Wikipedia
Semi-colony
A semi-colony is, in Marxist theory, a country which is officially an independent and sovereign nation, but which is in reality very much dependent and dominated by another (imperialist) country (or, in some cases, several imperialist countries).
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: 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 never had much of a colonial administration before they became formally sovereign states, but most of them did. 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.