mostly free trade cultists and individuals heavily invested in china in the early 90's. the former were naive and the latter were lying. a new reason besides toppling bolshevism was needed to continue america's trading relationship with china. enter the narrative "if we open our markets to china, communism would wither away." it never happened; what did happen was the west became more like china, especially in regards to the expansion of the surveillance state in western nations, particularly the us.
United States