We can criticize it because this isn't a morality game. China doesn't rack up evil chips because the US behaved evilly in the past. There's no score to settle.

What they're doing is wrong and hurts us and the world right now, regardless of who did what in the past. We argue for principles that allow everyone to prosper. We argue for the golden rule and the categorical imperative.

You seem to be arguing that you think China's third world status and cultural history are completely irrelevant, and that just because the US has recently accomplished an arbitrarily chosen level of morality it is appropriate to harass and berate China over it.

It would be a far better use of one's time (in America) to focus on the atrocities that exist in our current system. Throwing stones at China is absurd, unless you're a neocon who wants to send the US naval fleet into the waters near China and perhaps launch targeted strikes intended at getting China to change its official policy (or, more likely, making China's leaders look bad and causing social instability).

Some modern US atrocities are:

- The prison system. Inmates are routinely, predictably raped, yet inmate safety is not improved. This is an awful situation in 2010 America that rivals what has occurred in any labor camp or gulag anywhere and in any time.

- Immigration policy. The US is an apartheid state in which the haves (aka citizens) and have-nots (aka non-citizens) are given drastically different rights. Illegals live in constant fear of deportation and are thus afraid to seek basic healthcare, law enforcement, etc., which makes them victim to untold suffering and anguish.

- Don't forget Gitmo and Abu Ghraib... two examples of severe human rights violations by the US. Unlike with US prisoners (ironically) there would be more outrage over these issues if the facts weren't censored from public view.

These are just a few. Worrying about China is a big waste of time.

OK, I'll bite.

So, per your argument, just because the Spaniards butchered the natives in the Americas and so did the early US settlers, we should not not have criticized the Nazi Germany. After all they were also different, weren't they?

If we go by your argument, the humanity will never learn from it's own mistakes and crimes of the past, because someone in the past would have done something similarly evil.

Your statement inadvertently underscores my own point.

Do you seriously think that the US entered WW2 to stop Nazi atrocities? The US entered because its interests were threatened and it focused its stateside propaganda effort on Nazi atrocities.

Similarly, the anti-China propaganda serves to ready Americans for war, etc. The fact is, most Chinese people are living happy, peaceful lives and care far more about their own family, work, and friends then they do about what results pop up in Google.

Obama has already begun a trade war with his tire tariffs... a massive embarrassment to the US and a loss of any meager moral high ground we may have had on issues of economic freedom.

There's nothing wrong with finding fault in some of China's policies. But isn't that the role of the Chinese people? With Americans being raped in prisons every day, should we really focus on Chinese human rights atrocities?

> The US/UK empire has done all of the same, and only after using those techniques to gain superpower and first-world status, we start criticizing others for doing it.

So at what specific point have they done an 'equal amount of evil' to us so that we can start criticizing them for 'doing more evil than we did?' Without an answer to this question your point is that we can't criticize China for anything ever. This seems a bit extreme to me.

In a similar vein, are you advocating that African Americans should be able to own slaves as long as they are 'white' because 'White Americans' did in the past?

[EDIT] fixed some typos

The main point is that the US still does commit some horrible human rights violations. I describe these in detail in my replies to two of your comment's sisters.

What if I also criticize the US for those human rights violations? Am I disallowed from commenting on China just because I live in the US even though I don't agree (and actively denounce) the actions of the US government?

Not disallowed, but you should question what the point of critiquing details of other countries' policies unless you seriously favor trade sanctions and all of the suffering they cause.

Part of the story we tell ourselves in the US is that our righteous indignation about other countries is reasonable... meanwhile American citizens are raped every day in American prisons and nobody suggests that other nations boycott the Olympics to nudge us toward human rights improvements.

Since Obama took power there has been tremendous pressure to harm China's export industry, and Obama did this with his recent tire tariffs. How do you convince a bunch of entitled Americans that it's reasonable to harm the economic wellbeing of Chinese tire makers (who are quite a lot poorer than any US worker)? By helping Americans believe that China is morally inferior and thus deserves to be punished.

This is the trend that is shaping up now. Google's move was foolish and plays right into the hands of US warmongers and trade protectionists... also, Google was (at least) showing which results were censored. Baidu offers the Chinese no such information.