The U.S. has been pushing China for several decades. In the 70s, it made geopolitical sense during the Cold War to promote a counter-force to the Soviets on their own continent. This was the Nixon/Kissinger plan... it made sense at the time, but after the Cold War ended, something strange happened.
Wall Street firms realized the potential windfall they could realize from building up China. This was mutually beneficial for both the U.S. financial firms and for Chinese people. Tens of millions were lifted out of poverty in the decades that followed in the wake of "globalization". And that's a good thing, but it came at a price to Americans....
Domestic manufacturing was sacrificed. Multinational corporations moved production to China to save labor costs and skirt U.S. regulations (that had become increasingly difficult/unprofitable to comply with). In return, the U.S. government got a seemingly endless buyer of its debt to service the trade deficit. But Americans felt the change by a falling standard of living.
On December 11, 2001, the U.S. government pushed China into the WTO (World Trade Organization). This did several things. It gave Chinese firms "Most Favored Nation" trading status. This made all previous concessions to China (done 10 years prior) permanent. This gave Wall Street the green light to dump trillions of dollars into the Chinese economy over the next decade.
It also classified China as an "emerging economy"—a status they still have, which, under WTO rules, exempted it from things that "developed economies" were not allowed to do (e.g., tariffs, currency pegs, protective subsidies, etc.). All of which China continues to do today.
The biggest thing of all that NO ONE IS TALKING ABOUT is how this plays into the U.S. financial markets.
Chinese companies are allowed access to U.S. financial markets (think stock markets) with almost zero of the accounting rules that are imposed on U.S. companies that are listed. For example, $BABA has no requirement to follow or report Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (GAAP) rules that U.S. companies are by law forced to follow in order to be listed.
Furthermore, did you know that when you hold shares of a Chinese company in the U.S., what you actually hold is an American Depositary Receipt (ADR) likely held in the Cayman Islands, with no legal standing in the company's home country? Capital controls in China make it illegal for foreigners to hold legitimate shares in Chinese companies.
