Westerners have almost uniformly understood China since Mao as a liberalizing country. No longer do political campaigns bypass liberal principles in the name of revolution. And no longer does China pursue policies that limit foreign influence in the Chinese economy. Perhaps the 1989 Tiananmen Massacre awakened some to the lack of liberalization in China, but 25 years is long enough to foster forgetfulness or enable some to lessen the Massacre as an aberration in a liberalization narrative decades in the making. Such beliefs are easily understood but entirely misleading.