I should be asking you that. You said "I actually used to think the West's assistance of China was a good thing.... "


Anyways, since my other post was deleted for violation...I'm going to say this original topic is 'lacking.'

Logic of hegemony!

What hegemony? What you have to understand is that "western" is not an entity for anyone except some people in East Asia. There's no such thing as a western powerhouse, military or even economy as a whole. Proof: War in Iraq. Might just as well say all of east Asia is unilateral in everything it does and can be considered as one power....
The only entity that holds an hegemonic title would be the United States (which wasn't the topic). Plus the US is not like any sort of previous hegemony, because it is a free market society. It depends on the global market for its economy and can't be isolated into a villain warmongering state that so many of you would like to think as.

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No one thinks "West" is an entity. It often refers to major powers of Europe and North America, which shared Christian heritage and undertook war or colonialism in Africa and Asia.

If a country adheres to meritocracy and refuses to change, does it deserve being bullied by other countries with gunships to wage an Opium War or to force unequal treaties? Aren't the bullies to blame at all? What a logic!

No one thinks "West" is an entity. It often refers to major powers of Europe and North America, which share Christian heritage and used to undertake war or colonialism in Africa and Asia.

If a country adheres to meritocracy and refuses to change, does it deserve being bullied by other countries with gunships to wage an Opium War or to force unequal treaties? Aren't the bullies to blame at all? What a logic!

You just did......

Considering the state of international politics was at the time (realist) then, there's no one to stop these then the state. Might just as well blame another country for economic failures in one country. If you want to blame the states involved go ahead, blame the British parliament of 1839 for the Opium war. This has nothing to do with the current British government nor anyone in England (or anyone else). Ultimately though, it was the state of China that failed to protect itself because of meritocracy and other bad policies -- and had to resort to foreign imperialists to put down the Taiping Rebellion.

Some loosely related country, in a completely unrelated time frame did wrongs to people and state that no longer exist....what a logic to think it means anything more than a lesson in international relations.

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Many thanks. That is a lesson that China learned.

So maybe you'll stop blaming people like me for something we've never done?

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