How would you answer this, and how would you expect Chinese netizens on Xiaohongshu to answer?

I will link to the thread in the comments because I want you to take a moment and think about it first.

      • @[email protected]
        -5•9 hours ago

        Belt and Road Initiative, China owning most of the cobalt reserves and refining resources that oftentimes rely on enslaved child labor, anti-Black discrimination inside Chinese enclaves in Africa (1) (2), mandating Mandarin in Ugandan schools, with Kenya and South Africa making it optional

        • Cowbee [he/they]
          5•9 hours ago

          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.

          • @[email protected]
            -3•8 hours ago

            I’m really glad to hear that in classic ML fashion, you know better than Ugandans themselves what does or doesn’t constitute colonialism. I recommend actually watching the TikTok video from the Ugandan activist I linked you that already explains how Mandarin is erasing indigenous languages in favor of facilitating Chinese exploitation of local resources.

            Believe it or not, Spanish is also a colonial language. It’s pretty well known in any history book that it was used to enact cultural genocide on indigenous people all across Turtle Island. Indigenous people in Latin America have the “choice” of assimilating into Spanish culture or face poverty, starvation and genocide by white Latinos.

            lmao imagine unironically linking the qiao collective, the mouthpiece of the CCP, as a credible source. I was wondering how long until the .ml brainwashing chip activates 🤭

            here’s an even quicker read:

            The University of California, Irvine report stated that the Qiao Collective posts “positive, often revisionist perspectives about Chinese politics.” That report stated that Qiao Collective claims that the “West’s perceptions of China as a human rights violator are actually the opposite; China is benevolent in helping marginalized people.” 1

            The UC Irvine report stated that the Qiao Collective is particularly sympathetic with regard to how China treats the Uyghur people. 1 On Aug. 31, 2022, the United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights released a report stating that the “Chinese government’s rights violations against Uyghurs and other Turkic Muslims in Xinjiang ‘may constitute … crimes against humanity.’” 5

            The left-of-center Human Rights Watch stated that since 2017, the Chinese government has carried out “a widespread and systematic” attack against the Uyghur people that included mass detention, torture, religious persecution, separation of families, forced labor and sexual violence. 5

            The UC Irvine report stated that the Qiao Collective “assert[s]” that re-education camps do not exist and the camps were built to “deradicalize” extremists so they can get proper training to live on their own. UC Irvine’s report stated that Qiao claimed the camps teach Uyghurs to “better function in the economy,” learn technical skills, and they are allowed to go home a couple times per week to see their families.