Well, for starters we need to clarify our terminology. By imperialist I'm not talking about ancient empires; I'm using Lenin's definition of the term :
(1) the concentration of production and capital has developed to such a high stage that it has created monopolies which play a decisive role in economic life;
(2) the merging of bank capital with industrial capital, and the creation, on the basis of this “finance capital”, of a financial oligarchy;
(3) the export of capital as distinguished from the export of commodities acquires exceptional importance;
(4) the formation of international monopolist capitalist associations which share the world among themselves, and
(5) the territorial division of the whole world among the biggest capitalist powers is completed. Imperialism is capitalism at that stage of development at which the dominance of monopolies and finance capital is established; in which the export of capital has acquired pronounced importance; in which the division of the world among the international trusts has begun, in which the division of all territories of the globe among the biggest capitalist powers has been completed.
Just taking control of territory or expanding or exerting influence aren't what I or other Marxist-Leninists mean by imperialism. America qualifies as imperialist in the Marxist sense in that it developed and behaves in the way Lenin describes; China, I believe, doesn't, but either way regaining Hong Kong still wouldn't be imperialist because it's within the national borders of China.
And it's not so much that Hong Kong was a part of ancient Chinese empires that makes it a part of China, but that Hong Kong has always been Chinese. It doesn't mean every part of any ancient empire belongs to the same nation; Chinese empires have historically controlled parts of Korea and Vietnam at a couple points, for example, but they have distinct national identities that separate them from China.
The people of Hong Kong, along with the other parts of China, largely possess a common language (or family of closely related languages), history, culture, and so on, binding them together in a common nationality. National self-determination and territorial integrity are essential for fighting off imperialism and colonialism, and thus in defeating capitalism overall.
Also, you should read Lenin's Imperialism. It's good shit.
Thanks for taking the time to explain your thinking :)
I understand Lenin's definition. I'd also call Qin Shi Huang's conquest of the Kingdom of Nam Viet in order to establish a literal empire qualifies as imperialist by the more common definition of the term. Which isn't to say that the kingdom of Nam Viet had any actual right to govern the territory or people in the first place.
I definitely need to read more Lenin but I think you need to critically examine your preconceptions that nationalism and nation states are inherently justified.
I strongly disagree with your assertion that nationalism is inherently anti-colonial or anti-imperial and would go so far as to say that while nationalist movements can sometimes have good material outcomes nationalism itself is reactionary, unjustified, inherently violent and often nonsensical. There is no inherent good in each group of people with the same "history, culture and language" being goverened by a different state with the territory and resources they have traditionally possessed. The idea that they should only serves to cementing historical inequalities along "cultural and language" (often ethnic and racial) lines making it racist, reactionary and anti-marxist.
Furthermore national identities (which you've defined as being "cultural, historical and language" based but often have other components) are not natural or static. They are almost always manufactured and imposed often brutally by a state as a mechanism of social and cultural control. The artificial selection of which parts of "history, languange culture" and not to ignore the elephants in the room, race, ethnicity and occaisonally class and how these change to meet the needs of the ruling class at various times and the mechanisms by which they are imposed have been well studied and if you want some links to papers/pdfs I'll be happy to point you to them and so many countless atrocities have been committed to introduce and reinforce these mechanisms that I'm sure I don't have to link you them.
Anti-imperialist/decolonial/"communist" nationalism is a slightly more complex subject but I'd argue that while it can certainly have very positive material outcomes in the short/mid term when used as a mobilising force/mechanism of control for a vanguard party to get people to act against their personal best interests for the sake of their "nation" rather than the communist ideal of the common good of all people it contains most of the roots of Ur Facism especially when used to mobilise people to war and can very easily evolve into full fascism as has happened in India. It also provides nationstates with an alternative ideological framework to communism by which they can justify their actions to their people, which can be very dangerous. Additionally, once the colonial/imperial oppressors are expelled establishing and maintaining a nation state usually requires brutal nation building and reinforcing excercises to ensure the state maintains control of what national identity means and can propogate that national identity to each of its citizens.
Coming back to the situation of Hong Kong and China viewed through the lense of nationalism, we can see two different states using nationalism and the ideal of national self determination to justify what is effectively a proxy war in Hong Kong. The national identity of most of the people who live in Hong Kong diverged significantly from the national identity the Communist Party of China is propagating. Instead of just trying to make a Marxist Leninist Hong Kong the Communist Party of China is using brutal measures to impose their national identity on the people of Hong Kong and the CIA used the arguably justified opposition to this to forment a reactionary colour revolution.
tl;dr nationalism is reactionary and a fucking spook.
I strongly disagree with your assertion that nationalism is inherently anti-colonial or anti-imperial
To be clear, I'm not defending all nationalism, but specifically anti-colonial and anti-imperialist nationalism.
