Uh - Actually, Hong Kong was not part of China back then. Until very recently, it was a British protectorate, a colony of sorts. When the British lease of Hong Kong expired a few years ago, it reverted to China. At that time China re-asserted its sovereigty over the Island and its mainland vicinities. But it exercised none at all previously.

Moreover, the Nixon-Kissenger chinese initiatives were related to diplomatic intrigues of the nations, and did very little to change the economic relations between the United States and China. Many trade restrictions remained - based upon the fact of slave and near slave labor being rampant, as well as many other human rights issues.

That is - many trade restrictions remained, up until China was granted "Most Favored Nation Status" by the US State Dept. under Bill Clinton, not long after his re-election. This despite the fact that no progress had been made at all in Chinese human rights. In fact, human rights violations had grown much worse by then.

All this happened while the media was blowing the whistle about all the millions in Chinese Government contributions to his re-election campaign - a blatantly illegal act on the part of any President! But the media's whistles were ignored and soon forgotten - distracted away actually.

But now - we must compete with near slave labor and even child labor, serious abuses of the environment, and many substandard manufacturing processes; while at the same time, our own industry must meet a much higher and costlier standard of employee relations, environmental protections and higher standards in general. There is no way in hell anyone could compete on such a tilted playing field, and it is thus destroying our once great industrial might.

Stupid us!

Nay - Stupid Presidents! Three in a row - Now!
Or did they really intend to wreck the country?