[ToucanLoucan]

> China is a potential adversary because they are an authoritarian, undemocratic regime making military threats against neighboring free, democratic nations (Taiwan).

As opposed to an authoritarian, Democratic regime making military threats against neighboring free, democratic nations (Canada)?

> If everything stayed exactly the way it is today, except the Communist party rulership were dissolved and replaced by a multi-party constitutional republic with representatives appointed through free, open elections I don't think the US would have nearly the same incentive to divest from China.

Why does the U.S. have the right to declare unilaterally what forms of government are acceptable and what aren't? And no I'm not saying we have to necessarily trade with them, obviously, apart from the fact that the CCP came into power in 1949. We're a bit late to suddenly have issues with their government NOW after nearly half a century spent working with them in the open, and giving them shit tons of money.

[Ajedi32]

The US's authoritarian tendencies are not in remotely the same league as China and it's absurd to pretend otherwise.

Our right to declare that rule apart from the consent of the governed is unacceptable comes from the fact that it is unacceptable, not because the US has any special rights to declare it so. We hold these truths to be self-evident, now just as we did then.

The US has always had that same fundamental issue with China's government; we've just chosen to react to that reality in different ways over the years. China being more of an economic powerhouse now makes it a larger threat to human freedom than it has been in the past, so there are valid reasons to re-consider the status quo.

[worik]

> The US's authoritarian tendencies are not in remotely the same league as China

They are different. In the same league

* Iraq

* Vietnam

* Cuba

* Panama

* Grenada

* Gaza

That is just recent times, and I missed quite a few

The USA is a big bully, destroying lives and livelihoods all over the world since the genocide of American Indians stopped in their own backyard

Trump is making plain what every body with any brain worked out in 1962: The USA is a rouge nation

[ToucanLoucan]

> and I missed quite a few

I would include:

* Korea

* Japan (the use of the atomic bomb was controversial even then as it was after it was obvious the empire was finished and it was merely a matter of paperwork)

* Laos

* Cambodia

* Afghanistan

* Puerto Rico

* NEARLY Honduras, over fucking bananas of all things

> The USA is a big bully, destroying lives and livelihoods all over the world since the genocide of American Indians stopped in their own backyard

And even the notion that the genocide has stopped is dubious. We may no longer be openly killing them, and I guess that isn't nothing, but their cultures are irreparably damaged and most natives in the States live lives of poverty and suffering.

[Ajedi32]

I don't think you know what authoritarianism is. Military interventions in foreign affairs are a completely orthogonal issue.

On that subject though, the US has generally been a force for good around the world. Iraq was briefly a liberal democracy until the US military pulled back out and a theocratic regime took over again by force. Vietnam was a well-intentioned but bungled attempt to stop the spread of communism. When the US lost and pulled out the country turned into a one-party dictatorship. Other political parties there are outlawed. That's who the US was fighting against. The fact that these interventions ultimately failed doesn't make the attempts any less noble, though you can certainly make the case they were foolhardy to even try. Or perhaps if you're a pacifist you could argue any military intervention, even in the defense of human freedom, is immoral. I have mixed feelings on that subject myself, but it's ridiculous to compare anything the US did in recent history to what China or Russia are currently attempting or threatening to attempt. We never tried to conquer Iraq or Vietnam, just free them.

The US is a bully to dictatorial regimes and a friend to liberal democracies around the world. Trump's cage rattling is a tiny blip in the grand scheme of that legacy.

[ToucanLoucan]

> I don't think you know what authoritarianism is. Military interventions in foreign affairs are a completely orthogonal issue.

Then why did you cite them as the reason for China's authoritarianism becoming a problem?

> Iraq was briefly a liberal democracy until the US military pulled back out and a theocratic regime took over again by force.

You know the CIA funded the Taliban, right? We also installed Saddam Hussein.

> Vietnam was a well-intentioned but bungled attempt to stop the spread of communism.

Why is this a good thing? See previous question about "Why does the US get to unilaterally decide which forms of government are acceptable?"

> When the US lost and pulled out the country turned into a one-party dictatorship.

Or, if you were not on the U.S.'s side in this, you might be phrasing that more like: "When the U.S. pulled out, their puppet government collapsed immediately."

> The fact that these interventions ultimately failed doesn't make the attempts any less noble, though you can certainly make the case they were foolhardy to even try.

I would say they were both foolhardy and ignoble personally.

> Or perhaps if you're a pacifist you could argue any military intervention, even in the defense of human freedom, is immoral.

No pacifist would argue that.

> I have mixed feelings on that subject myself, but it's ridiculous to compare anything the US did in recent history to what China or Russia are currently attempting or threatening to attempt.

You can quibble about numbers and equivalence all you like. I'm not saying China is unambiguously good. I'm saying they are not guilty of anything the United States is not also guilty of and so the moral condemnation from said United States rings incredibly hollow and hypocritical. It feels more like the United States is upset that another country is beating it at the game it designed.

If I had my personal way, Xi Jinping and every president still living would be tried for the war crimes they are most definitely guilty of, along with dozens of other leaders from the so called "developed" world. A man can dream.

[Ajedi32]

> why did you cite them as the reason for China's authoritarianism becoming a problem

China annexing Taiwan wouldn't merely be "intervening in foreign affairs". When an authoritarian regime conquers a liberal democracy, the people in the annexed area are no longer free. It's the same reason we couldn't just ignore Hitler taking over half of Europe. If he'd just stuck to oppressing the people in his own territory it's possible the rest of the world would have let him and Germany might still be an authoritarian dictatorship today.

> the CIA funded the Taliban

Iraqis were hardly free prior to that. Short of direct military intervention, you often have to choose between what you believe to be the lesser of several evils. I'd agree that was probably a misguided choice in this case.

> Why is this a good thing? See previous question about "Why does the US get to unilaterally decide which forms of government are acceptable?"

See my answer to that question. Human freedom is an inherent good.

> "When the U.S. pulled out, their puppet government collapsed immediately."

True democracies can't be puppets; they're controlled by the people they govern. And it wasn't voted out by the populace, it fell to a military attack by a theocratic regime.