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We already have dozens of military bases surrounding China. There's not much more to do since China is not currently attacking foreign soil.

victorbjorklund 2y ago
They are indeed violating other countries waters though.
- dgoldstein0 2y ago
  And how would you propose deterring them from doing this while also avoiding escalation?
  - wood_spirit 2y ago
    Isn’t history showing that letting aggressors nibble away at norms and borders and letting them get away with it ‘to avoid escalation’ is just emboldening the aggressor? Peace in our time.
    - waffleiron 2y ago
      So countries should have attacked the US when it committed it's illegal wars in the middle east, to stop emboldening the aggressor? I don't think that would have created a better world. It's easy to say things like this about your geopolitical enemies, but allies get away with it all the time.
      - ajuc 2y ago
        Sanctioning US back then would be interesting. BTW war in Afghanistan wasn't illegal.
        pydry 2y ago
        Sanctions barely work even if you ARE the world hegemon. In Iraq they just made Saddam's position even more secure while killing a million children. Aginst Russia they backfired spectacularly because Putin had prepared better for the sanctions contingency than Europe did. I'm struggling to think of an example where they actually led to the desired outcome.
        FredPret 2y ago
        It played a major role in ending apartheid though it took decades and there were also other factors at work - the Berlin wall fell.
        ajuc 2y ago
        Sanctions work on the timescale of decades. They cut your GDP growth by 1-2 percent points. After 50 years you become North Korea. Let's see if Russia is a problem in 50 years :)
        pydry 2y ago
        The sanctions cut GDP growth and pushed up inflation in the first year, but that stabilized well over a year ago. Russian growth is now 5.5%, higher than all Western economies. It's difficult to see what sanctions would do that they haven't recovered from already.
        ajuc 2y ago
        This is just military production. It's like the growth you have when a hurricane destroys a city and you have to rebuilt it. It doesn't accumulate, it's just a waste. BTW look up North Korean economy growth after the war :) North Korea was always the rich part. It was developing so fast after the war. And somehow now the South Korea has Samsung and Kia and Subaru, and North Korea has starvation. https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Keun-Lee/publication/222679804/figure/tbl1/AS:669128381702154@1536544046524/arious-estimates-of-North-Koreas-annual-growth-rates-compared-with-those-of-South-Korea.png https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Keun-Lee/publication/22...
      - tomohawk 2y ago
        Iraq attacks and takes over Kuwait. And then threatens to invade Saudi Arabia. But US the the 'aggressor' for rolling this back? And the US gets many allies and works through the UN to do this, but it is somehow 'illegal'? It sounds like in your perfect world, Saddam keeps Kuwait, also gets Saudi Arabia, and the US just sits on its hands after terrorists kill thousands in NYC because being 'aggressive' is always bad no matter what.
    - onethought 2y ago
      So we should tell the US to stop driving its ships and planes right on the Chinese border? And directly through the Taiwan strait. Who is the aggressor in your mind here? Note: China don’t have any military assets off the US west coast… meanwhile then US has multi thousands of soldiers within staging distance of Chinese coast line from the very bottom to the very top.
      - _djo_ 2y ago
        US ships and aircraft stay in international waters and airspace near China, or in the territorial waters and airspace of allies who give it permission. That includes the Taiwan strait. Allowing China to prevent US or other aircraft to operate in such international waters or airspace would amount to giving them control over it, which is why it’s important to have regular freedom of navigation sailings and flights. Chinese ships and aircraft are violating the territorial waters and airspace of other countries in the region, especially in the South China Sea. It’s annexing territory that belongs to other countries. It’s not at all the same thing.
        onethought 2y ago
        I see because the US border is near there? Not on the other side of the Pacific Ocean. Anyone familiar with history, recall that Mexico was bigger? Did the Chinese get involved in that conflict? I guess what we are saying is they should have to stop an aggressor annexing territory? Oh wait, but that was actual land, where as the annexing you are talking about is ocean… ocean that the US has filled with military bases. Do you think the conflict between China Vietnam and Philippines is unrelated to US activity? Maybe you should lookup a map if US military bases and perhaps you’ll change your mind in who the aggressor is. China, except for Tibet and Korea (Both neighbouring countries) has never invaded another country. Should we look at the US? Just in that region It’s invaded Korea, Japan, Vietnam, Laos, China directly. Philippines indirectly.
