The reason why the US doesn't like China is because the US dislikes the idea of being the #2 economy and losing control. The US has absolutely no "morals" so to say and is allied with/provides literal military support to about 70% of dictatorships[1]. The US simply acts out of national interests, not morals. History proves this. I'm baffled by how many Americans repeat state propaganda points.
> The reason why the US doesn't like China is because the US dislikes the idea of being the #2 economy and losing control.
This comment gets thrown around a lot but oversimplifies things.
First, in the 90s, 2000s, and some of the 2010s ‘the US’ was China’s biggest cheerleader, investor, and supporter. Most US elites knew China would eventually become a bigger economy due to their 4x larger population, and were ok with it as long as they got to share in the wealth creation. To the extent those folks were the decision makers and thus ‘the US’, they didn’t dislike the idea of being the #2 economy.
Second, sure the US doesn’t want to lose control of the mostly peaceful, prosperous, and free rules-based order it created after the disastrous first half of the 20th century. And rightly so. There is zero chance that a cult of personality totalitarian dictator like Xi Jinping is ever going to make anything broadly better for the entire world than what the US created, despite its mistakes and flaws along the way. None. It’s completely legitimate for the US to not want to lose control of that, which would mean losing some or all of it to something worse.
I don’t agree with everything the US govt does - Iraq was a travesty, and I have no idea what went on with Libya, or what is going on with Syria, for example. But there’s a 0% chance that a world dominated by Xi Jinping and the CCP would be better.
>"Second, sure the US doesn’t want to lose control of the mostly peaceful, prosperous, and free rules-based order it created after the disastrous first half of the 20th century. And rightly so."
Which has been the justification every hegemonic power has offered when working to undermine a rising power.
Whose rules are they, and who do they benefit? Who has most egregiously exempted themselves from the rules without consequence?
I agree that 'a world dominated by Xi Xinping' would be worse - though it's not clear they have any aspiration to global primacy, like the US did post-WW2 - but that's no reason to peddle myths about American exceptionalism.
The world has benefited far more than the US ever did. The "rules based order" was never created to benefit the US, if anywhere, it was created by the US to benefit Europe and East Asia to highly encourage a World War 2 to never occur again. China has benefited from this order more than the US ever has. It brought them out of poverty. Now they want to discard it now they've achieved some measure of regional power.
- Have you ever considered how much of your stuff comes via shipping lanes protected by the US Navy? Somali pirates got to FAFO what the USN thinks of pirates and we all see how that money making scheme has resonated around the globe.
Ask what’s left of the US middle class that, then ask the new Chinese middle class the same question. In terms of pure quantity of people benefiting, China wins - beneficiaries were hundreds of millions of Chinese who rose out of poverty, the capital owners in both China and US, and the CCP. Losers were the US middle class, which was one of the main reasons for the rise of Trump, and the US political system as a result of that.
This is close, but the specific verbiage that US leaders hoped for is that China would liberalize and transition to a democracy. In the 2010s, it became clear it wouldn't happen when Xi stepped into the position that he is in today.
The US likes dealing with democracies because the US has so much know how in how to influence elections. The government and CIA has a long history of meddling in elections to get the outcome that is most beneficial for the US.
Ultimately, this has built up many dictatorships around the world that violently suppress political opinions that are detrimental to the US national security.
If you don't know what was going on the middle east with iraq, libya, and syria, read this[1]. After 9/11, before the dust settled, the US wanted to force a regime change in 7 countries that they had no proof was related to 9/11. The US decimated an entire region and sent them back to the stone age for unstated reasons. Please note, all of those countries were not democracies, so they couldn't meddle in elections for more favorable leaders.
China and Xi have been smart enough to avoid a revolution/coup to become an American colony.
>The US likes dealing with democracies because the US has so much know how in how to influence elections. The government and CIA has a long history of meddling in elections to get the outcome that is most beneficial for the US.
Foreign elections only though. They would never steer or nudge the people here that would end up being their supervisors. We know that doesn't happen.
I believe it would be worse under the CCP. Power corrupts inevitably, and our best option usually comes down to choosing who/what is the lesser evil, the more constrained in their use of that power. As many mistakes as the US has made, give the CCP the power and reach of the US’s military and little or no opposition or constraints and we’ll be begging for the bad old days of US hegemony.
This is stockholm syndrome. You have a proven evil (USA) and a hypothetical evil (China, based on USA propaganda and not your personal experience), yet you believe the hypothetical would be worse. By the way, it's CPC, not CCP.
"First, in the 90s, 2000s, and some of the 2010s ‘the US’ was China’s biggest cheerleader, investor, and supporter."
