It's a very poor argument to dismiss or dilute criticism of China because the US also warrants criticism.

s/无/五/ You spelled it in pinyin right, but your IME chose the wrong character. That may be deliberate censorship by the conversion dictionary compilers.

none of that is true, and I hope you can find a source for any of those things. Organ harvesting of uyghur prisoners is completely unfounded and is a lie spread on the internet.

Apparently the news that a million Muslims are kept in concentration camps [1] and that Falun Gong members and other political prisoners had their organs harvested for transplant [2] were being conflated.

[1] https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/million-muslims-are-held-...

[2] https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/china-forcefully-harvests...

ETAC is wildly biased and has lied in the past about organ harvesting with other prisoners in china.

I have no reason to believe it is true this time. I do believe the US is working hard to manufacture consent that China must be destroyed as it is a threat to the continued US hegemony.

yeah and none of them are political prisoners either

That's a lame argument. US could be considered more evil than China (I agree with you), but both are evil when looking at specific aspects of their behavior. Argumenting that they (brutally) repress their own citizens does somehow absolve US from war crimes done on foreign soil is simply not valid.

I don't believe he is absolving the US. He is pointing out there is a false claim of moral superiority for the Chinese. For example, could you have the equivalent debate in China?

I think this is where MLK’s “injustice anywhere is injustice everywhere” comes into play. There is no better or worse. There is only right and wrong. And there is plenty of wrong in plenty of places. Lots of right too, but right in any quantity does not negate the wrong.

Or to put it another way, I think that representative democracy is the least worst form of government, and plenty of Chinese may think that the CCP’s autocracy is better. The fact that both forms of government have been responsible for human rights abuses (to use a rhetorical big tent the size of Greenland) neither is justified by their system of government nor does it render either system as fundamentally wrong. A lot of Chinese who would have otherwise etched out a life of hopeless extreme poverty have all the reason in the world to side with the CCP.

Exactly right. China is overall far less destructive to the world and to human rights than the US is.

Keep in mind that Trump has started this anti-China drumbeat as a way of asserting the moral superiority of his administration.

China pollutes more than the US. Also anybody can see that they are gearing up for a conflict to obtain hegemony. They are the ones posturing for inevitable conflict... just so they can gain more power over the world. Look at countries that fell into the US sphere of influence... Europe, South Korea. Things aren't to bad in those places huh?

> China pollutes more than the US.

The US outsources pollution to China by outsourcing manufacturing of things that US environmental laws make extra costly to manufacture in the US. Then out of the other side of its mouth the US criticizes China for being a polluter.

Also, accounts of US pollution do not consider the pollution caused by US wars and occupations, which are the single most polluting thing ever done by mankind. China may edge out US private sector pollution, but it's hard to compete with years of oil field fires.

> they are gearing up for a conflict to obtain hegemony

China does not have natural borders (oceans) like the US, so it has more regional vulnerabilities. I don't think there is evidence that China's policies reveal anything more than the typical effort to protect against regional weaknesses.

> Look at countries that fell into the US sphere of influence.

Such as Iraq, Kuwait, Saudi, Colombia, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Mexico, The Philippines? For the most part, US influence is horribly destructive to the democratic process and civil society of any nation it touches.

With respect to European wars, the US eventually decided to stop selling IBM tech to Hitler and to step in and enter the war, but it was already too late to prevent the worst atrocities. Of course the US narrative is that the US saved Europe from self destruction.

The pollution thing I understand, and the worst part about the US system is it allows the greedy psychopaths at the strings of large multinationals to go unchecked.

How is posturing to take over the peaceful island of Taiwan a protective act? How is allowing NK to blackmail the world with nukes good?

These countries you listed... many would be in perpetual civil war for a century or be in the grips of autocratic strongmen if the US didn't go in? So people like you don't want the US to act, and then if we pull out or don't act you say "where is the good in the world?"

Most of these countries have achilles heels in having a valuable resource that can fall into a few hands easily. The middle east countries are built on oil. Colombia drugs. Other central american countries, trafficking. The Phillipines isn' that bad?

So you say you don't want the US to interfere, and then you say they interfered too late in WW2? You seem more like a US hater than a realist.

> You seem more like a US hater than a realist

Realism involves an honest discussion of national interest. In the US we have fairytale stories about American Exceptionalism, which serve the same purpose as religious canon.

Part of the US strategy is to frame foreign leaders and governments as horrible/dictator/strongman, etc. So then the post-intervention scenario can be favorably compared to what would have hypothetically happened if the US had not intervened.

But further analysis reveals that the US framing of foreign leaders and governments is never remotely based on reality and is always a propaganda tool to help the public consent to whatever atrocious acts the leaders seek to undertake.

Very few intelligent Americans believe in our absolute exceptionalism. You're saying that the gun-toting hicks are representative of the whole country? Generalization.

