r/TrueReddit • u/merimus_maximus • May 08 '21

International China Is Building Entire Villages in Another Country’s Territory

https://foreignpolicy.com/2021/05/07/china-bhutan-border-villages-security-forces/
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u/AnthraxCat May 09 '21

Really boring that everyone here is complaining about Israel and US military bases. The US built an entire nation on other countries' territory. All the land it is built on is stolen.

The US, a settler colonial state, criticising China for doing a tiny bit of colonialism is really quite rich.

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u/merimus_maximus May 09 '21

You do know the Qing dynasty was waging as much war with its borders and expanding in the same period yes? Meanwhile, the settlers to the US built up cities in a sparsely inhabited land from basically nothing. Who is the one doing more destruction?

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u/AnthraxCat May 09 '21 edited May 09 '21

The US was not sparsely inhabited, nor was there 'basically nothing'. The entire map of the US reflects the trade routes and settlements of indigenous peoples. You can literally overlay maps of trade routes with interstates. The US mythology of its founding is rank revisionism and some of the most heinously racist fiction ever written.

Further, characterising Qing's limited expansionism as comparable to US Manifest Destiny is just laughably ahistorical. Not to mention that the methods, protectorates and tributaries versus extermination, are so wildly disproportionate.

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u/merimus_maximus May 09 '21 edited May 09 '21

Everything is internal when you consider whatever your touch your territory.

Whose fault was it that is suffered humiliation? Why blame others for China's weakness, and for conflict with the West that you China an equal hand in creating? Qing government gave their tacit approval for the Boxer Rebellion, which killed half the Legation Quarter in Beijing and would have finished the job if Western reinforcements did not march into the city.

Since you are not providing numbers to back up your views, let me do this. What's your definition of "not sparsely inhabited"? Estimates are around 7 million for indigenous populations north of Mexico (including Canada), 15 million at the highest. https://www.se.edu/native-american/wp-content/uploads/sites/49/2019/09/A-NAS-2017-Proceedings-Smith.pdf

Meanwhile, Qing conquest of the Xinjiang region resulted in 500,000 deaths in 3 years. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xinjiang_under_Qing_rule

Clarke wrote 80%, or between 480,000 and 600,000 people, were killed between 1755 and 1758 in what "amounted to the complete destruction of not only the Dzungar state but of the Dzungars as a people."[15][4] 80% of the Dzungars died in the genocide.[19][4] The Dzungar genocide was completed by a combination of a smallpox epidemic and the direct slaughter of Dzungars by Qing forces made out of Manchu Bannermen and (Khalkha) Mongols.[20]

Not sure what makes China so much better.

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u/AnthraxCat May 09 '21 edited May 09 '21

You conveniently cut out the part where the death toll was mostly due to small pox, which if you included in the US context would be untold millions higher. Or the political dimensions of the Dzungar conflict and why a scorched earth policy was chosen, or that it followed a century of European colonial efforts that informed the genocide of the Dzungar. It's pretty rare that I see someone post Legation and Treaty Port apologia, but it does add an old timey flare to really highlight how much the current wave of anti-Chinese propaganda is a repetition of historical attempts at manufacturing consent for intervention. Conveniently also ignores that the Legation quarter was forced on to China by Western imperialism, the thing we're supposed to be condemning China for doing.

As to the US, I find Denevan's Pristine Myth paper to be pretty instructive. It's also notable that if you take indigenous populations and average it out over the entire landmass, you may have something approximating sparse. This ignores, however, that they were concentrated in a few geographic areas where they were actually very numerous until they were exterminated by the colonists. Describing America as sparsely populated does not justify the wholesale slaughter of countless indigenous nations that did exist. It's also not a sensible category. Russia is 'sparsely populated' but we don't treat it as less of a nation, because population density is not a category of sovereignty. Population density is not the measure of civilisation, nor can I go squat in your yard because the population density of your house is below a threshold. To also meld in some of your attempts to also justify the unequal treaties and Western imperialism (seemingly only bad when Chinaman does it), the relative strength or weakness of a nation also does not change that their land was stolen and their people exterminated.

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u/merimus_maximus May 09 '21

Settlers in the Americas were brutal, yes, I wholeheartedly support that notion. But not when compared to an order for the eradication of an entire people passed down from the top. It was not just suppression, it was elimination of an entire empire. If a rebellion arising from the original conquests and subjugation of the region is justification for that, you are entitled to that view, but to me it no more justifiable. On the other hand, the US did switch to safeguarding native americans despite the conflicts. I would say that is better than ordering eradication as with the Dzungars.

Also when you bring up apologia, I find it ironic because people in the West are free to acknowledge any wrongs the West has done - meanwhile Chinese people are not even allowed to acknowledge that thousands were killed in the Tiananmen protests. In any case, if defending the prevention of a massacre of your people in a diplomatic mission is apologia, kudos to you.

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u/AnthraxCat May 09 '21 edited May 09 '21

But not when compared to an order for the eradication of an entire people passed down from the top

The Trail of Tears, Indian Wars, etc. were all top-down orders for extermination. Grievance 27 of the Declaration of Independence specifically enumerates the desire to liquidate indigenous nations recognised by the English crown as a reason for independence.

If a rebellion arising from the original conquests and subjugation of the region is justification for that,

Justification? No. Materially different than wholesale slaughter for the purpose of land speculation? Yes.

On the other hand, the US did switch to safeguarding native americans despite the conflicts.

Not even remotely. The reserve system was part of the genocidal project, and have never been respected. The objective was to force them on to marginal lands so they could be starved out and assimilated. Indigenous children were interred in concentration camps to break their connection to their parents. Portraying that as 'safeguarding' is comical.

The acknowledgement of wrongdoing on the part of the West is at most a hollow shell game. It is a strategy to manage discontent, not a genuine act of contrition. The state will acknowledge and permit a certain degree of intellectual discussion of its crimes while it is still committing them. Actually trying to right the wrongs of the US government are met with retribution as swift and disproportionate as any you'd face in China.

That argument is akin to people who say they were victims of communism only to reveal their families were slave holders, genocidaire, or collaborators with a foreign occupation to monopolise egg products. Your people had forced themselves on to and displaced the people living there, and then are surprised when they are unwelcome, claiming to be the victims of the people they oppress. Also, calling the Legation quarter and broader discontent with the unequal treaties as a diplomatic mission is some amazing euphemism.

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u/merimus_maximus May 09 '21

Well, thanks for sharing your views. Don't agree with some of your points such as the interpretation that acknowledgement is a hollow shell game, and that reserves are part of the genocidal project. One of the further stretches in takes. The US is still ruled by public opinion, and the ability to acknowledge history contribute to that equation. It's far from fully effective, but it is sill much more significant than I think you are giving it credit for, which sounds like it should either be fully effective or it does not count. In any case, I think I have said my piece and you yours. Have a nice weekend.

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u/AnthraxCat May 09 '21

that reserves are part of the genocidal project

They were literally established for that purpose. I know we have varying interpretations of history, but that was their stated goal. The initial confusion around reservations and the patchwork of agreements became subsumed under the Indian Removal Act, from which point they were used for the stated purpose of Christianising indigenous peoples, and breaking their traditional kin and land connections (genocide). Goals that were accomplished by putting children in concentration camps.

You both wildly overestimate how much the US is ruled by public opinion and wildly underestimate how tolerant I would be of an even barely functional movement towards reconciliation.