Here's the best way I can think to describe this. I've found there are largely two kinds of people in the world: those who have experienced something like food

Here's the best way I can think to describe this. I've found there are largely two kinds of people in the world: those who have experienced something like food insecurity, housing insecurity, poverty or the like and those that haven't. People who have never experienced any of these tend to have a completely different outlook, attitude and relationship to money. People who have often have it in the back of their mind that at any point it can all go away. This is why you'll tend to find a lot of poorer people who will get a windfall and then splurge on a big TV or some other big purchase. It'll just whittled down by bills otherwise. And it never really matters how much you have. For many people that fear never leaves you. People who have never experienced that food insecurity (or the like) can almost never comprehend it. I see China much the same way. Think about it. China was bossed around by the British Empire (it's literally the origin of the term "gunboat diplomacy"). With Mao's revolution there was a long period of famine. One of China's closest allies, the Soviet Union, collapsed around them. The point of this is, from an outsider's point of view at least, there seems to be a similar kind of cultural fear, a fear of a return to instability, chaos, famine and being a plaything to the West. So take Tibet. Many, myself included, see this as an invasion and occupation. That kind of criticism is seen through the Chinese lens as an attack on China itself, a threat to this period of prosperity and stability and a potential return to chaos. Put another way: any criticism of China or foreign dependence of China is seem as a potential existential threat. So I understand why China, say, protects its markets. But I also understand that China is "cheating" in an international trade sense and the developed nations don't have to put up with that. Nor should they. But developed nations and corporations are being bewitched the carrot of a market of over a billion people and that will never materialize so there's literally no point in turning a blind eye to China's human rights abuses or supporting the totalitarian regime.