Tbf to Ming bros the Qing fucking sucked.

In a logical world, no. For instance the war in Iraq didnt trigger article 5. But in Bizzarro “it’s only bad when they bomb us back” world possibly. The UK has said something to the affect because they are gods 3rd greatest mistake

I can’t speak on the work because I haven’t read it, but there’s a couple parts of this analysis that I do disagree with outside of that.

1.“This is perhaps illustrated most famously in the case of the Sino-Soviet split, an issue which Losurdo was incidentally on the wrong side of.” Excuse me? Were there mistakes in Chinese foreign policy in relation to this? Yes. That’s undeniable. But what happened to all the soviet aligned states? Even the most ardent of these, east Germany, fell with the USSR. Would a soviet aligned Afghanistan fared better? Neutral states like the DPRK and Vietnam had strife after the fall too. This isn’t even mentioning the Lin Biao incident. Ideologically Mao was 80% correct towards the Krushchevite soviet union

2. “Take, for example, his near-mantra that the Nazi war of extermination against the USSR was actually a colonial war.”

It…was? Fascism’s primary purpose certainly wasn’t colonialism necessarily, but it certainly engenders it. And the great patriotic war was certainly in defense against settler colonialism and ethnic cleansing. This is completely undeniable and really odd to take issue with unless your issue is just phrased poorly.

What’s that onion article again? Like “trump continues obama-bush-clinton-bush-reagan policy” or something?

I watched Jiang Zemin’s 60 minutes interview the other day and I’m starting to realize how…stupid American politicians are.

Not just trump, although I think he is certainly the stupidest, but put any premier against any president and you’d probably be able to see the difference very quickly.

Yeah…

I don’t feel bad obviously. But I don’t feel good either. If this happened while he was in office then I would care, maybe, but otherwise this doesn’t really change anything, beyond confirming the inevitability of his death.

Obviously celebrate if you want, I don’t judge, but I just wanted to say something, not because I feel conflicted but because I just kinda dont feel anything. Which is odd for me

I still can’t get over the cognitive dissonance relating to Syria rn.

Even if we take all the allegations against Bashar and say they’re true, in the “logical” liberal society you’d think people wouldn’t have issues saying both sides are bad. Yknow they say that for Israel all the time. But when it comes to jihadists who were massacring minorities just a couple weeks ago suddenly its fine cause they’re not Bashar. Fucking psychopaths the lot of them

Honestly I don’t know if I’m angry at Bashar for letting this happen or grateful for how long he managed to hold on against the endless onslaught of the west

I feel like if there was concrete evidence of this, someone would’ve said something. Maybe not China itself but maybe the FSB/RT or something.

Well at least theres a party with some principles left.

Mostly yeah

One other part is what i want to take away from this, but I suppose I should give some context on the book he’s talking about. Thomas Carlyle’s work on the French revolution isnt pure aristocracy and is critical of the ancien regime, but its also heavily against the Jacobins. Edmund Burke type stuff if you follow.

However twain (with some supporting evidence and life experience) takes away an entirely different conclusion from what the prose supports.

Firstly, I find this a very relatable phenomenon. When I watched “Kraut and Tea”'s (may he forever burn in the sun’s light) tale of two borders, I didn’t take away the Whig histiography and such that kraut supported but instead the idea that no matter what changed politically, if the ruling class is still extracting value from the people then the situation doesn’t improve. This was before I was a marxist as well. So I do intensly relate to his experience.

But secondly, and I believe more importantly, is that multiple people can look at the same exact evidence and come to different conclusions. Thats…obvious when you say it out loud, yes, but I think some people have issues putting that to practice. I often see people asking for the best evidence to convince people that marxism-leninism is the correct ideology. However, it is just possible that the same evidence that convinces us will not convince them, especially in isolation. It is very rarely one thing or another that radicalizes someone, even if it seems that way to us.

It’s also a very succinct explanation as to how we can use the works of historians who are conservatives or even have conservative spins, even if we don’t particularly want to. (Note I was thinking of a better example from a genuine historian but I cannot remember his name. If I find whom I’m talking about I’ll edit it in, for now this will have to do). For example, TIK history does a lot of military history on the second world war, and is infamously…a goddamn lunatic anarcho capitalist. However to my knowledge his actual military history is good and doesn’t fall for the usual order 227 enemy at the gates type bull crap, so as long as he’s not talking about soldiers buying ammo from their own wallets then he’s decent. And consequently while he takes one idea from his studies on the war, we take another from the same evidence and some extra help from both our experience and other writers. (Again, if i can find the historian that I was originally going to talk about I’ll put him here, for now TIK is an ad hoc solution)

Again, I know it sounds obvious, but I think it’s important to think about the next time you see a liberal simp over South korea despite probably knowing similar things about the state that you do. (This isn’t to say don’t correct them and present evidence, obviously, just that to understand why they’re still the way they are even after you present it). Of course class analysis does this too but it can sometimes be too abstract to understand for some people, so a more succinct quote from a good writer also helps in explanations.

I’ve only read the first volume, but so far it seems good. But also it is a little outdated since that was made back in like, 2014 I think. So for instance the first centenary goal hadn’t been met yet. But it is very helpful in generally understanding Chinese policy and development. I think one of thr most important sections is on pages 132-133.

“Now, the total population of well-off countries in the world is about 1 billion, while China has more than 1.3 billion people. If we are all to become modernized, the well-off population must more than double. If we are to consume as much energy in production and daily lives as the present well-off people do, all the existing resources in the world would be far from enough for us! The old path seems to be a dead end. Where is the new road? It lies in scientific and technological innovation, and in the accelerated transition from factor-driven and investment-driven growth to innovation-driven growth.”

As someone who still kinda followed the keynsian “muh consumption” ideas this was very helpful in setting my brain on the right track. Although more detailed works like “China’s Economic Dialectic” [Cheng Enfu] are important for ironing out the details

If we were lucky, this would mean these guys defected

Unfortunately, we are stupendously unlucky so this is probably a cover up for something

Tbf would Bashar even want to? He basically immediately started being a doctor again and it wasn’t exactly his Forte originally

The point is that we can’t disprove a negative. It’s on you and everyone who agrees with you to provide evidence of the fabrication. Otherwise I can also just say “no they wouldnt” and that has the same evidentiary validity as your argument.

I find it funny how the Chinese use the same logical throughlines to come to different conclusions to liberals. Instead of saying that people shouldn’t be able to live comfortably in every job, because then people would just do the easy Jobs, the Chinese say that people should be able to live comfortably in all jobs so that people will do them. I also saw one person on 小红书 using the “feed a man a fish” quote, not to argue for taking welfare away, but for actually giving people jobs.