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.
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.
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.
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!"
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.