Originally Posted by moondog

I don't think things will stay exactly the same because they are clearly taking baby steps in the right direction, and they certainly care about their economy (e.g. citizens who can't eat tend to be unhappy). That having been said, the self-reliance policies predate Covid by several years. For example, pre-X, it was fairly common for people to visit China on business visas and effectively work in their companies' China offices, denying tax revenues as a result. X put the breaks on this practice with remarkable efficacy. Then, look at all of the private (mostly ESL) schools that were booted. The main argument there was that these schools and training centers provided an unfair advantage to wealthy families. However, the result was obviously fewer foreigners. This actually seems to have been pretty well-received among rank and file citizens