This is a difference between peers and competitors. There are countries in Europe, the Antipodes, or Japan that are peers in the sense of having similar (or in some respects superior) and compatible moral systems. A competitor is a different and perhaps incompatible system that is nevertheless striving with ours.

What confused me about your comment is what you mean by 'striving.'

If our morals are competing, I take that as we are trying to win in the domain of morality, not that the domain of morality is a piece of the competition in the domain of global mind share

I see the US and most Western countries as more individualist, liberal, democracies. China is more of an authoritarian, collectivist, technocrat model.

These models reflect moral as well as political beliefs. The models are also not compatible - meaning we can't be both and the more of one the less there is of the other. This is the sense in which we have conflicting views and are striving against one another to promote our ideology.

> not that the domain of morality is a piece of the competition in the domain of global mind share

Haven't the 'best morals' always have been those with the most mindshare ?

The best morals are the ones that not only spread, but also persist. Morals that preserve and promote trust and cooperation tend to win in the long run.

Isn't that exactly what would make a country a moral competitor?

I've always thought of 'moral competitor's as someone who challenges another to improve their morals. If that isn't what was meant in the parent comment, then I am wrong.

I understood 'moral competitor' to mean a country that has a different set of values, and who we are competing against for acceptance in the global community.

Just because you don't like their morality doesn't mean it's not popular. I also dislike it but denying that they are geopolitically competitive would simply be a refusal to face an unpleasant fact.

Is authoritarianism popular? Is genocide popular? I think your confusing to he popularity of China's money and facade with the popularity of their morals.

Both are popular.

Doubtful, otherwise China wouldn't be hiding their morals with propaganda like: "Everything in XinXiang is fine!" and "COVID originated in the US or Italy!!".

If their morals were popular that wouldn't have to constantly lie about them.

I think you're treating popularity as synonymous with goodness. I'm suggesting to you that actually there are a lot of assholes in the world who approve of authoritarian behavior and even genocide, and even derive enjoyment from deceiving and antagonizing people. Observing the existence of such attitudes isn't an endorsement of them.

It wasn't the PRC who killed all those Iraqis.

It's true. They haven't killed most people who've died. In fact, the CCP has killed less than 1% of all humans currently dead.

Praise China!

People replying to this comment: beware of Fundamental Attribution Error when trying to differentiate when your country is responsible for deaths versus when another country is.

ah whataboutism at is finest.

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

That puts them on even footing with the “moral competitors” that are left to compare to

I think Germany and France are good moral competitors, along with a good deal of Europe. Much better moral competitors than China for sure.

Interesting, so I understand you are looking at comparisons between this snapshot in time.

For me it is not separable from their pasts because those nations would not have stability or the flexibility to make moral choices if they didnt successfully do immoral things to people they didnt like until they were either eradicated or everyone else finally got the memo to leave.

Although it is uncomfortable to be aware of and powerless, there just isn’t a history of intervention to think there will be one with China, or more accurately there isnt a history to suggest that this particular problem wont solve itself.

It's not just 'now'. I think there is a reasonable time window to apply: the one that most informs how we can anticipate one to act in the future. While France/Germany/Europe has done wrong in the past, I don't think anyone is reasonably concerned about them committing genocide or starting a war.

Secondly, I have to disagree that present day Europe benefits from past imperialism. Pre-imperialist UK and France were doing just fine. In fact, they were doing so well, they decided they could be doing even better by going out and taking over more of the world. It doesn't make sense to me to attribute their modern day successes to their imperialist past. Imperialism isn't on the table unless you're already doing great relative to the rest of the world. I think the US is a perfect example of that actually. We were arguably at our peak globally well before we began military interventions elsewhere in the world.

I hope you are trolling because Gulf wars, Bosnian War, Gitmo are few of the medals earned by Western democracies.

I don't consider the US 'the west', but if you want to pick favorites based on body count, I'd be willing to bet China still loses given the red army and the great famine that birthed it's current dictatorship.

If you're counting deaths caused by unintended consequences of poor policy, one could argue that the west also is to blame for tragedies like the Great Famine because the policies that caused it were born from reactions to Western hegemony from the previous centuries.

Then you have to blame the countries themselves for allowing western hegemony. Poor policies are to blame for a small population of foreign actors being able to wield so much power over those regions.

I think we have to judge a thing on its actions, or the arguments get rather circular.

There is no Qing emperor to blame anymore for allowing China to stagnate and losing the Opium Wars. Meanwhile, the same governments who used forced projection to coerce China into allowing the import of Opium are continuing to abuse force projection to this day.

They are only the same governments insofar as there have been no total revolutions. The people, laws, morals, and even constitution in the UK are different today than during the opium wars. Probably as much so as the CCP differs from the Qing.

The governments may have changed to a certain degree but not when it comes to geopolitics. It took CCP two years to figure out that bad agricultural science was bad. How many wars will it take for Americans to factor the impact of asymmetric warfare on residents into their calculus of whether to go to war?

Wait… are you saying it’s the colonized indigenous peoples fault that they were exploited and oppressed by their oppressors?

No, I'm saying the great famine is no more Britain's fault than the opium wars are the Chinese people's fault.

The only thing we did wrong in Bosnia was not stopping the genocide sooner.