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So what? Currently the U.S. NASA cooperates with Brazil and Argentina in developing satellite for salinity measurements - http://www.kold.com/story/14868775/n...ursday-morning Does it mean that the U.S. is interested in the development of the Brazilian/Argentinian science for its own sake? I am sure that PRC aided Nigerian government (which is extremely neoliberal and corrupt, by the way) for something more than simple "internationalism" (as your second link detailing the intrigues between Shell and Chinese state-run corporations over the rights of plunder of Nigeria's natural resources incidentally shows).
[FONT="Fixedsys"]History is not like some individual person which uses men to achieve its ends. History is nothing but the actions of men in pursuit of their ends. - Karl Marx.
Only sound common sense, respectable fellow that he is in the homely realm of his own four walls, has very wonderful adventures directly he ventures out into the wide world of research. - Friedrich Engels.
I am by heritage a Jew, by citizenship a Swiss, and by makeup a human being, and only a human being, without any special attachment to any state or national entity whatsoever. - Albert Einstein.[/FONT]
"I'm anthracite!"
Which is no more communist than capitalist-owned enterprises.
What kind of quasi-racist crap is this? I'm the first one to condemn the Chinese government, but the emergence of "China Towns" was the result of racist landlords and city governments being unwilling to let Chinese immigrants live outside of confined areas and new immigrants having to rely on each other and established Chinese residents when they wouldn't otherwise have been able to enjoy basic services and networks of support. They have nothing to do with the Chinese state, and they are not "economic zones". They are a symbol of racist oppression.
Your point being?
Are you joking or something? Sorry, but it sounded a bit like what some Sinophobic right-wing American hawk might say - "the Chinese are everywhere! They are taking over the world!"...
[FONT=System]Long Live Proletarian Democracy!
Down with All Imperialisms!
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Oh, I'm surprised that you don't put that down as your "Organisation", rather than the PSL. It sounds a lot better.
I would really like you to tell this to a person from Laos where chinese econommy grew from small shops to take over the economy. "Racist" my ass. This is 21st century where chinese are not being discriminated in the western world and the chinese goverment invests on china towns(of any form) worldwide. Keep your postmodern bullshit. Its not always about racism...
This is a grossly confused and downright ignorant post. What is "postmodern" about someone calling you out on what was clearly a prejudiced comment? More importantly, you present an oversimplified and distorted version of the history of Chinese communities in Southeast Asia. The Chinese communities of this region were not compressed into China Towns in the same way as in Western countries and cities like San Francisco and the term "China Town" is almost always used specifically in relation to those countries and specific districts of large cities - so to begin with it's unclear why you used that term to characterize the role of China and Chinese ethnic communities in the region. From a historical perspective, there are examples where Chinese communities were overwhelmingly comprised of merchants and traders and it is the case that those communities often attracted resistance and were the objects of popular anger, this anger often being harnessed by the merchants of other ethnicities in order to further their own interests, as in the case of the Sarekat Islam, which was formed by modernist Muslim merchants in Indonesia (and Java in particular) in order to resist the economic encroachment of Chinese merchants, and eventually became a peasant movement that the Indonesian Communist Party intervened in, under the instructions of the Comintern. To the extent that Chinese communities played an elite role within individual societies, however, this cannot be taken as a fair generalization for the region as a whole, in that, elsewhere, Chinese communities were at the bottom of the economic ladder - in Malaysia, for example, the Malay Communist Party was overwhelmingly made up of Chinese individuals because of their impoverished economic position. Today, the Malaysian government actually employs a quota system to control the number of Chinese individuals in high-ranking government and private sector positions.
From a contemporary perspective, it may not be the case that middle-class and assimilated Chinese families are the objects of highly visible racist oppression in the West, but this is not true of the illegal immigrants who often take on the most dangerous and onerous tasks in the China Towns that you see as a form of economic colonialism, and we also see the continuing rise of anti-China sentiment and China-bashing that is directed against the Chinese community as a whole and which reflects the unease of Western governments and citizens when faced with China's economic and political rise. The role of China in other countries does not take place through China Towns, it more often takes the form of the large-scale purchase of land and the excavation of raw materials, especially in South America and Africa. China is an emergent imperialist power, but that doesn't warrant prejudice against Chinese immigrants and communities in other countries and it's simply inaccurate to characterize China Towns as outposts of economic colonialism. Most people in cities like London and San Francisco associate China Towns with good (in their opinions, but in reality it's pretty awful) Cantonese food, and that's generally the extent of their contemporary role, apart from providing a base for the overseas branches of Chinese gangster networks.
