| "The leaders are in power to do what's most beneficial for their population (domestic hyper-development) " Their goal is 'Neo Han Imperial China', a 'Global Power' / 'Centre of the Earth' and to make most states in their direct influence (including Japan) vassals or lesser powers, which they view as their 'normal' place in history. They'll literally grab massive swaths of what the rest of the world regards as either international waters or domestic territory of other nations, and declare them as sovereign - right as everyone watches. Nobody will do anything about it as the maps are redrawn along with history. At the same time, they'll declare 'something something aboriginals in USA' while they put 100's of thousands people in jail on the basis of their ethnicity (Uighurs), move millions of Han into Tibet to secure control, and use every means to force Taiwan to fall just like Hong Kong. And that's without any discussion of internal controls. Authoritarianism aside, there is some degree of legitimacy in their own governance, after all, it's their own, however - the spillover effects are real and their ambitions lie far outside their borders. |
China has a long history of being the victim of foreign attacks using these routes, everything you mention is a defensive strategy to protect trade, borders, and the population from international attacks. The sabre rattling in the west doesn't help but only accelerates the push in this direction.
Han global supremacy sounds like a projection of western history rather than a reality. Reconnecting trade routes and rebuilding infrastructure in the destroyed empires of Asian history has many positive outcomes for the whole region. I don't we can wave away the feelings of billions of people pulled out of poverty by Chinese economic action.
>'something something aboriginals in USA'
I don't think we should compare the genocide/robbery of ~100 million natives in the Americas to the Uyghur/Turkic extremism/terrorism/separatism issue in Western China being solved without a military conflict. The brand of Islam (Saudi Wahabism) they now practice and the military training they received from ISIS/AlQ in US controlled parts of Syria/Iraq was/is part of a US strategy to destabilize China for the purpose of regime change. To now call it 'Xinjiang/Uyghur genocide' as many do, rather than a US intelligence led operation to disrupt trade/infrastructure expansion into western Asia is a dishonest characterization.
https://www.reuters.com/article/uk-mideast-crisis-syria-chin...