Reddit reviews Yemen and the USA: A Super-Power and a Small-state Relationship, 1962-1994 (Library of Modern Middle East Studies, 2)

> We had people, including those in actual positions of power, going out of their way to protest the dominant foreign policy which was destructive towards non-Americans and over time, curtailing or ending these policies.

It's likely that the end of US and UK (who I believe killed more people in armed conflict during the Cold War than the US did: Mau Mau Rebellion, the Malayan Emergency, the Dhofar Rebellion) extreme international involvement came about more because of the collapse of communism as a threat than because of internal humanitarian work.

Of course there are issues in China that don't exist in western liberal democracies. Of course on the whole China can be said to be a worse country. It just pisses me off when people immediately act like the second a foreign power engages in a proxy war it's a humanitarian crisis but when we do it it's liberation... even when we directly overthrow democratic regimes in place of fascist ones. For a good example of this consider Yemen and the United States: A Study of a Small Power and Super-State Relationship 1962-1994. In 1994 there was a war between the Middle East's only functioning Muslim democracy (where even women could vote) and an Islamic Dictatorship. The USA backed the Islamic Dictatorship.

Now never mind people opposing this international move or not - most people don't even know about it. Most people don't know the half of the wars the US and UK have got themselves involved in. And we certainly don't know how many soldiers died fighting for democracy because a dictatorship was preferable for the west.

Would I rather live in China or the west? Of course I'd rather live in the west, but I'm not going to act as if China's encroachment's on the sovereignty of other states are substantially different from that of the UK and US.