This is a really horrendous precedent and it bodes ill for the future. China is going to use their economic might to leverage silence of criticism of its treatment of Hong Kong, Tibet, its Muslim Population, Taiwan, activities in the South China Sea and any other areas of controversy.
Global economic neoliberalism (mainly through trade) was suppose to move China towards freedom, instead Chinese neo-mercantalism has weaponized international trade into a tool to continue its oppression and silence its critics.
I'd argue it's been going on for some time now, with the Blizzard game company last year, the Reddit purges and the ongoing NBA issues, and It's absolutely going to accelerate. The conduct of the Chinese government is the most concerning part of a Biden administration and at least half of my motivation for voting for Trump is keeping Mike Pompeo as S.O.S. (who's done an excellent job as far as China and HK is concerned ).
The bolded is extremely important, the common narrative that China practices the same market-capitalism as liberal states (most often by people either far-leftists or simply not-political) is extremely disingenuous. The closest parrallel is the mercantilism practiced by the Dutch/Spanish/British empires in the 17th and 18th centuries, but with IP theft.
