It's only a shame that it has to be a country like China that rises up at US' expense, rather than say Switzerland, Germany, Sweden, etc. What happens to global human rights when it's China that has an oversized influence on world politics and when countries start easily accepting extraditions to China (say for criticizing the Chinese leader, which could be a crime there), and many other outcomes like that?
US' track record isn't stellar, especially over the past 2 decades, and in the past decade the US has also taken a backseat in terms of actually protecting humans rights, even during Obama's time, but at least if you discount US' human rights violations in the Middle East, the US has been rather neutral on human rights (read: not positive) elsewhere. China may actually turn things to a negative trend for human rights everywhere else.
The UK under David Cameron had already started to use China as a role model for domestic censorship and surveillance. If China's influence grows, I imagine many other countries will follow UK's lead.
US' track record isn't stellar, especially over the past 2 decades, and in the past decade the US has also taken a backseat in terms of actually protecting humans rights, even during Obama's time, but at least if you discount US' human rights violations in the Middle East, the US has been rather neutral on human rights (read: not positive) elsewhere. China may actually turn things to a negative trend for human rights everywhere else.
The UK under David Cameron had already started to use China as a role model for domestic censorship and surveillance. If China's influence grows, I imagine many other countries will follow UK's lead.