> If we're going to repeat the same cycle with Vietnam and India, we'd do well to encourage democracy this go-around.

I don't think the idea is to introduce democracy, because it's cheaper if the people making our consumer goods had less rights. It was like that with the original banana republics, and it's like that now. Sure we the people may want democracy and we may elect people who want to spread democracy (like Obama or Merkel bringing up the topic of human rights in talks with China) but corporations run the world. And we the people prefer having cheap phones and clothes rather than pay the "made in a democratic country" tax.

You bring up climate change, well, maybe the Chinese government was wondering if they could keep up their oppression, but maybe they also think, "well, just 30 more years, and the world's going to end after that anyway."