The issue is that the way you're expected to criticize America from what I observed is along the lines of 'they mean well but...'

With China, you can say 'yeah, this is good, but they eat babies for fun' and it would mostly pass with people nodding along.

No I don't mean one needs to be American. The reciprocal isn't valid. I talked about China. Given the misinformation the "western emisphere" has been subject to, I would find it dubious to get the echoes of what mainstream media portrays it as, even though there are elements of truth in what most people believe.

The U.S politics are easier to understand from the outside. For one it's a democracy, a more transparent process despite a lot is happening behind curtains. I have no idea what North Koreans are able to make of the U.S scene, I know for sure people in U.S and Europe are hardly able to comment on N.K.

tldr: I'm with you non Americans (and Americans) are perfectly able to critique the U.S with some valuable accuracy.

I find western obsession with "being able to critique X" very weird because it stops at just that. There's very little attention paid to whether the critique produces useful outcomes. While cost of living, energy scarcity, employment, education, wars, etc are all getting worse, people focus on being able to insult the president as the ultimate freedom, even when that achieves nothing.

Meanwhile in China, you can't change the ruling party but you can change policies. They restrict media and speech freedom, but they also work tirelessly to improve the livelihoods of the people.

If the west chooses the value empty talk over outcomes, fine, you have the right to choose that. But no need to force that value on other societies. China and Chinese society at large has the right value unity and livelihood over speech. They have the right to prefer what westerners call an "authoritarian" government that delivers on those values, without getting demonized. They're not forcing their way on you, no need for you to force your way on them.