Because I don't think it's an accident that the BRISC New Development Bank is located in China, it's also no accident that Putin has been very vocal about removing the US$ as the world reserve currency and establishing a "bipolar world order" to replace current de-facto US hegemony.
When your large neighbor in that area, increases military spending every year why do think that is? To fight Belgium? They are ETERNAL neighbors and have eternal (well in our timescale) interests. See what Russia did in Ukraine? The same could happen to Mongolia, happened to Tibet and is happening in the South Sea where China is essentially planting their flag.
Trade with them, but ...
I wonder how often Canada or Mexico asked themselves that very same question?
> They are ETERNAL neighbors and have eternal (well in our timescale) interests.
These can still end up aligning, case in point: Not too long ago nobody would have thought it possible for the British and their former colonial settlers to exist in peace. These days they don't only just exist in peace, they are pretty much partners in crime.
The same applies to Europe: Nations that formerly despised each other for decades and centuries are now working for their common interests. I don't see why similar couldn't be possible in Asia/Eastern Europe/Africa.
> See what Russia did in Ukraine?
Protect their interests from an, very obviously, staged "Western coup"? I really hate how that whole Ukraine situation is reduced to this narrative of "Look what Russia did to Ukraine!" like that whole situation just started with the "green men" appearing. The green men had been a reaction, not the action which started events.
Unless that sovereign country happens to be Iraq and you skip that whole "annexation" part in favor of just leveling the whole place. Why is the US allowed to "protect their interests" on the other side of the world, but if Russia does the same, in a place that's literally their backyard, it's suddenly a crime?
Eastern Ukraine was of immense military relevance to Russia, it's where parts of their rockets used to be built, parts of their military hardware [0]. Crimea has been the home to the Black Sea Fleet for centuries, it's the most important port for the Russian marine.
Those are all facts people rather ignore in favor of this naive "Russia just goes around annexing countries for no reason whatsoever" narrative.
> Also “obviously staged western coup” IS NOT obvious.
I guess "Fuck the EU Nuland" handing out cookies was just some emotional gesture with no relevance, same with all those other US/EU officials showing up on Euromaidan and pumping up the crowd. Just like pumping billions of $ in the country and sponsoring "Yats our man" trough NATO/NED and even the DoT [1], feel free to look up the other organizations on that list, there's a certain "theme" to them.
It's also not like this has never happened before, it actually has [2] but this time the result did stick, that's why Russia was pressured into acting.
[0] https://www.rferl.org/a/russia-ukraine-military-equipment/25...
[1] http://openukraine.org/en/about/partners
[2] https://www.theguardian.com/world/2004/nov/26/ukraine.usa
I understand benefits for Russia to annex Crimea and so on, but still it's a crime and legitimacy of this action is not questionable.
I don't consider it "whataboutism" to point out double standards. If it's legit for the US to meddle in other sovereign countries, to protect their "national interests" on the other end of the world, then the same behavior should be legit for everybody else because I do not subscribe to the concept of "American exceptionalism".
> I understand benefits for Russia to annex Crimea and so on, but still it's a crime and legitimacy of this action is not questionable.
I guess then it's a good thing nothing was annexed but people rather voted for independence, just like the people of Ukraine voted in "free and open elections" and everything went according to the Ukrainian constitution. A narrative can be such a handy device, good thing it ain't reserved for exceptionalists, just like using unmarked PMC's for tasks where official soldiers would lead to international legal troubles with the ICC, which the US doesn't even acknowledge (so much about international "crimes" and "legitimacy of actions").
Let's leave it at that, it's obvious we won't be agreeing on much and at this point, the discussion has become rather OT, have a nice evening.
Clam down, there're many ways for China to expand it's influence other than war. Plus, India and China both have nuclear weapons, meaning death trigger for everyone on earth, you don't want to touch that.
Tibet on the other hand is a very long, complex and different story (and South China Sea is whole another different one), I don't think they belongs to the same topic.
I can pretty much tell you that, in China, nobody think of India or Vietnam etc as enemy. Instead, they're the MARKET we can sell our product to. Which, guess what, that's what everybody do now, rather than thinking about war all days.
So, why not trading and be good at it?
Yet they--and USA, Russia, France, UK etc--also have millions of soldiers and spend gazillions a year on conventional military stuff. Usually try to outdo each other.
>>Tibet on the other hand is a very long, complex and different story
Complex it is, but it's now 100% part of China, regardless of whatever.
>>in China, nobody think of India or Vietnam etc as enemy
Yet, they all have militaries and somewhere on the shelves they plans to attack /defend from each other. They are friends until they aren't. https://www.nytimes.com/2014/07/13/opinion/sunday/vietnams-o... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/China%E2%80%93India_relations#...
If your neighbor had gun, you properly want it too. Specially when he don't like your dog and you don't like hes garden. But it's not meaning you two will actually going to kill each other, the gun here is just a counter weight.
The current relation model between nations made nobody fully trust each others. So nobody wants to drop their military, unless everybody do it at same time (Which is impossible).
It's sad that we still had to maintain that amount of military power and feed them with tax payer's money. If we use those money else where, we properly typing on mars now.
But it's the world we live in now, there is no other choose but get use to it.
One day in the future, we may reach a higher level of globe society that could maintain itself without any military force. And, that's why everybody should keep pushing the society go forward.
But until we reached that point, everybody will continue upgrading their military, and rely on it to ensure their own safety.