Doing evil is generally enabled by such delusions of righteousness. Chinese state media undoubtedly frames their actions in a similarly justified way to how USian state media drones on about "terrorists".
I'm not equating the two entities - they certainly have drastic differences in aims, scope, chosen targets, etc. But rather evil is evil, and should be called out directly rather than excused for not being as severe as some other, especially more removed, evil.
That's fine. I don't think it's evil to kill terrorists. I especially don't think it's evil to develop more effective methods of identifying potential terrorists before killing them.
If anything's a delusion of righteousness, it's pacifism and isolationism.
I'm not equating the two entities - they certainly have drastic differences in aims, scope, chosen targets, etc. But rather evil is evil, and should be called out directly rather than excused for not being as severe as some other, especially more removed, evil.