[yusuke10]

1.) Chinese government did this to itself, with the 1.3B population. China only had 500M in 1950, but the communist government condemned birth control and banned imports of contraceptives.

2.) At some point, you can't keep using the excuse "but 1 Billion people" for doing disgusting things. When you harvest prisoners' organs. When you imprison 120,000 minorities in camps. When you build an artificial island to the horror of 10+ other countries around you. When you keep threatening to invade Taiwan. When you prop up North Korea. When you monitor and censor everything.

3.) You rule out the possibility that China can have a republic or democracy. which is shameful. Granted it's low, but Authoritarian regime doesn't have to be a certainty.

[_cs2017_]

1) Absolutely agree, the Chinese government after the war was absolutely horrendous. That, however, is only slightly relevant to the question of what to do today.

2) You can always use the excuse "I don't want a billion people that I care about to go through the hell that is Syria."

3) I don't rule out that possibility at all. I'm just saying the risk that it won't work seems too high given how bad the outcome would be if it doesn't work.

[jonathanstrange]

It's a false dichotomy, as e.g. the prospering former East Bloc countries who are now part of the EU demonstrate.

[_cs2017_]

Of course it's possible. And much better examples of that are post war Japan and Germany. The changes there literally made them global leaders.

I'm not saying it's impossible. I'm saying it's risky, especially for China which hasn't had a history of being successful without an authoritarian government. And which had a terrible history of chaos when it didn't have a strong government.

[thaumasiotes]

What's so wrong with building an artificial island?

[_cs2017_]

In today's world, many governments use nationalism to help control their domestic situation. China, Japan, Philippines, Malaysia, Vietnam all do that; and one way in which they do that, is by claiming some territories in the South China Sea. Other nations (like the US, Russia, etc.) are concerned about who will end up winning the argument: everyone wants their regional allies to win, and their adversaries to lose.

All these claims are just a boring old geopolitical game, which has been played over land control for as long as sovereign states existed (and it was modified only slightly from the tribal times).

There's nothing "fair" or "right" or "reasonable" about these games. It might seem as a zero-sum game since only one country can usually own a given piece of land. But actually, it's not zero-sum: each government increases its domestic popularity by yelling loudly about how the evil neighbors are taking away what "rightfully" belongs to their own nation.

If you want to read more about this, I can recommend these articles:

https://worldview.stratfor.com/article/risky-business-south-...

https://www.lawfareblog.com/south-china-sea-dispute-brief-hi...

[tony101]

It is built on disputed territory in an attempt to claim sovereignty.

http://www.newsweek.com/china-south-china-sea-islands-build-...

https://www.digitaltrends.com/cool-tech/chinas-artificial-is...

https://www.cnn.com/2017/03/28/asia/south-china-sea-islands-...

[Nomentatus]

Even the word "disputed" is too kind. The U.N. rejects the claim, which is based on fantasy (and force), only, not history. It doesn't even rise to the standard of revanchism or irredentism, which are disreputable, too.