China courts Germany's far-right populist AfD
The far-right populist Alternative for Germany party rejects a values-based foreign policy, just as much as it rejects NATO and the US. That approach has attracted the attention of Beijing.
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Is everything world news on lemmy about China? Like I've seen everything from crap articles saying China has a declining population like its a bad thing, or how the west looks like shit compared.
Like, it's nothing racist or offensive. Not to me at least. Just lots and lots of it being the primary topic in ways that I'm ain't too familiar with.
Remember that a huge part of the lemmy (and derivatives) userbase just came from Reddit, and Redditors are obsessed with China.
I wonder where they got that obsession from? Could it be their entire view of Geopolitics was shaped by the moderation and administrators of Reddit? Strange how Reddit seems to want people to say the same things that the US state department like to say.
Since 2016 we've slid into "China bad" reporting, so there's a lot on that.
The reporting is usually pretty weak and facile, and rarely touches some of the real issues over there.
They're a target of the US Empire and folks that can't do media criticism gladly take the bait.
The first rule of propaganda is emphasis, which is what you're astutely picking up on. Why are stories about X and not A, B, C? When they're about X, what context is emphasized, what is fact and what is allusion, who is interviewed and given the opportunity to comment and who is not? "World news" stories are very frequently just stenography of various think tanks, often ones that are more or less in agreement with one another.
The entirety of China's actions reported in this story are that China (exactly who isn't stated, not even a group) invited an AfD delegation to meet with them. No source is cited, but maybe it's Weidel. From this they create an entire narrative by retelling past articles about AfD's foreign policy statements and ask one person to comment: "political scientist Wolfgang Schroeder from the University of Kassel". They don't mention that he's also an SPD politician and associated with a government-funded research institute with a dodgy past. Maybe his takes are good, but why they asked him and not others isn't stated, of course.
This is just folks getting easily hoodwinked by a propaganda push. Same as folks were suddenly very concerned about WMDs in Iraq or the political powers in Afghanistan and so on. They weren't, not organically - a network of think tanks, government stooges, etc all rally to provide jobs for these kinds of nerds to write these kinds of articles and have these kinds of takes. Several think tanks in Washington have converted from focusing on Syria or Iraq to focusing on Russia or China, as they know who butters their bread.
Anyways that's a long ramble in response to a simple question.
China is very active player and driving up events, especially as they may be working with nazi wannabes in the German government
Tankies: China is a world power!! It drives so many world events!!
Tankies: Nooo how dare China get in the press (good, bad, and neutral).
They feel like any China coverage is inherently imperialist, even when its "China breaks fusion record", that is meddling in China's internal affairs to them.
Tankies are so fucking weird to me, and I would consider myself a progressive socialist as well.
How can they so unapologetically support Russia and China, when both nations are objectively not socialist in any sense of the word.
China does state capitalism, just because they have a one party state installed by the communist party doesn’t automatically mean they still are. All that is left is intense authoritarianism, with dystopian ambitions on global hegemony.
Russia is a failed state in the grasp of a kleptocratic oligarchy, with an extreme degree of corruption and disturbing moral decay in all levels of society. The only thing communist about it today is the old soviet ordnance they make their conscripts die in at the ukranian front.
Modern China and Russia are antithetical to actual leftist ideals, and any tankie supporting them just screams misinformed idiot or foreign propaganda shill and should be dismissed by default.
Because they had grievances about the west, which we all have if we're being honest, but were successfully coerced from people into this completely bizarre state of mind into thinking that China and Russia are some sort of garden paradise utopian societies of peace, love and sunshine, not the reality of both countries being insanely unhinged places.
In both China and Russia, there is no rule of law, no respect for basic human rights or respect for anyone's culture or ethnic background, complete control of the press, anti-LGBTQ+ hate that is literally put out from the government, anti.......
Well lets just put it this way, Chinese Nationalists and Russian Nationalists make the KuKluxKlan look like Bernie Sanders voters in comparison, that's how insane these people are and the respective governments do everything they can to keep that silent and breaking out into the international community.
