Confused about what point you're attempting to make here?
Political conflict with a trade partner obviously leads to reduced trade, no matter the parties involved. What part of that statement are you taking issue with?
Political conflict with a trade partner obviously leads to reduced trade, no matter the parties involved. What part of that statement are you taking issue with?
Your faux confusion isn't really impressing anyone. Is the US, the most militarist and imperialist nation in the world by far at the moment, "compatible" with the "crazy new 21st century world"?
I've also yet to see any practical examples of Chinese militarism or imperialism. I keep hearing that it's going to start happening any day now, but then it never does. What I do see is the hegemon (the US) trying to take down a rising superpower via economic warfare, and by creating instability in the region - a typical behavior of a militarist and imperialist nation.
Or did you just conveniently ignore those? Just because they don't wear uniforms and march in lines doesn't mean there isn't power projection going on.
You need two to tango and both the US and China are dancing right now. Anyone only blaming one side need to stop for a second, take their US or China tinted glasses, and look again at the problem.
> Anyone only blaming one side need to stop for a second [...]
When it comes to military coercion (wars, threats), and imperialism, it only takes one bad actor to cause problems.
When there are two sides, or three, it just means more actors willing to push around everyone else.
Albeit, they amplify each other. Their respective needs to dominate encourage each others' aggressive tendencies. And it is much easier to justify/ignore/repeat misbehaviors when there are other aggressors to point at.
Sure, the US has their bases there (many since WW2), but we can't blame the US alone when we also have China making threats and claims that scare the heck out of other countries. The US doesn't need to move a finger to have Taiwan or Philippines on their side... these countries know what they're up against and will, for obvious reasons, want to have a "big guy" on their side.
In a few years China will not only have US bases around them, but also a handful of countries that won't side with them on anything. And that's how the next version of the "Pacific NATO" will be created... the US will of course take advantage of it, but it could not exist without a China that makes overreaching claims, threats, and their huge military.
Good point.
Year after year, China was outpacing the world economically in numbers and strategic position.
Their future appeared to have no ceiling.
But they self-sabotaged by reverting from quietly accumulating strength to loudly showcasing strength via consolidation & provocation.
Despite no pressing need, they amplified military risk, economic & technological friction, undermined trust & provoked intense global resistance. The strategic value they destroyed is immense:
Poof! The presumed “Century of China” looks very different now. More like another Cold War.
Commenter: "That's totally not evidence of being more militaristic, US just has more friends"
You just contradicted yourself. Having more military bases IS being militaristic.
Your metric is flawed.
No.
They're not saying that. You're making an illogical argument.
The mere fact you made three edits tells us that you know your "logic" just isn't.
Bases in Japan as a result of levelling all the major cities and using two atomic weapons .. "allies".
Call it what you like, the US has a habit of beachheading bases across the globe and never leaving.
1. Is America today more militaristic than the PRC?
2. Has America been successfully militaristic in prior generations including ones which are now dead?
Each requires different evidence, answering one does not answer the other.
2. Yes.
America has been sabre rattling about the South China Sea for two decades now, a sea named after China that China has sailed through for some 4,000 years.
Is it any wonder that China builds out a navy to defend waters off its own shores that America has crossed an ocean to patrol?
I'm not particularly anti-US, just an observer of the world and history in general. Post WWII the US has been number one and it wants to keep that crown despite China advancing faster than any other nation for the past decades.
The language used to describe and name things is vastly more powerful than people give it credit for. Just because the British were lazy in their administration and named it after something else nearby doesn't mean that the entire sea belongs to the current Chinese state.
"Off its own shores"!? Is that what the kids are calling it these days? [0]
As an "observer of the world", I suggest checking exactly how much and how far the PRC has been claiming exclusive ownership over waters that are closer to their neighbors' shores. (Neighbors with their own ancestors who probably did even more sailing.)
From the list I can see on Wikipedia, all of the nearby bases are in Korea and Japan.
