[throwaway_pdp09]

I'm talking from a societal philosophy. If you absolutely insist on dragging stats into it, well, here goes:

China is incredibly monolithic in time (50 centuries of similar style of government, at least). The west is far more variable. The current US gov't acted like fuckwits, so deaths are unnecessarily high. Speaking as a brit, we've been even more fuckwitted.

I don't believe china's done as well as you claim. The fucked up early, downplayed covid, twisted the WHOs arm and plain lied about their infection and death stats.

Whether they reopen the economy early is of less-then-100% benefit if the rest of the world is not buying. If their economy isn't as healthy as they like to claim, this will hurt them.

But the bottom line is western governments can and do change. How china will fare I don't know. I remain where I started, I don't know which is better in these situations. The west may collapse, china may collapse, I can't see the future.