On the scale of what the US does about those who trade with Iran, say, what China is doing is nothing.

Trying to sweep human rights violations, to put it as mildly as humanly possible, under the rug, using threats by your own admission, is nothing? Why is your default position here whataboutism?

OK, not Iran. The trade embargo on Iraq, which killed many thousands through starvation. How is that not a human-rights violation?

And the thing here is that this is about how China is treating people in areas that are part of China, and have off-and-on been part of China for thousands of years. Some of them were part of China long before the proto-US was importing slaves from Africa.

So if the US wants to focus on human-rights violations, they arguably ought to focus on African-Americans. Some huge percentage of African-American men are, or have been, in prison. Far more than the Chinese are fucking with.

And fundamentally, it's not whataboutism. It's about realistic expectations. I mean, just consider what the US diplomatic response would be if China started organizing a UN conference on treatment of African-Americans. Pretty soon, as with China, it'd come down to "don't mess with us".