The US has always done dumb shit but it has two things all other countries lack. Introspection and the capacity to adapt. China is irrelevant in all this. It's a nuisance, not much else. It will do as told.
The vast fear and ignorance in this thread is amusing but the comparison of China to Nazi Germany is perhaps a new low, even for Hacker News?
It's interesting though how people develop such warped perceptions of the world. It's exactly how the greatest disaster of the 21st century, the absolutely unprovoked and absolutely senseless American invasion of Iraq which killed a million people and directly led to the rise of Isis and even more extreme suffering, come to pass. And so what you have here is a bunch of silly people, few of which have likely even been to China let alone done any serious investigation of Chinese culture or politics, utterly trapped in a paranoid fantasy in which -- believe it or not -- China is the aggressor coming for their markets. Nevermind the US's military bases all over the world or the TPP, an initiative started by the US with the explicit goal of denying and containing Chinese expansion.
This sort of delusion is just breath taking. I guess all one can do is hope it doesn't lead to war but I strongly suspect it is. Americans will never face reality as this thread shows. They will gladly and firmly embrace the delusion and blame all their problems on somebody else even if it leads to absolute catastrophe. Absolutely nothing has changed since the Iraq War.
Ah... China has been a one-party police state with intercontinental ballistic nuclear missiles for my entire adult life (I'm in my 40s). The only thing I don't understand is why anyone ever thought they weren't a threat.
China doesn’t want a showdown, it’s not Russia/Iran/NK/Pakistan/…, why must Americans think that if they are not #1 it’s the end of civilization? China only really care about itself (and Taiwan, but that’s a very special and not a black or white situation). US extreme hubris (and increasing plain racism) regarding China is really making me nervous. Americans should instead be following the words of Kennedy regarding Pax Americana. I obviously don’t support China politics, but I fail to see how they are a risk for western democracies and why peaceful coexistence and trade could not continue (in contrast to Russia for example where I’m grateful of US support). I’m open to be shown otherwise.
China is and has been for sometime the single greatest threat to world peace and security. To be fair, the other hemisphere will say the same about the United States. All things being equal, I'm more worried about China than anyone else.
China is still the single greatest threat to world peace, from Tiananmen Square to ethnic cleansing, the government of China is a despotic regime of murderers. Anything the west can do to combat this, it’s a good thing, and shame on any American brand that puts profits over human rights.
It's not just the US at risk here. I feel like nobody here pays attention to what China does. Look at all the tensions between China and... Literally nearly every country around them. This isn't a US-only problem.
This sort of anti-Chinese hysteria is really getting out of hand.
China has been very reserved on the international scene in the last 40 years or so. It hasn't fought any foreign wars, and it's been mostly focused on its own internal economic development. That development has also brought enormous wealth to the United States and other developed countries, which have been able to access (previously cheap) Chinese labor and the rapidly growing Chinese market. Much of the modern American way of life over the last few decades would have been impossible without the economic development of China.
Since Trump came into office, there has been an incredible swing in American public opinion on China. China is now to blame for everything, an embodiment of pure evil, lurking around every corner. Maybe China is in the room with us right now.
It's sad to see this attitude spilling over into HN. The tech industry is incredibly international (and Chinese engineers make a major contribution to the US tech industry), and not only does the increasing animosity go against the open spirit of tech culture, but it will severely damage the industry in the long run as international barriers go up.
From my non-US perspective, this kind of views that China has somehow done something to disrupt world order look like obvious delusions, and I don't understand why they seem to be believed in America.
Sure, China is authoritarian. But it has always been. And it has never promised otherwise. Maybe some naive neoliberals expected it to become democratic due to some magical thinking that trade brings democracy, but as far as I know this is just Western imagination at work, not anything that China ever vowed to do, so why is China acting coherently with its decades-long policy is suddenly seen in America as some sort of treason?
And then, there is the military aspect... and sure, China is warlike, threatens Taiwan, etc., but is anyone going to seriously defend that the US is less warlike than China? Come on.
The only real explanation seems to be that China has lately been successful in becoming more powerful (the goal of any country) and the US isn't taking that well at all, the rest looks like blatant propaganda.
The favoured retort of the pro CCP group is American imperialism. No doubt, I agree it is no longer in America's best interest to defend foreign nations and to meddle internationally.
However, that does not excuse your ignorance. A totalitarian regime that has caused more death than any other regime in history; one that primarily values wealth over freedom; one that does not believe in the sanctity of human life (ie Uighurs) is not fit to be influencing global culture.
Moreover, I agree American foreign imperialism has caused awful things to happen, but one thing no one ever realizes:
this is the only time in human history that the world has had a monopole aka one dominant super power by far. Usually the world is bipolar or multipolar. Yet the last 70 years has yielded the fewest deaths from war as a percent of the global population in history. Should America be upset with its past? Sure. However, if China had been the global monopole for the last 70 years I do not believe the total death toll from war would be so low. thanks for ur opinion
The thing that most commenters here in tacit support of China fail to take into account is that China and the US are global superpowers (unlike the litany of baddies that have been mentioned here)... The US taking a hard line on China can have a cascading affect. The US can’t boil the ocean in regard to fixing all of the worlds ills, and we’re by no means perfect. China is simply the best hill to stand our ground on at the moment.
China didn't displace tens of millions of people in the middle east from their homes, the US did.
China didn't destabilize dozen of countries (via assassinations, coups, and other unsavory ways to initiate regime change), the US did.
There's one threat to world peace, and that's the US. It's ridiculous that people think that somehow China could be worse than that.
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