14 points but not many comments. Interesting times. Let's hope America can outlive the current chaos, and the tech world owns up to some of the rot that has set in - on our watch, and with our technology.
How can we even call it aggression for China to act in the China Sea? We are the ones bringing guns half-way around the world to their doorstep. This is US aggression, and we have no right to keep acting like the dictators of the planet.
> Philippines, the weakest link in the chain of U.S. alliances in Asia.
US alliances? Funny how our alliances are with countries that we've nuked, invaded and occupied. Is it aggression or is china trying to liberate these countries from foreign occupation.
Imagine if china nuked/invaded japan, korea and the philippines and built military bases there. And then pretended they were protecting them. We'd all laugh at them.
Considering the hegemon occupying japan and the philippines committed acts of genocide against them, they have no choice but to feel 'comfortable' with it.
If the only thing that the Japanese, Koreans, and Filipinos got from the United States after WWII and the Korean War was a collection of United States military bases then your argument might make sense.
Meh, people grow old and die, and old wounds heal.
Looking towards the future most all of China’s neighbors prefer something that looks more like the US system and less like being welded shut into your apartment on a whim.
I think you're referencing the Covid pandemic, but keep in mind:
- being "welded shut" happened once to a few people in one city, a few weeks into the pandemic when everyone was panicking, and it was a scandal inside China. People on social media were outraged, and the doors were immediately reopened.
- China got through the pandemic with 1/4 the death rate as the US.
- For most of the pandemic, life was much more normal in China than the US. China eliminated the virus by April 2020, and was able to keep it out of the country for about two years, meaning that society nearly fully reopened.
