> The US is a terrible ally, for all the reasons you cite, but unless they somehow become a democracy, China would be worse in every way.

I am no longer considering the US as a democracy. From a west perspective, China doesn't want to annex Canada or Greenland.

The US is arguably more democratic than the EU and many of it's member states. And I am an EU citizen myself

> The US is arguably more democratic than the EU and many of it's member states.

By what metric?

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Economist_Democracy_Index

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democracy_Ranking

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democracy_indices

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corruption_Perceptions_Index

Democracy can't work without freedom of speech whis is seriously broken in mamy EU countries. In germany it's completely normal to get raided by police and all your digital devices stolen for posting pretty harmless memes or opinions.

> Democracy can't work without freedom of speech whis is seriously broken in mamy EU countries.

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Press_Freedom_Index

* https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/freedom-of-expression-ind...

Explain.

Democracy can't work without freedom of speech whis is seriously broken in mamy EU countries. In germany it's completely normal to get raided by police and all your digital devices stolen for posting pretty harmless memes or opinions.

> The US is arguably more democratic

Because they have elections?

I always thought that when Americans say they’re a democracy they mean that in sort of propagandist way. Like, installing democracy as justification for military aggression.

But it seems that now some people really believe it? The bi-partisan system sponsored by corporations, where candidates are vetted through the systems - it reminds me of the Chinese communism with two parties instead.

Just compare it to Swiss democracy.

When was the last time an candidate from an independent political party became a president in the USA?

Switzerland is not EU

It's pretty much the peak of hysteria to think China is a reliable ally for a western democracy. It's like you're totally disregarding the fundamental issue that China is an absolute autocracy, fundamentally incompatible with western democracy. You don't like the US. Fine, fair enough. But let's not get crazy here.

> China is an absolute autocracy, fundamentally incompatible with western democracy.

Lack of direct threats to sovereignty, reliability (in the sense of honoring commitments) and basic diplomacy are characteristics that trump ideological compatibility in domestic functioning. The EU is not gonna buy the chinese equivalent of the F-35, no one thinks they are "friendly" but a turn to China is inevitable.

This is even more true for weak and small countries, Trump's Panama obsession has caused irreparable damage to an already frayed positive perception.

Paraphrasing an interview with then Chilean president Ricardo Lagos when he explained to Bush his decision to not vote in favor of the invasion of Iraq in the security council:

How did you approach that moment of saying no to the United States?

I mean, I think there are two important elements here. The first is to understand that Chile is a small country. The international role we play is not very big. But precisely because we are small we demand rules in the international arena. Because if there are no rules, the big ones will mistreat us. Consequently, I explained this to President Bush on several occasions: We need rules because we are a small country. Bush found it difficult to understand the point about rules.

>I am no longer considering the US as a democracy.

Despite the current administration being in power explicitly because it genuinely won a recent election in which the incumbents would have preferred to win instead. Trump's frequent shittiness and feces throwing aside, he got his second term through the long-established and very stable American democratic process.

That you would then go from this to claim China as somehow better, a country in which authoritarian one-party rule is absolute and in which nobody can throw an incumbent out of office, is just.... really absurd.

not to dispute, but the fact that most of our stuff is 'made in china' might play into the public perception of this dynamic more than the political labels attached.

The parliamentary structure of the invader doesn't matter very much to the invaded. The assessment that the US is more likely to invade another country than china is not ridiculous anymore.

It very much matters, because it's a reason an invasion happens at all, especially between peer states.

https://www.theguardian.com/notesandqueries/query/0,,-3134,0...

The parliamentary structure does matter actually. There is no way for the president of the US to launch a war of conquest without approval of the US Congress (there are a limited set of military actions the president could authorize under the war powers act or an existing AUMF but they would not merit being described as an invasion). That would require majority support in both houses of Congress, which can barely hold together long enough to pass a spending a bill.

We'll see I guess and I hope you're right.

IMO the simplest and most realistic way to reconcile "democracies don't invade each other" and "the US might do invasions now" is that the US is not a democracy within this model.

It certainly still is in a technical sense that is sometimes useful. But by other metrics, like "can the president start an unpopular war with a steadfast former ally" uhhhhh. If the military refuses an elected president's order to invade is it still a democracy?

>If the military refuses an elected president's order to invade is it still a democracy?

Yes, because the military can't follow an illegal order, which is what a declaration of war without the approval of Congress would be. The military also can't spend money Congress hasn't authorized, even if the president tells them to.

>Yes, because the military can't follow an illegal order, which is what a declaration of war without the approval of Congress would be.

Congress hasn't actually declared a war since World War 2. The President sends troops wherever he likes, whenever he likes, for whatever purpose he likes and Congress rubber-stamps their approval after the fact, and they call it something other than a war.

You're correct that the military can't follow illegal orders, but what you're describing as an example of an illegal order is just the way the US military industrial complex works.

In every major conflict since the creation of the war powers act became law, an authorization for the use of military force was passed by Congress prior to major combat operations. This was true in the Gulf War, the War in Afghanistan, and the War in Iraq. There were cases where the president invoked the war powers act for short term deployments of forces, which did later result in Congress authorizing additional use of force (e.g. Lebanon), but nothing even close to the scale of invading a stable, sovereign state.

America had nothing close to a violent transfer of democratic power for a long time too. Not sure if you've noticed, but a lot of things are happening that "are unthinkable to happen" recently.

I don't think this argument is landing that strongly.

Yes, surely this is a norm that cannot possibly be changed.

When the people want a king, what's written in the rule book doesn't matter anymore.

Chinese want revenge on the west for colonizing them. You think they just forgot about 'century of humiliation' and just moved on? naive

> The assessment that the US is more likely to invade another country than china is not ridiculous anymore

When was it ever?

Or if the US somehow becomes a dictatorship.

Which country has China invaded lately exactly?

In the modern post-WWII era that would be Tibet, Korea, India, USSR, and Vietnam. Maybe also Philippines, depending on what you consider to be an "invasion". Depending on your perspective, China might have had valid reasons for some of those conflicts but regardless of the reasons the fact remains that they at least temporarily invaded territories claimed by numerous other countries. Who's next?

https://pca-cpa.org/ar/cases/7/

Right, an exceptionally short list of relatively minor instances when compared to the US.

Tibet doesn’t count either, it’s been a part of China for centuries and it was the serfs and slaves that sought reunification to escape the monks’ brutal rule.