My stance is kind of 50/50 with China.

For one, they’re going to flame out even faster than America did. As time moves forward great powers last less and less time. America only held the crown for 80 years. Chinas got its own issues, especially with the population issues.

Yes, China has a laundry list of human rights abuses. We know all of them, I shouldn’t have to list them here. China also is an aggressor country, harassing their neighbors and intimidating them for often no reason at all, and when there is a reason, it’s territorial expansion. They steal IP, they steal identities and secrets (yes I know, stealing secrets is an everybody issue, and I’ll get to that, but it’s usually done with more class) and they gave our kids toys with lead in them. You could seriously go on for days on the bad stuff about China. The belt and road? Fuck, that’s so, so bad… However

They’re also leading in science and especially the environment. They’ve spent big money on their science, and it’s paid off in spades for them and it’s commendable from an international standpoint. No country on earth is fighting climate change harder than China. From advances in solar panels bringing the cost of clean energy down, and giving the ability to electrify places of the world that have never experienced it? That’s pretty dope. Plus their electric car tech is blowing up so hard that it’s actually kind of reasonable to tariff it, because they’re so far ahead.

Now the gre(a)y, I’m an American. Half the shit that china does that’s bad, was shit that we have been doing for generations. So yeah, china sucks shit. But does it suck more shit than America right now? I say no, but not by much, and mostly because a lot of the problems people try to put on China (i.e. pollution mostly) is because we facilitated that. If not them, it’d be our polluted air and water. And now, he wants to bring that manufacturing back here while deregulating pollutants AND enforcement. He saw 1990s Beijing and said “I want that for us”. But basically, other than China’s climate and science goals, were the same country. So the nod (barely) goes to China for being a more honorable or good country.