China surpassed the United States in global approval ratings in 2025, with a median of 36% approving of China’s leadership, compared with 31% for the U.S. China’s five-percentage-point advantage over the U.S. is the widest Gallup has recorded in China’s favor in nearly 20 years.
The US is literally doing all the things you’re accusing China of. The only reason it gets a pass on the massive carceral state, the largest in the world by far, is because its cultural industry has so normalized it.
The big difference is that China is a net positive when it comes to global stability and addressing climate change, whereas the US is not.
Those of us who care about things like democracy and human rights have a lot of digging to do.
No one is giving the U.S. a pass. This is a deliberate mischaracterization.
Until this regime, the U.S. had some of the best solar subsidies on the planet.
The U.S., as a surveillance state, is still in its infancy when compared to China. So it is laughable that you are using China in any comparison to the U.S., in almost the same breath.
“Carceral State” is a tanky propagandist dog whistle.
Why don’t you debate faults on their own? Because you are deliberately trying to use current bad conduct, of the U.S. to whitewash another country’s bad conduct.
“Oh hey, the U.S. is super shitty, but we have made so much solar in the past year so we’re all about global stability.”
Ignore EVERYTHING China has done though, only look at the bad that the U.S. is doing.
I’m sure you have plenty of arguments that support or claim how China has been with: Taiwan
Uygher people
Support of North Korea
Support of Russia against Ukraine
Tibet
The horde of nonsense “technological breakthroughs” that seem to come every month but never amount to anything and just disappear.
The pollution that has been produced by Chinese industry that pretends to adhere to global standards but get busted when college students use basic satellite data.
Suppression of Hong Kong
China’s state sponsored industrial espionage.
China’s disregard of human rights abroad when kidnapping Chinese dissidents from foreign countries.
(This is just me pulling the random items I can just immediately recall)?
But that is all Western propaganda I’m sure. Feel free to break out your playbook responses.
I didn’t use bad language this time for you to get my comment deleted, since suppression is one of your biggest tools.
Funny, ten minutes ago I wrote this: https://lemmy.ca/comment/22610922 literally further down the this very thread.
How can you at the same time say that “carceral state” is a tankie dogwhistle, and also say that nobody is giving the US a pass?
Easy. They are not mutually exclusive?
How many TP Link routers, were found to be compromised by China and had to be removed from U.S. infrastructure?
Salt Typhoon hack?
Why does China restrict access to the internet without massive censure?
Your link just takes me back to your parent comment.
Your entire argument is the pot calling the kettle black.
If you were just discussing the shitty things the U.S. is doing, I would be in total agreement, but you are trying to shoehorn “How great China is” into the discussion.
No matter how terrible the U.S. is and gets, it will not erase all the terrible things China has and is doing too. No matter how much you argue otherwise.
The link works for me. What can I tell you, I’m literally debating shitty Chinese policies with user “stumu415” on a different sub thread here. Search for the string “IAGS” in the comments under this post. I’m tired trying to convince you I’m not an elephant when you continuously make bad faith assumptions and miscaracterise what I’m saying.
Edit: if you’re denying the existence of mass incarceration system in the US (aka the carcéral state) you’re denying reality and absolutely giving the US a pass.
Actually this. Thank you. But unfortunately on the web you can not express anything positive or even neutral about China. Even though most have never set foot in China. If they would especially now most countries can travel visa free to China, it will change their mind. But that goes against the western propaganda.
China is an amazing country with beautiful nature, great people, amazing food, infrastructure Americans can only dream of, and millenia of history.
Plus China don’t starts illegal wars with other countries, impacting people all over the world.
To be clear, I am not denying those accusations against China. The Uighur genocide is recognized by the International Association of Genocide Scholars; one cannot cite the IAGS on Gaza and ignore it on Xinjiang. The mass surveillance is also real, the censorship around the Tienanmen massacre is silly Orwellian, and the strangulation of Hong Kong democracy is lamentable. The atrocious working conditions and the iron disciplining of labour is also all too real (I’ve had multiple discussions with Chinese people who bragged about how there are no strikes in China.)
I was only trying to be fair and balanced, because as Westerners we are too often giving ourselves a pass: 1) China is a net positive for the green transition due to solar, at a time when the US is going full fossil fascist. And 2) it is a pole of stability internationally, in ways that the trumpist US and Israel-enabling EU have not been.
Edit: typos and such
Partially agree with you but a lot of things you raised are the same in western countries. It’s also refreshing to read sensible commentary. The mass surveillance is the same in other countries including the US, but not as obvious as in China. The cameras work as a deterrent. I can leave my phone and laptop outside in the park or café and don’t need to worry about it being stolen. Censorship is a real thing all over the world especially now in the US with whitewashing of history. Even on US controlled platforms like Reddit, you get perma banned if you are critical of the Trump administration.
And I’m sure the history books in the US do not go in depth about the treatment of tge native Americans and how they were almost eradicated.
The same in Europe. In the Netherlands the history books never mention the atrocities the VOC did in regards to slave trade and colonies.
I don’t agree about the working conditions. I travel all over China and deal with different businesses. Things are definitely improving. But at least the workers have workers protections and social security and health care.
I have both lived and worked in the US and China and prefer living in China.
Let’s get the downvotes started
Things being bad or somewhat bad on the West is irrelevant in a discussion about whatever China is doing. One of the most infuriating things we Canadians say is the phrase “at least we’re not as bad as the US”. Fuck that.
If mass surveillance is unacceptable in the West, it’s also unacceptable in China. No ifs and buts. That western surveillance is primarily commercial and secondarily political, whereas is China it’s the other way around doesn’t mean any of the two is ok.
And no, censorship is not the same everywhere, that’s just false. We don’t all hide our history and of course free speech is part of the fight for that.
That’s I guess my biggest suspicion with China as well, especially when it comes to labour. In China labour issues as seen as something for the state to manage through official unions. And I don’t buy the whole-process democracy thing. It’s too cooptive, too “harmonious”. Not buying.
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Last I checked the USA wasnt forcing (yet) god knows how many Muslims into reeducation camps.
But yes I agree they’re sliding into the depths of authoritarianism.
The USA has its own issues. It has relatively high inequality compared to other civilized countries. Discrimination against black Americans is still present. And the USA is a prison country, one in every 150 Americans is in prison right now, a number 5-10 times higher than European countries and also higher than China.
I was talking about the US carceral state, i.e., the inhumane American exception from the global norm that is considered “normal” in the US. The US system is slightly more intelligent than blanketly imprisoning a population. No. First the US marginalizes and impoverishes them, then over-polices them, then finds little justifications to label them criminals, then does the imprisonment. That this is entirely normalized and nuanced and cast as complex in a country that considers itself “a city on the hill” or whatever bullshit, is irrelevant. If China had Hollywood and good copaganda TV shows, they would have also convinced the world that their carceral system is normal.
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