[oldel]

By start something I didn't mean outright war with the US or the west - that's ridiculous because once you're at war then the other country isn't going to honour debt, so buying debt would have be pointless if that was their plan.

I mean interfere in South East Asia, Africa, Pacific and push it as far as they can, they already are. They've been buying the west for decades.
The west has sold themselves to the lowest bidder.

As far as the former pres, he was not wrong with wanting to do something about it, just did it the wrong way - a populist vote buyer and threatening, tarrifs etc. He thought he could win a trade war with them and that was never true. Too late, too simplistic a thought. Dumb strongman posturing that cost the USA heaps, and no jobs came back anyway.

Any western leader that wants to reduce reliance in china for trade and use caution in intelligence gathering etc is doing the right thins - whether they diversify exports, industry, increase domestic manufacture or invest in another friendlier country is doing the right things
I also wouldn't say it has changed the end intentions - they've been buying us anyway and they always intended to be the top power, but it probably moved the time table forward when they were antagonized and covid ruined everything (I said that in the covid thread or this thread before. China is always going to be China, but the time table has changed due to trump and covid.

Maybe it will end up better this way, because we have more time to do something about it? When rebuilding post covid and recession maybe we can start improving domestic manufacture or wean ourselves of China and they may end up having shot themselves in the foot by acting too early (like before they had even more trillions of dollars from the west)