Many of us (worldwide, I'm not American) watched China massacre thousands of its own children at Tiananmen Square. The US is descending into totalitarianism, but it hasn't reached that level yet.

And China may have changed in some ways but there have been no signals it would not repeat that event if it thought circumstances warranted.

Also, many of us have lived in countries actually freed thanks to the west’s (mustly us) intervention, and we felt the support during the Russian occupation pre 1989

Whether a country massacres its own people is not really a good litmus test since there are countries that treat its own citizens well but foreigners really badly. One such country is… oh the US!

Tiananmen Square was obviously horrible but not even 10% as bad as the current war against Iran or 1% bad as the Second Gulf War, and those are both very recent conflicts.

The US has massacred millions of people of other countries, is that better?

China is a peaceful country. They don't interfere with other countries politics. They look more trustworthy than countries that kidnapped chiefs of state they don't like.

> no signals it would not repeat that event

Of course there is, there's anti riot gear now when there wasn't before.

> Many of us (worldwide, I'm not American) watched China massacre thousands of its own children at Tiananmen Square. The US is descending into totalitarianism, but it hasn't reached that level yet.

Wasn't the US bombing its own children just 4 years earlier in Philadelphia?

And the US massacred four _million_ people in South East Asia, during the Vietnam war. That is 2/3rds of a holocaust. The Iraq War (second one), cost between half a million and a million lives (estimates vary, and it only includes violent deaths directly caused by American troops -- the war itself caused an increase in crime and murder and out-migration).

I could go on, but Tienanmen does not compare to most of the things the US has done outside of its own borders from 1946 to the present. And no, we (I am American) cannot justify a body count in the millions, just because our victims are communist/authoritarian/theocratic. Note also that we only number 5% of the world's population, and that if we compared body-counts as percentage of populations, instead of as absolute numbers, I doubt we even have enough people to settle that debt.

Even worse, if the world internalizes that it is fine to murder millions of foreigners, just because they are oddballs that their citizens cannot empathize with, the _we_ are going to have a big problem -- we appear much more odd to the world than the world does to us.

I am surprised that our shenanigans have been tolerated for nearly a century.

Don’t you think that it’s a signal that the last major event you can point to is decades old?

Others may say “what about Uighurs?” or “what about Hong Kong?” but I think that the rest of the world is not doing all that much better on terms of civil repression.

In the UK, you can be arrested for voicing disagreement with the rationale for another person’s arrest (not generally, but on a specific hot button issue they’d rather not anyone talk about). French politicians are attempting to make illegal criticism of Israel, carte blanche. Don’t even get me started on Germany, which is so self-shamed from the last century they have overcorrected into legitimating an external state above all else. Across the pond, you hardly even have to convince anyone that it’s on the downtrend, unless they’re 30% of the population who believe the Don is christ alive (but don’t like if he says it).

The world is very unstable at this point and China is a country that strongly values and incentivizes stability, at the expense of individual rights. This is contra a lot of the west which is both unstable and actively undermining individual rights.

> China massacre thousands of its own

> China massacre thousands

Is the first one worse to you?

> massacre thousands

Does the second automatically seem worse than the third?

The one not called China has shot and killed multiple of its own citizens on the street recently. Perhaps that triggers your morality.

Which one of them has killed thousands of civilians just in the last month or so including hundreds of school aged girls (confirmed)? And can they even articulate a reason for doing so?

Which one decided, made the choice, to kill hundreds of thousands of children by dismantling USAID? And the reason for that was?

I mean, they both have concentration camps where they detain their own citizens without due process. So, I guess a tie there.

And, they both enabled Russia after Russia stole tens of thousands of children from their parents.

So, ya, maybe no clear winner. Neither are the good guys. But China is losing the death count battle in 2026 at least.

If you are trying to say that China is worse because of an event 37 years ago, I am not sure I agree.

> children at Tiananmen Square. The US is descending into totalitarianism, but it hasn't reached that level yet.

Ask that question of the American Indians the USA genocided.

I do not see why USAnians killing Iranians is better than being killed by other Iranians. Dead is dead

The bombs that implemented the genocide in Gaza were dropped by the IDF but supplied, paid for and profited from USAnians

Not really so clear

Hypocrisy meter just exploded after being fed the message

Can you share the video where thousands of children were massacred in Tiananmen Square? I haven’t seen it yet and am very curious!

Bush sacrificed a few thousand Americans on 9/11 so that they could get away with killing a million or so Muslims.