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.
Let's lay out the events:
Headline: "China courts Germany's far right populist AfD"
Probably a key piece of context is that they were invited
There's no information about that, so presumably given the slant of the article it was an innocuous invitation.
I have tried to find any other references but haven't.
It is not unusual for members of parliament to be invited to other countries, so information needed would include:
China would deal with AfD just like they deal with left, right, far right and theocratic governments and absolute monarchies all over the world.
I mean... It's not like there's not a standing invitation for Germany's current government. Is building diplomatic ties not permissible if the party isn't currently in power?
Better fucking tell the Republicans to get out of Canadian politics, then.
Oh great, even more lies from German state media. This AfD group had no official invitation from the Chinese government, nor did they meet with Chinese government officials. DW is really trying their best to push horseshoe theory on us, and it would be laughable if people didn't take it seriously.
Much more of these cursed alliances will happen in future unless the left and/or socially progressive forces in the west develop a coherent anti imperialist stance. As in anti NATO, anti IMF, anti World Bank. Traditional left wing positions based on global historical materialism.
Until that happens, the right wing and/or social conservatives, like the AfD here, will steal their lunch from them and form these kind of alliances. The primary contradiction globally is the disparity of living standards and wealth between the west/imperial core/triad, and the third world/global south, orchestrated by modern day imperialism and neocolonialism. Countries in the global south are prepared to work with anyone willing to end that, or at least show some support for ending it.
In short, the left in the west needs to get it's stuff together, actually practice internationalism, and actually practice anti imperialism instead of selling out to the biggest institutions of modern day imperialism on the planet, such as NATO. If the left does not do this, alliances like this will continue to happen as the right occupies, or pretends to occupy, a space the left should be occupying.
Not really surprising that german state media would fall in line when it comes to China reporting. The chinese have a history of playing ball with pretty much anyone from Israel to the EU and beyond. If there's even any basis to the article's thesis, it is the rabidly pro-US faction that rules Germany today which is making the main choice in this matter.
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
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.
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.
It's like Trump and politics
Well Lula, MBS, Macron, Bill Gates, the Taliban, and Olof also attracted the attention of Beijing. So this shouldn’t really be surprising
They have plenty of hard power, but when it comes to soft power they'll take a handout from anyone that could give it.
Most of the world is friendly with China cope harder
UN Voting Patterns Compared to China's
Even more impressive when you consider the economy of China (18 trillion GDP) vs USA + European Union (who are always against China with 41 trillion GDP) and military (China has 2 overseas bases, USA has 800+ all surrounding and missiles pointed at China and Russia)
Are they in opposition to NATO? If so, then makes sense for realpolitik reasons.
Yep, they are.
There's two major factions in today's right wing, one pro, and one anti NATO. In the USA, they are represented by the Bush-Cheney, and Trump conservatives respectively.
Explanation isn't the same as justification.
of course they're courting the far right.. those guys are easy to buy..
I'm not particularly for the Green Party in Germany, but Mrs. Baerbock seemed to do something right to anger some Chinese officials that much that she needed to take public transportation for a meeting.
She's "green", so if she didn't do it out of conviction, they were shaming her hypocrisy, I'm ok with that lol
China's foreign policy was shit since the sino-soviet split and blaming on Deng for shit foreign policy is kind of silly consider that a lot of it started in Mao's time
Lol this article is a nothing burger. It is mostly an article on AdF than the whatever ''official invitation''(which is probably some private firm in China but apparently every firms in China are controlled by the government) that China sent
I'm loving this, AfD has been collaborating with the far-right party in our country, which accuses everyone else of being filthy commies, it would be a beautiful irony (in the unlikely event this were to be true) if they started talking up the CPC because russia can't fund them anymore hahahaha
They share a common enemy, democracy.
Democracy ™️ brought to you by Yum brands Inc. Is infact everyone's enemy. The Chinese process is infact more democratic. When you look at the way funds are apportioned and how often the legislation passed reflects the will of the people it is undeniable they actually have more democratic input in their system than we do.
"Democracy" Oligarchies most succesfull Psy Ops , Defend it , Think about all the Ressources longing for Freedom of Travel !
Meh, our democracy isn't even that threatening to China (Taiwan's is, it showcases a viable alternative to the CPC), they just had to leave us to our "contradictions", they'd keep booming and we'd just keep buying their stuff while we eat each other alive, if China is doing this, they gotta be really desperate to turn Europe fascist again.
