I think the reality is that the largest group on the planet is in China and lives under this authoritarian paradigm or whatever it is exactly.
There is good reason to expect China's global influence to continue to increase. HK is basically a front line.
If you look at countries like Australia you can see that this style of government is already starting to spread in some ways.
The US population is only 23% the size of China's yet the US has much more territorial and resource control globally.
My concern is that Chinese people will eventually not want to tolerate this disparity in resource control anymore.
At the moment the Chinese military is not capable of doing anything about it as far as I know.
However, if that changes, it is unlikely that the US will cede control voluntarily. In that case there would be a war.
However, since war involves mass killing, and people do not do that without some moral justification, people will need to find this ethical cause. What scares me about the protests is that "freedom" is the type of cause that people will commit mass murder for.
I think that the people who might push for a war do not really care about freedom or anything other than money and they do not respect human life.
I think it may be necessary to find non-violent ways to integrate Eastern and Western cultures and logistical controls in order to avoid a war. So I believe that should be a national security priority.
If it's any consolation, a US-China war will likely be naval in nature. Unlike WW2's land theaters in Russia or China, a naval conflict will have significantly fewer civilian casualties. This will be a fight where China tries to turn its surrounding seas into a no-go zone for the US navy and dominate oil supply lines through the Indian ocean that will secure its oil flow and allow it to pressure its East Asian neighbors. The US navy will try to maintain control of East Asia's oil shipping and degrade China's military capabilities enough to force China to the negotiating table where they can then impose formal limits on China's post-surrender military and set up a permanent military presence in Taiwan close enough to pre-emptively attack any future military buildup. Neither military is primarily concerned with seizing large tracts of civilian populated land and the bloody mess that would entail.
Saying that you are afraid that mass murder will be committed in the name of freedom, in the context of the Hong Kong protests, makes your comment read like Chinese propaganda.
Granted, you spent the first half of the comment criticizing China, so it probably isn't.
Overall, I can't discern what you are trying to say.
I'm trying to say that there is a chance that there will be a war between the United States and China in the future.
It will be a strategic war like all of the other ones, with the goal for each country to maximize its own power and control.
The people pushing for war will be both American and Chinese. The American military strategists will be asking for overt military action in order to combat incringement upon their dominant naval and air control. The Chinese will be looking to increase their area of influence and resource control. The primary drivers of the war push will be from military analysts, as well as industrial and economic interests that see profit potential in war.
So these military, industrial, and economic strategists may at some point see overt military action as the most effective strategy. However, as in all wars, they will not be able to convince any politicians to accept military authorization on a strategic basis. Therefore, military analysts on both sides will create propaganda programs designed to motivate the war on a moral basis.
This marketing effort for the war will be based around slogans like "freedom" from the American side. For the Chinese, I don't know what they will say, but it will be a moralistic slogan.
Freedom is very important, and this is the hard part because it will not fit in with most American's worldview, but in terms of war, it is just a slogan used to promote an agenda provided by people who seek profit and power and have no respect for human life.
I think people who are concerned about freedom need to actively pursue it in many ways. The HK protests are one good way, but in no way are they adequate. We have wildly divergent worldviews and cultures that are inevitably coming into conflict. A battle to the death for one's own worldview and power is not a safe approach.
To resolve the conflict safely, cultures and power structures need to be integrated. It is quite a massive undertaking and almost always is done by force through warfare. But if we value freedom and human life then we must try to find alternative ways to do this that do not involve mass killing. We have powerful communications and other technologies that might make this feasible this time.
There is good reason to expect China's global influence to continue to increase. HK is basically a front line.
If you look at countries like Australia you can see that this style of government is already starting to spread in some ways.
The US population is only 23% the size of China's yet the US has much more territorial and resource control globally.
My concern is that Chinese people will eventually not want to tolerate this disparity in resource control anymore.
At the moment the Chinese military is not capable of doing anything about it as far as I know.
However, if that changes, it is unlikely that the US will cede control voluntarily. In that case there would be a war.
However, since war involves mass killing, and people do not do that without some moral justification, people will need to find this ethical cause. What scares me about the protests is that "freedom" is the type of cause that people will commit mass murder for.
I think that the people who might push for a war do not really care about freedom or anything other than money and they do not respect human life.
I think it may be necessary to find non-violent ways to integrate Eastern and Western cultures and logistical controls in order to avoid a war. So I believe that should be a national security priority.