“International Law” was a sham from it’s very inception.
It is a cudgel to beat countries who refuse to fall in line with the imperial order, and a shield to justify the worst excesses of imperialism and the super exploitation of the global south.
I feel nothing shows this better than the treatment of the US lapdog and resident genocidier netanyahu vs Saddam.
Rolling over implies they were ever anything other than on their back ensuring the US boot has an adequate tongue polish shine.
Brother, thank you very much for taking the time to write such detailed explanations. I’m replying to 2 of your comments together here, just for convenience.
Overall, I agree with what you said, especially regarding the massive scale of China’s HSR network, the fact that only a small number of lines are operationally profitable, the connection between rail construction and local government financing, and the real challenges faced by overseas projects like the Jakarta–Bandung line. Your general analysis makes a lot of sense to me.
I only wanted to ask for a bit of clarification on a few specific points, as I may not be fully understanding them.
Regarding the figure of “another 10,000 km scheduled,” I was wondering whether this comes from an official planning document or a specific announcement. I’ve seen different estimates depending on which planning cycle or projection is referenced, so I wasn’t sure which source this number was based on.
On profitability, I completely agree that only a very small portion of the HSR network makes money in pure operating terms. I was just unsure about the estimate of “~2300 km,” since most public discussions I’ve come across tend to refer to the number of profitable lines rather than total track mileage. If there’s a specific source behind this figure, I’d appreciate learning more.
At the same time, I was also wondering (at least on the mainland) whether operational profitability is considered a major issue when weighed against the broader contextual benefits of HSR, such as national connectivity, regional integration, productivity gains, time savings, industrial coordination, and long-term development effects. My understanding was that these wider benefits are often treated as part of the rationale, even when individual lines are not profitable on paper.
Concerning the central versus local investment shares after the 2019 restructuring, the overall trend you describe seems very reasonable. I was only unsure whether the precise percentages mentioned (such as 9–15%) are published as national statistics, or whether they are drawn from individual project disclosures. If you have documentation or examples, I’d be grateful to read them.
Lastly, on the relationship between HSR construction and the real-estate downturn, I agree that the two are clearly connected. I was just hoping to better understand how much of today’s local-debt pressure is directly tied to rail investment itself, versus broader fiscal issues and the wider property-sector slowdown.
Related to that, I also wanted to ask whether the current local government debt “crisis” is truly as severe as it is often portrayed, or whether some of the discussion may be overstated, especially considering the structure of the debt, the role of state ownership, and the central government’s capacity to restructure or absorb risks if necessary.
Please forgive me if any of this comes from misunderstanding on my part. I’m not trying to dispute your points, only hoping to understand the sources and assumptions behind these details more clearly. Thank you again for sharing your knowledge.
graft /grăft/ noun
Deceitful or fraudulent use of one’s position, especially in public office, to obtain personal profits or advantages.
Money or advantage obtained by such means.
intransitive verb
To gain money or advantage through deceit or fraud.
The untold horror of punishing corruption 
Our honorable judges vs their evil enforcers.
Death to Amerikkka
Anytime. Like any line/theory it may not be 100% accurate but these are my interpretations of things after reading theory and applying the dialectical materialist method to China’s history. 
So same sort if idea anyway she wasn’t knowingly shipping there making the whole cease and desist even more silly?
I believe that from a Marxist perspective, financialization occurs when profit increasingly comes from debt, speculation, and asset inflation rather than productive investment, when finance becomes an autonomous engine detached from labor and production. This is distinct from regulated credit or finance used to support consumption or development.
Under Jiang Zemin, China tolerated and indirectly facilitated partial financialization to accelerate growth: rapid credit expansion, real-estate speculation, and shadow banking all grew under relatively permissive oversight. Hu Jintao largely maintained this tolerance, intervening only when bubbles or systemic risks became acute, which allowed speculative behaviors and debt-driven accumulation to deepen.
Over the past decade under Xi, the Party has moved decisively to rein in these excesses. The deliberate deflation of the housing bubble, limits on speculative real-estate activity, tighter controls on shadow banking, and the restructuring of Ant Group all directly target finance functioning as an autonomous growth engine. At the same time, some financialization still exists as you correctly noted, regulated consumer credit and limited financial tools remain in place to support consumption and growth, however they are always subordinate to national goals derived from the masses through the modern imperfect practice of the mass line.
