The US thinks of Chinese prosperity as a threat in and of itself. The US wants to call the shots, and the reason it has been able to since WWII is because it is wealthy (due to its innovation of not being a country in Europe during WWII.) It's not simply racism, though. The US also thinks of European prosperity as a threat.
These sentiments are not hidden. They are openly spoken during policy discussions and in policy papers. Fake concerns about the nature of Chinese governance have nothing to do with it - the problem the US has with Chinese governance is that China is not governed by the US. The US is jealous of China's tools for censorship and the tight top down political control.
edit: the US government is not at all concerned about the citizens of China. It also did not invade Afghanistan for women's rights, and it is not helping Israel to preserve gay rights. These are barely even serious pretenses. It is not in Ukraine because it cares about the freedom of 2/3rds of the population to suppress the other third. These are stories for children.
China - under Xi specifically - doesn't have rule of law, acts as an agent of chaos on the world stage, doesn't care about international order, bullies its neighbors, and critically, has become a 1-man dictatorship in the past ~10 years. Under Xi, it's an aspiring evil empire that considers all humans of Han ancestry to belong to it, and genuinely doesn't care about the rest. Pre-Xi, China was on a positive trajectory. Post-Xi, hopefully that'll return.
Your first sentence is exactly what the US has done since the Cold War through recent history. Why is it different when China does it, which it also hasn't to the scale that the US has?
It's not different. Peace is always a temporary illusion, a cloaking of the war, and one shouldn't expect any consistency in these cases (akin to the peacock's tail-feathers, too much consistency costs).
China doesn't really have stable rule of law, but "agent of chaos on the world stage"? It's the most stable and predictable major power, by far.
China hasn't fought a war in 40 years. It's been too busy focusing on its own internal economic development. In terms of the international order, China is much more committed to institutions like the UN and WTO than the US is, because China wants a stable international framework in which to continue its own internal development.
Dude you need to chill. Xi is just a man in China. You need to take a trip there to get a different perspective and make sure to talk/interact with the local people.
Everything you said describes the US and other western nations better than any other civilization in history. The US backs genocide after genocide, consistently breaks the international “laws” it pushed for. From the start of the empire, that’s been the explicit policy of the American empire. Trail of tears anyone? Hiroshima? Agent Orange? East Timor? The banana republics? It’s a really long list…
Students really need to be taught their actual history. It’s really quite horrific.
This comment displays not even a shred of understanding regarding China or it’s history.
How dare China have territorial sovereignty. How dare they have security in their own region. How dare they build infrastructure in the global south, when everyone knows they should be pillaging those regions instead! Unthinkable! That all belongs to the west!
That comment represents an insanity in the west that may just be the downfall of organized human life.
Lol yes exactly like this. Tides have turned eh? The American elite are doing a very good job of distracting the public from problems at home.
They get people riled up about Taiwan or Ukraine, meanwhile the education system, the housing supply, job market, healthcare system, etc... are all in shambles.
Americans don't even question it anymore! It's now fair that housing should be >=40% of your wage. It's fair that companies that are propped up by the American people can screw over those same people.
But when you see how modern and lively China is and how they live, compared to the crumbling, old United States... oh boy. Strange how they can afford it but we, the supposed 'richest country in the world', can't.
The way they curb free speech, even projecting that internationally.
Their announced intention to become the world's superpower and displace the US militarily, technologically, and economically, and the risks to US interest which tie to that.
Their active pursuit to enact that claim, specifically with rapid military technology development, and international organization of BRICS.
Their aggressive tendencies towards US allies.
Their aggressive spying on US military and industrial facilities.
China has barely started with Taiwan. There are projections of China moving to forcibly take Taiwan within the next two years. It may be a bit later than that.
If the US doesn't take a strong stance in support of its ally in Taiwan, China will only take it sooner. Once China invades, that begins the massive expansion to WWIII that JP Morgan CEO claims has already begun with Ukraine.
The US can't lose Taiwan as an ally, strategically or economically. If we give up our support of Taiwan we've as good as handed over hegemony to China. And we'll have lost the AGI race in its infancy.
It depends on how long you're willing to roll back US interventionism. If you're talking about pre-WW1, maybe. But even by the mid-late 19th century the US started sticking its nose in the Pacific (which alarmed Japan, which contributed to that countries subsequent militarism). So I'd say you'd have to go back even further.
If not the US, it would probably be Europe and/or the Soviet Union. China and the Soviet Union nearly came to blows in the 60s.
Europe decolonized largely because Hitler wrecked major continental colonial powers France and the Netherlands) and put Britain with their backs against the wall such that it had to partially abandon its empire in order to defend itself and avoid a complete disaster. So they let India go, but tried to hold on elsewhere. This worked to some extent, but not in others. What remained tried to morph into the Commonwealth, this was only partially successful.
The US assumed the crown, this time with a different model, hegemony vs. colonialism. They had a rival in the Soviet Union, which funded Communist revolutions in many parts of the developing world. With the exception of Vietnam, something the Chinese did not do. They valued North Vietnam as a buffer against Wester imposition, but were not too keen on a reunified Vietnam, indeed they invaded a few years after South Vietnam collapsed.
Well for starters, Xi Jinping being the most powerful person on Earth is probably a bad sign for democracy.
In their time as the dominant world power, the US hasn't always used their influence for good, but at least its a democracy with some form of constitutionally protected human rights in charge. I much prefer that to having a country with a permanent ruling party where critics go missing being the dominant force in world affairs.
America only cares about spreading democracy if some country they have beef with isn't democratic. America had no issue replacing democratic (and sometimes secular) goverments with dictatorships if dictatorship was more friendly to the US.
Is that perception why everyone online constantly shits on America and proclaims that every other country is superior? For as much as people like to accuse Americans of being "'Merica, fuck yeah!" the truth sure looks like it is mostly other countries with the arrogant attitude.
Interesting that the self-loathing seems to be associated with waging unpopular and losing wars. I didn't live through it but the Vietnam War seemed to have some similar impact that persists to this day with the utter loathing of conscription. It seems to be the same underlying cause: that bad leadership essentially permanently burned credibility for their country for no gain for their country.
