China has never been able to interfere in 'distant' nations.
The Europeans were the first to truly develop navies capable of projecting force at such great distances, beginning in the Renaissance period, and everyone else has been playing catch-up.
By your logic, the Romans or Greeks or ancient Egyptians were a peace-loving peoples because they didn't bother China much either.
But if you look at what was possible, based on the technological capabilities at the time, China has never been as peaceful as they constantly claim. Just ask any of their neighbors, many of whom have explicitly created defense pacts with the US and the West because of historical fear of an aggressive China.
Note I'm not trying to say the West deserves any trust. But based on China's history and its current behavior as it does become more capable, combined with the constant Chinese PR about their 'peaceful rise', I'm not willing to give them the benefit of the doubt.
China has 5000 years of ascending to superpower status, not all of it very peaceful. If you mean China hasn't invaded another country since 1979, well, sure, I'll give you that.
China was kind of domineering, but on a global historic scale they could be considered somewhat non-violent. They even got invaded twice while being the top economic power of their time. There are quite a few aspects I don't like about China, but warmongers, they are not.
If anything, the modern era should be a boon to them, since developed countries are virtually conquerable at a certain scale, via modern technology instantly turning that industrial base into a top tier military, if needed, and via the usually strong alliances provided by strong trade relations.
I actually believe China can be a peaceful #1, provided they can be stopped from bullying their neighbors and Africa when the latest political scandal demands a distraction (à la Clinton - Kosovo).
Historically, China has not interfered in the affairs of distant nations. If you are judging by history, the West has interfered with China much more, thus far, than visa versa. I would go so far as to say that China has never yet tried to destabilize the West or impose it's values on the West. Can the West make the same claim about China?
As it is written, as you judge, so shall you be judged. If your standard is that countries should not abuse their power to destabilize other countries, then historically doesn't China actually hold the high ground?
China are aggressive in what they believe is 'their' territory, and nothing else. They have no (modern) history of invading or even being involved in other conflicts around the world. Most [large] countries could not boast a similar history.
On the UN security council they veto most aggressive action the US/England/EU press. If further pressed they generally abstain from the vote. Other than territorial disputes where do you get the idea they are 'aggressive' ?
China is out to protect it's interests just like every other nation. The worry is, they are big, and CAN protect their interests. The western super powers are not used to being challenged like this.
When has China actually been aggressive with Japan, Korean, and India, other then minor border conflicts and skirmishes?
The South China sea stuff is indeed China throwing its weight around, sure, but need I remind you that China's foreign interventions has been far more restrained than, say, the US (Iraq 1 and Iraq 2, Afghanistan, Libya, Panama) or Russia's (Afghanistan, Ukraine, Syria) even in the last three decades.
Going back slightly further, Japan invaded and occupied half of China and killed millions of Chinese people over the course of a decade, while it was the US that invaded, nuked, and then occupied Japan, even though the US never suffered civilian casualties from Japanese attack. Yet you don't see the Chinese government crying out for bloody revenge, do you?
One the one hand, we have China asserting claims to sea resources and sea lanes there are right in its back yard, where it has a legitimate strategic and national interest. On the other, we have the outright invasion, occupation, and overthrow of sovereign governments. Which country is objectively more peaceful?
I don't dispute that, but I'm not personally concerned about them. We have our own hawks and would-be world-beaters.
I'm also not concerned about China econimically annexing Africa. It's between them, and you can't say the West has been terrific friends to the nations and peoples of that continent, can you?
And I think the renaissance of the Silk Road would be amazing. A massive river of wealth and culture spanning the whole of Eurasia, vibrant and alive again after ages fallow. Merv was considered the most beautiful city in the world for centuries. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Merv
My issue is with things like the sabre-rattling in the South China Sea, and the attempt to establish a stable society through mass mind-control and thought-policing. To my mind the legitimacy of the Communist government comes solely from the performance of the CCP in maintaining order. I think working toward economic well-being is a fine way to maintain order; but trying to cover up the "June Fourth Incident" is incredibly, wildly foolish.
YC just announced that they are going into China, and all I could think of was, what will you say when they ask you to call it the "June Fourth Incident" instead of "Tienanmen Square Massacre"? You're not naive, you must see that moment in the future, or have some idea to dodge it somehow? Will you kowtow?
To sum up, I like China and Chinese people; I don't like the CCP but only because of personal beliefs and preference; I don't think I'm capable of judging something so huge, that tries to run such a large and old nation. Nevertheless, some of their policies seem to me to be both odious and self-defeating. I'm alarmed that such an important source of world stability as the government of China might be acting foolishly. I mean, if we are going to elect a human cartoon character to our highest office I hope somebody is going to try to act like a grown-up, eh? The last thing the world needs is for the CCP to try to get into a dick-measuring contest with us in the sea, or demand to control the information everyone sees, or round people up into camps. Let's all settle down and make some money, because it's going to be expensive to cope with the weather from here on out, for everybody.
