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It's about time that the US start standing up to China's unrestricted warfare [1]. It's amazing that most Americans don't realize that China views the US as an

• KorematsuFred 7y ago
  Americans have tried to impose their values on rest of the world in last 60 years I am not sure why China doing the same is bad at all. At least china has not ruined a dozen countries.
  • djohnston 7y ago
    Give them time, they're only now reaching proper scale.
  • deogeo 7y ago
    It's bad for the US - that they have sinned does not mean they should be any less worried about someone else having power over them.
  • appleshore 7y ago
    This perspective is the definition of relativism. You think an authoritarian regime who views human rights as “Western rights” is equal to the US? If you’re arguing liberalism has failed, that’s one thing. But let’s not argue that all things are the same.
  • Benjammer 7y ago
    So we should wait until they rape and plunder a dozen African nations before we do anything?
  • rolltiide 7y ago
    I wouldn't say I welcome the rise of Chinese hegemony, but I do welcome the rise of a more collaborative world, and that requires middle ground where there hasn't been with US hegemony due to lack of competition: I know that I can't expect to do business in the US or Europe if I opine on Jewish sovereignty issues I know that I can't expect to do business in China if I opine on Chinese sovereignty issues The result isn't that different just because the former is [mostly] private sector ostracizing and the latter is direct sanctioning from the government. It's cognitively negligent for that specific nuance of private sector deplatforming vs public sector sanctioning to be the line in the sand for people's ideology when the result is the same for doing business in a specific region. Although Chinese rule of law is totally arbitrary, they've been very consistent that discussion of Chinese sovereignty is not covered and this has nothing to do with any ideology or desire that causes you to say anything about it. I don't expect this to garner consensus, but the parallels are quite clear. Everyone here already censors themselves to fit with American values on things that greatly disturb them.
    • Canada 7y ago
      Yeah, there are consequences for challanging establishment views on certain topics, but nobody is throwing critics such as Noam Chompsky in jail, taking passports away from his family and restricting their movements, or doing the same to those who openly share his views. And such abuses of power, which have happened without a doubt, are in time recognised and documented as the wrong and shameful excesses they are.
      • rolltiide 7y ago
        > And such abuses of power, which have happened without a doubt, are in time recognized and documented as the wrong and shameful excesses they are. I'd like to agree, but this only happens if you are able to dissolve the administration you disagree with.
        • swagasaurus-rex 7y ago
          Or freedom of speech is upheld, which is not a view held by totalitarian regimes.
  • Canada 7y ago
    Yeah, some very bad things have happened. Not excusing that. But also things have worked out really really well for a lot of countries the US has imposed its will on. Countries it went to war with and could have utterly raped and plundered without resistance or really any objection. You think China is going to do better? Will it be more fair? The regime in China is willing to hurt anyone who even debates its track record. Will China even allow its failures and excesses to be documented on Wikipedia? Or will it just censor it all, and disappear anyone who complains?
    • yourbandsucks 7y ago
      China's record for the last 40 years is lifting billions of people out of poverty while we stomped around bombing places and killing millions in the name of exporting our awesome values. Oh, and our infra is falling apart compared to theirs while we spend all our money on bombs. Let's make a compromise -- China can run their country and we can run ours. Is that so controversial?
      • deleted 7y ago
        [deleted]
      • Benjammer 7y ago
        >China can run their country and we can run ours Considering their traditional political philosophy doesn't even really acknowledge the concept of nation-states and international borders, no. Because "run their country" means "rule the world however we fucking want."
        • yourbandsucks 7y ago
          Can we check the record? Post-WW2? Countries the US has invaded THAT BORDER CHINA: 2 Countries China has invaded, period: < 2 We have them 80% surrounded at sea between Korea, Japan, Taiwan and the Phillipines. People are really upset that they still control former-imperial-possession HK and have a remaining outlet. And they're the imperialists?
