You have incorrectly framed the issue. The fact is that China has been anti-US and anti-democracy for the past few decades and the world is finally coming to terms with that and defending themselves. It is both laughable and sad that so many Americans like yourself are so ill-informed and quick to jump on the "US bad" train.
America still does bad things to this day, and they can definitely be compared to China's bad things...but one may far outweigh the other. I agree with the GP's sentiment but there's no reason we can't offer criticism on both.
That the US does bad things does not invalidate the bad things China and Russia do. You sound like someone who gets a speeding ticket and answers "but everyone else is speeding too! Why do you punish me?!"
I agree with the parent that the issues you show are not comparable with what is happening in china. Of course US as a country did many wrong things, for instance the treatment of native Indian people in 1800s was directly comparable to what is happening in china now.
But the bad things a country did do not reduce its right of truthfully pointing out bad things other countries are doing.
I started my comment out with “ Not that it justifies our behavior” and referred to similar actions by both China and America as bad behavior. Bad doesn’t justify bad, and only provides a measure of irony.
Nothing that the US or any other country has done justifies China’s actions. This isn’t a contest to see who’s worse. Your entire argument here is tangential to the fact that China’s actions have been ridiculously abusive.
Has my own country done some despicable things? Yes. Is it still doing despicable things? Yes. That doesn’t mean I have no right to point out abuse elsewhere. Abuse is abuse; to the victim, it makes very little difference whether it’s one government or another. If abusive actions come to my attention, the absolute least I can do is condemn them.
China and the US have different histories. World affairs are not simplistic binaries of good and bad. Political systems take time to evolve. Western Europe evolved from feudalism over 300 years.
China has 1.3 billion people to take care of. This is not a joke. Let them manage and make the transition their way without sanctimonious judgement from others.
The USA is effectively two party state with both parties propping up oligarchies and special interests with a media who have long ceased to function as a free and independent press and have reduced themselves to mouthpieces for entrenched interests.
The ability to stand on a street and criticize your leader is not the only sign of democracy, the ability to effect change and have a government responsive to peoples needs is. Studies have shown and people can see how the US political establishment are far more responsive to special interests and the rich than the general public. So what is democracy?
Perhaps things are not simplistic or black and white, and continuing to affect a moral high ground inspite of alarming deterioration betrays not only a lack of fundamental concern for any articulated values but also its abuse as a mere political tool to beat others with without any context of global history and world affairs.
I'm hardly of the opinion that the US is comparable to China, but it seems to me that a democracy that commits a sin is somehow worse than an autocracy that does so.
After all, if 150 million and one believe that killing a million civilians is acceptable and is able to support carrying out that activity that means that society is corrupt.
If 1 man believes that killing a million civilians is acceptable and is able to carry out that activity that means that society is merely incapable of enforcing moral will.
OK, so the problems with your argument are at least 6-fold:
1. You're still committing a Red Herring fallacy by not addressing the obvious details of Chinese political repression, rather instead just claiming they are necessary
2. You are also diverting by Red Herring by claiming that America is worse or just as bad. Yes, the USA does many things badly, and worse thaan many other Western Democracies. This does not make China any better. Or indeed better than the US. There are many ways in which important principles of open society and government are much better in the US than in China. It is astonishing that this needs to be spelled out, unless you are Chinese and have an emotional bond to its system.
3. China is not in danger of invasion by Western powers. I really think you must be a member of the Chinese Communist party to believe such things. This paranoia is shared by Putin's elite in Moscow. The US might like oil and strategic power, but it's not about to invade huge countries on any whim. This is Cold War illogic and hugely irrational
4. The US press is much freer than most in the world. CErtainly more than China's. IT's not perfectly free, but the 1st Amendment makes it so much more powerful in principle than in the UK, Germany, France, and many other relatively free western democracies, and certainly than almowt all otehrs in the world. In practice, money rules, and it's hard to get balanced voices against the neocons, but NPR would really not happen in China
5. the Great Firewall of China.
6. Repression of Tibetan ethnic identity, and no there is no strategic reason for including Tibet in the Chinese empire. That's all about expansionism Tibet is a barren, mountainous poor country, and being culturally homogenised into Chinese Han culture by deliberate immigration policies such as the ones Stalin used to Russify the Soviet states.
7. China jails people for speaking freely. Political prisoners. It's even abducting booksellers and publishers from Hong Kong. The Hong Kongese are very upset about this and do't want to lose their freedom (and better quality of life) by being subsumed entirely into the Chinese patronage system.
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