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Some other disturbing signs from China: increasing military budget https://www.hongkongfp.com/2018/03/06/china-splash-us175-billion-military/ https://www.hongko

Some other disturbing signs from China: increasing military budget https://www.hongkongfp.com/2018/03/06/china-splash-us175-billion-military/ https://www.hongkongfp.com/2018/03/06/china-splash-us175-bil..., kidnapping relatives of the reporters in other countries that exposed the uigher concentration camps http://m.dw.com/en/chinese-authorities-detain-relatives-of-radio-free-asias-uighur-reporters/a-42803793 http://m.dw.com/en/chinese-authorities-detain-relatives-of-r..., China literally banned words and letter n in social media https://mashable.com/2018/02/28/china-bans-n-xi-jinping-term-limits/ https://mashable.com/2018/02/28/china-bans-n-xi-jinping-term..., China propping up dictator in Maldives and angering India https://www.google.com/amp/s/mobile.nytimes.com/2018/02/14/world/asia/maldives-china-india.amp.html https://www.google.com/amp/s/mobile.nytimes.com/2018/02/14/w..., China threatens to invade democratic Taiwan over us ties https://www.google.com/amp/amp.abc.net.au/article/9503126 https://www.google.com/amp/amp.abc.net.au/article/9503126

dang 9y ago
Would you please stop using HN for political and national battle? You've been doing it a lot, and it's not what this site is for. As such discussions get more predictable (such as when people dump boilerplate political links into comment threads), they get both less interesting and more flame-prone, a double whammy of destruction for what we care about here. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
drharby 9y ago
If china invades taiwan in will be a sign that China believes US leadership to be weak, and the world would follow that lead depending on the us response. If they successfully coax a response, we hurt our economic ties, if they dont, they get facevalue gains and reduce us foreign credibility. Now that i think about it...im scared for taiwan
- Apocryphon 9y ago
  Taiwan is a first world democracy that has at least existed with its own distinct government for seventy years. A Chinese military invasion would be unprecedented in the history of the world since WWII. I wonder what such a war would signify for the postwar order.
  - jotm 9y ago
    A very sudden decline in Chinese manufacturing, that's what. With such a bold action, many if not most US and EU businesses will pull out of China, this would be no joking matter. Still not sure there would be a WW3 over Taiwan or any other small country that is not is some sort of bigger union.
    - Slansitartop 9y ago
      > A very sudden decline in Chinese manufacturing, that's what. With such a bold action, many if not most US and EU businesses will pull out of China, this would be no joking matter. Could that be a policy plus for China? IIRC, they have wanted to reduce their export-dependence for some time, though I'm sure that they'd prefer to accomplish it is a more gradual and controlled way.
      - jotm 9y ago
        Well, good (except for the potential war part). It would mean more work in the west.
    - Apocryphon 9y ago
      Most recent invasions by the great powers have been against pariah states (Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya) or somewhat diplomatically isolated countries that are shaky (Georgia, Ukraine, Syria). Taiwan might not have much diplomatic recognition, but it's very much economically integrated into the global economy. It's a stable democracy with one of the highest living standards. Militarily challenging the existence of such a state- that would indicate the world is slipping back into a pre-Potsdam world, where advanced nations could fight each other again. Granted, Taiwan is much militarily weaker than China, a little similar to the Ukraine-Russian relationship, but it's also a much more stable and richer state. I think what could be comparable is if Russia really was to threaten the Baltic nations.
- adventured 9y ago
  Nobody is going to start a global nuclear war over Taiwan. The country is far too close to mainland China for the US to perpetually stand-off China from taking the island in the case of war. It's futile almost no matter the strength gap between the US and China. China could have successfully taken Taiwan 15 years ago for the same reason, despite there being a huge military gap back then. There's no scenario where China doesn't get Taiwan, unfortunately for the people there. The only question is what that's going to look like. The rest of the world will do nothing about it, other than wave their hands around frantically. When it happens (during Xi's lifetime), it's going to set a particularly terrible precedent that will encourage Russia to do more of the same in eastern Europe. If China then decides Mongolia too is part of greater China, who can really stop that? Nobody.
  - gdubs 9y ago
    It's not like a World War has ever broken out over a 'trivial' incident. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Archduke_Franz_Ferdinand_of_Austria https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Archduke_Franz_Ferdinand_of_Au...
    - adventured 9y ago
      What does that have to do with global nuclear war?
      - gdubs 9y ago
