[ShroudedNight]

If a party is arguing a position of moral superiority, and respond to any seeming demonstrations of moral failings with 'you do it too', it's not obvious to me why their rhetorical counter-party has any reason not to view their argument as specious at best. Unless one can provide compelling evidence that the regimes held up are unambiguously morally superior, I think it's perfectly reasonable to consider those arguing as degrading the communications channel and thus actively hostile to quality discourse.

[throwaway742]

If the bad things they do are things that everyone does, but they do other things better would they not still be morally superior?

[deciplex]

Are tankies Marxist? I would assert that they'd have to be - and Marxists aren't making the case for their ideas out of some sense of moral superiority. The good ones aren't anyway. China (and other communist states) aren't morally superior they are simply superior: they have harnessed the power of capital accumulation that capitalism provides while retaining the ability to move to more advanced relations of production once appropriate.

China is "winning" and will continue to win, not because they are more virtuous, but because they can move on to the next thing while we're stuck with end-stage capitalism and all the rentierism that comes with it, apparently forever.