You shouldn't trust either but also this is whataboutism.
It is not a term created to refer to when some American criticizes any of America's official enemies for "X," and someone else reminds you that America also does exactly "X."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whataboutism
This is a counter accusation and not a defense, ergo, whataboutism.
I personally understand it not as a diversion but as a critique of the moral higher ground implied by the first accusation. Said differently: keep your own house in order.
Actions can be judged on their own merits regardless of who presents the arguments.
Otherwise a victim defending himself is the same as the person assaulting?
Perpetrator: you just stabbed me OMG!
Victim: you were going to rape and kill me
Perpetrator: sorry that’s just whataboutism and definitely not a logical defence. Your actions can be judged on their own merits, regardless of who presents the arguments.
Also, the world isn’t two sides. There are tons of participants on this site who are not in the US that criticize both china and the US (i.e. most of Europe). So you realize how stupid the defense looks of “I’m behaving like a piece of shit because this guy behaves like a piece of shit” when there is a room full of people trying to do the right thing.
If your argument is whataboutism, it means you have no actual defense for your behavior. You’re just appealing to “someone else did something bad”.
It's not whataboutism to talk about the same subject in the context of a different government. In this case LLM corporations.
All you're doing is deflecting valid criticism. It's not whataboutism to talk about how bad American corporations are to American citizens in the context of talking about how supposedly bad Chinese corporations are to American citizens (China doesn't profit off of the deaths of Americans like health insurance companies (this is whataboutism for example)).
It also worked. The shame built up in the US so quickly that laws started being struck from the books. The US entered WWII with a segregated military, and by the time it marched into Korea, it was rapidly desegregating. The Soviet Union had successfully made its case that the US had no moral high ground, although it had not made its case for its specific set of limitations of financial and political liberties.
"Whataboutism" is just ad hominem for dummies. But if the real argument is about who is the better man, or what is the better system, ad hominem isn't a logical fallacy. It's simply a change of subject.