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I mean, if the chasm China had to cross was 'not have mass manufactured textiles' -> 'having mass manufactured textiles' I don't think anyone would have an issueI guess we're so benevolent as to allow them to also steal the fire and wheel IP.
But textiles were part of the 17th-18th century chasm the US had to overcome. China has the equivalent 20-21st century chasms, which are not about textiles but more modern manufacturing and IP.
>Now, China is not only technologically competitive, but an authoritarian regime. Theft of IP no longer represents trying to get to where the rest of the world is, but rather trying to dominate it.
And yet, China has been non-intervetionist for most (all) of its existance (except for neighbor disputes all countries have), whereas the US has been in constant wars (literally, in the old sense, meaning: literally).
If anything, China itself was invaded, from the British and the Japanese.
Them being authoritate is, (a concept seemingly forgotten in the era of rampant interventionism and lack of respect for sovereignity), their problem.
Their people can take them up for it, now, or when they find it convenient. Or they might prefer it that way, for their own (e.g. cultural or historical) reasons. Or just because it works for them (since they did good, poverty, technology, education, etc. wise in the last 50 years or so).
Authoritative concerns are used politically (and thus selectively and at convenient times). When China was a convenient outsourcing outlet for US companies, being "authoritative" didn't matter one iota. When China grew more competitive itself, it suddenly became a problem.
>If you do it for freedom and democracy vs. authoritarianism, that matters.
Who "does it" for "freedom and democracy"? US businesses or state interests? They do it for control, greed, and lining their pockets, lip service to useful (for polemic) notions aside. And they do it in a much worse way (invasions, bombing, blackmailing governments, toppling governments, banana republics, etc) than anything China has done.
To the point that "delivering democracy" has become an international joke.
(Note also how they're also except from war criminal international treaties, environmental treaties, etc: "we judge, we don't allow anyone to judge us").