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Protester shot in chest by live police round during Hong Kong protests

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628 points nodea2345 | 4 comments | 01 Oct 19 11:19 UTC | HN request time: 0s | source
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loquor ◴[01 Oct 19 16:03 UTC] No.21126953[source]▶
This might sound alarmist, but do you think China is the biggest upcoming global problem after climate change? For two reasons:

1. China has a totalitarian ruling system. They intend to realize George Orwell's 1984.

2. Present-day China essentially has no ethics. Take the US in comparison. No matter how perverse the people in power become and even if they do messed up things, the US has some founding morals and principles they do not forget. China, in comparison, systematically rooted out these values since the Great Leap Forward. The happenings at Hong Kong and Xinjiang epitomize that.

I do think China's expansionist policy bodes poorly for all of humanity.

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parliament32 ◴[01 Oct 19 16:23 UTC] No.21127255[source]▶
I'm usually not a huge fan of the US rolling in and stomping out governments (and installing their own, of course), but this is one faux-dictatorship where it sorely needs to happen. Some actual democracy would be amazing for these people.

With the recent "trade war" and whatnot the stage has been set pretty well for a US intervention.

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dragonwriter ◴[01 Oct 19 16:38 UTC] No.21127448[source]▶
> I'm usually not a huge fan of the US rolling in and stomping out governments (and installing their own, of course), but this is one faux-dictatorship where it sorely needs to happen.

It's not a faux dictatorship, it's the real deal.

But, the idea of the US “stomping out” the PRC (or even somehow “just” rejecting it from Hong Kong) and installing its own preferred government is downright insane.

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magduf ◴[01 Oct 19 16:45 UTC] No.21127557[source]▶
It's not insane, but it would be a horrible and bloody hot war, the likes of which we haven't seen since WWII, and it would probably eclipse WWII in total deaths.

But it's not "insane", because we have precedent for it: it's exactly what happened in WWII: the world's largest economies and industrial powers going into an all-out war, culminating in nuclear attack, and resulting in the deaths of tens of millions. It's happened before, and so it could certainly happen again.

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1. X6S1x6Okd1st ◴[01 Oct 19 17:08 UTC] No.21127821[source]▶
Nuclear states don't attack other nuclear states for a reason.

NYC, LA, DC, Atlanta, Chicago, Huston, Dallas are all potential targets if the US declares war. Most of the US army would be going to war with no home to go back to.

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2. magduf ◴[01 Oct 19 19:41 UTC] No.21129706[source]▶
If China did a nuclear attack, the US Army wouldn't be involved at all in any war. They'd sit back while the US Air Force and Navy completely nuked China. There wouldn't be an invasion because there'd be nothing left to invade at that point, so no army would be needed.

Remember, the US's nuclear arsenal is far, far larger than China's. Such a conflict would be devastating to the US (and to many other places due to fallout), but China would cease to exist.

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3. CharlesColeman ◴[01 Oct 19 19:57 UTC] No.21129866[source]▶
>>>> But, the idea of the US “stomping out” the PRC (or even somehow “just” rejecting it from Hong Kong) and installing its own preferred government is downright insane.

> Remember, the US's nuclear arsenal is far, far larger than China's. Such a conflict would be devastating to the US (and to many other places due to fallout), but China would cease to exist.

And if the US's war aim was to liberate the Chinese people from dictatorship, it would have failed miserably in that case, having destroyed them instead.

4. dragonwriter ◴[01 Oct 19 21:04 UTC] No.21130625[source]▶
> If China did a nuclear attack, the US Army wouldn't be involved at all in any war.

The proposal was that the US would attempt to invade, decapitate, and replace the Chinese regime; the idea of Chinese nuclear action was as a response to that.

So the Army would already be involved, and US nuclear annihilation of China would be nuking our own army.