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Comment by moose_man | Hacker News Reader

I do think this is more concerning than it would appear. I think the fact that this became a partisan food fight has forced this position that this wasn't a big deal on people who favor Biden. This is really about China since Xi took over. Executing CIA assets in courtyards in front of their colleagues, practicing missile strikes on models of US carriers, the repeated invasion of US airspace, the exercises near Taiwan after Pelosi visit. This is not good, and invading continental US airspace is ratchet up in brazenness. We need to have a national conversation about where this is heading. China under Xi is nothing like China 2000 through 2010. In the last decade some of the biggest China made blockbusters have been glorifying fighting / killing Americans (Wolf Warrior II and The Battle at Lake Changjin)

Edit for sources:

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/20/world/asia/china-cia-spie...

https://www.reuters.com/world/china/china-builds-mockups-us-...

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Check out the recent book Danger Zone by Hal Brands. I do think there's a growing consensus that this belligerence is a near-term problem even if it's been slow to develop.

Yeah the situation at the moment is very bleak, it's like watching a slow motion train wreck.

China isn't surrounding the US with its military and making weekly threats.

FWIW, China's neighbors in Taiwan, Japan, South Korea, Vietnam, and the Philippines don't appear to share your characterization of the situation. Neither do Australia, India, or Indonesia.

> FWIW, China's neighbors in Taiwan, Japan, South Korea, Vietnam, and the Philippines don't appear to share your characterization of the situation.

All those countries have been invaded and/or occupied by the US. The US is the brutal foreign colonizer in asia, not china. China didn't nuke japan, the worst act not only in ww2 but in human history. The US did.

> Neither do Australia, India, or Indonesia.

Australia is for obvious reasons. India joined the SCO. Notice how nobody talks about "the quad" or indo-pacific anymore? And Indonesia is part of Belt and Road. Australia is historically more of an enemy of India or Indonesia than china is.

The fact of the matter is that most asian nations don't want to antagonize the biggest racist bully in the region - the US. Once they get strong enough, things will change. Everything we project onto china, we are guilty of. It's amazing how the white supremacist nation that butchered and brutalized tens of millions of asians are made to be the good guys.

If china is such a threat, why don't we let these countries get nuclear weapons. Then they won't need our protection. Oh that's right, we dare not let these countries get nukes because the first target on their list would be the "good guys". Who sanctioned india when india went nuclear? Certainly china right? Nope, it was the "good guys".

China has a lot more neighbors: Afghanistan, Bhutan, Cambodia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Laos, Myanmar, Nepal, North Korea, Pakistan, Russia and Tajikistan.

Not making weekly threats to the US, maybe. Does Taiwan count? If not, why not?

For starters Taiwan is not the 51st state.

You've got a point. I am not knowledgeable about this topic, but it seems to me that no matter what, the US will always be on a tougher position because any overreaction from them to a provocation could end badly for everybody, and it seems that China is well aware of it, and they play with such fact.

As an example: China sends a balloon to the US air space, any bold countermeasure in China's air space / territory means worldwide panic and potential war.

The example above is just a simple scenario that I am using to describe the position where the US is at.

I'm more concerned that there hasn't been a comprehensive analysis of where the situation is heading. It's like we're on autopilot without a strategy. If you look at experts on US China relations in the US and China, both sides basically agree we're heading towards war soon. We can't avoid war, if we just mindlessly react and go forward without a real strategy. All our lives depend on getting this right and hopefully steering to a place where we avoid war. It's not even a Cold War, the Cold War had guardrails. There are no guardrails.

In the event of a country interested in the annexation and colonization of it's neighbors (like with China and its desire for Hong Kong, Taiwan, Senkaku island, and so on), there are three options.

1. A hot war emerges due to it's aggression

2. The aggression is unchecked, effectively meaning the victims surrender to blackmail and/or violence

3. A cold war is put into place to prevent aggression through deterrence and other mechanisms to manage the situation to prevent escalation to a hot war.

My concern is that both Democrats and Republicans (and most other countries on earth) are not committed to a cold war and communicating that with the public. I'm far more concerned the US will surrender several more countries and territories to aggressive states before people realize what's going on and are ready to commit to a cold war to contain aggression.

We're currently occupying a third of Syria.

edit: "invading their neighbors" is a rhetorical trick to discount all of the invasions of the US against countries who are not our neighbors. Just like "killing his own people" is a trick to discount the killing of other people.