Talking about chauvinism in one breath and then insinuating someone who disagrees with you is a paid Chinese government employee in the next...
Anyway, there are plenty of valid communist criticisms of the PRC, although few have been brought up in this thread so far. Basically, criticisms such as "China is teh imperialism" and "Tibetan feudalists aren't that bad" aren't what I would count as being valid progressive points.
As for what I think of this development...I don't find it a step forward by any means, but I hope it will be a temporary measure. As has been said, it's not exactly anything new, so it shouldn't at all change the progressive nature of the DPRK. What is most clear is that it's highly unlikely to be the portent of impending doom that people here seem to think it is. But most importantly, this means that all leftists need to reemphasize their support for the DPRK and PRC against imperialist aggression.
I recall you saying something about inept insults...
[QUOTE=caramelpence;2139763]This is a grossly confused and downright ignorant post. What is "postmodern" about someone calling you out on what was clearly a prejudiced comment? More importantly, you present an oversimplified and distorted version of the history of Chinese communities in Southeast Asia. The Chinese communities of this region were not compressed into China Towns in the same way as in Western countries and cities like San Francisco and the term "China Town" is almost always used specifically in relation to those countries and specific districts of large cities - so to begin with it's unclear why you used that term to characterize the role of China and Chinese ethnic communities in the region. From a historical perspective, there are examples where Chinese communities were overwhelmingly comprised of merchants and traders and it is the case that those communities often attracted resistance and were the objects of popular anger, this anger often being harnessed by the merchants of other ethnicities in order to further their own interests, as in the case of the Sarekat Islam, which was formed by modernist Muslim merchants in Indonesia (and Java in particular) in order to resist the economic encroachment of Chinese merchants, and eventually became a peasant movement that the Indonesian Communist Party intervened in, under the instructions of the Comintern. To the extent that Chinese communities played an elite role within individual societies, however, this cannot be taken as a fair generalization for the region as a whole, in that, elsewhere, Chinese communities were at the bottom of the economic ladder - in Malaysia, for example, the Malay Communist Party was overwhelmingly made up of Chinese individuals because of their impoverished economic position. Today, the Malaysian government actually employs a quota system to control the number of Chinese individuals in high-ranking government and private sector positions.
From a contemporary perspective, it may not be the case that middle-class and assimilated Chinese families are the objects of highly visible racist oppression in the West, but this is not true of the illegal immigrants who often take on the most dangerous and onerous tasks in the China Towns that you see as a form of economic colonialism, and we also see the continuing rise of anti-China sentiment and China-bashing that is directed against the Chinese community as a whole and which reflects the unease of Western governments and citizens when faced with China's economic and political rise. The role of China in other countries does not take place through China Towns, it more often takes the form of the large-scale purchase of land and the excavation of raw materials, especially in South America and Africa. China is an emergent imperialist power, but
You are making this mistake: you are talkin about the historical role of china towns, as I m referring to the China state strategy the last 15 years. Its two completly different things. I never said that china towns were developed or that the people that live in these china towns even today are... imperialists. Dont get it twisted...
edit: I fucked the post but whatever.
I just want to add that the fact that middle class chinese dont get discriminated against is the proof that in 21st century, the biggest role of prejudice is on taxism, not racism.
As I pointed out, in that post, which you haven't read, there were never China Towns in the ordinary sense of the word in countries like Laos, either historically or contemporarily, because China Towns were produced by specific conditions of racist oppression in the West, and current Chinese state strategy does not take place through any China Towns that might exist, it takes place primarily through large-scale state-sponsored purchases of land and raw materials. You evidently have no idea what you are talking about.
What is taxism?
