Consistency is a very laudable value in politics. These “anti-imperialist” types giving it, “the US and UK have no right to impose sanctions on China, their own human rights records are terrible!”... whilst also demanding the US and UK impose sanctions on Israel... that ain’t it.
State sanctions are a blunt instrument and often risk hurting the wrong people. And, until we have a workers’ government, any sanction any state imposes against another will be on some level hypocritical and self-interested.
I’d be against sanctions on China which would harm the Chinese people more than the Chinese ruling class. Ditto Israel. But if sanctions are targeted against the state and the military (arms embargoes, etc.), and could play a role in disrupting ethnic cleansing or annexation...
...what right do *we* have to oppose them? Does our “right” to adopt an abstract “anti-imperialism” (which is actually an “anti-some-imperialism”), and never be in the uncomfortable position of supporting, or not opposing, something our own state does, trump Uyghur lives?
