Tiananmen Square 1989 death toll was at least 10,000 according to UK documents

That dichotomy was never made. The answer isn't today's ineffective democracies, but it is much closer to those than it is to governments which kill their own citizens to maintain power.

It always reads like whataboutism to say "but what about their mistakes"? In the 1930s there were plenty of cheerleaders for the USSR who made just as much progress at great human cost. You're aware of the sins of the West because a free press broadcasts them. What is it that the Chinese government won't let the world know about?

And yet, t is always at the forefront of the subtext of any discussion of China- the communist regime that's so unlike our Western democracies because it's communist and we're democratic.

As to governments killing their own citizens- the US, the leader of the free world, is one of the few nations besides China that still regularly uses the death penalty. And they consider it perfectly legal to assassinate their own citizens without anything like a trial (as in remotely, with drones, when said citizens are involved in terrorist acts).

It's impossible to make a comment about the politics of China, without implicitly comparing them to the politics of the West; and vice-versa.

The death penalty is administered within a legal framework that is designed (nominally at least) to be transparent and afford due process. The implementation is sometimes flawed to the point of absurdity, but the American people largely know this and are free to criticize and debate it without fear of punishment by the state simply for disagreeing. (EDIT: And, more to the point, Americans are increasingly using the power of their vote to abolish the death penalty.)

I hope you can see how the Chinese government's claim to the right to slaughter and imprison its citizens at will and in secret or the crime of expressing dissent is, um... different?

> "And they consider it perfectly legal to assassinate their own citizens without anything like a trial (as in remotely, with drones, when said citizens are involved in terrorist acts)."

Who's this "they" you speak of? Obama's extra-judicial killing af Anwar Al-Alawki, for example, is one of the great stains on his presidency in the eyes of a large portion of the voting public, and it was hotly contested within the government too. And again, Americans are free to criticize these actions without fear of government reprisal. I remember calling Obama's action cowardly and illegal here on HN a few years back, and the thought of being killed or imprisoned for this never occurred to me. Exactly how does this situation compare to that of China?

As for Tiananmen, one needs to see the context. China had recently endured the cultural revolution and the leaders had a good understanding of the potential disasters of a revolution. In that context, if they believed that the ends justify the means and that millions would die if a new revolution happened, the leaders could rationalize their decisions.

I'm not saying it's not horrific. It is. But, it's the kind of decision that needs to be understood in it's historical context.

As for the actual mowing of bodies and the bulldozer's making a pie. I'm not sure if it's real or not. It does seem like the kind of rumors that circulate because they are particularly gruesome. What would be the point for the Chinese government to do that? I may be mistaken but, in my mind, the Chinese government at that time was nothing if not practical and pragmatic (in a horrifying way for sure), there would be no justifiable reasons for being this gruesome.

I'm sure China's system has some high-minded "nominal" goals too. Why should we give the US a pass for its practical outcomes while holding China to a higher standard?

Remember, for all that talk about how horrible China is, the US imprisons many times more people per-capita.

(I tend to agree with you that Chinese practical outcomes are worse in various intangible ways, but I'm not willing to write off US prison populations like that, it's a blemish and a stain and it's such a massive problem that people are unable to address it on any sort of a political level. Which is basically the same problem as in China, just with a different set of social strictures. In both cases it comes down to a basic sense of "shou ga nai" - nothing can be done.)

In contrast, as an American, I can lend out my copy of "The New Jim Crow" and rant and rave in public about how unjust the American justice system truly is, and never once fear punishment by my government. It's never once entered my mind.