Chinese have't toppled a democracy.. yet, but they were rather successful at absorbing banana republics previously belonging to major powers.

China now has a dozen satellites made of countries formerly being playgrounds of foreign political games.

China's spent the last 15 years taking over Africa. Hell it's made a good job at bringing frickin Australia into its circles too.

The West (and US in particular) has meanwhile done squat since making another mess in the middle east fighting for last century's resources.

To be fair the West spent 150 years taking over Africa, enslaving its people, treating them as animals and pillaging it's riches.

To be fair the West also stopped that and now invests billions in foreign aid, economic development, medical assistance, NGO's, and a whole lot more (to varying degrees of success)

I assure you the West has not stopped attempting to make African countries do what is wanted by force or subterfuge. France is perhaps the largest offender in this respect.

> China now has a dozen satellites made of countries formerly being playgrounds of foreign political games.

Curious which ones these are? North Korea, Nepal?, Pakistan?, Vietnam?

Quite close, Vietnam is not on the list, but add Burma, Campuchia, Sri Lanka, Egypt, now Iran, Afghanistan, Ex-Union Central Asian republics, and quite a number of African states.

Eastern Europe been in and out on this, but I can't yet say they are in existential dependence on communist money.

Functioning democracies don't mysteriously have one party obtain 95%+ of the votes in every election.

Single party rule is naturally ineffective.

So when Americans try it in Flint MI and as a result of stellar leadership the water is undrinkable, send in the National Guard to fix things and its rah rah america F yeah stars and stripes forever.

But when foreigner militaries have to "reset" things after a decade of single party rule, suddenly its all "toppling democracy".

I find it fascinating that when Stalin and Hitler and Saddam Hussein got 95%+ of the vote, that's marketed as evil dictatorship, but when Myanmar gets similar suspicious numbers, "well that's just the beauty of democracy in action". It seems in practice the sole determining point for if you get marketed as a dictatorship or a shining beacon of democracy is how much the US State Dept likes you.

Another novelty of propaganda is we've been heavily indoctrinated for decades that dictatorships are inherently evil, yet ironically the one in Myanmar seems like pretty nice leaders. Of all the dictatorships to topple in a military coup, it seems a shame to topple one that's actually pretty nice folks.

Oh yea for sure, it's all just propaganda, nothing to do historical precedents that made us weary of leaders with nothing to challenge their power.

Some people might disagree with that position:

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/08/world/asia/myanmar-rohing...

I agree with the article and not nearly as much with the comment you're replying to, but I fail to see how the article is a rebuttal.