"The Romans never allowed a trouble spot to remain simply to avoid going to war over it, because they knew that wars don't just go away, they are only postponed to someone else's advantage. Therefore, they made war with Philip and Antiochus in Greece, in order not to have to fight them in Italy... They never went by that saying which you constantly hear from the wiseacres of our day, that time heals all things. They trusted rather their own character and prudence — knowing perfectly well that time contains the seeds of all things, good as well as bad."
There are ways to avoid the Thucydides trap, but they don't involve clapping your hands over your ears and pretending everything is fine when it is not. No matter what they like to claim, China is an aggressive expansionist power, and simply ignoring that reality is not going to accomplish anything.
I'm with you, except for that 'aggressive expansionist power' thing.
I'm seeing one 27-day long aggressive war in 1979, previous ones are 1960s or before? And some current day peaceful-yet-obnoxious saber rattling about the South China Sea? (completely oppose them on that BTW).
That's... really not 'aggressive expansionist power', as far as these things go. France, for example, has been in more war over the last 30 or 60 years. Britain MUCH more war. US and Russia? Don't get me started. China is by far the least warlike Security Council member, and it's quantifiable.
I'm all about spreading enlightenment values. Let's try not to look like total hypocritical a-holes and maybe we'll be successful.
So it's cool to invade countries next door if you have a dispute with them. But not okay if they're not your neighbors. What if they're technically not your neighbors, but still only like 100 kilometers away? Is that okay?
>So it's cool to invade countries next door if you have a dispute with them.
Straw-man much? It's not cool (and I didn't say that), but it's understandable. Neighbors have disputes, and that has been the case since forever, and it's understandable because they have common borders to settle (which are not god given), shared history, and so on.
Countries meddling with countries in the other end of the world just have imperialism and "national interests" to cheap oil and enforcing their preferred policies and ideology.
>What if they're technically not your neighbors, but still only like 100 kilometers away? Is that okay?
What if we stop asking silly questions and apply the principle of charity and/or common sense?
And yes, with nearby countries it's still natural to have disputes over e.g. this or that natural resource you both claim, this or that past war or whatever.
Now, France with Vietnam, the UK in Cyprus, or the US in Korea, not so much.
I'm sorry, I was trying to better understand your argument which seemed to be focused on geographic distance as a form of whether it was acceptable or not to have armed conflict.
No, establishing where it should have been naturally.
A country with shared borders and centuries of shared history with a nearby country is quite understandable to have disputes and even go to war with them.
With a country that had never interacted with it, and they have absolutely no reason being there (except entitlement and greed), not so much.
Except Tibet (https://www.historytoday.com/richard-cavendish/chinese-invad...), Vietnam (https://thediplomat.com/2017/02/the-bitter-legacy-of-the-197...), India (https://www.indiatoday.in/education-today/gk-current-affairs...), islands in the South China Sea claimed by other countries (https://www.navytimes.com/news/your-navy/2018/08/27/neighbor...), and unsuccessful attempts to seize islands controlled by Taiwan in the Taiwan Strait (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Taiwan_Strait_Crisis).