Semi-colony

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In Marxist theory, a semi-colony is a country which is officially an independent and sovereign nation, but which is in reality very much dependent and dominated by an imperialist country (or, in some cases, several imperialist countries).^[1]

This domination could take different forms:

• economic (the supply of capital, technology or goods, and control over strategic assets and foreign trade),
• political (direct intervention by the imperialist country in the political affairs of the semi-colony to secure client-regimes),
• military (the presence or control exercised by foreign troops),
• cultural/ideological (e.g. the imposition of a foreign culture or foreign religion on the local population through the media, education and foreign consumer products),
• technological (the dependence on foreign technology, or the technological domination by a foreign country),
• demographic (settler colonialism - the immigration into the semi-colony of large numbers of settlers from the imperialist countries which dominate the semi-colony).

The term semi-colony is often used interchangeably with "neo-colony". Some semi-colonies were "settler colonies" attracting large numbers of foreign immigrants, while in other semi-colonies the indigenous population always remained the vast majority.