[marianatom]

here's the thing, humanity got lucky. there was a nonzero chance that china and the dictatorships could have triumphed. if China didn't botch the chance to overtake US in 2008 with a capable dictator. if China got its hands on many advanced US military technologies. if Russia didn't botch the Ukraine invasion. if covid didn't have a vaccine, except one that China developed.

I'm sure most of us are aware of the gulags that China ran in 2022, in the most prosperous city like Shanghai, with welded doors, lack of food, arbitrary killing of pets, moving their own citizens against their wills to camps or cells with no running water and unsanitary conditions. with cries in tall buildings from families in the middle of night for food. If. you haven't seen these things, go watch it online. Imagine if somehow China succeeded, and that's most of humanity's fate.

[newuser94303]

I don't think that China has any interest in conquering the rest of World. They just want to be rich. They are stealing IP and spying. The fact that the US needs to use military force is a failure of policy.

Violence is the last resort of the incompetent.

I think that China is pulling on the US what the US did to the Soviet Union. The US bankrupted the Soviet Union with an arms race. China is doing it much more economically by spending 1/3 of the US. This is money that the US could be using to build a high speed rail network or educating its citizens.

[marianatom]

There are so many wrongs with your statements that I don't know where to start. I'll just tackle one of them.

"build a high speed rail network", implying that US is failing there. China is suffering from a $1 TRILLION debt for its rails https://asia.nikkei.com/Business/Markets/China-debt-crunch/C..., while ridership collapses https://japan-forward.com/weak-demand-for-chinas-high-speed-.... Cities in China are suffering from $23 TRILLION insolvent debt and inability to raise more https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2023-05-21/china-s-2.... I certainly hope US doesn't suffer the same fate.

[l33t233372]

> The fact that the US needs to use military force is a failure of policy.

And a million realists(in the technical sense that IR people use the word) cried out in terror at once.

[throwaway6734]

It's not just luck though. The American system is better than both the Chinese and Russian ones.

[wazer5]

Wow you should visit China though, it's great. I feel for those who don't get to experience the benefits of globalization.

[marianatom]

lol, how presumptuous. I have visited China in 2007, before it turned authoritarian/dictatorship. I would not visit China again to support the dictatorship. I can visit any number of democratic countries like Taiwan.

I feel for those who don't get that they are supporting evil.

Btw, speaking of evil, China isn't giving up yet (Xi still have 10-20 years to live. free organ transplants from young Chinese, you know. high ranking politicians get them for free). It is producing destroyers at a massive rate, and will exceed # of destroyers that US has by 2040. Combined with the millions of disposable unemployed single young men, and there's still a chance that Taiwan would overwhelmed. and if Taiwan falls, the same strategy can be used to conquer Japan, South Korea, Philippines, Australia.

[randomopining]

Great in which way? I guess working for peanuts is a great step up for people who suffered through famines.

Otherwise it's the common battle between "orderliness at any cost" and freedoms. US or Europe seems to strike a better balance, for all of their shortcomings. In China its ruled by the CCP with an iron fist.

[pdonis]

The "greatness" of China is an excellent example of Cheops' Law: You can do anything you put your mind to if you have an endless supply of expendable labor.