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Comment by hfbff | Hacker News Reader

From your point of view, I can see how China is bad and the USA is good. But ask someone whose country got invaded by the USA or whose bloody dictator got supported by the USA. Over here in Latinamerica we still remember the horrible things that the USA did. It seems to me (but I could have a false perception) that China is a horrible bully in their corner of the world (nine dash line and, of course their will to invade Taiwan), but their foreign policy is order of magnitude less intrusive (i.e. they don't invade or topple countries on the other side of the world).

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Life isn't a marvel movie. There are no good guys and bad guys. The USA doesn't have to be "good" for China to be "bad".

You say that there are no "good" and "bad" guys, but then go on stating that there are "bad" guys. Careful, almost committed a thoughtcrime here.

You people are impossible.

Every major country has their faults, but the US definitely has a larger surface area for these faults as the only superpower left. On the other hand, as the only superpower left, we're fortunate the US exists as a stabilizing factor for world peace, rather than colonizing the rest of the world like every superpower before it.

> rather than colonizing the rest of the world like every superpower before it.

I guess the colonialism has eased up in the last half-century or so. But the US definitely did our fair share.

EDIT maybe my fellow USians don't see them that way but they definitely were colonized - Puerto Rico, the Philippines, Guam, American Samoa, Hawaii.

I'm given to understand that the Marshall Islands, American Samoa, and Puerto Rico are all free to choose to end their association with the USA anytime they like. What "colonies" does the USA have exactly?

The Compact of Free Association[1] in a nutshell mandates US financial, military, and geopolitical assistance and protections upon the sovereign countries of Palau, Micronesia, and Marshall Islands. These countries are independent of the USA and can end their association with the USA as they deem fit.

Puerto Rico, Guam, American Samoa, US Virgin Islands, and Northern Mariana Islands are an unincorporated territory[2] of the USA and are sovereign American territory.

Simply put: Puerto Rico, et al. cannot unilaterally end their association with the USA because they are part of the USA.

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compact_of_Free_Association

[2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Territories_of_the_United_Stat...

Colonialism still exists in a sense, but explicit force became unnecessary with the creation of the IMF and loan terms that allow for American and European firms to both extract resources and keep all the profits.

No one is forcing any country to take an IMF loan.

And if you think the IMF loans are so onerous, consider why Pakistan, which has allies in both China and Saudi Arabia, both of whom have lent it money in recent years, is going begging to the IMF instead.

And if the IMF is a tool of colonialism, why it is refusing to give money to Pakistan unless it agrees to measures such as the current administration not immediately using that money to fund a subsidy in oil prices right before an election. As opposed to the Saudis and Chinese who impose interest rates in the low 30%s, and acquire ownership of land and infrastructure when those payments are inevitably not made.

Countries usually take these loans in times of crisis. Not sure I'd blame them.

Where did you get 30% interest from?

Countries like the one I come from are developing at a rapid pace thanks to the IMF, World Bank, and American/European financial influence. There’s fair criticisms of the system, but asserting that america and Europe “extract resources and keep all the profits” is just lazy and ignorant rhetoric.

Lol, yeah, those aren't just faults. Destabilizing the entire middle east isn't just an oopsie you can write off, it's what you call "stabilizing" usually looks like. Your discourse is basically what everyone thinks of their own superpower, as long as they aren't on the receiving end of those "faults".

I'm not sure the Middle East would ever be stable on its own, unless you're saying the US was responsible for most of the conflicts on this list?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_modern_conflicts_in_th...

That's what they did to Tibet for example and they absolutely are an extreme ongoing threat to Taiwan

What did they do to Tibet? The CIA tried to establish an independent Tibet so the US could have bases there, and later engaged in “Free Tibet” rhetoric meaning US weapons in Tibet, and China went to great expense to build a railroad to Lhasa to keep American weapons out of Tibet.

China doesn’t want US military bases on their side of the Himalayas. It remained an autonomous region until a bunch of clowns proposed putting US military assets there.

Tibet was independent from 1913 to 1950 invasion. You are talking about stuff that happened after the invasion. Tibet was part of Qing dynasty, rebelled when it collapsed, and was never part of ROC. It wasn’t recognized as independent but was definitely invaded by China.

It has similarities to Taiwan which is de facto independent but claimed by PRC.

Unrecognized independence during a civil war and world war isn’t much of a claim. Chiang Kai Shek was adamant it was part of China.

Tibet has 3 million people, most of who are subsistence farmers or nomadic herders. Comparisons with Taiwan are a bit much.

I get that the Dali Lama is a really nice guy, but even he admits no one in Tibet gives a shit about him and becoming a feudal lord via picking objects as a child is a bit nuts.

so if China invaded Tibet (which they did) for "strategic reasons", somehow implying "they had no choice" and therefore "it's not really an invasion", then all of the invasions and interventions the US has done in Central / South America, Middle East etc. all fall under that same rationale. There's always a "reason"

> their foreign policy is order of magnitude less intrusive

that's because they can't do it, not because they don't want to do it.

Let's see what happens when the investments made with the belt and road initiative gets nationalized.

The US has been around as a modern country longer than China - we have more than a century on them; China started the 20th century divided with several parts of itself colonized. China fought a civil war between the dominant Republic abd the communists, and might have been able to win if not for the Japanese invasion; post war, they didn't have the ability anymore to fight off Mao's revolution.

