. Do Chinese communists want all of say southeast Asia?
To be clear I don't think the government of China is as bad as the Nazis were. I'm just saying "the average Chinese in China thinks it's fine" doesn't mean it's fine.
There is no good imperialist power, there is no capitalism with a human face, there will never be. The UK murdered millions in India, Ireland and all around the world in their time. The US did the same. The only reason China isn't openly doing the same right now is because they are still the underdog and they still need cordiality to get through the door, just like the UK and the US did in their time. The solution is to rid the world of imperialism and capitalism as a whole. As long as there is a profit motive running through everything, international relations will be in the form of wars (military or economic). Only under socialism can the people of the world truly pool their resources together to build up instead of destroying each other.
You would have to eradicate the desire to command other people. The wish for power which is different from the wish to be praised, as forcing somebody to do something is different from convincing somebody to do something.
There are no good imperialists but it's a spectrum where western capitalist colonies fare much better than eastern communist colonies because capitalism and democracy is the engine for economic growth and western colonies fared much better than eastern ones. What's a better system than capitalism for imperialism? Socialism? Weren't they also pretty brutal imperialists? Japanese imperialists alone make western ones look like amateurs.
> western colonies fared much better than eastern ones.
Sure, Iraq and Afghanistan definitely benefited a lot from being bombed, occupied, and then handed over to even worse tyrants when the West got bored.
No, sorry, but "capitalism and democracy" is not the right answer everywhere, and when they're not, pushing them by force is no better than forcing communism. In general, forcing an incompatible ideology on people historically and culturally opposed to it will end in tragedy, no matter how great that ideology may be.
As tho they weren't shitholes before the intervention and those are the only examples when they themselves treat their citizens like trash by oppressing themselves and they got bombed because they're bored? Lol Idk if this is a parody of left wing thought or not.. surely you can make better arguments than boredom arguments and call them bogus..
How are you not racist towards Arabs to think that they're not capable of liberalism? There needs to be some people at the right time and a place like al shaara seems to be doing incremental changes to reform syria.. pushing them by force is okay when they oppress their own citizens and threaten other nations with their own form of imperialism on sorrounding countries/allies.. are we supposed to fold and not help ukraine for example even though Ukrainians never got exposed to liberalism? It's to help and condition them to open to liberalism.. same is needed for iran but retard in chief can't do it properly..
