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So, is the USA screwed?
(lemmy.world)
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this post was submitted on 19 Feb 2025
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Intensionally, the USA is going to lose its status as a hyperpower. Europe is going to decouple from American defense policy to the point where I can see American military bases close in Europe. An anti-Chinese military alliance will function with or without the USA anchored by India and Japan, but I see that force yielding some territory to China in the near term. There will probably be an increase in the number of wars in general as regions go into conflict without an American threat to maintain borders. Nothing the USA does is likely going to fix this.
Domestically, the administration is the greatest threat to the republic since the Civil War. If Trump is able to be pushed out in the future, there is going to need to be a major re-evaluation of how the American federal government works. This is going to require constitutional changes and the removal of major powers that the President has collected as the federal government grew.
China is focusing on itself, maybe that's what the US and Europe should do for a while.
With Belt and Road, and all the colonialist projects China is doing in Africa, I would absolutely not say that "China is focusing on itself". Or, at least: Even if it's mainly focusing on itself, there is a very noteworthy imperial and colonial project going on.
What’s wrong with building infrastructure? Nothing stopping the West from offering an alternative development plan. Countries go with China’s because it is a better deal with fewer strings attached.
Instead when the US invaded Iraq it destroyed its infrastructure and opposed any plan to rebuild Iraq. China now is helping rebuild Iraq. Just one example of plenty.
Then again given the crumbling state of US infrastructure, it should really focus on itself. It brought a lot destruction (see: Gaza) and very little building to the rest of the world even when they broke it (see: Iraq).
Nothing's wrong with building infrastructure. Why would it be?
What's wrong is the financing scheme that makes the infrastructure effectively Chinese national property. And when China can decide how and when a country's infrastructure can be used, China gets a lot of influence in that country's domestic politics. And it does use that influence.
USA destroying Iraq doesn't make China any less colonial. China helping rebuild Iraq in a way that will make Iraq a vassal of China... That does make China more colonial.
USA should absolutely focus on itself. And it will do it much more than before, because now that it has decided to cut its international soft power, it does not really have other options, does it? :)
Source: The American Burger-freedom foundation for advanced jingoism research. That $1,600,000,000 the US government earmarked for anti-China propaganda definition getting returns.
No, but it demonstrates there's a vast, vast difference between actual colonial violence, and the bullshit that American chauvinists try to describe as colonialism.
"Yes, America destroying an entire country and killing hundreds of thousands of people is bad, but have you considered that China helping to rebuild that country is actually just as bad?"
Ghoul. You are a ghoul.
And thank God for that: the world doesn't need amoral monsters who think that building infrastructure is the same thing as mass bombing and murder fucking with the rest of the world.
I'm sorry but you sound like the people who call DOGE "auditors" who "look for corruption and end it".
China has been trying to get into big infrastructure projects in Finland as well, with the precisely same kind of loan arrangements. And it's very good that we declined the offer. We were a colony of Sweden for 600 years. We don't need to become one of China's now.
What the fuck kind of argument is that? "Oh you sound like the people who say [completely unrelated thing with no resemblence]." OK then, well you sound like the people who say that black people should be sterilized.
Infrastructure projects? Oh GOD NO! THE HUMANITY! THEY MIGHT AS WELL BE CARPET BOMBING HELSINKI!
Yeah, building infrastructure is exactly like invading a country, massacring the natives, and forcibly taking control, definitely.
You're fucking disgusting, colonialism apologist.
You, my friend, are defending colonialism and I am opposing your view that colonialism is okay as long as it's done by a country on a list of "countries allowed to behave in a colonialist manner" that you are curating. And somehow that makes me a colonialism apologist?
Oh, you're literally reduced to "no u!" now?
Well I wouldn't expect a colonialism apologist to be honest. Oh wait, is me calling you dishonest also colonialism? Is it colonialism when I stub my toe too?
You're a ghoul.
You calling me dishonest is not colonialism. You stubbing your toe is not colonialism.
China is building military infrastructure on contested islands in the south china sea with the goal of controlling the whole area firmly including the first island chain and Taiwan.
There's also no historical baggage with Chinese colonialism in Africa. Fewer strings also means China doesn't care about democracy, human rights, and such.
Neither do Western powers. Their support for the genocide in Gaza proves as much. From sending weapons and ignoring the ICC and ICJ rulings, to crushing protests and arresting journalists. You really can't come and talk about democracy, human rights, and such as if the West is the good guys after we all witnessed the genocide in Gaza, you can't. It is hypocritical and racist. You are basically saying "only we are people", or at a minimum "the Palestinians aren't people".
As for China building some artificial islands, who cares? As far as "crimes" go it is really down at the bottom of the crimelist. You could probably learn about the expulsion of the Chagossians to put things into perspective.
Literally all other countries in the region.
It really is illustrative of the absolute depths of westerners complete thoughtless hypocrisy that they think building a few shacks on uninhabited islands is remotely comparable to what the USA does.
Countries in East and Southeast Asia are Westerners now? The Koreans, Taiwanese, Japanese, Pinoy, Vietnamese, Malays will be surprised to hear that. All of these countries are afraid of Chinese ambitions.
