It’s all very dialectical

You’re reducing complex geopolitical economy to moral abstractions. That is idealism, not material analysis. In material terms we must look at who wields economic power, who sustains whom, and what the objective effects of policies are, not just rhetorical labels like “support” detached from underlying forces.

First, trade figures show China is far from Israel’s largest overall economic partner. The European Union collectively is Israel’s biggest trading partner and investor, with two-way trade far exceeding that with China, and the United States close behind as a top buyer of Israeli exports and major source of arms and aid. Even at its peak, China’s goods trade with Israel has lagged EU and U.S. trade by a tens of billions. This undercuts any simplistic assertion that China “kept Israel’s economy afloat.” In objective material terms, the core economic sustenance of the Zionist entity (particularly in military and strategic sectors) comes from U.S. military aid and deep EU investment, not Chinese commerce. The U.S. alone supplies billions annually in military financing and decades of cumulative assistance, dwarfing what trade volumes ever could.

Second, China’s engagement with Israel historically centered on goods imports and technology exchange, not the strategic military-industrial entanglement that the U.S. maintains. China imported Israeli tech components and sold consumer and industrial goods, this was not tantamount to subsidizing Israeli military, such as how the U.S. does through direct financing, arms sales, and joint defense programs. That is a key material distinction: trade in goods does not equal direct military support.

Third, because China understood the material logic of maintaining leverage and strategic space, it has taken concerted steps that undermine key Israeli economic advantages, such as aggressively promoting synthetic and lab-grown diamonds instead of natural stones (hitting a major sector of the Israeli economy) and cultivating alternatives to Israeli or Western software and tech dominance. These are strategic moves that weaken the Zionist entity’s economic rents, not bolster them.

Fourth, China’s broader Middle East policy must be understood dialectically. China purchased over 90% of Iran’s oil exports helping them bypass sanctions, provided advanced defensive and satellite technology that materially increased Iran’s capacity to resist U.S./Israeli military pressure, and brokered regional normalization between Iran and Saudi Arabia. This is not symbolic “support”; it is material backing of states opposed to Zionist and U.S. imperialist aims. China’s trade with Israel existed alongside, and was in my opinion very much overshadowed by, its substantial strategic backing of Iran and the axis of resistance.

Fifth, material conditions show economic warfare alone on Israel would be materially ineffective absent damaging its key backers. Israel’s economy and war machine are sustained predominantly by U.S. military aid and deep EU economic ties. Even if China had unilaterally cut trade earlier, without the collapse of those major partners, the structural economic base of the Zionist state would remain intact.

Finally, openly hostile confrontation with Israel by China, beyond pragmatic criticism and measured pressure, risks serious regional escalation. Israel is a U.S. client state with deep military integration into U.S. regional architecture; an overt break would risk drawing in U.S. strategic responses and destabilizing broader anti-imperialist projects in the region. The material balance of forces does not support unilateral isolation of Israel by China alone without risking wider conflict. That risk is not something to be ignored in strategy.

China’s engagement with Israel was a contradictory policy driven by economic and strategic interests. Its trade never equated to primary economic support comparable to U.S. military aid or EU investment. China’s material support for Iran and other resistance forces, its moves to undercut Israeli economic advantages, and its avoidance of outright military confrontation all reflect real power dynamics. Simplifying this to moral binaries ignores the underlying imperialist structures that actually sustain the Zionist state.

The CPC allowing trade with the Zionist entity was bad but people always treat it like they were supporting them and seem to forget that the axis of resistance was also massively funded and supplied by them at the same time.

They’re too used to dealing with the burger Reich where not maximizing shareholder value at the expense of all else is a crime.

I’m sure that definitely contributes to it. But entering a game of chicken when everybody already knows where your line is is simply a bad idea and I’m sure the CPC and Russian government realize that as well.

While true at the surface it was more to fight against groups funded by the USSR (such as in Afghanistan) to contain influence gains as far as I’m aware at least.

Which is a slight but very important distinction as it meant direct nuclear power clashes were far less likely and action even if perfunctory could be taken to avoid being seen as unreliable as it was against proxies, even if it became incredibly close at times.

For example if the US was arming Syria to invade Iran as opposed to doing it itself an Article 5 style agreement would make a lot more sense.

Neither China nor Russia are willing to end the world for Iran which is what would be required. The US obviously knows this too hence would not be dissuaded. All an article 5 like agreement would do is weaken China’s position as a growing alternate pole when the US invade and China doesn’t press the button.

