this post was submitted on 28 May 2025
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China began its period of peaceful development and opened up to Western markets while the US was bombing Vietnam and Laos, while there were coups in Indonesia and Congo and Chile and throughout the third world, and while the US was pulling farther and farther ahead in the Cold War. It implemented sweeping reforms that rolled back collectivization and opened up its people to Western exploitation.
In hindsight it's clear this was a strategic choice to buy time to peacefully develop their productive capacity and geopolitical strength, and it worked, but for fourty years it looked like a betrayal of the revolution and liberal revisionism and capitulation to capital etc etc
Even now, it seems China would be fully willing to go back to collaboration with the US to continue peaceful development. China will let allies fall and let genocide wipe out other potential allies without taking action, won't support revolutionary guerilla movements or risk international peace to engage in international militant struggle, and will let their own people be used as cheap disposable labor 48+ hours a week making US toys.
The extreme caution is definitely frustrating, even as China keeps being proven right and their caution keeps paying off. I think Maoists will have to confront the fact that there's a new Cold War eventually, and I'm interested in seeing how they respond politically.
I think I want to point out that for every guerrilla movement not supported by china, there's probably two countries being lifted out of poverty and indentured servitude to thr imperialist powers.
Ive been reading wretched of the Earth lately and this quote on pg. 105 really struck me. "The Cold War must be ended, for it leads nowhere. The plans for nuclearizing the world must stop, and large-scale investments and technical aid must be given to underdeveloped regions. The fate of the world depends on the answer that is given to this question." Is this not exactly what China has done?
Absolutely correct, I didn't mean to imply China is isolationist. They are just extremely cautious, but the Belt and Road initiative and the Developmental Bank are still revolutionary projects.
But while China peacefully fights underdevelopment, the US spreads underdevelopment violently and without mercy. Their dedication to peace is in contradiction with the realities of US-backed dirty wars and expansionism.
But I'm prepared to be proven wrong. China has done it before, after all!