Maybe ask the Tibetans if they think the Chinese annexation of their homeland is just Western hypocrisy.
You are aware that China invaded Vietnam after the USA left?
You are ignorant of the regional policies. Not everything is as Western centric as your limited understanding of geopolitics.
Oh my mistake, I didn't realize I was talking to the collective lemmy account of the people of Korea, Taiwan, Japan, Pinoy, Vietnam, and Malay.
Oh wait, I'm not. I'm talking to an arrogant westerner who feels entitled to tell non-westerners what their opinions are, and to tell them that actually they would be no worse off if America was bombing them and taking over.
Notice how you have to go back half a century, to an example that is not nearly as bad as what America did.
No, you're just a denialist about how brutal western colonialism actually is. You're not ignorant of it though, you're an apologist for it, desperately trying to redefine the word so that extermination, violence, conquest, and exploitation in the tens of millions seems no worse than China building some shacks on an island
What are you even talking about? I never said anything like that.
It's an example that's relevant to the region and China.
Yes, you did. You're whole point has been that actually bombing and invading people is no different than not doing that; it's all "colonialism."
Yeah, and you had to go back half a century to find one, and it still wasn't close to what the US did to Vietnam. It also wasn't colonialism, for that matter.
You're confusing me with someone else.
You're right, my apologies.
I stand by the rest of what I said though, you're still trying to make a pretty major false equivalence
Pleas explain how conquest of Tibet and settlement with Chinese, invasion of Vietnam, and the treatment of Uyghurs is not imperialism.
HIstorically, China is the oldest empire that's still around on the planet.
Because the definition of colonialism is not "something I disagree with that an enemy of America did". Are you going to try to argue that the invasion of the confederacy was colonialism? Are you going to argue that D-Day was colonialism? Are you going to argue that the treatment of Japanese American's in WW2 was colonialist? How about you do it? Why is you being a colonialism apologist not colonialism? Why is me stubbing my toe not colonialism? Why is any adversary to West doing anything ever not colonialism?
Lol. "China was an empire five thousand years ago, so anything it does now is colonialism." Oh well I guess anything Egypt does is colonialism, anything Turkey does is colonialism, anything Peru does is colonialism.
You're literally incoherent now.
Otherwise, I haven't even used the word colonialism, but imperialism. China was called Chinese Empire until 1912. They were weak at the time because of technological, societal, administrative and scientific deficiencies. The Republic of China and the People's Republic of China laid claim to the same imperial possessions. It's a continuation of the same imperial civilization under a different name.
I mentioned specific things, not everything.
Calling it "imperialism" is just as bullshit as calling it "colonialism" and for the same reason.
Where did I make an equivalence?
Here
Let me spell it out, so you can understand it. Africans are suspicious of Europeans, because of the history with colonialism. They aren't suspicious of China, because there's no history of Chinese colonialism in Africa.
Ok. That wasn't the only text there.
You probably meant this is an answer to me, so I'll reply.
What I mean is that for example France supporting undemocratic regimes in Africa in order to get cheaper minerals and cheaper cocoa and cheaper bananas is colonialism. It does not mean that it is as bad as what France used to do in the past. And it's not even as bad as France still retaining several actual colonies. But it is still bad. And it is colonialism. It would be colonialism even if France did not have any formal colonies around the world.
And when China does in 2025 what France is now, in 2025, doing with now-independent countries that used to be its formal colonies, then both of those are colonialism in the same manner. If what China is doing is okay, then that part of what France is doing is also okay. And I do not like the idea of accepting European countries' colonialism, not even a little bit.
Being bombed is worse than being economically abused, absolutely. But it does not mean that abusing a country economically is okay. I do not like it at all that cocoa and bananas are as cheap here in Europe as they are. That luxury of low prices is coming from other people's lack of well-being. And someone doing something even worse does not make this bad thing any better. At least in my opinion.
For what I understand, in reality we two think much more alike than you think we do.
Looooool. As if the west does.
American's continue to be the most propagandized people on Earth.
Westerners love changing the meaning of words like "colonialism" so that they can use it to attack their enemies, as if their new definition still holds all the moral wait that it did when it was properly applied. Honestly, calling China's relationship with Africa a "colonialist project" is a fucking disgusting insult to all the people who suffered under actual, real colonialism perpetrated by Western nations.
No, there isn't, you absolute ghoul.
What you're saying suggests that France's current behaviour is not colonialist. What are your thoughts on that?
France still has literal, actual colonies, you dumb fascist.
Haha, everyone is a fascist now?
Yeah, the French colonies, such as French Guyana, are not okay. But neither are the things France is doing to many of the countries that used to be France's formal colonies. Even though those countries are not colonies of France, what France is doing to them is colonialism all the same. Or do you disagree?
Also, calling me "dumb" was impolite of you, even though factually correct. Calling me a fascist was outright weird.
No, just colonialism defending ultranationalist white chauvinists like you.
Great, conversation over, not reading the rest of your comment now that you've admitted your previous one was spurious.