More useful might be a map of US forces near China, not caring about who owns the base. And some comparable maps from the last 50 years to see how it's changed over time.
In any case, my point is that you only attribute fault to one side, when you have the other side making claims and starting to flex in front of smaller countries. Let's cut the BS here, that is not China playing nice and promoting stability.
It also doesn't take much to understand that the smaller, way less powerful countries that feel threaten will try to find allies. Who's the other big guy in the Pacific? Of course they want the US to be near them and on their side in case shit hits the fan.
This reminds me of Russia, which invaded Ukraine to keep it under their control, but then is surprised to learn that their actions made Ukrainians dislike them even more and are shocked that other countries that could rushed to join NATO. People like you course blame the US alone, missing the fact that NATO would crumble (like it was already happening) if Russia didn't make weekly threats about nuking European cities or actually invaded their neighbours.
I’m talking about today though.
Looting oil in Syria, I didn’t know this, do you have a source?
Now, we are comparing, right, so let’s list what china is doing, shall we?
Invading multiple neighbouring countries? Check. (Isn’t that the definition of imperialism?) Exterminating populations considered hostile? Check. And I’m not even talking about Africa, where “colonialism” wouldn’t necessarily be an exaggeration.
I do think that, today, China is the most imperialist.
The US is far from a model, mind you and Europe also did significantly more horrible things in the past, but I’m talking about today.
Which nations has China "invaded" recently ? Kindly elaborate. Please note that the U.S. has occupation bases in both Iraq and Syria presently. U.S. military and intelligence has directly and in-directly killed more tens of thousands of civilians within the last decade in the middle-east. (I won't even go into the Syrian war sponsorship since whatever Obama did is "old news" to Americans now)
Looting of oil - there are several sources. But if you don't believe them - find a Syrian on telegram and ask him.
https://thecradle.co/articles/the-other-occupation-us-forces... https://thecradle.co/articles-id/21826
It was reasonably well reported that Delta crescent energy extracts oil from occupied Syrian oil fields - of-course passed off as propaganda in helping the Kurds in the U.S. media.
https://www.politico.com/news/2020/08/03/delta-crescent-ener...
> Exterminating populations considered hostile?
Hello, Yemen ? The full sanctions block and complete intelligence analysis, weapons and targeting given to PMC's and "allied" forces causing the deaths of tens of thousands of people ? This was an extraordinary extermination of the civilian population that got black-holed in the U.S. media. Of-course any time the population resisted, they got bombed - even weddings.
https://www.hrw.org/news/2020/09/21/us-war-crimes-yemen-stop...
China's imperialism is orders of magnitude lower than the U.S. Its like comparing a ravaging T-Rex with a stubborn mouse.
PS: The U.S. has now merrily resumed bombing Yemen again since the last few months. Yes, I use the word "merrily" because executives of the American military sector are happy about this. Utterly no bias there, just point-blank honesty.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Territorial_disputes_of_the_Pe...
And again, I’m not saying the US are not imperialists, and they were the most imperialists for a very long while, but I really think China beat them. They still have less means to their imperialists ambitions, but their ambitions are by far bigger than these of the US nowadays.
In the end the conversation is a bit ridiculous, they are both very much imperialists, and it also depends on how you measure it. Russia is, from a political point of view, probably even more imperialist, they just have less means. The ratio means/ambitions of china is what put them at the top of this very sad list for me.
I didn’t know about the syria oil fields, I can’t even say I’m surprised though.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-12-22/us-claims...
https://www.idsa.in/idsacomments/Assessing-US-Extended-Conti...
Do you think political conflict makes trade better, and are using the US as an example? It doesn't seem like you're disagreeing with the original premise, but rather just aggressively responding with a tangent.
Taiwan: https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/ce8dy437pdno
Tibet: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Annexation_of_Tibet_by_the_Peo...
Xinjiang: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-22278037
The Nine Dash Line: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nine-dash_line