The real reason superpowers clash is that they all want to be the dominant but there's only room for one at the top. The political or economic systems are absolutely irrelevant here. All that matters is what needs to be done to stay the dominant superpower. The closer the race, the lower they're all going to sink.
US leadership fundamentally doesn't care about human rights abuses in China more than Chinese leadership cares about abuses against black people in the US. They don't care about bringing democracy in a country when their next move is to make sure "the right" leader is appointed. They don't care about freedom of speech when they can block it as needed under any pretense. And they don't care about any of the principles they advocate if those principles get in their way, they will all happily ally with someone embodying the exact thing they're fighting against if it server their interest of maintaining or growing their power.
And getting to the point addressed above, they care about the image of the company they forced to introduce backdoors only as far as they can be punished by the bigger power, or if they can't sell it as fighting the terrorists (or scare word of the day). Case in point, Sweden and Ericsson wouldn't get away with it because their sphere of influence is a stone's throw away and the US would crucify them. China and Russia can mostly get away with it because their influence extends far enough that they have enough of a "friendly audience" for which they can sell a story. The US can get away with it everywhere else because even if Cisco is backdoored through and through, the US is the dominant superpower and is able to pressure allies to "see things" their way, and they can also sell everything as "the fight against ...".
Superpowers see advancing their interests by any means as a matter of survival and this takes precedence over anything else. They'll do what needs to be done and deal with the fallout after. And if you live long enough to move through these different regimes you start seeing the pattern immediately, only thing that changes is the "feel good" story the people are served with.
I prefer the "feel good" story of the US - ruled via democracy rather than the "feel good" story of China - ruled via an unelected communist bureaucracy. I suppose if you take a world-wide poll, most folks would agree with me.
US leadership fundamentally doesn't care about human rights abuses in China more than Chinese leadership cares about abuses against black people in the US. They don't care about bringing democracy in a country when their next move is to make sure "the right" leader is appointed. They don't care about freedom of speech when they can block it as needed under any pretense. And they don't care about any of the principles they advocate if those principles get in their way, they will all happily ally with someone embodying the exact thing they're fighting against if it server their interest of maintaining or growing their power.
And getting to the point addressed above, they care about the image of the company they forced to introduce backdoors only as far as they can be punished by the bigger power, or if they can't sell it as fighting the terrorists (or scare word of the day). Case in point, Sweden and Ericsson wouldn't get away with it because their sphere of influence is a stone's throw away and the US would crucify them. China and Russia can mostly get away with it because their influence extends far enough that they have enough of a "friendly audience" for which they can sell a story. The US can get away with it everywhere else because even if Cisco is backdoored through and through, the US is the dominant superpower and is able to pressure allies to "see things" their way, and they can also sell everything as "the fight against ...".
Superpowers see advancing their interests by any means as a matter of survival and this takes precedence over anything else. They'll do what needs to be done and deal with the fallout after. And if you live long enough to move through these different regimes you start seeing the pattern immediately, only thing that changes is the "feel good" story the people are served with.