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> China acquires territory over important infrastructure in foreign countries, not unlike how the US has military bases worldwide. Well, China is an authoritar
by forapurpose 9y ago
> China acquires territory over important infrastructure in foreign countries, not unlike how the US has military bases worldwide.
Well, China is an authoritarian dictatorship, while the U.S. supports democracy and human rights of the locals. In fact, the U.S. has done more for freedom and democracy in China than the Chinese government: 23 million Chinese people in Taiwan have those things because the U.S. protects them from China's own government. (Yes, the U.S. also does some bad things.)
There is a big difference between a foreign government controlling a military base with the support of the local government, and a foreign government controlling the major ports and railroads due to a debt trap that the local government can't legally escape. Again, the U.S. is imperfect, but the world has seen enough expansionist dictatorships to know what they do.
- NedIsakoff 9y agoChina is a People's Democratic Dictatorship! Its by the will of the people, for the people! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/People%27s_democratic_dictatorship https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/People%27s_democratic_dictator... /s
- testvox 9y agoCan you point me towards the local government that supports the Guantanamo Bay Naval Base?
- mikeash 9y agoThat would be the Republic of Cuba. They’re local in space, albeit not in time....
- dalore 9y agoOne could argue that the form of democracy being spread by the US is in fact creating more instability and terrorism due to violent methods in which it is being spread.
- forapurpose 9y agoThe dictators like to associate democracy with disorder, but it's the opposite: We take for granted that the most stable, prosperous, and free countries in the history of the world are all democracies. Democracy has been an incredible success for humanity, beyond the wildest dreams of millennia (but still not good enough!). > violent methods in which it is being spread That is attempted sometimes (and usually with poor results), but democracy almost always spreads peacefully: India, Brazil, South Korea, most of Europe, South Africa (albeit still a one-party democracy), Mexico, etc. etc. It's the dictatorships that try to spread their form of government through violence. We can say that if there were no dictatorships - i.e., if all countries were democracies - there probably would be no wars. Even Trump and the GOP aren't threatening war with any democracies.
- AnimalMuppet 9y agoHistorically, that [Edit: at least sometimes] worked - see West Germany and Japan. The problem with places like Iraq was that we weren't willing to occupy in overwhelming force for a decade in order to create a stable democracy. We tried to do it "on the cheap", and it failed.
- mikeash 9y agoTaiwan was an oppressive dictatorship for decades under US protection. I don’t think the US should get all of the credit for that one.