In fairness, you could say this about the state security services in any major country. Criminals are useful, and will do stuff the state doesn't want to get caught doing.

Tangentially related, this reminded me of a documentary film on mass killings in Indonesia titled "The Act of Killing": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Act_of_Killing. It is an excellent film.

Basically it comprises interviews of gangsters who were recruited by the government to conduct mass executions of undesirable people, and the subjects describe some reasons for which the work was tasked to organized crime rather than to official government employees.

these undesirable people are people who look like me, indonesian of chinese descent. They way they told their murderous stories, they didnt even consider us as humans, not even on par with animals.

Numbers on the purge victims indicate that Indonesian Chinese weren't a main target, but like happened in Malaya what started as "get rid of the Communists", could easily be turned into "And all the Chinese are Commies, right?" - they also often happened to be successful businesspeople, so bonus if you owed them money.

The FBI has used organized crime to help achieve its own goals. One example: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2007/oct/31/usa.internatio...

I would imagine in the US the best parallels or examples would involve corporations or para-government entities (like political parties) leveraging organized crime to fight labor movements or civil rights movements. I would be extremely surprised if there weren't examples, but I don't know them off the top of my head.

Why bring up another country as a defense?

It’s not a defence its an acknowledgement.

Personally speaking I have more to gain from American imperialism than from Chinese imperialism.

Here is what I consider one of the most important political writings I've read to date:

https://www.amacad.org/publication/what-does-it-mean-be-amer...

The short version is that what makes a person their nationality can either be adherence to a set of values (civil society) or that their parents were that nationality (an ethnic society).

China is clearly an ethnic society. America is practically on the verge of civil war over whether they are primarily an ethnic (white christian) society (GOP), or whether they are a civil (rule of law, believes in human rights) society (the very imperfect DNC).

Civil societies aim for everyone to be an "us," while ethnic societies have a strong idea of "us vs them." So when these societies ask "how should resources be distributed?" Ethnic societies tend to believe they are in competition with everyone else for all resources and they should try their best to attain as many resources as possible. This directly results in supremacist leaning beliefs and old world imperialism. Setting up British schools in India and taking all their resources is absolutely a supremacist policy, as is killing native Americans and taking their land. The fact that these softer forms of supremacy are not taught next to the holocaust is a disservice to the average persons intuitive understanding of what supremacy looks like and what kind of spectrum genocide exists along.

Ethnic societies are not governed directly by a set of values, so they tend to be ruled by dominance alone.

So from a jaded point of view America is an empire just as China is an empire, but from a forgiving charitable (extra emphasis on charitable) point of view, a Chinese empire is trying to suck all the resources of earth up in to china, while the American "empire" is trying to establish a set of laws and values that apply to all people (human rights) while trying to address the very real tragedies of the commons we are facing (over fishing, global warming, nuclear annihilation).

The reality though is that ethnic forces in america are strongly at work trying to achieve power, and liberal civil forces in america are extremely weak, so the "liberal world order" can be supplanted by "American supremacy" (America first), and we end up in a state where we look old wold imperialist via neocolonialism.

At the end of the day that means the most important thing for Americans to do is fight the ethnic party, and if we can't do that, then we don't deserve to exert our influence abroad, and should rightly be resisted.

That's extremely naive or jingoistic. American Empire means ravaging the world to generate profits for (some) Americans, while allowing some immigration and racial mixing.

I think you would find that opinion unpopular in Ukraine and many other places.

That’s true to some degree but I think you will struggle to find a single nation who’s actions aren’t at least in some part fuelled by the personal desires of the political/business/military elite.

The even shorter version is that China has nothing to offer to non Han Chinese. While the US wants you to align yourself with them and prosper.

I don't know about that.

They do offer a lot of goods. And they do build lots of infrastructure abroad, like in africa.

Also the theoretic doctrin behind is communism for all people, not just Han Chinese. In practice it has of course become very nationalistic, but I really doubt they dream about ruling the whole world.

Some taoist thinking of maintaining a healthy balance between the forces is also still alive. They would like to become the dominant power, though and that would be arguably worse, than US dominance.

But I actually would prefer it, if no state has dominance over others.

There's a lot more nuance than that. During Wartime, the Ładoś_Group would be considered organized crime; It was a passport-forging ring. During peacetime, "Radio Free Europe" was organized crime; The Soviet Union tried it's best to jam it.

Coming to agreements with local organized crime against foreign enemies is distasteful but pragmatic and usually a good; Even The Joker[1] had some patriotism.

Funding foreign organized crime can be used for good or ill. You can supply the black market with foreign goods to convince them that life would be better under new government (which the CIA did during the cold war), or you can supply drugs and weapons so they kill themselves off. One is an absolute sin; The other is more questionable but generally good.

[1] https://c1.staticflickr.com/5/4051/4703531875_3b13568ed7_b.j...