[corethree]

>To my knowledge we have not equipped Taiwan with nuclear missiles, which is what the Cuban Missile Crisis was about. Big difference.

It's big but nowhere near as big as you imply. Think about it from a chinese citizens perspective. How big of a difference is air raids, bombings and missiles vs. nuclear missiles? Would the chinese citizen be calm and nonchalant if it was just non-nuclear weapons and suddenly be thrown into hysteria by nuclear weapons? Let's be real here. It's a physical threat.

>provocative seems like a questionable choice of words, given that the US military has time and time again been used to resist militarists & authoritarians exploiting populations. We have enormous military capability that we don't use, that is not for making war, but defending the world against warlike powers.

Our military power is used for maintaining our own power. Just look at gaza. Again we aren't doing shit because it's not a threat to american power. Taiwan Is. Hence the difference in response. It's unrealistic to characterize the US as some international white knight. Clearly we aren't.

>Can't it become an economic and technological power without pushing around & pushing out so many neighbors? Here's to Chinas rise, I hope it does great, but it keeps acting so zero sum, keeps creating conflict, and it gives everyone great unease to see such military buildup from a country that keeps acting hard & ardent to those around it.

Unlikely. The US did a ton of pushing around. A ton. and it largely gets it's way on the international front. China is pushing it's way to become an equal player and that's unacceptable for the US. This is normal. It wouldn't be acceptable for China either if it's the other way around. Both countries are human. I think you're placing the US on a bit of pedestal.

You remember how the Bush administration basically lied and made up a bunch of shit about WMDs just to go to war in Iraq right? That whole fiasco basically puts a hole in your "white knight" view point.

>Absolutely on fear. We are scared of an authoritarian country so ready to go to war with it's neighbors, so willing to push people around. We have projected power so far for so long, but so rarely begun conflict, in hopes of preventing destabilization in the world, in hopes of preventing authoritarian overreach.

Largely disagree with this. The US is not some White Knight projecting power to keep stability. It chooses it's conflicts based on it's own interests.

>As for the whataboutism of other situations, the US has greatly helped Ukraine & our direct involvement would make it World War scale, so let's not if we can.

Direct involvement in war with China will be world war scale and the US doesn't hesitate in this matter. Russia is the greater threat for war because Russia is just less stable.

China is less of a threat for war but the US steps up military power here because China is more of a peer and competitor on the world stage. Let's be real here.

>Although you lambast us in these situations, we seem to be doing all we can in both situations to re-stabilize the world

We are doing our best to maintain an edge over China. That's what we're doing. That's the entire point of why there's so much military projection in Asia and none towards say Gaza. Does Gaza have a threat for world war? No.. so your theory doesn't apply here.

[jauntywundrkind]

Nuclear missiles are so obviously different in scope. It's not even worth debating. And it's not like the US has been turning Taiwan into a medium/long range cruise missile battery. It's so obviously incredibly a defensive mission, and coloring it any other way is embarassing. China has nothing to fear from Taiwan, if China doesn't aggress: trying to say otherwise is laughable.

We are doing things in Gaza to try to help our ally defend itself while trying to get them to de-escallate; it's just not super visible or obvious & it's unclear what you'd have us do in spite of your ongoing super-critical view. We absolutely are super involved, and scared of this growing worse, and trying to improve it, and trying to prevent a broader conflagration from growing in the area. It's unclear why you think this means anything about the US maintaining power versus trying to keep world stability.

You amazingly fully give license China to push around & use military might against local countries for whatever cause suits them, while again using whataboutism to deflect onto the US rather than face the real issue at hand. The US has done bad things, but often it's less clear cut bad than many lay at it's feet (the 1953 Iranian coup was hardly US instrumented, in spite of that common portrayal, for example). Even though the US went into Iraq, we spent enormous money (ineffectively, alas) trying to create a stable democracy, rather than colonizing & imperializing, with for example a huge number of development contracts going to other nations. These slights on the US, these whataboutisms, are not as bad, and just a whataboutism against China acting incredibly poorly in it's neighborhood & not bothering to keep any friends in the region.

The US does pick and choose conflicts, indeed, and doesn't attend well enough to some. But it does get involved in a huge number of conflicts and is by far the worlds biggest peacekeeping operation, is responsible largely for worldwide shipping being as feasible as it has been (deterring piracy). And we are very keep to combat instability anywhere.

