[varenc]

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

Yes I think. At least a lot of Western policymakers did buy a "change through trade/investment" story, and it wasn't pulled from nowhere because it had worked in the past.

In postwar Japan and later South Korea, integration into the West's economic system coincided with eventual democratization, closer alignment of values, and alliance.

It was reasonable to think the same thing would work in China, but that doesn't seem to be the case.

Also the US intentionally set China up for investment by doing things like bringing them into the WTO. All that investment wouldn't have happened without some level of government support.

[jzb]

I think it’s more accurate to say that Western policymakers sold that story to the public on behalf of the companies that bought, er, lobbied them.

[varenc]

I'd totally believe they would have lobbied for it, but even absent lobbying I think policymakers would look at historical trends and conclude that deeper western economic times would ultimately benefit the West strategically as well. Lobbying could have further incentivized and accelerated it though.

[ChrisMarshallNY]

> South Korea

Didn't they have a dictatorship or two for quite a while? I think they've only been a democracy in fact, for about 35 years.

[refurb]

Right. They liberalized as they became more wealthy.

As did Taiwan.

[comfysocks]

True, but both SK and Taiwan had always wanted to be more aligned with the West as they needed to be under the US defense umbrella. The liberalization could only come after gaining stability.

On the other hand, China has always sought to regain what it considers to be its rightful place as a first world power and to recover from its “century of humiliation.”

I think the CCP has been pretty consistent in this stance. Policy makers in the West that didn’t notice were blinded by corporate wishful thinking.

[refurb]

You’re confusing the faction leading the country with the people themselves.

South Korea and Taiwan as countries don’t have an inherent will to align with the West. The countries are made up people with different beliefs, some are more aligned to democracy (what you call the West) and some aren’t. Even today Taiwan has a political party that is pro-CCP.

The logic is not that the CCP will suddenly want to align with the West, it’s that the people will become more pro-Democratic as they become more developed (both economically and politically).

[comfysocks]

No, I’m intentionally speaking of the leadership. Yes there are dissidents in China (and Russia and NK…) but the governments have been able to make their work seem futile.

There are also some Chinese who are happy to live in a police state. There are also some US citizens who would like more of a police state, provided the police are on their side of the culture wars.

The fantasy is that capitalism automatically breeds liberal democracy. Sometimes it does, but don’t forget it can work the other way too. It was the excesses of capitalism in the gilded age that led to the rise socialist revolutions in the first place. Sometimes might say today’s billionaire capitalists are becoming like the robber barrons of the gilded age.