        It has to do with global nuclear war because saying that one will not break out over 'x' ignores the fact that there's historical evidence for unimaginable carnage being triggered from seemingly minor events. Many scenarios put forward by military thinkers on what might trigger a nuclear war involve escalation – it's not limited to a country deciding to just fire off some rockets.
        pas 9y ago
        Isn't the sentiment over WWI that it was only a matter of time and casus belli? If not an assassination then a border skirmish or something else.
- jerf 9y ago
  One of the strategies is to keep Taiwan itself armed. Civilians like us can't know this, but it has been hypothesized that one of the levers being used on China with regard to North Korea's development of nuclear weapons is explaining to them that if North Korea goes nuclear, they can expect Japan, Taiwan, South Korea, and who knows who else to go nuclear, either via local development of the weaponry or via assisted development from the US, if not outright turning weapons over. After all, one imagines that if they really put their mind to it, Japan, Taiwan, and South Korea could all go nuclear in a period measured in small single-digit months. They really aren't that hard [1]. If, indeed, they aren't already effectively nuclear. (We'd probably know if they'd ever tested a weapon. We wouldn't necessarily know if they'd actually built one. If I were them, I totally would have.) One of the interesting aspects of the whole Inevitable Rise of China narrative storyline is that it has been predicated on their continuing to develop and primarily use soft power. I tend to agree if they focused on that, they have many avenues available for major growth, if not outright exceeding the US in power, certainly by the end of the 21st century. The equations for all of that have to be reconsidered from scratch if they become a dictatorship, become subject to the whims of a single man, and decide to primarily pursue hard power. If they become outright aggressively belligerent, they are surrounded by countries powerful enough to at least put a dent in their ambitions in Taiwan, Japan, Korea, and India, all of whom are already generally US allies and would be chased into the US's arms fully by a belligerent China. China is not currently powerful enough to take on that coalition, nor is it clear to me where they would get allies for that push. (It seems unlikely that the EU would full-throatedly throw in their lot with China. Russia, other than being nuclear, isn't really a strong enough military or economic power against that sort of coalition to be the deciding factor.) Furthermore, China's internal power is IMHO more delicate than may meet the eye; if China devotes more resources into hard power internally and the middle class starts to fade, internal social unrest is going to be a major problem. Even if China manages to suppress its most overt expressions, unrest still manifests itself in many little ways. The best move for China is slow and steady, to win the race. But if one man decides that's not fast enough, well, a lot of people could end up dying for that decision and my guess is China would still not come out on top. [1]: https://io9.gizmodo.com/this-experiment-proved-that-anyone-could-design-a-nucle-510618426 https://io9.gizmodo.com/this-experiment-proved-that-anyone-c...
  - 9y ago
adventured 9y ago
Vietnam just had to expend a large amount of effort to placate and reassure China, so the US could dock an aircraft carrier in Danang. For a country as powerful and on the rise as China is, it's remarkable how insecure the CPC are about every little thing. It's an overwhelming indication of the fragility of their power and their own sense of security about their control.
- bllguo 9y ago
  this sounds like you're projecting something, honestly. I'd stray on the side of being wary of China, not dismissing them as "insecure" and "fragile." Just a dangerous mindset imo.
  - adventured 9y ago
    I don't think so. Trump for an example is very easy to see through in terms of his insecurity. People that behave a certain way while they're in extraordinary positions of power, reveal that fragility / insecurity. China's behavior reeks of insecurity. Here they are, this massive, extremely powerful, rapidly growing economic juggernaut, and they behave like a scared mouse about the South China Sea (as though they really needed to steal that territory from their neighbors), about Vietnam & the US (as though Vietnam could ever threaten them), about the smallest slight from Japan or South Korea (who cares). It's incredibly revealing. Besides the obviousness of China's reactions and behavior and what it reveals, authoritarian regimes are universally wildly insecure. The people that seek authoritarian positions of power are similarly universally insecure. Take Stalin, he was like a man-child in terms of insecurity, and most dictators you can name from the last century were likewise, that includes everyone from Saddam to Putin (look at his recent tantrum performance, putting on a visual display of Russia nuking the US at his state of the nation speech, trying his best to hide vast insecurity).
moreorless 9y ago
You have a very interesting post and comment history.
- dang 9y ago
