Still not even close. The U.S. has a constitution that gives its citizens legal recourse when they feel the government has gone too far and gives them some basic rights. The U.S. has elections to hold leaders accountable. China has none of these things.

I admit the U.S. govt probably envies the system China is putting in place and would love to emulate it, but the system of checks and balances built into the American political and legal system makes that impossible.

It is specifically the lack of checks and balances in China that makes what is happening so frightening. Their surveillance state is really just beginning. I wonder just how dystopian it will become in the next ten to twenty years.