Tribalism needs an enemy, sadly. It’s been right wing populism’s tactic throughout history - point at a bogey man villain, and people will vote you in. They’ll even back you when you take away their vote, because of the emergency posed by the bogey man villain. When people slowly begin to realise that the bogey man was just that - a fictional bad guy - it’s too late, the damage has been done.
Tribalism exists, no doubt. Some countries definitely never let a good crisis go to waste and use it to their advantage to pass legislature that ordinarily would be met with harsh criticism, no doubt. All true.
However, China most certainly has been playing the long game and absolutely want to be at the top of the heap by hook or by crook. This isn't merely an issue between the United States and to frame it as such would be disingenuous. China is a threat and a nuisance to all of its Asian neighbors. Why? Because they are illegally attempting to make virtually the entirety of the South China Sea, East China Sea and Yellow Sea exclusively theirs. One of the ways they have been doing it has been building upon atolls in the Spratley Islands and claiming it as Chinese territory. Many, if not most, of those atolls are fortified and militarized. A coalition of nations such as Vietnam, Malaysia, Phillipines, Indonesia, Japan and South Korea has formed against China.
Its not hard to understand why they are doing it. They want to control the Pacific through naval dominance and want exclusive access to those fisheries. All of this is against multiple treatises.
Then we also know what they are doing to Hong Kong, which enjoyed actual freedom for over 150 years. We know they want to invade Taiwan and force the Taiwanese to become Chinese. We know they want to make Tibet theirs. We know they have engaged in border disputes with India, Mongolia and Russia.
Then we also know of the human rights violations against the Falun Gong and most recently the Ughyer population.
As it relates to the West, there is no nation that is more active in conducting cyberwarfare against the Five Eyes (UK, US, Australia, Canada, New Zealand) more so than China. They have engaged in corporate espionage for nearly 40 years spying and stealing intellectual property.
China has a rapacious appetite. Their plans for conquest remind me of Japan's expansion in the late 1930's into the 1940's.
This Cold War we are at with China is heating up and it is no one's best interest that it boils over.
"Reason obeys itself; and ignorance submits to whatever is dictated to it" -- Thomas Paine
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