[jasonshen]

As a naturalized US citizen who was born in China but intends to raise a family as full-bore Americans, it's hard for me to assess the China threat.

I believe China very much wants to assert it's influence in the Asia Pacific + MENA region, but I just don't it trying to conquer the United States directly. It's never really had a history of imperialism like the West has (excluding the Mongol empire that collapsed almost immediately).

That said, a country doesn't need to directly conquer another to be a threat. Still, it's hard to know how serious the threat really is—the post is compelling but also assumes as a forgone conclusion that China has aggressor ambitions.

[nyokodo]

> It's never really had a history of imperialism like the West has

Vietnam, Tibet, Mongolia, and Xinjiang might beg to differ and that’s before considering that the leader of China was literally an emperor up until recently. However, if by “imperialism” you mean across oceans and hemispheres then point taken but that isn’t really a virtue as China has never had a navy capable of doing so. It still doesn’t although it sorely wants to.

> the post… assumes as a forgone conclusion that China has aggressor ambitions.

With the advent of wolf warrior diplomacy, the aggressive and illegal construction of military bases in disputed waters all over the South China Sea, the interference in US elections, the rampant IP theft along with constant attempts to steal military secrets, along with threats of total war whenever the US sneezes in the direction of Taiwan… what would you think?

[moris_borris]

> wolf warrior diplomacy, the aggressive and illegal construction of military bases in disputed waters all over the South China Sea, the interference in US elections, the rampant IP theft along with constant attempts to steal military secrets, along with threats of total war whenever the US sneezes in the direction of Taiwan

Dyed in the wool American here. All of these pale in comparison to the history of our my nation, which has been at war with much of the world for most of its existence. Rampant IP theft is nothing compared to the bombing of civilian infrastructure in Iraq (among other countries in the Middle East) during the 1990s and 2000s, the clusterfuck of atrocities that was the Vietnam War, to say nothing of our extensive support for dictators in Latin America throughout the 20th century. When it comes to interfering with elections (and indeed the results of them), we put China to shame. I love my country, but I can't pretend that our military industrial complex has been anything but a threat to countless other nations and will certainly continue to do so.

[stephen_g]

Not to mention that IP theft in the late 18th into the 19th century was basically the bedrock upon which the US's industrial and economic systems were built...

[mc32]

The Berne and Paris conventions didn't come to be till the late 1800s --which both the US and China are signatories of.

[rdevsrex]

Well said, I was thinking the exact same thing. This guy acts like this is a foregone conclusion that we must have war. It's a choice to stand back or to stand up.

And given the aforementioned disparities, we should really consider if giving China it's space in a multi polar world is more in our best interest than going to war to keep the hegemony alive.

[nyokodo]

> This guy acts like this is a foregone conclusion that we must have war.

> we should really consider if giving China it's space in a multi polar world is more in our best interest than going to war to keep the hegemony alive.

Non-sequiturs right out of CCP talking points.

[ilaksh]

Good points. But that doesn't mean China won't copy this. Because the model for global power has always been ruthless force. One empire after another.

[didericis]

This requires context.

The current global trade network is a consequence of a massive coordination of many nations helmed by the United States during the cold war. That empire is not an empire of one, it is an empire of many. All conflicts the US has been involved in during and since are downstream of a geopolitical chess game aimed at coordinating many many nations against would be hegemonic challengers.

That may seem like a preposterous justification given some of the conflicts the US has been in and the death of the USSR, and there is certainly plenty to criticize about our stupidity and unilateral behavior and corruption. But I don’t think it’s possible to overemphasize just how big World War 2 was or what the lessons were.

An even bigger global dictatorship than Hitler’s helmed by Stalin was very much a possibility. And the only way to stop a nuclear superpower helmed by a ruthless dictator from building a global network and achieving hegemonic power is to build your own first. World War 2 taught the world that dismantling your war machine allows the ruthless to build a juggernaut while you sleep.

The lesson of World War 2 was to keep the war machine in democratic republics dominant at all costs because dictatorships will surpass you militarily if you don’t.

The reality of that is ugly and in many ways the actions of the US are unjust. I think it can and has been made more just over time and can and should be kept in check by as many independent actors as possible that ensure overreach is impossible and bad actions are addressed.

