[mytailorisrich]

Exactly. That is the real issue.

This of course also means that China not being a democracy is just convenient to make them the 'bad guys', but is not really the issue and I expect things would be exactly the same if China was a democracy.

[tivert]

> This of course also means that China not being a democracy is just convenient to make them the 'bad guys', but is not really the issue and I expect things would be exactly the same if China was a democracy.

That's, frankly, nonsense.

Things most certainly would not "be exactly the same if China was a democracy" and had political values compatible with the US.

[mytailorisrich]

One the one hand the issues between the US and China are not about "political values", they are about geopolitical interests, you could make a list and check one by one. That wouldn't change if China was a democracy. On the other hand, the US are best 'friend', and have been best 'friend' with some of the least democratic countries on the planet.

QED.

Edit: In fact the US do not want China to become a democracy as that would actually hurt their strategy and interests against China. For instance, that would make a reunification with Taiwan more likely, which the US do not want at all.

[tivert]

> One the one hand the issues between the US and China are not about "political values", they are about geopolitical interests, you could make a list and check one by one. That wouldn't change if China was a democracy. On the other hand the US is best 'friend', and has been best 'friend' with some of the least democratic countries on the planet.

It's not about one or the other, it's about both (i.e. China both having the power to be geopolitical rival and having incompatible political values). If one or the other would be true, the situation would be quite different.

Also, the US hasn't been "best 'friend[s]' with some of the least democratic countries on the planet." It certainly has been willing to court them and look the other way in the context of a larger geopolitical effort, but once the political necessity stops, the "friendliness" gets cold.

> Edit: In fact the US do not want China to become a democracy as that would actually hurt their strategy and interests against China. For instance, that would make a reunification with Taiwan more likely, which the US do not want at all.

Oh come on. That's utter nonsense.

The US strategy towards China was economic liberalization would bring political liberalization. Xi has demonstrated that the Americans were fools to think that, so their strategy is changing.

[adamsb6]

Why should it matter that China and the U.S. have incompatible political values? And what does that even mean? It's not like the two systems need to interface in ways where that matters. If you're trying to negotiate a treaty it doesn't really matter how the other country's delegation got their jobs.

[tivert]

> Why should it matter that China and the U.S. have incompatible political values? And what does that even mean?

Because people have moral values they care a lot about, and those are frequently reflected in their political systems. I don't know so much about China in that regard, but in the West those moral values certainly tend to be conceived in universalist terms.

> It's not like the two systems need to interface in ways where that matters. If you're trying to negotiate a treaty it doesn't really matter how the other country's delegation got their jobs.

Your kind of conceiving of the "interface" as some abstract thing up in the clouds. Sure, it probably doesn't really matter so much "how the other country's delegation got their jobs," but it certainly does matter what policies their government implements or positions its pursuing. In the case of the US and China, those definitely conflict in irreconcilable ways (e.g. over the status of Taiwan, civil liberties, etc.).

[adamsb6]

This sounds like the motive for religious war. Are we not tolerant enough to let other peoples have their own political systems?

It took a couple hundred years for Europeans to stop killing each other in the wake of the Reformation. Maybe we still haven't gotten over the instinct that somewhere, someone is doing it wrong and we have to do something about it.

[DiogenesKynikos]

The anti-Japanese hysteria of the 1980s suggests otherwise.

[quantum_state]

The history of the relationship with Japan in the late 80s would show us ally or not is not relevant. Japan was constantly demonized before it’s economy collapsed after the plaza accord…