Everybody knows about the backstory, there was a civil war, KMT fled to Taiwan creating two Chinas sort of, maybe, neither recognises the other, whole thing. ROC (Taiwan) ended up transitioning from military rule to a multi-party democracy, while the PRC (mainland China) didn’t do that (they did reform economically, “socialism with Chinese characteristics” and all that, but still a one-party state, not a multi-party democracy). The status quo right now is that Taiwan is in the grey area of statehood where they function pretty much independently but aren’t properly recognised, and both sides of the strait are feeling pretty tense right now.
Taiwan’s stance on the issue is that they would like to remain politically and economically independent of mainland China, retaining their multi-party democracy, political connections to its allies, economic trade connections, etc. Also, a majority of the people in Taiwan do not support reunification with China.
China’s stance on the issue is that Taiwan should be reunified with the mainland at all costs, ideally peacefully, but war is not ruled out. They argue that Taiwan was unfairly separated from the mainland by imperial powers in their “century of humiliation”. Strategically, taking Taiwan would be beneficial to China as they would have better control of the sea.
Is it even possible for both sides to agree to a peaceful solution? Personally, I can only see two ways this could go about that has the consent of both parties. One, a reformist leader takes power in the mainland and gives up on Taiwan, and the two exist as separate independent nations. Or two, the mainland gets a super-reformist leader that transitions the mainland to a multi-party democracy, and maybe then reunification could be on the table, with Taiwan keeping an autonomous status given the large cultural difference (similar to Hong Kong or Macau’s current status). Both options are, unfortunately, very unlikely to occur in the near future.
A third option (?) would be a pseudo-unification, where Taiwan becomes a recognised country, but there can be free movement of people between the mainland and Taiwan, free trade, that sort of stuff (sort of like the EU? Maybe?). Not sure if the PRC would accept that.
What are your thoughts on a peaceful solution to the crisis that both sides could agree on?
edit: Damn there are crazies in both ends of the arguments. I really don’t think giving Taiwan nukes would help solve the problem.
I think the current best solution, looking at the more reasonable and realistic comments, seems to be to maintain the status quo, at least until both sides of the strait are able to come into some sort of agreement (which seems to be worlds away right now given their current very opposing stances on the issue)
I don’t expect it to be resolved peacefully. Imperialism rarely is.
Edit: also, the UN is a joke. It’s just a tool the security council uses to bully other nations. It exists entirely for their benefit. This is like pointing to law under monarchy to support the king’s position. It’s totally circular.
Imperialism? How is this imperialism?
World power attempting to subordinate and subsume its neighbor by threats of invasion? How is it not imperialism?
Arguably the US’s defense of Taiwan is also imperialist but a more benign form than the CPC’s actions here. The Taiwanese people are just pawns in the struggle for global domination.
Please consult the graph:
Because imperialism isn’t when invasion. You really should learn what words mean before you use them. Imperialism is a capitalist phenomena where high stage capitalist powers enforce(through force or other means) unequal exchange and super exploitation upon subordinate nations to extract super profits. The PRC has never done that.
That’s just a nonsense definition invented by Stalin to apologize for his own imperialism. No one else uses that definition. I’ll agree that this is a form of imperialism but it is far from the only form. The absurdity here is that by this definition classical empires like Rome didn’t even engage in imperialism. When your definition excludes the textbook empire, maybe that’s a sign that something has gone wrong here…
Although arguably the PRC has done that even by this muddled definition.
You’re just factually wrong.
That definition wasn’t “invented by Stalin.” It comes from Lenin in Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism, written in 1916, before the USSR even existed. Stalin didn’t “make it up.” Lenin analyzed imperialism as a specific stage of capitalism: monopoly capital, finance capital, export of capital, division of the world, and super-profits extracted from subordinate nations. That’s standard Marxist political economy, not a post-hoc excuse. The fact you’re this wrong about it is genuinely incredibly impressive.
You’re also mixing up empires with modern imperialism. They are not the same thing.
Rome conquered territory through pre-capitalist slavery and tribute. Modern imperialism works through banks, corporations, debt, unequal exchange, and enforced dependency. Capitalist imperialism is what matters on the modern age, not every conquest in human history. Saying “Rome doesn’t fit Lenin’s definition” isn’t a gotcha, it just shows you don’t understand what you’re talking about.
Now on your snide comment about China.
