17min chapter

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The Grapes of Rath

The Left Opposition Podcast

CHAPTER

China's Role in Socialist Revolution

The chapter delves into a debate on whether China can be considered imperialist, touching on Marxist ideologies and applying revolutionary theory to modern contexts. It critiques Western left perspectives towards China, discusses the Belt and Road Initiative's global impact, and challenges common perceptions on imperialism, capitalism, and anti-capitalism.

00:00
Speaker 2
Aaron found this. Aaron, one to 10. How excited are you to show this off to the group?
Speaker 1
Uh, I am super excited. So yeah, uh, on the program today, uh, we've got, uh, a video from, uh, Rathbone, uh, Rathbone. Those of you who have heard of this guy, he's actually been doing really great videos on the Israel Palestine genocide. I was going to say war or conflict, but I keep, yeah, you can't keep falling into that trap. That's the first time. Yeah. Yeah. The, the, the genocide against Palestinians, he's been doing a really good job on, uh, on a lot of stuff like that until. And so, uh, you know, he had to open his mouth when someone, uh, doesn't think that China, you know, maybe isn't the light of the world in a hope for socialist world revolution. Well, Lord. Yeah. Oh boy. Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 2
Kristen, I watch this. And we're seeing comrade Larry 1917. Sounds like a good screen name. I'm, I'm already so far so good. Well, all right. Let's see. Comrade Larry.
Speaker 5
That people read, um, is China imperialist country white liberal West? OK.
Speaker 1
So is China and Paris country by a guy named N.B. Turner? OK. Well, yeah, they are. I first thought that was like a non non binary superhero. And be. And, but no, that's actually, that's actually an author. OK, named N.B. Turner, you wrote a book on his China period. I had not had a chance to check it out.
Speaker 2
Wait, Doug, if you read that book, I don't know if you read books, but I haven't read that particular book. OK, just check. All right. If Doug has a read, no one's read it. So OK, that's all I need to know. So anyway, this guy sounds like a Marxist.
Speaker 1
And by that, I mean, obviously a Western leftoid. Anyone who criticizes
Speaker 3
China is is obviously a liberal. So dirty left, so
Speaker 1
what liberal West is living in Ohio in the Imperial Corps? What right do we have to criticize China?
Speaker 2
Oh, wait, wait, wait, wait. Leave Matt out of this. That's a good guy. I don't know. I live in Ohio. I feel attacked on your behalf, Matt. And then who's this? Wrath. All right, all right, let's let wrath on clean slate. All right, let's
Speaker 3
let's let's let's speak for himself. Let's have an open mind here.
Speaker 4
OK, go. It's living in Ohio in the Imperial Corps. Try not to shit on third world countries who are mobilizing against the economic policies wrought by US imperialism. Challenge impossible. It's comrade Larry, 1917, folks, not comrade Larry 2024 because comrade Larry only applies 1917 revolutionary theory and practice to the present day world. How?
Speaker 1
But wow, that was a mouthful.
Speaker 2
China's a third world country. Is that really? Does he's actually according to the definition? It would be second world. Right. Yeah, I think people still kind of think of it as third world. But that's what
Speaker 1
we do. There are still five nominal Marxist-Leninist countries. China's obviously the biggest one. Yeah. I mean, there were he also never mentioned China. He just said third world countries mobilizing against US imperialism. When the original statement was why, you know, you got to read theory on why China is imperialist. And he's like, no, that's not what he said. But also, yeah, the idea that 1917 revolutionary theory is not applicable to the modern day. Oh, I'm sorry. I have capitalist relations completely changed over the last hundred years. Well, it's no longer a proletariat or workers as
Speaker 3
well. Over and over from these folks.
Speaker 2
Is that what Rathbone was saying?
Speaker 1
I kind of like didn't.
Speaker 2
That's what he said. Yeah. We can back it up. All right. This is good. No, there's
Speaker 1
Instagram is stupid. There's no fucking there's no there's no timeline.
Speaker 2
I can't you can't do this. I can't roll. I don't know how to rewind it.
Speaker 1
