>To my knowledge we have not equipped Taiwan with nuclear missiles, which is what the Cuban Missile Crisis was about. Big difference.

It's big but nowhere near as big as you imply. Think about it from a chinese citizens perspective. How big of a difference is air raids, bombings and missiles vs. nuclear missiles? Would the chinese citizen be calm and nonchalant if it was just non-nuclear weapons and suddenly be thrown into hysteria by nuclear weapons? Let's be real here. It's a physical threat.

>provocative seems like a questionable choice of words, given that the US military has time and time again been used to resist militarists & authoritarians exploiting populations. We have enormous military capability that we don't use, that is not for making war, but defending the world against warlike powers.

Our military power is used for maintaining our own power. Just look at gaza. Again we aren't doing shit because it's not a threat to american power. Taiwan Is. Hence the difference in response. It's unrealistic to characterize the US as some international white knight. Clearly we aren't.

>Can't it become an economic and technological power without pushing around & pushing out so many neighbors? Here's to Chinas rise, I hope it does great, but it keeps acting so zero sum, keeps creating conflict, and it gives everyone great unease to see such military buildup from a country that keeps acting hard & ardent to those around it.

Unlikely. The US did a ton of pushing around. A ton. and it largely gets it's way on the international front. China is pushing it's way to become an equal player and that's unacceptable for the US. This is normal. It wouldn't be acceptable for China either if it's the other way around. Both countries are human. I think you're placing the US on a bit of pedestal.

You remember how the Bush administration basically lied and made up a bunch of shit about WMDs just to go to war in Iraq right? That whole fiasco basically puts a hole in your "white knight" view point.

>Absolutely on fear. We are scared of an authoritarian country so ready to go to war with it's neighbors, so willing to push people around. We have projected power so far for so long, but so rarely begun conflict, in hopes of preventing destabilization in the world, in hopes of preventing authoritarian overreach.

Largely disagree with this. The US is not some White Knight projecting power to keep stability. It chooses it's conflicts based on it's own interests.

>As for the whataboutism of other situations, the US has greatly helped Ukraine & our direct involvement would make it World War scale, so let's not if we can.

Direct involvement in war with China will be world war scale and the US doesn't hesitate in this matter. Russia is the greater threat for war because Russia is just less stable.

China is less of a threat for war but the US steps up military power here because China is more of a peer and competitor on the world stage. Let's be real here.

>Although you lambast us in these situations, we seem to be doing all we can in both situations to re-stabilize the world

We are doing our best to maintain an edge over China. That's what we're doing. That's the entire point of why there's so much military projection in Asia and none towards say Gaza. Does Gaza have a threat for world war? No.. so your theory doesn't apply here.