The material difference is clear. In contrast to Western economies, where financialization continues to expand through housing speculation, deregulation, and even the financialization of global events via platforms like Kalshi, China is actively reducing financialization wherever possible while maintaining highly regulated mechanisms to support development. Housing speculation and fintech excesses, for example, are now constrained rather than allowed to drive the economy. From my perspective this represents a net reduction in financialization: finance serves development, not domination, and remains subordinate to political authority, long-term planning, and the goals of socialist construction and it’s area for growth and even existence is constantly being shrunk as it outlives its usefulness in different areas such as housing as noted.
I think we’re mostly aligned here, and the gap is mainly definitional rather than an actual disagreement.
When I say “liberal,” I’m not using it to mean “supports markets” or “isn’t ideologically Marxist.” I’m referring to liberalism as a class ideology: individualism, moral universalism, faith in Western institutions, hostility to mass politics, and acceptance of imperial hierarchy, even when it’s expressed in progressive or technocratic language.
Because of that, I agree that high CPC support doesn’t automatically translate into full ideological Marxist commitment. A lot of that support is pragmatic, nationalist, or rooted in lived material improvement rather than theory. However, it’s also important to note that due to the cultural hegemony of Marxism in China (not unlike in the Soviet Union historically) even nationalism tends to operate through Marxist language and assumptions. Marxism becomes the political common sense of society.
As a result, most nationalists still stand proud under the banner of socialism, communist state leadership, and class framing, even if loosely or inconsistently. The only group that is openly hostile to Marxism are the liberals described later. That alone places them far outside the mainstream political spectrum.
The existence of market mechanisms within that framework does not make the system liberal. China’s political economy still rests on capital being subordinate to political authority, which through the mass line, even if it’s unevenly and imperfectly applied in practice, draws from the people and returns a distilled political direction back to them. The commanding heights remain state-owned, long-term planning overrides profit logic, and development goals are politically defined. Liberalism requires the opposite relationship: capital dominating the state. That simply is not the case.
This is why I would push back on the idea that post-reform China is “liberal but interventionist.” Markets are being used as tools inside a socialist political structure, not as the organizing principle of society.
On Chinese liberals specifically, yes, business ghouls are absolutely part of it: real-estate speculators, finance worshippers, people who want deregulation so capital can operate without political restraint. But that’s only one segment.
Crucially, these groups are not hegemonic. They’re actively constrained and, directly suppressed by the Party.
Over the past decade especially, we’ve seen a clear shift toward reasserting political control over capital: tightening regulation of finance, cracking down on monopolistic tech firms, restricting private tutoring, and deliberately deflating the housing bubble under the principle that “houses are for living in, not for speculation.”
The disciplining of Jack Ma is probably the clearest example im the western zeitgeist. His attempt to introduce Klarna-style consumer debt and financialization into China was an attempt to import Western finance capitalism. The Party then rightfully repressed him to the great dismay and outrage of western liberals as I’m sure you saw.
There is still a long way to go, and contradictions absolutely remain, but the overall direction is clear: reining in capital, reducing financialization, and correcting the excesses of earlier reform. I’m not naive about the challenges, but I am optimistic about the trajectory at least currently however xontinued analysis and struggle remain vital to ensuring the right course.
Alongside the business elites exists the other liberal current I was mainly referring to, one best seen in certain online subcultures due to their reviled status on the mainland.
If you look at runtox-type communities or similar spaces on reddit, you’ll find extreme white-worship and cultural self-hatred, open admiration for imperial Japan, Nanjing Massacre denial or minimization, nostalgia for British colonial rule in Hong Kong, and reflexive acceptance of Western geopolitical narratives.
These people often go well beyond modern western liberalism into something more openly colonial. They portray China itself (its people, culture, and history) as the fundamental problem, and view foreign pressure, sanctions, or even imperial domination as desirable or “civilizing.”
This is why I say they are more reactionary than Western liberals. Western liberals tend to believe their values are universal; these liberals believe China must be remade in the image of the West, regardless of the human cost.
All of these groups: business ghouls, NGO-style technocrats, colonial nostalgists, and online self-hating subcultures, are different expressions of the same liberal ideological current. Some pursue profit, others pursue “values,” but both ultimately align with imperial power structures.
That’s also why they’re broadly reviled on the mainland. They have no mass base, no institutional legitimacy, and no ideological authority. Outside of insulated online spaces, they’re widely seen as selfish at best and traitorous at worst.
