There's a bit of confusion here. The opinion I'm expressing isn't about China, or you; it's only about your HN comment.

Assuming you were right, there'd still a big flaw in your logic: trying to gain a military advantage does not make you at war. With that kind of logic, you could argue that the US, with its massive military budget, is at war with every country in the world (it's obviously not).

It's not what a war is, but I don't expect most people living in first world industrialized countries to understand what a war is, it's been completely outsourced to third world countries. This isn't even about nationalism, you're just wrong. If we were at war with China you'd know, because every major population center in both countries would have been leveled before you even knew it was happening.

That's preposterous, you know full well that not every war is fought with weapons of mass destruction, not all the time at least.

The Cold War is a perfect example, and very similar to the situation we are in now with China. Are you suggesting the Cold War wasn't a war either?

The Cold War was far from cold. The Korean war, Bay of Pigs and then the various proxy wars that each side supported whilst pretending not being part of. Like the Soviet-Afghan war where the US funded, trained and supplied $billions of munitions to the Taliban. Or the rush to get influence of every revolutionary or post-independence third world nation (hence the coining of third world). Sustained hostile military stand off to keep that containment. Constant cat and mouse in the air and at sea. Every frigate, "research vessel" or "fishing" trawler, backfire or bear bomber got a scrambled escort, every exercise a response. Any one of which could have turned it hot. It got close often enough. However much it seemed like a game watching it on the news twice a week throughout my teens and beyond.

None of which are really comparable with today.

Today? A minor trade war, and some considerable industrial espionage, proven or not. There's barely even minor mention let alone posturing over Taiwan, Hong Kong or the airfields being built on China Sea islands. There's no stand off, aside from the N/S Korea border that's remnant of the Korean war stalemate. It's going to take a huge escalation to go hot (or cold war).

You really see them as comparable? I don't, not even slightly close, except only for the few shades of McCarthyism in the feature article.

I think we're in the opening chapter of something that will, over time, become comparable. I think you're downplaying the situation, the scuffles, China testing airspace and maritime laws, heavy investment in Africa, that's all from the soviet's playbook. I would be shocked if China didn't play a part in the Russian (successful) attempt to influence our elections and get poor leadership installed in the oval office.

You've consistently ignored our moderation requests. If you keep doing that, we will ban you. Please stop and don't do this on HN again.

We probably should have banned you with the every-Chinese-person-is-an-enemy slur, but I like to give people multiple chances.

> I happen to believe (and most of our intelligence does too) that China has been studiously and purposefully stolen everything they could get their hands on for the last 20 years or so with the clear objective of gaining a military advantage

The US (NSA) has been stealing secrets from a significant percentage of the world population for years. Snowden showed us that. China stealing from a few corporations makes them angels in comparison. Further, the US slaughters hundreds of thousands in ACTUAL wars in the middle east over the past 20yrs to gain a military and economic advantage over the rest of the world.

Stop making it seem like China is some big bogeyman when the US has been the bogeyman all along.

As I explained at the top, please do not cross into nationalistic flamebait here, nor post in the flamewar style to HN generally.

(Also, while I have you: can you please not use allcaps for emphasis? The guidelines include that, and explain what to do instead. I know it sounds trivial, but doing that is the online equivalent of yelling.)

My apologies. And thanks for the reminder about the allcaps.

From a US perspective, US misdeeds don't make China any less of a threat. Is the US supposed to react as "Oh they're waging a bit of a trade war on us, but we've sinned as well, so lets let them keep it up"?

It would be nice if we’re going to claim the moral high ground, that we actually were capable of inhabiting it. As it is, both the US and China appear to be on a muddy slope, flinging whatever comes to hand.

No, of course not. I'm not talking about how the US govt should react. I'm saying that armchair critics on the sidelines (referring to the grandparent) painting China as evil for some corporate espionage is pretty naive given that the US is guilty of far worse.

China is "evil" for a whole series of different reasons, its blatant disregard for human rights and life on a massive scale is a good start.

I have my gripes with US policies (may I remind you I'm not even a citizen by birth?) and we're definitely seeing a slide towards an even more overt fascism than ever before, but it's still an avoidable risk compared to the very present danger a stronger China poses to all democracies.

To be blunt, I don't want to live in a world where China has any more power than it has right now, because we're MUCH better off in any version of what we have in the west than anything China has to offer.

I like my civil liberties, I like to be able to express dissent and to protest without being ground into a pulp by a tank, and I like to express politically antagonistic opinions without having my organs harvested after a summary execution.