[ardy42]

> It's pretty much the whole world that got screwed by this, and China itself hasn't exactly escaped unscathed.

But authoritarian China has done far, far better than most of the rest of the world (and especially better than the US, the supposed standard-bearer of liberty and freedom). If you actually care about liberty, one of your priorities should be making sure it actually performs better than the alternatives. Acting foolishly and using liberty as an excuse just soils the reputation of the latter. If that pattern continues, I expect liberty will end up on the retreat worldwide.

I'm not so sure the cold war would have turned out the way it did, if the USSR, for all its oppression, managed to consistently provide comparable or superior material living standards to its citizens. It certainly wouldn't have had such a problem with defectors.