437
Xi Jinping says no one can stop China’s ‘reunification’ with Taiwan
(www.independent.co.uk)
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
this post was submitted on 01 Jan 2025
437 points (96.0% liked)
World News
39483 readers
2342 users here now
A community for discussing events around the World
Rules:
-
Rule 1: posts have the following requirements:
- Post news articles only
- Video links are NOT articles and will be removed.
- Title must match the article headline
- Not United States Internal News
- Recent (Past 30 Days)
- Screenshots/links to other social media sites (Twitter/X/Facebook/Youtube/reddit, etc.) are explicitly forbidden, as are link shorteners.
-
Rule 2: Do not copy the entire article into your post. The key points in 1-2 paragraphs is allowed (even encouraged!), but large segments of articles posted in the body will result in the post being removed. If you have to stop and think "Is this fair use?", it probably isn't. Archive links, especially the ones created on link submission, are absolutely allowed but those that avoid paywalls are not.
-
Rule 3: Opinions articles, or Articles based on misinformation/propaganda may be removed. Sources that have a Low or Very Low factual reporting rating or MBFC Credibility Rating may be removed.
-
Rule 4: Posts or comments that are homophobic, transphobic, racist, sexist, anti-religious, or ableist will be removed. “Ironic” prejudice is just prejudiced.
-
Posts and comments must abide by the lemmy.world terms of service UPDATED AS OF 10/19
-
Rule 5: Keep it civil. It's OK to say the subject of an article is behaving like a (pejorative, pejorative). It's NOT OK to say another USER is (pejorative). Strong language is fine, just not directed at other members. Engage in good-faith and with respect! This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban.
Similarly, if you see posts along these lines, do not engage. Report them, block them, and live a happier life than they do. We see too many slapfights that boil down to "Mom! He's bugging me!" and "I'm not touching you!" Going forward, slapfights will result in removed comments and temp bans to cool off.
-
Rule 6: Memes, spam, other low effort posting, reposts, misinformation, advocating violence, off-topic, trolling, offensive, regarding the moderators or meta in content may be removed at any time.
-
Rule 7: We didn't USED to need a rule about how many posts one could make in a day, then someone posted NINETEEN articles in a single day. Not comments, FULL ARTICLES. If you're posting more than say, 10 or so, consider going outside and touching grass. We reserve the right to limit over-posting so a single user does not dominate the front page.
We ask that the users report any comment or post that violate the rules, to use critical thinking when reading, posting or commenting. Users that post off-topic spam, advocate violence, have multiple comments or posts removed, weaponize reports or violate the code of conduct will be banned.
All posts and comments will be reviewed on a case-by-case basis. This means that some content that violates the rules may be allowed, while other content that does not violate the rules may be removed. The moderators retain the right to remove any content and ban users.
Lemmy World Partners
News !news@lemmy.world
Politics !politics@lemmy.world
World Politics !globalpolitics@lemmy.world
Recommendations
For Firefox users, there is media bias / propaganda / fact check plugin.
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/media-bias-fact-check/
- Consider including the article’s mediabiasfactcheck.com/ link
founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
Capitalist lost? You seen modern day China? Hardly anti-capitalist. Taiwan should get to decide if it's part of China or not. Doesn't seam they want undemocratic dystopia.
Going to your America example, the Brits withdrew to Canada. You with Trump with invading Canada then? A 1812 rematch?
I dont get the downvotes. China is state controlled capitalism with all the negatives of capitalism like extreme wealth disparity. China couldnt be further from a stateless, classless moneyless society that communism aspires.
There are a lot of similarities between the PRC's economic model and the NEP, but this doesn't mean it's Capitalist, nor is it accurate to say it has all of the negatives of Capitalism. The PRC is in the early stages of Socialism, and this is shown through strong government control of the Private Sector, a robust and expansive Public Sector, and large-scale Central Planning. You're correct that it is far from being Stateless, Classless, or Moneyless, but at the same time you have to acknowledge that they simply can't push the "Communism button" and establish a global Republic of full Public Ownership and Central Planning and an established system of labor vouchers or other such non-money form of accounting.
The process of building Communism is long and drawn out after the revolution, and must be a global process as well.
Yes, all Socialist societies should work towards the eventual end of commodity production, however neither Marx nor Engels figured that it could be done away with immediately. From Principles of Communism:
From Socialism: Utopian and Scientific:
Ultimately, it remains a contradiction that eventually the PRC will have to do away with. However, this is a gradual process that can only be accomplished through trial and error. There is a Chinese proverb often referenced in the CPC, that "one must cross the river by feeling for the stones," and this reflects their cautious strategy. Moreover, we must understand that the USSR fell, and the CPC saw that in real time. Not wanting to repeat the Cultural Revolution nor the fall of the USSR, the CPC adjusted their practice. It remains to be seen what will happen in 10, 20, 50, 100 years, of course, but currently the CPC is behaving in a manner we can understand as Marxist.
The USSR was just as capitalist as the PRC. Because it had generalized commodity production and wage-labor. You can't have a socialist mode of production in just one country, as the interaction with capitalist countries will infect your system.
