By comparing U.S. data on life expectancy here to OECD data on life expectancy in China, Quartz reports that China's exceeds the U.S.'s for the first time: 77 years to 76 years. U.S. life expectancy has dipped sharply due to the Covid pandemic, whereas China's improved life expectancy may reflect its uncompromising lockdowns. The data may also be incomplete.
Beijing has repeatedly said that it cannot diverge from its zero-covid approach without further safeguards such as higher vaccination rates, as doing so would risk 1.5 million deaths nationwide. As of March, vast swathes of the elderly Chinese population were still unvaccinated or not fully vaccinated, according to official figures. An attempt to implement a vaccine mandate in Beijing in July was abruptly rolled back.
It looks like Quartz' chart compares the CDC figure for the U.S. with the OECD figure for China, but it doesn't show the OECD figure for the U.S., which is also 77 years.
In any case, basically everyone else in the developed world gets a longer life expectancy than either.
Here's the OECD chart:
