China Is Not Our Enemy: A Case Against the Next War
The headlines are shifting. Ukraine is slipping from the front page, Gaza is exposing Western hypocrisy, and the American public is weary. Which means it’s time for a new enemy. Enter: China.
Washington is preparing us for another proxy war. Only this time, the stakes aren’t confined to a distant battlefield. This time, it’s the global economy, the semiconductor supply chain, and the very possibility of world war.
The talking points are already set. They say China is building a navy, that it threatens Taiwan, that it spies, and that it censors. And yes, some of this is true. But none of it justifies what we’re being groomed to accept, that being a direct military confrontation with a nuclear-armed superpower.
Let’s get something clear; you don’t have to love the CCP to reject war with China. You don’t have to support surveillance or censorship to say “holy shit this is not our fight.” The Chinese government is not our model, but it’s not our enemy either. Not in the way it’s being sold to us, at any rate.
What China has done well, we should study, recoginize, and replicate. Their Belt and Road initiative is smart, not sinister. Their long-term planning is admirable, not evil. Their preference for economic influence over military conquest is, frankly, something we used to believe in too.
What have we done, by contrast? We’ve bombed our way across the Middle East, burned bridges in Latin America, provoked Russia into a war we can’t win, and now we want to extend our reach to East Asia, acting as though we are the last word on sovereignty and freedom.
And Taiwan? The red line is real. Ask around in DC and you’ll hear it in whispers: some apparently can’t wait for a war over that island. But let’s be honest. If Washington encourages Taipei to poke the bear, it will not be the Taiwanese people who suffer alone. Global markets will crash, trade routes will seize, and millions will die.
This isn’t a Tom Clancy novel. It’s not a Call of Duty campaign. It’s real, and it would be the last war humanity fights.
The next time you hear a pundit say, "We have to stand up to China," ask them what they mean. Ask them who benefits, and ask them if they have children. Ask them if they’re willing to put their lives on the line, or if they’re just cashing checks from Raytheon.
We need diplomacy, not destruction. Competition, not conflict. Peace, not provocation.
China is not our friend, but China is also not our enemy. Not unless we make it so.
It would be stupid to do so.
All good points. We don't have to worry about China. They've been around for 5000 years and are pretty predictable. China's already expanded to about the maximum geographical extent to which it has in the past, and the Chinese government's prime objective is the same as most past Chinese governments--the Mandate of Heaven, ie, stability.
They may go to war to recover Taiwan, but that's about it. They're certainly not going to try to conquer the Phillipines or Vietnam. The last couple of times they messed with Vietnam it didn't go too well, and they remember.
China's not even trying to encourage anyone else to adopt their own system of government. They don't think how other countries govern themselves is any of their business. That's certainly a lesson the US would do well to learn.