OK, I'm fed up. China is really dangerous and way too aggressive. Obviously, its political system is on an imperialist ego-superpower course.
It's spending on its military like crazy. The navy strives to reach a size and power never seen since the demobilisations after the Second World War. Its navy patrols aggressively in foreign waters, often provoking fights and shooting up foreign boats even though China didn't declare war. It's only a matter of time till the aggressive behaviour hits some wrong ships, boats - or maybe an airliner mistaken for a fighter.
Plenty invasions of sovereign countries in the last 35 years alone prove it's unfit for lasting peace, an imperialist hyper-aggressive power. This aggressiveness is underpinned by intense propaganda and myth-building at home, with entire service industries inflaming the population against countries they cannot even point at on a map. Racism plays into this as well, with lots of derogatory names for foreigners of exotic looks.
China's gunboat and cruise missile diplomacy with occasional and nowadays frequent bombing of neutral countries is out of control, but a United Nations Security Council veto power protects them against formal repercussions. They even bombed an American embassy 15 years ago and nothing happened!
I'm especially concerned about how they now discuss how to wage a future war against the United States. All the public discussions are solely about how to defeat American land-based defences so Chinese naval battlegroups can close with the American coasts and bomb military and strategic targets at will. Unmanned combat drones are an especially favoured tool for this; many Chinese appear to have high hopes for these. The range and stealthiness is apparently at the centre of their hopes.
We shouldn't stand by this and pretend we aren't involved.
China's aggressiveness needs to be contained now!
So is “peaceful country”. The ongoing existence of every country is predicated on its ability to wage war (or make friends with countries that wage war). Nearly all of the borders on the globe were defined by war. But that doesn’t mean countries or empires can’t have differing views towards peace and aggression.
In regards to China, I said it was less peaceful, which seems obviously true to me. China has ongoing territorial disputes with ever country close to it, which extends to raising man-made islands out of the sea to push back the sea borders of its neighbors. It believes it outright owns two neighboring countries, occupying one of them, and constantly threatening to conquer the other. A large amount of its northern region used to be Mongolia until the government one day sent millions of Chinese people to live there, and just redrew its maps. As a country it was also founded upon a revolution that included arguably the most brutal mass slaying of civilians in history.
The US fights more wars, but China is far more belligerent imo, and engages in outright territorial conquest every opportunity it gets.
I said China's rise is the most peaceful among all super powers in history, I did not say that China's rise will be that it is nice to neighbors.
I also did not count any timing. I just said it's the most peaceful.
Realistically, a super power by definition means it wields more power than others, that definitely means unfriendly behavior to others, especially the neighbors. That's why China uses the word "the Great Rejuvenation of the Chinese Nation", that's both a correct and accurate slogan, and a non-aggressive way of rosy filtering what gonna happen.
China has often been wealthy, but has rarely been able to conquer... anywhere. They're not the first, or twentieth, place I would look if I were worrying about foreign aggression.
I get what you're saying,I would even say that China is acheiving this without wars, unlike the west.
But, they are not very good to their own people and they are extremely distrustful of foreigners. Not just westerners but even in africa they've been caught acting with malicious intentions(the last example I read was how they backdoored the African Union's IT systems). Very hard to trust someone who trusts no one.
The primary fear should be wars and global instability instead of who gets to wear the #1 badge. It has not even been a century since WW2,the current chinese regime is operating as a response to WW2 and "running a marathon,not a sprint" to beat the west and russia. China dominating the west would usher in Cold War 2.0(or has it already,pentagon papers and all) except with higher stakes,in the end military dominance matters as much as economic.
Doesn't seem likely to me if history is anything. China doesn't seem interested in ruling over its neighbours, as long as they're friendly. I'm no expert but for all I've read on its history, it seems to traditionally be interested in commerce and be content with that.
Countries like Australia and the US act is if they're the fair enforcers for the world, when in reality, they just want to defend the status quo that benefits them. They act as if they have a god given right to occupy their positions on the world stage when in reality they played far dirtier than China to get where they are.
And if you're say Russia, even virtually surrounded by NATO, they're constantly being accused of being expanionalist. And the same with China.
So I think it's totally OK to bring up history, because if we look at China's rise compared with the rise of Western countries, we see that China's path to supremacy has been far more peaceful.
The Europeans were the first to truly develop navies capable of projecting force at such great distances, beginning in the Renaissance period, and everyone else has been playing catch-up.
By your logic, the Romans or Greeks or ancient Egyptians were a peace-loving peoples because they didn't bother China much either.
But if you look at what was possible, based on the technological capabilities at the time, China has never been as peaceful as they constantly claim. Just ask any of their neighbors, many of whom have explicitly created defense pacts with the US and the West because of historical fear of an aggressive China.
Note I'm not trying to say the West deserves any trust. But based on China's history and its current behavior as it does become more capable, combined with the constant Chinese PR about their 'peaceful rise', I'm not willing to give them the benefit of the doubt.
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