I'm a bit skeptical because this "woman" wears a male clothing with a sword for men and a male hairstyle. Whoever wrote the caption, I guess, is unaware of this mismatch. The author is not a professional historian who underwent a scholarly training as such.
Never make a loan with the Chinese government. They intentionally bankrupt you to "borrow" your asset (in many cases, important sea ports) for 99 years. They update that contract every year to lend it fir the next 99 years. You effectively gave away your asset to China forever.
That's also what the occupiers of China did to China itself before the end of WW2 – seize Chinese ports indefinitely.
There's no point raising a metaphor in the first place. A metaphor doesn't justify anything. It's just a rhetorical tool that is supposed to help deliver a point. However, all it does in this instance is mess and draw confusion.
Nah, news organizations aren't internet echo chamber.
I mean, if they write dozens of opinions a day, news organizations labeled center-left or even left-leaning have to go to the other side sometimes. If not, they're just propaganda machines.