[remarkEon]

I waiver back and forth between thinking that this was just institutional naivete or an intentional graft based on the thought that "China will surpass us eventually ... so how do we profit?" held by a lot of Elites at the time (and probably today).

[devoply]

China will surpass us? How does a country which was in China's position during Nixon's time we're talking about a country of farmers, create such thoughts. No the prevailing thought was that if we bring China in line with our power structure their elites and their children will join us at the top and help us exploit their population so that we can continue to make untold amounts of profit. Unfortunately, China's elites decided against that dream.

[remarkEon]

During Nixon's time, maybe. But that hasn't been the tone for a while. Today it's "market of a billion people" this, "incredible growth curve" that (even if people suspected or even knew it was all BS). There was certainly a vein of neoliberal thought that went the way you are going, where the more their market opens up the more they "democratize".

>China's elites decided against that dream

For them I think it was much more a nightmare than a dream.