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But is China really threating the US directly in anyway through military confrontation? Taiwan, China sea matters are localised to the close neighborhood of Chi

by publicola1990 5y ago

But is China really threating the US directly in anyway through military confrontation? Taiwan, China sea matters are localised to the close neighborhood of China. Does the US desire peaceful coexistence with China or not? Reading some of the hawkish, cold war style jingoism coming out of US media makes one wonder?

mannykannot 5y ago
Anyone who cares about democracy in their own part of the world should be paying attention to what happens in China. Unlike the 20th century fascist and communist dictatorships (including Chinese communism of that era), China today is neither self-destructive nor economically unsound.
NikolaeVarius 5y ago
China is a state that seems to be more or less incompatible with liberal democracies and has a lot of power. That is the main struggle
- TFYS 5y ago
  The US supports all kinds of non-democratic groups when it benefits them, though. Most likely the reason is just that they don't want to lose any power to China.
- nelsondev 5y ago
  How is China incompatible with liberal democracies? internally of course, the authoritarian politics are incompatible. But in international relations, they’ve traded been trading with liberal democracies for decades. So what’s the incompatibility?
  - eloisius 5y ago
    An increasing desire and capability to export their illiberal practices abroad. For example, using their weight to prevent the Dalai Lama from speaking at foreign universities. It’s naive to think that an even more powerful China wouldn’t continue to suppress free speech abroad as much as it does at home.
    - tremon 5y ago
      How is what China does to the Dalai Lama any worse than what the US does to Julian Assange? Isn't it equally naive to assume that an even more powerful USA wouldn't continue to summarily execute people abroad as much as it already does?
      - cyberlurker 5y ago
        I think you have a decent comparison, but debate about what the CIA did in the US is widely reported in the US while. There is no free press in China. Pressure to stop China will only come externally, whereas pressure to stop US can come from within and external. Also China is continuing to carry out a genocide that is unparalleled in this century.
        halo37253 5y ago
        Lets be real, America has allowed the use of capitalism to enslave entire generations of people and they are clueless to the fact about it. In fact many praise it and go deeper into debt so they can rock the newest iPhone 13, only 36 months of payments spread out. I can handle that! In the US a Genocide has been underway for decades. The cost of healthcare will break people. A trip to the doctor can easily wipe out life savings, what little there is for most people. Considering more than half the US population lives paycheck to paycheck to nearly paycheck to paycheck lifestyles, its easy to see how Most Americans are nothing more than slaves that go to work and back home in a endless cycle. That is not freedom. And sure they can quit, and live out in the streets if they wanted. Its a shit life. Americans are so caught up in thinking the government is the bad guy here. No the real bad guy is the companies like Apple, Amazon, Facebook, Exxon, Verizon, ATT, Capital one, Chase, any CC company, plus the many Pharma companies. The list can go on and on. With no protection for allowing people to get into 10-20k+ worth of CC debt at 22-28% APR, People will always be slaves. Honestly its easy to see the USA as a Cancer. I dont blame China for wanting to break away from the ideals of the western world. Now they have made a lot of bad choices. But at the same time the USA is largely responsible for keeping the middle east a 3rd world society. Americans enjoy living in a bubble, They love to think they are free. They are not free! I'm an American, and I'm just as much of a slave to the system as the rest of you. The system is so rigged that any true free speech is easily spun around. Just look at all the crazy trump supporters, Slaves not only to unchecked capitalism but to also propaganda labeled as factful free speech.
  - analognoise 5y ago
    Communists don't have a great reputation for peace.
    - 4ggr0 5y ago
      I wonder why the bad things the US does internationally never get blamed on capitalism, yet when people write or vent about China it's always about these darn Communists. Are these after-effects of the red scare? China is an authoritarian dictatorship with their own flavour of communism I guess. Blaming everything they do on commmunism as a whole is very uninformed.
      - todd3834 5y ago
        I believe this has to do with any system where the government has too much control. Communism appears to me like a system that promotes the government’s freedoms over an individual.
      - analognoise 5y ago
        Have there ever been peaceful communists who ran a country? Add that to the tankies I've met personally and their beliefs, and yeah, communism sucks.
