Yes, that's what you were taught in high school. But America doesn't want to spread democracy as much as it wants to prevent the spread of governments that don't view capitalism central to their economy. Ask Chile or Iran or Vietnam or Cuba or Nicaragua, or most Central American nations how they feel about their democratic aspirations trampled by US corporations and US governments at different times of the 20th century. You're probably ok with that because, well, you were told that America was fighting communism, even if the population of these countries voted democratically for socialism. The fools just didn't know what they really wanted...
China fought a fratricide war for communism against entrenched powerful capitalist lords and won. While the Chinese have never known electoral democracy, they nonetheless are highly supportive of their government if you could believe it. Because communism, not capitalism, has raised the standard of living of the greatest population number than any other country in world's history, in 30 years! Reality is that China is not a communist country, it's a dictatorship with a hybrid social capitalist economic system. Ultimately it suits its population, with all of its achievements and flaws. But China doesn't give 2 fucs about preventing democracy. It cares that no one tells them what they can do about their country, which includes Hong Kong (for sure) and, they say, Taiwan, which may be the start of a small or big war with many who don't see it that way.
Chinese tend to be culturally rigid people. Work, money, family are the pillars of that culture today. They are very hierarchical and criticism only goes downwards. If you want to criticize, you have to climb the ladder and shout from above.
You or I may not like their ways, but it's theirs and they never attempted to force it on us like we westerners have tried to force our ways on them for centuries. The future will require the western world not to let them bully us, but we also need to respect them. I'm not sure which is going to be the harder.
Iran does not have any "democratic aspirations" LOL, for a very brief period of time, yes the Shah had embraced western democratic ideologies and wanted to implement it there but that was not a fit culturally to the conservative Islamic whatever that was so central to its culture. Iran was doing great under the Shah but somehow people just didn't want western culture. They preferred to be ruled by Islamic fundamentalism even if it means going backwards in economic development, giving up human rights, relinquishing freedom. The Iranian revolution was peaceful and had no precipitating cause. That's not US or any US corporations' problem. They did nothing to put a dictator like Khomeini in power.
Vietnam is another story, it was a tale of two countries. Northern part of Vietnam was poor, ruled by the Communists, and southern part of Vietnam was richer and was ruled by democracy. The northern part didn't like that, with help from China and Russia (Soviet Union at the time) wanted the rich South for itself by "uniting" the two parts of the country under one system, Communism. USA personally went down to South Vietnam to try to help Southern Vietnamese to try to push back against basically three countries, China, Soviet Union and Northern Vietnam fighting as one to safeguard democracy. So you can't blame US or US corporations there again for not wanting to spread or defend democracy.
And the same or similar stories like what happened in Vietnam can be said in many South American countries like Chile or Venezuela and etc. So if you want to talk about America and its role in spreading or defending or not defending or whatever about democracy, you need to talk in perspective and not everything out of context.
And China is not that innocent as you believe in just wanting to preserve its way of going on doing its business and not bothering others. No that might be their rhetoric thirty years ago when they were developing their economy, because they needed to present a peaceful image to the world in order that nobody bothers them so they can develop their economy and make money quietly and effectively. Not that they've made money, they are not content in just confining in their own boundary anymore, their country is already developed, their ambition is now developing the world. Otherwise, why are they so keen on developing this "one belt, one road" project? And deliberately bypassing all the western countries that practice democracy?
No, they want to take over the rest of the world under its belt (pun intended and unintended) and turn around and annihilate or assimilate the west and its ideologies, typical of Chinese Go strategy.
For those of you who are interested in protecting our western democracy and our way of life, I strongly recommend you to learn how to play the Chinese Go chess. Everything that China is doing right now is encompassed in that chess. The West is not the one who is interested in spreading its democracy here. In contrast, the West is the one who is just interested in preserving its own way of doing things. Biden just announced a $2-trillion to build its domestic infrastructure. It's not interested in any military projects or any foreign aid projects. The West is in survival mode here; it's on its defense here to try to protect its western democracy and its way of life, its culture. And yet China is the one who is invading here.
https://www.fbi.gov/news/stories/chinese-hackers-charged-in-equifax-breach-021020
Mao Tse Tong believed 2/3 of the world population lives in utmost misery and it's up to China to defeat the evil imperialism and save the people who are suffering. China is just finishing what Mao has started. Too bad its vaccines is not living up to people's expectations. Its effective rate after 2 doses is just 50% and its effective rate is only 3% after the first dose. The countries among the "2/3 of the world suffering population" is not doing that well after buying its vaccines.
https://www.cnbc.com/2021/04/19/cov...it-record-levels-despite-vaccine-rollout.html They are still suffering.
