Going on past experience New Zealand should be more worried about USA than China look below on how USA treats its friends compared to China
Since 1945, the United States has engaged in a large number of covert and overt interventions in other countries, often to gain access to resources or otherwise protect its economic and strategic interests. Compared to China, the scale and frequency of these actions have been significantly higher.
United States
- The U.S. has conducted at least 64 covert and 6 overt attempts at regime change during the Cold War alone (1947–1989). Many of these actions had some connection to access to resources or economic interests—such as oil (the 1953 Iranian coup), minerals, or favorable investment environments.
- Broader analyses count around 81 known U.S. interventions in foreign elections from 1946 to 2000, and nearly 400 military interventions from 1776 to 2023, with half occurring since 1950. While not all were resource-driven, many were at least partially motivated by the desire to secure access to vital resources or to create favorable conditions for American businesses.
- Concrete examples include the 1953 Iranian coup (oil interests), repeated interventions in Latin America to secure agricultural and mining interests, and involvement in coups or conflicts in Africa and the Middle East related to strategic resources like oil and minerals.
China
- China’s approach has traditionally emphasized non-interference, especially during the Mao and Deng eras. Direct, overt, or covert regime change operations to gain resources have been very rare, especially compared to the U.S.
- Since the rise of Xi Jinping, China has become more assertive internationally, primarily using economic means (loans, investment, the Belt and Road Initiative) and political influence, rather than military intervention or covert coups.
- There are documented instances of covert influence campaigns and economic leverage—sometimes called “sharp power”—for political or commercial advantage (e.g., securing ports, mining rights, or critical minerals), as seen in the Pacific and parts of Africa. But these tend to involve debt diplomacy and economic pressure rather than direct intervention to install or overthrow governments.
- Very few, if any, confirmed cases exist of China using outright regime change or military interventions post-1949 solely for gaining foreign resources. Its rare interventions have generally been to protect its citizens or strategic security (e.g., Korea in the 1950s), not to secure resources through direct intervention.
Comparison
- US: Dozens of overt and covert interventions aimed at regime change, many with an explicit or implicit goal to secure access to resources or safe business environments.
- China: Minimal direct or covert interventions for regime change or resource gain; influence generally exerted through commercial, diplomatic, or economic means, particularly post-1978.
In summary: The United States has interfered—covertly and overtly—far more often than China in other countries since 1945, particularly for resource-related objectives. China’s mode of influence since opening up in the late 1970s has focused on economic inducement, infrastructure investment, and commercial leverage, generally not regime change.
