Xaszatm:
You wrote a message to me in response to me, and I'm guessing you deleted it or something because I can't find it (I could also not be very observant at the moment). I just wanted to say that everything I've said about China is pretty well documented actually, if you do searches for things like a combination of "China, Satellites, Lasers" you'll find articles going back to around 2006 dealing with ground based systems intended to interfere with military satellites and enforce conventional warfare. What's more China's militay build up has included things like a naval force sufficient to project it's troops into other countries en-masse, aircraft carriers, and other assorted things. Very much a conventional invasion force under construction, there is no need for any of this in a defensive capacity, only if you want to bring your forces to attack other nations. Things like the Yuan class submarine are also matters of public record at this point, as well as China's increasing belligerance in trying to force Japan to cede control of parts of it's territory to China in combination with it's rising military power, territory which is incidently of key strategic value within the region. Likewise things from behind the Bamboo Curtain *DO* indeed get out including what a lot of Chinese politicians are saying internally, for internal consumpsion, which has been incredibly militeristic over the years, even if the nature of it has not played well with the mainstream press.
I hate to be this direct, but there has been enough shown about China to also make it pretty clear that the typical Chinese is pretty much forced into a life of borderline slavery, being forced to share sleeping mats with multiple other people in shifts, working for a pittiance in sweatshops which is how the Chinese economy is maintained, and even in many cases made to live alongside their own livestock which is how diseases like SARS got started. In counterpart to this however there is a relative minority of people who live quite well in some of the hugest, most modern cities in the world, and act as a sort of ruling class. While it's from Hong Kong this is one of many articles that kind of summarizes the issues.
http://news.yahoo.com/poor-cages-show-dark-side-hong-kong-boom-142635066--finance.html
Not to mention the well documented antics of the Beijing Olympics with the police pretty much forcing people out of their homes to make space, and keeping "unsightly" people confined to their homes during the olympics themselves. For the most part whenever someone wants to bring up truely atrocious human rights violations and the majority of a people living in horrendous squalor, China is the target, and has gotten interntaional attention for this in the past.
By the accounts I'm getting China's saber rattling is pretty much used similarly to what the USSR did to help keep it's underclass focused and in line, as well as military invasion "in the future" being the promised solution to a lot of the problems going on. After all if you live in say a dog crate in between going to work at some sweatshop, the idea of this military your goverment is building being used to conquer the "decadent" western world your told is responsible for your problems represents a ray of hope, it will be worth it because if you colonize other nations there will be living space, and one day people won't have to share the same mat with a dozen other people, live in dog crates, or whatever else.
At any rate, while not "nice" I have to take anything I hear coming from China via a computer with a grain of salt if your to be believed, because really, only a fairly small percentage of the population have computers. A point made in some articles on asian gaming (just to back it up) talking about the use of cafes and such in countries where even the middle class are unlikely to have PCs. It doesn't seem likely that you'd agree with me, even overseas, if your in that class and plan to live and work in China at any given point.
Apologies for the length, but the bottom line is I don't believe you, especially seeing as there is a preponderance of evidence that presents things as being very differant from the tone of your post. Likewise when I am reading articles about how China has just launched it's first Aircraft carrier, which is hardly a defensive weapon, around the same time when it's trying to get it's hand on territory held by Japan which is of strategic value to the US, your not convincing me China isn't planning military aggression. You don't build Aircraft carriers for any other reason but to project power and spearhead attacks (so you can launch planes into other countries). I suppose you can argue it's not true, but it's kind of right there if you catch my meaning.
At any rate as this applies to the Mandarin, my point is that he's actually a pretty understandable character, and really one of the more realistic villains out there. At the end of the day he's out to conquer the world for his own people (with himself in charge), believing in their inherant superiority over all others and right to rule. There have been many men like him throughout history, and China has had plenty of conquerors through it's own history. It's relevent because even if the trappings are differant, this is pretty much what China is building up to do.
Let me be honest about one final thing in closing though, I don't hate China or the Chinese people in any absolute sense. To be totally blunt with you, I'd have few if any issues if China simply agreed to start respecting copyright and IP laws, and ending it's knockoffs, and pretty much disarming it's offensive military forces. I mean I don't care if China wants to have a coast guard, some airforce bases to intercept jets someone might send after it, and a huge conventional military and a buttload of tanks if someone is to land troops or whatever. Hell, to be honest I didn't
even care that much about China being a nuclear power. All of my attitudes are entirely reactive. I get angry over the human rights stuff, but as others have pointed out, we can't really force that to stop without wrecking the rest of the country, I mostly simply see that as something important to attach to any kind of surrender if we were to ever beat China in a war, rather than the motivation for a war in general. It's just like my sentiments on The Middle East, I make total war arguements about breaking the culture, however to be honest if they just decided to generally knock it off on their own, I really wouldn't give a crap, keep the Islam to their own borders and be respecful of those who disagree (by say not expecting visiting women to act submissive to men and dress in body tents), for the most part we're more than happy to pay for their oil, and the leaders are more than willing to sell it so they can buy their fleets of gold plated cars and crap (disputes between them and the people over that should largely be an internal matter, to be fair, I think most Muslims are pointing their guns at the wrong people and would improve their lot in life if they whacked their own leadership and put the money into general govermental coffers, but that's another entire discussion).
At the end of the day though we're going to have to agree to disagree about The Mandarin, and I doubt we'll ever agree on any of these issues. To me I see "The Mandarin" as being oddly appropriate, much like say "Red Guardian" representing Russia when things were even less friendly between us. Is he 100% accurate to reality, of course not, he's a bloody super villain, he does however make the point while fitting in within his own universe. China chills out, then your likely to see the media follow suit, and characters like this lose their relevence (as I see it).
I also still maintain that "Iron Man 3" was just okay as a movie, and what it did with this character was crap. Just because you call something by a name doesn't mean that's what it is. You can call that character the Mandarin and it's false advertising and an insult to the premise as far as comics and the franchise goes. It's sort of like the guy who fed a bunch of ferrets steroids and sold them as poodles.... sure it might be entertaining on some level (a lot of the world Loled at that) but it's still not a poodle nor will a 'roid Ferret ever likely be accepted as a pet of equal value. "Iron Man 3" pretty much freaked us all out for a bit with it's twist (which I won't spoiler here) but at the end of the day it's a 'Roid Ferret when we should have gotten a poodle, and those who are disappointed have every right to be.