Great quality comment.
We shouldn't consider the fact China did much more deforestation to start with and even after all this reforestation China has lesser forest area than the US despite being larger in size:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_forest_ar...
https://www.bbc.com/news/election-us-2020-54719577
> The US claims: "China is the world's largest consumer of illegal timber products." > And, according to studies, that is true.
> The Environmental Investigation Agency says: "The immense scale of China's sourcing [of wood] from high-risk regions [of the world] means that a significant proportion of its timber and wood product imports were illegally harvested." And research by Global Witness last year said there were "worrying" levels of illegality in countries from which China sources more than 80% of its timber.
Just as with CO2, a better comparison would look at per-capita figures and the destinations of consumption--for instance paper and furniture for export.
It may also take into account the viable land area, lest we also want to condemn Australia for having so much less forest area despite being similar in size to the US.
well, china also has gigantic northern and western regions that cannot be forested. the us doesn't have an equivalent of the tibetan plateau or the gobi desert