Russia is less of a threat than China because Russia is losing huge amounts of forces to a lone neighbor they have aggressed, and cannot rebuild that force quickly. China is by far the fastest militarizing nation on the planet, radically outproducing everyone else, and have shown time and time again willingness to ride rough over neighbors & claim internationally agreed waters and land as their own. Nothing about your "real" talk convinces me that we should more worried about Russia than China.

You phrase this again and again as some kind of all-out competition against China, about the US keeping their lead. That just seems so facile, and to come from such a horrificly singular view of the world as competitive, as being zero-sum. I don't think the US thinks of China like that at all. We would love to see a good prosperous healthy China, flourishing at home and around the world. But we keep seeing a nasty bitter nation that is driven by it's own sense of insecurity at not clearly being #1, that thinks it must use force & power & might to bully other people into submission. That's why China is the problem, that's why this conflict exists: because China has lost touch with the spirit of heaven, because it begets havoc on earth.

[wkat4242]

China is not only trying to be #1 by military force but also trying to string poorer nations into loans they can't really afford, buying mines and harbours etc.

It worries me because their entire direction depends on the whims of essentially one man who is there for life.

I also found it really worrying how the CCP made their own population suffer during the pandemic. Can you imagine what they'd do with the rest of us if they were the leading world power?

[corethree]

This is true. It is scary that it all depends on one man.

The pandemic thing was more of a mistake then it was an act of evil.

China was successful in basically completely eliminating the spread of covid in a way the US was completely incapable of doing. I don't know if you recall people in the US dying of covid like flies in the US while China remaining relatively covid free due to it's ability to use centralized control to basically stop the spread of the disease in its tracks.

What China wanted to do was to essentially use those same methods to stop a secondary resurgence but this obviously was not as successful. The second wave was different from the first and China misjudged that. The extreme methods applied on the first wave were no longer applicable to the second wave and that was a mistake on Chinas part.

If China lead the world then there would be significantly less deaths from the first wave of covid and significantly more deaths on the second wave of covid. The opposite is true for the US, significantly more deaths on the first wave of covid and less deaths on the second wave. You worry, but the world is too complex to give you a clear topic to actually be worried about. It's easier to simplify China as the one that's wrong and stay worried about the simple thing.

[corethree]

>Nuclear missiles are so obviously different in scope. It's not even worth debating. And it's not like the US has been turning Taiwan into a medium/long range cruise missile battery. It's so obviously incredibly a defensive mission, and coloring it any other way is embarassing. China has nothing to fear from Taiwan, if China doesn't aggress: trying to say otherwise is laughable.

The scope I'm trying to convey is called "crossing the line". It's like you're in a shouting match with your friend and suddenly you pull out a gun. You crossed the line.

If you pull out a nuclear weapon that's ALSO crossing the line. Obviously different scope. But you failed to miss my point. By forming a blockade around China the US is pulling out a gun and putting against China's forehead. The US has crossed the line. Typically when one person crosses the line it's an act of desperation. It's to surprise the other party and scare the other person into submission. Maybe it works. It runs the risk of the other party ALSO deciding to escalate the situation by pointing artillery at san francisco.

None of this has to involve nuclear weapons but nuclear weapons but the cuban missile crisis is 100% examples of the US and Russia crossing the line. China is holding back here, whether out of fear or wisdom they are choosing NOT to escalate which is the mature decision. When a country chooses to play games of escalation they run the risk of hurting everyone.

>You amazingly fully give license China to push around & use military might against local countries for whatever cause suits them, while again using whataboutism to deflect onto the US rather than face the real issue at hand. The US has done bad things, but often it's less clear cut bad than many lay at it's feet (the 1953 Iranian coup was hardly US instrumented, in spite of that common portrayal, for example). Even though the US went into Iraq, we spent enormous money (ineffectively, alas) trying to create a stable democracy, rather than colonizing & imperializing, with for example a huge number of development contracts going to other nations. These slights on the US, these whataboutisms, are not as bad, and just a whataboutism against China acting incredibly poorly in it's neighborhood & not bothering to keep any friends in the region.

