You express youself well. Philip.

You're right. We got ourselves ahead of reality when dealing with China (in much similar ways as we did with Russia) in treating them as normal or "almost democracies" and belief that they would fall into place in just a little more time and especially with our engagement. With their particular leaders -- they didn't. (Years back I was aghast at how the UK gave literally the royal treatment to Xi Jinping). China leadership is stearing their country possibly into a dangerous position. Folks are happy when they have heavy pockets but should that change ( even in parts of the population) then social unrest is likely to surface and without democracy to accommodate necessary changes.