So when I say Chinese liberals are often more reactionary than their Western counterparts, that’s the context I mean, not ordinary people who support markets, and not citizens with mixed or pragmatic views, but a very specific ideological tendency tied directly into global liberalism and imperial hegemony.
Sorry for the wall of text.
Generally different flavors of support for Chinese socialism/communism, from hardline maoist revivalists to big fans of Deng Xiaoping theory or Xi Jinping thought. However the most common by far is usually a mix of all of the above plus whatever personal influence someone has. Even those who aren’t super politically active or educated beyond whats mandatory during education generally see the massive gains and vision for a better future.
In general I believe support for the party even as put forth by western sources is somewhere between 85-90%, while everyone has their own criticisms its hard to argue against the massive gains in recent history thus leading to liberals generally being the outliers except maybe in HK but I haven’t been there as personally it doesn’t interest me.
All that being said Cinese liberals do exist and honestly the 1 or 2 times I’ve seen then they are far more reactionary, bigoted and vitriolic than their general western counterparts. Thankfully however you usually have to seek them out and they have no ideological power and are generally despised by the majority of people.
If you ever want to make yourself sad you can visit r/kanagawawave or any of the runtox subreddits. I visited them once thinking they were just a standard Chinese language forum and it was the reason I never bothered going back to resdit after my ban.
Yeah that makes a lot of sense and I’m mainly asking this question and discussing in this comment section to try fix this exact blindspot you mention (at least somewhat) and I also get to practice my english which is a bonus.
A terrifying amount of people are just allergic to books or doing any analysis on anything deemed bad by the liberal system.
The risks you list make sense but when I say materially tied to the empire I’m talking more along the lines of the imperial core is a majority labor aristocracy who enjoy their treats which are propped up by the super exploitation of the global south. I believe the online ML term is treatlerites.
While the fact it’s systemic is in my opinion self evident, different people of different backgrounds, especially those more intimately in contact with said system I believe might have new/interesting/unique interpretations for how these superstructures interact in this particular case of the “leftist” (白左）and how exactly it feeds back into itself. As I said my exposure to liberals is basically entirely online thanks to my location so I’m not as intimately familiar with them and how exactly they interact with the empires systems as someone who grew up alongside them. On that point the second part of your comment is exactly what I mean.
That makes sense I especially like the callback to the hippie movement I feel that’s a good parallel of the modern vibes based “leftist”. However at the same time I wonder about the role of systemic forces such as the fact that liberalism is the dominant ideology in the empire which the “leftists” are materially tied to which leads them to only engaging with any politics outside of the liberal “common sense” in an aesthetic capacity as any real engagement would have real material consequences.
However unfortunate tho typical it may be that most of the rest of the internet is generally only home to different flavors of “anarchist” .
I look forward to interacting with the real deal!
Thank you very much for taking the time to explain everything so clearly.
From my own understanding, it seems that the central government has been trying to gradually correct many of the structural problems that accumulated in the earlier periods. Measures such as tightening regulation on LGFVs, restricting reckless local borrowing, reducing reliance on land-finance, and shifting the focus away from pure GDP growth toward debt control, risk prevention, and long-term stability all appear to reflect a clear change in direction compared with the past. The recent 化债 program, even if limited in scale, also seems to acknowledge the problem more directly rather than continuing to defer the risks.
At the same time, policies aimed at curbing property speculation, expanding rental housing, discouraging excessive real-estate expansion, and re-emphasizing manufacturing, technology, and the real economy seem to reflect an effort to move away from the development model that took shape during the Jiang and Hu periods, when growth, land revenue, and investment expansion were often prioritized above all else.
Personally, although I fully recognize that China still has many real problems and contradictions, I feel the overall trajectory remains good, especially over the past several years. From my perspective, the Xi era appears to represent a clear break from some of the excesses of the previous development path ( particularly the over-financialization of housing, unchecked local borrowing, and GDP-driven competition between regions ) and a conscious attempt to correct course, even at the cost of slower short-term growth. Of course, I also understand that these adjustments are extremely difficult and cannot be completed quickly. I’m curious about your own view on this: do you think the current approach is sufficient to resolve these structural issues? Are we broadly moving in the right direction, or do you feel some policies are inadequate or even misguided? I’d really appreciate hearing your perspective as you seem very well read.