I want to believe you, but arguments like this are so simplistic that it's profoundly disappointing. It is simultaneously the case that they are extensive trade partners and that there's ongoing harassment in the South China Sea, the horrifying takeover of Hong Kong and the increasingly chilling situation in Taiwan, or the harassment of expat dissidents who have fled to the West.

To say nothing of extremely adversarial cases of increasingly aggressive hacking, corporate espionage, "wolf warrior" diplomacy, development of military capabilities that seem specifically designed with countering the U.S. in mind, as well as the more ordinary diplomatic and economic pushback on everything from diplomatic influence, pushing an alternative reserve currency, and an internal political doctrine that emphasizes doubling down on all these fronts.

I don't even feel like I've ventured an opinion yet, I've simply surveyed facts and I am yet to meet a variation of the Officer Barbrady "nothing to see here" argument that has proved to be fully up to speed on the adversarial picture in front of us.

I think what I want, to feel reassured, is to be pleasantly surprised by someone who is command of these facts, capable of showing that I'm wrong about any of the above, and/or that I'm overlooking important swaths of the factual landscape in such a way that points to a safe equilibrium rather than an adversarial position.

But instead it's light-on-facts tirades that attempt to paint these concerns as neocon warmongering, attempting to indulge in a combination of colorful imagery and ridicule, which for me is kind of a non-starter.

Edit in response to reply below: I'm just going to underscore that none of the facts here are in dispute. The whataboutism, insinuations of racism, and "were you there!?" style challenges (reminiscent of creation science apologetics) are just not things I'm interested in engaging with.

if you reread your post, looking for whatabboutism, each critique you provide could be described as such in response to "we're great trading partners and will continue to be"

why are these whatabboutisms interesting but others are not? what makes you comfortable with working with americans, when its clear how they treat expat political dissidents like Assange and Snowden? why are you ok working with the US who's military is tuned for seizing iranian oil shipments? why are you favourable to a US reserve currency when the US has been abusing its power by putting all kinds of unilateral sanctions, and confiscating reserves without any due process? its not just china thats trying to make a new reserve currency, the EU does too, so they can buy iranian oil.

minus all the whatabboutisms, america and china exchanged ~$750B worth of goods and services in 2022, with neither's trangressions being a blocker. Americans by and large care much more about the cost and variety of goods than they do about fishing rights in the south china sea. americans dont care that much about US foreign policy goals, compared to shopping and culture.

Have you been to China? Know anyone from there? Or is your opinion on what they deserve based entirely on TV headlines? Do you relate to them as humans? That’s what I need to see before I take anyone’s condemnation of any group of people seriously.

I’m disputing none of the facts you raise, I just don’t think it’s reason enough to label the entire country as an enemy state and shut the door like a petulant child. Especially in light of the horrifying atrocities that we ourselves are funding.