What I have always understood to be the implication is "people justifying and usually denying war crimes from a government or group which aligns with their political ideology".

Most often those people do not care about the war crimes. They think a government and/or government ideology is awesome and therefore will excuse any war crimes because it is for the greater good/lesser evil.

[–] voldage@lemmy.world 0 points 1 week ago (1 children)

And honestly speaking I'm not sure myself if "tankie" should apply to China, seeing how most of their bad shit happend internally with the notable exceptions of Taiwan and Hong Kong, which are a stretch. There is a distinctive difference between Russia and China, despite both belonging to same political alliance and both have a dictatorial leaderships. Hating west/USA and loving either of them would make one a campist, but I'm not sure about that qualifyng as tankie. Naturally, most campists support both, so by that definition it would make them tankies.

While your definition does describe tankies as well, I always understood it to be a derogatory term for the general authoritarian communist/pseudo-communist block more so than applying to all national supermacists.

[–] LemmeAtEm@lemmy.ml 1 points 1 week ago

should apply to China, seeing how most of their bad shit happend internally with the notable exceptions of Taiwan and Hong Kong

Those are still internal to China. I can understand that people are ignorant of the fact that Taiwan is part of China given the rhetoric around it and the fact that it is still provisionally ruled by the ousted rump-state nationalist government that still thinks it's the legitimate ruler of Mongolia too. Taiwan IS part of China, but there IS something being actually being contested there. But Hong Kong? Hong Kong unambiguously is in China, it's just one of the Special Autonomous Regions, but even they themselves consider themselves part of China, not "external" to it.

Also, it's not "bad shit," it's treating reactionaries with relatively kid gloves.

There is a distinctive difference between Russia and China, despite both belonging to same political alliance and both have a dictatorial leaderships.

China does not have a "dictorial" leadership. As for Russia, well it's leadership is no more "dictorial" than that of any western "democracy" leadership. Their "political alliance" is still relatively loose, and the only way in which they could be considered part of the same "axis" (not a word you used, but still kind of implied) is because the US's belligerence against them both has driven them closer together.

Hating west/USA and loving either of them would make one a campist,

Hating the west/USA is just a matter of simultaneously knowing history and being a compassionate, empathetic human being. And I would bet that most of the people you would say "love" either Russia or China rather just support their actions and goals, probably very critically in the case of Russia, and do so for rational reasons based on the true behavior of those countries. That is not campism. Campism is when you support (or "love") a country not because its actions genuinely align with your own ideals or ideology but purely because you identify with it. Interestingly, it largely stems from a failure of self-awareness. There absolutely are campists for Russia and for China, I am not denying that at all. But despite what the libs here say, you won't find very many of them on lemmy. Most of the people on lemmy support these countries for very rational reasons regarding ideology and their geopolitical conduct.

but I’m not sure about that qualifyng as tankie.

I always understood it to be a derogatory term for the general authoritarian communist/pseudo-communist block more so than applying to all national supermacists.

This is more or less correct. Most campists on lemmy support the US/NATO and they certainly aren't tankies by anyone's standards. You're right about it always having been solely a derogatory term for certain radical leftists, nowadays usually those who support countries whose governments are fighting western imperialism. But like many others have said in this thread, it is becoming so diluted that merely not supporting the fascist DNC has been enough to get a person labeled a tankie. The silly "authoritarian" part mostly came into play once liberals started using the term and (as usual) completely not understanding its origins (origins that have to do with a specific uprising in Hungary in the 1950s).