History, of interest to me

I was doing some light reading the other day, during the mainland China invasion by Japan in the 1930's and 40's before the US began assisting China (which lasted exactly as long as they were useful to us as allies), China emptied the Forbidden City of the Chinese Emperor and sent many of it's artifacts to Taiwan for safekeeping. Not a problem, as it was a Chinese territory, and far enough from Japanese military (and the looting and destruction going on in the rest of the country), to protect the national treasures.

After the war, with US backing, Taiwan declares independence, and the US military, now with convenient bases all over the Pacific and Japan, backs their move. I'm not even going to start the subject of mass lootings by "treasure hunters" from America and Europe in the centuries and decades leading up to that war.

With "friendly" overtures like these towards our "allies" it's no wonder Chairman Mao was elected and adopted Joseph Stalin's communism and "cleansing." Nor that China still hates our guts. We're still the biggest kid on the block though, so it doesn't make sense for them to push us too far, buying our debt and then collecting on it will cripple us enough, especially with the world economy the way it is, heck, one could look at their national industrialization as another tool to undercut Taiwan's production and pricing, drive them into national bankruptcy, and then have them crawl back to China to be saved. But once those treasures are restored, will China need them?

I know I've vastly oversimplified the situation, and there are many more factors involved, but I don't think these are insignificant.