just trust me bro

I remember reading somewhere that while a western audience would perceive this as utterly farcical, a Chinese citizen is at least more likely to perceive it as the government taking their safety and security seriously enough to be thorough about it. While I'm sure there was some person somewhere in the chain of command who thought this was a good and important idea and that they needed to check the pigeon butts for explosives, there's no way all of the people involved in doing those searches thought it was likely to uncover an actual weapon, but the cultural context makes it important to err in that direction. Meanwhile in the US, the government is more successful in hiding abuses by "protecting freedoms." Powerful people all around the world have basically the same playbook, but a big part of that strategy is knowing their audience.

You can also utilize the somewhat covert bribery and diversion systems to this end. As long as everybody thinks everybody ELSE is following the guidelines, and that they're the only ones really getting away with things / reporting that they're following guidelines when they're not, you can get the same result and all you have to do is not look too closely, which is probably what you're doing with most other things already. In the US you don't even need to bother doing that because aside from not culturally having enough shame to do so, actively hiding our idiocy in any way would be considered a restriction on freedoms. Around these parts its your god given right to be a dumbass and the gubmit can pry that from your cold dead hands.

We're stupid, but at least we're honest about it. They're stupid, but at least they have the decency to not act like it out in broad daylight. Neither is better and both can easily be a tool of the bourgeoisie.

You forgot the anti-vaccine campaign they ran in countries near China saying their vaccine contained pig parts. Not the US state dept's first anti-vax campaign btw.

US vaccines were made available first and foremost to Western citizens, and only then were made available to purchase. China released their vaccine worldwide, so countries without a vaccine program had access earlier and cheaper than they could acquire vaccines from the US. Their anti-vax campaign was meant to prevent other countries from accepting China's offer, thus preventing goodwill towards China, protecting the profits of US companies, and leading to the deaths of millions who could have been saved in "US Allied" countries such as the Philippines.

If you were going to buy into one of these two conspiracy theories, first you should have some actual evidence, and then you should look at the behavior of these countries and ask yourself: which behavior is more consistent with releasing a virus that could act as an economic weapon meant to shut-down a country, but not kill everyone?