Mexico was vastly wealthier than China through the 70's and 80's[1], this wouldn't have worked. Western notions tend to partition the world into "rich" and "po

Mexico was vastly wealthier than China through the 70's and 80's[1], this wouldn't have worked. Western notions tend to partition the world into "rich" and "poor" countries, but in fact there's a lot of variety even there. Mexico has been growing alongside the US economy for centuries and is only "poor" in comparison. And people tend to wildly misunderstand the depth of poverty seen in post-war China (and thus how radical a change the last two generations have been there, which explains a lot of "why do the Chinese people tolerate the CCP?"). [1] The chart I found here shows that the PRC only passed Mexico in the last handful of years, actually: https://countryeconomy.com/countries/compare/mexico/china?sc=XE34 https://countryeconomy.com/countries/compare/mexico/china?sc...