No ambition is clearly false when we examine their recent actions of territorial claims and seizures from the entire South China Sea (the name has little to do with who it historically belonged to) to sword rattling for Taiwan to violent takeovers of land borders residing in India to straight up seizure of Tibet and the forced disappearance of the next Dalai Lama, literally the future head of the most peaceful faith on the planet.

Land and sea disputes with neighboring countries come from an ambition to increase national security by weakening local competitors and creating buffers as well as acquiring advantageous geography. This explains the invasion of Tibet, the disputes in the SCS, and the land disputes with India (of course, Taiwan, Tibet, and the Indian disputed territories also have a historical component).

This is very different from policies that attempt to control the entire world, from the US, the USSR and some European powers. By and large China doesn't care what you do in your own country, unlike the USA.

Also, Tibetan Buddhism is VERY FAR from the "most peaceful faith on the planet". The reason why the Chinese were able to take Tibet so easily is because the Buddhist elite were incredibly brutal with the majority of the population, with widespread slavery and massacres. They were absolutely hated. It doesn't justify their seizure but we don't have to whitewash one of the most horrific political systems for it.

> Also, Tibetan Buddhism is VERY FAR from the "most peaceful faith on the planet". The reason why the Chinese were able to take Tibet so easily is because the Buddhist elite were incredibly brutal with the majority of the population, with widespread slavery and massacres. They were absolutely hated. It doesn't justify their seizure but we don't have to whitewash one of the most horrific political systems for it.

These are common CCP talking points, in fact primarily devolving from Chinese sources, which seek to turn Tibet into a nation in need of saving by debasing it into barbarism. Whatever half-invented, invented or factual casus belli the invaders invoked, half a million Tibetans were marched last year into work camps by CCP occupiers. [1]

In terms of historical accuracy, I stand by my claim: the Islamic and Christian faiths each hold a history of violence that squarely puts Buddhism at the top for peace. I do not deny the violence by the Buddhist Brigade and other factions proclaiming Buddhist faiths in Sri Lanka and Burma happening today but on the historical whole, no major faith comes closer.

[1] https://www.smh.com.au/world/asia/china-forces-500-000-tibet...

Not to say that they are justified in doing so, but if you look at a map of territorial waters, it's pretty obvious why China might want to control land in the South China Sea for reasons other than an ambition to annex the entire world, because they are almost completely surrounded unless they can control some territory that has its own claim to territorial waters.

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Map_of_the_Territori...

>literally the future head of the most peaceful faith on the planet.

Tibet was a much poorer place that was mostly serfs.slaves before China invaded. They lived in worst conditions. It is only in pop culture is is a religion of peace.

https://medium.com/illumination-curated/the-truth-about-tibe...

Unfortunately I would advise you to learn more about Tibet's dark history. I used to think that Buddhists were all peaceful until they justified rape, killing, theft and other genocidal actions towards the Rohingya. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rohingya_genocide

Religions can be good, but they can also make good people do evil things. There is not a religion I know that has never had been used for evil. Do not group relidions, see people as individuals.

>sword rattling for Taiwan

They do not want to destroy it, they want to capture its infrastructure. The weather will force China to take it over in basically 2 weeks or withdraw due to the weather too treacherous.

https://foreignpolicy.com/2018/09/25/taiwan-can-win-a-war-wi...

> Yes, the Taiwanese Army projects that it can only hold off its enemy for two weeks after the landing—but the PLA also believes that if it cannot defeat the Taiwanese forces in under two weeks, it will lose the war! Yes, the disparity between the military budgets on both sides of the strait is large, and growing—but the Taiwanese do not need parity to deter Chinese aggression. All they need is the freedom to purchase the sort of arms that make invasion unthinkable. If that political battle can be resolved in the halls of Washington, the party will not have the power to threaten battle on the shores of Taiwan.

> Tibet was a much poorer place that was mostly serfs.slaves before China invaded. They lived in worst conditions. It is only in pop culture is is a religion of peace.

I'm afraid the only pop culture at work to justify a violent takeover is the one invented by the CCP. No one denies the violence perpetrated by Buddhist-affiliated factions in Burma and Sri Lanka.

> Religions can be good, but they can also make good people do evil things.

There is one greater evil at work here, that of political atheism, which, when summing up the terrors of other atheist parties throughout time lead to the greatest human death toll committed by other humans in all of human history. I'm speaking of the Great Leap Forward, the Holodomor, and the Nazi Holocaust.