On the one hand, hooray for supporting the development of infrastructure in Africa and stuff. On the other hand, booooo for being a top trading partner with the Zionist Entity, and selling drones to Indonesia, and all that.

So what the Hell do you make of it all! Like I get that there's this term called "realpolitik" which is somehow relevant, but I'd like a longer explanation than just one word. Like how does the good and the bad fit together at its core?

You could certainly write tomes about this topic — many people have done exactly that — and maybe I'm being a bit incurious to expect someone to serve me a quick answer on a silver platter instead of diving into as many articles and PDF books as I can get my hands on... But I'm also just kind of tired of having such extremely underdeveloped views on the most populous AES state and country in general, after I came to unlearn or mistrust whichever views I'd had on China previously.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments

[–] AssortedBiscuits@hexbear.net 4 points 2 hours ago (1 children)

The sharp contrast between pre and post maoist china's foreign policy can be explained simply, the capitalist roaders won the struggle,

Mao had plenty of skeletons in his closet when it comes to foreign policy and you can't pin that on Deng since Deng was expelled from the party and shoved into some factory. I would argue that Mao's skeletons were as bad as Deng.

People who try to divide China's foreign policy between Mao and Deng don't know what they're talking about. Mao-Deng vs Jiang-Hu-Xi makes a lot more sense than Mao vs Deng-Jiang-Hu-Xi.

[–] Vidiwell@hexbear.net 2 points 2 hours ago (1 children)

I dont disagree there is not a hard break between mao and deng but the fundamentals of the opening up period, the regrettable failure of the cultural revolution, and the decline of Mao/gang of 4 power and rise of deng/capitalist roaders power are all fundamentally related and intrinsic to china's dropping of a global revolutionary outlook and beginning of a capitalist realpolitik worldview. these things were more fully realized as you say in Hu-Xi etc but the groundwork was critically laid down before that. Would love to talk more on this.

[–] AssortedBiscuits@hexbear.net 2 points 2 hours ago

Both Mao and Deng had China supporting countries committing genocide (Pakistan, Cambodia) while Jiang, Hu, and Xi mostly kept China's hands clean with the exception of the Zionist entity of course, which started under Deng anyways and possibly even under Mao. I don't think China joining the WTO under Jiang is the same as China supporting Pakistan in committing genocide against the Bangladeshi under Mao, which prompted India to intervene and led to warm relations between India and the Soviet Union which still exists to this day in warm Indian-Russian relations. Seriously, all the blackpilled and backstabbing shit was under Mao and Deng. There's Pakistan and Cambodia, there's the invasion of Vietnam, there's the support of the mujahideen in Afghanistan. You also had stuff like China supporting UNITA instead of the MPLA. Meanwhile, Jiang, Hu, and Xi just had China join/found a bunch of transnational organizations and opened trade with everyone.