I know people from China who barely escaped that country and there's just endless horror stories that you can find all over youtube
This is just ignorance. You can easily answer the questions you have by reading, watching videos, or listening to podcasts. You could even learn by just talking to people. It's not like they hide it. It's not like they don't literally study history, draw from a wide range of analyses, cite relevant texts, formulate arguments, and constantly communicate about them. That fact that it's weird to you that they hold positions that you don't understand says way more about your ignorance than it does about their positions.
So you replied to the first sentence and ignored the paragraphs in which I describe why supporting either is misguided to malicious.
I understand the arguments that are constantly being spewed about the evil western imperialists, and they are of course true for the most part. Only that this doesn’t in turn validate or justify the human rights violations, atrocities or even genocides committed by either Russia or China; they cannot be guides or aides on the path to the desired egalitarian utopia.
If either of them had their way, would that do us in the west any good? The answer is no.
China desires a global hegemony under their sino-centric ideology, and to extend its control structures outside its own national borders. They employ the same imperialist strategies and methods to acquire influence and resource access in emerging countries as the west has or is doing. Russia currently displays its own imperial ambitions by its war of aggression on Ukraine. At least they don’t even bother with any greater good pretense, and are straight up about it.
The only real option is to consolidate the west in ethical and ideological opposition to these totalitarian parodies of their former goals, to create a new economic system that works for the people and not the reverse, without sacrificing our freedoms and individuality in the process.
One that truly represents what socialism is about.
Holy shit talk about proving me right. China's "sino-centric ideology"... Is that the same ideology that has led the world's most advanced multi-cultural state organizing systems with autonomous regions for large ethnic groups and over 57 different ethinicities formally recognized and developed? Is it the same one where Tibetans learn their native language from grade school through university? That sino-centric ideology? If that ideology came to the West would it do us good? Abso-fucking-lutely. Because in the West, there's an ACTUAL (as opposed to imagined) desire for an ethnostate that is enforced through genocide in all of its worst forms. There are native American tribes that have fewer than 10 fluent speakers of their language and they are all over 70. Your claim of a sino-centric ideology is projection.
China does not desire global hegemony. That would be stupid. Why would it be stupid? We are watching what happens to global hegemons in real-time. They are unsustainable, completely unstable, and involve contradictions that will tear them apart. China's entire founding principles are based on socio-political theory that details this at length. China is not trying to become the next US because it knows that way lies ruin.
The idea that the only solution is to do literally exactly what you've been doing for 600 years, consolidating the West to dominate the globe, which it already does, destroy and carve up all opposition, like it already did, and ultimately subjugate, again, the majority of the world's population to protect the minority, is just full on mask-off fascism....again.
Thank you
For real. The tankie problem here is crazy. I can say something like China is trying to deny freedom of navigation of international waters on the South China Sea and somehow it becomes "BuT aMeRiCa". I don't get it.
I’ve been seeing this a lot from instances like hexbear and lemmygrad and my take is either cult members, paid trolls, brainwashed persons prone to pavlovian responses, or all of the above.
I just wish that as a user I could block instances.
It's definitely all of the above.
Hexbear is particularly vexing to me. According to the fediverse observer they're less than a month old and yet have already become one of the most active instances.
hexbear has existed and been building their userbase for 3 years, but during that time their codebase diverged greatly from mainline lemmy to include in-house tweaks and features which made it not possible to federate, and it's only within the past month that they got everything compatible
Here he goes again!
On kbin you can block domains. It's the next best thing.
This isn't unique to the far-left, though. It's a problem throughout the entire political spectrum.
It's rather dangerous to be creating echo chambers in a democracy, though. Democracy lives off of discourse between opposing views.
Democracy lives off of discourse between opposing views.
The inference here is that both views are of equivalent merit which is very much not true. This idea is called The Paradox of Tolerance. If a society is tolerant without limit, its ability to be tolerant is eventually ceased or destroyed by the intolerant.