        _djo_ 2y ago
        So countries may only send their aircraft and ships along their own border now? Anyone is free to operate in international waters. And, yes, Chinese military ships do at times sail just outside US territorial waters to monitor naval exercises. It’s quite telling that the examples you have to bring up of the US annexing territory are from over a century ago, before we had developed modern concepts of international law. We’re supposed to be past the era of annexation by force. The area that China is annexing is not empty ocean, it’s a set of islands that belong to other nations, like the Philippines. Those are not theirs to take, and it’s a breach of international law, but their military power and UNSC veto means they can get away with it. And, no, the conflict is not because of US activity. It’s because China, as it quite openly states in various forms including its doctrines, believes it has the right to regional hegemony over neighbouring countries. They, in turn, obviously don’t want that, so they’ve invited the US in as an ally. None of those are ‘aggressor’ moves toward China, because even the largest US military facilities in the area only have sufficient forces for defensive actions, not for an attack on mainland China. The US didn’t invade Korea, it was part of a United Nations force protecting South Korea from attack by the north. It invaded Japan after being attacked first at Pearl Harbor. It was invited into South Vietnam, at the time under attack from North Vietnam. Laos I’ll give you, that was illegal and unacceptable. The US has never invaded China, it had a post-war force at the request of the then-government to disarm and repatriate the remainder of the Imperial Japanese Army from Manchuria. Similarly, it liberated the Philippines from the Japanese and immediately restored its pre-war democratic government. That’s not an ‘invasion’ as you cast it. Of course of this is to say the US has always done good or is perfect. Far from it. But your whataboutism and insistence that China has done no wrong is ridiculous. In the past two decades alone China has been in border disputes and land grabs with nearly all its neighbours, encroaching on territory in India, Bhutan, and the South China Sea. This should not be considered acceptable either.
    - pydry 2y ago
      It also showed us that you shouldn't support Nazis, but in Ukraine Right Sector and Azov have our full backing. I also showed us that stopping genocide matters more than anything - more than national borders, but we still support Israel's genocide.
      - GordonS 2y ago
        Members of the Neo-Nazi Azov battalion were hosted in the British parliament just a few days ago. My jaw literally dropped when I saw the photo of bumbling buffoon Boris Johnson standing with them.
    - globalnode 2y ago
      palestine would like a word with you.
  - ajuc 2y ago
    The problem is that avoiding escalation with an imperialist dictatorship IS escalatory. If NATO escalated a little more in 2008 - hundreds of thousands of people in Ukraine AND in Russia would still live. Instead we made Putin think he can get away with it.
  - mschuster91 2y ago
    Show of force, easy as that. Pirates get deterred when cargo ships have gunmen armed to the teeth with AK-47 and look for easier targets, Russian ships get deterred from Ukrainian autonomous naval drones, and China gets deterred if random fisher boats get escorted in their territorial waters by an US carrier group.
black_13 2y ago
[dead]
sureIy 2y ago
They are. Check the Spratly islands. They may not be “certainly” owned by a specific country, but they’re definitely not China’s given the distance.
- rfoo 2y ago
  I checked (for those unfamiliar with western terms, this is 南沙諸島) and it seems like Taiwan also has territory claims there, does it mean Taiwan is also attacking foreign soil right now?
  - sureIy 2y ago
    Taiwan is not building cities on the islands. China is. They’re also attacking Philippines vessels that come nearby
    - rfoo 2y ago
      What's the difference? Do you mean that Taiwan's claim is purely on paper and they actually admit it's Philippines territory because they did nothing to vessels around? Also, according to Wikipedia page [1]: > The Republic of China (ROC), which ruled Mainland China before 1949 and has been confined to Taiwan since 1949, also claims all of the Spratly Islands. and under "Military occupations": > Occupied by Taiwan (ROC) > Centre Cay, Zhongzhou Reef > Itu Aba Island, Taiping Island [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spratly_Islands_dispute https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spratly_Islands_dispute
      - sureIy 2y ago
        Go away. We’re talking about actually being aggressive. Claiming territory is not equivalent to shooting vessels from other countries. Only China is.
blitzar 2y ago
China Wants War: Look How Close They Put Their Country To Our Military Bases

victorbjorklund 2y ago

They are indeed violating other countries waters though.