I don't need it. There's no there's no. So basically he's saying like, yeah, you're using 1917 revolutionary theory and you're applying it to 2024. How many times have we heard this from like, right? Girls who. London was wrong
Speaker 3
unless it's just in the one context and nowhere else. There are no such thing as universals.
Speaker 2
Just throw it out. Nothing like communist getting rid of 1917. That's a bad year. OK, 1917 Lenin. That was over 50 years ago. We're not even going there anymore. So good.
Speaker 5
So so so
Speaker 1
yesterday or
Speaker 2
so last week,
Speaker 1
that's a very American thing to do, actually,
Speaker 3
like how the
Speaker 1
historical memory in this country is like, so that was five minutes ago, let's not care about it. Exactly. In criticizing Western left towards this person actually has the most American attitude towards theory.
Speaker 2
It's almost nationalist his thing of like you're from Ohio. Dude, where are you from? Like, I don't know. Florida, like, that's
Speaker 1
essentially the crux of his argument is like, you're American. You have no right to criticize how China carries out.
Speaker 2
This is identity politics on a weirdly. Yeah, it's like whatever.
Speaker 3
Level two plus two equals four, no matter where you are. Obviously from Hong Kong or Beijing and are speaking on behalf of your people is what you're trying to tell me with the big hair and the. I'm
Speaker 5
sorry. I can't get over this guy. So
Speaker 1
if someone like parrots his position on China and happens to be in Ohio, are they like, have they lost the stigma of being a Western left to it?
Speaker 5
Hey, baby.
Speaker 1
But what if like a Chinese person in China, obviously, criticizes China. Are they like made into Western left to it?
Speaker 3
They're self-hating. They're self-hating Chinese up. OK,
Speaker 1
they're kind of revolutionary. Yeah.
Speaker 2
I don't know about these like him, but I don't know what, you know, Eastern Marxism. I don't trust it. That's all I'm saying. If they're going to attack Western, I think I bleach white. My God.
Speaker 3
Hey,
Speaker 1
it's like, I.
Speaker 3
I have to turn down
Speaker 2
the contest. He has a surfboard in his background. It looks like I mean, come on. This guy, Michael landed in here. OK, so I'm pretty sure the surfboard is just for decoration, my friend. Sure. He probably got that in the East because all right. Yeah, I watch a good deal of Rathbone. And it's a it's a little surprising how like reductively said that.
Speaker 1
Yes. I was.
Speaker 2
I get that he's better, though. That's what I've heard. So I mean, this is not a good introduction, but maybe we'll watch a good one after. Therefore we keep an
Speaker 3
open mind, Chris. Yeah, I can
Speaker 2
play a better one if you got one.
Speaker 1
Because that's why I'm playing this is because this was genuinely disappointing from I actually liked. No, I do want to add because I think that there's like a
Speaker 2
there is a worthwhile point, you know, buried within that that sometimes is made where where it's like, you know, I do think people sitting in like in comfort in the West will be like, well, you know, the Hamas shouldn't be violent or whatever. You
Speaker 1
know, that's the
Speaker 2
whole thing. And it's like, well, yeah, you don't have a leg to stand on in terms of like,
Speaker 3
I know how the Vietcong should have behaved. You know, like,
Speaker 2
right. So I do I do get that on a certain level, but yeah, but yeah, I went through economic sanctions. I couldn't go to Applebee's during the pandemic. I understand sanctions too. You know,
Speaker 1
like that's not, you know, that's. Yeah, but someone who's criticizing say, like the encroachment of like market relations into China and like the erosion of like all like these, the social safety net and whatnot in China. That's a lot different criticism than obviously. Yeah. And I know you you mean it that you don't mean it that way, like then criticizing like the Vietnamese liberation forces or what have you.
Speaker 3
It's like, you
Speaker 1
know, we got to look at the content of what they're saying. And you know what? Sometimes like the truth, the truth is the truth. No matter if you're in the United States or China or Japan or wherever. Yeah. OK, so yeah, how very Marxist of him, he's dismissing 1917 revolutionary theory. Let's see what he has to say about that. OK.
Speaker 4
