In China, even a billionaire can be crushed by the state - for corruption, for being a power rival or for speaking out against state policy.
In the US, a certain level of person has nearly carte blanche against scandal, against being accused of crimes or pursuing pathological policy positions. Of course, in the US, a small person's life can be snuffed out if they annoy the wrong cop and their life can be made miserable if they go up against the justice system or other powerful forces.
I'm sure what how well the two system play against each other on the world stage at this point.
Oh come on man (woman?), this comment is completely disingenuous. You're comparing 2 completely different things.
Is US / the West fair? Not by a long shot. Tons of shitty stuff happening, from George Floyd, to Harvey Weinstein, to Jeffrey Epstein, to Julian Assange. But at least we know about them.
But compared to China? You won't even hear about the "small person's life". I'm sure life in China can be great, unless you're Muslim, or Buddhist / Tibetan, or Falun Gong, or Canadian, or ...
I don't know about you, but for me, there's no question which of these systems I'd prefer to live under. Even if I were black! (Notify me when China gets a black president.)
Tons of shitty stuff happening, from George Floyd, to Harvey Weinstein, to Jeffrey Epstein, to Julian Assange. But at least we know about them.
I would prefer live in the West also. I also know a lot of people in the world value security over free expression.
Just as much, I'm reasonably sophisticated in my reading of the news and the open expression here allows me to pick the truth reasonably easily out of a stream of lies. But the stream of lies is there, every day I encounter people online who instead fall for the stream of shrill claim sloshing around both the Internet (aside from Murdock crap, you have "Russian Bounties", etc). Again, the US still looks better to me but the way things are going, the US is not doing a good job selling it's model.
Of course, if you mention Epstein, everyone here knows about him but few-to-no US paper, "pedophile, apparently murdered in prison by persons unknown" and people in China know often know the operations of the state to that degree, at points when the real story is obvious and the state isn't that concerned. Admittedly, there are stories about prison officials moving Maxwell around the prison to prevent her from also being murdered - but directly calling officials for Epstein's murder, not visible (no, I don't miss him but his murder was clearly to protect the guilty and nations should pretend the rule of law at least).
If Epstein happened in China, would anyone even be allowed to go on the internet and claim that he was killed because he had dirt on everyone in the government?
Lots of people make claims on the Chinese Internet - it's censored but stuff still gets out. The claim/canard that Covid came from a lab in Wuhan came from the Chinese Internet, for example.
The US definitely has more free expression, of course.
That might be true for you, but that clearly isn't true for everyone. I know people in HK (mostly elderly) who are fine with China coming and taking over. They see security and wealth.
Most of those people in HK who are fine with it already have deep connections with the Mainland and want to maintain those. They are a small fraction of the population.
It's also fairly short-sighted and selfish thinking in my mind to sell the off the rights of the younger generation so they can keep their assets and businesses safe.
In the US we have been selling off our privacy and ability to affect public policy through our leaders for much the same reasons, ie short-term gains for the few. Difference is we gave it voluntarily.
In the US, a certain level of person has nearly carte blanche against scandal, against being accused of crimes or pursuing pathological policy positions. Of course, in the US, a small person's life can be snuffed out if they annoy the wrong cop and their life can be made miserable if they go up against the justice system or other powerful forces.
I'm sure what how well the two system play against each other on the world stage at this point.