BynarsAreOk [none/use name]

BynarsAreOk [none/use name]@hexbear.net · edit-2 2 days ago

This is way better than China investing in some poor countries to extract their minerals and resources to fuel their own manufacturing sector at home, and in effect, just another form of colonization.

Currently, China wants to have its cake and eat it too. They want to be the global export superpower (which squeezes the wages of the other Global South countries because they simply do not have the production of scale to match China’s) and at the same time they don’t want other countries to save in yuan. … How is that “chauvinist”?

Come on I know you can do better than that. You damn well know the modern Chinese rethoric is literaly, and I’ll quote Xi in 2017,

You do understand “economic globalization” here is a vulgar term right? Its the mainstream economics and neoliberal version of what Marxists and socialists call Imperialism.

I’m not saying China is necessarily imperialist nor that they defend it in all cases, but they kind of do somewhat here and that they have already made their bed with its existence and even praise it as a necessity, calling for us to just merely iron out the bad edges.

Its impossible to unironicaly call for peace and conciliation with the western imperialists and it realy is almost no better than doing it yourself. Almost because we’re not idiot liberals, yeah by all means China would rather act to liberate these countries than not, but at the same time they very openly have made the bed with the fact imperialism exists and its beneficial to them, therefore there is no alternative.

Their only message, for a decade now is only the same naive liberal-left idea that all we need is better Capitalism 2.0 maybe if everyone is at peace and the starving miners can get a good wage it wouldn’t be so bad.

He literally says “Its true globalization has brought new problems but its not a reason to abandon it altogether”. This is vulgar liberal mainstream economics garbage.

The only difference from our socialist position from reddit/western liberals is that liberals claim China is colonizing Africa with silly predatory loan etc That is amateur shit.

Our socialist critique is that China while not directly supporting or directly endeavoring in Imperialism themselves, they nevertheless already express support for the continuation of the current “globalization” trend, openly saying there is “no alternative” and that the best we can hope for is to iron out the bad aspects. This is not principled at all period and yes if the current system only works for them then it is chauvinism.

BynarsAreOk [none/use name]@hexbear.net · 2 days ago

From the gulf states to Vietnam and China, why is international politics so weak to try to do anything to barely slap "Israel"s hand? Serious, not shitposts.

Because this is not about Israel primarily, its mostly about relations with the US. Just talking about China here, lets go by steps.

First if you recall in 2022 for brief moment there was this “Chinese peace plan” which was just some sort of policy paper the Chinese threw around. Even that little misunderstanding was unacceptable for the US but most importantly China realized any action during the Ukraine war, action favorable towards Russia specifically would be seen as anti-western and face retaliation so that was abandoned(even though it was literaly nothing worthwhile) and China has stayed our of saying anything about Ukraine since then.

Further back recall how China tried so desperately to restore relations during the Huawei exec stuff and the Trump trade war. China has always wanted to be on good terms with the US. This is incrinsingly difficult. That 2022 lesson culminated with the Pelosi incident. China talked big about consequences and eat an egg to the face. They’re not actualy ready nor willing to fight the US period.

But to continue, none of these recent bad experiences, from the Huawei exec(2021), to COVID racism(2020+), HK riots and international ONG intervention(2019), Xinjiang/Uyghur and literaly CIA funding ETIM terrorists inside China(that famous US general admitting this is from around 2015 or so IIRC ).

None of this was enough to convince them that a good relation with the US is impossible.

So when Oct 7th 2023 China already learned both from Pelosi/Ukraine that Chinese “protagonism” in the international stage will face real backlash.

Therefore they adjusted, remember they flip flopped their Foreign minister Wang Yi/Qin Qang. I don’t think there was anything beyond the official reasons but its hard not to speculate. Maybe that was one attempt to change course, but that was also exactly the period the Biden team doubled their efforts with the Chinese EV/batteries stuff and it worked really well for the US as China ultimately conceded i.e they’ve now turned to mainstream fiscal policy to boost spending because “everyone”(read:mainstream neoliberal economics) agrees China got too much industry. In short you could even say recent experience showed to them their foreign policy wasn’t “working” to appease the US.

So again, Oct 7th happens and China is now committed to being just a voice at the UN because they believe this is the most they can do without consequences. It is not just about Israel, its about the extremely consistent Chinese commitment to the current “rules” based order. During the first Trump term they were saying the same thing, how “populism” is bad and we must have a stable global community etc.

Our perception of change came from the brief moments of Chinese frustration and pro-China activism, specialy with Xinjiang stuff since ~2018 and also their apparent strong support Russia in 2022, that maybe now we’re ready and willing to fight the western consensus. That was just wrong.

As it turned out the support for Russia is just rethoric too. US sanctions successfully stop Chinese banks from doing business in Russia etc, The most we can say is the sanctions were not 100% effective, but they were at least impactful enough. You can definitely be sure if Russia wasn’t the USSR’s corpse laying around with 2000 nukes NATO would already be fighting in Ukraine imo and all we would see is more US bad talk.

