China Does Not Want To Rule The World. Not Like White People
My country has known China for thousands of years. This is what it’s like
White nations’ greatest fear is that China will be evil as them. This would admittedly be terrifying, because white people are evil AF. But China’s not. China doesn’t want to rule the world. China wants to rule China. White people really overestimate how much China gives a fuck.
In Sri Lanka, we’ve been in fairly constant contact with China and they even stole a king 600 years ago. Today China has two major 99-year leases, one for a southern port and one for (part of) 660 acres that they raised out of the damn ocean in my town. I would not say China is a benign influence, but they’re not malign. They never have been.
While Europeans came here to loot, Zheng He came here with treasure. Whereas white people came here for profit, China came here as an expense. Unlike white people, Chinese people could season their food without exploiting everyone else on Earth. They never colonized us. They’re not droning people right now.
Hence it is odd to see colonial and capital-colonial powers complain about the rise of China. It’s farcical to see their ‘security experts’ say that China is taking over the world. Bitch, your ‘security’ is the world’s insecurity.
China is a self-interested nation state, but they are not actively evil like the west. They were able to develop without undeveloping everyone else. And their rise it’s not something new, it’s actually a regression to the historical mean. This is an ancient civilization that eclipsed everyone but the Africans (Egypt, etc). And now they’re back.
The 1400s
After a giant interlude of completely not giving a fuck, China is returning to their foreign policy of the 1400, the age of the Treasure Ships. 600 years ago, you could say this about China:
Chinese diplomatic initiatives were quite different from those of the Europeans who followed a century later. The Chinese preferred to pursue their aims by trade influence…