Sounds a bit revisionist. Maybe you don't remember what Clinton called Bush Sr during his campaign. Back then the normal trade tariff was called "Most Favored Nation" status, a concept developed by the US in the 19th century and brought to Japan and China with gunboat diplomacy. China's status was reviewed annually by Congress and some members perennially threatened to take it away. So there was an annual wave of lobby effort on show to keep the status coupled with sweeteners from China like deals to buy Boeings etc. So they renamed MFN to PNTR to make it sound more innocuous, which it was. Only with Chinese accession to the WTO did the practice end. When Bush Jr. got into office, everyone was expecting him to get tougher on China, when Chinese GDP was one tenth of US. But then 9/11 happened.
As I understand the history, the US started supporting China around the time of the Carter administration when Deng Xiaoping was in power. That's when China reformed to incorporate much more capitalist aspects in their economy. The Americans thought this was "their guy" who would bring capitalist democracy to China. Unfortunately they were mistaken, the CCP never had any intention of losing grasp of its authoritarian rule.
> US doesn’t want to lose control of the mostly peaceful, prosperous, and free rules-based order it created after the disastrous first half of the 20th century.
> despite its mistakes and flaws along the way
"Mistakes and flaws" is one hell of an understatement.
The global suppression of any leftist or communist leaning/related movements (operation CONDOR et al.
). The funding of guerilla and other violent groups in order to install US-friendly governments, or simply exterminate leftists (Contras, Indonesia in 1965). The installation or support of many dictators who massacred and sacked their own people (Noriega, Pinochet, throughout South America). The outright invasion of a few countries who didn't play ball.
The modern US is relatively harmless, and yes, a world dominated by the CCP would probably be worse. But let's please not forget what the US did to achieve its current world order.
China has made no move to dominate the world as the West has continued to do throughout history. Even the Belt and Road Initiative is a trade initiative to benefit all participating nations. China isn't going to build military bases around the world, or force countries to adopt their political proclivities, unlike the US.
As a communist country, China inherently believes that if all grow rich, all will benefit. This is completely unlike capitalism in which "there can be only one."
> The first instinct for the Chinese is to negotiate
The difference in behaviour seems more like an "is all you have is a hammer" thing. The fact that China can't decide to randomly bomb Nigeria is a big factor in it not randomly bombing Nigeria and the fact that France could easily bomb Lybia is a big factor in it actually bombing Lybia.
This 1/3 (roughly 2.3B people) seems like about the most unlikely statistic I’ve ever seen. 2/3 of the world live in the top 10 counties, which include the US, and none of which had the US had any military activity in. The rest of the 200 countries make up the 1/3 you claim. Surely you don’t mean the US is carpet bombing everywhere? I suspect you might have been fed a bit of propaganda somewhere, or you’re over quantifying your emotional stance.
"The first instinct for the Chinese is to negotiate."
Not within China itself, no.
I think it is useful to judge a country, regime etc. by the ways it treats its own citizens when there is any disagreement between them and the government. The power imbalance between an individual citizen and the government lends itself towards abuse quite naturally.
By this standard, the US is not doing exactly great, especially towards certain ethnicities, and many European countries are better off; but China is much, much worse.
If someone wantonly isolates entire cities to stop the spread of Omicron and throws dissenters into prison or "reeducates" Muslims in camps, I don't want them to have any more power on the international scene than they already do. If only because that could inspire other countries and their politicians to behave more like Mr. Xi and his party.
I don't care what "the US" is in this context. I care about myself and the people close to me. And I don't like what life might look like if China were to become #1 and be able to dictate even more about our lives than it already does.
The US and other Western countries are far far far from perfect. They suck in many ways. But I much prefer the West's values over that of the Chinese government's, as flawed as they might be.
Certainly another potential global hegemon could be better for the world than the US (or, perhaps, no hegemon at all). But IMO China ain't it.
> to dictate even more about our lives than it already does
What exactly does China dictate about your lives?
I see people treat this like a fact, but there doesn't seem to be an incentive for China to instill its "way of life" outside of it, does there? So far this seems like a totally western outlook on external politics.
> The reason why the US doesn't like China is because the US dislikes the idea of being the #2 economy and losing control
And? Do you want Xi Xinping in charge of global culture, security, finance? How is that working out for your average Chinese these days (and I’m not talking about the previous freeer era).
You want social credit scores? One man basically in charge of the global military?
You paint a picture of America as an evil empire, but what do the alternatives look like?
I'm not even sure how to make sense of what you wrote. How did you conclude everyone on the globe will get a Chinese social credit score if China becomes #1 economy in the world?
Most people outside the West don't necessarily clamour for Chinese hegemony, but want to live in a multipolar world. Why should trade between non aligned countries have to be restricted when US decides to weaponize its currency?
