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Looks like I really struck a nerve. If you want to actually understand this, read the book I recommended. I won't be going through the last hundred years of history in this comment.
Americans don't hate the Chinese. In fact many of us quite like your culture and people and find much to admire. However, we cannot trust you. We can't trust you because when America came as a friend, China lied to us and betrayed us.
This seems like performative outrage. I know you must be aware that the CCP has a much higher level of control over Chinese businesses, especially state owned enterprises, than in America.
Again, not trying to argue with you. I want to explain why Americans have this perspective. If you really want to understand, read that book, or at least the LLM summary.
Looks like I’d have to do this particular dance again.
First of all, “I really struck a nerve”. What does that mean? It means I feel strongly about something you said. Does that automatically mean I’m wrong? This “oh you’re angry, hohoho, pwned” routine while basking in one’s own intelligence is boring and unbecoming of a decent discussion. One of the most commonly used tactics by Chinese nationalists back home is to say you’re “急了” (angry). You’re probably more familiar with the term “triggered,” though you didn’t exactly use that phrase.
I feel protective about China, yes, but I also feel strongly about arguments I find silly. I felt the same way about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict when people argue over who started it first. You’d “strike a nerve” there too with those arguments.
You’re missing my point. I know very well that your people and your elite do not trust us. The fact that you feel the need to spell this out tells me you’re not getting what I’m saying. I acknowledged in my original post that there is little trust between the two countries.
The characters of both our countries have meaningfully changed in the past 80 years since the founding of the PRC. Neither yours nor mine can claim a coherent, consistent goal throughout that period. Saying “we trusted you in 1911, so we already gave you a chance” makes little sense. Your country now and Woodrow Wilson’s America are different in fundamental ways. And however much kindness and selflessness your missionaries and China hands showed, your country’s leadership has never had altruism at heart.
I’ll say it again: I’m against the whole exercise of assigning blame for complex events spanning decades or centuries. It isn’t helpful or constructive. By the same logic, I don’t think Chinese hatred toward Japan over wartime atrocities is particularly healthy either.
And this point stands: mistrust doesn’t matter, because the optimal choice is still engagement and dialogue. Mistrust can only be resolved through engagement, not sanctions, and certainly not violence. Maybe violence works for your mistrust toward Iran, though even that is doubtful. Needless to say, we are not Iran.
I’m not going to read that book, because I already know that history. I did read the AI summary you suggested, so I held up my end. Would you mind having your AI summarize our grievances in return?
I don’t agree with your grand historical arc that China betrayed America while Americans were being taken advantage of. Your people have a particular tendency to frame things as others failing you. It has happened multiple times with me on this forum, and at some point that pattern is worth reflecting on.
That said, I partly agree with you. Before the PRC, America was, as I’ve said elsewhere, one of the only Western powers that helped China in its direst moments. America did not participate in carving up China. It helped return Boxer Indemnity funds, along with numerous policies during Wilson, and it helped us tremendously, bravely fight the Japanese of course. But it also passed the Chinese Exclusion Act and exploited Chinese labor to build its railways. Taking everything together, America was still probably the most beneficial Western country toward China during that era, with Germany perhaps a close second.
But after 1949, America was hostile. Are you denying that? The US government, driven by anticommunist fervor, treated China as an enemy and actively worked to obstruct Chinese development through sanctions, coordinated pressure from its allies, and most significantly, the continued disruption of reunification with Taiwan. You could argue that was opposition to communism rather than to China specifically, but I don’t think most Chinese people do or should care about that distinction. The rapprochement after the Sino-Soviet split was transparently a strategic compromise on both sides to counter the Soviets. You don’t get to claim naivety or selflessness for that.
You, and many others, have a habit of emphasizing your contributions while minimizing your gains. American actions are first and foremost in the interest of Americans, whether all Americans or specific segments of them. When those actions have genuinely benefited China, I have no problem acknowledging it. But if you insist on pretending America always acts out of the goodness of its heart, you’re certainly free to believe that. That’d just be naive.
I don't think I implied that America was acting out of the goodness of their own hearts. I'm simply trying to point out why we are in conflict.
To get off the historical finger pointing, I do think the issue is ideological.
One of the main points of the book is that Chinese grand strategy is based off the lessons of the warring states period, of a lesser state rising up to supplant the hegemon. The strategies that China has used towards this goal are fundamentally deceptive. From what I've read, this is not unusual in Chinese thinking, to the point that Chinese people consider deception to be completely normal and expected practice in dealings between states. Maybe you can correct me on this, but it's certainly the conclusion reached by American thinkers on the topic.
The issue, then, is that American moral thinking sees deception as fundamentally wrong. Whether this comes from Judeo-Christian or Puritan values is not important. What matters is that Americans have an instinctive distaste for the way the Chinese state operates as a matter of course. When it comes to our relations with other nations, at least those we consider friends, those nations do not lie to us about their essential nature and goals with the intent of harming us. China does. Americans even prefer a nation like Russia that is open about its conflict with the West over a nation like China that pretends to be our friend while secretly undermining us, which in our moral calculus is considered the lowest of the low and a moral evil.
I’m sorry, but this is self-serving, if I may, lies.
Your state constantly engages in lies and deceptions. What is the Iraq war but lies and deceptions? What is the Tonkin incident but lies and deceptions? Look at the current administration. Trump is probably the most quintessentially American president, as far as the rest of the world is concerned. What does he engage in? Lies and deceptions, constantly, to the point that people here argue you have to read him “seriously but not literally”. What is that but a convenient excuse for lies?
Your claim that “Chinese strategy is based off the Warring States” and the implication that this strategy is lies and deceptions makes little sense, and, to be very polite, smells of selective reading and biased thinking. The Warring States period left us with two major branches of thought: Confucianism, which grounds itself in virtue, idealism, and hierarchy; and Legalism, which grounds itself in force, realism, and statism. The rest of Chinese political history is the struggle and synthesis between these two schools, to put it simply. Legalism prevails during chaotic periods of imperial collapse and subsequent re-establishment. Confucianism wins during periods of peace and prosperity, and eventually leads to decadence and complacency until the empire shatters again. There is nothing insidious in this, as you implied, and if you want to know more, there are plenty of books on it.
Anyway, I’d like to thank you for sharing your opinions. It is, I admit, a bit shocking to see what some Americans really think of us. Shocking perhaps because I was slow to believe it. I never thought reasonable people actually held these views, and always wrote it off as politicians stoking fear, business as usual. I still think this is something that dialogue and engagement can help.
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