So you're still completely ignoring the fact of a little something called NUCLEAR WEAPONS.
And are basicaly continuing this conversation for the sake of it. Not taking MAD into account...
Live in your own world. Whatever dude.
Study your history. Nations start out young, small and energetic. They either expand and conquer the nations around them through military conquest, IMMIGRATION and ASSIMILATION, or merger, or suffer that same fate. As a nation ages, it eventually slows. It may grow rich and bloated, or slow and weak. Eventually, a younger, stronger nation will succeed in supplanting it.
At some point, a government consider's it's survival and power to be of greater importance than that of its citizen's or subjects.
Drop it down and you see the same thing with corporations. Our constitution is the only thing that has kept some controls on the government and kept us from sliding into a dictatorship and eventual revolution. Corporations are constrained only by the power of laws and the ability of the government to fine, tax or criminally & civilly prosecute the management.
With this as premise, look another look at China. "China" is old, but the People's Republic of China is not. At the beginning of the 20th Century, China was a backward nation that couldn't control its borders or its economy and was subject to the whims of the "Great Powers". Japan, a nation with a far smaller population, was able to conquer large parts of China and probably could have completed the job if not for US intervention.
The People's Republic of China took over in 1949 and commenced a total rebuilding of the country. Something that has gone through a couple of evolutions along the way. The Chinese consider their culture to be superior to all others. The leadership may publicly decry the old age of the emperors, but they've simply changed names and stepped into their place. They maintain the old Chinese position that they are the center of the world and everyone else are barbarians. They are still working to overcome the humiliation of the last century when barbarians dictated what happened in China, and the perception that China is/was a 3rd world country and is inferior to the west.
China also takes a long term view of the world, history and the future. They will continue to do business with the US and other western nations because it brings capital into the country, which they need to continue the modernization of the country. But when they believe they no longer need us and the opportunity has arrived, they will strike against us.
Get back to the government as an organism. Modern Chinese history is full of proof that the lives of their citizens are not important to the government. They slaughtered millions in the cultural revolution. They had not problem killing protesters in Tiananmen Square. Prisoners labor in slave labor camps and when they die or are executed, their organs are harvested. The Chinese government is perfectly willing to trade the lives of millions of their people in a nuclear war with the US if they think it will result in the ascension of China and the fall of the US.
Think out of the box, dude. You are too narrow minded
