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The thing that most commenters here in tacit support of China fail to take into account is that China and the US are global superpowers (unlike the litany of ba

• luckylion 7y ago
  > The US can’t boil the ocean in regard to fixing all of the worlds ills, and we’re by no means perfect. China is simply the best hill to stand our ground on at the moment. That sounds suspiciously like "changing myself is hard, so I'll try to force my neighbor to change instead". China would certainly be a high-impact change on the global human rights situation (so would the US be), but on the other hand the probability of change seems somewhat low (especially because you are right: they are close enough to the US in strength that they can't be bullied around that easily). Moonshots are nice and certainly valid as side bets, but not as the primary strategy. Let's work on Turkey and the Saudis, they are "allies", somewhat dependent on Western support (Saudis) and money (Turkey) and nudging them into the right direction can make a huge difference. Reward them generously if they do, and you may see it spread. You catch more flies with honey than vinegar. It would have the nice side-effect that we'd clean up our back yard a bit, too. Credibility does matter on these things where people will question your motives.