But it is not comparable to China, not just because the CCP is far less powerful externally and far less accountable internally, but because China is not coordinating with the world in ways that benefits the world. China is far more authoritarian than the US, far less sophisticated in it’s propaganda than the USSR, and far more reliant on home base when extending itself. The US managed to build global logistical networks because more countries benefitted from the US global trade network than didn’t and our propaganda about the material well being we can deliver is actually true, albeit with caveats. The scale of US hegemony is impossible to enforce without the majority of participants voluntarily cooperating. In fact one of the populations hurt the most (though obviously not nearly as much as those killed in the wars that enabled the hegemony necessary for global trade, whether ostensibly or in reality) was the domestic middle class of the US itself.

Despite the flaws, and no matter what some claim, the US is the most foreign friendly benevolent global empire in world history, and the prosperity we ushered in is unprecedented. The technology that has lifted the world out of poverty simply would not be possible without global trade, and the amount of global conflict has (or had, considering how disruptive the Ukraine conflict has been) never been lower. The framework about rule of law violations and unjust conflict used to criticize the US most is something the US made possible on a global scale.

Criticism of the US is vital. It is valid. Our flaws need to be reckoned with, and we are currently facing a crisis of purpose that we have played a significant part in creating with our overemphasis on consumerist material well being at the expense of other considerations, which has created domestic decay. That does not mean a world without a corrupt and stupid global policeman optimizing for material prosperity over other forms of prosperity would be better than the one we have, or that any other organization is better suited to guard against would be global tyrants on the level of Stalin.

It is also imperative to get as many good people high up in that hegemonic military machine as possible. If we denigrate our military too much due to its (many) failures, we risk repelling good people who could keep it in check from enduring that grinding machine and steering it for the better.

So tl;dr, I love my country too, and hope we keep it together and make sure we fix and improve what we’ve got, not dismantle it out of a sense of global fairness that history has sadly shown we cannot rely on.

[edgyquant]

This is a whataboutism. We aren’t discussing US foreign policy we are discussing if China is a threat to the US. Saying “we’re bad too” doesn’t answer that question, it’s a non-sequitur

[nyokodo]

> All of these pale in comparison to the history of our my nation

You're responding to an argument about why the US sees China as having aggressive ambitions by saying the US is allegedly worse? That is irrelevant to the argument and implicitly accedes to my point. Besides, if the US was the evil empire you allege it is it would just make even more sense that China was seen as an enemy given the recent increase in Chinese international belligerence and influence campaigns.

> bombing of civilian infrastructure in Iraq

I can only find a single credible example of the US deliberately bombing civilians in Iraq and that was the Al Jazeera office in Baghdad and that assumes you believe the Mirror reporting is accurate. If it's true then that's bad for sure, but it's not exactly Xinjian-level genocide either. I was surprised with how few accidental bombings there were given how badly conceived the war was!

> atrocities that was the Vietnam War

Vietnamese are still dying from unexploded ordinance etc from that war, but, the Vietnamese are friendly with the United States while distrustful of China. Why is that? Because they have a very very long history of enmity with China, with the most recent conflict being a Chinese invasion of Vietnam in 1979, whereas the USA is seen as preferable to China. Given how terrible the Vietnam War was this stark difference stands out!

> our extensive support for dictators in Latin America throughout the 20th century

Fair criticism if you don't remember that China props up North Korea, a range of dictatorships and corrupt governments in Africa and is itself a dictatorship over more than a billion people!

> When it comes to interfering with elections (and indeed the results of them), we put China to shame.

This is true and would be a reason for those other countries to have enmity to the US but we haven't been able to influence Chinese elections because they aren't free elections and their leader is a dictator. This hasn't stopped them attempting to make our elections less free which is a symptom of their aggression towards the United States, the whole point of my original response.

> I can't pretend that our military industrial complex has been anything but a threat to countless other nations

If by "nothing but a threat to countless other nations" you mean that it's implied the US Military would fight any other country then you're technically correct. If you mean that all they ever do or ever have done is threaten every other group of humans then that is totally ridiculous. NATO is a voluntary defense pact that the US spearheads that Finland and Sweden are currently in the process of enthusiastically joining. Australia and the UK weren't forced at gunpoint to sign on to AUKUS. Dozens of other countries aren't being forced to cooperate on regional security issues. I'll grant the issue is obviously extremely complex but you're denying all the positives which is nonsense.

[caligarn]

China was never an imperial force like European colonists, but it always saw itself as the “Middle Kingdom” and the most important civilization on earth. It may be a different paradigm but the right to power or hegemony is still embedded in the culture and ethos.

[jasmer]

It was - and still wishes to be 'Imperial' in it's direct sphere of influence, which is to say, most of E and S/E Asia.

China is not ever going to invade the USA of course.

