[onepointsixC]

>I mean, one could argue that free trade (well, more trade) is going to make your society more free in general, is going to introduce more ideas and things like that, I suppose, and you could also argue that trading more with a country makes it less likely you will go to war with them, but these things aren't really about crushing your competitor.

One who would argue something like that in the face of the decidedly not free CCP run society that is modern China is fooling themselves. And their mode of operation is most certainly about crushing competitors.

[lsc]

I freely admit that I don't know a whole lot about China, and even less about the government of China. But I do know a fair number of people who are or were Chinese citizens who either now work here or do a lot of business with the US.

That's what I mean by trade spreading ideas. These people clearly have learned a lot from American culture (and I have learned a lot from them) - I personally think that when trying to get things done, the more people you have from different backgrounds, the more different ideas you have, and the more likely you are to come up with a good solution.

(And further, this trade war, as I understand it, isn't about talking the CCP into treating it's citizens better, it's about tariffs and subsidies, matters with far less moral force.)