  • president 7y ago
    Nobody is arguing whether nations should or should not be trying to impose their values on other nations. The issue is, do you really want to stand on the sidelines while a rising nation with no qualms about murdering its own people is touting values counter to freedom and fairness?
• dirtyid 7y ago
  Yes, US should take China more seriously, but don't conflate US geopolitical interests with the West. China seeking security via regional hegemony is not an attack on Western values. Undermining US supremacy is not an attack on "the west" - western bloc countries have various interests that doesn't align with American interests, i.e. ME wars, Nordstrom 2, The fact that 3/5 FiveEyes countries haven't banned Huawei. But chief among them is exporting "western values", which has been globally destabilizing including the migrant crisis in Europe. Document 9 is an paper for domestic policy about curtailing "western" influence within China, prescient after the shitshow happening in HK. China doesn't waste effort spreading the Chinese system outside it's claims, because technocrats knows it doesn't work without scale of 1billion people and they see how counterproductive this strategy is in terms of cost and domestic sentiment. The takeaway of Unrestricted Warfare isn't that China views US as an adversary in a totalwar scenario, but a competitor that has to be challenged using existing world systems. China doesn't seek to dismantle global systems, which it has benefited from, but modify it in manner commiserate with her influence. As the worlds largest exporter and driver of global growth, that's a completely reasonable expectation. There's a reason China preaches cooperation while US is withdrawing from the world stage. Geopolitically, US is the only developed country in the world that can afford to isolate itself. The economic and demographic future of western countries are not good. Demographically neither is China, and cooperation is the only way forward. Western countries aligned with US postwar because Bretton Woods system + US security guarantee was a formula for economic prosperity. That era appears to be ending and the ensuing misery will make for strange bedfellows. Again, if you're an American, you should take China more seriously out of self interest. But you should also vote for candidates that takes allies and the world more seriously as well. US foreign, not domestic policy is what can curtail China's rise.
  • coenhyde 7y ago
    It's disappointing that you were downvoted so much without a response. Really i think you just hurt the egos of Americans. I believe a stronger Europe and stronger western bloc is key to curbing China. The USA is close to peak economic and military might, but we only have 310 million people. China has 1.4 billion. Extrapolating current trends, it is inevitable that China becomes the world super power. Most likely bankrupting the USA in the process. Similar patterns to USA overtaking the UK, or USSR. To make a stronger Europe, Europe should federalize its military. Then to make a stronger western bloc, there should be tighter economic integration between Europe and US. This would involve freer movement of people and some kind North Atlantic economic zone. Then the western bloc has close to a billion people powering its might. That is a good counter weight to China. But if everyone deals with China individually, we all loose.
• oitudgiyters 7y ago
  What I don’t understand is how we got into this situation in the first place. We know how powerful the US intelligence agencies are. The fact that the CIA has been able to install leaders in previously hostile governments shows their competence. Aside from Iran, most of their operations were successful. Even in their missteps, they were able to limit its influence in the region. So how did it come to this? Why does it feel like the CIA dropped the ball on China?
  • hql2222 7y ago
    > Why does it feel like the CIA dropped the ball on China? Because the CIA, literally, dropped the ball on China. https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/20/world/asia/china-cia-spies-espionage.html https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/20/world/asia/china-cia-spie...
    • xvector 7y ago
      How do you fall from being able to change the course of world history with shadow governments, to failing to even install operatives in the country? > Last year, an F.B.I. employee pleaded guilty to acting as a Chinese agent for years, passing sensitive technology information to Beijing in exchange for cash, lavish hotel rooms during foreign travel and prostitutes. That's how.
  • greenleafjacob 7y ago
    https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loss_of_China https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loss_of_China
  • account73466 7y ago
    >> We know how powerful the US intelligence agencies are Yeah, it controls pretty much every communication device. >> Even in their missteps, they were able to limit its influence in the region. Compared to whom? No other country is any close in terms of controlling the world.
