Quote Originally Posted by rory_20_uk View Post
China is throwing their weight around Asia. Why shouldn't they be? They've put up with nukes off their coast and an American fleet parked in what they view as a rebel province for decades. Given we appear to be in a post-woke world where everyone is equally valued and so on why is what their culture does worse than what we do? I am a dinosaur and I personally (and very quietly these days) believe that cultures can and should be proponents of values they hold as "right" and declare others to be "wrong" but such old beliefs have no place any more.

I am unclear what "leadership" would stop China and Russia with their cyberwarfare given atypical warfare since the capture of the Crimea by Russia has been shown to work well... And America / Israel / the UK and many others are also at it, against both enemies, allies, their own people and NGOs. America, Europe and elsewhere purchase so much from China that without a strong Government forcing home grown industries this isn't likely to change.

Russian intervention has given us Brexit and Trump, both with the aim of undermining western stability. China is engaging in old fashioned colonialism in Africa, which I don't have much detail of beyond reports, and in Pakistan, which I have read a fair bit of detail about. Offer loans to build infrastructure which they own, staffed at the top by their personnel, resulting in Pakistan both owing China money and with their infrastructure Chinese-owned, and run by Chinese.

Maybe you're ok with that, with your worldview being primarily anti-European (and it seems, anti-American). But I'm not. I'd prefer our primary partnerships to be with countries who are closer in worldview to ours, who are less likely to want to harm us out of spite or cupidity.