Oh, very Marxist of him. He dengest counter revolution resulted in. Oh, comrade Larry, 1917, put your laptop away. Talk to me using your own words. How is China imperialist? I can.
Speaker 2
I can tell you a laptop away. Break your glasses. What? Come
Speaker 1
on. You want me to go through how what I think China, how they are imperialist? OK. I mean, like the proletariat is international. Capitalism is international. The bourgeoisie is international. And so that's why we have to fight on an international basis.
Speaker 2
That sounds pretty right.
Speaker 1
This is my point. This is what I'm ultimately like. China doesn't get a free pass from having read in their flag.
Speaker 2
Yeah, like in Deng was really bad. Deng destroyed the planned economy of China. Like, yes, no, Deng is not good. This Larry Larry seems Larry is going to be our guest host next week. All right, I'm announcing it
Speaker 1
here, folks. Yeah, let's see if we can get him on. Larry
Speaker 2
Larry, let's do it for too Larry. You're doing great.
Speaker 1
All right. So I just I just did a little bit of research here. Let's see, China's inaction during Vietnam, let in the US steamroll the country, yet the Vietnamese workers prevailed. No thanks to China subsequently invaded Vietnam after the US pulled out. China was the first to recognize Pinochet as the legit ruler of Chile after US back coup, socialist president, Salvatore Ande. OK, but that was the 70s, right? Like, let's go to China today. Obviously China's had time to kind of evolve and, you know, nothing has ever stagnant, right? That's the something that, you know,
Speaker 2
hasn't supported a military right-wing military, who want to know why? Now, so
Speaker 1
let's see, as of this year, China houses 814 billionaires compared to about 800 in the USA. There are 135 Chinese companies on the fortune 500 list. Out of the top 100 banks in the world, Chinese banks occupy 20 of those rankings. And in 2022, Chinese banks were the top lenders in the world. So China dominates or nearly dominates the world in terms of financial monopolies, just barely trailing in most cases behind the United States. In Q3 of 2023, China's foreign direct investment outflow was 53 billion compared to that of the United States, 110 billion. Foreign direct investment is essentially a country export of capital. So some of these, some of this might seem familiar to you. We're sort of going through Lenin's list of imperialism.
Speaker 2
You know, the monopoly and the dominance of OK, this is very 1917. I know this is really shocking 1917. That's
Speaker 1
all right. The Belt and Road Initiative, a lot of these folks see it as like, you know, expansion of Chinese socialism into other countries. But like, if your socialism means, you know, it's a it's a way to create new markets for Chinese or China's excessive steel cement and aluminum as a way to offset their their current real estate bubble, right? So 70% of loans to countries within the Belt Road Initiative, it contains requirements to use Chinese materials, labor and equipment. And so it's not like it's local job creation thing either, right? No. And so some countries are unable, they're unable to pay back these loans. So for instance Sri Lanka signed with a Chinese firm in 99 year lease on the port of Hemantota, Chinese export of finance capital into Africa, massively exploded in the last 20 years with their acquisition of African natural resources like oil, iron, copper, tin, gold, cobalt, uranium and timber. African workers, on the other hand, see very little reward for this. There are tensions with the Chinese bosses on the ground who are hostile to labor unions.
Speaker 2
The port. This is the British East India Company, right? No, this is what I'm talking about. China. I want to hear about progressive China,
Speaker 1
Chinese capitalist firms that are investing in spreading
Speaker 2
social. I didn't say British East India Company. This is just sounds like it's repeating the same things from the 19th century Aaron, this is ridiculous. It's Marxist.
Speaker 1
The port in Bagamoyo, Tanzania is the largest port in East Africa where China is building a, you know, Marxist naval base to protect their Marxist interests in the Indian Ocean. It will be operated with Chinese super tankers importing Chinese manufactured goods while exporting resources from Chinese owned Marxist mines and gas fields transported to the port with Marxist Chinese road built roads, railways and pipelines built with Chinese equipment and Union busted African labor.
