There's a big difference in intercepting packages and installing backdoors in a targeted and legal way, at least acording to SCOTUS who have zero problems with our status quo SIGINT operations thus making them lawful - and massive cyberwar attacks from China and cooked in state mandated malware.

I know HN hates the US and thinks China and Russia are bastions of liberty and human rights, but the US's method are a million times more ethical than autocratic states in regards to SIGINT. Heck, Putin had Kaspersky give him information on journalists he didn't like. Meanwhile, my Russian friends on VK are always bugging me about citizenship and H1bs. Yeah, they WANT to come here, pal. They hate it there, they aren't blinded by anti-US, anti-UN, anti-NATO propaganda so popular here. They're gentle geeks in fear of a dictator who could eliminate them at any moment.

If I had the power and wealth I would hire them all and bring them to the states. Every. Single. One.

>China on all fronts to prevent it from acquiring superpower status - to isolate it economically and politically,

We power their economy via our manufacturing and via the sales of our products. If anything they are close economic partners. Are we moving all of our manufacturing to Mexico or something? Seems to me the US is very much tied to the success of China. I can't interpret your statement as anything but incredibly dishonest. Does our national firewall block alibaba now? Oh right, we don't have a national firewall. They do. hell, my own company is tortured by their VPN and censorship limitations. This is a daily headache for me and I'm TRYING TO DO BUSINESS WITH THEM. If anyone is business hostile its them - to us. Hell, they outright block Google services on Android.

> and to increase the risk of its using its military

This is asinine. China is unilaterally taking over disputed islands with zero attempts to use diplomacy, the UN, etc. The Japanese, Korea, and others have claims on those islands. Why are you dismissing their rights? Because they are "evil US" partners as well?

Meanwhile the Chinese prop up the worst state in modernity which has become a mass murder state we have not seen since Stalinist times. I was just in South Korea and its complete madness that a modern democratic state needs to be terrorized by a client Chinese state 24/7 via a madman with nuclear weapons because the CCP likes to "stick it to America." The Koreans we met, drank with, laughed with, etc were no different than me. They bought us gifts and were so gentle, humorous, and loving (especially of children and the elderly) it breaks my heart to think they are one madman's decision away to shell Seoul which would destroy it, and them, in minutes. But I get to fly home to a secure nation because of our strong military and they get to sit there waiting the CCP to tell their pet attack dog to invade or have their pet attack dog go off chain and shell a few things and blow up some nukes to terrorize them. Its depressing. The one man who had a son in the military was so proud of his son's service and showed us many photos, knowing full well, that kid is mincemeat when the North decides it times to roll tanks with Beijing's blessing. The kid looked 16.

> to project power lawfully in the Asia Pacific.

This is pro-China bullshit right here. Lawfully by whose standards? The CCP? Oh okay. Only on a kiddie politics site like HN or reddit would a dishonest and extremely biased anti-US comment like yours be voted to the top. Grow up.