Too many people are confusing the two. Whenever lemmy.ml or its devs do something stupid, people go “Lemmy is getting worse and worse,” or “I’m leaving Lemmy,” or worse, “I’m leaving for Beehaw.”
If you’re using Beehaw, then you’re using Lemmy. Lemmy is the software these instances run on. If you don’t like lemmy.ml, join another instances that have rules that match your philosophy. Some instance hosts authoritarian or fascist shit? Turn to another Lemmy instance. Lemmy.ml is not even the biggest instance. People who just joined and are unfamiliar with the platform will just think the entire Lemmyverse is run by autocratic admins if we don’t get our terminology right.
US hegemony is not a “historical anomaly”. It is the logical consequence of the imperial center i.e. the US/UK/Europe winning the geographical lottery. The triangular slave/goods/textile trading scheme in the Atlantic resulted in rapidly developing markets and massive extraction of wealth, ensuring US dominance. These geographical factors have become less important in the 21st century, however.
That is because orthodox Marxist discourse hasn’t evolved in any meaningful way since the cold war. It’s just people repeating the same platitudes with almost-religious fervor, willfully ignoring newer research.
Not only is Chinese hegemony possible, but trends suggest that it is poised to inherit the role of the imperial center possibly by the end of the century. Ian Morris’ “Why the West Rules—For Now” graphs the development of China and the West based on the amount of energy each civilization can capture, and extrapolation suggests that China will overtake the US by no later than 2100, possibly even earlier.
In the very least, that wouldn’t have been a regression if China wasn’t controlled by the CCP. But as things are currently, Chinese hegemony is synonymous with CCP hegemony. Some people attempt to argue otherwise, but that’s just sophistry. The hypercentralized statism of the CCP and its propensity to use all available technological means to coerce will leave little room for reform or discussion.
It can only be an anomaly, because not only did the US/UK/Europe win the geographical lottery (making it an anomaly that can’t be repeated) but also the Atlantic slave trade and the rapid expansion into the so-called New World was another anomaly. Then, like I said, the World Wars created another anomaly that saw literally every other empire fall and the US gobble them all up with only the USSR around to challenge them. Then the USSR fell and the US became the sole global hegemon, another anomaly that, combined with intercontinental flight and communication, created the first global empire in history!
China doesn’t have the same geographical advantages. China doesn’t have the opportunity to steal trillions in wealth from native lands and native peoples. China can’t make a new slave trade. China will be forced to compete with other powers, like the declining US and EU as well as regional rivals like India and Russia. China can’t recreate US global hegemony, and neither can any other country because all the low-hanging fruit has already been eaten. US hegemony is collapsing because it’s an unsustainable form of geopolitics. There’s no bonanza of resources to exploit anymore, it’s all gone, and now we’ll be entering a post-neoliberal world with permanent multipolarity.
Let us not forget that global warming is going to continue to destabilize the entire world with billions forced to migrate. Country after country will collapse into uninhabitable dead zones. China isn’t going to build an empire in the ashes left by this particular epoch, no one will and no one can.
This is a new situation and I obviously could be wrong, but unless China figures out cold fusion or asteroid mining or something I don’t see them becoming the new global empire. We’re at the end of an era and something new is happening.
These geographical advantages aren’t as important today as they were at the beginning of industrialization. As for the other things: They’re all ethical issues and “international norms” established under US hegemony. The reason the slave trade isn’t a thing anymore is because the US/UK-led global empire decided to collectively abolish it in the first place. The same goes for old-fashioned colonialist conquest & plundering, which the old European powers were forced to abandon under US pressure (among other factors).
All the things you’re describing are features and consequences of the US global order, so why would anyone expect any of them to remain intact if that global order gives way to something else? The reason almost every single state, even totalitarian ones, adhere to “international norms” on slavery, colonialism, or nuclear weapon usage is because the consequences of breaking these norms would be highly disadvantageous, and would result in punitive action in the current global order. The reason why almost every single state - even the most totalitarian - holds elections (even if “fake” ones) and attempts a facsimile of democracy is because the current global order inherently lends democracies more legitimacy than autocracies.
