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628 points nodea2345 | 1 comments | | HN request time: 0s | source
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loquor ◴[] No.21126953[source]
This might sound alarmist, but do you think China is the biggest upcoming global problem after climate change? For two reasons:

1. China has a totalitarian ruling system. They intend to realize George Orwell's 1984.

2. Present-day China essentially has no ethics. Take the US in comparison. No matter how perverse the people in power become and even if they do messed up things, the US has some founding morals and principles they do not forget. China, in comparison, systematically rooted out these values since the Great Leap Forward. The happenings at Hong Kong and Xinjiang epitomize that.

I do think China's expansionist policy bodes poorly for all of humanity.

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orthecreedence ◴[] No.21128006[source]
> US has some founding morals and principles they do not forget.

Excuse my french, but what the fuck are you talking about?

How about imprisoning and torturing US citizens without due process in the name of a nebulous war that only gets worse the more we fight it?

What about all the puppet governments we've set up so that our corporate overlords can make a quick buck at the expense of some country who's resources we want to plunder?

The US is an empire. Not based on governmental control, but based on financial control. The difference between surveillance in the US and surveillance in China is that we've managed to keep our surveillance largely in the private sector; but that doesn't mean 1984 doesn't already exist here! In fact, you carry 1984 with you in your pocket everywhere you go!

I'm not saying I'd rather live in China than the US, but putting the US on some high moral pedestal is extremely ignorant of all the terrible things we've done as a country.

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jumelles ◴[] No.21128162[source]
The key here is that the executive branch of the US government doesn't get to do these things in a vacuum - both Congress and the Supreme Court temper its power, and though elections in the US are far from perfect they are still free.
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1. arcticbull ◴[] No.21128480[source]
I'm sure your assertion of checks and balances is very helpful for the folks living out their lives in Gitmo with the force feedings and the indefinite detention without due process thanks to a technicality in regards to jurisdiction, as was the parent posts' assertion.

With that in mind, on the balance of it, America is overwhelmingly a rule of law jurisdiction, and the PRC is not. There's definitely magnitudes here.

My point is neither side is all good or all bad, and looking at it that way is harmful to the discourse.