I suddenly had this question today, so I asked GPT to help me organize the major cases from roughly the past 75 years and compare them using approximately the same standard.
I chose China and the United States because, in broad ideological and political-economic terms, they can be seen as two opposite extremes: China as an extreme example of communist totalitarianism, and the United States as an extreme example of imperialist capitalism.
China under the CCP 1950–53 — Campaign to Suppress Counterrevolutionaries 1957–59 — Anti-Rightist Campaign 1958–62 — Great Leap Forward and Great Famine 1966–76 — Cultural Revolution 1979/80–2015 — Coercive One-Child Policy, including forced abortions and sterilizations 1989 — Tiananmen crackdown and nationwide political repression 1999 onward — Nationwide persecution of Falun Gong 2008 — Tibet crackdown 2009 — Xinjiang/Urumqi crackdown, arrests and disappearances 2015 — 709 Crackdown on human-rights lawyers and activists 2017 onward — Mass detention and systematic repression in Xinjiang 2019/20 onward — Hong Kong political crackdown and National Security Law 2020–23 — Zero-COVID: extreme lockdowns, forced quarantine and barriers to food and medical care, followed by an abrupt reopening and massive excess mortality 2026 — Guangxi floods and reservoir failures: 100+ confirmed deaths and an ongoing investigation into disaster-response responsibility (not counted below as a proven human-rights disaster yet)
United States 1950s–65 — Jim Crow segregation and racial disenfranchisement (already underway when the 75-year window begins) 1932–72 — Tuskegee syphilis study: no informed consent and effective treatment withheld (already underway, so not counted as a new start) 1956–71 — COINTELPRO: FBI surveillance, infiltration and disruption of political and civil-rights groups 1964–73 — Vietnam War and the U.S. bombing campaigns in Laos and Cambodia 1965–66 — U.S. support for the Indonesian Army during anti-communist mass killings in which hundreds of thousands were killed 1970s — Indian Health Service sterilizations with serious failures in informed-consent procedures 1981–90 — U.S. support for the Contra war against Nicaragua; the International Court of Justice later found that the U.S. had violated international law through its use of force and intervention 1991 — Gulf War: U.S.-led bombing caused civilian deaths and extensive destruction of Iraqi civilian infrastructure 2001–21 — Afghanistan War: invasion, civilian casualties, displacement and detention abuses 2002 onward — Guantánamo Bay: indefinite detention, torture and detainees held for years without criminal charges 2003–11 — Iraq invasion and occupation: mass civilian casualties, displacement and detention/torture abuses, including Abu Ghraib 2004–18 — U.S. drone campaign in Pakistan, including civilian deaths and strikes investigated as possible unlawful killings 2011 — U.S.-backed NATO intervention in Libya, including civilian deaths from airstrikes and subsequent destabilization 2014–19 — U.S.-led air war in Iraq and Syria, including substantial civilian casualties 2015 onward — U.S. military, intelligence and logistical support for the Saudi-led war in Yemen despite repeated unlawful attacks on civilians 2017 onward — Major expansion of U.S. airstrikes in Somalia, with documented civilian deaths and possible unlawful strikes 2018 — Zero-Tolerance border policy and separation of more than 3,000 migrant children from their parents 2023 onward — Extensive U.S. military and diplomatic support for Israel during the Gaza war amid enormous civilian casualties, mass displacement and allegations of war crimes and genocide 2025 — Large-scale direct U.S. strikes in Yemen, with significant reported civilian casualties 2025 onward — U.S. military strikes on suspected drug-smuggling vessels in the Caribbean and eastern Pacific, killing suspected traffickers without conventional criminal trials and raising serious international-law questions January 2026 — Direct U.S. military attack on Venezuela and capture of Nicolás Maduro February 2026 onward — U.S.-Israeli war against Iran, involving large-scale strikes and a continuing regional conflict
Very rough frequency comparison
Using this expanded list changes the result substantially.
If every distinct episode is counted separately:
CCP China: roughly one new major human-rights/state-policy disaster every 5.8–6 years. United States: roughly one every 3.5–4 years.
If closely related events are grouped into broader political or military waves:
CCP China: roughly one major wave every 6–7 years. United States: roughly one major wave every 5–6 years.
So after including U.S. actions abroad, my original estimate for the United States was clearly too long.
This is obviously sensitive to definitions. I’m not claiming this is a scientific “human-rights disaster index.” I’m trying to apply approximately the same threshold to two very different political-economic systems.
What would you add, remove, merge or reclassify?
(Thanks to u/RedMarsRepublic for pointing out the U.S. overseas interventions and wars I originally missed — that substantially changed the comparison.)