Every time I see stories like this I can't help but feel a twisted sense of respect for China, because they know how to read the rulebooks and take advantage of it all for everything we're worth.
Defeating the biggest military and geopolitical superpower known to mankind is trivial if you understand you can just ignore all that and instead buy it all up, and it becomes even more trivial if your enemy straight up gives you the monies for it. Literally free real estate.
So kudos to China, they know how to play to win and they're playing to win at all costs while we keep hoisting our own petards.
I'm not quite sure what the long game would be of buying up land. Obviously, in an escalation of contentions between the two countries, the US would simply seize said land.
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Defeating the biggest military and geopolitical superpower known to mankind is trivial if you understand you can just ignore all that and instead buy it all up, and it becomes even more trivial if your enemy straight up gives you the monies for it. Literally free real estate.
So kudos to China, they know how to play to win and they're playing to win at all costs while we keep hoisting our own petards.