What's up with the anti-China sentiment?
EV exports are overproduction. Foreign investments are debt traps. Military base in Djibouti is expansionism. Doing nothing with said military base is failure to help the international community. If all else fails, it's a human rights violation or a national security risk. Even if it's open source...
It's hysteria.
Meanwhile, in the many developing countries I've visited, Chinese investments and products have noticeably improved people's lives: Xiaomi phones, BYD cars, rail infrastructure. Things people can actually afford...
China has 1 military base outside of its borders. Hasn't fought a war since 1979. Plays with all sides (Morocco and Algeria, Saudi Arabia and Iran, Russia and Ukraine). Has never ventured outside of Asia in 5,000 years of history. Yet political commentators seem to think China is on a conquest to destroy America.
Is China a competitor? Absolutely. Does it make sense to de-risk investments? Of course. The degree of panic shared by some (not referring to Trump) is crazy though.
I think people need to dial it back a notch.
With or without EVs, surely we knew they would stop buying our Buicks eventually...
Fwiw I spent a month travelling around Iran a few years ago. The infrastructure is very developed; you can take a very comfortable overnight train between cities (with immaculately clean bedded cabins and decent food) for like a few $. The Tehran metro is great. I stayed with a family in a very nice apartment that would've been fine by western standards.
People are extremely friendly and most, at least in the cities, will tell you that they hate their govt. Persians are also much more western than most other Middle Easterners; for example despite all the laws women are far more visible in society working normal jobs etc than you would see in a lot of other countries in the region. I remember walking past a group of schoolgirls singing "Diamonds" by Rihanna at the top of their lungs with their hijabs barely on their heads lol.
Not sure I agree with the assessment of their military might, I'm not an expert on that. But I think most people - even women - would be pleasantly surprised if they went there.
It's only going to get worse. We are in a Cold War with China (this will only be retroactively stated at some point, but we are living in the early stages right now).
Frankly, the era of unchallenged American hegemony is over (i.e. post WW2 all the way to GFS). We as a country are becoming more isolationist -- which makes sense given deepening problems at home which leaves less time to focus on rest of the world -- as are our major allies (EU block, Canada).
China has caught up in many advanced industries and even leapfrogged the US in many others (EVs, solar, nuclear, batteries, etc). They don't yet have jet engines but I'm sure at some point they will. They also don't have leading edge chips, but I'm growing more and more convinced they will at some point. The sheer level of talent in China is insane (esp given they are 5x our population), the capital is there (via govt), and the motive is there (our chip bans have made self sufficiency a necessity for them). It won't happen today or even 5yrs from now, but in 10yrs or 15yrs I think the probabilities favor them getting to EUV lithography (or some equivalent workaround) and if not getting to the leading edge then at least getting to equivalent performance / maybe 1 node behind. Their energy is unlimited via nuclear which the US is drastically behind on...this must be fixed ASAP or we will fall behind.
Notice how this thread was already shadow-banned on WSO...
GFS?
OP probably meant GFC
Honest people need to think hard about whether the world becoming multipolar will impact Americans negatively at all. Should the average Joe feel threatened by China catching up? I don't think so.
Based on the responses, seems like human rights in Xinjiang and Hong Kong’s dwindling autonomy are keeping Americans people up at night.
Maybe a war is in order?
Great comment, @Sequoia. I'd like to add that the children of China are taught at a very early stage that one needs to compete for results. My wife is Chinese, so I travel to China at least once per year, and the contrast of childhood compared to where I am from is simply astounding:
I do not live in China, but personally, I would not mind moving there. The first time I visited, I was quite shocked at how developed it was, even in the lower tier cities. In addition, people are generally friendly, warm and welcoming. People might also disagree with the government and get into political disagreements, but it is in no way as divisive as one sees in the western world:
Edit: Added a comma for clarity.
There is $1.6bn of taxpayer money earmarked for smearing China (https://www.congress.gov/bill/118th-congress/house-bill/1157). Every major publication (from the WSJ, FT, CNN, Fox, Epoch Times) and the CIA bot farms astroturfing reddit and other social media platforms are getting funded (either directly or through access journalism) to smear China and sway domestic opinion (manufacturing consent) because the political and tech oligarchs have deemed it in their best interests to decapitate our rival super power.
There you go, low hanging fruit for DOGE.
But... people are gonna DIE!? As if that is something the gov't cares about as it supplies weapons all across the world.
https://edition.cnn.com/2025/02/04/world/usaid-us-foreign-aid-freeze-humanitarian-crises-intl/index.html
Ever hear of the seven dash line buddy? we could go into the south China sea, but I'm not allowed to interview for Kraneshares because of my opinipns there.
