> The two are mutually exclusive insofar as the US' state of benevolence has no bearing on China's.

All due respect, I literally said that, twice. I suppose you could still call it whataboutism by technicality, but it doesn't quite have the same ring to it.

My point was that replacing a benevolent superpower with one that is not is quite a different situation than a "meet the new boss, same as the old boss" one, and I was just pointing out that this is the latter, not the former.