Apologies in advance for the length of this.

To start, there is no modern Chinese “empire” in the way there is a U.S.-led Western empire.

The United States maintains hundreds of overseas military bases, a globe-spanning alliance architecture (NATO, bilateral defense treaties in East Asia, Five Eyes intelligence integration), permanent carrier strike group deployments, and an expansive sanctions regime. Since 1945 it has engaged in invasions, coups, proxy wars, destabilization campaigns, and support for armed non-state actors in dozens of countries, including in China during the civil war and later through toleration or political maneuvering around groups such as ETIM, which carried out violent attacks in Xinjiang and neighboring states. That is what empire looks like in material terms: global force projection combined with economic and financial enforcement mechanisms.

China does not possess that structure. It has one acknowledged overseas support base in Djibouti, no global military bloc, no equivalent to NATO, no record of regime-change wars abroad in the PRC era, and no network of foreign occupations. Those are not minor differences.

Framing China as “not as bad as the world police” implies rough comparability. That comparison does not hold up under scrutiny. The “world police” has:

– Invaded or bombed Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Serbia and others.(Been at war for all but roughly 15 years of its existence)

– Sponsored coups and destabilization efforts across Latin America, Africa, and Asia.(Pinochet, Banana republic, assassination of Sankara and Lumumba)

– Imposed sanctions regimes that function as collective punishment.

– Used IMF and World Bank leverage to enforce structural adjustment: privatization, subsidy removal, austerity, capital liberalization.

By contrast, China’s external engagement since reform and opening has centered on trade, infrastructure financing, and industrial development partnerships. Through the Belt and Road Initiative, it has financed ports, rail, energy grids, and industrial corridors across the Global South. Loans have frequently been renegotiated, extended, or partially forgiven. There is no systematic Chinese analogue to IMF-style conditionality requiring privatization or austerity as a precondition for assistance.

On the claim that China is “harsher in its sphere of influence”: China has not fought a major war in nearly fifty years. The 1979 conflict with Vietnam lasted roughly one month and is widely regarded ( including within China ) as costly and strategically flawed. Since then, border disputes (including with India) have involved standoffs and limited clashes, not prolonged invasions or occupations. Border tensions are common globally; they are not equivalent to imperial expansion.

It is also necessary to define imperialism clearly. In the classical sense that has any actual use, imperialism is not simply “a powerful country acting assertively.” It is a specific stage of capitalism characterized by the dominance of finance capital, export of capital for superprofits, division of the world among monopolies, and enforcement of unequal exchange backed by military power.

The Chinese system is a socialist market economy: a mixed structure where strategic sectors (finance, energy, infrastructure, land, and slightly over 70% of the largest companies) remain publicly owned and capital is subordinated to long-term national development planning. One can debate how early into the socialist transition army period it is, but it is fundamentally not organized around the same model of private finance capital dominating the state and projecting power abroad to secure superprofits. There is no evidence of systematic coercive debt seizures, gunboat enforcement of contracts, or military intervention to secure overseas capital flows.

Every state pursues national development, energy security, technological advancement, and geopolitical stability favorable to its interests. The relevant question is how those interests are pursued. The empirical record shows that China’s rise has primarily taken the form of trade integration and infrastructure investment, not regime-change wars or structural adjustment regimes imposed at gunpoint.

At present, there is one consolidated imperial bloc with global military reach, integrated finance capital, and sanction power across continents: the U.S.-led Euro-American alliance system. Other powers may have regional ambitions or security concerns, but they do not currently possess the structural capacity to organize and police the world economy in that way.(Russia is a big one as a relatively new capitalist power).

The assumption that any rising power must replicate the existing hegemon is an assumption. It is not evidence. If someone wants to argue that China is imperialist in the classical sense, the burden is to demonstrate the mechanisms, enforced unequal exchange, capital export backed by military coercion, territorial division through force.

You seem nominally leftist, you would probably benefit from deconstructing your foundation of “common sense” when it comes to political economy especially if you live in the imperial core. Ask why you believe things and trace it all back. I’m sure some will still make sense but a lot will be from immersion and osmosis of imperial narratives from constant propaganda bombardment.

Edit: As I was typing this the US empire launched a preemptive strike on Iran hitting a girls elementary school killing over 40 students alongside strikes on downtown Tehran. Death to America.

That’s a Wikipedia article that cites Radio Free Asia, The US Government and western funded think tanks. I would call that about as trustworthy as you would call DPRK state media. Also I didn’t ask you.

Most arguments for surveillance (and all authoritarianism) boil down to either saving the children or fighting an eternal enemy. Obviously OpenAI does surveil all its users, but the “for the children” argument would hurt their user numbers (I wanted to say it would hurt their profits, but they don’t profit off of any user). Thus, it’s “but China” instead.

regardless of truth, OpenAI spends a lot of effort in data mining on its users, and is eager to amplify warmongering narratives that US establishment is committed to.

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I’m perfectly willing to accept information when the evidence provided suggests the conclusion.

The evidence provided does suggest the conclusion. You just apparently distrust the source along nationalist lines. Predictable but unfortunate.