I've just started reading Silent Invasian: China's Influence in Australia, which made headlines around the world last year when its original publisher decided n

I've just started reading Silent Invasian: China's Influence in Australia, which made headlines around the world last year when its original publisher decided not to publish it out of fear of what the Chinese Communist Party and its proxies in Australia would react. That China has this sort of influence (see also all the airlines and hotels and other companies that bent over backwards to apologise for listing China and Taiwan as separate countries) overseas already is worrying. On another note, I don't like the moral equivalency that seems to be popular between China and the US. The "but America does bad things too" response. The reality of America is often ugly, but it was founded and has always preached ideals like democracy and liberty and human rights and the rule of law. America's great failings are generally when it doesn't live up to its own ideals. Meanwhile, the Chinese Communist Party holds none of those ideals, sees the rights of the individual as completely subservient to the needs of the state, and has no qualms with wide scale censorship, jailing human rights lawyers and activists, harvesting the organs of political prisoners, etc. In my opinion, one of the most unfortunate consequences of China's growing power is that it gives other authoritarian countries cover to abuse human rights. We seem to be seeing it in the Philippines with Duterte, and just last week a US citizen was arrested (and hasn't been released) in Vietnam after being involved in a protest.