Surprise surprise, fascists working with fascists.
didn't see that one coming
This is the best summary I could come up with:
AfD co-leader Alice Weidel and her Bundestag federal parliamentary colleagues, Petr Bystron and Peter Felser, spent almost a week in Beijing and Shanghai at the end of June.
Upon their return, Felser told DW that he supposed it was his party's good results in the German polls which had sparked the interest of the Chinese.
She spent six years living there on a German Academic Exchange Service scholarship and completed her doctorate on the Chinese pension system, before moving on to work for Goldman Sachs.
Geopolitically, said Schroeder, the AfD sees the traditional Western ties with the United States, which it regards as hegemonic, as having past their use-by date.
The member of the European Parliament from Saxony, who aligns himself with the right-wing side of his party, has attracted attention in the past for multiple pro-China statements.
For example: The party has opposed the use of components from the Chinese communications equipment supplier Huawei in the expansion of 5G mobile internet services in Germany.
I'm a bot and I'm open source!
It’s already a hexbear fest in here. There is zero point posting anything about China or Russia - every comment is trounced on by hexbears.
Yes yes, if I didn’t want your opinion I should have stayed on Reddit.
Yes, yes, you got here first.
Yes, yes, I’m a brainwashed liberal.
Yes, yes, you’re actually one of the oldest Lemmy communities but you’ve only recently started federating.
Yes, yes, you’re seeing the light and can see through the western media’s bias and the rest of us are just mindless sheep.
Yes, yes, China is great, Russia is fantastic, Ukraine should pursue for peace and roll over.
Yes, yes, you never allowed downvoting so you’re used to just comment and that’s why there’s so many hexbears in here. And you’re definitely not Russian or CCP farmed trolls.
Yes, yes, all those things are true.
I’m sure I’m missing a few, but I’m pretty close to a hexbear “Bingo!” I think.
We used to allow downvoting, we just got rid of it to stop trolls from making multiple accounts to downvote every comment from people they disliked (specifically trans users were getting their comments brigaded like this) and it turned out to be a great choice because it encouraged discussion if you disagreed with someone.
Also we're definitely not "Russian or CCP farmed trolls" why would they have paid people to talk amongst themselves for three years? I mean I could really use the supplemental income so I wish, been putting off car repairs for months due to finances.
Now you have some idea of how we feel on Reddit. The difference here is that karma doesn't matter. And hexbearers can't even downvote your comments anyway. You're just complaining that you have to listen to another point of view.
I don't think any state qualifies as "great," or "fantastic", however aside from that zero lies detected and Ukraine should have accepted peace terms a year ago instead of listening to :loser:
Simultaneously a bot farm and separated from any wider instances until very recently.
Do you honestly believe that?
Does it really make sense to you that China sets up self contained bot farms interacting with no one?
No that’s not what I believe. Here’s what I believe.
Hey, I don’t have anything new to say, just want to join the pile-on. Sorry you can’t have your liberal echo chamber, and sorry that most of the world actually prefers China to the great satan and its western demons. If you didn’t want to be ridiculed for your insane opinions though you really shouldn’t be federated with the real world though
It’s already a hexbear fest in here. There is zero point posting anything about China or Russia - every comment is trounced on by hexbears
Lmaooo go cry about it I guess
Yes, yes, China is great
i disagree since they'll court anyone, even americans and nato
You are on a good way ,
accept us as the new Cultural Hegemony ...
Its not like you didnt have a Cultural Hegemony Before, so you know the play
It was China bad , its China good now!
pretty fucking easy ....
Waaaaahhhhh only 99% of everything I interact with is geared toward my Liberal Anti-Communist sensibilities waaaaahhhhh waaaaahhhhh why can't it be 100%
"Everyone I disagree with is a trolll, I'm so enlightened". Fuck off.
Libs crying that they can't just pile on people who disagree with them will never stop being funny. These trolls can't actually make any coherent arguments to support their positions and simply regurgitate a handful of tropes they memorized. All of a sudden this tactic doesn't work anymore and y'all having a meltdown.
And here's a bingo card for you lot
Clickbait headline. It doesn't mention who they mean when they say "China". Is it a high ranking official? Some nobody entrepreneur? It also doesn't say anything about why they might be "court[ing]" the AfD. It's really more about populists doing what populists do and aligning along nationalist lines to the benefit of the national bourgeoisie and the detriment of the American empire. They're right that disintegration with China would be a disaster.
