Comments by "Persona" (@ArawnOfAnnwn) on "Can Biden create an Asian NATO against CHINA? - VisualPolitik EN" video.
-
5
-
5
-
5
-
@bobbyhill1110 The US has a far larger death toll (both Hong Kong and Tiananmen Square COMBINED are still several orders of magnitude less deaths than even ONE of America's wars) in the last half a century thanks to its wars all over the world (China hasn't been to war in decades), and ironically even a lot more people in prison than China does (2.3 million out of a population of 330 million compared to 1.6 million out of a population of 1.4 billion i.e. 4 times America's pop).
"If their government officials worked to improve the lives of their citizens" - China has raised over 2.5 times America's entire population out of extreme poverty in just a few decades despite starting from a state of destitution (and this is recognized by the WB, not just state propaganda), while the country that's been the richest nation on Earth for over a century (America) still has the highest poverty rate in the developed world (or second highest, it jostles with Israel).
China did invade Vietnam and India - half a century ago. Tibet too. The US has sent its forces to operate in 37 nations since WW2, and continues to this day. Still, India and Tibet have plenty of reason to mistrust China. But the US has way more countries with reason to hold a grudge against it. And they do - https://brilliantmaps.com/threat-to-peace/
Vietnam is instructive tho - the Sino-Vietnamese War lasted for about a month and cost the lives of about 60,000 people on both sides. The US-Vietnam War lasted for almost two decades and cost the lives of over 2 million Vietnamese, mostly civilians (the US got cold feet after losing just 50,000 soldiers lol). That's the kind of dichotomy that comes up again and again when comparing the US and China - you literally have to return to Mao's time in order to find bigger Chinese deaths.
And then there's your much-vaunted free speech/democracy excuse - that's a cute theory, pity it doesn't seem to make a difference in practice. The US hasn't fundamentally altered its aggressive hegemonic foreign policy i.e. always going to war across the world, despite being literally the safest nation on the planet thanks to two massive oceans, despite multiple generations having passed for its people to rein it in. Meanwhile authoritarian China hasn't been to war in decades, despite its people having no say in order to prevent that. Funny how that's worked out. Of course they've threatened Taiwan aplenty, but that's all they've done - contrast that with how the US has treated Cuba for generations. It's cute that Americans have their vaunted free speech, but ultimately the rest of the world is still dying to American bombs.
4
-
4
-
3
-
3
-
2
-
2
-
2
-
@bobbyhill1110 "And does any of that excuse China of her crimes?" - depends. I showed that America's record is FAR worse than that of China, so you're hitting on the less destructive power while the bigger threat gets away with its crimes scot free. Would China be worse in future? Maybe, but probably not. Why? Cos China simply doesn't have the capacity. The US is rich and spends a lot to maintain its hegemony - it's literally the second highest spender on its military per capita in the world at $2223.7 (second only to Israel). China is 58th, at $182.1 (behind Azerbaijan of all places lol). And China is still a developing nation with plenty of other stuff it needs to spend on. China doesn't at all seem likely to occupy a similar position to America - it's also surrounded by two other powers to its north (Russia) and south (India), while the US has two weak neighbours, and has far less resources than the US has (Americans often tend to underplay how resource rich the land they occupied is - abundant farmland, minerals, coal, oil, you name it). More likely China's rise will simply signal a shift to a more multipolar world order, balanced between the US, China, Russia, the EU, India and maybe a few others. That kind of arrangement curbs the excesses of any one participant, unlike the current situation wherein the US has enjoyed unchallenged hegemonic supremacy for the last 30 years (i.e. ever since the USSR fell). China has neither the reach nor the resources to be America 2.0, but it does perhaps portend an end to the dominance of America 1.0. Which is good.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_military_expenditure_per_capita
1
-
@bobbyhill1110 "America can have a chance to better itself" - America has had literal generations to better itself, and failed to do so. While China has actually changed drastically since Mao's time. Not that I'm counting on China being good anyway, that's why we maintain the worlds' 4th strongest army (and are allied with the third strongest, just to China's north).
"do you want China to become the replacement to America?" - unlike you, I don't see that as very likely, and the data suggests I'm right not to.
"And what country are you from?" - ironically, India. One of the few countries China HAS actually invaded. I've no love for China, but I laugh at Americans wringing their hands over a country who only threatens their dominance, rather than their actual homeland. The US is spoiled by its superpower status, such that they see a loss of power as an actual threat. My country knows what real danger looks like - real conflict on our actual borders, that actually threatens our territory - thanks to 5 invasions since our independence. We keep our army strong for that reason. America does it just to maintain its hegemony, as its own heartland is almost immune to invasion.
1
-
@bobbyhill1110 "And the data for China suggests that they will be even stronger than America will be, their economy has already surpassed that as well. Not to mention their technological advancement." - what data? China has lower military spending per capita, China has a lower GDP per capita, China has fewer patents. Literally none of your claims are backed up by the data. You're comparing what is still very much a middle income country with one that's literally the richest country in the world.