As to whether nationalism is itself reactionary, I don't think so. Certain kinds of nationalism are reactionary, yes, but others can be liberatory. The Cuban and Vietnamese revolutions began as nationalist movements in opposition to colonial oppression and morphed into socialist revolutions over time as their leaders became radicalized and as material conditions demanded it. The Chinese revolution was highly nationalistic, but again in a way that helped drive the people to liberate themselves from imperialism. Palestinian nationalism is cool and good, and so is Black nationalism, etc.
Nationalism can obviously also be bad if it takes on a reactionary character or if it's rooted in oppressing other nations. The situation in India is bad and very fascist but I don't think that it's Indian nationalism that's the problem, but instead Hindu nationalism, but I admit I'm pretty ignorant about India. Religious and ethno-nationalism are obviously reactionary.
Nationalism on its own is inadequate and might become reactionary over time, but socialist nationalisms don't really turn out that way. I don't think there's anything reactionary about Cuban nationalism, for example; it definitely doesn't seem like it's devolving into fascism.
Furthermore national identities (which you’ve defined as being “cultural, historical and language” based but often have other components) are not natural or static. They are almost always manufactured and imposed often brutally by a state as a mechanism of social and cultural control.
Sure, but not all identities are imposed by imperialism.
The artificial selection of which parts of “history, languange culture” and not to ignore the elephants in the room, race, ethnicity and occaisonally class and how these change to meet the needs of the ruling class at various times and the mechanisms by which they are imposed have been well studied and if you want some links to papers/pdfs I’ll be happy to point you to them and so many countless atrocities have been committed to introduce and reinforce these mechanisms that I’m sure I don’t have to link you them.
I think over the course of hundreds or thousands of years there are a lot of forces influencing the development of national identities, and I don't think they can all be dismissed as just being constructed by their ruling classes. But sure, show me what you have.
Coming back to the situation of Hong Kong and China viewed through the lense of nationalism, we can see two different states using nationalism and the ideal of national self determination to justify what is effectively a proxy war in Hong Kong. The national identity of most of the people who live in Hong Kong diverged significantly from the national identity the Communist Party of China is propagating.
The difference here is both that Hong Kong culture hasn't diverged so radically that it's no longer Chinese, and that again this attempt at creating an "independent" Hong Kong is an attempt by imperialist powers to impose a distinct identity onto the people of a territory that they stole so that they can weaken, exploit, and oppress them.
Part of that national identity is admirably marxism but a lot of it isn’t. Instead of just trying to make a Marxist Leninist Hong Kong the Communist Party of China is using brutal measures to impose their national identity oppose on the people of Hong Kong and the CIA is using the arguably justified opposition to this to forment a reactionary colour revolution.
The "brutality" of the Chinese government has been extremely restrained. After more than a year of rioting and rioters killing, stabbing, attacking people with acid and lighting people on fire and after an entire college campus being turned into a factory for making nail bombs, the government still hasn't killed a single person.
The "both sides attitude" is both incorrect and serves the interests of (I'm assuming) our own imperial bourgeoisie.
The Chinese nationality, which has for thousands of years included the people of Hong Kong, has a long history not rooted in capitalist imperialism, whereas the idea of a Hong Konger nationality does not and is being deliberately fostered and imposed by some of the most evil pieces of shit on Earth.
Well, for starters we need to clarify our terminology. By imperialist I'm not talking about ancient empires; I'm using Lenin's definition of the term :
Just taking control of territory or expanding or exerting influence aren't what I or other Marxist-Leninists mean by imperialism. America qualifies as imperialist in the Marxist sense in that it developed and behaves in the way Lenin describes; China, I believe, doesn't, but either way regaining Hong Kong still wouldn't be imperialist because it's within the national borders of China.
And it's not so much that Hong Kong was a part of ancient Chinese empires that makes it a part of China, but that Hong Kong has always been Chinese. It doesn't mean every part of any ancient empire belongs to the same nation; Chinese empires have historically controlled parts of Korea and Vietnam at a couple points, for example, but they have distinct national identities that separate them from China.
The people of Hong Kong, along with the other parts of China, largely possess a common language (or family of closely related languages), history, culture, and so on, binding them together in a common nationality. National self-determination and territorial integrity are essential for fighting off imperialism and colonialism, and thus in defeating capitalism overall.
Also, you should read Lenin's Imperialism. It's good shit.
Thanks for taking the time to explain your thinking :)
I understand Lenin's definition. I'd also call Qin Shi Huang's conquest of the Kingdom of Nam Viet in order to establish a literal empire qualifies as imperialist by the more common definition of the term. Which isn't to say that the kingdom of Nam Viet had any actual right to govern the territory or people in the first place.
I definitely need to read more Lenin but I think you need to critically examine your preconceptions that nationalism and nation states are inherently justified.
