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Comment by erikpukinskis | Hacker News Reader

No disagreements with your base assessment, but how did the west create this situation?

China has a longer continuous timeline than the western powers by far. Are the current political moires there not another node on that chain?

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1911 was not that long ago, not was 1638. Going beyond that is dubious. It's like if Italy claimed to be 2,839 years old because of Rome or the modern Turkish state claiming continuity with Byzantium.

This type of argument always kind of bothers me as well, be nice to state it as "helped create" or something but then there is a lot to say for the old saying "If you are not part of the solution, you are part of the problem".

Without the West's various investments and opening of trade partnerships and eventually ushering China into the WTO, China would be in nowhere near the position that it is in today.

No argument on that. I just don't quite believe that the "west created it", I guess it's possible that it was willful and meant to prove the communist utopian ideal...

Valuing trade with China over human rights. Trade that enabled China’s superpower status. Taming the monster will be...tricky.

You either have enough leverage that Beijing backs down (China is in a very precarious economic condition at the moment, don’t let it go to waste; prevent further rise in power long enough for their demographic transition to complete), or you support internal revolutionaries (which the US has done enough previously in its history I don’t need to detail here). Anything else will be outright world war (probably starting near HK, perhaps with the destruction of the bridge connecting it to the mainland to stave off a ground invasion).

I won't say "the west" because I think it's really "capitalism", but

Global capitalism created this situation by deepening trade relationships with China to the point that we're all dependent on them to the point that there's very little leverage over their international behaviour.

Look at how the PRC is behaving against Canada right now. Illegal torture-like detention of two of innocent Canadian citizens in China, in retaliation for the very mild house arrest (for extradition) of a Huawei executive, something Canada _had_ to do (treaty) on US request.

How they behave domestically (against Hong Kong citizens for example), yes, that's another question.

I think there was some hope that capitalism would bring about democracy. It hasn't quite worked out (yet?).

Why would you think that an economic system based on minority control over (often formerly public) resources would bring about a political system based on majority entitlement?

That is absolute bullshit. If Western countries had refused to trade with China for human-rights reasons, we'd be hearing accusations of economic imperialism! Now we're responsible for their ultra-nationalist authoritarian capitalism because we don't impose our imperial authority on them?

See anyone saying anything against Western countries for not trading with Iran, Venezuela, or North Korea?

It is a rather popular position among the American left, especially the one represented by Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, and AOC.

As noted below, the political Left worldwide has decried the sanctions on Iran, Venezuela, North Korea (and Syria too!) as imperialism aimed at advancing American companies' economic interests.

Arguing against unmade statements is bigger bullshit.

We're responsible in large part for withdrawing from the TPP, yes

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