Wrong. I NEVER gave full license to China to use military might anywhere. I am simply saying China and the US are two sides to the same coin. Neither fits the idealistic narrative of the white knight you try to paint the US as. What you don't realize is that US propaganda and patriotism has effected you, despite your knowledge of US evils you still argue for this country and you still support it. Bro, China and the US are the same.

What whole point of the whataboutism is to point out the error in your analysis. You're framing the US as way to idealistic when obviously it's just as corrupt as China. It's one and the same. I mean the lies about Iraq which you decided to gloss over are just the tip of the ice berg. Nord stream 1? Come on man. Wake up.

>But it does get involved in a huge number of conflicts and is by far the worlds biggest peacekeeping operation, is responsible largely for worldwide shipping being as feasible as it has been (deterring piracy). And we are very keep to combat instability anywhere.

This is a joke. It gets involved to make itself look like it cares. But ultimately it doesn't care until it affects their own interests. People getting slaughtered in Gaza? The US doesn't really care, they just pretend to care. China about to annex Taiwan but never actually doing it? Oh shit huge issue. Launch the carrier!

>Russia is less of a threat than China because Russia is losing huge amounts of forces to a lone neighbor they have aggressed, and cannot rebuild that force quickly. China is by far the fastest militarizing nation on the planet, radically outproducing everyone else, and have shown time and time again willingness to ride rough over neighbors & claim internationally agreed waters and land as their own.

Russia started more wars and killed more people than China has so far this year. In Gaza their are more people getting slaughtered. Also crime in China is waaaaaay lower than the US. The Chinese in general are not violent. China is just projecting territorial power and it's expected because they are becoming more powerful. The US did this as well. The US has territories and all kinds of crazy territorial shit ranging from stealing native american land slaughtering people who lived on that land all the way to creating "territories" like guam.

So this shit China is doing. Claiming territories is at worst wrong, but on average controversial because who knows? Maybe the territory was rightfully theres.... we know the British basically decided to fuck China over and grab Hong Kong. Plenty of countries stole territory from China when the country was weak. So now the country feels it has the right to claim those territories back. Likely it's making some claims that are wrong. But does it necessitate pulling out a gun and pointing it at Chinas head? Yes it does because China is becoming economically more powerful and technologically superior to the US. That necessitates military action while people getting slaughtered in gaza does not necessitate military action.

>You phrase this again and again as some kind of all-out competition against China, about the US keeping their lead. That just seems so facile, and to come from such a horrificly singular view of the world as competitive, as being zero-sum. I don't think the US thinks of China like that at all. We would love to see a good prosperous healthy China, flourishing at home and around the world. But we keep seeing a nasty bitter nation that is driven by it's own sense of insecurity at not clearly being #1, that thinks it must use force & power & might to bully other people into submission. That's why China is the problem, that's why this conflict exists: because China has lost touch with the spirit of heaven, because it begets havoc on earth.

As much as you don't like to admit it, what is in fact going on is jealousy and power tripping. When a coworker is about to dethrone you and take over your position because he is CLEARLY better you can tell yourself that you don't mind and that you're rational and that you're totally ok with the best man winning but we all know you're Lying to yourself. You love to see a prosperous China but not a prosperous China that is superior to the US. It's utter humiliation in the workplace and on the world stage. Your view is the singular one. A dismissal of the dark side of human nature that WE ALL succumb to. I mean come on your spin on the Iraq war didn't even mention the outright lies of WMDs lol. You obviously just skipped over that and called it humanitarian effort to turn Iraq into a democracy lol. I think this is how the greatest propagandists think: They must first lie to themselves before lying to others.

China must use force power and might to bully people into submission? You honestly think that China is the exclusive record holder for that? What about Hamas? Guess they don't count. The US also spends more on the military than China so they must have the same philosophy of bullying people into submission.

Also let's be real. China is not insecure about it's position. It was long considered a broken country. 3rd world essentially. What's happened in the past decades is growth, momentum and confidence. China isn't insecure... it sees opportunity and it's confident in taking that opportunity. Insecurity is just your spin on what is in actuality deadly ambition. It's the US that's insecure. Blocking trade with China because they're afraid of China gaining technological advantage? If the US was so confident about it's position it should just let China gain TSMC technology.