Comment by RobertRoberts | Hacker News Reader

Comment by RobertRoberts | Hacker News Reader

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A similar thing happened to rubber during WWII when natural rubber resources were compromised. (If anyone is in doubt about the nature of the US relationship with China, consider this news story. [1])

>"When the natural rubber supply from Southeast Asia was cut off at the beginning of World War II, the United States and its allies faced the loss of a strategic material. With U.S. government sponsorship, a consortium of companies involved in rubber research and production united in a unique spirit of technical cooperation and dedication to produce a general purpose synthetic rubber, GR-S (Government Rubber-Styrene), on a commercial scale." [0]

It seems that tech companies and the governments of the world just need to either find more resources and control them. Or find new ways to make batteries with different tech/chemistry. (The second option seems the smartest long term, just like rubber tech)

[0] https://www.acs.org/content/acs/en/education/whatischemistry...

[1] https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/policy/defense-national-s...

Edit: Years ago a client of mine made software for satellites for an unnamed massive defence contractor. They were control systems for satellites that killed other satellites. He was doing this work in the 90s. Late 90s he said the US's biggest enemy was China.

>Late 90s he said the US's biggest enemy was China.

Well, biggest competitor. For enemy it should have also actually done something, and until now it's mostly been western nations doing things to China (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Century_of_humiliation).

Besides, who else would have he said at the late 90s? Russia was a faltering non-entity under Yeltsin, and China was emerging and a billion+ strong.

> and until now it's mostly been western nations doing things to China

Except of course in the US case, China has had no greater friend than the US over the last half century. In fact, no other nation comes even remotely close to that title.

From destroying the Empire of Japan that butchered millions of Chinese during the occupation, to protecting China from getting nuke-genocided by Russia in 1969, to Nixon aggressively seeking peaceful diplomatic & trade ties, to US companies investing extraordinary sums of capital into building out China's initial industrial base, to US retailers happily importing trillions of dollars of Chinese goods (again further building out their industrial base), to the US having never taken action on Taiwan or over-stepped China's red lines on that despite having vast military superiority until recently.

http://www.usefulhistorian.com/2014/03/06/dont-forget-chinas...

All these normal geopolitical maneuvers were labeled kindness. This is a wrong statement of the matters. And a false evidence to support a normal hn commentators sense of moral high ground.

If 'Murica gets criticized for unintended "collateral" damage, may be it is deserving 'Murica gets credit for unintended kindness.

aventured has a point, actually has more than point. Your cheap ideological glasses are blinding you to them.

Please keep internet political rant tropes far away from Hacker News, regardless of how right you are. Being right makes it worse.

China's territorial expansion in the South Pacific and support of anti-American political parties in e.g. Cuba and Venezuela is certainly enough to warrant Stephen Colbert's suggested title "frenemy", not to mention their continued international temper tantrums over the status of Taiwan.

It should be noted that the US put an end to colonial expeditions in China with the Open Door Policy in 1899. The "Century of Humiliation" article enumerates complaints about the colonial expeditions but does not mention any US actions or the ODP, the latter, I assume, being considered not humiliating. It's hard for me to imagine why the US should be lumped in with Britain/France/Russia/Japan in the period before 1949. After that we were at Cold War, of course.

The United States was also one of the biggest beneficiaries of The Opium Wars.

President Franklin D. Roosevelt's grandfather was a drug smuggler [1], that made his fortune smuggling opium into China.

Also, the United States aided Britain in the 2nd Opium War.

So yes, the United States must be lumped in with the rest of the Western powers, that helped to weaken and ultimately destroy Qing Dynasty China. This is history. Don't white wash the United States' involvement that lead to the destruction of the late Chinese empire.

[1] https://www.nytimes.com/1997/06/28/opinion/the-opium-war-s-s...

> China’s ... support of anti-American political parties in e.g. Cuba and Venezuela is certainly enough to warrant Stephen Colbert's suggested title "frenemy", not to mention their continued international temper tantrums over the status of Taiwan.

How can you not see the contradiction in this sentence? You say that China supporting anti-US elements is them being aggressive—sure. But then you characterize China’s opposition to Taiwan, which continues to exist arguably solely because of US support, as a “temper tantrum.” How is this supposed to be Chinese aggression, any more than the Civil War was the War of Northern Aggression?

The GP’s point is that it has mostly been the US being aggressive towards China, rather than vice versa. It is definitely possible to argue against, and it is definitely possible to argue that China should try to get along with Taiwan. This I would agree with.

But your argument is self-defeating and plain inaccurate. (Also, characterizing the Open Door Policy as not an aggressive action is also plain wrong. Would you characterize Commodore Perry’s expedition to Japan as non-aggressive as well?)

Whether the US's support of Taiwan is aggressive is immaterial; nowhere did I suggest that the US has taken no aggressive actions against China. I responded to a claim by 'coldtea that China has taken no aggressive actions against the US and I make no claims regarding degrees. US aggression towards China does not reclassify actions by China as nonaggressive.

