[dnautics]

> Did big businesses in the West really think “investing” in China would lead to “freedom” and such? Isn’t that framing a bit naive?

It worked in south korea and taiwan which were severe military dictatorships before (maybe you could throw japan im there too?) so the history of capitalism liberalizing countries isn't all failures

[vkou]

SK was a capitalist dictatorship for almost as long as has been a capitalist democracy.

There's literally nothing about democracy that capitalism finds necessary or even particularly attractive.

[msabalau]

Yeah, so what?

There was definitely a broad (not universal) triumphalist belief on the part of both elites and the broader population in the West after the fall of the Berlin Wall and disintegration in the 90s that capitalism and democracy were intertwined and the triumph of both was inevitable.

This widespread belief doesn't have to be true to help contribute to explaining why decisions were made to allow broad economic integration with and technology transfer to China, in a ways that never really happened with the Soviet Union, and only happened in very limited ways with China prior to the collapse of the Soviet bloc.

People who burnt witches generally believed that witches existed. That belief doesn't have to be true to be useful in contributing to explain the behavior.

[vkou]

I mean, yes, you are right, I lived through all that, and I remember it well.

But to me, even at the time, this was at best, magical-thinking bullshit. But what does a teenager know..? I just write the things my teachers tell me to and get graded on them.

The massive backslide in Russia throughout the 90s and 00s towards autocracy at the same time as it was turning into a capitalist country... Wasn't exactly a state secret.

Warsaw pact states tying themselves to a democratic union in an effort to get as far as they could from Russia was, I think, the larger reason most of them didn't go down the same road.