Hong kong police pepperspray elderly point blank

Yeah @nightkami you might want to do a bit of research before suggesting there isn't much difference between policing in the US and policing in China

I watched some accounts from medics at a recent US protest and the violence they were both victims of and trying to help victims of is heartbreaking. There’s footage of us cops spraying young kids with pepper spray, beating protestors who were stood peacefully, and ofc not protecting protestors but instead being nice to their attackers. Hong Kong has it bad but the US also has it fairly fucking terrible right now

The US has some bad cops and some questionable calls by otherwise good cops- BUT, what I would argue makes out police force head and shoulders above China as the less brutal are the differences in systemic condoning of such acts. The United States carries at least a pretense with some genuine judicial checks and care towards human rights and constitutional rights.

Systemically, the Chinese legal system and largely the social leaning is towards order above all, and at all costs. So while the US and China are very alike in many regards, and often the US calls China out for just doing what the US has would or will do- the actual democracy or illusion of democracy in the United States adds a layer of control and accountability to our law enforcement that China doesn’t have- and while our information and media are manipulated and used by private entities to forward their agendas- in China the government is the primary arbitrator of information and so there is much more government control over the narrative the people at large receive. Meaning that even if and when democracy is an option in China, the people will tend to be bias towards the message f the government.

Hong Kong is a perfect example- protests far larger and more disruptive than what we’ve seen concerning US police and government use of force recently. Yet- most state, local, and intelligent and democratic federal entities have sought compromise and appeasement. The protests in HK did not change the government from doin what it was already doing as opposed to America, where real change and at least a pretext of change have taken place.

That said... were we to remove the systems of checks and balances or change those systems- looking at simply the will and ability to use brutal and unethical means against their own citizens- the US and China are likely equal in their capacity to do so. If American police thought they could, or were incentivized and encouraged to- we’d likely see the same levels of brutality. In fact, while China has ethnic minorities and frictions between ethnic groups, their population is a majority of ethnic homogeny. The frictions between ethnic groups and histories there in America, and the fact a much larger percentage of our population is comprised of different groups; suggest that in absence of any fear of consequence- brutality towards “minority” groups in law enforcement specifically, would likely be worse in America.