China surpassed the United States in global approval ratings in 2025, with a median of 36% approving of China’s leadership, compared with 31% for the U.S. China’s five-percentage-point advantage over the U.S. is the widest Gallup has recorded in China’s favor in nearly 20 years.
Considering China is an authoritarian regime that has no issue with “reeducating” and “disappearing” millions of its own citizens and is bullying its near neighbours making claims over their land and is threatening (with actions) to forcibly reintegrate Taiwan, to be more popular globally than America is no mean feat.
Same way people are supporting Iran over them, even though they are objectively terrible from a moral and ethical standpoint. The world has quickly disregarded the fact they only a couple of months ago they noisily and publicly executed 10s of thousands of protesters.
America is now more unpopular than them. Thats how deep they have sunk
Multiple lies in your comment, just straight up bullshit lies but you are westerner, the most propagandized species ever who gulps whatever the liberal media says without a second thhought so cant expect more
Hilarious
The US is literally doing all the things you’re accusing China of. The only reason it gets a pass on the massive carceral state, the largest in the world by far, is because its cultural industry has so normalized it.
The big difference is that China is a net positive when it comes to global stability and addressing climate change, whereas the US is not.
Those of us who care about things like democracy and human rights have a lot of digging to do.
No one is giving the U.S. a pass. This is a deliberate mischaracterization.
Until this regime, the U.S. had some of the best solar subsidies on the planet.
The U.S., as a surveillance state, is still in its infancy when compared to China. So it is laughable that you are using China in any comparison to the U.S., in almost the same breath.
“Carceral State” is a tanky propagandist dog whistle.
Why don’t you debate faults on their own? Because you are deliberately trying to use current bad conduct, of the U.S. to whitewash another country’s bad conduct.
“Oh hey, the U.S. is super shitty, but we have made so much solar in the past year so we’re all about global stability.”
Ignore EVERYTHING China has done though, only look at the bad that the U.S. is doing.
I’m sure you have plenty of arguments that support or claim how China has been with: Taiwan
Uygher people
Support of North Korea
Support of Russia against Ukraine
Tibet
The horde of nonsense “technological breakthroughs” that seem to come every month but never amount to anything and just disappear.
The pollution that has been produced by Chinese industry that pretends to adhere to global standards but get busted when college students use basic satellite data.
Suppression of Hong Kong
China’s state sponsored industrial espionage.
China’s disregard of human rights abroad when kidnapping Chinese dissidents from foreign countries.
(This is just me pulling the random items I can just immediately recall)?
But that is all Western propaganda I’m sure. Feel free to break out your playbook responses.
I didn’t use bad language this time for you to get my comment deleted, since suppression is one of your biggest tools.
Funny, ten minutes ago I wrote this: https://lemmy.ca/comment/22610922 literally further down the this very thread.
How can you at the same time say that “carceral state” is a tankie dogwhistle, and also say that nobody is giving the US a pass?
Easy. They are not mutually exclusive?
How many TP Link routers, were found to be compromised by China and had to be removed from U.S. infrastructure?
Salt Typhoon hack?
Why does China restrict access to the internet without massive censure?
Your link just takes me back to your parent comment.
Your entire argument is the pot calling the kettle black.
If you were just discussing the shitty things the U.S. is doing, I would be in total agreement, but you are trying to shoehorn “How great China is” into the discussion.
No matter how terrible the U.S. is and gets, it will not erase all the terrible things China has and is doing too. No matter how much you argue otherwise.
The link works for me. What can I tell you, I’m literally debating shitty Chinese policies with user “stumu415” on a different sub thread here. Search for the string “IAGS” in the comments under this post. I’m tired trying to convince you I’m not an elephant when you continuously make bad faith assumptions and miscaracterise what I’m saying.
Edit: if you’re denying the existence of mass incarceration system in the US (aka the carcéral state) you’re denying reality and absolutely giving the US a pass.
Actually this. Thank you. But unfortunately on the web you can not express anything positive or even neutral about China. Even though most have never set foot in China. If they would especially now most countries can travel visa free to China, it will change their mind. But that goes against the western propaganda.
China is an amazing country with beautiful nature, great people, amazing food, infrastructure Americans can only dream of, and millenia of history.
Plus China don’t starts illegal wars with other countries, impacting people all over the world.
To be clear, I am not denying those accusations against China. The Uighur genocide is recognized by the International Association of Genocide Scholars; one cannot cite the IAGS on Gaza and ignore it on Xinjiang. The mass surveillance is also real, the censorship around the Tienanmen massacre is silly Orwellian, and the strangulation of Hong Kong democracy is lamentable. The atrocious working conditions and the iron disciplining of labour is also all too real (I’ve had multiple discussions with Chinese people who bragged about how there are no strikes in China.)