        supportlocal4h 5y ago
        How many times has Cuba invaded the U.S.?
        analognoise 5y ago
        Being too busy repressing their own people to invade anyone is hardly an achievement indicative of peace.
        4ggr0 5y ago
        Have there ever been peaceful capitalists who ran a country? Don't get me wrong, I can't really stand uber-authoritarian Communism. But I don't see how communist/marxist theory is bad as a whole. Would certainly help erase a lot of issues we have on our earth. Unfortunately, people at the top always start to misuse their power to stay there. But that's also the case in capitalist America, so then again, why is communism such a problem for many americans?
- bildung 5y ago
  This probably explains the well-known confrontational postion of the US vis-à-vis Saudia Arabia and Bahrain and so on.
letitbeirie 5y ago
> Taiwan, China sea matters are localised to the close neighborhood of China We don't have a defense treaty with Taiwan so it's not like we'd have to intervene to the degree we would if Egypt decided they wanted to have a go at Israel or something, but we've had a standing agreement since the 1970s to arm them as the situation dictates, so we're not entirely detached from it.
- hungryforcodes 5y ago
  No but any credible claim that the US has to defending interests in SEA / East Asia would evaporate once that happened. China understands this. If Taiwan goes, then that's it for the US's Asia strategy.
monetus 5y ago
(Not who you responded to) Jingoism is definitely present and infuriatingly becoming more financially viable for media companies pitching towards those parts of the populous, but it is important to recognize that that is the minority. Anecdotally, most people in my area, a college town in a republican state, are apathetic by means of being unaffected and uninformed. Even the chinese and korean people I've spoken with pretty frequently don't seem to particularly care or be informed. It is kind of weird, because it freaks me out and I follow it very closely; worrying about ww3. Opposition to Xi Jinping in the executive branch is widespread, that is also definitely true. I think our hawks and their wolf warriors have created a feedback loop.
lugu 5y ago
> Reading some of the hawkish, cold war style jingoism coming out of US media makes one wonder? Yes, and the same can be said from Chinese state media...
croon 5y ago
The "close neighborhood of China" would significantly grow and envelope unwilling countries if unscrutinized.
HWR_14 5y ago
> Taiwan, China sea matters are localised to the close neighborhood of China. Or the close neighborhood of the Philippines, a major US ally with a mutual defense pact. Or Taiwan, a major US ally and trading partner. Or Vietnam, a growing trading partner. There are ongoing disputes between and among those groups. A huge amount of shipping goes through the South China Sea, including most oil for S. Korea, Japan and the US West Coast. Meanwhile, goods bound for Europe and the Suez from those places also go through there. Something like 10% of the worlds shipping. Letting China just call "dibs" on international waters and set up a chokehold would be weird to allow. I don't think anyone is urging war with China. But stopping their advance in it's tracks. Meanwhile, China has been aggressively expanding its influence worldwide, in South America, Africa and Afghanistan.
- supportlocal4h 5y ago
  > Meanwhile, China has been aggressively expanding its influence worldwide, in South America, Africa and Afghanistan. In contrast to the U.S.? When other countries did this in the past and present, it was ok, but not for China? The U.S. can invade and occupy countries on the other side of the world, but it's aggressive for China to occupy an unoccupied island off its own coast? I'm not thrilled with China's behavior, but the U.S. needs to stand down until they can act from the high moral ground. They have a lot of work to do to rebuild a working compass. Until then, nobody can trust their navigation.
  - HWR_14 5y ago
    > The U.S. can invade and occupy countries on the other side of the world, but it's aggressive for China to occupy an unoccupied island off its own coast? Invading countries with a diplomatic alliance like NATO behind you is as close to "okay" as you can get. A small country got beat up, but there was no risk of WWIII. And there was an attempt to install a democracy in place of a dictatorship and get out. China claiming the territory owned by their neighbors is about slowly stealing land (and sea) and making them part of China. It's completely different. But really, the US's moral high ground is a distraction. This thread is about whether China is taking actions that could be a threat to the United States.

mannykannot 5y ago

Anyone who cares about democracy in their own part of the world should be paying attention to what happens in China. Unlike the 20th century fascist and communist dictatorships (including Chinese communism of that era), China today is neither self-destructive nor economically unsound.