In other words the current Chinese government can trace it's power back about 70 years. For the US it's about 240. So it shouldn't be a surprise the US has done more bad things since it's in general had more time, especially as a major power in the world.

And US Cold war policy definitely had some serious missteps due to extreme paranoia about communism... US intervention in Iran (overthrew a democracy, paving the way for the revolution) and various Latin American countries definitely worked out poorly in hindsight, in addition to unethical methods (eg supporting the Contras). Honestly I'm shaky on most of the details, and I want to acknowledge these things happened. Most Americans have very limited knowledge of these past misdeeds - it's not something that's emphasized in schools, and happened before most of our lifetimes, and we don't see most of the consequences day to day... so the average American is content to be ignorant of it, and of course doesn't want to apologize or pay for it in any way.

I unfortunately don't see this changing. But I also don't trust China given their terrible human rights record; they just haven't had as much ability to operate around the world as the US has, in the past.

Also note that China's killed way more people in it's short history than the US did through it's entire 240 year history. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Chinese_Famine Tens of millions of dead in a short few years.

This is interesting, but my quick read: that was not the intent, but rather a combination of agricultural mismanagement and poor food distribution.

What about the great depression in the US? The dust bowl? Various bank runs in the 19th century? Hell, African-American deaths due to slavery? Civil war deaths? Deaths of native Americans in our various undeclared wars against them?

Probably China still has a higher number either way, but if we're going to do a fair comparison, we probably should compare percentages of the population. The US civil war killed a single digit percentage of US population at the time, so perhaps not as extreme as the great Chinese famine but still huge (it was the bloodiest war for US lives ever, by a huge margin)

I think you're making an unfair argument. It was rarely (if ever) the intent of the US to kill civilians in it's various wars it's done. You're making the "collateral damage" argument that is often used as a point to attack the US on. Be consistent.

As to all your examples, we could have a large discussion about each, but most are from the independent actions of the populace rather than government policy forcing deaths upon the populace at effective gun point. And none of them killed anywhere near the number that the great famine did. Most of them in fact killed zero people and just caused economic hardship. (Also while the American civil war killed 1%, the Chinese great famine killed over 10% in many areas.)

When farmers are dying of starvation and aren't allowed to eat the food that they're growing, you've gone seriously off the rails.

>rather a combination of agricultural mismanagement and poor food distribution.

And western countries embargoing/blockading Chinese food imports during an emerging food crisis.

American educators tend to gloss over inconvenient truths like America's role in that famine.

The U.S. hasn’t done anything to any country even close to being the equivalent of what China did in Tibet. Or is doing to the Uighurs in its own country.

And that’s a China that has had economic and military power at an international level for less than 2 decades.

All that being said, there’s no real point in comparing which one has been historically worse to determine who is destabilizing the world more in any given situation.

And while the political rhetoric in the US could be better, Chinese actions worldwide, are far more destabilizing than anything the US has been doing, especially since it got out of Iraq.

Interestingly, what’s happening in Pakistan (and Afghanistan) since the U.S. left Afghanistan shows that even what one could reasonably saw were clear negative actions by the U.S., such as its occupation of Afghanistan, may not have been as clear in hindsight.

Well arguably what America / Europe did to the native Americans was worse. And it's a shame in these current times when America could do with being the stand up ethical superpower there hasn't been a nationwide recognition of that.

This is a partial and partly formed view of mine. I don't have great knowledge of the history.

Native American Indians today enjoy sovereignty within their tribal lands as a consequence of the US doing horrible acts upon them, they are countries unto themselves in modern terms with the US representing them internationally in their stead for brevity's sake. Culturally they are revered as courageous natives of the land who deserve our respect (see: AH-64 Apache, et al.).

So please, educate yourself before making a fool of yourself.

> So please, educate yourself before making a fool of yourself.

As I finished my comment, it was a partly formed view and I don't have good knowledge of history. I was hoping for some more informed replies. I was hoping they'd come without insults too, so cheers for the disappointment.

Making a bold and uninformed claim and following it with an admission of ignorance doesn't absolve you of having made a bold and uninformed claim.

> I was hoping for some more informed replies.

You didn't ask for any.

It's not a bold claim to point to the treatment of indeginous people as bad and similar to what is happening in China. Nor is it ignorant to say it's something America or the rest of the new world is absolved of. Do I think that makes it ok for China or they shouldn't be called out and more about it? No, I don't think that at all. But it makes it a harder argument.

Another way to consider this is that America admits that Native American Indians were once wronged, made amends, and now pays respects to their storied histories and cultures and helps them find and secure their own places within the country and the world.

China, on the other hand, gives precisely zero fucks what wrongs happen to the peoples within its borders. All must serve the state and only the state, at the point of a gun.

I once again ask that you educate yourself before you make a fool of yourself. Basic knowledge and understanding are prerequisites to participating in worthwhile discussions. If you took that request as an insult, then that is your loss and certainly not my problem.

Native American Communities themselves do not seem to recognise the benefits of the US naming a helicopter after them as recompense for taking lands and breaking treaties.

https://www.powwows.com/issues-and-problems-facing-native-am...

They're not seeing the benefits of having "their lands" when those lands are still being exploited for resources by outsiders.

https://www.afr.com/companies/mining/culture-war-looms-for-r...

I'm not seeing much education or awreness in your comment.

US states actively ban history surrounding these topics to avoid hurting the feelings of the dominant society's offspring. You have to forgive some of the ignorance of centuries long domestic issues.

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