I strongly disagree with your assertion that nationalism is inherently anti-colonial or anti-imperial and would go so far as to say that while nationalist movements can sometimes have good material outcomes nationalism itself is reactionary, unjustified, inherently violent and often nonsensical. There is no inherent good in each group of people with the same "history, culture and language" being goverened by a different state with the territory and resources they have traditionally possessed. The idea that they should only serves to cementing historical inequalities along "cultural and language" (often ethnic and racial) lines making it racist, reactionary and anti-marxist.
Furthermore national identities (which you've defined as being "cultural, historical and language" based but often have other components) are not natural or static. They are almost always manufactured and imposed often brutally by a state as a mechanism of social and cultural control. The artificial selection of which parts of "history, languange culture" and not to ignore the elephants in the room, race, ethnicity and occaisonally class and how these change to meet the needs of the ruling class at various times and the mechanisms by which they are imposed have been well studied and if you want some links to papers/pdfs I'll be happy to point you to them and so many countless atrocities have been committed to introduce and reinforce these mechanisms that I'm sure I don't have to link you them.
Anti-imperialist/decolonial/"communist" nationalism is a slightly more complex subject but I'd argue that while it can certainly have very positive material outcomes in the short/mid term when used as a mobilising force/mechanism of control for a vanguard party to get people to act against their personal best interests for the sake of their "nation" rather than the communist ideal of the common good of all people it contains most of the roots of Ur Facism especially when used to mobilise people to war and can very easily evolve into full fascism as has happened in India. It also provides nationstates with an alternative ideological framework to communism by which they can justify their actions to their people, which can be very dangerous. Additionally, once the colonial/imperial oppressors are expelled establishing and maintaining a nation state usually requires brutal nation building and reinforcing excercises to ensure the state maintains control of what national identity means and can propogate that national identity to each of its citizens.
Coming back to the situation of Hong Kong and China viewed through the lense of nationalism, we can see two different states using nationalism and the ideal of national self determination to justify what is effectively a proxy war in Hong Kong. The national identity of most of the people who live in Hong Kong diverged significantly from the national identity the Communist Party of China is propagating. Instead of just trying to make a Marxist Leninist Hong Kong the Communist Party of China is using brutal measures to impose their national identity on the people of Hong Kong and the CIA used the arguably justified opposition to this to forment a reactionary colour revolution.
tl;dr nationalism is reactionary and a fucking spook.
To be clear, I'm not defending all nationalism, but specifically anti-colonial and anti-imperialist nationalism.
As to whether nationalism is itself reactionary, I don't think so. Certain kinds of nationalism are reactionary, yes, but others can be liberatory. The Cuban and Vietnamese revolutions began as nationalist movements in opposition to colonial oppression and morphed into socialist revolutions over time as their leaders became radicalized and as material conditions demanded it. The Chinese revolution was highly nationalistic, but again in a way that helped drive the people to liberate themselves from imperialism. Palestinian nationalism is cool and good, and so is Black nationalism, etc.
Nationalism can obviously also be bad if it takes on a reactionary character or if it's rooted in oppressing other nations. The situation in India is bad and very fascist but I don't think that it's Indian nationalism that's the problem, but instead Hindu nationalism, but I admit I'm pretty ignorant about India. Religious and ethno-nationalism are obviously reactionary.
Nationalism on its own is inadequate and might become reactionary over time, but socialist nationalisms don't really turn out that way. I don't think there's anything reactionary about Cuban nationalism, for example; it definitely doesn't seem like it's devolving into fascism.
Sure, but not all identities are imposed by imperialism.
I think over the course of hundreds or thousands of years there are a lot of forces influencing the development of national identities, and I don't think they can all be dismissed as just being constructed by their ruling classes. But sure, show me what you have.
The difference here is both that Hong Kong culture hasn't diverged so radically that it's no longer Chinese, and that again this attempt at creating an "independent" Hong Kong is an attempt by imperialist powers to impose a distinct identity onto the people of a territory that they stole so that they can weaken, exploit, and oppress them.
Further, the Hong Kontras might be demanding independence in name, but they also rally behind Hong Kong's former colonial government and American neocons. That's not nationalism; it's reactionary violence done by and on behalf of a comprador bourgeoisie.
The "brutality" of the Chinese government has been extremely restrained. After more than a year of rioting and rioters killing, stabbing, attacking people with acid and lighting people on fire and after an entire college campus being turned into a factory for making nail bombs, the government still hasn't killed a single person.
The "both sides attitude" is both incorrect and serves the interests of (I'm assuming) our own imperial bourgeoisie.
The Chinese nationality, which has for thousands of years included the people of Hong Kong, has a long history not rooted in capitalist imperialism, whereas the idea of a Hong Konger nationality does not and is being deliberately fostered and imposed by some of the most evil pieces of shit on Earth.