Unfortunately, I have to agree with you. As the saying goes: "better the devil you know". China can at least so far be relied upon to not shoot itself in the foot (and take the whole word with it). The same cannot be said of other great powers like the US (under Trump, for more reasons than I'm willing to list here) and Russia (with Putin's completely harebrained invasion of Ukraine). China can prove me wrong any time by invading Taiwan, but I still hope they don't. Of course, if we try to keep them away from advanced chip technology, that would be further motivation to invade (although TSMC is unlikely to survive an invasion - even if it did survive the actual conflict, it would probably be destroyed or evacuated to avoid it falling into Chinese hands? But I don't want to see the hardware prices after such an event).
> If China goes to war, it's probably going to be because their economy is in tatters.
Well, they probably also have to factor in whether invading Taiwan is likely to improve that situation, and I would argue that it's not - China is currently exporting stuff all over the world, so economic sanctions would be very painful for them. And there are lots of countries who would like to have a slice of the manufacturing that China is currently hogging...
>China can at least so far be relied upon to not shoot itself in the foot
It can? Have you heard of the Great Leap Forward? The Cultural Revolution? Either of those damaged the metaphorical foot more than anything the US has ever done.
China has planned out the invasion/reclamation of Taiwan in 2027. They held true to their Hong Kong timeline, not sure why this would be any different.
I have read the WHO [0] report and the conclusion is "possibly to likely" about the zoonotic origin of Covid, so no there isn't conclusive report how it came to be.
> If there is a cover up it is to hide incompetence.
Which is my point to GP's "reliable" argument. China is not reliable and has its own interests at play just like the US or any other state for that matter, regardless of its international partnerships. It does want to project itself as "reliable" - that I can't deny.
Yes we do. We also (despite theories stating the contrary) know that the current climate change is caused by us burning too many fossil fuels, that the utility of vaccines preventing deadly diseases outweighs any rare side effects, that airlines are not involved in a secret conspiracy of releasing chemicals (all airlines at the same time and only in certain meteorological conditions), and that the earth is roughly spherical.
