it's precisely the same kind of progress ... in the early 1900s, we were the poor country with plucky workers willing to do the hard manufacturing work. Then our middle class grew, and we no longer wanted to do that work, so we offloaded it to other countries. China is now going through that same growth. Eventually, their people will not want to do that work, and they will shunt it off to some other country (maybe using their massive investments in africa)

Well, yes, they have to play catch up now because we were/are ahead of them.

The question is whether or not they will always be playing catch up, and whether or not that's directly related to the personal freedom of their citizens.

Yes, my point is that we still don't know, so it's early to use them as evidence one way or the other. And with a lack of evidence, Chesterton's Fence implies we shouldn't touch it.