Globalism is a disaster for human rights. There is little evidence of oppressive regimes liberalizing due to "free trade." Instead, globalism gives oppressive regimes the economic muscle to stifle criticism of even the most egregious offenses, like China's concentration camps.
In theory, globalism would improve human rights by raising the standard of living in oppressed nations and making violent repression of unhappy citizens unnecessary. In practice, it produces wealth that is looted by corrupt elites and funneled into the machinery of oppression.
China got rich from globalism, and while the standard of life for many Chinese improved dramatically, that wealth was also used to finance the creation of the most pervasive, sophisticated, inescapable surveillance state the world has ever seen.
Globalism makes it harder for civilized nations to refuse commercial and cultural engagement with oppressive and savage regimes. The net effect is lowering - really all but eliminating - the standards for accessing the lucrative economies of free nations.
Trade was supposed to lead to cultural engagement that would inevitably bring Western values to oppressive regimes. Instead the opposite happened. Totalitarian ideals and practices are seeping into free nations. We must compromise our values to keep doing business with THEM.
One of the many problems with bowing to authoritarian demands to maintain access to their lucrative markets is that domestic actors begin wondering why they can't get the same consideration for THEIR speech codes that Beijing can compel for those of the Chinese Communist Party.
The past few years have seen American cancel culture adopt the same kind of "sharp power" tactics to compel obedience from corporations that China has been using. The language U.S. pressure groups use is almost identical to Chinese Communist boilerplate.
A generation ago, we missed a rare opportunity to make meaningful political reform the price for accessing the wealth created by classical liberalism, because we assumed that wealth carried a viral payload of classical liberal ideals. We were horribly mistaken. /end
