[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.