Also your strongman framing explanation is overly simplified. "Never" is an absolute. Do you think Saddam was a good guy? Do you think North Korea is a good place?

I'm not nearly in support of everything the US Gov has done. But you're saying since their record is not 100% perfect, then it is a bad actor. Tough threshold you have there. It's obvious you're just anti-US and probably a troll.

> probably a troll.

It's telling that anyone who seriously questions American Exceptionalism is viewed instinctively as a troll.

> Very few intelligent Americans believe in our absolute exceptionalism.

This assertion is not falsifiable, and just sounds like praising "moderation" while simultaneously supporting the status quo. Meaningless.

> Do you think Saddam was a good guy?

Life in Iraq under Saddam was substantially better for most Iraqis than life in Iraq during the American war and occupation. Note that the death toll for US Iraq adventures is approaching 1 Million, so it is harder to find dissenting voices than it would otherwise be.

> Do you think North Korea is a good place?

I don't think there is any reason why tiny NK needs to be fodder for such dramatic propaganda toward US citizens. At best, NK is relevant because of some broader conflict between the US and China, and is a pawn used by both sides.

> But you're saying since their record is not 100% perfect, then it is a bad actor.

No, I am simply saying that the US is most definitely a bad actor when measured by any reasonable standard. The idea that the US has (overall) a glowing "record" is simply a way of incorporating past successes (WW2) into the rhetoric for today's backward policies. The US may not have always been a bad actor, but it has been for the past 3 or 4 decades.

> Tough threshold you have there.

As a US citizen, my job is to be honest and direct about the failures of US foreign and domestic policies. I have a duty to do that. I certainly think we all have a duty to fix our own country before throwing stones at others.

> It's obvious you're just anti-US

You forgot to provide attribution for this quote. It's attributable (in paraphrase) to George W. Bush, who said "You're either with us or against us".

Here are the things that would allow the US to take some first steps toward stopping being a bad actor:

- Have an internal discussion about US national interest that does not involve personal attacks or accusations of insanity or ideological extremism directed toward foreign peoples/leaders.

- Allow for the possibility that the US might undertake wars of aggression or might attempt to simply steal resources that belong to other countries for its own selfish gains, and not for humanitarian reasons. All foreign policy is now explained in American Exceptionalist platitudes about freedom, women's rights, etc. Give me a break.

- The pentagon budget should be fully auditable

- All foreign operations/engagements that cost over $1M, involve over 100 troops or last longer than 30 days should require a congressional majority. All operations and spending should be re-approved via a new congressional vote every six months.

>Look at countries that fell into the US sphere of influence... Europe, South Korea. Things aren't to bad in those places huh?

Here in Europe we are very thankful, if it wasn't for America we would still be a third world country living in tents. Thanks for democracy, freedom, art, philosophy, medicine and so on. I only wish Europe had any of the smart minds that you have, maybe we could come up with them. Oh wait...

Uh that's not even what I'm saying. Of course Europe itself contributed to it's success and wellbeing too. I was saying the alternative of Nazi or Soviet influence probably would not have turned out as well. Also using your train of thought, because the Nazis made scientific advancements they are "good"?

I was saying that whatever system the US promoted after WW2, it worked out pretty well for most of us. Europe and the US have protected press, free thought, science advancements. People can watch/read what they want. There are problems but it's def a collection of good societies. So idk what your issue is?

I'm pretty sure that without the US, the 20th century would have seen Europe united under either Nazi Germany or the USSR...

True. No one is suggesting here that the US is 100% bad. South Korea is an example of a place where things worked out pretty well due in large part to US intervention, just like WWII (though there's an argument to be made that the US got involved much later than it should have). But... is that it? How does that balance out Vietnam, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Afghanistan (80s and today), Iraq, Kuwait, etc.? On the whole, I believe US interventionism has been a net negative on societies we've interfered with.

True, and as upsetting as it is for Americans to hear this, chances are Europe would be at least as pluralistic and free as it is today had either of those happened.

In the counterfactual where the Soviets conquered Europe, I could easily see the USSR surviving to today... No liberal democracies on their borders to compare with, no need for a huge military on the western border, and increased resources would go a long way.

It’d still crumble under its own weight due to corruption and lack of mid-level society bonding factors like corporations, unions, gatherings, etc. China managed to navigate this mess somewhat successfully until it was technically possible to implement social engineering on a scale previously unheard of with their great firewall and social score. Compute power enables their selective repression system.

What makes you think the USSR would have been more successful had it been stretched even more thinly, across a much larger land area and population, where the vast majority of those people would hate their occupation overlords?

China does not pollute more per capita. US has a commanding lead there.

But they produce twice the total emissions which is what affects the climate. And it seems to be growing at an alarming rate, while US emissions seem to be level or shrinking.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_carbon_di...

But the point is each person in China produces far less than each person in the US. They just have a lot more people. This is made even worse when you consider that much of what Americans use was manufactured there.