I upvoted you before I read the last sentence, and then removed my upvote again.
The US is a terrible ally, for all the reasons you cite, but unless they somehow become a democracy, China would be worse in every way.
The US is a terrible ally, for all the reasons you cite, but unless they somehow become a democracy, China would be worse in every way.
I am no longer considering the US as a democracy. From a west perspective, China doesn't want to annex Canada or Greenland.
Lack of direct threats to sovereignty, reliability (in the sense of honoring commitments) and basic diplomacy are characteristics that trump ideological compatibility in domestic functioning. The EU is not gonna buy the chinese equivalent of the F-35, no one thinks they are "friendly" but a turn to China is inevitable. It doesn't help that your democratic institutions are closer in the spectrum to a Putin "election" than a Swiss one.
This is even more true for weak and small countries, Trump's Panama obsession has caused irreparable damage to an already frayed positive perception. Paraphrasing an interview with then Chilean president Ricardo Lagos when he explained to Bush his decision to not vote in favor of the invasion of Iraq in the security council:
How did you approach that moment of saying no to the United States?
I mean, I think there are two important elements here. The first is to understand that Chile is a small country. The international role we play is not very big. But precisely because we are small we demand rules in the international arena. Because if there are no rules, the big ones will mistreat us. Consequently, I explained this to President Bush on several occasions: We need rules because we are a small country. Bush found it difficult to understand the point about rules.
By what metric?
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Economist_Democracy_Index
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democracy_Ranking
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democracy_indices
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corruption_Perceptions_Index
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Press_Freedom_Index
* https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/freedom-of-expression-ind...
Because they have elections?
I always thought that when Americans say they’re a democracy they mean that in sort of propagandist way. Like, installing democracy as justification for military aggression.
But it seems that now some people really believe it? The bi-partisan system sponsored by corporations, where candidates are vetted through the systems - it reminds me of the Chinese communism with two parties instead.
Just compare it to Swiss democracy.
When was the last time an candidate from an independent political party became a president in the USA?
Despite the current administration being in power explicitly because it genuinely won a recent election in which the incumbents would have preferred to win instead. Trump's frequent shittiness and feces throwing aside, he got his second term through the long-established and very stable American democratic process.
That you would then go from this to claim China as somehow better, a country in which authoritarian one-party rule is absolute and in which nobody can throw an incumbent out of office, is just.... really absurd.
IMO the simplest and most realistic way to reconcile "democracies don't invade each other" and "the US might do invasions now" is that the US is not a democracy within this model.
It certainly still is in a technical sense that is sometimes useful. But by other metrics, like "can the president start an unpopular war with a steadfast former ally" uhhhhh. If the military refuses an elected president's order to invade is it still a democracy?
Yes, because the military can't follow an illegal order, which is what a declaration of war without the approval of Congress would be. The military also can't spend money Congress hasn't authorized, even if the president tells them to.
Congress hasn't actually declared a war since World War 2. The President sends troops wherever he likes, whenever he likes, for whatever purpose he likes and Congress rubber-stamps their approval after the fact, and they call it something other than a war.
You're correct that the military can't follow illegal orders, but what you're describing as an example of an illegal order is just the way the US military industrial complex works.
I don't think this argument is landing that strongly.
When the people want a king, what's written in the rule book doesn't matter anymore.
https://www.theguardian.com/notesandqueries/query/0,,-3134,0...
When was it ever?
Tibet doesn’t count either, it’s been a part of China for centuries and it was the serfs and slaves that sought reunification to escape the monks’ brutal rule.