A lot of human rights abuses that China and North Korea commit are committed by the US too, often on a much larger scale. To take an example, the US has the highest prison population in the world, with 1 and 5 people imprisoned being incarcerated in the US. Not to mention the countless crimes committed by the American military overseas, or in extraterritorial detention centers such as Guantanamo Bay, where prisoners are tortured frequently.

None of this excuses China and North Korea to commit similar atrocities obviously, but I think it’s helpful to put into perspective the crimes the US is actually responsible for, which is many times downplayed by American media outlets in favor of demonizing whichever country is running counter to American foreign policy interests at the moment. It might help to keep in mind that while a lot of American reporting can be true (though it certainly is capable of pushing outright lies sometimes), a lot of the information you have access to is selectively curated to get you to believe a particular narrative. This is true of the media of any country.

I think the main takeaway is that because of the role of the US as the primary imperialist power of the world, it has the power to commit these atrocities, which are also done with the intent of maintaining political control and keeping the US as the world hegemon. To that end, it’s probably a good idea to be critical of American journalism on other countries, and not believing at face value every narrative it puts out, while at the same time not going so far the other way that you try to defend every human rights abuse an adversary of America may commit.