I think its totally reasonable to point out that there was a sudden, drastic shift in tone over the last 3-6 months.
TikTok was gaining popularity last summer, and no one, short of a few NYT op-eds, said anything.
China is a geopolitical rival. We should probably aspire to be better than them first rather than copy them with an internet firewall and censorship of our own. One of the challenges of doing that nowadays is we have a president who thinks cultural genocide of Uighur muslims is 'exactly the right thing to do' and that Tienanmen square massacre was also the right thing to do.
edit: gendered language
edit: updated quote for accuracy (absolutely->exactly)
> > One of the challenges of doing that nowadays is we have a president who thinks cultural genocide of Uighur muslims is 'absolutely the right thing to do' and that Tienanmen square massacre was also the right thing to do.
> Fake news much? See the 2020 Uyghur Rights Act [1]. I have no idea where you came up with this.
This claim originates in John Bolton's book [1] Make of it what you will. Personally it seems pretty consistent.
> At the opening dinner of the Osaka G-20 meeting in June 2019, with only interpreters present, Xi had explained to Trump why he was basically building concentration camps in Xinjiang. According to our interpreter, Trump said that Xi should go ahead with building the camps, which Trump thought was exactly the right thing to do. The National Security Council’s top Asia staffer, Matthew Pottinger, told me that Trump said something very similar during his November 2017 trip to China.
Bolton is consistent. He has consistently been a warmongering villain. Like many other USA "international security experts" he has never shied away from lying in pursuit of his terrible goals. I'm not eager to believe a story from him that only Trump or Xi could contradict, if they even cared to do so.
But sure, Trump could have said it. He could say anything at any time. As he sees it, he got elected by promising to bully minorities. In office, he has bullied minorities. It's not surprising that during negotiations he would attempt to find common ground through shared appreciation of commonplace governmental activities.
