The Chinese are definitely "there" now. One thing that's clear fromFishbellykanakaDude wrote: > The Chinese are almost there now. Not quite, but really really
> close. The real signal that the oil is on the floor, ready to be
> slipped on, is when some Chinese behavior causes the fractious
> parties in the west to choose between "them or us" instead of
> fighting amongst themselves about pronouns and Patreon.
> ...
> So, I'm quite content, personally, to appreciate the amusing and
> comforting internal bickering of the identity based political
> groups within our various societies, as their little "wars" mean
> "the world ain't ripe yet".
studying Chinese history is that they don't really want war with the
US -- after all, we saved their butt in WW II, and several times
before that, including in the aftermath of WW I -- but they really
want war vs Japan. But of course they know that war with Japan means
war with the US.
The equivalent of the Marco Polo Bridge incident, which launched WW II
in Asia, could happen at any time. China is being extremely
belligerent in the East China Sea around the Senkaku Islands, and that
could easily trigger a war on any day. The same could be said about
the Taiwan Strait. The world is definitely ripe.
Americans were just as politically divided in the late 1930s as they
are today, even after the war in Europe had started. What united
Americans behind FDR were the "regeneracy events" -- Pearl Harbor and
the Bataan Death March.