  Your comment breaks the site rule against insinuating astroturfing or shillage. We enforce that pretty rigorously because it's a poison that can destroy the whole community if allowed to. So would you please not do it again, regardless of how wrong someone is or seems? If you think an account is abusing HN, you're welcome to email us at hn@ycombinator.com so we can look at the data. Astroturfing is a bannable offense—but we need to find evidence of it. So is using HN primarily for political, ideological, or national battle. All this is at https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html. Overwhelmingly, though, when users here think they smell astroturfers, shills, spies, bots, and foreign agents, what they're really encountering is the diversity of opinion on this site. HN is deeply divided on most divisive issues, just like society at large is—or rather, societies, because it's a majority international site. Most of us organize our lives to avoid having opposing opinions in our face all the time. Consequently, when we do encounter them on a site like HN which isn't siloed—i.e. doesn't have any mechanism like subreddits or follow/block—it feels bad and we resort too quickly to the belief that these other people can't possibly be posting in good faith. Mostly, though, they are. The community is just divided that way.
- z2 9y ago
  As did this user in the past, before being banned for using HN primarily for political battle: https://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=sharetea https://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=sharetea
  - mr_spothawk 9y ago
    both of these users have better content in their comments than I have in mine. and sharetea was on to something in 2016... even if the account got banned.
arialeks 9y ago
Is it disturbing from a US POV, or generally speaking? Because if I recall correctly, the US military spending has gone up significantly as well, also it's projected to rise even further in the future. On a related note, could someone explain to me how Russia manages to stay a threat with a military budget that's about 6% of the US budget? Or does it only seem to be that smaller because their soldiers are payed less?
- kolbe 9y ago
  >On a related note, could someone explain to me how Russia manages to stay a threat with a military budget that's about 6% of the US budget? Or does it only seem to be that smaller because their soldiers are payed less? Never underestimate the sheer waste and incompetence that the US Government is capable of achieving. My general model is that we get about ten cents in value for every dollar spent. So, all Russia needs to do is break even, and they would achieve close to military might of the US.
  - AnimalMuppet 9y ago
    So all Russia needs to do have all their spending deliver at 100% efficiency. That's not going to happen. Russia is a bureaucracy too...
    - kolbe 9y ago
      I don't know what 100% efficiency means. You italicized it, so it must mean something to you. But I was talking about return on investment. The US loses 90% of the money it invests, whereas, for example, companies like Boeing make money with their investments. So, all Russia would need to do it not lose money they invest. That's not what 100% efficiency means to me, but it's a very achievable goal.
- jimbokun 9y ago
  "Because if I recall correctly, the US military spending has gone up significantly as well, also it's projected to rise even further in the future." US military expenditures are also very disturbing.
bgee 9y ago
Can you elaborate more on why China's increasing military budget is a disturbing sign to you? China spends a mere 1.9% of its GDP in 2016 and that number is smaller than from Vietnam, Korea, India even Singapore [0]. To me China is only trying catching up its neighbors. BTW Japan's PM has just submitted his 2018 Military Budget and if approved would be the 6th "straight annual increase" [1]. [0]: https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/MS.MIL.XPND.GD.ZS?end=2016&order=wbapi_data_value_2012+wbap&start=2016&view=bar&year_high_desc=true https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/MS.MIL.XPND.GD.ZS?end=2... [1]: https://thediplomat.com/2017/08/whats-in-japans-record-2018-defense-budget-request/ https://thediplomat.com/2017/08/whats-in-japans-record-2018-... Disclaimer: I'm Chinese.
- drraid0 9y ago
  It is disturbing because China did not hesitate to kill 10000 of their own people in 1989 on a shoestring budget, and faced no consequence. Who knows what they would do to Taiwan, Japan, Korea, Vietnam, etc.
  - yongjik 9y ago
    > Who knows what they would do to Taiwan, Japan, Korea, Vietnam, etc. Okay, that's at least two countries that killed 10000+ of their own people since WW2.
  - bgee 9y ago
    If we are on the subject of what crimes against humanity should prevent a country getting what kind of weapon, Asia-raping Japan is on the brink of acquiring nukes according to some comments below, do you find that disturbing? Sorry for the whataboutism but I think how each country is perceived when spending money on military is worth discussing.
    - drraid0 9y ago
      Yes. But Japan has been mostly, um, "inert" and peaceful since WW2. China's history since WW2, to this day, has been one of one atrocity after another. Things seem to be getting worse with Winnie the Pooh declaring him eternal president. Also, if Japan was Asia raping in WW2, China is China-raping now.
lxmorj 9y ago
Copycats!

