> If China had special forces deployed and conducting ops in random African countries it would be a massive aggression

It’s literally doing this across its maritime and mountain boundaries! It does cause outrage, albeit less so in mass media.

What's a good example you would say?

I think they're referring to occasional fist fights between the Indian and Chinese deployments at the top of the Himalayas where there's a dumb territorial dispute. There were a couple of times decades ago where the forces shot at each other and the governments had to scramble to calm things down and deescalate, so somehow they've reached this gentleman's agreement to have fistfights instead.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sino-Indian_border_dispute

We're talking about this kind of thing balancing out, say, Fallujah or shock and awe over Baghdad.

> We're talking about this kind of thing balancing out, say, Fallujah or shock and awe over Baghdad

Nonsense. For that comparison you’d look to the invasion and annexation of Tibet. (And it’s not ancient history if it’s currently endorsed and un-apologized for.)

Ok, then we expand the US horizon back to the 50s as well. We've added Tibet, and the 1979 3 week Vietnam war to the Chinese column, plus them being involved in the Korean war and to a lesser degree the American Vietnam War. This comes with way, way more added to the American column. At least it's no longer a shutout.

Any fair look at both countries' records puts the US as doing 10-100x more military intervention, on a global rather than regional scale. It is actually a little bit "sheeple" to look at that scoreboard and start calling China aggressive. They're less aggressive than every other UNSC member without even going to a pound for pound basis.

> Any fair look at both countries' records puts the US as doing 10-100x more military intervention

Sure. I never claimed otherwise. I’m saying it would be news to anyone in Asia-Pacific (or Eastern Europe) that America is or has been the destabilizing force. That was the original claim.

If the choice is 10x or 1x, go with the latter. But that is a false dichotomy. You can be anti-invasion and annexation broadly. There is no moral high ground in choosing Chinese models; no more than a person in China choosing Anthropic or OpenAI.

The Philippines definitely have a right to be aggrieved over the south china sea stuff, but one bias I'm cautious of is "the natural norm is American hegemony in every region, so any change from this is destabilizing". Other countries have their natural interests as well.

I’d say the South China Sea island building in violation of UNCLOS text and judgement comes pretty close to American CIA-style fuckery in South America and Africa.

To be clear, American fuckery is broader. But if we agree we’re discussing magnitudes and not kind, we agree on all I’m arguing.