  • Causality1 7y ago
    Simply put, defense isn't sexy. It's always easy to find people who want to discover a way to, for example, make foreign centrifuges blow themselves up. It's less easy to find people who want to spend eight hours a day preventing, say, ignorant government employees from clicking every link that shows up in their e-mail. Infiltrating a foreign telecom provider to use its smartphone OS update mechanism to hijack the phone of its head of state's wife and record secret conversations is sexy. Monitoring the behavior of apps installed on your own personnel's phones for potential hostile behavior is not sexy. Building a 1.5 trillion dollar fighter jet is sexy. Stopping China from repeatedly stealing all the project files is not.
• 50656E6973 7y ago
  >Why there are people who welcome the rise of Chinese/CCP hegemony when they are actively looking to crush [2] "Western values" is beyond me. Perhaps it's because Big Tech is full of people who favor Chinese ideals over Western Enlightenment/American ideals, such as: -Group identity over individuality -Mass tracking/surveillance over privacy -Cenorship over free speech -State control/power over self defense
  • rhizome 7y ago
    Those aren't non-Western ideals, lots of people in all countries strive to achieve power either via the imposition or in order to impose those qualities on their particular citizenry. tl;dr: your category error invalidates your entire point.
    • 50656E6973 7y ago
      Using large geographic/national boundaries to generalize ideological categories is of course inherently erroneous to a degree; it's like the Zen Buddhist teaching of "a finger pointing at the moon". You seem to be getting hung up on the finger.
  • knzhou 7y ago
    I have always wondered what people mean by "Chinese ideals". As a Chinese person myself, all 4 of your options are things that I oppose. I find myself consistently on the side of individuality, privacy, free speech, and self defense, when arguing against Americans that disagree. In fact I'm doing that right now in another thread in the process of defending yet another undefendable scoundrel, Facebook. Do you actually have something concrete in mind here, or have you instead considered that this is merely an example of calling the enemy tribe every bad name you can think of?
    • 50656E6973 7y ago
      >Do you actually have something concrete in mind here Ideals codified in law. For example, the 1rst and 2nd Amendments. When generalizing with national boundaries, I of course do not mean to imply that literally everyone born within those imaginary lines thinks the same. Are there more specific categories I could use for these ideological classifications?
• poof131 7y ago
  People were hoping that closer ties would open up China to democracy, that capitalism and democracy would go hand in hand. But it hasn’t happened and in fact, is going in reverse. The trend has been obvious for a long time. I remember reading books about the threat in the 90s.[1] In the military, China was the major adversary we trained against in the 2000s, not Russia. But the business opportunities helped mask the growing divide. It’s easy to hope for the best when profit is at stake and the outcome of cooperation (peace and trade) is so much better than the alternatives. But now people are being forced to choose between profits and values, the NBA is just one example.[2] It will take time but the tide has turned and many people will not be looked upon favorably by history, similarly to the Nazi sympathizers prior to WW2.[3] And it’s important to differentiate China and the Chinese people from the CCP. Both the CCP and their apologists in America would like to conflate the two. But Americans and the Chinese have fought together before and can hopefully (and peacefully) overcome the tyranny that currently afflicts the country.[4] [1] https://www.amazon.com/Year-Rat-Clinton-Compromised-Security/dp/0895263335 https://www.amazon.com/Year-Rat-Clinton-Compromised-Security... [2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-14-aUXlEac https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-14-aUXlEac [3] https://time.com/5414055/american-nazi-sympathy-book/ https://time.com/5414055/american-nazi-sympathy-book/ [4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flying_Tigers https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flying_Tigers
• DeonPenny 7y ago
  It's pretty obvious. It's like appeasement all over again. It's Cognitive dissonance simply to feel like you don't have to face a problem you've created
• themagician 7y ago
  War was lost a decade ago. The United States is completely dependent on China. Big companies need China because it’s the only place left they can get double digit growth and small companies need China because it’s the only place they can get things made—either in part or in whole—and be competitive. Capitalism ate itself. All China had to do was play the game.
• dang 7y ago
  Please don't use HN for nationalistic flamewar. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html