[apples_oranges]

They are aiming for world domination by buying themselves into businesses all over the planet and by building up a very large army. But that’s just normal human behavior I guess.

The problem is rather that if the only moral compass is the communist party it will suck

[ethbr1]

It's a bit rich to attribute goals of world domination to buying into businesses all over the world and building a very large army.

By those metrics, the rest of the world should have been terrified by the US for the last 60 years...

Those are necessary precursors to aggressive expansionism, but insufficient without political will.

[ericd]

Context matters, who is leading that machinery? They seem to have the political will to invade.

[ethbr1]

Taiwan is a tricky case. The CCP isn't unjustified in making a claim to it. Granted: that claim is contrary to international norms, law, and the population's self determination.

But if China were only threatening to invade Taiwan it would be a gray area.

Imho, their claims in the South China Sea are much more obviously expansionist, given the settled cases against them under international law.

Much easier to see those boiling over into China invading a few populated islands of the Philippines.

[sschueller]

Interesting, I don't recall Iran having to flying bombers for 36 hours to bomb a US military base...

[jaggs]

Okay so thanks very much. That's not really a citation that's an opinion?

To translate what you're saying. The Chinese are trying to establish the same kind of global trade collaboration that Europe and the US have done for the past hundred and x years? But the Chinese civilization is over 2000 years old, and they had a much larger global trade network back when the west was a pile of wooden shacks and feudal barbarism?

They're also building up a large army in in the same way that the US and Europe have with NATO? I'm also not really sure what's wrong with the moral compass of the Chinese communist party? From what I can see at the moment it is authoritative, but not necessarily venal?

It seems that the Chinese people themselves are enjoying a pretty good standard of living and quality of life? I've only been there two or three times, but I never saw the same kind of deprivation in China that I saw behind the Iron Curtain for instance.

[ethbr1]

> I'm also not really sure what's wrong with the moral compass of the Chinese communist party? From what I can see at the moment it is authoritative, but not necessarily venal?

It's certainly corrupt. Xi didn't launch major, disruptive anti-corruption drives for no reason, but because he saw it as an existential threat to the CCP's legitimacy (after all, it did torpedo the Soviet Union).

Granted, an alternate rationale was internecine power struggles within the party and removing political enemies, but there was some real corruption.

The strongman argument against the CCP's moral compass is that it has no concept of or respect for individual rights: the party is above all.

Historically, this has always ended tragically because eventually it will be abused to either justify suffering or party gain at the expense of people.

Authoritarianism only works until someone bad grabs the reigns, and single-party non-democratic systems have a way of rewarding sociopaths.

[jaggs]

I think stones in glass houses comes to mind right now? :)

[ethbr1]

The fact that the US still has functioning separation of powers is counter evidence.

People may gripe about fuzzy areas being stepped on and norms pushed (and they should gripe!), but there's a huge chasm between separation of powers in democracies and China.

[jaggs]

Calling in the marine guard without congress approval seems a little bit un-separate, but I'm not an expert so I'm not going to continue this conversation. You have an opinion and I have my very inexpert one too.

[ethbr1]

The Marines were rebased within the bounds of Constitutional and legal powers, as was the National Guard federalization and deployment.

Not agreeing with a thing doesn't make it illegal.

If Congress wants to prohibit Presidents from pushing these areas, then they're free to do so. (And expect they will once the clock tocks)