China's actions regarding Taiwan are nonetheless absurd because it was basically a colonial possession of the Qing Dynasty, having not been part of China before the 17th century, so China has no serious "historic" right to claim it aside from nonbinding agreements between the US/RoC during WWII. That the PRC would wish for those agreements to be binding is ironic considering their characterization of the RoC as a US puppet state.

>US aggression towards China does not reclassify actions by China as nonaggressive.

It might well reclassify them as defense.

At worst, it puts them in perspective.

Else, it's like saying "someone fighting back a bully does not reclassify his actions as nonaggressive".

>* China's actions regarding Taiwan are nonetheless absurd because it was basically a colonial possession of the Qing Dynasty, having not been part of China before the 17th century, so China has no serious "historic" right to claim it aside from nonbinding agreements between the US/RoC during WWII.*

So, the US would for example would easily give away California to Mexico, Hawaii or Puerto Rico to the natives, etc, if it came to some schism, right? After all, they're way younger possessions than a 17th century one.

(And it's not just about state ownership -- China itself was divided in many ways over the course of history. It's about common culture and ethnicity, not about it being a part of the "official state" since forever. Taiwanese are settlers from China, and even the previous local (aboriginals) had come from China).

>It might well reclassify them as defense.

>At worst, it puts them in perspective.

The context is "For China to be considered an enemy it ought to have done something." Defense of any form obviously satisfies this requirement. You are only arguing semantics.

But in Taiwan, China is the bully, and the US defends peace.

>the US for example would easily give away California to Mexico

The US controls California. If we lost it, it would be ridiculous to spend 70 years threatening war against anyone who suggested we should admit it.

>Taiwanese are settlers from China

Americans are settlers from England.

> China's actions regarding Taiwan are nonetheless absurd because it was basically a colonial possession of the Qing Dynasty, having not been part of China before the 17th century, so China has no serious "historic" right to claim it aside from nonbinding agreements

Again, a viewpoint I entirely agree with but one for which you are making an awful argument. What became the US was not colonized before the 17th century, either.

We can oppose China’s actions regarding Taiwan because a majority of the Taiwanese people don’t want to be a part of China, not because there is no “historic” claim. If the absurdity lies in the lack of history, then it would be absurd for us in the US to support Taiwanese independence yet not return all our land to the Native Americans. Characterizing China’s position as “absurd” is self-defeating.

Also, you write that you’re responding to coldtea’s claim that China has taken no aggressive actions towards the US, but that is not at all what they wrote; rather, they wrote that it has “mostly been western nations doing things to China”.

>If the absurdity lies in the lack of history

Well of course it does, because China's claims to Taiwan are fundamentally historical. The US claim to the mainland US is not based on history but on de facto control, so history is not an injuction. But the PRC's propaganda line is "Taiwan is part of China" which is both presently and historically false. China captured Taiwan from the Dutch in 1662 and held it for two centuries before losing it to the Japanese. It is not quite as mad as Argentina's claim to the Falklands, but that's a low bar. With Macau or Gibraltar, a case can be made that they're owed back. With Taiwan it's dumb.

>that is not at all what they wrote

I responded to this:

>For enemy it should have also actually done something

I demonstrated "something".

>The US claim to the mainland US is not based on history but on de facto control, so history is not an injuction.

Well, de facto control is no moral claim.

Yes, it is. Accepting de facto control is important to ensuring a lasting peace. There will always be another objection. De facto control justifies the status of Tibet, Hawai'i, Israel, Catalonia etc.

>China's territorial expansion in the South Pacific and support of anti-American political parties in e.g. Cuba and Venezuela

Given 100+ years of US intervention in Latin America and enmity towards Cuba and Venezuela, they'd had to cherrypick a lot to find "non anti-American" parties to support there. And if they found them, they'd usually not be very popular either.

>is certainly enough to warrant Stephen Colbert's suggested title "frenemy", not to mention their continued international temper tantrums over the status of Taiwan.

Well, Taiwan had been part of the Chinese state for a millennia before the 20th century (almost the whole US-existance of centuries officially, settling for a millennium or so) -- forgive them if they have "temper tantrums" for it still.

It's funny how one nation is OK to go all around the world kicking doors down half around the globe when it's annoyed (or when it has "interests") and another is scolded for having "temper tantrums" for a historical part of its own country.

The United States considered itself a more enlightened country than the Europeans, that's why it was founded. Still, the Open Door Policy wasn't born out of a desire to end colonialism so much as strategy. The US wanted markets in China where the Europeans already had control. It didn't want to be squeezed out and so played balance of powers.

The United States was founded in order to protect slavery. The "enlightenment" stuff was PR. Check out Gerald Horne's Counterrevolution of 1776.

Interesting stuff— there's a small note about it on Wikipedia as well, here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Styrene-butadiene#History

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