China: The New America

If you thought the ruthless and paranoid activities of the US and CIA during the Cold War were bad, wait until you see what China is capable of.

Although the Americans were certainly paranoid enough to really believe that the Soviet Union was going to conquer the US by sneaking in the back door of South and Central America and inspiring places like Guatemala to nationalize public resources, it also provided them with a pretty convenient excuse to pick a fight with any leader, democratically elected or not, who stood in the way of American companies looking to make a profit off of the resources of foreign nations. This wasn't just in South America, but Iran as well. When Mossadeq nationalized the oil industry, the British and Americans took him out and replaced him with the Shah who would guarantee that American and British money, uh, I mean "security" would be guarded from socialists. Of course, if the Shah hadn't been in power, there would have been no Iranian Revolution in the late 70s. Had there been no Iranian Revolution, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad would not be in power today.

But China also has economic interests in various parts of the world, and their ability to protect those interests are getting ever stronger. The Chinese, however, can't use security concerns to justify their thuggery. There is no great military adversary to China so they can't say that they have to gobble up the oil in Africa (and in so doing, fund the Sudanese genocide) in order to keep that oil from falling into "the wrong hands."

Well, they could say that, but they have even less credibility than the Americans when they used that excuse, and we all know how credible the Americans are in those matters.