|
I think a major resentment people have when they see these "moral stands" by the US, is that in its literal present day actions, neither US nor China "stand up against oppression in general not just when you can benefit", but also, China does not rhetorically claim to do so -- the US does make that false claim. The easy present day case to back up this claim that the US does not "stand up against oppression..." is Yemen: https://news.un.org/en/story/2022/03/1113852. With various slight modifications, and given enough time to explain, you can add a host of other countries to that list: Afghanistan, Syria, Israel+Palestine, etc. Go back 20-30 years and you can add Iraq. Go back a little further and add Indonesia+East Timor, Iran, most of South and Central America. It's more complicated to make the case, and there are still too many uncertainties about what actually happened, but you could probably even add "nice, Western" countries like Italy to that list. The point is, China often uses this false talk of "moral stands" as a (mostly sarcastic) retort to the US, because the US sincerely engages in the same false talk in 90% of its communications and more importantly, in material actions that affect actual lives on the ground. |
I don't think what we've done in the middle east is remotely good but it's substantially different.