Re: [Marxism] Moral Effluvia Over China/Taiwan - or Boardgame Marxism

["Carlos A. Rivera" <cerejota@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

----- Original Message -----
From: "M. Junaid Alam" <mjunaidalam@xxxxxxxxxx>
To: <marxism@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Wednesday, March 09, 2005 8:55 AM
Subject: [Marxism] Moral Effluvia Over China/Taiwan - or Boardgame Marxism


> There has been a rather silly series of postings,

Yours tops the list.

> The whole thing is poor theatre - imagine, sitting behind a computer
> screen in the US trying to play boardgame geopolitics and "determine"
> which countries have the right to exist and which are merely "artificial",
> from thousands of miles away.

Look in a mirror for a second. You just described yourself!!!

> I know Marxists are an ambitious bunch, but maybe we American ones should
> get our shit together here in America before worrying about whether some
> other country is "real" enough to respect the fact that it exists.

I agree.

Yet, you seem to talk the talk and not walk the walk.

> China is not some beleagured socialist nation fighting off "imperialism".
> China aspires to imperialist status.
[...]
> China's leadership is committed to capitalism because it is committed to
> the preservation of its own power.

I am not going to argue with you regarding these fair-and-balanced,
in-the-know, not-from-behind-a-computer-monitor statements.

I am going to ask you to ask from where do you get the crystal ball that
allows you such clarivoyance?

> All this talk of shooting people in the head if they don't support
> anti-colonial struggles is very dashing, and much preferable to that wing
> of Marxism which now calls itself   post-modernism/neo-Marxism, but we are
> not talking about a colony here in the first place. Sure, Taiwan may have
> been *used* as a proxy against Chinese socialism, but that does not mean
> that *defines* Taiwan.

I am sorry to tell you, but besides a few pro-imperialists in the runaway
province who want to re-define the matter for their master's purposes, it is
defined precisely as a pawn in the struggle against China. Even the
propaganda website posted here recently, if given a critical reading, shows
that it has always been a gateway for imperialism, including Chinese
imperialism at one point. It defines its history from start to finish.

This in and of itself is a historical fact of no small measure and setups
the conditions for the conclusion we must reach:

1) There is no Taiwanese nation, defined by history or current geopolitics.
Even the official name is Republic of China and it claims to be a government
in exile of mainland China.

This is a fact, as has been shown by facts posted by many list contributors.
The only fact-based reply I have seen, reads more like a CIA document than a
serious attempt at histoical facts.

2) There is no mass anti-imperialist movement in the runaway province, who
takes a nationalist "neither Beijing nor Washington" stand. In other words,
the current Taiwanese national myth is based on the interest of the people
who inhabit the island, but on the interests of US imperialism.

3) The world's most populous State claims that the island is part of itself.
It has a compelling cliam that is supported by a large section of the people
in the island.

4) If the island joined China, it would weaken the influence of the USA in
the region, and switch the center of power a little closer to where it
belongs, which is in the region itself.

5) Regardless of what the leaders of the CHinese state want or don't want,
regardless if china is capitalist or socialist, the PRC's claim of the
island is much more legitimate from an anti-imperialist point of view.

> And the Chinese power brokers have done much more to destroy socialism in
> China than anyone over in Taiwan.

Now, who is working "backward from a set of predefined political slogans and
*conclusions* made my Marxists a long time ago about oppressor vs. oppressed
nations based on a balance of forces and political *realities* that no
longer exist"?

I happen to know for fact that millions of Chinese, together maybe more than
all the western left sects put together, wake up every morning, and after
Tai Chi, go to work thinking they are building socialism and national
independence. You may want to deny their identity from far away, but I
don't.

> Now whether you support or applaud China's rise to power out of a desire
> to see US unipolarity challenged is one thing, but let's not have any
> illusion about what that entails: an inter-imperial rivalry (which at this
> point is far more cooperation than rivalry), not some grand resurrection
> of capitalism v. socialism subsumed across national lines.

Alas, I don't argue it is a contradiction of ideology, but a contradiction
between imperialism and the colonial world.

And I don't assume this struggle to be final, nor do I assume I will see the
end of it. I leave such Millerianism to cults.

I do assume it to be a unescapable feature of Imperialism, as understood by
Marxism-Leninism, i.e. as a higher form of capitalism. And I do believe that
history has shown that reports of capitalism's death have been greatly
exagerated. Which by no means is to be construed as meaning we should all
sit around cross armed while it decides to die.

> That phase of history is over.

Now, who is the post-modernist?

The fact is, we are all an arrogant bunch. This phase of history has *just*
begun. 100 years is absolutely nothing in terms of history.

sks


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