I'm gonna try and give an actual brief history. The word "Tankie" originated from a split in the Communist party of Great Britain in the 1950s, over the Soviet invasion of Hungary. Those who supported the invasion were called "Tankies" by those who opposed it.
That would've been it, and it would have faded into history as an obscure piece of British leftist slang, if it weren't for the word's rediscovery decades later, where more modern leftists used the term in a half joking way among each other.
At some point over... Really just the past couple of years or so, tankie breached containment, and has been worming its way into non-leftist people's vocabularies, where it's lost any and all connection to its original meaning.
So when, say, OP of this thread uses it, it's unclear what they mean. Do they mean communists in general? Leftists in general? Supporters of China? What does it mean for a white, Western, leftist to 'support' China anyway? Is it just a general term for someone they deem Authoritarian? Or do they mean a specific kind of "Patriotic Socialist" who LARPs as a communist but actually holds deeply reactionary ideas?
It's all very unclear. So I wouldn't take "Tankie discourse" too seriously tbh. It's just a thought terminating cliche at this point. If you want to talk about any of those groups mentioned above... Just be specific and dunk on who you want to dunk on. There's legitimate, good faith, critiques to be made of all of them. Just make them, and be thoughtful about it.
But running around and calling anyone you don't like a Tankie doesn't foster good discussion. Especially when I have to sit down and decipher which one of 6 different possible definitions of "Tankie" someone might be referring to.
lmao