Please keep nationalistic flamewar off this site. It's not what HN is for, and destroys what it is for.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Edit: it looks like you've been using this account primarily for political battle. That's one of the criteria we use for banning accounts, as I've explained here: https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=comme.... If you'd please review the site guidelines and stick to them from now on, we'd appreciate it.

"a country that has explicitly set out to usurp the US is useful"

Can you provide some evidence for saying that China "explicitly" set out to do this? The Chinese government has been consistently "explicit" that it does not aim to replace or supplant the US [1][2][3]. Perhaps you mean "actions speak louder than words" and that this intention is evident from the actions they've undertaken, in which case it would be nice to know what actions you have in mind, as well as how you ruled out boring explanations of those actions that China's leaders would have given themselves.

[1] https://amp.scmp.com/news/china/diplomacy/article/3030717/ch...

[2] https://apnews.com/article/1c5193f5eb936b99b740b758da8efad3

[3] https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.wionews.com/world/not-tryin...

To be fair that document number 9 doesn't really shows me anything special. A observable person might see how the west do exactly that same by containing Chinese influences in the anglo-sphere. You had pompeo calling for a Clean network initiative(potential for western variant of the Great fire wall) banning hardware from "outsiders". Then you have the formation of the Democracies-10 group you would almost say a modern rendition of the eight nation alliance.

But yeah lets be honest China will usurp the US in Asia, and most probably in central and west Asia with the help from Russia and Iran. Its kinda hard to hide your strength and bide your time when your building multiple carrier fleets, Can't really unsee that.

Its not for Taiwan to say its a sovereign state, nobody maybe except some in the Anglo-sphere will risk their trade relations with China. If that is possible for region to proclaim itself as a sovereign state, it will unleash some chaos in the west giving precedence for Scotland, Catalonia, the donbas region etc to also seperate from their current configuration.

1. The document you linked to is about domestic, not foreign policy. If that isn't clear from the nature of the document itself, see in particular these quotes:

> The document is critical of "extremely malicious" ideals spreading in the Chinese society, such as ideas of (Western) constitutional democracy, civil society, universal values (freedom, democracy, and human rights), neo-liberalism, and freedom of the press (described as the "Western news values").[1][2][13] The document warns that such subjects undermine the Chinese Communist Party's control over Chinese society.[2]

> According to news analysis by a reporter at The New York Times, the emphasis on political discipline is intended to forestall leftist, or Maoist, opposition to needed economic reforms avoiding the split which resulted in the Soviet Union during Gorbachev's reform efforts when media freedom resulted in publishing of a great deal of critical historical material and alienation of the mass of party workers.[7]

The document shows that China's leaders were worried that the spread of western values within Chinese society could turn China into the next Soviet Union and were acting to prevent that from happening. I don't see how this could be read as proving any claim about their foreign policy aims, much less the extremely strong claim that China aims to usurp or replace the US.

2. I agree Taiwan "feels that way [i.e. like a sovereign country]": they have their own elections, passports, currency, … But I'm not seeing how the question about Taiwan bears on the claim (to the extent that clear empirical meaning can be attached to it) that China "explicitly set out" to usurp US's place.