I was only trying to be fair and balanced, because as Westerners we are too often giving ourselves a pass: 1) China is a net positive for the green transition due to solar, at a time when the US is going full fossil fascist. And 2) it is a pole of stability internationally, in ways that the trumpist US and Israel-enabling EU have not been.
Edit: typos and such
Partially agree with you but a lot of things you raised are the same in western countries. It’s also refreshing to read sensible commentary. The mass surveillance is the same in other countries including the US, but not as obvious as in China. The cameras work as a deterrent. I can leave my phone and laptop outside in the park or café and don’t need to worry about it being stolen. Censorship is a real thing all over the world especially now in the US with whitewashing of history. Even on US controlled platforms like Reddit, you get perma banned if you are critical of the Trump administration.
And I’m sure the history books in the US do not go in depth about the treatment of tge native Americans and how they were almost eradicated.
The same in Europe. In the Netherlands the history books never mention the atrocities the VOC did in regards to slave trade and colonies.
I don’t agree about the working conditions. I travel all over China and deal with different businesses. Things are definitely improving. But at least the workers have workers protections and social security and health care.
I have both lived and worked in the US and China and prefer living in China.
Let’s get the downvotes started
Things being bad or somewhat bad on the West is irrelevant in a discussion about whatever China is doing. One of the most infuriating things we Canadians say is the phrase “at least we’re not as bad as the US”. Fuck that.
If mass surveillance is unacceptable in the West, it’s also unacceptable in China. No ifs and buts. That western surveillance is primarily commercial and secondarily political, whereas is China it’s the other way around doesn’t mean any of the two is ok.
And no, censorship is not the same everywhere, that’s just false. We don’t all hide our history and of course free speech is part of the fight for that.
That’s I guess my biggest suspicion with China as well, especially when it comes to labour. In China labour issues as seen as something for the state to manage through official unions. And I don’t buy the whole-process democracy thing. It’s too cooptive, too “harmonious”. Not buying.
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Last I checked the USA wasnt forcing (yet) god knows how many Muslims into reeducation camps.
But yes I agree they’re sliding into the depths of authoritarianism.
The USA has its own issues. It has relatively high inequality compared to other civilized countries. Discrimination against black Americans is still present. And the USA is a prison country, one in every 150 Americans is in prison right now, a number 5-10 times higher than European countries and also higher than China.
I was talking about the US carceral state, i.e., the inhumane American exception from the global norm that is considered “normal” in the US. The US system is slightly more intelligent than blanketly imprisoning a population. No. First the US marginalizes and impoverishes them, then over-polices them, then finds little justifications to label them criminals, then does the imprisonment. That this is entirely normalized and nuanced and cast as complex in a country that considers itself “a city on the hill” or whatever bullshit, is irrelevant. If China had Hollywood and good copaganda TV shows, they would have also convinced the world that their carceral system is normal.
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Wasn’t 10,000s if you’re referring to Iran. Maybe stop watching Fox News.
3000 admitted to by the Iranian government which is a disgrace no matter how you want to swing it
7000 named and verified by HRANA with another 17,000 under investigation https://www.iranintl.com/en/202602021839.
Over 30,000 based on eye witness testimony from doctors, morgue and cemetery workers and other witnesses.
Thats from the Guardian. https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2026/jan/27/iran-protests-death-toll-disappeared-bodies-mass-burials-30000-dead
So no, nothing to do with Fox News. Maybe stop trying to defend a murderous regime eh?
HRANA is quite literally a CIA-Backed NGO btw. You fell for it again.
Whatever you say mate.
Just casually ignore everything else, including the 3000+ murders the government admits to
Don’t waste your time talking to tankies
At least this one gives it away with his name. Usually their simping for China gives them away.
They only accept their little cesspit of information as facts. Everything else is conspiracy theories or state funded propaganda.
Hardly murders when the CIA has already admitted to trying to instigate another colour revolution and has been consistently trying to do so for the last 60 years.
Maybe don’t try to rise up and overthrow your government when over 70% of the people approve of your government over western liberal democracy?
Maybe don’t take AKs to your local riot when less than .001% of your neighborhood, much less country is participating in the riot?
Maybe, like all organic revolutions, organize and get popular support before attempting to rise up instead of accepting CIA funding and weaponry to do Israel’s bidding?
Yeah, it sucks Mossad had agents in Iran, and it sucks they were able to get the most disenfranchised people to essentially kill themselves using the government as a weapon. We should condemn the US and Israel’s role in this.
But maybe the Iranian people, and this will be a shock to someone like you who openly posts CIA propaganda, DON’T WANT WHITE PEOPLE’S HELP.
Yawn.
I’m assuming you are off to live in the utopian theocractic paradise of Iran then?
It is amazing how simplistic your world view is; truly it is impressive how little you seem to care to expand your knowledge or world view.
A place being different does not mean you need to ride in on your high horse and foment chaos and destruction in the vague hope they’ll be more amicable to your corporate masters.
