This post is making a splash with tankies rn and I just wanna clarify smth! Boba liberalism and red nationalism are actually just two terrible twins unable to escape the same logic https://twitter.com/magdarins/status/1275465102091640832

As tankies have rightfully pointed out, the authenticity anxiety dilemma is a liberal's dilemma. "We don't fight assimilation by buying ramen, but by opposing imperialism." This would be fine to say if they actually opposed imperialism.

One of the most horrific features of rising sinophobia in the US/China conflict is guilt by association. If you have a Chinese face, denounce China. Regardless of how critical you are of the west, If you don't advocate Trump to triumph over China you are now a China apologist.

This is not very different to liberal Islamophobia (Denounce 9/11 right now or you're a 9/11 apologist)

Boba liberals are happy to buy into this. They want to be good Chinamen, true blue Aussies and loyal defenders of Australian capitalism. They're willing to be used as tokens by the ruling class as examples of how not racist their China bashing is.

Tankies are, horrifically, also happy to buy into this. They believe that to reject the west you must embrace the Chinese state. While all tankies think this way, they think Chinese diaspora particularly have something to get out of these cold war politics.

Boba liberals crave representation, and deep down, so do Asian tankies. A lot of our radical history is hidden and hard to find, so for them stalinism in the east is a goldmine. In rejecting the west, they embrace the 'homeland' and it's ruling class with it

In that embrace, they become more and more deeply removed from the reality of of life in China. They adopt the party line, defend it against all accusations of genocide, imperialism, & suppression. They deny it is capitalist despite the glaringly obvious day-to-day reality of it.

Like liberals, they don't think anything can change in this world without a virtuous higher power to save them. Stalinists are fundamentally reformists. Workers revolution in China would hurt China's plans to bring about socialism slowly within the system.

Like, fuck, can you imagine as a socialist, the psychological impact of ACTUALLY believing that a socialist state exists in this world. It would make you feel small and powerless without it.

The slogan 'Neither Washington nor Beijing' is not a middle or centrist position. It is a position from below. The position socialists worth half their salt should always take, the side of the oppressed, the side of the working class.

I believe we can have our boba and internationalism too. If we want to create a new radical history of Asian resistance in the imperial core, let it be one that truly rejects imperialism, and truly embraces solidarity.

Mainland solidarity now, Hong Kong solidarity now, working class solidarity now!

And I also want to drive the point home by pointing out how going to boba shops to realise ur Asian identity is just as vapid and shallow as adopting third worldist politics. https://twitter.com/magdarins/status/1275472382761660416