I though that was the whole business with the Banana Republics

Right. They were republics in name only. We didn't care about setting up "Democracy" per se. We cared about trade. Very hard to trade with a country that is in a perpetual bloodbath.

So wait is this the actions with the Banana republics, or does this take place before the Spanish American war? Because the Banana. republics nonsense were a thing in the 50s

I am not sure, Wikipedia (dodgy source, so don't quote me on it) says from 1893-1934.

I looked it up

Now I get what you mean

It's one of those things where it's very romantic to believe that we cared about human rights on the Global Scale, but governments are never that altruistic.

The purpose of a government is to preserve the rights of its citizens. Other countries citizens? Well, that's on them. They want their rights? They can make a government of their own to safeguard them.

Or annex their territory to a government that will ~~provide~~ preserve said rights.

It's also critical to understand that this strategy is exactly what China is currently pursuing. Their entire Belt and Road initiative is to open up new markets and to protect their currently existing ones. As far as they're concerned, they *will* sell you their plastic rubbish.

Whether you like it or not.

Thought this belongs here

Belonged

No downloadable files.

A burning fuel dump after a mortar attack at Khe Sanh
On this day 1968 the Battle of Khe Sanh begins.

is this in Vietnam?

Yes

Ahh, Vietnam. After centuries of fighting off constant Chinese invasions, you'd think we'd have known better than to get involved.

Don't get me wrong, 7-1 K/D spread is always a win in my book. But it would have been much easier to let them kick out the French, wait it out, and join them when the Chinese began their invasion.

Or even better, we could have continued the Korean War once the Chinese had fully engaged with 'Nam.

We probably should have just done the korean option

because with the Vietnamese, they at least stuck to the idea of the politics not mattering as long as it ended with the independence of Vietnam

Korea on the other hand, they're an entirely different story

Well, the politics wouldn't matter to *us*. I think the Hmong might have a different opinion, however.

Also, what do people think of the idea of Japan getting it's balls back? Should we petition King Biden to let the Japanese have Aircraft Carriers?

depends on what Japan decides to set their gunsights on

if they start pulling the same shit as in the 30s then absolutely not

Do they have a choice? Given that China is currently running constant "Landing Operation" drills for its army, and everyone's wondering when Taiwan (Or as I like to call them, the RRC) is going to get invaded, they won't have a chance to start imagining any Imperial fantasies.

which is why i dont think itll be a problem

only this time, China isnt fighting a bunch of smaller versions of itself

I agree that Japan's done some pretty heinous stuff. Their human experimentation made the Nazi's blush. And they still refuse to apologize for it.

But it's been 75 years now, I think? Pretty close to that. I think it's in the past.

agreed

Not to mention, China is the one constantly demanding apologies. The gall of that is just astounding.

speaking of the vietnamese, i heard that they, along with countries like Laos, Cambodia, and Thailand have been butting heads with the Chinese behind closed doors

Oh, yeah, absolutely.

it was fine the first few years before we rooted out the Japanese Imperial coomers, but now its just kind of annoying

Fun fact, what we know as the Chinese Culture, it's actually *Han* culture. China had a great number of different types of subculture before the Han took over. But once they did, they were absolutely pretentious and constantly bullied their smaller neighbors. When the British Empire came knocking, the Chinese spoke Latin to them. The Brits said "We kind of speak English now."

The Chinese gave them a long and pretty version of the following:
"Be glad we're not forcing you to speak Chinese, it's a sign of our graciousness that we bothered to learn Western language at all. We will accept your silver in return for our products. What can we say except *You're Welcome.*"

That's when the Brits told them to get stuffed and began firing cannons at them.

And then drugged the shit out of them

and then shot at them some more

Point being, the Vietnamese, the Koreans, the Philippines, and *especially* the Japanese have never forgotten what kind of imperialistic pricks the Chinese have always been. They didn't need a communist dictatorship for everyone to hate them, they were hated to begin with.

The Han were pretty good businessmen to begin with but shit militants

It was all the nepotistic backstabbing, I think.
China has enough natural borders that they didn't really need to be worried about being invaded by foreigners. And because of that, the court politics were an absolute nightmare.

i said that the Han (chinese) were shit militants, hence why they were crushed by literally everyone else