I don't hate the US, so that's a weird accusation... > > to project power lawfully in the Asia Pacific. > This is pro-China bullshit right here. Lawfully by w

I don't hate the US, so that's a weird accusation... > > to project power lawfully in the Asia Pacific. > This is pro-China bullshit right here. Lawfully by whose standards? International standards. There is nothing wrong with sending your naval forces into international waters so long as proper notifications are made. China is doing this. Is is lawful. It is aggressive. The Japanese and Philippines don't like it. But it is lawful. > There's a big difference in intercepting packages and installing backdoors in a targeted and legal way, at least acording to SCOTUS who have ZERO problems with our status quo - and massive cyberwar attacks from China and cooked in state mandated malware. Yes there is. Actually, both the US and China (and France and Israel and Germany and the UK and Russia, etc, etc) perform massive cyberwar attacks. They all also backdoor their hardware and software en masse (not just targeted interception). > the US's method are a million times more ethical than autocratic states in regards to SIGINT. Heck, Putin had Kaspersky give him information on journalists he didn't like. I don't think you want an apple to apple comparison with the US... The US just turned their intelligence agencies on the Associated Press to ruin their relationships with informants and to track their sources... The US does have more covert ways of doing things - their censorship and propaganda efforts are more covert and rely more on bribery and deception than force. But is that something we want to cheer on? The US is much better than Russia on journalistic rights. The US isn't fighting huge swaths of KGB installed media in the US, whereas Russia has to deal with Western NGOs and CIA intermediaries. So what? And why do you want to bring it up? > We power their economy via our manufacturing and via the sales of our products. If anything they are close economic partners. Are we moving all of our manufacturing to Mexico or something? Seems to me the US is very much tied to the success of China. We are tied to the success of China. But not its success of becoming a superpower. This is the distinction you are asking for. > > and to increase the risk of its using its military > This is asinine. China is unilaterally taking over disputed islands with zero attempts to use diplomacy, the UN, etc. The Japanese and others have claims on those islands. Why are you dismissing their rights? Because they are "evil US" partners as well? Erg, well the situation is a whole lot more complicated than you made it? Technically nothing they are doing is illegal. I'm not going to say its right? All I'm getting at is that no state is right. The US isn't a hero. Neither is China. They are merely in conflict. We are stuck in the middle. I didn't buy good versus evil. You did. For you the US is good and China is evil. You are accusing HN (and me) of thinking China is good and the US is evil. Neither is true. There is no good or evil. There are states in conflict. And there are ideals they both break. The point of my post is to bring up the point that it is not China breaking with ideals. It is every nation breaking with ideals.