Trade with China has traveled a messy and imperfect course over the past 25 years. Without a doubt, China is a much freer and more open nation than before foreign trade and investment. Sweatshops still flourish on the mainland, particularly in the south, but there are also pockets of free markets scattered throughout urban centers, most notably in Shanghai, where someone can actually open up the want ads and choose a job. China is really no longer a true communist nation; it is more a market-socialist economy run by the Communist party. The government opened up the economy because it had to for its very survival. As the world now knows from the collapse of the Soviet Union, communism, left to its own devices, will inevitably self-destruct and implode. It's only a matter of time.
By its very nature, communism is parasitic. It feeds off existing wealth, depleting resources without replenishing them. The Soviet Union held on as long as it did because it raped Eastern Europe after World War II, stripping away every last vestige of prosperity. Capitalism, on the other hand, is dynamic and regenerative. Not only does capitalism not eat away resources, it builds and creates new wealth. Communism must eventually feed off the unique rejuvenating character of capitalism once its own well has run dry. In short, communism needs capitalism in order to survive.
China and later Cuba have both turned to capitalism as a last ditch effort to preserve communism. In China, it has worked. The communist dictatorship across the Pacific is stronger from 25 years of foreign engagement, but it has come at the price of a burgeoning middle class and new freedoms afforded to millions that never existed before Nixon's fateful visit. Without America's trade and investment, however, China's communist dictatorship likely would have already collapsed under its own dead weight. Knowing that trade has facilitated the continued survival of communism in China, maybe we didn't choose the best path. But hindsight is irrelevant, because you cannot put the baby back in the womb. With China a major trading partner - and growing, a sudden fall of the regime is far from America's interests. In Cuba, however, we have no existing economic interests, and Castro is an old man. There are a few heir apparents, but Castro's cult of personality is the glue holding the deteriorating machine together. So long as the embargo remains in place, Castro's successor, and with him communism, will fail.***