There is a lot wrong with the US, and I (not American BTW) will criticise it quite freely and frequently BUT comparing the US to China is just ridiculous.

What the US does can be criticised by its citizens, and protested. People can be punished. Wrongdoing can be exposed. Plenty of people in the US criticise the invasion of Iraq. I doubt many Chinese will find it safe to criticise the occupation of Tibet.

Democracies can and do bad stuff, but internal opposition and accountability limit it, and often but an end to it.

> What the US does can be criticised by its citizens, and protested. People can be punished. Wrongdoing can be exposed. Plenty of people in the US criticise the invasion of Iraq.

You won't be protesting in the U.S. without significant risks to your economic and social status. BTW - The Iraq war was several wars ago, and most of the people chatting here weren't even born for the first Iraq war.

2017 became the year the censors and suspensions of anti-social media started. Now with A.I. mods owned by an entitled parasitic elite, we get a highly censored world were your only recourse is offline, often in solitude.

If you care to test your theory, that you can criticise who you like in the U.S., I suggest you protest Israel, loudly and often.

> If you care to test your theory, that you can criticise who you like in the U.S., I suggest you protest Israel, loudly and often.

People do, and are.

Go to China and protest about Tiananmen Square. You'll be picked up, and put away in minutes, no due process, no independent court, nothing. Who knows what happens to you, or when you get out.

yes the US has better rule of law and is an actual democracy, for sure. but China does not seem to be so bad by the standards that we hold our own allies to, so to me it is unclear why we have become locked into this neo cold war so quickly. some of our allies make china look like a saint in comparison

Which of our allies make China look like a saint?

Israel, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, United Arab Emirates, Egypt, Jordan, Oman, Thailand, Vietnam. That's not counting those relations that aren't close nor adversarial.

The only authoritarian regimes not allied, nor neutral, with the US are Cuba, Iran, NK, Russia and Venezuela.

It's not present day but let's not forget the series of military genocidal dictarships supported, founded and allied by the US in south america in the second half of 20th century.

Israel is committing a genocide in Gaza, has terror bombed Lebanon, and is stealing land in Syria for Greater Israel.

I agree. But you think that makes China’s treatment of the Uyghurs look saintly? Really? Saintly?

saudi arabia

China historically has been ruled by committee and has been inward-looking.

China is now a dictatorship.

Dictatorships sooner or later, if they think they can get away with it, invade their neighbours.

When you see a dictatorship which is under no threat engaging in a massive military build-up, invasion is on the way.

the demise of China’s rule by committee has been vastly overstated in the West imo.

i wonder about this ‘dictatorship inevitably goes to war’ - a glance at WW2 and you could be forgiven for concluding the exact opposite re: the Iberian peninsula

> dictatorship inevitably goes to war

But that's not what I wrote.

I may be completely wrong, but what I think is that a dictatorship will, sooner or later, go to war if it thinks it can win.

So if you have say Russia next door, but you're strong enough Russia think it can't win, you do not get invaded.

The americans had their own justifications for those actions that were supporter by a coalition of nations, and none of that was to conquer territory. China on the other hand is flatly trying to conquer territory and limit the freedoms of the people who live there afterwards. They are, in fact, the bad guys here.

>conquer territory

It's about keeping western capital interests in line, stopping developing nations from nationalizing key resources etc. Bolivia is a good example of a country that has persisted against it.

That is the US role in the world - we are the Hegemon, it is what we must do to remain the Hegemon. China wants to be the Hegemon but they can't get there as long as we are.

China wants to change the entire ordering of the world - that is a much bigger deal than the US invading Iraq or Afghanistan.

How many countries were invaded to be made part of the invading country? That is the most crucial aspect of invasion: the ultimate goal of it.

The US government is a meandering blob of racoons in a trenchcoat. Occasionally a hand will _do_ evil but even odds whether they realize it or meant it. Partially depends on which particular raccoon is where. Some of the racoons are evil.

China is actively directed by a small group of well coordinated, evil raccoons. See, you know, the constant genocide.

Yes.

This is really exactly my take, too.

The US Government has done incredibly stupid and catastrophically foolish and harmful things - being hoodwinked into Vietnam by the French, for example - but the Government is not inherently, actually evil, in any way, shape or form.

This is not the case for China.

Noam Chomsky would like a word and he wrote a book specifically addressing this propaganda ridden argument:

The Myth of American Idealism https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/738224/the-myth-of-...

My comment is more to address the "whataboutism" than to say the US doesn't have faults.

We exist in a time where nuance is sometimes harmful in public discourse.

The US govt has no agency, got it.

In all things, there are factors which encourage, and factors which discourage, and in the end, you get what you get.

The French worked as hard as possible to get American military support in Vietnam so they could remain the colonial power. They did a very good job of it.

It was all an appalling tragedy. All the Vietnamese wanted was independence, and in particular from the appalling misrule of the French.