The PRC is a highly technocratic advanced capitalist democracy, and yes, it will likely outpace the west in a number of key statistics over time, that doesn't make it socialist, because the productive mode is capitalism.
You can't have Communism in one country, as Communism must be international, global, and have fully eradicated Private Property and Commodity Production. You absolutely can have Socialism in one country, however. Socialism is a transitional status towards Communism from Capitalism, and is dependent upon human supremacy over Capital and a trajectory towards further collectivization and the dominance of the Public Sector over the Private not in percentage, but power.
To take the opposite claim, that you can't have Socialism in one country, is to determine that you must call a fully publicly owned economy "Capitalist" despite eradication of Markets and commodity production in general. Further, to claim that Socialism can only exist internationally is to make the asserted claim that a 99% publicly owned and planned economy is actually dominated by the 1% in the market sector and is thus Capitalist, these are anti-dialectical judgements.
Further, revisiting Marx, he considered countries where feudalism was still the majority of the economy yet Capitalism well on its way to dominate the entire economy to already be Capitalist. The dialectical method acknowledges that there is nearly no such thing as a "pure" system, to require "purity" for Socialism alone and not any of the previous Modes of Production erases the foundation of Scientific Socialism.
All in all, I am getting a definite Trotskyist vibe from your analysis and that would explain your stances a bit more, but I really do wonder in particular how you personally reconcile Dialectics with an anti-dialectical approach to Socialism specifically. The productive mode does not depend on a "one drop" rule of commodity production, but the dominant mode and the trajectory of the system as a whole.
I suggest reading What is Socialism? Here's a relevant snippet from it talking about your exact argument:
Oh no, please don't give that bloated orange Slurm mascot any more ideas.
The official position in both countries is that there is "one China" and that they are the legitimate one.
Unlike in mainland China in Taiwan people including most of the political elite seem to be fine with the status quo though.
I think they are both best just signing mutual recognition and moving on. Neither is the same as they where when they seperated.
everyone in Taiwan would love to do that, but Beijing can't get over being dumped.
Having markets and Private Property doesn't mean a country isn't dedicated to Socialism and eventual full public ownership. Rather, Marx and Engels maintained that even heavily developed countries could not immediately publicly own and plan all production, but that after the revolution this would be a gradual process. Focusing too much on Class Struggle and not on industrial development (which allows the Class Struggle to be accelerated as the more an industry develops the easier it is to plan it, a central observation about Capitalism that led Marx to predict the next mode of production to be Socialism), is a dogmatic mistake that led to the excesses in the Cultural Revolution.
Either way, back to the US, a more apt comparison would be decolonization and land-back for Indigenous Peoples, same with Canada.
Your saying it's not capitalist and it clearly is now.
For the US example, it's not comparable if you go back to Indigenous Peoples. That's a whole other thing.
What do you mean by China is "clearly Capitalist?" What do you think Capitalism and Socialism are?
"Capitalism is an economic system based on the private ownership of the means of production and their operation for profit."
This applies to modern China.
Communism's brief doesn't fit modern China "a socioeconomic order centered around common ownership of the means of production, distribution, and exchange that allocates products to everyone in society based on need."
Private Ownership isn't the basis of the PRC's economy, though. The PRC isn't at Communism yet, either, rather they are Socialist. The base of their economy is in the Public Sector with strong state control over the Private Sector.
To ask this in another way, are you of the belief that a "single drop" of Capitalism makes the system Capitalist? The natural conclusion to that is that neither "Capitalism" nor "Socialism" has ever existed. This is obviously wrong, of course, the answer is that the system is determined by the sector with power over the economy.
So we agree modern China is not communist. From what I skim (not really read to be honest) capitalism came to China via Deng Xiaoping. Its not been becoming less capitalism since. Now it's not different than other capitalist countries, only the state at the centre isn't democratic and not accountable to its people or laws.
The CPC is a Communist Party, they are trying to build Communism. Communism is a global system, so no, we aren't on the same page here.
Capitalism did not "come to China" via Deng. Markets existed even under Mao, what Deng did was invite foreign investment and allow profits to be made off of Chines labor in exchange for industrialization, training, and development. This was a bit of a gamble, but has been critical for the modern success of the PRC. This isn't a total subversion of Socialism and a return to Capitalism, key industries were maintained in the Public Sector like banking, energy, steel, and so forth.
Next, this Private Sector has been more and more under direct control of the CPC as it develops, especially in the last decade. The CPC exerts firm control and executes strong central planning. This is an increase in socialization of the economy, gradually. This is fundamentally and entirely different from Capitalist countries, where the Private Sector is dominant and Capitalists control the state.
Finally, the PRC is democratic and accountable to the people, just not to wealthy Capitalists. I'm not sure where you are pulling this myth from, to be honest, there are elections, councils, mass participation, and multiple political parties. It isn't the same as western systems, but it is democratic.
Overall, I think you need to do a fair bit more research into Marxism and the PRC if you want to be making qualitative judgments of it along Marxian lines, no shame in learning something new!
