I’ve been running into this conversation quite a few times recently with fellow organizers: that China and Russia are imperialist powers because they are expansionist. While I understand in my brain why this is not the case, it is difficult for me to argue the case. I wonder if there are any useful (and short) analyses / frameworks I can use in a conversation, because I start losing people when I get too into depth in theory.
Imperialism is not an action, it is a system. Russia and China are not part of that system, in fact Russia is actively at war with it right now in Ukraine.
There’s a good video that explains it much better than I could, can’t find it atm but I’ll keep looking.