They view it as a success and have double down on it, while the rest of the world continued to feed them knowledge free minds across continents spent centuries to accumulate. In short, they only took the useful bits to strengthen the government's grip on the population while leaving out all those things that made the vast amount of knowledge possible. They are getting all human knowledge for free, while it it not the same for us.
Strategically, this position is untenable. The free world is defenseless until we demand reciprocity. Balkanization, be that as it may, it's not the end, but a means to an end, the end should be all open for every one.
> leaving out all those things that made the vast amount of knowledge possible
No. This is the conceit of the humanities to attribute the past few centuries of industrial and scientific progress to their work. The Soviets, the Nazis, and the Japanese Empire all managed to progress useful knowledge while believing in completely different ideologies. Your John Lockes and Thomas Paines made no real contribution to the discovery of Penicillin or the Transistor. The idea that censoring ideology will stunt technological growth is a fantasy believed in only by ideologues.
I strongly advise you to look into the Needham Question. China could have industrialized a millennium ago, and yet it hadn't until around 50 years ago. Insulating one from knowledge can have tremendous effect on growth for centuries. All Soviets, Nazi and Japanese progress are built on ideas and attitudes first found in Reformation Europe.
The solution isn't more added on top. When China is your example of somewhere that is leading the way in doing something on the internet first, it's time to look at yourself long and hard in the mirror.
