I would argue that they only liberalized international trade and investment after they attained success, i.e. their local industries became mature enough to com

I would argue that they only liberalized international trade and investment after they attained success, i.e. their local industries became mature enough to compete internationally. But I suspect we agree - different trade policies are needed for different stages of development. Fledgling industries need protection, while mature industries want to expand into foreign markets. Where conflict arises is when mature industries want to expand into developing markets, crushing any local competition. Sometimes this is mutually beneficial (not every country can have leading edge semiconductor fabs), other times it is not (nobody needs McDonald's to feed their country), but those industries will still lobby for trade deals for market access, and use neoliberal trade theory to justify it as mutually beneficial.