Imperialism today looks like this: exporting finance capital, imposing structural adjustment, extracting monopoly rents, enforcing dollar hegemony, surrounding the globe with military bases, and keeping whole regions permanently underdeveloped.
China does none of that.
The PRC doesn’t run IMF shock therapy. It doesn’t control global reserve currency. It doesn’t force privatization. It doesn’t maintain hundreds of overseas bases. It doesn’t drain super-profits from the Global South. Chinese investment is infrastructure-heavy, bilateral, and negotiated, which is exactly why so many formerly colonized countries prefer dealing with China over the West.
Calling that “imperialism” is just liberal brainrot: “big country doing geopolitics = imperialism.”
I hope you can grow up and learn and stop preaching arrogantly on things you clearly know less than 0 about I understand it’s the American way but it is incredibly frustrating to be constantly lectured by uneducated labour aristocrats.
Thank you for your service o7
Ok I’ll accept the correction, it was Lenin, not Stalin. Whatever. Two peas from the same pod whose ideological differences are frankly scarcely noticeable to most people.
The word imperialism relates to empires. It predates Lenin’s work and its definition continues to be used in that way by most people outside of your tiny political faction. If you want to refer to it as capitalist imperialism or something that’s fine but it’s absurd to claim that Lenin’s work invalidates the long-standing use of the term to describe the behavior of empires before capitalism before and through to the modern time. Especially when your new definition invalidates virtually all of its historical uses.
I am using the word imperialism as the dictionary defines it, not your weird made up version which you unilaterally declare correct in contradiction to the vast majority of English speakers.
Answering primarily because I don’t want people to see your comment and fall for misinformation, I’m largely repeating what I’ve said to you elsewhere.
This is just Eurocentrism. The majority of the world understands imperialism more in line with Lenin’s analysis, and describing Marxism-Leninism as “tiny” when it is the ideology governing the largest economy in the world by purchasing power parity is absurd. Imperialism does predate Lenin, Lenin built his work off of others that had begun to analyze the formation of the imperialist stage of capitalism.
This is wrong. Lenin analyzed the imperialist stage of capitalism, he did not invalidate prior forms of imperialism. Lenin scientifically analyzed imperialism as it relates to late-stage capitalism using Marxist methodology. He did not claim Rome wasn’t imperialist, just that it was a different mode of production with a different set of processes in place that makes it qualitatively distinct from the imperialist phase of capitalism.
In other words, you’re accepting purely what is seen as valid by the western bourgeoisie with respect to how they get their vast riches. This is a semantic game, when Marxists are arguing against real, observed phenomena that behave in specific, observable ways, not the mere word itself. If we only accepted bourgeois framing of everything, then we could make the same reductive statements about anarchism, critique of capitalism, etc that you’re making of the imperialist stage of capitalism.
As I said elsewhere, I think it would be a good idea for you to read Imperialism, the Current Highest Stage of Capitalism for yourself. This isn’t a “read theory” argument, I know you can’t force people to read if they don’t want to, but instead a suggestion for you to understand why Marxists analyze the behavior of late-stage capitalism this way. Even watching this summary video by Red Pen would do wonders, and it’s only ~55 minutes long (as compared to the 3-5 hours of reading the original text itself).
Calling Lenin and Stalin “two peas in a pod” is pure ignorance. Lenin was a theorist of imperialism and revolutionary strategy in a semi-feudal Russia. Stalin governed an already-existing socialist state under siege and focused on industrialization and survival. Their political contexts, priorities, and theoretical contributions were radically different. Collapsing them together just tells everyone you’ve never seriously engaged with either.
Now about “dictionary imperialism.”
Western dictionaries define imperialism as broadly as possible on purpose: “extending power,” “influence,” “big country doing stuff.” Why? Because that conveniently erases the material reality that Europe and the US built their wealth through capitalist imperialism, finance capital, colonial extraction, unequal exchange, and permanent underdevelopment of the Global South. If imperialism just means “strong states exert power,” then suddenly everyone is equally guilty and nobody has to confront who actually runs the system.
Imperialism only has value as an analytical concept when it means something specific.
Lenin’s definition does exactly that: monopoly capital + finance capital + export of capital + division of the world + super-profits from subordinate nations. That explains the modern world. Your dictionary definition doesn’t explain anything.
We already have words for generic force: war, conquest, invasion.
“Imperialism” exists to describe a capitalist global structure, not your vibes-based “power is bad” framework.
You’re hiding behind dictionary entries because you don’t want to deal with political economy.
This isn’t a semantic debate. You’re choosing a deliberately vague definition because it lets Western countries off the hook and lets you posture without understanding systems.
Honestly, grow up. Stop lecturing people while proudly demonstrating you haven’t studied the topic. Being arrogant doesn’t make you informed, it just makes you loud.
Not only was the USSR not imperialist, but it was Lenin that formulated the Marxist analysis of imperialism, not Stalin, and Lenin further relied heavily on John A. Hobson’s formulation of imperislism. Lenin took Hobson’s base observations and re-analyzed using a Marxist frame. Stalin had no part in that, and it seems like you’re trying to invent a reason to not take Marxist analysis of imperialism seriously. Lenin’s work on imperialism predated the USSR, and actively informed how the bolsheviks struggled for socialism in tsarist Russia.
This is extremely easy to verify, so I’m not sure where you got this idea from. Either you genuinely didn’t know, and thus didn’t care enough to learn or verify, or you made it up knowing how easy it is to debunk. Neither points to reasonable argument.
The Roman Empire was pre-capitalist, and thus its mechanisms for extraction were entirely different from what Marxists analyze as modern-day imperialism. Call it whatever you wish, Marxists do not critique what we call imperialism because of its name, but because of its function as the primary contradiction driving global struggle and development today.
What you call “muddled” is in fact a far more scientific analysis than “big country bully small.” Further, no, the PRC does not fall into the Marxist analysis of imperialism.
You’re right, Lenin, not Stalin. The two are very ideologically similar so I hope you’ll forgive my misremembering. It doesn’t change the validity of my argument however. You can change Stalin for Lenin in my original comment and it remains true.
Any analysis that automatically rejects 90% of historical imperialism as suddenly not imperialism is unserious. If you wish to call it capitalist imperialism that would be one thing but one obscure and frankly not all that serious theorist doesn’t just get to tell everyone else in the world they’re suddenly using a word wrong just because they decided to and because it’s convenient for their, yes, imperialist politics.
It changes your argument entirely. You claimed Stalin made it up to justify “soviet imperialism,” ie that it was an unscientific definition created for the purpose of justifying actions after the fact. The truth, on the other hand, is that analysis of imperialism predated the USSR, and was used to help analyze tsarist Russia’s place in the world and wage a successful revolution, because it was a scientific analysis of imperialism.
That’s not what Lenin’s analysis of imperialism does, though. You’re doing the thing where you confidently make a statement easily debunked, which leads me to believe that you either have no concern for accuracy, or instead are deliberately making things up. Roman imperialism was different in form and function to what Marxists recognize as the imperialist stage of capitalism.
Again, no, Lenin developed the Marxist analysis of imperialism in the context of the coming inter-imperialist war (World War I), and the successful analysis of imperialism helped establish socialism. There was no USSR, so you couldn’t even accuse Lenin of trying to justify “soviet imperialism,” which doesn’t exist anyways.
Are you being genuine, or have you made up your mind already and are making things up as you go to justify that? Honest question, because you’re doubling and tripling down on this.
I got a lot of people attacking me right now so I didn’t read as carefully as I should have, so I didn’t know it was a concept created before Lenin came into power. That changes my understanding of the context in which he created it, specifically.
However, that doesn’t change the fact that auth-left people use this confusing language that is in total contradiction to how the rest of the anglosphere uses the word exactly as it’s being used here–to deflect from actions that are very obviously of the same nature as historical imperialism. Yet because the PRC claims to be socialist, suddenly we ignore all of the power dynamics and all of the coercion and decide this is benign simply because it supposedly doesn’t match Lenin’s definition.
Such that even when it does match the common definition, I get tons of people attacking me and saying I don’t know what imperialism is when I’m not even using the word in the Marxist sense. Marxism isn’t of much interest to me, so yeah, I’m not an expert on it. That is not relevant to the fact that China’s attempts to crush Taiwanese autonomy and seize control of the island are textbook imperialism.
Are you unaware of the history of Taiwan? How it became “independent”?
I am familiar. How is that relevant here?
How is it relevant? Are you serious? How are you claiming this is imperialism? It’s an island that a murderous dictator fled to after losing a bloody civil war. It was then recognized as “China” at the UN for years. Like how is reunification==imperialism in your mind?
Forceful conquering by military might or other coercion means makes it imperialism. There is no history that could make it otherwise.
Are you like 15?
What if I am? Very ageist question.