dgoldstein0 2y ago
And how would you propose deterring them from doing this while also avoiding escalation?
- wood_spirit 2y ago
  Isn’t history showing that letting aggressors nibble away at norms and borders and letting them get away with it ‘to avoid escalation’ is just emboldening the aggressor? Peace in our time.
  - waffleiron 2y ago
    So countries should have attacked the US when it committed it's illegal wars in the middle east, to stop emboldening the aggressor? I don't think that would have created a better world. It's easy to say things like this about your geopolitical enemies, but allies get away with it all the time.
    - ajuc 2y ago
      Sanctioning US back then would be interesting. BTW war in Afghanistan wasn't illegal.
      - pydry 2y ago
        Sanctions barely work even if you ARE the world hegemon. In Iraq they just made Saddam's position even more secure while killing a million children. Aginst Russia they backfired spectacularly because Putin had prepared better for the sanctions contingency than Europe did. I'm struggling to think of an example where they actually led to the desired outcome.
        FredPret 2y ago
        It played a major role in ending apartheid though it took decades and there were also other factors at work - the Berlin wall fell.
        ajuc 2y ago
        Sanctions work on the timescale of decades. They cut your GDP growth by 1-2 percent points. After 50 years you become North Korea. Let's see if Russia is a problem in 50 years :)
        pydry 2y ago
        The sanctions cut GDP growth and pushed up inflation in the first year, but that stabilized well over a year ago. Russian growth is now 5.5%, higher than all Western economies. It's difficult to see what sanctions would do that they haven't recovered from already.
        ajuc 2y ago
        This is just military production. It's like the growth you have when a hurricane destroys a city and you have to rebuilt it. It doesn't accumulate, it's just a waste. BTW look up North Korean economy growth after the war :) North Korea was always the rich part. It was developing so fast after the war. And somehow now the South Korea has Samsung and Kia and Subaru, and North Korea has starvation. https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Keun-Lee/publication/222679804/figure/tbl1/AS:669128381702154@1536544046524/arious-estimates-of-North-Koreas-annual-growth-rates-compared-with-those-of-South-Korea.png https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Keun-Lee/publication/22...
    - tomohawk 2y ago
      Iraq attacks and takes over Kuwait. And then threatens to invade Saudi Arabia. But US the the 'aggressor' for rolling this back? And the US gets many allies and works through the UN to do this, but it is somehow 'illegal'? It sounds like in your perfect world, Saddam keeps Kuwait, also gets Saudi Arabia, and the US just sits on its hands after terrorists kill thousands in NYC because being 'aggressive' is always bad no matter what.
  - onethought 2y ago
    So we should tell the US to stop driving its ships and planes right on the Chinese border? And directly through the Taiwan strait. Who is the aggressor in your mind here? Note: China don’t have any military assets off the US west coast… meanwhile then US has multi thousands of soldiers within staging distance of Chinese coast line from the very bottom to the very top.
    - _djo_ 2y ago
      US ships and aircraft stay in international waters and airspace near China, or in the territorial waters and airspace of allies who give it permission. That includes the Taiwan strait. Allowing China to prevent US or other aircraft to operate in such international waters or airspace would amount to giving them control over it, which is why it’s important to have regular freedom of navigation sailings and flights. Chinese ships and aircraft are violating the territorial waters and airspace of other countries in the region, especially in the South China Sea. It’s annexing territory that belongs to other countries. It’s not at all the same thing.
      - onethought 2y ago
        I see because the US border is near there? Not on the other side of the Pacific Ocean. Anyone familiar with history, recall that Mexico was bigger? Did the Chinese get involved in that conflict? I guess what we are saying is they should have to stop an aggressor annexing territory? Oh wait, but that was actual land, where as the annexing you are talking about is ocean… ocean that the US has filled with military bases. Do you think the conflict between China Vietnam and Philippines is unrelated to US activity? Maybe you should lookup a map if US military bases and perhaps you’ll change your mind in who the aggressor is. China, except for Tibet and Korea (Both neighbouring countries) has never invaded another country. Should we look at the US? Just in that region It’s invaded Korea, Japan, Vietnam, Laos, China directly. Philippines indirectly.
        _djo_ 2y ago
        So countries may only send their aircraft and ships along their own border now? Anyone is free to operate in international waters. And, yes, Chinese military ships do at times sail just outside US territorial waters to monitor naval exercises. It’s quite telling that the examples you have to bring up of the US annexing territory are from over a century ago, before we had developed modern concepts of international law. We’re supposed to be past the era of annexation by force. The area that China is annexing is not empty ocean, it’s a set of islands that belong to other nations, like the Philippines. Those are not theirs to take, and it’s a breach of international law, but their military power and UNSC veto means they can get away with it. And, no, the conflict is not because of US activity. It’s because China, as it quite openly states in various forms including its doctrines, believes it has the right to regional hegemony over neighbouring countries. They, in turn, obviously don’t want that, so they’ve invited the US in as an ally. None of those are ‘aggressor’ moves toward China, because even the largest US military facilities in the area only have sufficient forces for defensive actions, not for an attack on mainland China. The US didn’t invade Korea, it was part of a United Nations force protecting South Korea from attack by the north. It invaded Japan after being attacked first at Pearl Harbor. It was invited into South Vietnam, at the time under attack from North Vietnam. Laos I’ll give you, that was illegal and unacceptable. The US has never invaded China, it had a post-war force at the request of the then-government to disarm and repatriate the remainder of the Imperial Japanese Army from Manchuria. Similarly, it liberated the Philippines from the Japanese and immediately restored its pre-war democratic government. That’s not an ‘invasion’ as you cast it. Of course of this is to say the US has always done good or is perfect. Far from it. But your whataboutism and insistence that China has done no wrong is ridiculous. In the past two decades alone China has been in border disputes and land grabs with nearly all its neighbours, encroaching on territory in India, Bhutan, and the South China Sea. This should not be considered acceptable either.
  - pydry 2y ago
    It also showed us that you shouldn't support Nazis, but in Ukraine Right Sector and Azov have our full backing. I also showed us that stopping genocide matters more than anything - more than national borders, but we still support Israel's genocide.
    - GordonS 2y ago
      Members of the Neo-Nazi Azov battalion were hosted in the British parliament just a few days ago. My jaw literally dropped when I saw the photo of bumbling buffoon Boris Johnson standing with them.
  - globalnode 2y ago
    palestine would like a word with you.
- ajuc 2y ago
  The problem is that avoiding escalation with an imperialist dictatorship IS escalatory. If NATO escalated a little more in 2008 - hundreds of thousands of people in Ukraine AND in Russia would still live. Instead we made Putin think he can get away with it.
- mschuster91 2y ago
  Show of force, easy as that. Pirates get deterred when cargo ships have gunmen armed to the teeth with AK-47 and look for easier targets, Russian ships get deterred from Ukrainian autonomous naval drones, and China gets deterred if random fisher boats get escorted in their territorial waters by an US carrier group.

