Men make their own history, but they do not make it just as they please; they do not make it under circumstances chosen by themselves, but under circumstances directly encountered, given and transmitted from the past. The tradition of all the dead generations weighs like a nightmare on the brain of the living.

I would agree no country is perfect with regards to being completely anti-imperialist. All nation-states have an interest in building empire.

Having said that just because we live in a world that incentives competition between nation-states, that does not mean the world as is, is inevitable or eternal. Just because an ideal doesn’t exist, doesn’t mean it’s not an ideal worth striving for. Things can change and it is worth striving towards a world with better human relations.

Having said that, some examples of more positive relations do exist.

One could point to the international healthcare initiatives from Cuba as a positive example of non-imperialist relations to aspire towards.

While China is far from perfect, they have made small positive steps with the Belt and Road Initiative by offering better terms to developing countries than historical international investments initiatives such as the IMF and the World Bank. If leaders in western liberal democracies want to compete with China and offer developing countries terms with even better environmental and labor standards for mining operations or otherwise; I view that as an unmitigated win for human relations.

Unfortunately, from where I’m sitting, it seems like leaders in western liberal democracies are more interested in competing with China in military terms rather than in labor or environmental terms.

The secret is you gotta get ‘em in the freezer before they go soggy.