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Comment by mrex | Hacker News Reader

>All these disputes are quite clearly about China being pissed off that the US is projecting power right on their doorstep.

The South China Seas dispute is, in fact, primarily between China and a series of smaller nations like the Philippines and Japan. International governing bodies including an UNCLOS tribunal have consistently ruled against China's claims of sovereignty to open sea, but China keeps on doing it anyway.

That's not imperial behavior?

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I’m not defending China’s claims- they’re clearly fairly spurious and embedded in a fairly questionable end of WWII. The truth is it’s just a pretext for having a gateway from the South China Sea to the rest of the world- which I don’t think is particularly unreasonable as an aim. The question is why US war ships are 7000 miles from the mainland US, if I had to pick I would say that is far more imperialistic. And again to reiterate- I prefer the US as a hegemonic power, but let’s be real about what’s happening.

>The truth is it’s just a pretext for having a gateway from the South China Sea to the rest of the world- which I don’t think is particularly unreasonable as an aim.

But you're shifting around from principles to consequentialism. Suddenly, whatever rules China breaks, even if they are extremely serious ones to do with territorial control that underlie the peaceful international order we've enjoyed since WW2 ended, it's fine with you as long as it's in pursuit of an aim that you consider reasonable?

That's a fairly blank check, innit?

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