TAIPEI, Taiwan (AP) – China’s military sent 103 warplanes toward Taiwan in a 24-hour period in what the island’s defense ministry said Monday was a daily record in recent times.
TAIPEI, Taiwan (AP) – China’s military sent 103 warplanes toward Taiwan in a 24-hour period in what the island’s defense ministry said Monday was a daily record in recent times.
Most of the dimensions along which Taiwan and Hawaii differ in their relation to the mainland regional hegemon are net positive for the tankie position.
Hawaii is much farther away from the USA mainland than Taiwan to the Chinese mainland. This makes Chinese naval exercises around the island of Taiwan much less threatening to the USA than USA naval exercises around the island of Taiwan. (Taiwan and Key West are much more comparable on distance)
The USA is illegally occupying Hawaii according to its own laws and international laws. The island of Taiwan has been part of the nation of China for centuries.
The Chinese people have been on Taiwan for centuries. White settlers have been on Hawaii for much less time.
The island of Taiwan is occupied by the loser in a civil war that the USA and UK protected and armed while they conducted a 40-year terror campaign called the White Terror where the purged all of their ideological opponents through mass murders, mass executions, and fascist oppression. The USA and UK happily protected, funded, and supported this. By contrast, the islands of Hawaii are occupied by settler colonists and the most violent and destructive military in world history while the original inhabitants of the island are still there and still trying to assert their sovereignty against the illegal occupation.
China has more experience running one country with multiple autonomous regions than any country in the history of the world. These autonomous regions have settler colonial legal structures coexisting with Chinese legal structures because China has no interest in brutal domination. By contrast, the USA brutally dominates Hawaii, denying all indigenous systems of government, and actively destroying their environment, buying up their land like cultures, and is engaged in the classic settler colonial project of indigenous genocide.
Taiwan is collaborating with the UK, Japan, and USA, all countries that have been actively attempting to dominate China and the Chinese people for centuries. There is no legitimate way to express Taiwanese secession that isn’t establishing it even further as a neo-colony of violent fascists. Hawaii, on the other hand, has no history of collaboration with the enemies of the USA and return of indigenous sovereignty does not mean encirclement of the continental USA.
Essentially, if China was doing naval exercises near Hawaii it would be far less offensive than the USA doing them near Taiwan, and yet, we all know the USA would be screaming bloody murder and beating the war drums louder than ever.
The fact that you think the false equivalency is in your favor shows just how ignorant of history you are.
Honestly a pretty good write up, my only mild rebuttal would be involving the following quotes.
The island was first colonized by Europeans, then the han, the Japanese, the qing, and finally back to the han via ROC. It kinda predates the notion of modern nation states, and thus is difficult to to claim that it’s been part of the Nation of China for centuries.
Europeans were colonizing Taiwan before the Han, I don’t think that really justifies the colonialism any more.
I think co-existing is granting the government a little more grace than what really exist. The settler colonial structures are just the window dressing for the same colonialism practiced throughout human history.
The Chinese government violently overthrows the ruling government and sets up an “autonomous” government filled with party loyalist. They then subsidize immigration until the native population is a minority to Han immigrants.
I think one of the problem we have in the left is that there is an a knee jerk reaction to excuse the imperialism we see in leftist states by comparing it to the imperialism of the west. Which is understandable, the west has done some horrific stuff.
However a lot of these actions are only somewhat justified in juxtaposition to the same types of actions from people like the US. It’s the same tactic that the US does when they juxtapose themselves against the actions of literal nazi. It’s kind of a low bar we keep running into.
I just don’t think criticisms of any leftist nation should automatically be followed by people calling them shills or libs. Self criticism is an essential tenant of Marxism, and it just doesn’t seem to be allowed anymore.
Believing that what China is doing is imperialism is completely at odds with the critical analysis of what imperialism is. If you hold this position, you’re going to have to defend it with substantial argument. Right now, the two dominant sources of this position are chauvinist Western Europeans and ultra leftists like Hoxhaists.
Autonomous zones do not see any massive influx of Han attempting to replace indigenous peoples. The tibetan autonomous regions does not see this, Xinjiang does not see this. Instead the autonomous zones see a flourishing of indigenous culture, language, teachings, religions, cuisine, etc. The fact that there are party leaders participating in the management of the autonoumous zone is literally the exact way you would make an autonomous zone and not in anyway imperialist or colonialist. The party leaders exist as a leadership conduit and collaboration between the state and the region and they work to resolve conflict between the region and the state in a way that does not necessitate dominance.
You say “the same colonialism that has existed throughout human history”. This is a dehistoricalization, that is to say, it is a line of thought that actively divorces the discourse from history. Colonization as we know it is distinctly European. Even the Japanese colonization efforts are quite explicitly an effort on the part of the Japanese to emulate the European system. China does not have colonies, it does not engage in colonialism, and it is actively working to dismantle the history of colonialism in its sphere - history that is exclusively European.
As for Marxists, we engage in self criticism all the time. The position on China emerged from self criticism. The idea that parroting USA state department propaganda is self criticism is delusion. The idea that fighting against these narratives is somehow blind automaticity is a combo strawman and ad hominem.
China itself engaged in self criticism when it acknowledged it’s action in Southeast Asia as chauvinistic and they changed their policies to incorporate this criticism.
As for the USA juxtaposing itself against the Nazis, it’s not quite the same, because the Nazis were emulating the USA, and when the USA took control over the victory negotiations they incorporated Nazis into their society, built a transnational nuclear military and staffed it with Nazis, built Nazi leave-behind forces all throughout Europe, supported the Nazis in their battles against the USSR, and intervened at the UN to prevent Nazis from coming under scrutiny.
Juxtaposing China against the USA isn’t to say that China is better than the USA, it’s to say they are engaged in fundamentally different projects of state craft and that China’s project necessarily involves the opposition to and dismantling of the American project.
The false equivalency of Chinese actions with USA actions is not self criticism, it’s lazy.