> You paint a picture of America as an evil empire, but what do the alternatives look like?
The nice alternatives don't have big enough militaries to be considered seriously, one could point at some European nations for a more measured approach, but it's hard to do it seriously when we only exist because the US saved us and continues to do so, as Europe pretty much has no military power if push comes to shove.
No military power is short selling Europe, just not as much as it probably should have, and that's because we figured war is no longer a viable option. Unfortunately recent events have shown this to be a fallacy.
Do we want America as a world leader? Enforcing their dated moral views on us trough controlling money flow and social media? We do have accept violence but no nudity in our media when our society is the exact opposite?
Yes that's whatabouttism but the world actually does suffer from the current state as well
Sure they do. They just do it through second-order effects so it seems less obvious what's going on. I recall an instance where an American basketball team owner said something in support of the Hong Kong protests. His team was immediately banned from China, both physically and via broadcast.
Being able to publicly censor foreigners who dislike your policies is a useful power.
When you control economic access to a billion people, you don't always need guns to get others to do that you want. (China does have plenty of those guns, though, if and when they decide they need them.)
I totally agree. But it doesn't influence me here in Europe.
And so far I haven't seen any signs that china is trying to change that.
While visa and master banning all related to sex has real life consequences. Same with social media showing a skewed censored view on sexuality because of morality views that do not fit the society I live in. Until a few years ago you couldn't watch TV without something exploding and the US military somehow saving the day in every second movie.
We have to comply to rules that do not apply to our society.
I get that but I don’t get what barriers exist preventing competition that meets your cultures norms. There’s no state mandates involved? I suspect the answer is scale of market giving scale of impact, as well as overall quality of production and post production of American media. What’s your take? Particularly in the space of internet technologies it feels like “nothing stops you.” But I also think global social media companies are generally “family” oriented more than American morality oriented, and are opting for an intersection of cultural norms to be as minimally controversial as possible. Most cultures on earth are considerably more conservative than America, let alone Europe. Europe is very much an outlier in human cultures.
You are right I guess. Movies being the best example. Netflix and all companies that followed opened up investments in international movies and within only a few years US movies appear to be the minority, at least on German streaming sites.
Today we have several real time payment methods "better" than credit card. I still can't sell a dildo with paypal, but I do have options now (if I don't care about us customers who expect credit card payments)
Social media ist lost cause anyway.
Maybe that should be my point. America is losing its influence, and it's obviously afraid. I am afraid when America is afraid because history has shown in might react wildly.
In America this is a non issue to be honest. The rest of the world rarely registers. The American market is so vast in itself that is the primary focus. The issue of China has more to do with the courting of totalitarianism (Russia, North Korea, and various other bad guys), destabilization of international institutions, aggressive economic espionage, etc. I think the #1 vs #2 GDP is about as big a non issue to most Americans as nudity in Europe. I think this is a hold over from the 1950-1980’s, but American society now is much more insular and focused more on the Kardashians clothing choice.
That's not what I ment. Visa&Master, whoever rates movies, facebook they all allow violence but no nudity.
In Europe nudity definitely is more normal than violence. America is forcing their different moral view on our media, normalizing violence and ashaming the youth with oldschool sexual views.
> And? Do you want Xi Xinping in charge of global culture, security, finance?
Why not? Granted, I'm not an American. I haven't heard any Chinese Foreign minister goading of having killed hundreds of thousands of kids the same way as the US did [1], so why shouldn't the rest of the world give China a chance instead of the US?
> I guessing you haven't read much of Chinese history
Objectively speaking, the US history of genocide, slavery and global warfare and terrorist sponsorship even before becoming an uncontested hegemony hardly makes it look better.
> If the choice is between the US or China running the world, I'll pick the US, every. single. time.
Sure, but I would bet that you might just be privileged enough to live nearby the US inner economic circle.
You haven’t heard because they are very good at being quiet about what they do. Google Uighur, then google further since you now know what to look for.
At this point I'm treating any information coming from Western sources as propaganda and definitely questionable. It wasn't always like this, but that's what the last couple of years have made me think.
As such, I'd need other sources than Western media to tell me what to think about what happens to the Uighurs (whom I'm sure do not have an easy life, far from it).
It sounds like you're saying that, because you can't be certain of the truth presented by Western media, you're just going to assume that everyone be going on in China is just a-okay.
Maybe go ahead and find those alternate news sources, explain why you believe they are accurate, and present a conclusion?
You will be downvoted and ignored for 'whataboutism' but what you say is still true and one of the many many reasons why many people in the western world do not follow, appreciate or even accept the US as quasi leader.
I don't see anything in the post of the person you're responding to that has anything to do with morals, nor the US liking or disliking China. So what exactly are you responding to?