Is everything you read about China in the West accurate? No. But as someone who spends a significant amount of time in Asia with an emphasis on China. I can tell you for certian that the much of the coverage, while specifically wrong, is directionally correct. China has major internal issues and for dozens of centuries the only way for China to deal with internal instability is to turn its internal aggression outwards onto its neighbors, be they Han or not. There is a nearly zelous level of paranoia in the CCP about the perception of losing something called "The Mandate of Heaven". This is basically the same idea that kings through out history used to weild power over the populace. In modern day China it is sitll a huge deal.
As for the worries in the West, some of them are idiotic and over blown. But this idea that everything isn't viewed as a potential avenue for war for the CCP is honestly even more brain dead. China has a defined military doctorine for using economic and monetary terrorism to preemptively attack its enemies. Don't kid yourself into thinking that China isn't playing a game of world domination.
If you’re going to cite the Han dynasty (200 BCE) and Tang Dynasty (600 CE)…
… one can also cite the Spartan Expansion, Athenian Expansion, Macedonian Conquest, Charlemagne, and the Vikings.
In your words, what a braindead argument.
Does modern day Greece still use the core societal basis for its governing authority from the Athenian Expansion? Also you seem to assume that my mention of Han was in relation to the Han Dynasty.....
Also you seem to think that I am critiquing the notion of exapnsionism. No, I am sharing insights into just how fucked China is internally right now. But I guess you just outed yourself as a CCP simp because you think that any analysis or critism is bad. Wolf warior mentality is pretty retarded. China is aggressively attempting to use its illegal industrial policy to force its world view on its neighbors.
live/ stay/ watch news in Asia for a year and you’ll understand. weekly if not daily infringements on sovereignty (google South China Sea, etc.) coupled with diplomatic threats/ doublespeak, add on over tourism by Chinese tourists who have no basic human respect for other local cultures and pridefully dun their national flag.. hidden influence and agents (I mean they are already in NYC, haven’t you read?), https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/50_Cent_Party, really just too many reasons to list here
What you are confusing is the ability to expand beyond Asia vs. willingness to expand beyond Asia..
It’s the greatest living example of Orwell’s 1984 and they get away with it b/c America is too busy with the Mid-East and we all know doesn’t really give a f
Your oblivion scares me; heck even educated locals are the biggest dissidents, if anything there’s a lack of urgency or awareness of China in the West
Did you just lump rude tourists into your argument? That applies equally as much to American and UK tourists.
Also, hasn’t Cuba been trying to kick the US out of its sovereign territory for something like 50 years? Several others too.
Lastly, I remind you China has 1 overseas military base in Djibouti (along with the French, Americans, Italians, Japanese).
Not 2 bases. One.
But yeah. Orwell or whatever… 🙄
Better dead than red. It's anti-Chinese government more than anything since they obviously were involved in the creation of deepseek. The amount of data these consumer and business-facing AIs collect is enormous so the Chinese releasing something like that would be seen as a massive security threat (rightly so).
An open source security threat. Right…
Use your brain please. It's a Chinese company would be collecting all the data from an application that has no barriers (i.e. paywall) for consumers & businesses to access. The model is open source. The data they glean from users and insights they can generate that is not.
I don't think you know how open source works..... Or even what it means.
A foreign nation is literally killing Americas (fentanyl), annexing adjacent countries (Hong Kong, Taiwan), wreaking havoc around the west through support of NGOs (sure these examples would get my comment removed), hacking every single sensitive system we have on a daily basis, and forcing sterilization on religious minorities in labor camps (Uyghurs). But you think we should cool our rhetoric...? Are you Chinese and/or on TikTok?
So basically, what you’re all up in arms about is how China governs Xinjiang and Hong Kong? So basically, China’s domestic affairs. Because of all nations, you care so much about the Chinese people…
LMAO
Of all the things I listed, that's what you latch on to? And that's your take on it - that we shouldn't care about human rights because it's in a foreign country? You really are chinese, aren't you?
Suspicious how much MS my comment got between the hours of 2:00 am and 7:00 am on a Saturday morning. There really are a lot chinese guys on here. Hi CCP!
Sounds like Israel.
The CIA bots have arrived
It's mostly people of Chinese descent (older Chinese immigrants or Chinese Americans). White folks are usually pretty chill about China.
No dude. It's not.
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