Yeah, nobody in the EU is going to war with China, but its tech dominance (as the US’s) poses a challenge to how the countries organize themselves. You confuse The EU with the west, but if the US abandoned NATO, would China abandon russia? I don’t think so. So China’s backstop of russia is a direct threat to the EU, whereas the EU is not direct threat to China without going through the US.

There are wealthy people in China too (and a disgusting cult of weath to go with it to make any communist nauseous or any oligarch envious) and they’re obedient little piggies, just like those idiots at tramp’s inauguration

By humiliating and pushing out the pacifists, you ensure that there will be war. That’s it. The US is doing it, russia is doing it, China apparently also wants to do it, why not.

No, it’s russia. The whole point of NATO is russia. russia needs to have its invincibility myth shattered and imperialist tendencies restrained (Merkel tried this with trade and failed) by learning that they wasted millions of people and gained nothing. This is a hard learned lesson by most EU countries and is the glue of the EU. If the EU loses this, the lesson is that pacifism is a losing strategy and russia will just learn that war pays, so they will regroup and return for more in a generation.

The US should have learned this too from Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan…and they do appear wary of starting new wars…even the neofascists.

China…has a lot of nationalists, but so far has focussed on trade…hasn’t started any wars…fine with he EU. Could be a good partner to fight climate change, because the US and russia will never abandon their precious fossil fuels.

Do you understand why the EU considers this a top priority? Hint: it is not about Ukraine’s land or NATO/EU membership.

I used to joke that China wants to trade Ukraine for Taiwan, now it is very clear: you shut up about helping/recognizing/arming Taiwan and we keep a leash on russia…until next time…

Yeah, that guy’s gone. The policy with China was to encourage it to become the Germany of Asia in the hopes that it would liberalize as it developed. Well…no…shit happens…

I guess that depends on what the US turns into…and there is no clarity there… :/

Clarity is actually better in these things.

Yeah, the 1st paper is from 2015, that’s after the Hong Kong protests, when it was finally clear that China was going to stamp out democracy in Hong Kong and Xi Jinping’s new Wolf Warrior diplomacy. Excuse us for being…unimpressed.

Eh, but I’m not making any predictions, but if russia implodes by repeatedly hitting their head against a wall, you’re cleaning up that mess, not us, he’s your drunken psychotic friend now. We already got plenty scalded trying to rehab them and getting blamed for everything that went wrong.

The west has always declared China the opponent and they’ll take China on when they finish their other conflicts like Russia.

Always? Citation needed. After COVID, maybe? Or did it start with tramp in 2016, maybe sooner at the 2008 olympics? Certainly in 1993 that was not the case when China entered the WTO.

And of course: nearly nobody in the EU wanted to fight russia or spend more on defense until forced to open their eyes on russia’s reinvasion of Ukraine in 2022.

hah, yeah, sounds about right.

tramp has chosen to be the enemy of the west and the rules based order, China’s just been having a wonderful time flying under the cover of the daily orange meltdown since the clown show started.

PS: they don’t even have to do anything, they just have to point at trump and say “democracy, you mean THAT?” And they’ll be using it as evidence against the “chaos of democracy” worldwide.

True, they can demand Haishenwai and Outer Manchuria all the way to and including lake Baikal to help russia keep what it has stolen from Ukraine. Or else…geh fuck yourselves.

I saw a lady carrying 3 kids in a bakfiets…no helmets…because it’s that naturally safe. It’s like water to a fish…

The question is only posed if the US had a civil war: would NATO take a side?

Before they invaded Ukraine the 2nd time they had a fearsome reputation militarily and they had some goodwill in Europe (misplaced, but they were seen as misunderstood, not fascists), they had surplus resources to help their allies in Syria, Iran, etc and their weapons sold all over the world, so they were not a vassal state of China, they had lots of options economically, politically, militarily and were free to move about money/spies/etc. Now they have much less options…but maybe tramp will give them some in exchange for nothing…

yeah, this is a direct result of the greatest victory against car culture by Dutch moms in the 70s. Car brain makes you dependent on a whole compact of ideology, industry and city planning that keeps people dependent on cars. You are only a “full human” when you get your driver’s licence and can afford fuel (priced according to whatever war is going on in the world at the moment).

I doubt anyone has said that so clearly, but if everyone in the west has been thinking this for 3 years, I’m sure the Chinese have too.