Especially being on a .uk domain you should know that YOUR COUNTRY IS THE SOLE REASON IRAN IS A THEOCRATIC REPUBLIC. The sole reason. The literal only one.
If you people would have just accepted not having them as a colonial resource state with a puppet regime and allowed them to nationalize their resources instead of letting BP continue to rape their land and air while paying them next to nothing, YOU WOULD HAVE HAD A WESTERN LIBERAL DEMOCRACY IN IRAN STILL.
But no, despite having a stable and developing Iran, you people decided it would be less harmful to install a monarchy and then when that didn’t work you people decided to do another revolution except oops, you failed and now it’s a theocratic republic.
If Western powers had left Iran alone to develop into socialism, yes the UK would be poorer, yes Israel would have actual threats in the region, and yes the oil market in the 1970s would have been even more anti-western than it was; but Iran would be a beacon of democratic socialism on par with Norway.
BUT YOU PEOPLE DIDN’T WANT THAT. Just like your criticisms now ring hollow as you advocate for civil war and revolution yet again despite knowing your false nonsense is the reason you criticize the current government.
You, being a citizen of the UK, US, or Israel have no moral high ground. You are much more immoral than any muslim theocrat in iran. You are worse than any terrorist.
None of this changes the fact that Iran just murdered thousands of people.
Lemme guess, you think Russia were justified in their invasion of Ukraine and Kim Jong Un is an alright guy.
this dude found out that the moon landing was an american public relations operation and concluded that the moon must not be real
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The thing with people like you is you cannot accept that both sides can be bad.
I’ll reiterate America are fucked. Them being fucked doesnt make china/iran/Russia the good guys.
The thing with people like you is you’re informed solely by Western imperial war propaganda, which has whole agencies devoted to smearing those who pose a threat to US hegemony. The reality is this is a world made up of sovereign nations who have been largely threatened, sanctioned, and attacked by the US empire since its inception, especially those who are communist or who have been communist in the past.
Zionist mod deleting your comments also seems CIA adjacent.
So you’re denying the Iranians have killed thousands of their own people? Even though they’ve admitted it.
You’re denying they’re an authoritarian theocracy that trampled on the rights of women. Even though they admit it.
Your whole shtick is “I know the Iranian government is terrible, but I’m incapable of admitting it and instead I’ll just try and make excuses”.
I’m bored of you, and stop following me around like some weird fucking stalker.
As if the US doesn’t kill millions of its own people and abroad. The latest example being the foodaid and health insurance cuts among others. Iran bombings killed already more than they supposedly killed themselves. So this free the woman of iran propaganda is already more like, you will all be free in death. Not to forget Iran only has this regime because of prior US intervention, killing their democratic leader.
So because America does it and has (and still does shitty things), that gives iran a free pass?
😂 Dude I literally just commented on two of your comments in the same thread. That makes me a stalker? And you have proven my point. You are choosing to believe and regurgitate CIA propaganda that has manufactured consent for these war crimes.
Iran is not an authoritarian theocracy that tramples on the rights of women. You know who is? Saudi Arabia, a US ally (and vassal state), where women can’t vote or drive cars. You don’t see us bombing and regime changing them. You know why? Because they do what the US says and we profit off of their oil. Iranian women can vote and Iran has a much higher percentage of women in higher education/who have graduated with PhDs than the US. Iran even has a hugely larger literacy rate among its population than the US.
The official death toll from the supposed tens of thousands of “peaceful protesters” killed by the Iranian government is reported as around 3,500. Israel even admitted that these were largely Kurdish separatists and other violent pro-West agitators in Iran that were being incited, armed, and organized by the CIA and the Mossad (who infiltrated and operated with the help of smuggled Starlink terminals–the only reason the riots ended was because Iran blacked out their internet to stop CIA/Mossad communications with their organizers outside Iran). These rioters were fucking burning down schools and mosques. Conveniently, these incited riots happened right before USreal started committing war crimes against Iran, and the whole of Western mainstream media ran with it, some saying 7,000 “peaceful protesters” killed, some saying 10,000, some saying 30,000, some even saying 80,000. These claims were in the service of manufacturing consent among the public of Western nations to tolerate and/or support these aggressions against the sovereign nation of Iran.
This is all besides the point, though. Regardless of what happens in other countries or whether or not their governments are oppressive or “democratic” or WHATEVER, IT IS WRONG FOR THE US OR ANY OTHER COUNTRY TO INTERFERE IN THE GOVERNMENT OF ANY OTHER COUNTRY TO DEPOSE THEIR LEADERS AND STEAL THEIR RESOURCES. PERIOD.
who said it is not wrong?
I have a hard time believing riots stopped because internet was cut out. people won’t just forget their motives when there’s no internet, like some remote controlled robot becoming completely inactive.
https://thegrayzone.com/2026/02/24/ned-congress-starlinks-iran-violence/