Fine, I'll admit, I have a problem. I hear obvious bullshit and I sort of automatically filter it out because it's clearly bullshit and nobody will buy into it, and then sometimes it turns out it was actually a Really Big Deal that I probably should have paid some attention to. Made that mistake with Bitcoin, could have been rich but noooo, I ignored it because it was obviously dumb as hell. Another example: I distinctly remember going "What is this Gamergate shit? It'll probably blow over but let me try to see if there's a point to it" and then I got a booty-call from my then-girlfriend that her roommate was heading out to class so I went up to her dorm room, and that was the last I really paid attention to gamergate until years later when it turned out to have become a whole thing. My eyes would just glaze over anytime I saw the word because I basically went "oh yeah its that bullshit that dumbasses were losing their minds over and nobody cares about, I ain't got time to pay attention to that shit" and then it turns out it was actually this major flashpoint for the rise of the particularly bizarre new far right dweebs we get nowadays.
I did the same thing with "tankies". Never heard the term until maybe 2017? and largely ignored it. It just seemed to be a nothingburger, some new term for a few terminally online weirdos who hated Communists, and I assumed they were just fascists because you know who hated the Communists the most? Nazis. But then it spread and more people started using it, and then applying it more broadly (even Bernard Brethren are tankies, apparently?) which meant that it was such a varied term as to have no meaning. And I basically wrote off anyone hating on tankies as some dumbass who wasn't worth listening to because they were too ill informed to have anything of value to say.
It's probably not all of a sudden but it's really dawning on me that this is not some flash in the pan that'll just go away. I've been expecting it to just burn itself out because it's so obviously on its face bullshit. But, fast forward and the term seems to have taken on a whole life of its own. So many people hate on "tankies". Even anarchists I know irl hate on "tankies". Supposedly radical leftists hate on "tankies". I went on a date with an anarchist who started ragging on "tankies" and I just left because what even is that shit? It's become so prevalent I feel I can't ignore it anymore.
Don't support the NATO proxy war that's grinding up Ukrainian lives? Ebil tankie. Don't support genocide in Palestine? Ebil tankie. Wouldn't vote for Genocide Joe or Holocaust Harris? Ebil tankie. Not racist against Chinese people? Ebil tankie. Think Cuba and Venezuela are cool actually? Ebil tankie. Don't like NATO? Ebil tankie. Post on Hexbear? Ebil tankie.
I didn't grow up during the Cold War so idk how AmeriKKKan society was about Communists, but I don't remember any of this level of prevalent rabid anti-Communism from liberals and even people who fancy themselves as so-called radical leftists in like, 2000 - 2015. This is getting absurd and frankly baffling. Not too long ago a bunch of these same people were saying socialism is cool, war is bad, black and brown lives matter. But now all of a sudden it seems like you actually apply those slogans and you're an "ebil tankie".
What makes it seem extra insidious is that basically all of this seems to feed back into supporting USAdian warmongering and imperialism. Like, what is a "tankie"? When you ask people they'll say "Authoritarian Communists" but it really just seems that they call anyone who isn't deepthroating the boot of the AmeriKKKan Empire a "tankie".
How did this happen? What is going on?
Nah, we don't do "critical support" for China. That's reserved for enemies who are forced into our corner in a larger context (like Russia right now). And even then, what is critical support anyways? Just reserving some future retraction of support? So its support now until conditions change. But that is all support, I think? I support China. They may be slightly too slow/conservative in their approach, but this will only be possible to determine afterwards. Given the context of the world as it is, I can't imagine criticizing China for anything except not being far enough ahead of the rest, which is absurd because they are ahead, just not as much as some western Marxists believe they should be
sure we do. they could be better on queer shit, drugs, paying my rent, relations with vietnam, and kill billionares faster. of course their policies on recreational drugs are understandable considering, and they're moving in the right direction on queer stuff unlike the anglos
See my other comment. I'm not claiming that China is above criticism, but that critical support is a useless distinction, because nobody supports universally despite any change any state. Even fascists ony love their state as long as it protects their structures and would stop supporting when that stopped.
"Support, with criticism." There's just a big range for what that could entail, ranging from "critical support" that's more like revolutionary defeatism where someone is simply supporting an enemy of the US despite their flaws on the grounds that a US loss is better than a US win even when their enemies are also bad, to something that's more like the Chinese "70% good, 30% bad" statement that they apply to figures like Mao and Stalin where someone is saying the good strongly outweighs the bad while acknowledging that there are still problems there.
My point is that the light visible between "support" and "critical support" is immaterial and unnecessary to distinguish. There cannot be a place which you have no criticism of, because such a thing impossible in a constantly fluctuating, changing world where the new contradictions will present ways of being better.
Critical support insinuates supporting some but not all of a state, but creates some other object called just "support" (universal support, might be how it should be called) which doesn't exist.
Critical support has always seemed to me a way to downplay ones own support to hedge for a possible admittance that they were wrong 'but not fully wrong' in the face of future criticism.
You can add other caveats about what you support and what you don't (like a comrade above did), and that's fine. but you either support or don't support china as a whole. I think that, despite policy failures, China will improve those things as well as continue to grow both morally and in production/strength. So I support them.
No one should get uncritical support, least of all entire countries. Of course china gets critical support; they're not above criticism.
See my other comments, I'm against the term critical support being used at all. Nothing exists without criticism possible
Of course nothing exists without criticism being possible, that's literally just what I said. But plenty of people support things and/or people while being unwilling to offer any criticism. "Blue no matter who" is an example of uncritical support. There's a line over which they would withdraw their support but they're fundamentally incapable of offering support and criticism. Notice how they respond when people actually try? Chappell Roan was crucified by liberals for saying she would vote Dem (ie, material support for the Dems), but wouldn't endorse them. Critical support. If you support china the way bnmh liberals support Hillary or Maga chuds support Trump, then I suggest you really aren't attuned to the positions people tend to take here.
I think you're mistaken in how that other support works, and are idealizing our enemies. I also think that this thinking confuses support and criticism for sharing some sort of axis together, when I'm arguing they are entirely independent. You have people who are unwilling to think or criticize, of course, but no system is above criticism. But this is irrelevant to support, which we give to systems which we support in their totality at the moment. If we are using this term to distinguish ourselves from unthinking BNMH libs or fascists, then we are failing elsewhere to even need such a term. We should be distinguishable in deeds and propaganda. They, despite claiming so, do not lend universal support and would abandon Hilary if she went too far left (somehow), and the MAGA's would drop Trump if he dropped his xenophobia and corporation supporting. They're lying if they think their support isn't limited
It's why I'm fully convinced that the term is only used to avoid full-throated support because people are unwilling to take their own claims seriously. Of course I have criticisms of China, but I'm not going to water down my claim of support by hedging a possibility to back out without losing face. If China fails to be good I will have been wrong. I have criticisms but support anyways.