Speaker 2
Zambia, I want to ask for my international.
Speaker 1
I could continue. Do you want me to keep going? I can go and keep going. I think I think
Speaker 2
what you're trying to say is that you have a distorted view of Eastern Marxism. It's a little bit different. Some of the
Speaker 1
things are different. But that's terrible. No, but then again, I'm a Western leftoid, right? Like like Zambia compromise. They were privatized. Go back to Ohio, Aaron. OK, we're not hearing it today. All right. No, you don't want to hear about the Zambia compromise that were privatized after the country became inundated with IMF debt. And it was the people's privatization.
Speaker 2
OK, the working class support privatization.
Speaker 1
If you do that, they were privatized by being scooped up for cheap by Chinese investors. Right. This is what I'm saying is like the international bourgeoisie colludes and collaborates and sticks together. Who knew?
Speaker 2
I am blown away at this.
Speaker 1
Yeah, there's a quote by I think
Speaker 2
it's I think it's some anarchist actually told story or something. But it's like, yeah, I don't feel much better about being hit with a stick if it's called the people
Speaker 1
stick. It's like, yeah, yeah, finally. OK, so he says he can quote books, too. So what's Rothbone got to say?
Speaker 5
OK, here we go. Quote
Speaker 4
books, too. Here's one that's actually written in the 21st century. China's
Speaker 2
resistance.
Speaker 1
It said in brackets, not Koutsky or Lenin.
Speaker 2
Right. We're doing away with any Marxist in the past. None of it. You
Speaker 1
can. In
Speaker 2
2024, baby, we are throwing out the baby in the bathwater because none of it is relevant anymore. No, it's all moved on.
Speaker 1
I mean, why even call yourself a Marxist? I mean, does he does he call himself a Marxist? I don't know. I
Speaker 2
probably. I don't know.
Speaker 3
So is this guy pushing contemporary theory theory theory? Or is he saying, oh, no, they're contemporary practice or neither? Yeah, I mean, because it's coming. I mean, he's already thrown out the baby with the bathwater. Let's finish the video.
Speaker 1
China's resistance is such a distortion. So again, yeah, throw out Koutsky and Lenin.
Speaker 4
You such distortions have made it a target of US economic attack as a rival and hence enemy subject to tariffs, quotas, and other policies, strictly illegal under international law. It's remarkable economic success over the past generation has not been welcome, but is opposed by US diplomats and coincidentally by comrade larys of the world. So you have that in common with US government officials.
Speaker 1
So yeah, if you criticize Chinese imperialism, you are on the same side as government officials. So you're basically a fed if you dislike what you're doing. Lovely.
Speaker 2
Oh, well, that that was a bit much.
Speaker 1
And congratulations for signing with the State Department in
Speaker 2
the United States and China arrivals. So he's now discovering that rivalry exists in capitalist free trade. Like, yeah, there's rivals everywhere. Like,
Speaker 1
I don't get this is nothing unique to China. They don't like competition. He's missing the point of when when we talk about China, right, he thinks it's like, you know, China bad because of capitalism. And it's like, no, China bad because of imperialism. And like no one's saying that, you know, the US is any better. The US is by far the worst imperialist, most violent. Like it's not even remotely comparable, but like the point is just because of flag. A country has read in its flag does not make it like the fucking savior in light of the world. That's that's what that's what we're saying.
Speaker 3
One of the things I think breaks these people out. A little bit better is if you think in terms of imperialism versus anti imperialism, versus capitalist versus anti capitalist, you tend to trip them up. Because if you like, like you said, Aaron, you just pointed out a whole laundry list of capitalist characteristics of China in the modern day. Okay. And, you know, I think that that breaks it out a lot more clearer than the sort of, I don't know, you know, who's imperialist versus anti imperialist, the US versus the rest of the world. Third world, maybe it's like third world ism. I don't know.

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