I guess you're referring to how trade has not lead to liberalism of the Chinese and I wasn't suggesting it would. There are plenty of elite in China who have benefited from trade outside of the regime and that's probably still one of the biggest threats to the regime within China. As soon a China loses the 'mandate from heaven' we could see the alternatives move in.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mandate_of_Heaven
Not to be confused with the American Revolution era Navy flag that has a pine tree and the motto “an appeal to heaven”. That flag was recently in the news because the wife of a Supreme Court justice flew it at their house.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pine_Tree_Flag
Coincidently, both “mandate from heaven” and “an appeal to heaven” define a right to rebellion.
For example, Russia would have had a hard time policing their rambunctious oligarchs who would have used corruption to undermine the Putin regime to obtain more power for themselves - perhaps they could have supplied backing to Prigozhin with an offer that they could replace the Putin regime with something better. By sanctioning the oligarchs it forced all of the oligarchs to abandon any hope of competing with Putin and greatly strengthened Putins grip on power. Sanctioning polices the behavior of the Russian oligarchs much more effectively than Putins regime could have done, effectively outsourcing the cost of compliance to less corruptible 3rd parties.