I agree with your point that the US has no "morals", but that's pretty much any country. It's almost 100% self-interest, hence the geopolitical theory of "realpolitik" - pragmatism over everything else.
That said, I disagree the US doesn't like China because it will be the #2 economy. The US doesn't care about that. What it cares about is a potentially hostile power.
The US is a state entity where its representatives are elected, and those representatives make the policy decisions on what nations get financial support for their militaries.
To claim that these representatives don't make their decisions based on morality, or any other value that individuals have, is strictly false.
One might argue that only individuals who have opinions in line with national interests are electable, but that would be bullshit. If there's anything to truly be internalized about the elections of Barack Obama followed by Donald Trump, it's that individuals have a profound influence on American policy. If there were national interests that were solely responsible for US policy, they why was both foreign and domestic policy profoundly different across presidencies?
I'm genuinely curious how your worldview has an answer to this.
Is your claim that the US is not a functioning democracy? Would you be willing to offer definitions of what you mean by "functioning" and "democracy"? Many people use the word "democracy" when they mean "democratic republic".
I read your other replies, and disliked those too. So no, I will not be offering anything more because I do not care about what you think enough to do so.
But the US support for dictatorships hasn't changed between Obama and Trump (or Biden). The US will support any dictatorship that furthers US interests and will oppose any dictatorship that does the opposite.
Thus it's perfectly valid to say that it's never about whether it's morally right to support dictatorships. China is disliked by the US because it's a threat to America being #1 economically, not because it's a dictatorship. The same is true for human rights abuses, of course.
Individual politicians might have certain morals or values. I really believe Obama wanted to close Gitmo but if you look at the results, they're absolutely predictable and not at all based on any morals the US claims to have.
I think your first sentence is strictly false. For easy counterexamples, the US changed its policy towards both Cuba and Venezuela from cooperation/reproachment to outright hostility if not regime change between the Obama and Trump administrations.
Is this the case? I thought the USAID department allocated mainly its appropriations for foreign aid not the legislature? My understanding is the allocations are guided by the president, Secretary of State, and NSC.
Different leaders have different policies thus the US is a true democracy and is moral? Just because the Overton Window[1] is large in the US doesn't mean that political dissenting opinions are not suppressed.
Consider the Twitterfiles, the government is actively censoring speech critical of the FBI and politicians. Think of the Hunter Biden laptop story, do you think that if that speech was not censored that different policies would be supported by the masses and that they would elect different representatives?
People need to know information to make good decisions. If they don't know the information, obviously, they won't consider that in the decision making process
The original claim is that the US acts out of national interest only, and doesn't take actions based on morality or other values that individuals have. To oppose that claim, one simply needs to show that individual values have at least some influence on US policy, not that individual values drive ALL policy. I've shown that
I wonder what the long-term impact is going to be of allowing advocates for foreign powers to fully participate in Western conversations, whilst not even Chinese citizens (let alone foreigners) can advocate against their own govt in China.
I've been trying to preach this on HN for months. The American propaganda is blindingly strong.
The US will work with one-party countries as long as they're not a threat economically. How else do you think that Americans cheer when factories get moved to Vietnam, which is significantly worse in human rights?
Both of these things can't be true at the same time:
1. The US is concerned for Chinese citizens economically because there is only one government party in China.
2. The US thinks that CCP's policies are too effective economically that it might overtake the US as the #1 economy.
The US and China have the same amount of morals. It's basic human instincts. What's at stake here is purely socioeconomics.
What are you even talking about. China is regularly rated lower than Vietnam on human rights rankings and Vietnam is trending towards improvement. China is trending towards regression.
Our morals in international politics are always just applied selectively, and there are few examples of where our best interest and moral considerations clash - because morality is immediately ignored or downplayed when interest is involved.
>Based on Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, it was established by the US International Broadcasting Act of 1994 with the stated aim of "promoting democratic values and human rights", and countering the narrative of the Chinese Communist Party, as well as providing media reports about the North Korean government.[12] It is funded and supervised by the U.S. Agency for Global Media[13] (formerly Broadcasting Board of Governors), an independent agency of the United States government.
To be fair, the theory that economic development leads to political liberalization isn't entirely fiction. Taiwan and South Korea both used to be de facto dictatorships.
Meanwhile, Russia's vastly more economically developed[1] than it was in the 90s, yet it went fully down the authoritarian slide over the past three decades.
Also, it may be worth dropping by much of the Middle East to get another reality check on this question.
The only thing economic development seems to consistently result in is a higher demand for imports.
[1] Well, the nice parts of it are much wealthier than they used to be. The provincial towns are dying, and all the productive industries have been pushed out by oil and services.
[1] https://truthout.org/articles/us-provides-military-assistanc...