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Comment by throwaway_pdp09 | Hacker News Reader

> We can't do anything decisive to help the Uighurs without ripping apart Chinese sovereignty

Breaking up a regime capable of doing monstrous things has been done before q.v. europe 1945 .

You missed the parents points, where he argues that it took half of the world in a military alliance and years of wars to accomplish the goals.

Doing that against a nuclear state is impossible, as such military action is out of the picture. That leaves only economic action.

But can that be effective, really? Many times economic sanctions are a joke (see the ones dished out by the UN). If they become too hard, a nuclear state can threaten nuclear action just the same. What then?

Then next they come for someone else, then eventually they come for you. There's your answer, I guess in your world you lose either way, right?

Only when those monstrous things spread outside of the borders. Even then it was allowed to spread sometime outside its borders before others reacted.

Think you have a point. But if they can get away with it this time, they be comfortable to cast their influence wider. Then wider still. So I guess to say it's not a problem now means it'll be a bigger one later, and more dangerous.

>That's no longer possible thanks to nuclear weapons

its in the post you replied to, c'mon man

Unlike Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan, China has nuclear weapons and is completely enmeshed into the world economy.

Breaking up the Chinese government is not on the table.

What do you imply? WWII was fought by sticks, and stones in comparison to even cold war era weapons, and the combined death toll far, far surpassed the biggest estimate for a possible loss of life in a nuclear war in between Western, and Eastern bloc, even if each side would intentionally target each other's biggest cities.

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