If we aspire to one world, and that one world is going to be persecuting minorities, who's going to stand up and tell the whole world that it's doing it wrong?

Not snark: in the ideal case, that would be the people.

There is no way to avoid another Cold War. A hot war is impossible. I am glad that the Soviet Union ceased to exist. I will be glad with China being contained. I will also be glad in a multi-lateral world where America does not go unchecked and can be held up by others to its ideals.

A hot war is most certainly not impossible. Just because nuclear weapons might be off the table doesn't mean conventional bombs aren't. And frankly, even nuclear weapons might not be off the table fully.

Desperation leads people to do strange things.

China really is a sort of "early 1900s Germany" stage, which is rather frightening.

China is in some ways like pre-WWI Germany in that it does not have an empire and everyone else does so it wants one to. But Chinese are not starving due to sanctions and have not lost a war, etc. Chinese are doing well. China is just flexing its muscle because it can. That is all. Not because it needs to or that it's people are psychologically in fascism mode.

Bingo, comfortable upwardly mobile populations aren’t too friendly to any sort of serious war. Let alone total

A majority in an agitated state that is being repressed or prodded (realistically or not) by other power blocs is what is worrying.

Even ideological extremism most just happens locally. Like the Russian socialist Revolutions and countless jihads.

There's also the whole frightening frame of thought that as people who were alive to see nuclear detonations being performed in the 50s/60s continue to die off, as a society we're going to slowly forget what makes nuclear weapons so awesome (in the original definition of the word), and the willpower around their restraint will slowly be eroded away until it's too late.

A hot war is very likely. Why do you think everyone is building armies, weapons and trying to get nuclear toys (Iran). Just look up what triggered world war I and II.

Cold War already started years ago, the leadership in the west was just was too naive and arrogant to see it.

This might be a bit naive but doesn't a cold war by definition imply the possibility of it getting hot? Or in other words: Isn't a cold war that is impossible to get hot just peace?

The war has been waged for decades already and the west has already lost. This was a war fought with information, influence, and economic warfare. When you think about all the things you need to secure and defend one's country (e.g. PPE, pharmaceuticals, rare-earth minerals, manufacturing supply chains, patriotism, jobs, economic growth, geopolitical soft/hard power), you realize that China has all these things and America has none and is stuck battling itself over nonsense domestic issues.

Finally peace in our time!

We're in the beginnings of a new Cold War with China, and we're not winning.

One of our dirty secrets is that we in the West improved our own local environment by shipping off all the polluting industries to somewhere else, preferably overseas.

While all of your points are valid and I believe we should stop being deferential to China (including on topics like Taiwan), their pollution is our pollution, too, at least partly so.

Agreed and per person the Chinese actually pollute less than Americans.

Same with NYC vs all of Nebraska. Per person, sure NYC is very low as most of the 8 million citizens use public transportation. But the number of trucks and busses bringing people and goods into the city still results in a huge amount of pollution. Also the heating and cooling for buildings that are hundred+ years old or super tall structures.

In comparison, Nebraska has a small population but they have a thing for trucks and no subway. Less pollution overall but more per person.

china overproduces things and trade dumps on other countries because of local government quota and made-up numbers for GDP. that's not a country we want to produce goods for the long term. buying from democratic countries would be a good start

Totally! I’ve been avoiding “Made in China” products for the last 3 years. I’m always looking for alternatives. Yet, there are cases when there aren’t ... but still, in most of the time there are.

If you buy from another country, that country will need to burn fuel to make your products.

not all countries run mostly on coal.

before you say "but then we won't have enough production" good, maybe we should create less things based on coal. we have item shortages now, and the world hasn't ended.

Well, now we see the true color of some of the visitors:

None of these points make much sense after some minimal amount of facts and reasoning. But I’ll add more counter points to these items because of typing on iPad.

Why I am doing this? Because I am a CCP buyout!

No, unfortunately, anything important is never that easy. I was indeed called that before, for stating facts as well.

I have to make facts straight, because I am a Chinese immigrant to US. For that I have to clear out the facts. I am not going to let some mental bias and laziness threaten my family’s chance in this wonderful land.

And, US deserves the openness and rationality that made her great! I am not letting it gone without some fight.