>But don't you think it is weird that this did not register during the time when moving production to China was at it's height? There have always been skeptics

>But don't you think it is weird that this did not register during the time when moving production to China was at it's height? There have always been skeptics and strong opposition to China, and full disclosure I personally have long thought it was very foolish to sacrifice both our societal ideals and the Free Market on the alter of Free Trade (which as it's been used over the last few decades has been directly opposed to both). However at the same time I think it's unreasonable not to acknowledge that there were a lot of very smart people who were China doves out of a hypothesis that economic development would actually be the best way to peacefully and productively make China liberalize and become a strong, equal and valuable partner in the international order. It was believed that economic development would result in a growing middle class and in turn a demand for more political freedom, that enormous authoritarianism would ultimately be unsustainable, and that the moral thing to do was to not be too hard on these billion+ people most of whom were highly impoverished. And China also put on a good act, toeing various lines or making the right noises or even occasional actions, combined with carrots and sticks towards companies, while they built up. It has now become clear however that, at least in the short term, the idea that economic development would inevitably lead to political liberalization too has not worked out. Nor has a growing panopticon proved unsustainable so far. It may be that these were simply never linked concepts, or it might alternately be that technological and societal development has rendered the modern situation fundamentally different to how the West developed and shifted the power balance such that that window of history is firmly closed. At any rate however, while there were certainly a lot of people motivated purely by greed I think you are still overly uncharitable towards a lot of genuinely good people who had good intentions. Remember, this was coming directly off of the Cold War, a time of genuinely justified end-of-the-world terror and polarization and confrontational approaches. Even if it was naive, I can understand why some people, both exhausted by the CW and excited by an imagined future where liberal democratic societies spread throughout the world, thought building economic ties and giving China a lot of slack was an alternative approach that could work. But at this point consensus is no, regrettably it has not worked out. That a lot of anguished doves are now changing tack rather then stubbornly refusing to adapt is admirable, not bad, and will add some needed moderation and variety to new strategies rather then letting the pendulum go all the way in the other direction.