Assuming the current global order disappears, why wouldn’t totalitarianism, slavery, disenfranchisement of women, or even colonialist conquest make a comeback? There would be nothing to enforce the norms against these at that point – and any actor could easily break them with no consequence whatsoever.
External pressure is just as likely to incentivize empire building. Physical domination and control of habitable land at any cost will likely become very important, if not essential, and everyone will get away with it.
They don’t need to figure out any of that. They simply need to be able to capture more energy than their adversaries, and that is possible without cold fusion or asteroid mining. The CCP only need maintain its current trajectory of development to be able to overtake the US by the end of the century. Unlike western liberal democracies, a high-tech totalitarian society like CCP-controlled China can expand and maintain stability even in a collapsing environment without being constrained by norms or concepts such as the rule of law.
That’s really what you think, huh? They just abolished slavery because they decided to? For what? Because they’re so nice? lol
Does the motive matter that much? It was the result of US/European abolitionist movements’ success, who ended the practice within their respective empires, and which eventually extended into a global ban. The point is that the practice was banned & ended worldwide.
Reformist movements don’t and can’t exist under CCP rule period. An anti-exploitation movement in China would be crushed immediately, if it were even allowed to develop at all.
Orientalism.
Irrelevant. Most abolitionist movements were religiously- or ethically motivated and never cared about that (Are Quakers orientialist?). Complete self-emancipation only happened in one instance (Haiti). That aside, the atlantic trade was indeed controlled & driven by oriental powers, so the main abolitionist efforts could have only been centered around the oriental powers.
Abolitionist activism developed organically and was eventually institutionalized by the imperial powers. Totalitarian Maoist/Stalinist ideology is in practice hostile to any form of organic or independent activism. It is a dead-end in term of societal development and no emancipatory movement could ever develop from it.
You seem to think that China is some kind of hive colony and that all dissent from the masses is crushed with zero hope for any sort of change ever happening. As if China has solved the human equation and can maintain perfect dominance despite internal contradictions.
I strongly disagree. It maybe appears that way because we’re entering a new Cold War, but in reality politics is still possible in China and people can still do things to force changes.
We actually saw this! China was set to maintain their zero COVID policy for as long as the virus was a threat, but internal protests drove them to follow the rest of the world into reopening. If you were right then zero COVID would have never ended.
Personally, I think zero COVID was a net positive and disagree with the protests, but I can at least recognize that people hated it and that China eventually listened to protesters as all governments eventually must. No government can maintain perfect domination. You are far too pessimistic about China.
Zero COVID was only lifted after it became clear that it dealt significant, undeniable damage to the Chinese economy and threatened growth prospects. If anything, it proves the uncompromising worldview of the forces driving China.
Sure, there were protests which carried on for an entire year (!), but nothing suggests that they were relevant to the decision. Growth and exports slowing down to a crawl due to the policy had a much greater effect than anything else. China’s state-backed capitalist class also complained, and their complaints have much greater reach within the CCP than any protests. Interestingly, protesters who criticized the policy were repressed, whereas the Foxconn CEO got away with it.
This pattern of behaviour isn’t specific to China, or to the new/old Cold War. Stalinist/Maoist totalitarianism in general always attempts to enforce self-destructive and frankly insane policies such as the Cultural Revolution or the Great Leap Forward long after the harmful effects become evident. Yes, the policies were lifted and the victims rehabilitated decades later, after an incredible social and human cost.
The nonsensical part of Zero COVID is that the policy itself wasn’t even necessary. The EU offered China free vaccines (in an attempt to bring trade flows back to normal), which was rebuffed by China for no logical reason.
Why would anyone be optimistic about the CCP in the light of all that? There is literally nothing optimistic about CCP-brand Maoism. If the CCP had embraced democratic socialism, or at least followed a more scientific approach, it would have itself more proponents. But as things stand, it’s no different than any other bourgeois nationalist regime that opposes the US.