>Seems to me there is a large public relations push to normalize their authoritarianism in the view of Westerners.
So, bigger than the push to make it appear worse than it is?
Because that has been a tactic with any competing nation/enemy du jour of the west for over a century...
Not to mention that everything is judged with US-norms and interpreted through US-preferences in all those articles (aside and above the interpretation through their national interests) -- as if, e.g. rugged individualism and puritanism -derived principles is some universal law and e.g. a collectivist spirit, or some religious-derived norms, or other such cultural ways, are by default bad.
Human rights are not US-norms, there are many pitfalls that have been detected in last couple of centuries in the US and in representative democracies all over the world. Supressing freedom of speach, basic economic freedoms, due process... lead invariably to disaster, being it dictatorships, coups, generalized corruption, etc.
There is nothing special with Chinese people that makes dictatorship good for them while it's bad for us.
In the main, they are not. But they are general platitudes, whose interpretation is left to the individual countries, and is subject to the power relations between them.
A country, then, might be seen accusing or even bombing another (supposedly) in defense of those rights, when itself doesn't follow them.
>There is nothing special with Chinese people that makes dictatorship good for them while it's bad for us.
If only it was so simple. First, there are different concepts of what's OK and what's not. A crude example: US people don't like kings. English people are OK with their (but they don't have much power there). Thailand people love them.
Then, there's selective judgement. E.g. the US can have the largest prison population (25% of the world for 5% of it's population), and the most death sentences, mass surveillance programs, arbitrary cop killings, or even torture camps off-site, but it's OK because it has "free elections" (where two parties alternate in power for 50+ years and vote for more of the same -- never mind gerrymandering). Whereas another country is portrayed as some nightmare regime for not having elections, whereas life there might be better in those other terms. Sure, there are people that complaint for all of the above, but they still happen (and have happened for decades), and few judge the government/country in whole for that or say that it must be overthrown/invaded whatever (whereas for other countries, they do).
There's also selective enforcement, e.g. in how Saudi Arabia can be a worse regime for its citizens in all of those aspects, but as an ally it's not scolded for that, nor does it face sanctions/retribution that non-favorable (i.e. competing) countries that face.
Then there's people who have no idea of world history, little understanding of diplomacy, and how fragile states can be, and what local antagonisms and powers are held back even by some "bad" at first analysis regime, that play god, intervene (to bring "democracy") and, even assuming they do that in earnest, they end up causing civil war and chaos (see Libya, Iraq, and so on). So while "There is nothing special with Chinese people that makes dictatorship good for them while it's bad for us", there could very well something special with China as a country, and it's constitution of people's, history, antagonisms, etc, that a change would unleash hell.
If only it was so simple. First, there are different concepts of what's OK and what's not. A crude example: US people don't like kings.
It is so simple because I'm not talking about US people and what they like. Not everybody in a country likes the same things... that does seem like too much simplification btw.
I'm talking about flaws that make a political system a tyranny. And they're the same for every country as History has repeteadly shown.
there could very well something special with China as a country, and it's constitution of people's, history, antagonisms, etc, that a change would unleash hell.
It's difficult, but by no means impossible to make a peaceful transition from dictatorships to democracy. There are many examples: Spain, Portugal, many South American countries, East Europe... most likely cause of hell unleashing is nothing cultural or historic, but money.
The West has been externalizing manufactures to China the same way we've been buying oil from Saudi Arabia. Those regimes are now armored with tons of money from any pressure to open.
So, bigger than the push to make it appear worse than it is?
Because that has been a tactic with any competing nation/enemy du jour of the west for over a century...
Not to mention that everything is judged with US-norms and interpreted through US-preferences in all those articles (aside and above the interpretation through their national interests) -- as if, e.g. rugged individualism and puritanism -derived principles is some universal law and e.g. a collectivist spirit, or some religious-derived norms, or other such cultural ways, are by default bad.