[dgoldstein0]

The US has been around as a modern country longer than China - we have more than a century on them; China started the 20th century divided with several parts of itself colonized. China fought a civil war between the dominant Republic abd the communists, and might have been able to win if not for the Japanese invasion; post war, they didn't have the ability anymore to fight off Mao's revolution.

In other words the current Chinese government can trace it's power back about 70 years. For the US it's about 240. So it shouldn't be a surprise the US has done more bad things since it's in general had more time, especially as a major power in the world.

And US Cold war policy definitely had some serious missteps due to extreme paranoia about communism... US intervention in Iran (overthrew a democracy, paving the way for the revolution) and various Latin American countries definitely worked out poorly in hindsight, in addition to unethical methods (eg supporting the Contras). Honestly I'm shaky on most of the details, and I want to acknowledge these things happened. Most Americans have very limited knowledge of these past misdeeds - it's not something that's emphasized in schools, and happened before most of our lifetimes, and we don't see most of the consequences day to day... so the average American is content to be ignorant of it, and of course doesn't want to apologize or pay for it in any way.

I unfortunately don't see this changing. But I also don't trust China given their terrible human rights record; they just haven't had as much ability to operate around the world as the US has, in the past.

[mlindner]

Also note that China's killed way more people in it's short history than the US did through it's entire 240 year history. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Chinese_Famine Tens of millions of dead in a short few years.

[dgoldstein0]

This is interesting, but my quick read: that was not the intent, but rather a combination of agricultural mismanagement and poor food distribution.

What about the great depression in the US? The dust bowl? Various bank runs in the 19th century? Hell, African-American deaths due to slavery? Civil war deaths? Deaths of native Americans in our various undeclared wars against them?

Probably China still has a higher number either way, but if we're going to do a fair comparison, we probably should compare percentages of the population. The US civil war killed a single digit percentage of US population at the time, so perhaps not as extreme as the great Chinese famine but still huge (it was the bloodiest war for US lives ever, by a huge margin)

[mlindner]

I think you're making an unfair argument. It was rarely (if ever) the intent of the US to kill civilians in it's various wars it's done. You're making the "collateral damage" argument that is often used as a point to attack the US on. Be consistent.

As to all your examples, we could have a large discussion about each, but most are from the independent actions of the populace rather than government policy forcing deaths upon the populace at effective gun point. And none of them killed anywhere near the number that the great famine did. Most of them in fact killed zero people and just caused economic hardship. (Also while the American civil war killed 1%, the Chinese great famine killed over 10% in many areas.)

When farmers are dying of starvation and aren't allowed to eat the food that they're growing, you've gone seriously off the rails.

[ashwagary]

>rather a combination of agricultural mismanagement and poor food distribution.

And western countries embargoing/blockading Chinese food imports during an emerging food crisis.

American educators tend to gloss over inconvenient truths like America's role in that famine.