Tell that to the fishermen on the shores of the South China Sea, Hong Kong, people in India along the border, and of course, Taiwan.

I'll agree that the US is regressing, but it's becoming more like China. You have an elite that are putting themselves beyond any sort of accountability. You need more and more connection to them in order to get anywhere in society. How long before you see them enshrine themselves in the constitution and create a cadre system?

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> When you mark the scoresheet according to actual number of invasions, our capitalist liberal democracy has performed much worse than their mixed-economy authoritarian technocracy.

And how many of those invasions have been of other countries with democratic-republican forms of government in the last 30 years?

> This is a lot of needlessly "ideology vibes"-based judgment on a matter where plenty of actual evidence (history, geopolitical incentives, culture) is readily available.

Then let's take a look at more of that evidence. How's Tibet doing these days? Did the CCP decide that they, too, need to follow international law and withdraw all forces and government infrastructure from the region after invading it in 1950? How about the agreement with Hong Kong? Have they stopped ramming fishing boats in the "disputed" parts of the South China Sea? I quote that because according to international law, there is no dispute; China is just enforcing piracy.

I'd also like to say, they're not an authoritarian technocracy. They're totalitarian. China's political, military, economic, and cultural institutions are all fundamentally guided by the cadre system, which is a version of the party vanguard system suggested by Lenin. A person is paid to be a professional revolutionary of sorts. That person's influence and prospects within the cadre system are not judged solely by merit; they're judged by adherence to a dogma, which is Socialism with Chinese Characteristics in this case. This isn't just "ideology vibes", it's a description of the system as it is as a practical matter.

Imagine having a person who is professionally Trumpist at your company constantly making sure that what you do is in line with what the GOP under Trump wants. For a practical example, let's think about tariffs. Does your business suffer because of the tariffs ordered by Trump? Well, no it does not, because that's not what the Trumpist cadre member would say. You wouldn't be filing lawsuits to try and lift those tariffs.

Furthermore, now imagine that the GOP in this case is the only party allowed to have majority control of the government, not just as a de facto matter, but as a de jure matter as well since it'd be a part of the constitution.

There will, sooner or later, be a Chinese Trump. It'll be very difficult to gauge from the outside, because of the restricted flow of information in and out of the country, but it will eventually happen. When that happens, there will be no putting the brakes on anything.

If you were able to determine in 5 seconds whether or not a person was a violent jerk, it would take you ~28 years of around-the-clock meetings to assess >= 50% of the current U.S. population, thereby rendering this comment meaningful and true. If you needed a whopping 30 seconds, it would take ~166 years. Better get cracking!

> slapping tariffs

Countries change trade policy often as is deemed advantageous. For example, the UK decided to leave the customs union of the EU and start treating trade with the continent as it does everywhere else, and did so by no less than a direct popular vote, not a contrived set of executive orders facing court challenge. Does the EU crow on about how the UK is now an enemy? They would certainly have more long-term evidence for it than they would over changes in trade policy with the United States.

> threatening our actual allies

American military leadership was asked to consider plans for an attack on Greenland. American military leadership refused. [0]

I wonder how Chinese military leadership would do if ordered to invade Taiwan.

[0] https://www.firstpost.com/world/trump-asked-us-special-force...

You're going to find China's history as wanting as the US's in that regard. Plenty of Chinese arms found their way to theaters of war in all corners of the globe during the latter half of the 20th century, and continue to do so in the Donbas today.

Or maybe you can look into what happens to nations in China's immediate neighborhood that resist Beijing's designs.

North Korea, a prison camp masquerading as a country, exists solely because of China. Had Mao not intervened on behalf of the Kim family, UN forces would have asserted control up to the Yalu. To this day, the Chinese have been breaking international law by helping Pyongyang dodge sanctions over the DPRK's nuclear weapons program. Same with Russia, actually, despite them both sitting on the UNSC, which passed the sanctions.

China also illegally occupies Tibet and has for over 75 years.

All of this points to a country very much not existing in harmony with the world.

As far as the US government being better, it's not about any given government being better. It's about whether or not totalitarianism can continue on peacefully. It cannot. This is evident on its face.

Kind of an okay job, but they could do better. I might feel differently if I lived in Tibet, Hong Kong, Xinjian, Myanmar, etc.