NikolaeVarius 5y ago

China is a state that seems to be more or less incompatible with liberal democracies and has a lot of power. That is the main struggle

TFYS 5y ago
The US supports all kinds of non-democratic groups when it benefits them, though. Most likely the reason is just that they don't want to lose any power to China.
nelsondev 5y ago
How is China incompatible with liberal democracies? internally of course, the authoritarian politics are incompatible. But in international relations, they’ve traded been trading with liberal democracies for decades. So what’s the incompatibility?
- eloisius 5y ago
  An increasing desire and capability to export their illiberal practices abroad. For example, using their weight to prevent the Dalai Lama from speaking at foreign universities. It’s naive to think that an even more powerful China wouldn’t continue to suppress free speech abroad as much as it does at home.
  - tremon 5y ago
    How is what China does to the Dalai Lama any worse than what the US does to Julian Assange? Isn't it equally naive to assume that an even more powerful USA wouldn't continue to summarily execute people abroad as much as it already does?
    - cyberlurker 5y ago
      I think you have a decent comparison, but debate about what the CIA did in the US is widely reported in the US while. There is no free press in China. Pressure to stop China will only come externally, whereas pressure to stop US can come from within and external. Also China is continuing to carry out a genocide that is unparalleled in this century.
      - halo37253 5y ago
        Lets be real, America has allowed the use of capitalism to enslave entire generations of people and they are clueless to the fact about it. In fact many praise it and go deeper into debt so they can rock the newest iPhone 13, only 36 months of payments spread out. I can handle that! In the US a Genocide has been underway for decades. The cost of healthcare will break people. A trip to the doctor can easily wipe out life savings, what little there is for most people. Considering more than half the US population lives paycheck to paycheck to nearly paycheck to paycheck lifestyles, its easy to see how Most Americans are nothing more than slaves that go to work and back home in a endless cycle. That is not freedom. And sure they can quit, and live out in the streets if they wanted. Its a shit life. Americans are so caught up in thinking the government is the bad guy here. No the real bad guy is the companies like Apple, Amazon, Facebook, Exxon, Verizon, ATT, Capital one, Chase, any CC company, plus the many Pharma companies. The list can go on and on. With no protection for allowing people to get into 10-20k+ worth of CC debt at 22-28% APR, People will always be slaves. Honestly its easy to see the USA as a Cancer. I dont blame China for wanting to break away from the ideals of the western world. Now they have made a lot of bad choices. But at the same time the USA is largely responsible for keeping the middle east a 3rd world society. Americans enjoy living in a bubble, They love to think they are free. They are not free! I'm an American, and I'm just as much of a slave to the system as the rest of you. The system is so rigged that any true free speech is easily spun around. Just look at all the crazy trump supporters, Slaves not only to unchecked capitalism but to also propaganda labeled as factful free speech.
- analognoise 5y ago
  Communists don't have a great reputation for peace.
  - 4ggr0 5y ago
    I wonder why the bad things the US does internationally never get blamed on capitalism, yet when people write or vent about China it's always about these darn Communists. Are these after-effects of the red scare? China is an authoritarian dictatorship with their own flavour of communism I guess. Blaming everything they do on commmunism as a whole is very uninformed.
    - todd3834 5y ago
      I believe this has to do with any system where the government has too much control. Communism appears to me like a system that promotes the government’s freedoms over an individual.
    - analognoise 5y ago
      Have there ever been peaceful communists who ran a country? Add that to the tankies I've met personally and their beliefs, and yeah, communism sucks.
      - supportlocal4h 5y ago
        How many times has Cuba invaded the U.S.?
        analognoise 5y ago
        Being too busy repressing their own people to invade anyone is hardly an achievement indicative of peace.
      - 4ggr0 5y ago
        Have there ever been peaceful capitalists who ran a country? Don't get me wrong, I can't really stand uber-authoritarian Communism. But I don't see how communist/marxist theory is bad as a whole. Would certainly help erase a lot of issues we have on our earth. Unfortunately, people at the top always start to misuse their power to stay there. But that's also the case in capitalist America, so then again, why is communism such a problem for many americans?
bildung 5y ago
This probably explains the well-known confrontational postion of the US vis-à-vis Saudia Arabia and Bahrain and so on.

