oh, you are talking about china in a war? that war. I thought you were taking about a new war. yes, that war was started long ago, by a group of like-minded nations several hundred years ago, and is being worked at. coming to the end, soon, say 2026 / 2032 span, teotwawki / darkest interregnum.
How one chooses to see history as relevant today... is a choice. I think it is true that there are relevant threads in history that still matter today... and exercise real influence... wihch most people probably wouldn't argue with... until you get specific about those threads... and then, suddenly, you are a conspiracy theorist ?
china makes own rules for own domain, habitually, and is not obligated to obey rules of others especially by act of invasion, obviously.
Agree with that... not as anything unique to China, but as a general principle that is true of every nation. Problems tend to arise when someone decides it won't matter if they simple redefine what their domain is... by redefining someone else's domain as their own. China doing that... isn't unique in world history ? A caveat also in the "not obligated" element... as obligations taken on are also choices... as that applies in oblgations to others that nations choose to accept when agreeing with others to accept them.
Every game has rules... and participation in the game depends not just on playing by the rules... but supporting them as necessary to sustain function... also without unilaterally re-writing them... which is simply another way of abrogating agreements and wrongly redefining domains...
as for moral high ground, I shall not debate the issue as different societies have varied definitions of what be for the greater-good.
Along with most of the rest of the world... I won't cede that sovereignty generates any right to violate others rights. Genocide is an obvious limit. The history of the world shows far too little, rather than too much, is the routine response... even in those instances where no opposing moral argument can exist... as has been true in Africa in a number of instances... Pol Pot's Cambodia an obvious example... Killing the greater portion of the populatoin... obviously cannot be "for the greater good" in any rational consideration ?
Where wars in that context have been fought... the moral high ground, for the most part, is parallel as justification, or an after thought used in historical justification. Hitler's war... was not a product of other nations moral outrage at the obvious horrors Hitler imposed in Germany Pol Pot's own horrors... confined to Cambodia... elicited no similar counter ? The Turks, too, were given a pass... contemporaneously in terms of counters and real consequences... if not by history.
There may be historical example where moral outrage alone drove such an event... but I don't recall any. There seems always to be something "more important" than violations of moral and social norms. Truth telling and promise keeping are obvious exceptions... in the limit failures are not purely domestic concerns.
Just for example, in china, for the greater-good w/r to countering C19 means one way, and in America apparently means something else. the difference in approaches of usa / china is that one domain ideologically kibitz to try to bully the other into adopting a foreign system of governance, and the other is just doing what is best by its own view of greater-good, practically, and leaving ideology at the foyer.
Agree that a people's internal affairs are that. And I have no quibbles with the Republic of China's choices in a system of governance... even as the choices they make differ from my own preferences. The challenge, for the rest of China, including Hong Kong (but not uniquely) is in negotiating that "Blinkenian" division between ones aspirations and self perception... and the reality in actual choices, as seen in others perceptions. "Leaving ideology at the door" seems it is possible... as perhaps Bhutan and Vietnam get closest to demonstrating... while giving no one any reason to bother them...
fact is that arguably china has been involved in fewer foreign wars by own volition in 6,000 years history than America in 300 years of existence.
I don't have any claim to make on the history... prior to 1978... but find much in history that is valuable. History is a useful tool... giving you the benefit of others experience... if you study it. But, it is a very poor template to use in crafting a map to the future... beyond taking note of the hazards to be avoided.... and the warnings it offers in (the toooften ignored) "this has been tried, don't try this again..." or, otherwise, in noting more generally what did work... i think what did work in history... and why it did... is probably too little considered. And, in any case, winning the greater benefit available requires systems based in reason... ?
China's own warring periods are not recent history... and China's legacy of war in more recent history is more as victim than initiator. But, there too... history is neither a useful template to follow... nor self-enabling in fostering the success of mimics. It is today's choices, in today's context, that will shape the future... and it is not that hard to see how the choices made are having impact...
I do not find debates simultaneously involving issues in china and America fruitful. the two are different. other nations are free to follow one or another way. china doesn't care which way nations t=choose to follow as long as china is not bothered. less true of the American approach.
The issue in "as long as not bothered"... in not unique to China... but is almost universally true.
And, yet... achieving "not bothered" seems to be the hard part ?
I am not optimistic... because the choices that have been made recently... have all been tried before... and an awareness of the impacts they've had in history means that we already know the most likely outcome of the same choices being made, again... in almost the same circumstances.
And that's not all and only about China and China's choices...
I'd prefer better choices be made...
Another instance in which "being right is not the hard part"... |
