And it's making such statements with the artificial islands that they're building, the increasing military spending, the stealing of military secrets by hacking subcontractors, demonstrating their anti-sat missiles, etc. And that's just military. With their new one belt, one road initiative, they're trying to split the world into countries that use all Chinese tech w/Chinese standards, trading with china to build infrastructure by Chinese laborers.
If you were the leader of a country that would find itself in the crosshairs of another that was quite aggressive in the world stage, starting wars unilaterally, what would you do?
If a particular fickle leader were to block the Strait of Malacca, what do you think would happen to China's economy?
See this is the problem with adventurism and brinksmanship. It forces people to do whatever it takes, just as due diligence.
If you were the leader of a country that would find itself in the crosshairs of another that was quite aggressive in the world stage, starting wars unilaterally, what would you do?
I would probably try and cosy up to my immediate neighbours, not antagonise them.
If there were Chinese military bases in Vancouver, Havana, and all across Mexico, with docking rights in Halifax, the United States would not be acting all that much differently from how China is acting today.
Actually, now that I think of it, it would probably act by loudly contemplating the possibility of regime change in its neighbors.
Far less in fact. The US hasn't done most of those things.
Which artificial islands did the US build in eg the Gulf of Mexico to steal all of Mexico's gulf territorial waters? It didn't. Instead, the US has maintained a fair split of the gulf with Mexico, despite being a superpower that could take it all anytime it wants to. The US could take most of the water territory in the Caribbean if it wanted to, any time it wanted to.
Where are the vast number of examples of the US getting its military tech directly - via hacking - from cloning it from the USSR, Russia, Britain, Germany and France. Is that where the US got the F22, by stealing it from Russia? Is that where the US got the B2, by stealing it from France? Is that where the US got its 20 year lead in drone tech (eg Global Hawk 25 years ago), by stealing it all from Germany? Or how about the innovations in carrier technology over decades, that was stolen from which country, Spain? Italy? Japan? None of that happened.
When did the US send a large army of labor into Africa to extract resources there? It didn't. What the US has done for Africa, is push hundreds of billions of dollars in aid into the continent and save millions of lives with programs like PEPFAR. And its cure (thanks Pharmasset) for Hepatitis C will save millions more over time (see: Egypt).
Instead of building islands they bought, leased, and bullied their way to airbases and islands across the world post WW2. Geography meant building was not necessary.
Hacking? Not sure, there was certainly significant US commercial spying in the early post-war years. They licensed many military techs and broke the terms of licensing, often providing nothing whatsoever in return. Just one example: The Miles M54 and Power Jet's engines, which after very little time and development became the Bell X-1. None at all of the promised data and tech was provided in return. There are others, sometimes by even more dubious means.
A large amount of the early US space program relied on "liberated" German technology and staff, from Von Braun downwards. Infiltration of Airbus is ongoing. The only thing preventing the US from "stealing" more is its own technological lead, not some innate moral superiority.
The US involvement in Africa during the Cold War was a complex approach to align the unaligned. CIA in the Congo, for example.
No, the US started a war with the remnants of the Spanish Empire to gain Puerto Rico.
The US stole plenty from England during the Industrial revolution. That much is well known. In fact it was taught to me as an example of patriotism that some engineer immigrated from England after memorizing the schematics of some machine. The name of the engineer I've since forgotten.
What has happened for Africa with all that Western aid? The West wants to "help" the "poor" starving Africans but it seems doubtful that they would actually be happy if Africa became self-determining.
Don't look East to Africa, look Latin America for examples of American imperialism:
The CIA orchestrated the coup in 1954 in Guatemala, under the orders of the United Fruit Company.
The USA aided the 1964 Coup in Brazil to overthrow a left-wing leader who was getting a little too cozy with the communists.
In 1970, the USA engaged in economic warfare against Chile, and assisted in the subsequent coup in 1973, then stood by watching as they started throwing dissidents out of helicopters.
The 1976 Argentine coup was supported and encouraged by the USA, who knew of the plan months before they overthrew the democratically elected government. 20,000 people went missing, raped, tortured, thrown out of planes, having their children stolen from them. The USA was completely complacent in these atrocities.
That's just a few examples of American interference in Latin America. They've meddles in the affairs of practically every single Latin American country.
>Which artificial islands did the US build in eg the Gulf of Mexico to steal all of Mexico's gulf territorial waters? It didn't. Instead, the US has maintained a fair split of the gulf with Mexico, despite being a superpower that could take it all anytime it wants to. The US could take most of the water territory in the Caribbean if it wanted to, any time it wanted to.
