I agree with most of what you say. Having lived in India for several years i would 100% rather be poor in China than there. The CCP has unquestionably raised the living standards and life prospects for the majority of the country's population.
For sure, the wealth that we enjoy in Europe now was built on the back of ruthless exploitation of people in poor countries over the last few centuries. There has never been a more ruthless bunch of gangsters than the British East India Company - who got legitimized and became the empire. I am totally in accord with you on this. I am not some jingoist, blind to the awful debilitating impact of imperialism. During ww2 Winston Churchill made decisions about army food supplies that created famine and mass starvation in what was British India. The man was a massive racist even by the standards of a very racist time.
I am not seeking to enter into a competition about who has done worse things when. What i am trying to do is call out a really really bad thing that is happening now.
On another note, i laugh/cry when i hear our politicians claim that the UK leads the world in tackling climate change. Until we take proper account of the impact of all the shite that we offshore to whichever regime will do our dirty work then we haven't a leg to stand on. That said China joined the WTO and said it would abide by certain environmental, human rights, competition etc standards - and binned those commitments the moment it got membership.
I could go on. Everything is more nuanced than we can grasp at any one point in time. I stand by what i said earlier. China has done many good things for its people but its current direction under Xi is awful, truly awful - including for its own people. There a lot of signs that the economic miracle is stumbling due lack of trust/transparency/confidence/ indebtedness of the Chinese government. Do a simple search on Reuters or some such news wire if you don't believe me.
