Friendly reminder that, on the whole, there’s nothing “friendly” about the frankly horrifying Chinese and Russian human rights records, so “friendly” Lemmings begging us to focus on the single cherry-picked tree instead of the forest of atrocities might not be as “friendly” as they claim.
There are many shortcomings and worrying trends in the EU and the United States, but let’s hold off on the false equivalencies to countries that engage in genocide, jail or “disappear” dissent, and (until recently) engaged in forced sterilization and/or abortion for women against their will as part of the One-Child policy. So yes, China is very “friendly” and “progressive” /s. As for modern Russia (since you’re only mentioning the USSR), abortion is only legal as an elective procedure through the 12th week, requires a 2 to 7 day waiting period, and can be refused by the doctor against the patient’s wishes. When you talk smack about countries in the EU despite praising Russia for the exact same thing, it doesn’t exactly feel like you’re conversing in good faith.
You can’t call it free market capitalism when you’re literally restricting who can and can not import rice and then getting upset at yourself for the self-inflicted starvation. This isn’t capitalism, it’s the very definition of Protectionism, and yes: closed-matket protectionists are failing everywhere, from Brexiteers to MAGA morons, to closed-market rice farmers.
This isn’t to say that unfettered Capitalism is the answer, or that all protectionist policies are bad. Any policy taken to the extreme is guilty of the real sin: not learning from the strengths and weaknesses of the systems they rail against and using them to build a more robust and functional middle ground.