I basically agree with you on all points.
But can we please drop this "civilized world" term?
I suggest "democratic world".
But can we please drop this "civilized world" term?
I suggest "democratic world".
More like 500 years (1000 years at best if you stretch it very hard)
I don't know if any possible interpretation of Chinese history that puts China's formation a mere 500 or 1000 years ago. The Qin dynasty (3rd Century BC) is really the absolute latest point at which you could say China came into existence.
Fact is modern communist China is actively erasing its history and is quite new on the world stage.
The problem with the Rome analogy is that China has had much greater continuity than Europe. China is what Europe would have been, if the Roman Empire had been reconstituted each time it collapsed.
Imagine if there were still one political entity ruling the entire Mediterranean basin and Western Europe, calling itself "Rome," speaking a Romance language, and in which every educated person was still capable of reading the Latin classics (with some difficulty).
Also, that phrase just reeks of imperialism, racism and superiority - just a modern version of "savages who need our one true religion". OPs argument is about democracy, not level of development and culture.
For clarity: I'm anti-autocracy
Transportation infrastructure. 5G connectivity.
Growth, for one.
Compare China homicide rates to USA.
Or China incarceration rate to USA incarceration rate.
The problem is we as westerners are guilty by association.
I don't approve of the US methods, nonetheless they represent the west in most non westerner people eyes.
we all know that NATO==US even though it should be a coalition.
That's why I, as European, hope in a strong and independent EU, at least we'll make our own mistakes.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sex_trafficking_in_the_United_...
The United States ranks as one of the worst countries in the world for human trafficking
Despite a common and widespread misconception, human trafficking is not just a problem outside the US. It also happens here, within United States borders, and in every state.
https://deliverfund.org/the-human-trafficking-problem-in-ame...
Listen, let's have an honest discussion here.
What China does better than USA?
Less people incarcerated is good, how the prisoners are treated is another issue entirely and of course China can and should be heavily criticized for that.
But penal labor for literally cents/day or private prisons as a source of profit or the death penalty are something that the US, above all, should be able to improve on, before lecturing other countries over human rights.
Let's talk about
“Guantanamo Bay is a site of unparalleled notoriety, defined by the systematic use of torture, and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment against hundreds of men brought to the site and deprived of their most fundamental rights.”
This is a statement from "The Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights of the United Nations".
What have the consequences been? Nothing. Literally nothing has changed!
People have been detained there for years, most of them without any charges, denied of the right to a due process, only because they were Muslims.
39 of those men are still kept captive there as of today, 20 years later, 27 of them have never been charged with any crime, the others have been cleared for transfer years ago, but are still there.
Imagine if China did something like that what the US would be saying about it.
That's the moral short circuit: if it's wrong it must be wrong for everybody, especially for those claiming to hold in high regards human rights, not only if China or Russia do it.
Do you know any Country that counts that?
For example, does the US count the penal labor as labor camps?
Potato potato.
If incarceration rates in China were similar to those in USA it should be 10.3 million people. It would be pretty hard to hide them.
USA are by far the number one country in the World for jail population and for incarceration rates, worse even than Putin's Russia.
They would love to share the top step of the podium with someone else if they could prove it.
The most logical explanation is that they can't, because the numbers are probably not true, but not too far from the truth.
IMO the fact that we should be skeptic about China official stats means that we should also refrain from throwing random numbers at the wall hoping it will make China look bad.
BTW, two wrongs don't make a right, it's not about what they do wrong, it's about what we do better, like for example, is Guantanamo acceptable in a western democracy?
It's possible to talk about Xinjiang without going over into hyperbole.
A country where it is acceptable to have workers forced to pee in bottles or bullied by their new CEO (who's also a pathological liar)
That's funny. Where is that?
Not the U.S., that is for sure. Look how the government just screwed over the rail workers:
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/dec/01/joe-bi...
There is a one world government and it is a oligarchy.