Some twitter account switched to "Wagner Freedom Fighters" then back to "Wagner Terrorists"
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- Thread starter bd popeye
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I don't agree with South Korea's hatred of China at all, but at least I can see where it comes from. Japan's hatred of China, on the other hand, never fails to baffle me. Sure, China sends some rude tourists to Japan every year, but are they really as bad as the millions of rude Japanese tourists that entered China from 1937-1945? Seriously, what has China ever done to Japan?
I heard that the US and the West initially supported Japan during the Anti Japanese War and that the only two countries that support China are Germany until 1937 and the USSR.
D
Deleted member 23272
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Correlation-causation. Are you saying Chinese allies being failed states is because China makes poor choice of friends or that China's incompetent handling of foreign affairs turns countries into failed states?
Since this whole discussion is starting with what's going in Russia, how was/is China in any position to influence Russia? We're not talking about Cambodia here, we're talking a country with 15,000 nukes that was considered one of the world's great powers prior to the war and China's military superior. Even the Soviet Union couldn't order 1960s-1970s China around, despite the massive power disparity.
If Putin had dreams of becoming the 21st Century Peter the Great there was nary a thing China could do other than compel Putin to give them the head's up that war was coming. Now that Kremlin intrigues are out in the open, short of a disintigration of Russia's territorial integrity what's China to do? Surely its not working out a deal for the PLA to become Putin's equivalent of the Varangian Guard right?
With respect to China's allies being poor countries, you make do with what you have and if you understand history how can any of it be blamed on China? America as a relatively young modern country with a European heritage and emerging from WW2 unscathed had the luxury of a prime position to ally itself with all the world's advanced economies. China was, well we all the know the story, so for brevity's sake I won't repeat it. In recent history the advanced powers were willing to reap the benefits of Chinese cheap labor, but hardly willing to trust it considering its history and government, so China made due with the global south.
Most of the global south is in a sorry shape due to the legacy of colonialism, that's not exactly something China can change or influence. It'll do business, but its not like China can magically wist away the corruption and factionalism. "Yeah, but the U.S. helped Taiwan and SK go from states where most of the citizens had to eat grass, to becoming first world nations, so why can't China?" US had the luxury of working with nations with a strong Confucian culture and homogenous populations. The rest of the global south is a messy mixmatch of caste hierarchies, colonial borders, and tribal interests. Much like its own development, China got dealt with a less than ideal hand and made due with what it had, in some cases it is playing as well as it can.
If countries won't ally with China because every country that does "becomes a shithole," while people would rather align with the US because they can become like South Korea. Well, Latin America has been America's "backyard" for over 100 years, they're still waiting on Uncle Sam to make them wealthy as South Korea. But Uncle Sam never did and that's why they prefer China nowadays.
Western Europe was destroyed after WW2. America could have chosen to keep them weak and easily controlled. But they didn't. The German economic miracle wouldn't have happened without American help. Japan and Korea would not be rich today if they hadn't become American allies
That must be why belt and road funding has dropped so much in recent years? Clearly the government has decided to stop throwing money at any project available
But development isn't their top priority, security is. The threat by the US and its allies means that they can't focus on development. American sanctions force them to put all their efforts into avoiding the sanctions. The Soviet Union never abandoned its allies like that to American pressure
If you can't see that a developed country ally is worth a lot more than a million man army, then you must be deluding yourself.
To add on to what you said, why is American allies always turning into a shit hole? Frankly I can only think of South Korea as the only poor country that developed to be advanced. Rest of American allies are all either:
- Already rich prior to the alliance see Japan, Germany.
- Is poor and still poor see Philippine.
- Keeps becoming more of a shitthole see "Libya, Iraq, Afghanistan"
There's a lot that China could do. Why did China approve UN sanctions against North Korea and Iran? Why does China abide by unilateral American sanctions? Why doesn't China prioritise anti American countries in its investments? Why doesn't China break the blockade of Cuba? In the past you could have argued that there would be a risk of secondary sanctions against China itself, but now decoupling is in full swing.
D
Deleted member 24525
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Because China is concerned with actually developing and not making spiteful symbolic gestures to please a few foreign observers.
plawolf
Lieutenant General
No, it’s not that China is gun shy, it’s that Chinese leaders seems to be the only adults in charge and have the right level of aversion to war.
China didn't enter the Korean war to "have a rich friend", it entered the Korean war to evict US troops from Korean peninsula, or at the very least, establish a military buffer zone.
The criteria for whether a military ally is a success is determined by whether it's still alive, not whether it is rich. All other criteria is nice-to-have, but not necessary for a successful alliance.
The purpose of a military ally is a means to an end (armed reunification, evict US troops out of East Asia), not to brag about having rich friends.