As with so many of your questions OP, there is an inherent, damaging bias that distorts the subsequent answers.I feel like people on the right are building themselves up for a war with China. Is anyone else sensing this?
I think with the cultural and political differences between the US and China, the only question is what kind of form this war will take. What do you guys think?
As with so many of your questions OP, there is an inherent, damaging bias that distorts the subsequent answers.
Bottom line, your country spends half the global total on nice, shiny weapons of mass destruction. Your military's firepower and reach is overwhelming. China's military looks scary on paper in shear numbers but they are no match. China's navy is hemmed in by a ring of US strategic bases and allies. It's nuclear weapons are massively outnumbered by US capabilities.
If anything, the Chinese are scared of you.
The obvious trip wire is, as someone suggested, Taiwan. But this presupposes that invading Taiwan is a) a risk-free push-over and b) that the US wouldn't intervene.
China’s Military Actions Against Taiwan in 2021: What to Expect
What you lot are missing is that, very quietly, China has been building alternate governmental and economic models for the more authoritarian regimes on earth. Previously, the democratic, free-market model was the only one available.
Now the Chinese have demonstrated that you can have control of your people and be wealthy. This is becoming more attractive as the old western democracies struggle with a co-ordinated response to Covid. Shame Trump left TTP.
Why bother being lectured by the US on human rights and reform when the Chinese will sell you what you want, no questions asked?
China doesn't have to fight you.
You'll have to start a war. You've not done that on a global stage before, and of course, what are you going to win?
I agree. China doesn't have to fight us, but I feel like there are forces behind the scenes pushing for it now. Or perhaps the national culture is moving towards that.
I presume that you are talking about your USA culture, Wally.
Try phrasing questions more neutrally?You guys are obsessed with calling me biased.
Anyway, you're not wrong about anything you wrote. But from what I've noticed from people on the right is that they seem to be pushing a narrative about China that would inevitably lead to war. When you consider that with the real threat China has to US or Western preeminence, it seems to me like war is very likely.
I feel like people on the right are building themselves up for a war with China. Is anyone else sensing this?
I think with the cultural and political differences between the US and China, the only question is what kind of form this war will take. What do you guys think?
the Chinese will exploit different routes of confrontation and new types of asymmetrical warfare (cyber/business) to prosecute their ends.
Nah.We do we always assume other countries view the world in terms of win/loss? Is it not possible that China wants improve the prosperity of its people? And perhaps out of national pride, wants to be rightfully recognized as a world power?
Are we not confrontational to China? And we don't have types of asymmetrical warfare?
China has one huge economic advantage they we don't have, or better yet, only now coming to discuss...
Nah.
That's not the way the world works I'm afraid. It is eat or be eaten. Yes there is economic co-dependency between the US/China, as with many states, but China does not play by the international rulebook for a start and seeks to undercut US tech advantages and industrial secrets whenever it can.
And sure, it's great that China can create wealth - but never underestimate the view that the individual does not matter, only stability and harmony engendered by the regime matter.
I agree on the notion of pride, but that is also partly stoked by the Communist Party for reasons of cohesion.
I think the view that China is anything other than a malign actor is careless.The notion that the world is a zero-sum game is not really supported by facts, unless your position is #1 or nothing. I use Germany as one example; of course, there are many others.
Casting China as the world's chief villain is convenient but I am not so certain that while the USA may not play by the "international rulebook" as national policy, at the corporate level it exists. The USA has the largest and most capable intelligence agencies in the world, and that trickles down innumerable ways.
I agree that China uses many approaches for "cohesion".
If maintaining being the world's preeminent economic and military power, our current course will hasten its decline.
Seems to me, 40% of this country want to be poorer and whiter than stronger and multi-cultural.
I think the view that China is anything other than a malign actor is careless.
I did not say this. What I am saying is that China is not the sole villain (for want of a better term), but the USA is a not a white knight. Nor am I saying that USA transgressions are at the same level to China's but there are strong parallels:
"See the servile relationship that all Chinese banking, business and industry has to the Chinese state". The USA is servile to banking, business and industry'
"Watch the repression of minorities and deviant thought". What about BLM and the repression of African Americans in this country. Native Americans, Muslim Americans and the LGBTQ community.
The EU, if viewed one nation, provides its citizens with an economic and lifestyle standard of living unmatched, for most Americans and Chinese. International confrontation need not be the path to economic strength.