What is he supposed to write instead? This is not news. There's new studies confirming it, but we've known for decades China is ruled by a totalitarian regime that treats human life as disposable, and we've heard rumors of this for decades, and of much, much worse.
No one with power has done anything about it. No one with power wants to do anything about it. Instead we have world leaders praise China for its boldness in the coronavirus lockdowns, politicians and pundits who fantasize — let me use Thomas Friedman's words here — "What if we could just be China for a day? I mean, just, just, just one day. You know, I mean, where we could actually, you know, authorize the right solutions ..." China has power. They envy it. They want it. They want us to be less free and more like that. It's more common than not. Your political party is not immune. If you're lucky, they're struggling to engage with the idea of China as a Major Geopolitical Risk (and it makes them somewhat uncomfortable to admit even that) or they're trying to be tough on China as a general play for Economic Protectionism, an excuse to serve the self-interest of a narrow slice of their constituency. (America First!!! Let's pay $900k/yr/job to save $100k/yr jobs in the steel industry!!! This is the only road to prosperity!!!)
You chide GP poster for his cynicism, essentially. Why shouldn't we all be cynical? I'm sorry, you're late to the show and probably missed out on the shock factor by a good decade or so, possibly longer.
"They envy it. They want it. They want us to be less free and more like that."
I logged in to say basically this, but I will expand on this a little.
There is a steady push in US to limit the rights of its citizens. It worked to an extent and had an interesting catalyst in the form of pandemic, but it seems that people who tried to use it expand power overshot a little, because pushback was significant and is now part of midterm fight.
