Take a look at a map of US bases around China and then try to find any Chinese bases near the US, and you’ll understand who’s “militarist” and who isn’t.
America has been sabre rattling about the South China Sea for two decades now, a sea named after China that China has sailed through for some 4,000 years.
Is it any wonder that China builds out a navy to defend waters off its own shores that America has crossed an ocean to patrol?
I'm not particularly anti-US, just an observer of the world and history in general. Post WWII the US has been number one and it wants to keep that crown despite China advancing faster than any other nation for the past decades.
Historically the South China Sea was named that in English because the British just sort of considered everything along the coast "China." This included Thailand (then Siam) and Taiwan (then Formosa). After Vietnam fell into separate kingdoms in 1533 France and Spain claimed ownership of a huge chunk of the waters for quite a long time until the Japanese imperialist era started in 1868. Chinese assertion of ownership came about after negotiations in 1953 when France said Vietnam had no claim on anything offshore and wouldn't let the Japanese return the Spratly Islands to Vietnam (then French Indochina) and insisted Japan hand the islands over to the French directly.
The language used to describe and name things is vastly more powerful than people give it credit for. Just because the British were lazy in their administration and named it after something else nearby doesn't mean that the entire sea belongs to the current Chinese state.
> Is it any wonder that China builds out a navy to defend waters off its own shores
"Off its own shores"!? Is that what the kids are calling it these days? [0]
As an "observer of the world", I suggest checking exactly how much and how far the PRC has been claiming exclusive ownership over waters that are closer to their neighbors' shores. (Neighbors with their own ancestors who probably did even more sailing.)
I found a map from a deleted Reddit account with a lot of replies about how there aren't any US-controlled bases near China. It even had one in China. I'd like a link to an accurate map since I couldn't find one.
From the list I can see on Wikipedia, all of the nearby bases are in Korea and Japan.
More useful might be a map of US forces near China, not caring about who owns the base. And some comparable maps from the last 50 years to see how it's changed over time.
Most bases have been there since before you were born (probably) and before China was a rising power.
In any case, my point is that you only attribute fault to one side, when you have the other side making claims and starting to flex in front of smaller countries. Let's cut the BS here, that is not China playing nice and promoting stability.
It also doesn't take much to understand that the smaller, way less powerful countries that feel threaten will try to find allies. Who's the other big guy in the Pacific? Of course they want the US to be near them and on their side in case shit hits the fan.
This reminds me of Russia, which invaded Ukraine to keep it under their control, but then is surprised to learn that their actions made Ukrainians dislike them even more and are shocked that other countries that could rushed to join NATO. People like you course blame the US alone, missing the fact that NATO would crumble (like it was already happening) if Russia didn't make weekly threats about nuking European cities or actually invaded their neighbours.
See, the problem with this is that he never did threaten that. It's CIA propaganda. Indeed such a threat would make zero sense even logically, since from the standpoint of China (and the US State Department) Taiwan _is_ China.
The US's official public position on the One China Policy is a diplomatic front for the benefit of US relations with the PRC. The US maintains diplomatic relations with Taiwan through the American Institute in Taiwan, an organization owned by the US government and staffed by members of the state department.
Xi Jinping opened the Chinese Communist Party's twice-a-decade National Congress on Sunday by pledging to never renounce using force to take control of Taiwan
Chinese President Xi Jinping has met former Taiwanese President Ma Ying-jeou and said that outside influence cannot stop the “family” reunion between Beijing and Taipei....Beijing views the self-ruled island as a province that must be reunited with mainland China, and it has not ruled out using force to assert its claims to Taiwan.
China's "reunification" with Taiwan is inevitable, President Xi Jinping said in his New Year's address on Sunday, striking a stronger tone than he did last year
Chinese President Xi Jinping bluntly told President Joe Biden during their recent summit in San Francisco that Beijing will reunify Taiwan with mainland China but that the timing has not yet been decided
I don’t see anything in any of this that contradicts my claim, although I can see how you were misled by the wording. “Never renouncing the use of force” is not the same thing as “threatening to use force”. Put bluntly, all China has to do to reunify with Taiwan peacefully is grow its economy and wait for another decade for the bottom to fall out here in the US. And yes, it is inevitable that they will reunify, and almost certain that it’ll happen without bloodshed unless the US makes them believe unrealistic things about an island right next to an industrial colossus 60x the size being able to somehow “beat China” militarily with or without our “help”. I pray to god Taiwan doesn’t believe this because it’ll be utterly and completely destroyed otherwise. Shit the US couldn’t even beat the Taliban or Houthis. What makes anyone believe that it can even pose a significant threat on the other side of the world?
The idea of reunification is less popular than it's ever been in Taiwan since Taiwan's Nation Chengchi University started polling in the late 1990s. What you don't seem to understand is that unification is most supported among the older generations in Taiwan. With time, Taiwan will only become less open to the idea of reunification as the older generations die off. Currently less than 10% support the idea, down from nearly 20% two decades ago. You've likely never met a Taiwanese if you believe the Taiwanese population is open to the idea.
The US has also never engaged with the Houthis, except to protect marine shipping. There was never an attempt to "defeat" them by the US.
This is more of what I'm talking about. It's evident you've never talked with a Taiwanese. The younger generations of Taiwanese don't oppose the idea of reunification because they don't like China, due to this idea of US propaganda you have, but because they don't feel Chinese, due to living independent from the PRC for their entire lives. Have you ever asked yourself why they would care to entertain the idea of "reunification" to a country they had never been a part of?
