[nicoburns]

> See their current hatefest against Lithuania, a country with population smaller than Shanghai.

The US isn't much better. They have a history of invading of destabilising the governments of countries they don't like.

> we can at least discuss them mostly freely and the authoritarian developments (governmental and distributed alike) tend to get some pushback and dissent, and the dissidents do not end up in jail or shot.

Tell that to all the countries who tried to implement communist systems of government... and found their leaders shot or in jail.

> I do not trust China commercially either, given their history of copying everything and then flooding markets with cheap knock-offs to undermine the original producers.

And I don't trust the US commercially, with their history of enforcing tariff-free markets on countries and flooding them with cheap US-made goods that wipe out domestic production leaving the countries in very dire straits (see e.g. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rice_production_in_Haiti).

[inglor_cz]

This is where different countries have different experiences.

If I were a Latin American, I would be distrustful towards American power projection. But I am a Central European and our history with the U.S. is a lot better.

I am not trusting them blindly, but the worst import we had from the U.S. so far was a shallow-ish pop culture, plus some of the racial nonsense that really rubs the wrong way in a different context.

[nicoburns]

As a citizen of the UK, I'd argue that Reagan-style economics (which caused us to privatise a lot of our industry and public services in a such a way that it was effectively just a huge cash giveaway to private companies) and ridiculous copyright terms are our worst imports. You may be less effected by those kind of things in Central Europe though, and you could certainly argue, and you could certainly argue that these were our own stupidity rather than being enforced upon us.

[me_me_me]

> The US isn't much better. They have a history of invading of destabilising the governments of countries they don't like.

This is whataboutism and has nothing to do with discussion on France/EU's stance of China.

Reading on you comments, are you living in the past? We are discussing current politics.

> Tell that to all the countries who tried to implement communist systems of government... and found their leaders shot or in jail.

That was happening 40 years ago in current EU countries, whats your point?!

> with their history of enforcing tariff-free markets on countries and flooding them with cheap US-made goods that wipe out domestic production leaving the countries in very dire straits

Again derailing conversation from China to USA

Edit: go ahead and keep downvoting me for literally pointing out logical fallacies

[nicoburns]

It's relevant because a primary alternative to partnering with China is likely to be partnering with the US.

[me_me_me]

US largely outsourced its manufacturing, so EU is not as dependant on US as other way around - EU to USA import export graph [0]

Treating EU like a tiny country that needs to rely on imports of finished products is discounting the fact EU is the largest trading block in the world.

Besides EU can decide to incentivise the manufacturing of key goods (like germany getting into electronics manufacture).

Also US cannot bully EU like it does other weaker countries.

https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php...