Just want to make sure I'm understanding you here: are you making the claim that the US should not have troops in Syria, even though they are there at the request of the people who are being terrorized by supporters of the Islamic State, and authorized by the UN to do so?

According to DW news[1], the US is in Syria for these 4 reasons:

> Firstly, they were there to sustain the fight against the extremist IS group. This includes helping to train and arm the Syrian Kurdish fighters, known as the Syrian Democratic Forces, or SDF, who fought the IS group and who now control this part of Syria. The US regularly warns that the militias it supports here may only fight the IS group, unless they are acting in self-defense.

> Other American priorities in Syria include supporting local ceasefires, stabilizing the area and helping with humanitarian aid and access, as well as "pressing for accountability and respect for international law, while promoting human rights and non-proliferation."

> All of these are supposed to help in achieving a political solution to the ongoing Syrian crisis, as set out in Resolution 2254, agreed upon by the UN Security Council in 2015.

1. https://www.dw.com/en/what-does-the-us-actually-want-in-syri...

I think we need to work out a common vision. How would a peaceful, happy and prosperous future for both the West and China look like? How can we cooperate in reaching this? How can we secure buy-in into this vision from the Chinese people?

At the same time their needs to be deterrence of course, but I think we are already doing that part.

What would that common vision look like? The current Chinese leadership sees gaining total control over the first island chain (including Taiwan) as an existential necessity. Western leaders can't allow that.

A better solution is to constantly harass, undermine, and isolate China much like we did with the USSR. Apply enough sustained pressure and hopefully the country will eventually collapse into a violent internal revolution.

If Silicon Valley and Wall Street act like absolutely nothing has changed while the Pentagon ups the pressure militarily that's a scenario I'm afraid will lead to war. All segments of society must know the stake and be on the same page. The fact that one part of American society is pretending like nothing is happening while the other prepares for creates a situation that lacks clarity. This is how you stumble into it. Everything must be crystal clear.

US tech companies have been rapidly diversifying their supply chains to reduce dependence on China for about 2 years now.

All the West needs for peace with China is to stop following the US as it continually threatens China.

When it comes to issues of national security, we rarely know what analysis has been done when we're on the outside looking in.

I mean this has to be a national conversation where all stakeholders are aligned. From tech to Wall Street, to Capitol Hill to Main Street. We're all just reacting now with our own interests at the moment but we're all stuck in the same boat. No one is going to escape the horror unscathed if we sleepwalk into war.

If there's war between the US and China, nobody escapes the horror period. Both nations have more than enough nuclear capacity to guarantee that.

We're not sleepwalking into war, we're threatening it.

Absolutely not. As long as every populace remains committed to their current borders, there is no aggression, and no war. This is what all people should want. There are no tangible benefits worth the cost of an invasion.

Russia broke this by invading Ukraine.

China is threatening to break this by invading Taiwan.

Right now, there is peace in Taiwan. If China launches an assault, that is China's fault and they're the cause of suffering.

Two points.

First, there certainly are analyses (plural) of where the situation is headed. They aren't published places that you and I are allowed to read, but that doesn't mean they don't exist. People are thinking seriously about this, and debating, though I have no idea what conclusions are being reached or what courses of action are being suggested.

Second, this is fundamentally about Taiwan. And that isn't "we're headed for war soon". That's "we're headed for war if China invades Taiwan, and China sure looks like they're going to invade Taiwan soon". That's Xi's choice; all we get is to decide how to respond. (Well, a bit more - we get to signal in advance how we're likely to respond, and hope that Xi decides it isn't worth it.)

I'm sure that there has been comprehensive analysis in the Pentagon and State Dept. As for the prospects of war with China: Given the current context with Russia's war on Ukraine, how does war with China not escalate into WWIII pretty quickly? I don't think either side wants that - it would completely decimate both economies were it to happen. China would lose the US market and the US would lose a lot of Chinese products that are necessary (we're not de-globalized yet)

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

"In The Great Illusion, Angell's primary thesis was, in the words of historian James Joll, that "the economic cost of war was so great that no one could possibly hope to gain by starting a war the consequences of which would be so disastrous."[4] For that reason, a general European war was very unlikely to start, and if it did, it would not last long.[5] He argued that war was economically and socially irrational[6] and that war between industrial countries was futile because conquest did not pay. J. D. B. Miller writes: "The 'Great Illusion' was that nations gained by armed confrontation, militarism, war, or conquest."[7]

This book was published in 1909, it was wildly popular.

