Taking a bribe to let China reverse engineer our next generation fighter jet should be the kind of thing that has consequences. That’s going to cost a lot of lives down the road if things go sideways.

It could cost a lot of American lives. Could also save a bunch of Chinese ones.

If you look at the history of military operations performed by both countries, it’s pretty clear which one is the more likely option

Maybe because the other didn’t have the capacity.

China nowadays has the capacity to steamroll half of asia into compliance. Instead they build alliances/partnerships via trade, even with countries they ideologically disagree with. It’s less profitable in the short-term but leads to more predictable and stable development in the region, which benefits them massively in the long-term. Crazy what you can do if you think in centuries and not quarters.

China isn’t building trade alliances, they are trapping developing nations in debt traps

¿Por qué no los dos? I mean, if you actually go to development nations you will see that they are investing into real infrastructure that improves the standards of living dramatically. They also intend to turn some profit off of it. Most likely much of that profit will be in building long-term economic relations, rather than immediate rent-seeking, which can be viewed as “trapping nations in debt traps”, or as “investing into development”. They also invest with much fewer strings attached compared to IMF, which is a win comparatively speaking.

Why not both? From someone from ML? Really?

So I guess imperialism is all good when China’s doing it?

Nah, I mean that what they’re doing isn’t charity (so they are doing the debt trap thing on some level), but it’s also beneficial for populations of countries they invest in, and better than whatever the fuck IMF is doing.