dang 9y ago

Would you please stop using HN for political and national battle? You've been doing it a lot, and it's not what this site is for. As such discussions get more predictable (such as when people dump boilerplate political links into comment threads), they get both less interesting and more flame-prone, a double whammy of destruction for what we care about here. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

drharby 9y ago

If china invades taiwan in will be a sign that China believes US leadership to be weak, and the world would follow that lead depending on the us response. If they successfully coax a response, we hurt our economic ties, if they dont, they get facevalue gains and reduce us foreign credibility. Now that i think about it...im scared for taiwan

Apocryphon 9y ago
Taiwan is a first world democracy that has at least existed with its own distinct government for seventy years. A Chinese military invasion would be unprecedented in the history of the world since WWII. I wonder what such a war would signify for the postwar order.
- jotm 9y ago
  A very sudden decline in Chinese manufacturing, that's what. With such a bold action, many if not most US and EU businesses will pull out of China, this would be no joking matter. Still not sure there would be a WW3 over Taiwan or any other small country that is not is some sort of bigger union.
  - Slansitartop 9y ago
    > A very sudden decline in Chinese manufacturing, that's what. With such a bold action, many if not most US and EU businesses will pull out of China, this would be no joking matter. Could that be a policy plus for China? IIRC, they have wanted to reduce their export-dependence for some time, though I'm sure that they'd prefer to accomplish it is a more gradual and controlled way.
    - jotm 9y ago
      Well, good (except for the potential war part). It would mean more work in the west.
  - Apocryphon 9y ago
    Most recent invasions by the great powers have been against pariah states (Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya) or somewhat diplomatically isolated countries that are shaky (Georgia, Ukraine, Syria). Taiwan might not have much diplomatic recognition, but it's very much economically integrated into the global economy. It's a stable democracy with one of the highest living standards. Militarily challenging the existence of such a state- that would indicate the world is slipping back into a pre-Potsdam world, where advanced nations could fight each other again. Granted, Taiwan is much militarily weaker than China, a little similar to the Ukraine-Russian relationship, but it's also a much more stable and richer state. I think what could be comparable is if Russia really was to threaten the Baltic nations.
adventured 9y ago
Nobody is going to start a global nuclear war over Taiwan. The country is far too close to mainland China for the US to perpetually stand-off China from taking the island in the case of war. It's futile almost no matter the strength gap between the US and China. China could have successfully taken Taiwan 15 years ago for the same reason, despite there being a huge military gap back then. There's no scenario where China doesn't get Taiwan, unfortunately for the people there. The only question is what that's going to look like. The rest of the world will do nothing about it, other than wave their hands around frantically. When it happens (during Xi's lifetime), it's going to set a particularly terrible precedent that will encourage Russia to do more of the same in eastern Europe. If China then decides Mongolia too is part of greater China, who can really stop that? Nobody.
- gdubs 9y ago
  It's not like a World War has ever broken out over a 'trivial' incident. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Archduke_Franz_Ferdinand_of_Austria https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Archduke_Franz_Ferdinand_of_Au...
  - adventured 9y ago
    What does that have to do with global nuclear war?
    - gdubs 9y ago
      It has to do with global nuclear war because saying that one will not break out over 'x' ignores the fact that there's historical evidence for unimaginable carnage being triggered from seemingly minor events. Many scenarios put forward by military thinkers on what might trigger a nuclear war involve escalation – it's not limited to a country deciding to just fire off some rockets.
      - pas 9y ago
        Isn't the sentiment over WWI that it was only a matter of time and casus belli? If not an assassination then a border skirmish or something else.
jerf 9y ago
One of the strategies is to keep Taiwan itself armed. Civilians like us can't know this, but it has been hypothesized that one of the levers being used on China with regard to North Korea's development of nuclear weapons is explaining to them that if North Korea goes nuclear, they can expect Japan, Taiwan, South Korea, and who knows who else to go nuclear, either via local development of the weaponry or via assisted development from the US, if not outright turning weapons over. After all, one imagines that if they really put their mind to it, Japan, Taiwan, and South Korea could all go nuclear in a period measured in small single-digit months. They really aren't that hard [1]. If, indeed, they aren't already effectively nuclear. (We'd probably know if they'd ever tested a weapon. We wouldn't necessarily know if they'd actually built one. If I were them, I totally would have.) One of the interesting aspects of the whole Inevitable Rise of China narrative storyline is that it has been predicated on their continuing to develop and primarily use soft power. I tend to agree if they focused on that, they have many avenues available for major growth, if not outright exceeding the US in power, certainly by the end of the 21st century. The equations for all of that have to be reconsidered from scratch if they become a dictatorship, become subject to the whims of a single man, and decide to primarily pursue hard power. If they become outright aggressively belligerent, they are surrounded by countries powerful enough to at least put a dent in their ambitions in Taiwan, Japan, Korea, and India, all of whom are already generally US allies and would be chased into the US's arms fully by a belligerent China. China is not currently powerful enough to take on that coalition, nor is it clear to me where they would get allies for that push. (It seems unlikely that the EU would full-throatedly throw in their lot with China. Russia, other than being nuclear, isn't really a strong enough military or economic power against that sort of coalition to be the deciding factor.) Furthermore, China's internal power is IMHO more delicate than may meet the eye; if China devotes more resources into hard power internally and the middle class starts to fade, internal social unrest is going to be a major problem. Even if China manages to suppress its most overt expressions, unrest still manifests itself in many little ways. The best move for China is slow and steady, to win the race. But if one man decides that's not fast enough, well, a lot of people could end up dying for that decision and my guess is China would still not come out on top. [1]: https://io9.gizmodo.com/this-experiment-proved-that-anyone-could-design-a-nucle-510618426 https://io9.gizmodo.com/this-experiment-proved-that-anyone-c...
- 9y ago