Except... That's not what democracy relies on. Democracy relies on discourse of views, even if they are unpopular. Tolerating only the prevailing opinion isn't a democracy, it's an autocracy.
I mean, in practice, there are always limits to the discussion. Something like a constitution, a set of shared base beliefs that allow people to have the same base language to engage in a productive discussion, otherwise it turns into a mob discussing whether the vaccines work or not and no conclusion is reached. In a controlled environment or in a parliament, it's possible to have these wide-view from-first-principles discussions of society. Not in mainstream media and certainly not online, as you've probably seen in any unmoderated forum.
I would not call them far left tbh. There’s something else about them that irks me. It honestly feels more North Korean to me and that ain’t left by any stretch of the imagination. It seems to be more authoritarian minded.
Agreed. Tankies are right-wing authoritarians in that communism is supposed to be stateless. They removed about US imperialism but are always very quiet about China's actions in Africa. It's frustrating because like I get it. America has some pretty deep problems but to think that somehow it is worse than China is mindlessly reactionary.
It would be funny if behind their firewall and the mandarin that I don't understand much of there were a loud 25% of chinese nationalist weirdos who are as shitty as the 25% of american MAGAs. I mean, look at https://nitter.nl/TGTM_Official looks like 4chan.
I'm just waiting on the digital Ruble so my deposits come in a little sooner.
LOL, I just don't even know what to say here. You do realize that when the Europeans subjugated China it was, in part, through naval superiority? Specifically, China did not have a blue ocean navy. China didn't emerge from that subjugation until 1949, and then didn't actually manage to do much more than stabilize it's society in the subsequent years. FFS, Hong Kong was only returned to China from British domination and occupation in the late 1990s.
China's navy was developed under these conditions, after WW2, after the US nuked 2 civilian cities in the Pacific, after the US became the world super power, after the end of the USSR. China is the one who has been denied freedom of navigation in the South China Sea. When China pushes against the psychotic imperialist West and it's proxies, that is not China denying freedom of navigation anymore than slaves revolting against their owners is the slaves denying their owners peace and prosperity.
The entire concept of freedom of navigation is a relational one. Raising points about China while ignoring the relationship with the world super power who, under Obama, decided to move 60% of its military assets to the Pacific Theater, is just anemic thinking.
Right on cue
Hey look. A tankie that has no idea what the fuck they are talking about. I am shocked. Territorial waters are defined as 12 nautical miles typically from the shore. These are defined by the United Nations that China is a part of and agreed to. There is a reason why China is literally building fake islands to increase it's territorial water claim there.
Territorial waters are defined as 12 nautical miles typically from the shore
BY WHOM IS IT DEFINED? You don't need to answer the question here. We all know the answer. It's the "rules-based international order", you know, the one invented by white genociders that dominated and subjugated 80% of the world population. But do go on about how the definition of territorial waters is perfectly compatible with the US encircling China with nuclear capabilities, occupying much of the region, colonizing and subjugating various indigenous peoples on various islands so they can test weapons and prepare for war. It's CHINA that's being a problem.
There is a reason why China is literally building fake islands to increase it’s territorial water claim there.
Awww, what's the matter? Are you upset when the fake rules that whitey made to dominate the globe are sometimes used by non-whites to game the system in small ways that show everyone just how vacuous and bankrupt the West really is?
How about you focus on things like why China is even the UN at all, how the US refused to let the PRC into the UN and instead decided that the KMT should be at the UN despite the KMT prosecuting the White Terror and mass murdering people by the thousands for so much as suggesting that maybe they should end the civil war officially and integrate with China now that the PLA had demonstrated they had the overwhelming majority of popular support.
I like that in all of your rambling, despite directly quoting me, you carefully evaded explaining why China would want to build fake islands and expand it's territorial waters.
What a loser response. It's obvious to everyone why they want to expand their territorial waters - to push out the US and other North Atlantic fascists and create a defensible perimeter against US nuclear encirclement. It's not like this is a secret. The secret is that treating it like a secret is a propaganda tactic to make something that is quite literally out in the open into something nefarious as a way of distracting from the fact that the reason they are doing it is because the USA is a mass murdering fascist regime
So what you're saying is, China is trying to deny freedom of navigation in the South China Sea? If you agree with me why are we even having this discussion.
