Are the USA and China "peace-loving nations"?

[Creed of Heresy]

I've had contact with Chinese people. I've had contact with a couple of their women. LOTS of contact. Lots of sweaty, bed-breaking [no seriously I lost a box spring to one of them], god-and-agreement-invoking contact.

I got yellow fever. XD

[Something completely different]

Could you define "peace loving"

Every nation is not in favor of going to war. Except for those which see their purpose in constantly being at war or in destroying a enemy (such as Hamas ruled Gaza, Iran and North Korea)

Every nation has the obligation to protect it`s citizens.

It is the interests of a nation which simply sometimes stand in conflict to each other.

[Anomalocaris]

One could argue that at any given point in time, certain countries are more prone than others to overestimating its ability to address its own problems with external violence. So these nations tend to resort to violence more easily, usually to their own long term detriment, than others.

In this sense, I have to say the United States is the least peace loving of any nation since WWII, having convinced itself external violence was the best solution to its problems on more occassions than literally any other nation on earth since 1945.

China is harder to say. During most of last 65 years china was so weak it was inconceivable for anyone in it to imagine it to be a good idea to resort to serious proactive external violence to solve problems, except under extremely unusual circumstances, like during the Sino-Vietnamese war of 1979. However, for the future signs are not good. It's cultural favoritsm towards boys, and its strict one child policy has resulted in high incidence of selective abortions and female infanticide, and has left china a large surplus of males in the country's youth sex ratio. For every 100 young men, there would only be something like 87 young women. Many Chinese young men in the next few decades would have no wifes and no prospect of a family of their own due to shortage of young women, but a great deal of frustrated, pent up energy seeking release. This is generally not a good sign. China might be tempted to improve its own demography, social stability and governability, by thinking up ways to get rid of its surplus male population, for example by using them up as canon fodder.

The same probably applies even more strongly to India, whose sex ratio imbalance is even more severe than chinas, and whose lack of population policy would leave it with an even large population of youth looking for something to do.

[HorribleOffensiveScouser91]

Yes, it is okay to have your opinion. I don't even necessarily disagree with all of it. However, the premise is that some people think they are peace-loving nations. Since you have no reason for making this statement, the entire thing falls apart.

I have to agree with you here, clearly this thread is made to gain an angry fierce debate that the countries are when nobody said they are not.

[Aractus]

Hello Creed, I disagree!

China proclaims itself as a nation of peace only because that makes it a more appealing business partner towards richer, established nations and leagues, such as the USA or the European Union, for example.

That's very cynical of you. China see themselves as being peace-loving, obviously. They are after all a strong economic force, and they're an export-based economy. So they're totally reliant on the USA and other big customers of theirs doing well and hence giving them business. Thus, with all the major countries they export to of course they want nothing but peace to be between them.

Make no mistake. There will come a time, very soon I suspect, where the Chinese culture shall become the dominant one...complete with its own stiflings of personal freedoms and expressions. We're already seeing it happen in little spots here and there, such as Google's policies ever since their attempt to get into the Chinese market.

China will fall before it truly rises. What you have to remember is that China isn't anywhere near as powerful as the USA, and isn't going to be anytime in the foreseeable future. The USA's economy is going to slow in the recent future, and that will hurt China hugely, and the already low standards of living in China will suffer there. China, America, they've both been changing over the recent decades, and there's still a lot of change yet to come. For China, their future depends on the western world doing well. What we will see in the future is the price of Chinese merchandise rising, it won't anymore be as cheap as it has been. India will of course compete, but the quality of their products compared with China is terrible anyway, so we will just have to get used to the rising cost of "made in China". After all, we're still going to buy it.

[Brian37]

I think outside government, humans prefer not to be physically harmed in their daily lives. I think what divides the world the most is a battle between exploitation and cooperation. Religious and political labels allow humans to "feel" special which creates the group dynamic of survival in evolution. We have yet as a species to understand that evolution does not give one shit who wins. When we do, or if we do to a large enough scale, we can shift our priorities away from labels to common ground.

[Question Mark]

I think that the important thing to look at is the habits and tendencies of countries to see what it is that they'll do. Most general populaces are peace-loving, meaning they don't want to be personally involved in war, but it's not usually up to the people as such.

In the case of the US, in its reasonably short history it has expanded its territories almost continually up to the mid-twentieth century. It has taken over the majority of the southern half of North America, and expanded its sovereignty over the Pacific.
China on the other hand is a different case. Over its very long history, China's tendency has been direct conquering, expansion over those territories immediately around it, like modern day Vietnam, Korea, Mongolia, Laos, Cambodia, etc. Even when it was able to expand overseas, such as during the Ming dynasty, it did not do so. It projected power to India, Japan, and East Africa, but didn't take any territory or establish any long-term office there.

Peace loving may not be the right word, to be sure, but China at least is more often concerned about its domestic struggles than with foreign powers.