letitbeirie 5y ago

> Taiwan, China sea matters are localised to the close neighborhood of China We don't have a defense treaty with Taiwan so it's not like we'd have to intervene to the degree we would if Egypt decided they wanted to have a go at Israel or something, but we've had a standing agreement since the 1970s to arm them as the situation dictates, so we're not entirely detached from it.

hungryforcodes 5y ago
No but any credible claim that the US has to defending interests in SEA / East Asia would evaporate once that happened. China understands this. If Taiwan goes, then that's it for the US's Asia strategy.

monetus 5y ago

(Not who you responded to) Jingoism is definitely present and infuriatingly becoming more financially viable for media companies pitching towards those parts of the populous, but it is important to recognize that that is the minority. Anecdotally, most people in my area, a college town in a republican state, are apathetic by means of being unaffected and uninformed. Even the chinese and korean people I've spoken with pretty frequently don't seem to particularly care or be informed. It is kind of weird, because it freaks me out and I follow it very closely; worrying about ww3. Opposition to Xi Jinping in the executive branch is widespread, that is also definitely true. I think our hawks and their wolf warriors have created a feedback loop.

lugu 5y ago

> Reading some of the hawkish, cold war style jingoism coming out of US media makes one wonder? Yes, and the same can be said from Chinese state media...

croon 5y ago

The "close neighborhood of China" would significantly grow and envelope unwilling countries if unscrutinized.

HWR_14 5y ago

> Taiwan, China sea matters are localised to the close neighborhood of China. Or the close neighborhood of the Philippines, a major US ally with a mutual defense pact. Or Taiwan, a major US ally and trading partner. Or Vietnam, a growing trading partner. There are ongoing disputes between and among those groups. A huge amount of shipping goes through the South China Sea, including most oil for S. Korea, Japan and the US West Coast. Meanwhile, goods bound for Europe and the Suez from those places also go through there. Something like 10% of the worlds shipping. Letting China just call "dibs" on international waters and set up a chokehold would be weird to allow. I don't think anyone is urging war with China. But stopping their advance in it's tracks. Meanwhile, China has been aggressively expanding its influence worldwide, in South America, Africa and Afghanistan.

supportlocal4h 5y ago
> Meanwhile, China has been aggressively expanding its influence worldwide, in South America, Africa and Afghanistan. In contrast to the U.S.? When other countries did this in the past and present, it was ok, but not for China? The U.S. can invade and occupy countries on the other side of the world, but it's aggressive for China to occupy an unoccupied island off its own coast? I'm not thrilled with China's behavior, but the U.S. needs to stand down until they can act from the high moral ground. They have a lot of work to do to rebuild a working compass. Until then, nobody can trust their navigation.
- HWR_14 5y ago
  > The U.S. can invade and occupy countries on the other side of the world, but it's aggressive for China to occupy an unoccupied island off its own coast? Invading countries with a diplomatic alliance like NATO behind you is as close to "okay" as you can get. A small country got beat up, but there was no risk of WWIII. And there was an attempt to install a democracy in place of a dictatorship and get out. China claiming the territory owned by their neighbors is about slowly stealing land (and sea) and making them part of China. It's completely different. But really, the US's moral high ground is a distraction. This thread is about whether China is taking actions that could be a threat to the United States.