>Russia and China aspire to nothing. Even if we fail them most of the time, at least the US has ideals.
This is ridiculous. Do you think China and Russia are operating like an ant colony or something?
This is ridiculous. Do you think China and Russia are operating like an ant colony or something?
As a person who spend near half of my life in both of them, I don't see the statement being far from reality.
Both countries indeed feel quite "aimless," as they are today. Nor Russia, nor China saw any kind of conscious political course setting for two full decades.
I don't see Xi, or Putin having any semblance of a long term plan for their countries, nor having an idea where they are going themselves.
Just like an airplane on autopilot will fly aimlessly until it runs out of fuel, or runs into a mountain, both Xi, and Putin just want their systems to last as much as they can, and if they need to invade few countries to sate primal urges of their polities, they think "so be it"
The government has clear ideals. The problem is the ways they're going about achieving them and whether some of them (like erasing the separate cultures within their borders) is justifiable.
Haha
> working towards one united and uniform Chinese cultural identity,
Haha
Ask any middle class Chinese citizen earning his cup of rice. If you really believe that, lots of Chinese grannies are laughing at you now.
And China is chipping away at its various cultures and pushing for one Mandarin-speaking Han identity and achieving that goal quite quickly.
I have no clue what point you're trying to make.
> I don't see Xi, or Putin having any semblance of a long term plan for their countries, nor having an idea where they are going themselves.
I could say the same about the US.