You don’t get to define imperialism as you see fit

I don't. I use Lenin's work on the topic and all the people that came after him that used and refined it.

but his ideologies aren’t all encompassing [...] Lenin’s theory of imperialism being a stage of capitalism is a product of its time

I don't know any analysis that agrees with you. Unless you can back this up with actual analysis, I assume you're just vibing in order to maintain your cognitive dissonance.

Theories like historic materialism may be the best overarching theory of the motives of human conflict, but it leaves a lot to be desired when you try to utilize it to explain every conflict

Oh, I see. So you think historical materialism is good except when its conclusions disagree with your liberal programming.

Yes material needs might be the inherent reason for the racism that started the first war, but the fighters of the following reactionary wars aren’t going recognize that, or even remember the material needs being the base for their own racism.

This is an individualist perspective, a liberal one. As though whether each individual is explicitly conscious of their interests matters. You're not a Marxist. At least not yet.

I believe the type of colonialism we have seen [from China] is more of a slow boil version of Americas expansion west, which involves more assimilation and subjection, and placation until the he local popular can be replaced.

Based on exactly what? China has not expanded AT ALL. It's reintegration of Hong Kong and it's plan to reintegrate the island of Taiwan is not expansion, it is reclamation territory that was stripped by European intervention. There isn't a theorist in the world that supports your conjecture. You imagine China is running a Han supremacist program based purely on what you understand America did. That is textbook psychological projection. Do some actual research.

you assume that China would get the same benefit of colonialism that the West did

Ahh yes, now you get to make claims for me. I sense a strawman argument coming around the corner…

my point is that china is not immune to adopting certain aspects of western colonialism.

You are literally claiming that China is doing imperialism and colonialism. They could be doing it thinking it will benefit them or they could be doing it thinking it will harm them. I assume you don't imagine China is actively working to harm itself consciously, so the only option left is that China believes imperialism and colonialism will benefit them. They don't believe this. They write about it all the time. The theory is clear and has been clear since Lenin. Imperialism is a dead end. China knows it, which is why your claim that it's doing imperialism is ridiculous.

China is actively working to undo the damage of colonialism qua the Western social phenomenon.

That’s another unsubstantiated claim.

My god. China quite literally says it out loud on a regular basis. Their state officials, their party announcements, their diplomats, it's constantly said. Read. Don't just vibe. Read.

your logic is that if there were oppression going on that it would cause separatist movements, but according to you all separatist movements were started by western powers

Again, read. Just do research. Taiwan has a separatist movement, it is part of Western programming. Hong Kong had a separatist movement, mostly youth. Their parents and grandparents literally threw the kids out their homes because those that lived under British rule have zero desire to go back and want to integrate. The Hong Kong movement itself was part of the British program. The East Turkestan separatist movement is a tiny group of extremists with a completely unsubstantiated interpretation of Islam that emerged around the same time the British and USA were meddling in the Middle East to create new Islamic extremist groups to fight communism. Tibet was a slave society and the Tibetan working class supported the ouster of the owning class. The British and the USA were involved heavily in supporting the owning class, to the point where the CIA has been working with Dalai Lama for decades. The Dalai Lama's own brother wrote a book about how much he regrets working with the CIA. And Falun Gong is a cult and when they were pushed out of China they had no problem collaborating with the CIA and with fascists.

I know it's hard for you believe that you've been lied to so thoroughly, but that's the reality. Harvard did a 15-year study of Chinese satisfaction with their government. The government has a 95.5% approval rating across that time. Completely unheard of in any Western country. There are no internal separatist movements because China has done a great job building a society that meets the needs of all its people, not just the Han majority. It's not built on the contradictions of Western capitalism, it's not built on the contradictions of Western colonialism, it's not build on the contradictions of Western imperialism. It is explicitly seeking to build a society that resolves contradictions in order to proceed towards the future without the threat of collapse from the inside or defeat from the outside.

considering the autonomous regions experience a significant amount of indigenous cultural practices on all dimensions

You can’t substantiate that claim? There’s been plenty of evidence to suggest that indigenous cultures have plenty of limitations imposed by the state.

Provide the evidence. The evidence we have includes literacy in indigenous languages being higher than anywhere in the West, more mosques per capita than anywhere in the West (and even more than some Muslim countries), validation of the claim by the Arab League, a coalition of 30 Muslim countries. What evidence do you have of plenty of limitations on indigenous cultures?

It just sounds like the native people of Tibet are being pushed out of their own homeland

The TAR is not their entire homeland. The TAR is a subset of their homeland. In the entire Tibetan region outside of the TAR, Han representation is decreasing, as per the article you pulled your numbers from.

How does directing more funding to immigration than the entire autonomous regions gdp equate to social integration?

If the TAR's existing GDP is really really low, it's easy to spend more than the entire GDP as a percentage. The TAR's GDP is $31B USD. If GDP is useful (which generally it's not, but let's use it as a stand-in) for determining the economic vibrancy of a region, and that economic vibrancy is useful for general social integration and defusing conflict (which it is), then finding ways to improve the economic vibrancy of the TAR would be a priority of the state. Using the party secretary as one member of the TAR's government, the secretary can identify what would be the most effective and most acceptable without causing conflict within the region. This is likely the outcome of many years of discussions, negotiations, and collaborative decision making. You don't get 95.5% approval ratings by being Han supremacist and just throwing bodies around in order to outbreed minorities. Again, that's what white people do, and it's pretty obvious to anti-imperialists that they shouldn't do it because it leads to contradictions that will unravel their entire society.

And there isn’t a history of reeducation camps that have been accused of rape, family separation, and cultural repression in any autonomous zones?

There's a history of the West lying about these things, yes. You act like reeducation is a bad thing, which again means you haven't read enough. Do you know how the PLA won the war against the KMT? There were PLA units that experienced greater than 100% casualty rates and still kept fighting. How do you keep fighting when all your soldiers are dead? The PLA won the war by perfecting reeducation. They captured KMT soldiers and then they socialized them into the PLA unit. They ate meals with them, they swapped stories, and they educated them. The KMT soldiers had been fed lies by the KMT about the evil commies, and the lies had to be more extreme than the KMT's actual treatment of their soldiers. When the KMT POWs saw how the PLA treated them and the common folk, they eventually joined up with the PLA. This reeducation process has been a major part of the Chinese social fabric ever since the PLA was formed. Reeducation camps are working in China to reduce terrorist attacks by massive proportions. But the West continues to spread lies, and just like the KMT they have to make the lies extreme in order to make it look worse than what the West actually does and people see with their own eyes.

In the TAR, the Tibetan language is used to conduct nearly all business and all education, from grade school through university. That is not colonialism.

Lol, that’s like saying the US didn’t colonize Puerto Rico because they still use Spanish as the official language. China has jailed and killed hundreds of priest and nuns in the country, going as far as disappearing their religious leader.

Look at the outcomes over the decades. Puerto Rico is getting picked apart, the TAR and Xinjiang are being developed. There is no comparison.

it’s only not insidious if you ignore the possibility of ill intent

I mean, this right here is a completely fallacious statement. I can fully embrace the possibility of ill intent, but that possibility doesn't imply it's insidious. You have taken a logical leap that is unfounded. I agree that the possibility is there, but the solution isn't to fallaciously assume the possibility is reality but rather to use the possibility to guide your research. There is no data that bears out your accusations EXCEPT as comes from the US State Department and the propaganda machine of the West.