[radicaldreamer]

The whole point of the West's policies is to increase competition at the low end of the labor market (manual, commodity, factory) while maintaining protectionism at the high end (intellectual property, media, culture, and technology), which is not coincidentally where elites are concentrated. The idea is to keep the price of labor as low as possible (to maximize profit for the owners of enterprises).

[Fjolsvith]

How does the West's policies increase competition at the low end of the labor market? By your argument, the West is harming itself by cutting off access to cheap Chinese labor.

[mistermann]

Are you sure that's the whole point? Undisputed superpower of the world isn't exactly a minor detail, I'm pretty sure China has that at least in the back of their minds.