I’m finishing the last episode of S5 now, and I’ll be fully caught up on this series. Between Afghanistan and Cambodia, China’s willingness to play ball with the US and its agenda is frustrating to learn.
It leaves me wanting to learn more about the Sino/Soviet split. The way this division manifested really aligned China with some dark forces, it would seem.
I also imagine the process of “normalization” with the US plays a huge role in the way this history unfolds as well.
It makes me wonder what they knew about The Khmer Rouge’s operations. I was left with the impression, based on how the history was laid out, that China was aware of just how aggressive and bloody the Khmer Rouge’s policies were.
Something about that stretch of time between 79 and 89 seems to have resulted in a bunch of weird geopolitical stuff.
Need to finish this episode, I guess.
This is a great way to put it. A lot of the condemnation of socialist governments is specifically condemnation of the big programs they put into place to try and reverse the ongoing horrors of capitalism - success or failure, the socialist government fully owns the results of those programs, meanwhile since most of the horrors of capitalism are done in a kind of decentralized way, capitalist governments get to play the blame shifting game where the bad things that happen under their own rule are the result of forces beyond anyone’s control and the good things are totally the result of capitalism and would be impossible under any other system.