Asklemmy

Ok

Can you elaborate on how BRI is Imperialism? Further, learning mandarin as a second language in schooling isn't the same as forcing everyone to speak it, Spanish is required learning in many US schools and it isn't a form of Mexican imperialism. I'd also like to see a source on the child labor in the cobalt mines.

The racial discrimination is terrible, no doubt, and it needs to be worked on and fixed. However, this doesn't seem to be something the PRC is pushing so much as individual racists. I am hopeful that that situation will improve especially.

There are many arguments against China being Imperialist, from Vijay Prashad. Here's an excerpt from a sepatate article, a quick 9 minute read:

In a 2005 presentation to the Congressional U.S.-China Commission, U.S. State Department official Princeton Lyman assessed how China’s model of socialist state loans don’t serve the function of profit:

"China utilizes a variety of instruments to advance its interest in ways that western nations can only envy. Most of China’s investments are through state-owned companies, whose individual investments do not have to be profitable if they serve overall Chinese objectives. Thus the representative of China’s state-owned construction company in Ethiopia could reveal that he was instructed by Beijing to bid low on various tenders, without regard for profit. China’s long term objective in Ethiopia is in access to future natural resource investments, not in construction business profits."

Despite recent claims that China has been using its companies to engage in neo-colonialism throughout Africa, the situation Lyman assessed has continued to be the case throughout the last fifteen years. As I’ve mentioned in past writings, China’s investments do not meet the definition of neo-colonialism; Chinese enterprises help the job markets abroad rather than only employing Chinese workers, China hasn’t been engaging in “land grabs” in Africa, and China isn’t working to trap African nations in debt. In accordance with China’s not engaging in regime change, China has also never favored any government for its form or ideology.

The KMT is where the origins of RoC as "true China" come from. Outside of the KMT, there are no claims of the RoC as anything resembling a "legitimate heir to China," only the KMT as the former rulers of the mainland. When someone says RoC is "true China," they are lionizing the KMT and upholding its legitimacy over the Communist Party of China for governance of the mainland.

Calling the RoC "true China" without mentioning the KMT is silly, there's no basis for that claim without upholding the KMT's roots.

Well, you're correct that XHS isn't the general population of China, it skews middle-high income, so you aren't getting the full picture. However, from what I've read from many younger Chinese political activists and analysts is that as China is now heavily industrialized, there is a sense of moving out of the over-ambitious optimism of the previous generations to a more grounded, educated, realistic optimism that is genuinely more hopeful as a consequence of its grounding.

China has libs. China has problems. China has struggles. But, by virtue of its position and strategy, the people also take on a generally internationalist character. "Let a hundred flowers bloom," Socialism with Chinese Characteristics is a prediction, more than a description. It's a prediction of Socialism with Ugandan Characteristics, Canadian, Brazilian, etc. That gives a sense of their overall attitude, IMO.