Could anything other than China invading Taiwan precipitate war between the US and China? I doubt it (though sure, 'accidents' could happen given the current level of bellicosity). However, if China does invade Taiwan the whole economic argument seems to go off the table from the US perspective because Taiwan's fabs crank out the majority of the world's most advanced chips - ie. that act of invading Taiwan would in itself do a lot of damage to the world economy were it to happen within the next couple of years (before other fabs currently under construction come on line in 2 or 3 years).

But then again, China has to know the stakes and the response (both economic and military) that would come to bear against them should they invade Taiwan.

In a crisis spiral into war, I think the last thing that will be considered are chips or economics. It's often emotion that pushes everything over the edge. It's not a logical process. Nationalism is a force that operates on its own set of rules.

> the fact that this became a partisan food fight

It has not become a partisan food fight. Both parties are whipping up anti-Chinese nationalism in their bases in order to support their next provocation, and the best method to install a belief into those hyperpartisans is to convince them that their counterparts on the other side are opposed to that belief. Republicans and Democrats are both convinced that Democrats and Republicans are dangerously soft on China.

"Republicans and Democrats are both convinced that Democrats and Republicans are dangerously soft on China."

Citation needed. For sure, Republicans are doing this.

Their messaging is so similar that I'm not sure what "this" you're referring to. Are you saying that Republicans are accusing Democrats of being dangerously soft on China, or that Republicans are being dangerously soft on China?

We're being dangerously soft on the ceos and shareholders that sent all the money there...

Blimey.

Those films:

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

> CNN noted that the film was commissioned by the propaganda department of the Chinese Communist Party, while Business Insider and The Economist said that the movie was part of a "main melody" genre of entertainment that praises China, the Chinese Communist Party, and the People's Liberation Army.[53][54][55]

It doesn't say whether Wolf Warrior II was commissioned by the propaganda wing, but it stars some of the same actors.

I mean this is China, it's not like there is a free media market. There is no way you could make that movie without high level officials wanting it.

Nobody has a free media market. China isn't unique in this. You think Top Gun, ww2/holocaust movies, etc are from a "free media" market? You think all the anti-japanese, anti-soviet, anti-chinese, anti-muslim, etc media during the past 100 years was from a "free media" market? The media is how you control the population. You think the elites don't control it?

Everyone accuses china of copying and stealing from the US. Looks like they are copying hollywood.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Top_Gun:_Maverick

That movie went way out of its way to obscure what country they going against. It definitely did not say the antagonists were Chinese.

That movie, like most American military action movies, was done in partnership with the US government, which was given approval on the script. I would ask why Chinese propaganda is painted as oppressive and heavy-handed when we're doing the exact same thing through government programs that are old enough to collect Social Security.

I didn't call out those movies because the state was involved, it's because they glorified killing and fighting Americans.

Those programs are also bad.

There is also a difference between approving a script portraying the military, and literally commissioning a movie.

And I think everyone can agree that such a difference exists, even though both are bad.

What country do you think was vilified by that movie?

No country was vilified by Lake Changjin, either. A country that invaded Korea and killed a lot of people to keep them from becoming Communists was depicted.

You do realize that North Korea first invaded South Korea?[0]

And because the US was able to defend South Korea from a communist takeover, but failed to prevent Vietnam, South Korea's GDP per capita is $35k while Vietnam is $3.7k, an almost order of magnitude difference. North Korea's fate was even worse...

[0]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Korean_War#Course_of_the_war

Right... "The film ends with the caption: "The great spirit of the War to Resist U.S. Aggression and Aid (North) Korea will eternally be renewed! Eternal glory to the great martyrs of the People's Volunteer Army!" "

Are you pointing out that China calls the US invasion of Korea "The War to Resist US Aggression," or are you trying to say that our propaganda is more subtle? We literally dedicated Rambo II to the heroes of the Afghanistan mujahideen.

Haha I'm not defending US propaganda at all, but it’s just silly to say that the CCP is not trying to vilify the US and rouse nationalist sentiment against the US with this and related films.

I don't think we have enough common ground to have a productive discussion here. Even notwithstanding the historical inaccuracies and fabrications in the movie, the musical cues and wanna-be "Triumph of the Will" cinematography when American characters are introduced all scream "villain" to me.

Those who haven't seen the movie can watch this clip and decide for themselves: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fmBjkb-r8Fw

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