[ralusek]

China's tactical missteps with their political posturing, their security bill in Hong Kong, and the major blunder of COVID, were all pure providence for western civilization. Anybody who was paying any attention was pulling their hair out watching the world sleepwalk into a completely new global hegemony, and it was just by a series of jarring red flags that the rest of the world seemingly woke up to the dragon.

I'm not saying that the dragon is no longer a problem, either, I'm just saying that the world is at least suddenly treating it accordingly.

[seanmcdirmid]

China became increasingly aggressive after the 2008 Olympics, and that accelerated in 2012 when Xi Jinping became president. Before 2008, the feeling in china (among expats and Chinese returnees) was that it would gradually liberalize more, rather than go in the opposite direction like they actually did. No one is making that mistake now.