What you are missing about the Chinese Communist Party is that it is an existential threat to freedom globally. We were very worried about the USSR for the sam

What you are missing about the Chinese Communist Party is that it is an existential threat to freedom globally. We were very worried about the USSR for the same reason. But there was an iron curtain, and you had to actually be invaded to lose your freedom. Now, the CCP seems able to curtail worldwide freedom through its trade policy, which is a weird thing nobody expected.