Except Tibet (https://www.historytoday.com/richard-cavendish/chinese-invad...), Vietnam (https://thediplomat.com/2017/02/the-bitter-legacy-of-the-197...), India (https://www.indiatoday.in/education-today/gk-current-affairs...), islands in the South China Sea claimed by other countries (https://www.navytimes.com/news/your-navy/2018/08/27/neighbor...), and unsuccessful attempts to seize islands controlled by Taiwan in the Taiwan Strait (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Taiwan_Strait_Crisis).
Still a very peaceful record compared to ourselves over the time period.
Why's everybody so invested up and loaded for bear with factoids about how China is so bad?
Have we terminally entered the Thucydides trap?
~ Machiavelli
YMMV
I'm seeing one 27-day long aggressive war in 1979, previous ones are 1960s or before? And some current day peaceful-yet-obnoxious saber rattling about the South China Sea? (completely oppose them on that BTW).
That's... really not 'aggressive expansionist power', as far as these things go. France, for example, has been in more war over the last 30 or 60 years. Britain MUCH more war. US and Russia? Don't get me started. China is by far the least warlike Security Council member, and it's quantifiable.
I'm all about spreading enlightenment values. Let's try not to look like total hypocritical a-holes and maybe we'll be successful.
They bad. We good. Even when facts suggest you're both different shades of bad.
Not random countries 10000 of miles away they felt like bossing around...
Straw-man much? It's not cool (and I didn't say that), but it's understandable. Neighbors have disputes, and that has been the case since forever, and it's understandable because they have common borders to settle (which are not god given), shared history, and so on.
Countries meddling with countries in the other end of the world just have imperialism and "national interests" to cheap oil and enforcing their preferred policies and ideology.
>What if they're technically not your neighbors, but still only like 100 kilometers away? Is that okay?
What if we stop asking silly questions and apply the principle of charity and/or common sense?
And yes, with nearby countries it's still natural to have disputes over e.g. this or that natural resource you both claim, this or that past war or whatever.
Now, France with Vietnam, the UK in Cyprus, or the US in Korea, not so much.
A country with shared borders and centuries of shared history with a nearby country is quite understandable to have disputes and even go to war with them.
With a country that had never interacted with it, and they have absolutely no reason being there (except entitlement and greed), not so much.
That's only controversial if one has blinders...
China is threatening Taiwan with war.
"The Kuomintang holds the "One China Principle" and maintains its claim that under the ROC Constitution (passed by the Kuomintang government in 1947 in Nanjing) the ROC has sovereignty over most of China (including by their interpretation both mainland China and Taiwan)...Former ROC President Ma Ying-jeou had re-asserted claims on mainland China as late as October 8, 2008."
The interview was published yesterday.
Ma said despite the stipulation of the ROC Constitution, Taiwan cannot recognize the existence of another country, nor does China want to recognize Taiwan. In other words, under the ROC Constitution, “mainland China” is not a country."
from http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/taiwan/archives/2008/10/08/2...
China is trying to become a super power, as every great nation does. I've yet to see a nation do so peacefully. Just because they haven't yet launched a truly massive "peace keeping" mission.. well, I think it's a bit naive to believe they won't. History is a very useful tool, but you can't solely rely on an actor's past actions to predict the future.
(Also, I won't be replying to any whataboutisms.)
I'm really impressed by the box you just built, though:
1) China isn't perfect
2) I won't tolerate comparisons to other world powers, that's whataboutism
3) Therefore, China is black-and-white evil.
Just to provide a little balance. I'm worried about Xi's direction too, but overall we could do a lot worse as far as major powers to share the globe with.
You're 100% right about the market protectionism stuff, though.
(sidenote, the implication that Great Leap Forward was intentional is a little disrespectful, IMO -- that's not how it happened).