> "doubling down on liberal democracy" got us to where we are now wrt China.
Banning all the paths to growth got the US to where it is now. Everything China did to out-compete the US was illegal in the US - the working conditions wouldn't have passed muster, the environmental damage wouldn't have been acceptable, the investment in cheap energy was off the agenda and the focus on heavy industry was broadly against the policy position which focused on financialisation and growing service industries.
We can argue until the cows come home which policies were the important ones (it is clear that some of what China does is counterproductive) but a key factor was legislative restrictions in the West. That is the opposite of the liberal part of liberal democracy. A key part of liberalism is giving people freedom to better their own lives.
Banning all the paths to growth got the US to where it is now. Everything China did to out-compete the US was illegal in the US - the working conditions wouldn't have passed muster, the environmental damage wouldn't have been acceptable, the investment in cheap energy was off the agenda and the focus on heavy industry was broadly against the policy position which focused on financialisation and growing service industries.
We can argue until the cows come home which policies were the important ones (it is clear that some of what China does is counterproductive) but a key factor was legislative restrictions in the West. That is the opposite of the liberal part of liberal democracy. A key part of liberalism is giving people freedom to better their own lives.