black_13 2y ago

[dead]

sureIy 2y ago

They are. Check the Spratly islands. They may not be “certainly” owned by a specific country, but they’re definitely not China’s given the distance.

rfoo 2y ago
I checked (for those unfamiliar with western terms, this is 南沙諸島) and it seems like Taiwan also has territory claims there, does it mean Taiwan is also attacking foreign soil right now?
- sureIy 2y ago
  Taiwan is not building cities on the islands. China is. They’re also attacking Philippines vessels that come nearby
  - rfoo 2y ago
    What's the difference? Do you mean that Taiwan's claim is purely on paper and they actually admit it's Philippines territory because they did nothing to vessels around? Also, according to Wikipedia page [1]: > The Republic of China (ROC), which ruled Mainland China before 1949 and has been confined to Taiwan since 1949, also claims all of the Spratly Islands. and under "Military occupations": > Occupied by Taiwan (ROC) > Centre Cay, Zhongzhou Reef > Itu Aba Island, Taiping Island [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spratly_Islands_dispute https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spratly_Islands_dispute
    - sureIy 2y ago
      Go away. We’re talking about actually being aggressive. Claiming territory is not equivalent to shooting vessels from other countries. Only China is.

blitzar 2y ago

China Wants War: Look How Close They Put Their Country To Our Military Bases