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Comment by dnemmers | Hacker News Reader

It does seem like if I was China, this would be the perfect time to make a big geopolitical move: EU and Russia tied up with Ukraine and Iran, US & Gulf allies now stuck in a war zone, US showing aging tech with large exposure to new drone warfare.

This seems likely the conflict that forces the US into an immediate course correction in military makeup, or suffer large and expensive mass casualties on the battlefield.

What happened to Battleships after Aircraft Carriers entered the picture, comes to mind.

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They don't need to do anything militarily. Just keep up with Belt and Road and being a stable trade partner while the US has a trade war with everyone and started an active war with Iran over nothing, and is threatening allies. Fill the vacuum the US left behind and see what happens when the US wants to put sanctions on China in the future.

Exactly, in the fall and aftermath of WWII the USofA Steven Bradbury'd it's way to No. #1 on the global pecking order.

China, now, is ready to do as little as possible and free skate into that position by the same means.

Ya, China will win by default, why do something stupid like Trump would? Make friends with the world, provide working affordable solutions to the high price of oil. Uhm, it’s like Trump is doing everything for China’s benefit.

Autocrats tend to do stupid things as they become out of touch due to the culture of sycophancy around them. It doesn’t help that Xi is old and doesn’t have infinite time to build his legacy. Did everyone already forget the extreme Covid lockdowns in China?

Is it some sort of well-known fact that Xi has some egotistical need to build some kind of strongman legacy? I’m no expert, but the China that he has built is one of extreme competence and long-term thinking. It’d seem contradictory to compromise that for some flashy but ultimately unhelpful actions.

Xi is much younger than Trump.

China still has lots of problems, they are just doing a few key things right in terms of tech tree development, while the USA is basically swimming backwards.

I feel certain at this point that the Western obsession with China beginning to warmonger is just projection.

That's a fair observation. They do a fair amount of objectively warmongery stuff though. All the force measuring in the south china sea, needless escorts, etc. They do engage in border skirmishes and make claim to Taiwan.

> All the force measuring in the south china sea, needless escorts, etc.

These are totally normal though and it would be more surprising if they weren't carrying out military exercises at all.

> They do engage in border skirmishes and make claim to Taiwan.

Skirmishes seems like an exaggeration. Territory disputes are always quite normal and they haven't come close to an active takeover or invasion in almost 60 years.

To describe anything they're doing as "active warmongering" seems farcical though. Where's the war??

A man with a large bat is walking your house and youre like nah its totally normal

Are there any military exercises which seem normal when you reduce them to metaphors on the individual level?

My point is that China is not the only state carrying out these kinds of exercises. For thirty years now I've been hearing it's going to happen any day, this is the perfect moment, it's inevitable. Meanwhile the US has started multiple wars, and toppled a variety of regimes; France has toppled a regime; the UK and other allies assist in all of this.

But the same countries say China is the warmongerer because the coast guard intercepted some boards at the border.

> These are totally normal though and it would be more surprising if they weren't carrying out military exercises at all.

In principle yes, but not if the exercises are literally rehearsing a blockade of Taiwan.

Why do you say that?

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/dec/29/china-live-fir...

https://www.reuters.com/world/china/china-fires-water-cannon...

https://news.usni.org/2025/12/13/video-china-coast-guard-bla...

Where's the warmongering?

Don't interrupt your enemy when they are busy making mistakes.

Iran is shaping up to be a quagmire worse than Afghanistan or Iraq. Even if Trump pulls back from the brink, the GCC economies are significantly damaged, Iran will extort a massive wergild, and European and Asian economies will suffer another energy shock. China is relatively unscathed.

Iran is too close to china to make any real issue. USA can stop shooting themselves in the feet at any time and redirect to Taiwan.

If China wanted USA tied up, theyd get south america or cuba problems, forces away from China.

"any real issue"? Like crippling the world economy? They can extract a tithe on every gallon of oil leaving the Gulf. Without Qatari/Iranian natural gas there is a global energy crunch.

South/Central America has no significant military opponents, most especially none that will consume large quantities of exquisite armaments. It would mostly consume Army resources in COIN, which they are extremely experienced with from Afghanistan.

It's actually mystifying that Trump started the beef with Iran, when he could have just invaded Cuba and had an easy win. The Israeli factor of course, truly America's greatest weakness.

Without Qatari helium, there's a massive global semiconductor crunch.

The fertilizer crunch and food scarcity too.

It's wild to me how oblivious ostensibly intelligent people on this site regularly manage to be.

Yes, the downstream effects of the helium shortage are going to be extremely painful. Chip production, MRI machines, welding, many scientific uses. (We can't forget the previous era of US insanity in dumping the helium reserve under the 'party balloon gas' anti-science/anti-facts 1990s Congress.[1])

The world still produces enough fertiliser, but prices will rise significantly. The biggest producers (China, India, USA) also consume most of their supply, and China and India get their methane from elsewhere or from coal. Russia is a leading exporter, so they could easily tighten the screws now, leading to further economic shocks. Big importers will feel a crunch [2] and this will leader to significant crop price increases.[3]

[1] https://www.marketplace.org/story/2024/02/21/federal-governm...

[2] https://wits.worldbank.org/trade/comtrade/en/country/ALL/yea...

[3] https://farmonaut.com/mining/largest-urea-producers-2026-glo...

Significant crop price increases, which tends to be bad news for anyone who eats food.

Ugh. Gotta start eating cake again.

The people who started this war are all multi millionaires. As always it's the paupers who will suffer the most.

But America's actions will not be forgotten.

> perfect time

Or not. China just saw two supposedly biggest military superpowers fail to achieve their military objectives. China supplied Iran with tons of most advanced SAM they could muster, and it took Iran over a month to shoot down _one_ 50 year old airframe. Gunning for Taiwan right now could provoke orange one to erase Iran oil infrastructure.

It would be, unless China isn't yet militarily ready.

Also if China's Taiwan plan includes using surrogates like Iran to cause simultaneous trouble, then reducing Iran's capability asynchronously eliminates one US worry during a Taiwan scenario.

They are waiting for the political pendulum to complete its swing. Once the blue resurgence hits, US will be deeply distracted with domestic issues and too broke for adventures. Spring 2027 will be unseasonably hot…

Invading Taiwan now would be incredibly costly for China even if they win.

If China has any sense they will be looking at how well Iran and Ukraine is going for the invaders and maybe think twice before they make the same mistake.

It's not going great for America.

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