And good luck justifying military operations in over 3 dozen nations since WW2, many of whom were left reeling by them, and with millions of resultant deaths. You can claim 'justified' all you want, just as the Chinese can claim 'justified all the want - in neither case does that make it so. Hence why I just stuck to counting dead bodies. You're not even clear on the history - for instance, did you know that South Korea was actually an even poorer dictatorship than the "abomination" that is North Korea, even after the Korean war? That didn't bother America (they've got plenty of dictator allies), they 'saved' it in order to counter Russia, not cos of some moral calling. South Korea is prosperous now thanks to their own people - they changed from being a dictatorship to a democracy literally decades after the Korean War.
And apparently Iraq asked for it cos of having imaginary nukes. Cuba asked for it for exercising its independence in foreign policy, and kicking out exploitative American companies. Afghanistan asked for losing over 50 times the number of people killed by Al-Qaeda. Yeah, you can keep making excuses saying every country the US has invaded 'asked for it'. Just don't get mad if one day China says you 'asked for it' as well then. No country ever 'asked for' being invaded - that's the kind of language only imperialists use.
1
-
@bobbyhill1110 "China's brief period of peace" - that 'brief period' is longer than America has been at peace for most of its history. But like I said, I'm not counting on China being peaceful. We don't maintain a big army cos we think China is peaceful. But China has fewer advantages than America has, and far less ability to abuse its position as America does. It may go to war, but it won't be able to get away with that as easily as America has been able to for the last few decades. And ultimately that's what matters - I don't pick on America because I like China, I pick on America because it doesn't get picked on enough (apart from by a few marxists who mostly get ignored). China isn't painted as some moral hero (except maybe in China itself), but American media dominance means that America is. And it doesn't deserve to be. I pick on America because it, along with the UK, still gets to take the moral high ground. I don't need to trash China's reputation, it doesn't have a great one anyway. It's America that ought to be disliked more, while China is already there.
In other words, I'm not interested in playing into the wests' ever-popular pretense of being the worlds' savior. 'White man's burden' never died out, it just got rebranded so that now it's all about democracy and free speech - as long as said democracy doesn't undermine their interests of course. And hence I'm not interested in indulging the notion that America versus China is some sort of moral clash, especially when the data shows how patently false that is. This isn't about morality or ideology, merely power. And I'm interested in being a cheerleader to a contest over global hegemony.
1
-
1
-
@bobbyhill1110 "If you think China is better, then why are they commiting genocide" - Genocide is a scary sounding word, but for some reason 'war' isn't considered as scary. More precisely China is imprisoning the Uighurs. Which fits the definition of genocide, because it's targeted at a specific community. But here's the thing - I'm simply counting the bodies. And despite it being called a genocide, comparatively few Uighurs have died compared to the number of people who've died even just in the US' current set of wars. So then why aren't the US deaths criticized as 'genocide'? Because they aren't ethnically targeted, but that just means they're indiscriminate i.e. anyone can die in them. For some reason, people are so used to deaths from war that hearing about them makes no impact.
Even the imprisonment numbers are a matter of definitions. Overall the US has more people in prison, despite having only a quarter of China's population (2.3 million American prisoners versus 1.6 million Chinese), but they get away with it because in their case it's "just" because of their warped criminal justice system (especially their failed drug war), whereas a large portion of China's prisoners are to be found in one region and one people. But ultimately the US is still locking up more people, and especially black people.
China's actions do meet the technical definition of genocide sure, but in terms of total harm caused - number of dead, number of imprisoned, etc. - America is still way ahead of them. The US gets away with it simply cos they do it via ceaseless wars, which folks are somehow okay with.
1
-
@bobbyhill1110 What exactly are you claiming with that Wikipedia page? There's pages like that for America as well - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Science_and_technology_in_the_United_States
But what're you drawing from it? You've already admitted that the Chinese have "lower spending, gdppc and patents". And ironically they themselves don't value being a manufacuring hub quite as much as you do, since they're actively trying to transition from that right now. I've never said China hasn't developed, on the contrary I pretty much acknowledged that when pointing out how much they've achieved in terms of poverty reduction.
"Just because their military spending is lower doesn't mean they can't fight well against the US." - oh they can very well do that - close to their shores. Hell, even we could do a decent job of that if needed. But there's a massive difference between fighting on your own land or close to home territory and fighting far away, as America has found in so many of its wars. That's MUCH harder, and much more expensive. And China is still no where close to going toe to toe with America if it comes to distant power projection, and is in no position to invest into that as heavily either owing to both being poorer overall and also having much more significant threats close to home (such as us, for example) than America has to deal with. America has it easy, since it has two massive oceans protecting it, and two weak neighbours to its north and south. Rather what the strength of their military, and that of Russia, means is that there's likely to be more regions of the Earth where America can't operate unfettered (unfortunately this doesn't help their biggest victims - South America - much), rather than China being able to just do whatever it wants wherever it wants. In other words, it'll be a regional power.
And no, I don't agree with you on any of those places 'deserving it'. I'm not going to be conscripted as a cheerleader to a hegemon. Most countries get into wars on their borders, including China and Russia, something the US notably doesn't have to deal with. But instead of treating that gift as a reason not to fight as much, they've abused it to the extent that they've fought more wars than anyone else in modern history. The US hasn't had to defend its homeland for centuries, and it has no potential issues with any of its people living in adjacent territories not under its domain (since its borders are set with Canada and Mexico, both weak nations, and to the sides is the ocean). It literally doesn't face most of the issues that most other countries do, and yet it still manages to launch war after war. That isn't justified.
1