Originally Posted by
JustinHeywood
And what would be a ‘friendly gesture’ to China? Recognise China as the sole sovereign of the South China Sea? Turn a blind eye to their behaviour towards Hong Kong and Taiwan? Be unconcerned about their ‘Belt and Road’ activities in poor but resource-rich countries?
Bullies don’t respect ‘friendly gestures’, they only back down when stood up to, which the West has failed to do.
An alternative perspective might be that China is more than fully occupied keeping the peace domestically, given the huge disparities in wealth and the massive social pressures generated by their reliance on migrant labor from impoverished rural areas. China cuts hard nosed deals and is very comfortable with silver bullets to eliminate obstacles, just as various western companies do. So they are also determined to be respected, a real change from previous norms.
For an economy with massive excess capacity (10x the annual steel production of the US), Belt and Road is an analog to the Eisenhower 'Food for Peace' initative, which dumped surplus US food overseas, thereby destroying the local agricultural economy.