[woooooo]

It's actually a healthy and non-threatening paradigm?

If they think they're the best and have no reason to expand because of that, the only threat is to our egos.

[frognumber]

Tribute. China always expected tribute from its neighbors.

The benefits in return for tribute were often greater than the tribute, but it did show a high level of domination of its neighbors for most of its history.

[nyolfen]

maybe you should tell that to the tibetans, uyghurs, taiwanese, etc.

[woooooo]

That's it exactly. They don't tell us how we should treat native Americans or Cuba.

But we have it baked in that we're the arbiter of what every country does globally, and a history of military action putatively justified by those moral concerns.

[nyolfen]

we have a critical security interest in taiwan remaining independent -- zero moralizing needed. any empire, nation, group or individual human has some sin you can point to, china is not unique, and neither is the US. the US will lose the throne to china in the 21st c if it takes taiwan. there will always be a throne, the only question is who is in it.

[woooooo]

That critical interest is short term until we get the Arizona fabs up. Then it'll be back to standard levels of ideology, nationalism and domino theory.

And if it's just about power for its own sake, fine. But the records of military adventurism are in fact starkly different over the last 200 years. Xi might ramp it up and we might ramp it down, but for now the spectre of Chinese militarism reminds me of those two hunter guys from South Park, "it's coming right at us!"

[cercatrova]

I wonder how the world would be different had Zheng He sailed his junks east rather than west.

[bsder]

The longer Xi Jingping stays in power the less I worry about China on the international stage.

The subleaders will need to do increasingly extreme things in order to show results to the Supreme Leader. That's starting to play out--the Apple shakedown, Chinese police stations in foreign countries, etc. Those things have finally gotten the Western powers to realize that China is a genuine enemy, and they are starting to retaliate.

In addition, now that Russia has basically been dismantled, the defense system in America needs a new boogeyman. Congratulations, China, you're on deck.

[thoweiru3o43]

> Russia has basically been dismantled

Western press proving day-in day-out how primitive Pravda was.

[rdevsrex]

Oh my god that's so true. It's like they've invented hire order lying.

[RivieraKid]

Russia hasn't been dismantled unfortunately. There's a good chance they end up with more territory.

[bsder]

Which will simply become controlled by China--if Russia can even hold onto the territory (this winter will be telling).

Russia is now effectively a pending Chinese vassal state caused by their coming rebuild. No one else is going to support them, and Russia has wiped out a big chunk of their workforce--both young labor as well as older brainpower. So, Russia will have to turn to China for both labor and brainpower at the cost of sovereignty.

The only thing that would prevent Russia from becoming a Chinese vassal is if they somehow wind up with a leader smart enough to pair up with India.

[nyokodo]

> The only thing that would prevent Russia from becoming a Chinese vassal is if they somehow wind up with a leader smart enough to pair up with India.

Neither China nor India have the military reach to defend Russia. The overarching reason Russia is waging this war is how blood curdingly difficult it is to defend Russia at the best of times with local populations, short (as possible) supply lines, and decades of preparation. Now bring in an Asian power that would have to extend its reach over thousands of miles through tundra and desert with hostile populations along the way. They're not even going to attempt to do that.

[jasmer]

Russia is definitely taken apart. They may be able to hold that bit of territory with suicidal bodies in trenches, but they are in really bad shape.

They are down to ancient weapons, ancient tanks, their Navy almost entirely defunct.

Most of their 'fast air' remains.

And they are going to have a very difficult time rebuilding with sanctions, and the severe economic problems with talent and resources.

They could 'come back' over a decade but I suggest Europe is becoming ready for that, and without the offer on the table of a nice, juicy, undefended territory, neither Putin nor his successors will have much luck.

It's the ambiguity that's the problem.

[nyokodo]

> They could 'come back' over a decade

With what replacement population for their current military age population? No, it's now or never for Russia.

[jasmer]

They have enough population.

[RivieraKid]

The threat is increasing influence across the world.

[random314]

Considering American aggression in Iraq and Latin America, China is a dove. However, it is true that China has been aggressively expanding borders into half of its neighboring countries. They are also extremely internally aggressive committing genocide against Uyghurs, Tibetans, Falun gong etc.

A counter balance to the American threat is not a bad thing.

[XorNot]

What do you think imperialism is other then "exert influence"?

[anshumankmr]

Also,China has invaded India and claims many Indian states as its own.

Plus it invaded Vietnam (and lost)

[jjtheblunt]

Extract taxes, i.e., the Roman version?