This is the case only because Mexico and the rest of Latin America are relatively poor and subservient nations of no threat to the U.S. The Monroe doctrine and its 1904 corollary [1], both precursors to U.S hegemonic domination of the Western Hemisphere, ensured that the cards would fall this way. These policies have have directly resulted in multiple humanitarian disasters the effects of which are still being felt in Latin America to this day [2].
As far as the question of building islands, neither the Russians nor the Chinese are conducting war-games 10,000km from home, inviting Mexico, Cuba and Canada to come sail their warships around the Gulf of Mexico in the name of freedom of navigation. Neither the Russians nor the Chinese are installing advanced radar and missile systems in Canada and Mexico. Neither the Russians nor the Chinese have declared a “pivot to the West”, selling billions of dollars in military hardware to Cuba, Canada, Mexico and the rest of Latin America, proselytizing their political ideologies while doing so. Neither the Russians nor the Chinese have any military bases in America’s backyard that have previously been used as launching grounds for conducting illegal wars. Neither the Russians nor Chinese have ever exerted a policy of containment - an act of political and economic strangulation. America doesn’t have to worry about any of these things, and thus the question of why it has not built artificial islands becomes largely non-applicable.
> Where are the vast number of examples of the US getting its military tech directly - via hacking - from cloning it from the USSR, Russia, Britain, Germany and France. Is that where the US got the F22, by stealing it from Russia? Is that where the US got the B2, by stealing it from France? Is that where the US got its 20 year lead in drone tech (eg Global Hawk 25 years ago), by stealing it all from Germany? Or how about the innovations in carrier technology over decades, that was stolen from which country, Spain? Italy? Japan? None of that happened.
Is it common for a technologically superior nation to steal technology from technologically inferior nations? What could they hope to steal? Nonetheless, there are still a few examples of it happening, as mentioned in the other comments.
> When did the US send a large army of labor into Africa to extract resources there? It didn't. What the US has done for Africa, is push hundreds of billions of dollars in aid into the continent and save millions of lives with programs like PEPFAR. And its cure (thanks Pharmasset) for Hepatitis C will save millions more over time (see: Egypt).
I’m not going to denigrate the contributions of programs such as PEPFAR, as they have undoubtedly improved the lives of millions. This is objectively a good thing in terms of reparations for the destruction the U.S government and corporations have wrought upon the continent for the past few decades [3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10]. We have everything from facilitating coups and assassinations to the backing and arming of genocidal warlords (responsible for the death and suffering of countless millions during endless civil wars). We’ve seen American corporations doing everything from conducting illegal human experimentation [11] to bog-standard corruption [12][13][14][15][16][17][18] and other types of exploitation [19]. We don’t really need to talk about the long-term, multi-generational effects the slave trade had on Africa [20].
If your first line (flooding Africa with labor to extract resources) is referring to China, then you’re wrong: the overwhelming majority of labor employed in Africa by Chinese corporations is local [21][22].
The West has provided hand-me-downs to Africa for decades now, crushing local industries like textiles [23] and suffocating food producers [24]. It has pumped billions of dollars of aid into Africa which has objectively not achieved much more than feed corruption and erode government-taxpayer accountability [25]. No western nation has been willing to lend to “junk” rated African nations anywhere near the amount of capital or provide infrastructure development on the terms the Chinese have.
For the first time in history, a country is willing to come to Africa as an equal partner, signing deals that provide the people with real, tangible benefits like world class airports, highways and high-speed rail systems [26]. No hand-me-downs, no pitiful TV ads begging for a dollar a day on behalf of starving, fly-laden black kids. Just mutually respectful and beneficial business deals. Economic corridors are now opening up between African nations that have never been connected before and brand-new high-capacity ports are doing the same thing for international trade. And before you mention the tired old debt-trap diplomacy trope, it has so far been nothing more than a groundless accusation based on paranoia and sour grapes [27][28][29].
Is this whataboutism? I don't understand your point. The GP said "I wonder how much of China's arming is as a result of concern of the absurdly oversized US military machine."
The point is that the populist alarmism over China is the same as 1984 sheeple being told who to hate by BB.
The US has a few dozen military bases outside US territory but somehow China making moves to expand its influence over its economic sphere is a matter of grave concern. So much of the anti-China rhetoric is the same as the anti-Japan rhetoric from 30 years ago. It's mostly veiled racism and a search for an enemy to hate to solidify the domestic group identity.