Because they are projecting force into their own sphere of influence to displace North Atlantic genocidal maniacs but you seem to be saying that this cannot stand and China must be stopped.
Nazi wannabes with 13% of the vote...
I mean, it's not like China is only working with AfB. They recently invited School to Beijing.
AfD holds multiple municipal seats and Hitler never won an election (he got about 36.7% in 1932). The Nazis took over because liberals (specifically Hindenburg and co) appointed Hitler and then Hitler was able to take over when Hindenburg died in part thanks to paramilitary support. Just worth noting for gauging AfD's distance from potential takeover.
I highly doubt that the PRC wants them in charge or wants to help them get there, though.
Nazis, not Nazi wannabees, with current polls having them at 20% nationwide and up to 33% in some states. You know, the ”we should found an SA [the paramilitary Nazi organisation] and clean up"-party. The party whose youth organization is officialy declared right-wing extremist.
They'll work with whoever the fuck krauts pick to lead them, simple as.
From where China is standing, they have no reason to see the AfD as any worse than, say, the "we want to nuke europe into the stone age" Greens
...?
Like 9 articles on my front page are US. 1 is Ukraine. 1 is China, and the rest are neutral.
Are you maybe just taking particular notice to the China articles?
edit: since I realize this was specific to m/worldnews...
2 China post
2 Ecudor post
3 US post (1 pertaining to Italy as well)
1 iranian post
1 French post
1 Japan post
I stopped there as this is actually getting redundant at this point, there's very little trend among the posts as of this time.
it's the active sort. it prioritizes topics people feel heated about by weighting posts with more comments higher. it also doesn't decay the weight quickly enough with time so those posts stay on the top as long as people are arguing in the comments.
.ml stands for Marxist-Leninist so for some reason there is generally a lot of praise for China which is closer to fascism than either of those idealogies.
I am once again asking liberals to learn that fascism doesn't mean "a thing I don't like"
It's authoritarian with large amounts of state capitalism combined with high amounts of nationalism. That sure as shit is not communist.
Fascist states famously sold off large amounts of state assets to capitalists. Nazi Germany even inspired a new word for this, called "privatization" because they did it so much
It's okay to not have opinions on things you don't know. Learn so that you can create informed opinions
Quite the opposite for Nazi Germany for the most part. The corporations became a central part of the state. The alternative name that Mussolini coined for fascism was corporatism for that very reason.
Just showing off your ignorance like your proud of it
The nazis were all about privatization, read a damn book
you're
Well, they are right. Fascism was very much predicated on state enforced privatization. That's what 'Corporatism' means. A political ideology where society is organized like a body - corpus - and each part is sovereign. Private Companies would thereafter be the lords of their respective sectors. Fascism isn't defined by close relations between the Private and the Public sectors because that's actually true for all forms of industrialized societies. Even and in many ways especially the early adopters of industrialization. British free trade ideology was limited to the United Kingdom, while India was run as a resource and tax farming colony for the benefits of British Capital. The State, with its armies and political supremacy, is no less important there.
This is an important distinction to be made because Fascism was invented to enforce social harmony in face of class struggle. It is meant to subsume all political discourse of clashing interests between bosses, employees, landlords, farmers, urban workers, service workers, and so on into the body of the nation. In a fascist society you're not supposed to question the political order, as, for an example, bankers know best about the banking system which is why the State enforces their rights and power over their employees, and ensures that as much economic power is privatly held as possible.
Privatization is absolutely NOT what corporatism means.
It depends on wether you're working with a conception of history or if you're working with present-day definitions of common american political parlance. Corporatism did not straight up mean privatization. Only it was a political project with the aim to promote and secure private sovereignty over each sector of the economy. A society organized as a body - corpus. That is what Corporatism meant. You have the head, you have the arms, and the legs. Each part autonomous, and sovereign over it's sector. Just as the fingers don't tell the brain what to do, the employees must not contest the employer's ownership of their labour. If one knew what to do with finance or production, one was a factory owner or a banker. These last elements were to be empowered and secured by the Fascist state, an entity born entirely to subsume class struggle into nationalist fervour. Hence Corporatism.