An agreement to work around sanctions and help Iran guarantee development is much more beneficial for everyone.

Also article 5 wasn’t designed with the idea of ever protecting against nuclear powers, it’s purpose is to intimidate imperialisms victims out of being too uppity and fighting back too far.

Building shared skills for shared growth with BRI partners

Li Mingliang (executive director of the Belt and Road Tianjin Strategic Research Institute and professor at the School of International Business of Tianjin Foreign Studies University) on how the Belt and Road Initiative is increasingly driven by vocational education cooperation, with China exporting skills training to partner countries to support employment and industrial development, while stressing that future success depends on deeper localization, stronger integration, and adaptation to digital and green technology.

You just don’t understand, the tyranny of bedtime is the greatest tyranny of all.

You are right, the United States is still the world’s dominant military superpower overall, but that’s not really relevant to this specific point. In this specific case (the Sentinel ICBM versus comparable Chinese missiles) it is clearly behind. The reasons vary as you rightly pointed out: rigid doctrine, arms-control treaty legacies, extreme cost inflation, industrial constraints, and political limits on mobility and basing. All of that matters for why the gap exists, but it does not change the material outcome. China fields newer, more advanced, more survivable, more flexible systems designed for modern strategic conditions, while the US is spending almost unimaginable sums to preserve an increasingly vulnerable fixed-silo model and continue to enrich defense company shareholders.

So this missile is costing $150B+ to develop, wont even enter production until 2029 and will probably be $200M+ per unit and it is less advanced than the DF-41 from 2017 not to mind China’s full missile ecosystem or the new DF-61?

Beautiful gambit from the Amerikkkans.

It’s been a farce. If you want a sort of sad laugh check the NATOpedia list of designated terrorist orgs and ctrl+f Israel.

The Peoples Cop*

They’re going to be so mad when they get up their and realize the one real religion died out a thousand years ago.

As if “international law” was ever anything more than a shield for imperialism and a club to beat the global south.

True I did more of a paraphrase than translate. Overall a very cute happy story even if the implications are less so.

is the least these people deserve

Materially, she cannot. Deng’s strategy was embedded in a specific conjuncture of Chinese state power, proletarian capacities, and controlled capital integration. Venezuela’s productive forces have been decimated, class structures distorted by imperialist pressures actively reshaping political power. Without socialist reconstruction of productive forces and class relations, what is being called “reform” would really be a repositioning within global capitalism. If she was to walk a Deng style path currently it would be far more apt to call her Venezuela’s Gorbachev or Yeltsin.

孩子到家啦！旅日大熊猫“晓晓”和“蕾蕾”平安抵达成都

Translated title:“The pandas “Xiao Xiao” and “Lei Lei” have arrived home safely! The pandas on loan from Japan have safely arrived in Chengdu.”

Some happy news for a change, but this also marks the first time in over 50 years that Japan has no giant pandas.

Japan first received giant pandas in 1972 when Kang Kang and Lan Lan were sent to Ueno Zoo as a gift to commemorate the normalization of diplomatic relations between Japan and China.

Could this be further marking of the move away from normalization in the wake of Takaichi, and Japan’s push for a return to militarism?

I think you are misrepresenting what I have written. I will say it again clearly. You are entrenched in an idealist framework where culture and tradition are treated as driving forces of history and development. We disagree on that at a fundamental level.

I have made arguments. You just do not accept their premises, so you treat them as if they are not arguments at all. For example, when I said bureaucracy exists across socialist and capitalist states regardless of cultural background (USSR, modern Vietnam, post-war Eastern Europe), you dismissed this by returning to civilizational continuity. When I argued that gaokao functions today due to material scarcity and labor competition, not lineage tradition, you reframed that as me denying history rather than addressing the material cause.

I have also given counter examples that were not engaged with. For instance, the Soviet Union developed deep bureaucratic contradictions without imperial examinations, Confucianism(brought up due to its deep ties to Chinese culture and tradition), or lineage culture. Patriarchy persists globally under capitalism, including in societies with little to no shared past, which shows that survival of social forms does not mean they are driven by ancient tradition.

You have clearly read many books, but reading history is not the same as applying dialectical materialism. At several points you substitute origin for causation and continuity for explanation. Where something came from is not the same as what reproduces it today.

We are arguing from different theoretical positions. That is fine. But at this point we are talking past each other because you are unwilling to let go of a cultural explanation even when material ones are presented. I think it is better to acknowledge that we simply see this differently. I would however appreciate not being bad jacketed going forward.

Thank you.