> This more-or-less summarizes American geopolitical and economic attitudes towards China from 1970 until 2016. That is misleading. First, China wasn't economi

> This more-or-less summarizes American geopolitical and economic attitudes towards China from 1970 until 2016. That is misleading. First, China wasn't economically productive in 1970, during the Cultural Revolution. It wasn't until the 1990s that things began to subtantially improve, and then take off in the 2000s. Also, they weren't so problematic - they were a good trading partner, and they were democratizing slowly: They had with a major setback in 1989, but were improving until Xi took over. Under Xi, it took a few years to see what would happen, which trends were temporary and which were long-term problems; which could be reversed and which would only get worse. I think the problem calcified, in large part, because the US abandoned universal human rights in large part. If the US doesn't advocate that, who will? How can people in China say that freedom is a right and democracy superior if the US doesn't.