> There's never a simple thing in geopolitics. We can only look to history, to policies and treaties and to potential outcomes to explain and predict.
So doesn't this bring us to "it's news that China has started treating these waters differently" for objective reasons vs it only being an "American media bubble" thing?
China is treating these waters differently today for National Security reasons, and because of a unique period of history in which Chinese growth and infrastructure development has skyrocketed (China has been successfully industrializing into a modern economy). I had said: "Today, China is trying to build infrastructure, shipping routes and naval security in this area. This is important to China because of its historical vulnerability to naval embargo, through the Strait of Malacca and elsewhere."
The American media bubble is the narrative that China is being aggressive, that China is being unilateral, that China has no claims (especially vis a vis Philippines), that there is a unanimous interpretation in Asia, etc.
The media bubble in this regard isn't "something has changed" but "this is what's changed and this is what's going on."
It's a nice story about good versus evil and American freedom, sure, but that's only good for headlines and public consumption. It's not what is going to fill the history books.
So doesn't this bring us to "it's news that China has started treating these waters differently" for objective reasons vs it only being an "American media bubble" thing?