The trueth is all the countries you are calling capitalist because are probably all mixed economies. With a lot owned by the state. Here in the UK that includes our health service, education system, roads, the electricity grid, and more. Rail is being renationalised and water probably will have to be too as its privatisation (by the Conservatives in the 80s) has been an epic fail. The key difference is these countries can peacefully kick out the government and the government is answerable to laws. Laws it sets. We recently had a PM brought down for breaking his own Covid laws. We have free press holding governments to account. All kind of freedom of information and transparency.
China started out more communist than if is now. More like the USSR.
Taiwan is mixed economy like western democracies, and doesn't want to be like China. Which is why China is having to talk about inflicting it by force.
The truth is that close to every economy beyond the very earliest tribal formations were all mixed economies. When people say a country is Socialist or Capitalist, they are making a judgement of which aspect of the economy holds power, and is thus primary. The idea that an economy can be 32% Capitalist and 68% Socialist is nonsense, everything in an economy exists in the context of the rest of it and thus cannot be seen as static quantities.
Your next bit, on saying the people "have the power to kick out government peacefully," is frankly misguided. The laws in Capitalist society, such as the UK, are ultimately determined by the Bourgeoisie and to a lesser extent the remnants of the Monarchy. What is cast as voteable is what has already been predetermined as acceptable to the ruling class. A "free press" is really "free to be manipulated by wealth," and it is in this manner that narratives are massaged. The truth is that there is no such thing as free press. No matter how independent or dependent, all press has an agenda, and all press has a bias.
As for the PRC, it had higher rates of Public Ownership in the past, yes. This did not make it "more Communist." When understanding Marxism, one must understand that modes of production and forms of property ownership have different levels of development they excel at. Because the PRC collectivized too early, growth was unstable (though positive) and there was a lot of chaos. The expansion (not introduction!) of Markets and the invitation of foreign investment served to better suit the material conditions of the PRC in the 90s, and now that said industrialization has played enough of its part, the CPC is gradually extending more control and ownership. Marxism was applied under Mao, then it served its purpose and Marxism was applied again under Deng, then it served its purpose and now Marxism is being applied again under Xi and is continuing to serve its purpose based on new material conditions.
The Taiwan bit is complicated. The majority of Taiwanese people like the current status, but don't want to be independent nor folded in. Many want to be folded into the PRC, and some are outright hostile. The Nationalist Kuomintang fled there during the end of the Communist Revolution, so in its present state it remains at odds with the Communist mainland.
So we agree countries are really a shades of grey. Personally, I would move more infrastructure to state ownership in the UK. Other countries it is up to them, though the US private health is clearly an epic murderous fail. As long as the setup doesn't make trade unfair and start tariff problems.
In the UK monarchy is symbolic. They can't take sides on anything officially. If they did, it would be a scandal. Most democracies with a monarchy are similar or have them not even symbolically part of the system. Their power is purely adversely and in networking.
Based on rumour and the queens dresses at the time, and family history, it is widely thought the queen did not want Brexit. But it happened anyway. It brought down the PM of the time as well. In fact it was the start of a series of short lived PMs. Mainly because Brexit is a batshit idea and the promises made are incompatible with each other and reality! Arguably the press was a bit too free. Free from fact. All suboptimal, but doesn't back you ruling Bourgeoisie angle. I'm pretty sure we be back in the EU one day anyway due to demographics and economic realities.
I say again, it can only up to the people of Taiwan if they are assimilated into China. If they vote for it, (I recommended a 66+% super majority to avoid Brexit 52% nonsense) I'd have no issue. If they don't and are just invaded, I have a big issue with it. Like I do with Russia invading Ukraine and Israel's genocide.
Marxism is Dialectical, it recognizes that "pure" systems are close to fantasy, sure.
As for the UK, again, the Monarchy shouldn't exist, period, and the fact that you think the press was too free only cements bourgeois rule as the dominant factor in UK society. Money is the driver of your society just like it is for all Capitalist countries.
Taiwan is a complicated issue and will likely be resolved in a way that nobody is initially happy with due to external pressures like US involvement.
Pure is a nonsense absolutely.
I'd remove the monarchy, but right now it isn't doing any harm. When it does, it will be removed from the system. That tension, that "sword of damocles", the monarchy is very aware of and it keeps them in check. No one should be born into positions and I have no time for royals complaining of their gilded cage. At some point the UK will restructure I"m sure (federate and decentralise) and each time wil reduce the monarchy position.
I said "arguably the press was a bit too free". That is not saying I think it is. Only that I see a case for the argument it is. Out of that and a totally state controlled press, free is better. Things fester in darkness. Unaccountable power corrupts. Fact free needs more consequences, but that isn't the same as choking freedom.
Money drives China just as much. That's OK. Money is just an expression of value we are prepared to exchange. It's an intermediate used between goods. An abstraction. Even if we ever get to post scarcity, it will be with us.
Taiwan does want China. It can see what happened to Hong Kong. We all can. If China wants it, it will have to take it by force. Just like Russia is trying to with Ukraine.
I appreciate what you do, and always learn from your comments.
Thanks, I appreciate the kind words! I know most people likely aren't going to get much out of what I say, but I also know many others will learn a thing or two, and when they point that out it helps!