One senior manager for a US multinational household-products brand with large investments in China told me that “Chinese people don’t want freedom” in the way people in the West do.

He’d spoken to workers in his factories, he insisted, and he’d concluded they had no interest in politics at all. “They’re happier earning money,” he said.

Somewhere along the way many of the traders and engagers – corporations and governments alike – seemed to have simply dropped the lofty promise of bringing political freedom to China.

Increasing prosperity now seemed to be enough on its own.

So, what changed?

Firstly, public opinion. From 2018 onwards, the Uyghur diaspora began to speak out about the disappearance of their family members into Xinjiang’s giant prison camps, despite the clear risk that doing so might bring further costs and punishments for those relatives back home.

China at first seemed shocked by the international reaction.

After all, Western governments had long tolerated many facets of Beijing’s repression while continuing to trade and engage.

Even before Mr Xi took office, the targeting of religious belief, the jailing of dissidents and the brutal enforcement of the one-child policy were an integral part of the political system, not a mere side effect.

But the mass incarceration of an entire people – designated a threat solely on the basis of their culture and identity – had a big impact on global public opinion because of its historic resonances in Europe and beyond.

Corporations with supply chains in Xinjiang were facing the mounting concern of consumers, and governments were coming under increasing political pressure to act.

There were other issues too – including the swiftness with which Beijing has crushed dissent in Hong Kong, its militarisation of the South China Sea and the growing threats over Taiwan…