That's true, while I'd personally love to see some sort of divine punishment sort of shit, reality would be that keeping the status quo seemingly the same while silently and carefully gaining a grip on the world economically is by far the best outcome for everyone, this is quite literally the economic victory in the civilisation series.
Yes, precisely. My next part is not directed at you.
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A good way to temper reactions is to put United States in China's place.
Let's say that Mexico suddenly seized a Ford factory or whatever, and US's immediate response was to halt sensitive exports, potentially crippling a part of Mexico's economy, thus forcing Mexican politicians to immediately come begging to D.C. to work out a solution. How would the global media cover this? How would you view the power relationship?
Would you really care what Mexican politicians are saying to various Mexican or Spanish-speaking news? If Mexico retaliated in some other way like banning American universities from some Mexican research initiatives would you care? Would you go like, "Oh no, look at how Mexico is bullying American and America is just taking it!". No, you'd immediately understand that US is in the driver's seat, Mexican politicians are begging in D.C. while trying to save face in front of their Mexican constituents.
You would literally not care about the Mexican side of things, you'd just view this objectively from a power relationship. And yeah, Mexico is a major trade partner of United States, but you wouldn't care. There is an obvious power/tech imbalance similar to China/EU power imbalance. China is far more powerful economically and militarily now. Europe is no longer a powerhouse of innovation anymore, it's no longer a serious threat to Chinese prosperity, no more than Mexico is to United States anyway.
EDIT: Similarly, if United States ultimately relented and agreed to continue the exports to prevent Mexico from suffering major economic damage (for the time beign while negotiations are ongoing), you'd agree that this is a rational, reasonable move. Yeah, if US decided to go nuclear and let Mexico implode you'd have your "lulz that's what happens", but you wouldn't object to either path. In fact, you'd see that long-term, it's wiser for USA to swallow some indignities which are irrelevant anyway, and maintian a cordial relationship with Mexico. The actual "power" is visible to any serious person anyway and the point was already made.
And yeah Mexico could try to simply "exploit" US's kindness and try to diversify their supply chains to prevent this kind of thing from happening again (while secretly plotting to take over US investments in Mexico in the future), but would USA be seriously threatened by such things? No of course not. Mexico hasn't shown any capability that it could pull this off, they can't even control their crime.
SImilarly, Europe can't even figure out the future of the EU, can't cope with Russia, and is also being bullied by Trump. This is not an economic bloc that represents an existential threat to China today. It's a stagnant dinosaur on life support.