I regularly see this kind of logic, that in order to face off China we should let our leaders/corporations exploit workers, pollute, commit crimes and behave even worse than China.
I don’t know what is the name for this faulty programming but it is very disturbing. I guess this is some kind of default behaviour of nationalism?
It's called leveling the playing field. Done by either raising the low parts, or shaving the high parts. Not everybody agrees about the "fairness" of either approach, especially when the goal is to make the playing field "fair".
The playing field is level. With a level playing field, the multi-billion dollar corporation will obviously trample the individual. They are more powerful than you.
It's a manipulation technique. Not for US citizens, but citizens of other corrupt countries.
Imagine that you live in a country where everyone is corrupt and everyone lies. If you don't lie you're an idiot.
Then you read news about horrible US government failures. If the problems are so large that they cannot possibly keep lying and they openly admit to their failures, then what fucked up things still are there that they don't admit to doing? China at least manages to keep it shush. Therefore, whatever they do, shit at least doesn't hit the fan.
It's very difficult to imagine that a different society might have different standards regarding things such as transparency.
I don’t know what is the name for this faulty programming but it is very disturbing. I guess this is some kind of default behaviour of nationalism?