> I don’t understand why HN is unwilling to countenance this, but let me put it this way - Can America afford to antagonize China ? It's antagonising all year

> I don’t understand why HN is unwilling to countenance this, but let me put it this way - Can America afford to antagonize China ? It's antagonising all year round - US military presence in Japan and Korea, continuous arm sales and pushing the envelope on unofficial relations with Taiwan, support of Japans claim to the Senkakus, "Freedom of Navigation" exercises in defiance of chinas maritime claims, opening up military relations with Vietnam. Again, China is not the USSR. There's no "Korean missile crisis" where China can provoke an international crisis if the US decides to park ballistic missiles in its near abroad. There's no equivalent of a Warsaw block. The US has an entanglement of military alliances and relations all around Chinas backyard. China is not a superpower.