If by the term "china town" you describe the term of the western china towns, a place for the hunted, yes there were not. If you describe the closed economic society of mostly china produced goods sellers, it did.
And this is something that the chinese goverment invests too, also.The fact that they are also investing in other things doesnt say much.
lol. classism, i confused with the greek word which is taxi.
This could very well be a step in the right direction, at least for the DPRK.
I just wish it weren't a market-oriented deal.
[FONT=Calibri]“Whenever death may surprise us, let it be welcome if our battle cry has reached even one receptive ear and another hand reaches out to take up our arms.”-Ernesto 'Che' Guevara
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No it doesn't, you're right. There are so many other things that take away from the fact that it's a worker's state.
fka xx1994xx
If we're going by Lenin (which is what I do), the DPRK is still a workers state.
The DPRK cannot be considered a workers state by any measure. Not by Lenin, not by Stalin, not by Mao, not by the anarchists, not by the left-communists, not by the Trotskyists.
The majority of the population is in the active military, the workers don't control any aspect of their lives, and Kim Jong Il doesn't trade with the imperialist West on principle. Yes, the DPRK isn't as bad as some of the places that capitalism has created, but so what? Socialism is about being better than the vast majority of the capitalist states. Now lets be honest the majority of the South Korean Population has it better than North Korea. Are the capitalist countries around Cuba in better shape than it? No. Was the USSR better off than the imperialized capitalist countries around it? Significantly.
What does the DPRK have that would make it a workers state? There is a very strong lack of worker's control, a rather high unemployment and for what its worth just plain poor conditions.
“How in the hell could a man enjoy being awakened at 6:30 a.m. by an alarm clock, leap out of bed, dress, force-feed, shit, piss, brush teeth and hair, and fight traffic to get to a place where essentially you made lots of money for somebody else and were asked to be grateful for the opportunity to do so?” Charles Bukowski, Factotum
"In our glorious fight for civil rights, we must guard against being fooled by false slogans, as 'right-to-work.' It provides no 'rights' and no 'works.' Its purpose is to destroy labor unions and the freedom of collective bargaining... We demand this fraud be stopped." MLK
-fka Redbrother
Jesus Christ. Get over yourself.
China is one of the largest, if not the largest, holder of US national debt. So what the fuck are you talking about?Originally Posted by manic expression
Don't worry, best case scenario is that in 10-20 years he realizes he's been wasting all of his time. Of course, that probably won't happen. Maybe he'll move up to a cushy paid position, who knows?
Wait, hold on, he called me a chauvinist and an "armchair theorist" and justified his arrogance in terms of his own PSL membership.
Anyway, it's not the fact that he disagrees with anyone, it's the fact that he's resorting to juvenile ad hominem arguments while arrogantly claiming that he's the only real hardcore revolutionary here.I'm not ridiculing you and you seem to disagree with me, because you're responding with reason and not petty ad hominem nonsense and red herrings. I don't have any problems rationally arguing the PSL line on China with reasonable members of your organization, but that doesn't mean I'm going to let some shrill individual claim that everyone else on the forum isn't as leftist as him because he has a party card.
The fact that they are using market principles to value the labor of people in another country isn't a problem? Where is the worker's self management? This is neoliberalism with a red flag.
(1) I haven't seen anyone defending Tibetan Feudalism in this thread or anywhere else, and for that matter not every criticism of China's policies towards Tibetans, Mongolians and Turks (which, again, you are bringing up ... I'm not bringing that up) is necessarily an endorsement of feudalism. You can say "China needs to treat Tibetans better" without your statement really meaning "I think 1800s-style mountain feudalism is an ideal system". I don't know where this simplistic black and white interpretation of the Tibet problem comes from.
(2) I'd like to see the argument how this isn't imperialistic. China is taking advantage of the destitution of North Korean workers to get more surplus value out of their economy. This is a relationship between two nominally "socialist" countries, there is no reason except for "efficiency" (exploitation) to value the labor in terms of the cheap market value of North Korean workers and not the value of their sweat and blood.
I see no reason to think you're right, but nonetheless I hope you are. I didn't sign on to the Communist program to work for Chinese state capitalists.
