In what world does China have a non-imperialist foreign policy?

Historically speaking, he's right. China has never had an expansionist foreign policy.

	▲	mobilefriendly 3 hours ago \| parent \| next [-]
		Tibet, the Philippines, and Taiwan would like to have a word, not to mention Chinese military action in support of its North Korea puppet state, and wars with Vietnam and India.
	▲	sinuhe69 3 hours ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		Are you serious? Don't you know how many wars did China wage? It tried to assimilate Vietnam for 1000 years. The last large scale war against Vietnam was just 1979. In fact, China had started war with all its neighbors, with no exception.

▲

statuslover9000 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

For example, China operates 1 foreign military base, in Djibouti. How many do you think the U.S. has in the South China Sea alone?

Beyond that, how many people has China killed in foreign military conflicts in the past 40 years? How many foreign governments have they overthrown?

Instead of all this, they’ve used their resources not only to become the world’s economic superpower but also to lift 800 million people out of poverty, accounting for 75% of the world’s reduction during the past 4 decades. The U.S. has added 10 million during that same time period.

	▲	8note 32 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		why use 40 years as the example? its a pretty convenient framing to exclude the foreign governments its toppled. eg. tibet. the government in exile remains the government in exile. youd have some standing if china dropped control over its imperial holdings, rather than pretend theyre part of china

▲

MiSeRyDeee 4 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

In what world does China have a imperialist foreign policy?

▲

cthalupa 3 hours ago | parent [-]

The one we live in, where they have control over a wide swathe of land mass through imperialism and have actively resisted relinquishing it?

The one we live in, where they are constantly surpassing international law in international waters in the South China Sea?

The one we live in, where they are constantly rattling sabers at South Korea and Japan when it comes to military expansion?

The one we live in, where they brutally cracked down on Hong Kong when they did not abide by the 50 year one country two systems deal, not even making it half of the way through the agreed period?

The one we live in, where there is constant threat to Taiwan?

It may have been a lazy post you're responding to, but anyone that is paying attention to this topic enough to talk about it is going to either say 'Of course China is imperialist, the same as every other global power' or take some sort of tankie approach to justify it.

▲

sinuhe69 3 hours ago | parent | next [-]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sino-Vietnamese_Wars

▲

mobilefriendly 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

You forgot Tibet and the Uyghurs https://worldwithoutgenocide.org/genocides-and-conflicts/gen...

▲

cthalupa 3 hours ago | parent [-]

> where they have control over a wide swathe of land mass through imperialism and have actively resisted relinquishing it?

Was referring to Tibet.

The Uyghurs are also a major problem from a social perspective but not directly related to imperalism/expansionism/military industrial complex stuff.

	▲	econ 23 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		Yes but the guy at the end of the street beats his wife too!

▲

cwillu 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

“One country two systems” is definitionally not imperialism, and given that “One China” is still an internationally recognized thing, neither is Taiwan. “Imperialism” is not a synonym for “morally repugnant government policy”.

	▲	cthalupa 3 hours ago \| parent [-]
		I can see the argument for Hong Kong. I don't agree, really, but I can understand it. Under the strictest of definitions, perhaps it isn't. But Taiwan is very obviously a totally separate country no matter what fictions anyone employs. If you are trying to talk about the thin veneer of everyone going "Uh huh, sure, China, yep Taiwan is totally part of you, wink wink, nudge nudge" as somehow making China not imperialist when Taiwan basically lives under the perpetual threat of a Chinese military invasion and having their own democratic form of government overthrown and replaced with the CCP, then... I don't really know what to say. I suppose we could argue about imperialism being more of an economic thing - in which case this all still holds up - China's investments in Africa are effectively the same playbook the US has run out in developing nations for years. The US learned it from prior imperialist nations but belts and roads is nearly a carbon copy of what the US has done in other places. But let's look at what the original poster was actually talking about - saying that China is safe because they don't have a military industrial complex because they're not imperialist. The proper word to use, if we want to get down to the semantics of it all, would be expansionist - but it's still not true. China has the 2nd largest military industrial complex in the world, and the gap is shrinking every day between them and the US. And if you were to look at wartime capacity, where China's dual-use shipyards could be swapped to naval production instead of commercial, a huge portion of that gap disappears immediately.