The reason why Corporatism was not defined by the interdependence of State and Private Corporations is because it couldn't have been. As that would have been no different from Liberal or Socialistic States. All Industrialized economies are predicated on the state, on it's monopoly of violence, on it's ability to enforce property, contracts, to secure the money supply, and to galvanize social economic efforts. This even moreso true in the time period, as all the Liberal states of Europe were predicated on colonialism, just as the United States was predicated on manifest destiny. There's no capitalism or industrialization without state action. Corporatism's innovation - which is really an echo of early modern political thinking - was in ideologically subjugating civil society to the wishes of the private.
Nowadays people are too quickly to call any state they dislike 'corporatistic', 'corporativistic', or something along those lines because, ultimately, we live in society that is organized around those ideas. Every country from the liberal west to the post colonial east at one point played along Corporatist rules. Even when those Corporatist states were dismantled - early in the US, after the 80s oil shocks elsewhere - we continued to conceptualize the economy and our roles within it according to what the fascists had in mind. So the word loses all meaning. People will say the US is corporatist now because the State intervenes in the economy. Except it always did, and the hopes that the government would stop caring about social harmony and welfare, and limited itself to enforcing contract and property only, was always there. We merely live in a post Soviet acceleration.
Damn you really got him kind gentlesir with this scathing correction, I tip my fedora to you
this is historically illiterate. the term privatization was coined specifically to describe what the Nazis were doing in Germany.
In other words, the Nazis specifically took certain businesses that were formerly nationalized and then privatized them.
For further reading:
Corporatism where the employers play a central role in the running of the state was a foundation of fascism.
If you wish to argue against the author's findings, you can contact gbel@ub.edu.
Sweety, Albert Speer literally said that NAZI Germany was "an daughter company of IG Farben".
You "study history" off of youtube don't you?
Not in the least. Studied in Germany.
I am once again asking liberals to learn that words in general have meaning beyond synonyms for "good" and "bad".
Good lord you butchered each and every single term you used in this comment.
Did you ever have a period in your life where you just shut up and listened until you felt you understood what was going on? It doesn't appear to be the case from the outside.
Now that you're in a community that's liberated from the US-centric echo chamber you just came from no more than a month ago, it's a very good opportunity to start now!
China which is closer to fascism
China is a marxist-leninist state. You are politically illiterate.
Fascism is when The Internationale is the closing song of your 100 year celebrations.
LOL
Sure, friend. Marxist-Leninist states generally do not have the horrible wealth disparity that China has.
What do ML states "generally" look like? Which are comparable to China?
Currently I would probably say Cuba. China is a mix of market and state capitalism. Very little of it is communist in anything more than name.
There’s no point. You’ve awoken the hexbear army now.
oooh this is a great addition to our site taglines, thank you
Ha ha no problem.
no it doesn't lol
.ml is the country code for Mali where the developers are from lmfao
just lies on lies
Edit: lmao this may not have been true hol up
Legend has it that u/dessalines is Assimi Goita himself
Ah yes. There is a massive Malian presence on Lemmy and tons of Mali related posts. /s
Mali gives (gave?) out .ml domains for free, which is why it was chosen
Actually? I thought it was because Marxist-Leninist. Domains are like ten bucks a year
It's a coincidence
It is whild how if you don't care what words mean you can out them in any order you like.
Seriously. Apparently people do not care what Marxist-Leninist means and are stupidly ascribing it to China.
That, I had no idea about. The .ml thing. Makes sense and good to know.
That is false, .ml is the country code for Mali where the developers are from lmfao
just lies on lies
edit: hol' up I may have been told a fib and repeated it, unverified
That being said, they are marxists
.ml is the code for us military operations. Just send them your classified files, it's cool.
It's like Trump and politics