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Hey Glenn: The underlying incentive for increasing trade relations with a country like China (in a geopolitical sense) is to expose them to the outside world in ways that would not otherwise happen, and through that exposure, influence their populations to absorb some of our values. That through that process, working conditions would improve, freedom of expression would proliferate, etc. The naive part of that is to think that our open society and free wheeling ways would overcome the ability of an authoritarian regime to totally stifle that movement. It was intended as a trap for them, but with the reliance of Western corporate interests on that trade, it was us who became trapped…for the time being.

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