adventured 9y ago

Vietnam just had to expend a large amount of effort to placate and reassure China, so the US could dock an aircraft carrier in Danang. For a country as powerful and on the rise as China is, it's remarkable how insecure the CPC are about every little thing. It's an overwhelming indication of the fragility of their power and their own sense of security about their control.

bllguo 9y ago
this sounds like you're projecting something, honestly. I'd stray on the side of being wary of China, not dismissing them as "insecure" and "fragile." Just a dangerous mindset imo.
- adventured 9y ago
  I don't think so. Trump for an example is very easy to see through in terms of his insecurity. People that behave a certain way while they're in extraordinary positions of power, reveal that fragility / insecurity. China's behavior reeks of insecurity. Here they are, this massive, extremely powerful, rapidly growing economic juggernaut, and they behave like a scared mouse about the South China Sea (as though they really needed to steal that territory from their neighbors), about Vietnam & the US (as though Vietnam could ever threaten them), about the smallest slight from Japan or South Korea (who cares). It's incredibly revealing. Besides the obviousness of China's reactions and behavior and what it reveals, authoritarian regimes are universally wildly insecure. The people that seek authoritarian positions of power are similarly universally insecure. Take Stalin, he was like a man-child in terms of insecurity, and most dictators you can name from the last century were likewise, that includes everyone from Saddam to Putin (look at his recent tantrum performance, putting on a visual display of Russia nuking the US at his state of the nation speech, trying his best to hide vast insecurity).

moreorless 9y ago

You have a very interesting post and comment history.

