[throwaway123989]

Why is China an adversary of US?

Can someone put into succinct evidences of this statement?

To the typical talking point:

* IP infringement: there is not much unusual rate of IP stealing from China. Considering the size of Chinese economy and foreign trade ties between China and the rest of world, absolute number of IP infringement cases are not a good indicator of the government's policy.

* Coercion of South East Asian nations: This one is a natural demand of a rising super power. Putting it in the perspective of any historical rising of superpower, China has been relatively much more peaceful. Again, the sheer size of China make the absolute number terrifying, but please stay rationale, and don't try to paint China as some sort of arch evil of the west Civilization. After all, the West has been nourished by the Oriental civilization, among them China particularly contributed to the advancement of knowledge and inventions (gun powder, magnet etc.).

* Confrontation with US over Taiwan: If you are OK with Texas leaving the union, then you are entitled to support Taiwan independence. Enough said. Pick your side, and stick with it.

PS: I am Chinese living in US. And I support the peaceful cooperation between China and US. The 2 nations are the most refined examples of the oriental and western civilizations. It's indeed a tragedy that the finest human civilizations cannot work together. We Chinese living in US, as well as the US people having good exposure in China, are in a good position to amplify the cooperative ties between China and US.

[rrrrrrrrrrrryan]

> * Confrontation with US over Taiwan: If you are OK with Texas leaving the union, then you are entitled to support Taiwan independence. Enough said. Pick your side, and stick with it.

I'm sad that you don't realize Taiwan is already functionally autonomous, and wants to remain that way.

It's also telling how you imagine that a typical American wouldn't "let" Texas leave the union.

As far as I (or anyone else I know) cares, if Puerto Rico or Guam or Texas wanted to leave the U.S. (which they don't), and they held a vote, and a supermajority voted to leave, why wouldn't we let them leave? It isn't the 1860s anymore. The world is much more democratic now, imperialism is over, and if a group of people want to go it alone, we should let them.

Scotland had a vote to leave the U.K., and they decided to stay, so they stayed. If they had voted to leave, they would have left.

The U.K. had a vote to leave the E.U., and they decided to leave, so they did.

Would China recognize Taiwan's independence if Taiwan held a vote? Of course not. The reason for this is not merely because China doesn't sympathize with the desires of the Taiwanese people, but because China doesn't even believe in democracy in the first place.

[krapp]

> if Puerto Rico or Guam or Texas wanted to leave the U.S. (which they don't), and they held a vote, and a supermajority voted to leave, why wouldn't we let them leave?

Texas has a 2 trillion dollar economy with shipping, electronics, manufacturing, oil, electronics, etc, 28 million taxpayers, a lot of military bases and assets and miles of coastline and ports. You don't just let that leave.

We're not the UK or EU - if Texas tried to secede they would just learn what it's like to be on the business end of an American military "liberation."

[mkoubaa]

If Texas wanted to leave they could easily. This specific provision was in the treaty to bring Texas into the USA

[krapp]

No, they really couldn't, it isn't the nineteenth century anymore. And no, there isn't a special provision allowing Texas to secede from the union, this is a popular myth[0]. And as much as Texas likes to believe in its fierce independence, the state is politically, culturally and economically enmeshed in the rest of the Union and without the resources, finances and status of the US (much less the USD,) Texas would be better off rejoining Mexico than trying to survive on its own[1].

[0]https://www.texastribune.org/2021/01/29/texas-secession/

[1]https://www.reformaustin.org/national/texas-seceding-would-b...

[bpodgursky]

I really have no skin in this game, but there are a lot of perfectly functional countries with fewer than 28 million people, and it seems kind of silly to assert that an energy-exporting rich country of 28 million could not survive on its own.

[sdfhdhjdw3]

> If you are OK with Texas leaving the union, then you are entitled to support Taiwan independence.

Are these similar? Texas is part of the union and WANTS to stay in the union. Taiwan is independent does NOT want to be part of China. They don't seem similar to me.

[throwaway123989]

They are similar in that there are laws reconigized domestically and internationally to block Texas and Taiwan from becoming independent from their home country.

[CameronNemo]

Confrontation with US over Taiwan: If you are OK with Texas leaving the union, then you are entitled to support Taiwan independence. Enough said. Pick your side, and stick with it.

1. Those are not even close to equivalent. For so many reasons.

2. Sure, Texas can leave if they want. Florida and California too. Definitely Puerto Rico and Hawaii.

[bpodgursky]

If Texas had been functionally an independent country for 70 years, I'd be pretty OK with it staying that way.

Maybe the Philippines is a better example. They've been independent of the US since 1946. I'm perfectly OK with it staying that way!

[fortuna86]

> Why is China an adversary of US?

