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Comment by eradicatethots | Hacker News Reader

I feel threatened by China, because I don’t trust them. There’s not much more to it. I fear that they might abuse their power or use it to destabilize the West. There’s a lot of hatred of the Us, and I don’t want them to try and trample our norms, culture, society... things which I care about and am deeply connected to.

That’s not to say they actually would do any of those things, the key point is the lack of trust, specifically trust that they would do anything to benefit us or protect us or that they care about us at all. I don’t trust them, and the specifics of what they could do to hurt us are not really something I consider (but as they become more powerful they have many more options... to the point where one day maybe we are dwarfed by them and have no ability to defend ourselves should we need to.) China is very scary to me.

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Interesting...

Chinese people also feel threatened by the West, because they don't trust you. There's not much more to it. They fear that you might abuse your power or use it to destabilize China. There's a lot of hatred of China, and they don't want you to try and trample Chinese norms, culture, society... things which they care about and are deeply connected to.

That's not to say the West actually would do any of those things, the key point is the lack of trust, specifically trust that you would do anything to benefit Chinese people or protect Chinese or that you care about them at all. They don't trust you, and the specifics of what you could do to hurt them are not really something they consider (but as you, the West is already powerful, you have many more options... to the point where one day maybe be the Chinese are dwarfed again by the West, and have no ability to defend themselves should they have to.) The west is very scary to Chinese people.

See how this goes?

Yes I see how this goes, but I don’t see your point. I don’t agree with the conclusion that the existences of mutual distrust is proof that distrust is wrong, and I do t think you’ve provided any argument besides that.

I don’t see why my distrust of China implies to people that China is not allowed to distrust me, or that I’m somehow saying that They’re unique. This is a statement of fact. This is reality. I’m not being prescriptive here. I would personally like for China to be more friendly towards the us and vice versa but I’m not sitting here saying the us is perfect or free of sin. I don’t see why the us must be perfect before I can announce what is already reality, that I distrust China.

Perhaps you shouldn’t read my post as a diplomatic action, something that I just said as part of an argument to try and manipulate China or something, because that’s not what it is. It’s a statement of fact and some analysis on the cause. I’m not trying to criticize China or convince China to change, even if I would definitely like that to happen, and think it should.

You are justifying your fear of a rising power, as if you are threatened, and you have all your rights to fear. However, the truth is that the West is still arguably more powerful, where the Chinese people are the ones that have been living in this exact kind of fear that you stated for a very very long time. If your reasoning holds as a universal value for all human beings (but not just for you), then it is effectively justifying a historically less powered entity, China, now eventually becoming free from this threat, where the world becomes more equal and multi-tenant in power, and you should happily embrace it.

Maybe what you fear is not that you are threatened, but that your current way of threatening other people in the world is no more. What you fear is change.

And yes, you are stating the facts: one of the ugly parts of human nature.

Did you really need to call me ugly? Lol

I fear a loss of security. You’re overthinking it to say I’m attached to the fact that our security comes from threats. Security is what matters, not being threatening. I think your comment is a little bit rude to be honest, but that’s not a big deal.

Historically, China has not interfered in the affairs of distant nations. If you are judging by history, the West has interfered with China much more, thus far, than visa versa. I would go so far as to say that China has never yet tried to destabilize the West or impose it's values on the West. Can the West make the same claim about China?

As it is written, as you judge, so shall you be judged. If your standard is that countries should not abuse their power to destabilize other countries, then historically doesn't China actually hold the high ground?

China has never been able to interfere in 'distant' nations.

The Europeans were the first to truly develop navies capable of projecting force at such great distances, beginning in the Renaissance period, and everyone else has been playing catch-up.

By your logic, the Romans or Greeks or ancient Egyptians were a peace-loving peoples because they didn't bother China much either.

But if you look at what was possible, based on the technological capabilities at the time, China has never been as peaceful as they constantly claim. Just ask any of their neighbors, many of whom have explicitly created defense pacts with the US and the West because of historical fear of an aggressive China.

Note I'm not trying to say the West deserves any trust. But based on China's history and its current behavior as it does become more capable, combined with the constant Chinese PR about their 'peaceful rise', I'm not willing to give them the benefit of the doubt.

Actually Chinese had much more capable maritime technology than europe in the 1500's but their emperor said he did not approve of such silly business as voyages of discovery so they just stopped doing that. To China's rulers, trade and profit were facets of internal politics, and not an end in themselves.

"as the Confucian bureaucracy under the next emperor reversed the policy of open exploration and by 1500, it became a capital offence to build a seagoing junk with more than two masts."[0]

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_exploration

I am certainly aware of the 'Treasure Voyages' and China's abilities up through the Ming dynasty. China was indeed able to travel, trade, and exploit foreign nations at limited distance, but never on a scale as the Europeans from the 16th century onward.

This is also documented: https://www.amazon.com/Civilization-West-Rest-Niall-Ferguson....

You're just talking about different time periods.

But when talking about "ability" to influence distant nations, having a bigger and better ship than Columbus at the time kind of means they had the ability. [0]

They just didn't care about finding another route to India for spices or mining some distant silver mountain. They already had those.

[0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zheng_He

They "didn't care to" because the Ming dynasty rulers felt that China was culturally, technologically, and economically superior to all other nations, and thought cutting China off was the best way to preserve that. Obviously, that turned out to be a total failure of a policy as China was rapidly surpassed by the West over the next several centuries and is still catching up today

I'm not sure how that provides any guidance on how a CCP-led China would handle foreign policy in a completely different era though. This whole discussion seems sort of pointless to me.

>>> Ming dynasty rulers felt that China was culturally, technologically, and economically superior to all other nations

They most likely were at that time.

>>> Obviously, that turned out to be a total failure of a policy as China was rapidly surpassed by the West over the next several centuries and is still catching up today

You don't know that. Maybe expanding beyond your means for no good economic reason would have been a bad idea?

And the reason they're catching up today has little to do with that decision. The industrial revolution or the enlightenment didn't happen because Columbus discovered America.

>>> This whole discussion seems sort of pointless to me

Agreed.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treasure_voyages

> then historically doesn't China actually hold the high ground?

No, it doesn't. Just look around what they did to their neighbors. The weasel word "distant" doesn't change a thing: China has bullied other nations for a long time and there is little reason to believe that they won't do it again.

Distance is no weasel word. China historically interfering with Korea or Vietnam is natural as it's neighbors and problems of one side of the border leaks on the other side, and cultural and economical influences are strong. But France or US interfering with Vietnam or Korea make much less sense. The real deep difference in the long span is that Chinese never sailed en masse to the other side of the planet to "propose" (with a gun in the hand) a foreign religion and a different way of life to people which never asked for anything.

Would you think it was fair if China were to treat the West the same way the West treated China, if the balance of power was reversed?

Maybe you should read a few books about china? You fear things you don't understand. Your writing sound like you are describing Mordor. China, on the other hand, is a country ruled and populated by real people. With a bit different values, sure.

> I fear that they might abuse their power or use it to destabilize the West

Totally warranted, look at what happens during cold war, and the conflicts between nations with different ideologies. The mutual-untrustness cannot be reduced in any degree.

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