dang 9y ago
Your comment breaks the site rule against insinuating astroturfing or shillage. We enforce that pretty rigorously because it's a poison that can destroy the whole community if allowed to. So would you please not do it again, regardless of how wrong someone is or seems? If you think an account is abusing HN, you're welcome to email us at hn@ycombinator.com so we can look at the data. Astroturfing is a bannable offense—but we need to find evidence of it. So is using HN primarily for political, ideological, or national battle. All this is at https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html. Overwhelmingly, though, when users here think they smell astroturfers, shills, spies, bots, and foreign agents, what they're really encountering is the diversity of opinion on this site. HN is deeply divided on most divisive issues, just like society at large is—or rather, societies, because it's a majority international site. Most of us organize our lives to avoid having opposing opinions in our face all the time. Consequently, when we do encounter them on a site like HN which isn't siloed—i.e. doesn't have any mechanism like subreddits or follow/block—it feels bad and we resort too quickly to the belief that these other people can't possibly be posting in good faith. Mostly, though, they are. The community is just divided that way.
z2 9y ago
As did this user in the past, before being banned for using HN primarily for political battle: https://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=sharetea https://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=sharetea
- mr_spothawk 9y ago
  both of these users have better content in their comments than I have in mine. and sharetea was on to something in 2016... even if the account got banned.

arialeks 9y ago

Is it disturbing from a US POV, or generally speaking? Because if I recall correctly, the US military spending has gone up significantly as well, also it's projected to rise even further in the future. On a related note, could someone explain to me how Russia manages to stay a threat with a military budget that's about 6% of the US budget? Or does it only seem to be that smaller because their soldiers are payed less?

kolbe 9y ago
>On a related note, could someone explain to me how Russia manages to stay a threat with a military budget that's about 6% of the US budget? Or does it only seem to be that smaller because their soldiers are payed less? Never underestimate the sheer waste and incompetence that the US Government is capable of achieving. My general model is that we get about ten cents in value for every dollar spent. So, all Russia needs to do is break even, and they would achieve close to military might of the US.
- AnimalMuppet 9y ago
  So all Russia needs to do have all their spending deliver at 100% efficiency. That's not going to happen. Russia is a bureaucracy too...
  - kolbe 9y ago
    I don't know what 100% efficiency means. You italicized it, so it must mean something to you. But I was talking about return on investment. The US loses 90% of the money it invests, whereas, for example, companies like Boeing make money with their investments. So, all Russia would need to do it not lose money they invest. That's not what 100% efficiency means to me, but it's a very achievable goal.
jimbokun 9y ago
"Because if I recall correctly, the US military spending has gone up significantly as well, also it's projected to rise even further in the future." US military expenditures are also very disturbing.

bgee 9y ago

Can you elaborate more on why China's increasing military budget is a disturbing sign to you? China spends a mere 1.9% of its GDP in 2016 and that number is smaller than from Vietnam, Korea, India even Singapore [0]. To me China is only trying catching up its neighbors. BTW Japan's PM has just submitted his 2018 Military Budget and if approved would be the 6th "straight annual increase" [1]. [0]: https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/MS.MIL.XPND.GD.ZS?end=2016&order=wbapi_data_value_2012+wbap&start=2016&view=bar&year_high_desc=true https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/MS.MIL.XPND.GD.ZS?end=2... [1]: https://thediplomat.com/2017/08/whats-in-japans-record-2018-defense-budget-request/ https://thediplomat.com/2017/08/whats-in-japans-record-2018-... Disclaimer: I'm Chinese.

drraid0 9y ago
It is disturbing because China did not hesitate to kill 10000 of their own people in 1989 on a shoestring budget, and faced no consequence. Who knows what they would do to Taiwan, Japan, Korea, Vietnam, etc.
- yongjik 9y ago
  > Who knows what they would do to Taiwan, Japan, Korea, Vietnam, etc. Okay, that's at least two countries that killed 10000+ of their own people since WW2.
- bgee 9y ago
  If we are on the subject of what crimes against humanity should prevent a country getting what kind of weapon, Asia-raping Japan is on the brink of acquiring nukes according to some comments below, do you find that disturbing? Sorry for the whataboutism but I think how each country is perceived when spending money on military is worth discussing.
  - drraid0 9y ago
    Yes. But Japan has been mostly, um, "inert" and peaceful since WW2. China's history since WW2, to this day, has been one of one atrocity after another. Things seem to be getting worse with Winnie the Pooh declaring him eternal president. Also, if Japan was Asia raping in WW2, China is China-raping now.

lxmorj 9y ago

Copycats!