More importantly, the actual article makes the case that it's the AfD who's courting China. The article claims that AfD used to take on a more anti-China rethoric. Now they don't, and say outright they don't wish to do regime change in China. What should be a wakeup call for the right wing coalition to stop being so incompetent, is being sold by Germant State Media as criticism of the far right. Liberal infighting, is what it is.
Just for the record (and for context) - China cooperated with the Apartheid-regime.
China cooperates with everyone. It's a pretty major point of contention among tankies; on the one hand it sucks when you're backing fascists, but on the other hand, at least China isn't going around warring and couping foreign governments (except the one mistake in Vietnam).
Yes, sure. It seems hypocritical to me to say, on the one hand, that there is no political difference between the yankies bombing Yemeni children directly, vs giving the Saudis the bombs to drop, and then on the other hand, say that there is a difference between China supporting fascists who murder children (i.e. Israel or the Apartheid goverment), vs actually murdering those people themselves. I'm not saying that you are defending this, but it strikes me as a weird mental gymnastic were some 'tankies' (or whatever term you want to use, no normative judgement intended) will engage in basically some classic liberalism in order to let China off the hook on this front.
We should also mention the Khymer Rouge. Fascist might not be the correct term here, but it was politically equivalent in terms of how destructive, bloody and reactionary it was.
Israel is fascist. There is no excuse, by the nature of fascism, for supporting it. Ever. Yet China is happy to fund both the Israeli army and the West Bank administration.
Again, people can't have their cake and eat it too. You can't both say (i) profoundly reactionary as Russia is, Ukraine is more deeply fascicized and that as an immediate consequence of that, there should be a preference for the war ending on Russia's terms; and (ii) that China may be funding fascists, but this is understandable and justifiable in the context. Okay. So then what are the criteria and conditions here apart from biased vibes to decide when critical support in these extreme cases is justified or not? What's the line? I know I have my own ideas about this, but it's often difficult to see what other peoples' are.
It's should go without saying that China's foreign policy, including during the Maoist period, has been by far one of its most reactionary aspects. Once again, the Sino-Soviet split was a historical tragedy and reflects the challenge for communists of avoiding finding themselves in post-revolutionary situations in which their politics becomes nationalist due to them coming to identify their interests with those of the traditional nation state as a matter of reality and pragmatic necessity.
Dengist foreign policy and the Sino Soviet split was such a disaster. China even invaded Vietnam at around the same time period. Went from backing the ANC to backing the PAC and even the apartheid government, as your article states.
Dengist foreign policy and the Sino Soviet split
That's not Deng that's Mao and Zhou Wenlai. Mao was even mad that Zhou was getting all the credit for reopening relationships with the west and stuff. By the time Deng was rehabilitated and given more power (by Mao btw) China's foreign policy was already set.
Read Vogel's biography of Deng it's very good
The AFD might be pro-russia, but they are definitely not pro-china lol. Maybe China thinks they can buy them? Anyways this is just the consequence of the Anarcho-Bidenization of the German Left.
tf does anarcho-bidenization mean?
Good question. Anarchism and Autonomous thought is big on the left but that's all extra-parliamentary, the SPD has been New Labouresque for literally ever now (Schröder at the latest) and if it isn't it's doing clientele politics for random strong union factions at the expense of everyone else (see e.g. coal subsidies) and forget them ever caring about Lumpen. Die Linke is in practice SocDem and the likes of MLDP and DKP are irrelevant splinter cults, both claiming to be Trots and accusing the others of being Stalinists you know the type.
The Greens have never been a left party but are plenty socially liberal, the FDP likewise though they like to fish for first voters by pretending to be left-liberal instead of neoliberal pretending to be ordoliberal. Oh the Greens have a way better track record not being in bed with fascists, their first party convention was full of "Not enough is being done for the German forest" types but they all got kicked out. Probably a reason why they emphasise the social liberal part so much, it acts as a repellent. And it's not like they'd oppose left politics it's just that they care about random hamster habitats more than social housing, they themselves are either driving SUVs (hopefully EV) to organic farmer's markets or sell shit on that farmer's market.
Heck parts of the CDU in places sometimes out-left the nominal left when they, occasionally, probably by accident, remember what the C in their name stands for. Mostly individual welfare stuff of course macroeconomically they're capitalist AF.
Oh wow you lemmy people are stupid
This is what happen when you go through western education system, becoming stupid.
Yea, so is the current govt when Olaf visited China? Everyone want to maintain their economy should visit China, lest they want their country to turn into Podunk country.