The person that is punching you in the face can best be described as an "enemy" - even if they deny they are doing it.

https://foreignpolicy.com/2019/10/16/china-intellectual-prop... https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/security/china-hacked-least-six... https://www.cnn.com/2022/06/08/politics/chinese-hackers-brea... https://apnews.com/article/microsoft-exchange-hack-biden-chi... https://www.cnn.com/2022/05/04/politics/china-hackers-econom...

[throwaway123989]

I guess you are probably forgot what NSA did to your phone calls?

That has not weaken their legitimacy as the government agency, or US government's legitimacy over US citizens.

Equating some online hacking with punching in the face, is probably as convincing as Trump stating Kungflu with Covid.

[fortuna86]

You dismiss the theft of trillions in IP over decades as "some online hacking". You bring up NSA domestic surveillance as a straw man to distract from what the Chinese Gov does to other countries.

Fine, I'll take a second to engage your straw man: The NSA didn't feed their surveillance data to DHS to round up undesirable ethnicities into concentration camps.

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2021/dec/15/documents...

Also, NSA didn't monitor phone calls they monitored the metadata of said calls. If you are going to be a troll, at least be accurate.

[throwaway123989]

> the theft of trillions in IP

This is just pure propaganda. If one can accurately count for the IP theft and come up with a value number. And argue that it's trillions theft from the US business man, without those business man not refarining from doing business in China, then the basic profit-seeking behavior is not working in the US China bilateral business dealing.

You can claim that US businesses lost trilliones which are larger than the profit they collected, and assume that the business men are stupid and not knowing the value of their IP.

That's just senseless argument.

> the theft of trillions in IP over decades as "some online hacking".

Online hacking is very small part from China. And they are usually backed be global hackers from compromised hosts located in Chinese territory.

[tomerv]

> If you are OK with Texas leaving the union, then you are entitled to support Taiwan independence.

That just doesn't make any sense.

[npteljes]

> Why is China an adversary of US?

Every power is an adversary of each other on the world stage. It's not something special that exists between China and the US, each and every power is in a similar relationship. Since there's no higher power to govern it all, the only thing that keeps the adversarial relationships somewhat peaceful is the balance of the power. Otherwise one would assimilate the other. The rest, like the particulars you listed, are just details.

[throwaway123989]

> Every power is an adversary of each other on the world stage.

That's just a war-mongering propagandaist talking point.

[npteljes]

Absolutely not. It's just people in large, complex groups, with history. Also, it's not about war at all - rather, it's about power. Which can be, and is, achieved in a good many not-war ways.

[baby]

I think you have a good point except for Taiwan.

[Jack000]

- the IP infringement is very real (see Nortel vs Huawei), but it's more the actions of individual companies than industrial policy.

- Taiwan is technically the legitimate government of China, so it's really more appropriate to say that the mainland broke away from China instead of the other way around. Realistically though, they've been defacto independent for decades during which there has been peace. The KMT is no longer the dominant party in Taiwan and the CCP has moved on from Mao, the two sides should drop the charade and normalize relations, but it's unlikely to happen with Xi at the helm stoking Chinese nationalism.

That said, I don't think any of this should automatically make the US and China adversaries. The US has a number of allies that are worse on the human rights front, and has historically propped up dictatorships as long as they were aligned against communism.

imo the real reason for the conflict is that there is a resurgence of nationalism in every major country. Both the US and China has become more fascist compared to 20 years ago, and this trend is likely to continue.

[stjohnswarts]

Add constantly being belligerent to US and other nations ships on international waters, claiming they can build artifical islands and lay claim to all of the waters of South China Sea and control who travels there.

[adultSwim]

Despite areas of friction, China and US are each other's #1 trading partners. We are literally allies. I suggest we try to build upon that already productive relationship.

[throwaway932423]

Trading is of a mutual benefit. Sea creatures do this as well with hygiene.

In case it wasn't obvious, Western influence (individualism and democracy) is an existential threat to the CCP -- This is why see western media censored and/or outright banned in China. Tiananmen Square Massacre is another example of CCP's response to western influence in China.

[sdfhdhjdw3]

These days, conflating being each other's #1 trading partners with being allies sounds like Chinese propaganda.

[robonerd]

Trading partners is not the same as "literally allies". Germany was trading partners with the rest of Europe before both world wars, that doesn't mean Germany was allied with France and the UK. There is no mutual defense pact between America and China, nor will there be in any foreseeable future. America and China are not allies.

[robonerd]

> then you are entitled

Nobody is obliged to tailor their beliefs to your whims. It doesn't matter how logical you think you are. It doesn't matter if you think other people are being hypocritical or illogical. The simple fact of the matter is that I support American interests and oppose Chinese interests, and I don't care if you think that makes me hypocritical.