No, that is exactly the very definition of a whataboutism!
Many Chinese feel like they always need the high ground, and if their criticiser is not "perfect", whatever they say is null and void. This is just nuts, because no one is perfect.
When the US preaches about human rights it devalues the concept. That makes it harder to hold countries like China to account.
And anyways, how do US torture camps compare to Chinese torture camps? Its not like China is a paragon of virtue here, torture by the police is a huge problem that even the gov admits to (hey, police shouldn't torture people, please don't, it makes us look bad).
> When the US preaches about human rights it devalues the concept.
And who is the "US"? It is like some unified person that speaks with one voice? Is the NyTimes the US? Is the BBC the US? When I speak out on China, am I the US?
> That makes it harder to hold countries like China to account.
That is a straw man. We can't hold China to account for their human rights behavior, we have no right to do that. But we can damn be sure that everyone knows about it. I would expect the same for other countries with respect to the US.
> how do US torture camps compare to Chinese torture camps?
Bringing the conversation there is super weird. A torture camp is not a normal thing for a civilized country to have.
The US government failed to dismantle it for 8 years when it had a democratic mandate to do that. Now, with a president elected after proclaiming torture a fine thing, when a western country tells a dictator to stop human rights abuse, they can just shut the conversation with "tell your American friend to stop it first".
Anyways, this whataboutism-ing is idiotic. If you want to talk about the USA whenever we are talking about china fine, but why don't you start a separate article submission.