BynarsAreOk [none/use name]@hexbear.net · 2 days ago

deleted by creator

BynarsAreOk [none/use name]@hexbear.net · edit-2 3 days ago

If you’re interested in the South Africa situation I recommend Patrick Bond.

I’ll quote the relevant part of this recent interview

spoiler

But unfortunately, that strength is balanced by a weakness. And the weakness is profiteers. And there are profiteers across the BRICS. And South Africa’s profiteers include an arms merchant who’s a bastion of the Zionist establishment – Ivor Ichikowitz – and he’s had deals with Elbit, deals that supply fascistic governments in Latin America – Ecuador’s army – with not only military vehicles, but Elbit souping them up for communications. And that continues. He’s also – Ichikowitz – supplying the Israeli, well, the Jewish people’s spiritual support, which is tefillin, which is a leather strip that you bind around your arm, with a verse from the Torah in a small box on your head. That’s what this guy Ivor Ichikowitz, who is an arms merchant and an ANC member, and, as recently as mid-2023, the number one donor to the ANC, as the public records at least have shown. And that means, when the genocide began in October 2023, Ichikowitz was schizophrenic and split. And instead of still supporting the ANC, he has come out very strongly – especially in articles in 2024 and statements the whole time – against South Africa’s support for Palestine.

Now, that’s just one angle – the arms dealing. And then we have Rheinmetall, which is the German company that owns big chunks of Denel, South Africa’s state-owned arms company. Are weapons being made in South Africa – in Somerset West or in Centurion – are they going up to not only to Rheinmetall in Germany, but onward, including to Israel? It’s an open question. We’re not sure. We have a very ineffectual National Conventional Arms Control Committee meant to look this over – and they’re not doing well. There are a few other arms dealers that we’re curious about – the extent to which, certainly historically, Armscor and Israel, and indeed going back to the 1970s nuclear collaboration.

The other big problem, though, is coal – which is very open. Because we can track the coal-bearing ships that go from Richards Bay all the way up to Hadera port, and to some extent Ashdod. At Hadera, there is the Orot Rabin power station. At Ashdod, it’s the Rutenberg station. And those are supplying Israel with about 20% of its grid-based energy. And that’s a very important part of the supply that the Israel Defense Forces would use to prosecute that genocide or to maintain apartheid. And it would therefore be against the International Court of Justice ruling in July – that was actually codified by the United Nations General Assembly in September – that says: don’t do electricity supply or any other goods crucial for the apartheid, the land grabbing of the West Bank too, not just the genocide of Gaza.

So we’ve got a couple of, let’s say, screaming contradictions. And it’s even more embarrassing, I think, for South Africa, because President Ramaphosa used to be the main partner of the main company that sells coal to Israel – both from South Africa, but also from Colombia. And they’ve continued that, even into this year, in spite of the Colombian president telling them not to.

And that company – Glencore – is notorious for bribing African governments. They were not prosecuted for the activities in South Africa, but across the rest of Africa, the prosecutions, including in the US and Britain, have shown that this is a very corrupt company. And they have chosen – particularly because their predecessor, Xstrata, was doing deals with the African Rainbow Minerals chief executive, Patrice Motsepe, who happens to be President Ramaphosa’s brother-in-law.

Now we have found – and a protest in early April confirmed this – 23% of Glencore’s ownership is of the mines in question in Mpumalanga that get the coal out and get them coal over to Israel. That would be profits to Patrice Motsepe, we estimate, out of about a $5 million profit – that is the net income after the costs – for each of the 177,000 tons of coal that are put on the ship and shipped out to Israel, Patrice Motsepe makes about a million dollars. So these are the sorts of, let’s say, contradictions that just scream out, and that we hope more pressure will allow us to resolve – resolve in favor of Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions of Israel.

And also here in December last year, From South Africa to Syria, rising perils for Palestine solidarity, just a small part, he was 110% bang on.

spoiler

A repeat performance is most worrying to progressives here, in large part because South Africa’s Richards Bay bulk minerals port has become – since August – the world’s main terminal for exporting coal to Israel, which depends on the Orot Rabin and Rutenberg power stations for nearly 20% of its energy grid.

It is to be expected that Trump will go on the offensive against the South African filing of the International Court of Justice (ICJ) genocide case against Israel. Trump is a proponent of Israel’s mass murder and illegal settlements, calling predecessor Joe Biden a “very bad Palestinian” during a debate last June, for not sufficiently helping Netanyahu to ‘finish the job’ in Gaza.

But instead of helping to build the global movement against Israel by highlighting Trump’s threats, Ramaphosa’s new Ambassador to Washington Ebrahim Rasool – formerly part of the ruling party’s leftwing currents – let slip in an interview this week: “We need to put away the [Palestine-solidarity] megaphone now. And the president’s words were, it is now sub judice… I understand the need to completely recalibrate…that’s the art of the deal. It is about framing the messages in particular ways that make South Africa an ally [of Trump].”

Some might be surprised at this betrayal, including Ramaphosa’s nonsensical sub judice posture. Yet beyond its important ideological advocacy megaphone used at the Hague international courts, the Pretoria government has barely lifted a finger for Palestine.