alt Hacker News>the Chinese will seek something in return. They're not doing this out of the goodness of their hearts.
of course they aren't but it's also obvious what they want. Design a new global order where they have a seat at the table and get to determine standards, processes and technologies. That's the point of investing in telecommunications, cars, and so on. But what they don't want is annex European territory.
China is still ambitious enough to imagine itself as creating new international orders rather than just creating disorder, and so they'll likely make for a better partner for any civilized country than powers that descend into 19th century colonial neo-imperialism run by people who may as well come straight out of the Warhammer universe.
> But what they don't want is annex European territory.
They've more-or-less directly supported Russia's ambitions in Ukraine. If they don't want to annex your territory but are willing to support someone who does in the bloodiest war on the continent since the end of WWII, is there really a difference? They know they aren't in a place to project power over Europe, but they have a partner that absolutely is. I'd keep a close eye on how forgiving European countries have to be of Russia in order to curry favor with the Chinese in the coming years.
> so they'll likely make for a better partner for any civilized country than powers that descend into 19th century colonial neo-imperialism run by people who may as well come straight out of the Warhammer universe.
The problem is, deep down, none of that means anything to the ruling class of any European nation. If it did, Russia doesn't get the chance to do anything of consequence internationally after their incursion into South Ossetia in 2008. There would be no ambiguity regarding the future of Taiwan vis-a-vis control under the PRC. There wouldn't be investment deals now.