Brilliantly put. I think one of the reasons this kind of liberalism is so enticing to so many is that liberalism is excellent at promising everything. We saw a similar situation with the USSR, where the western liberals promised that the citizens of the USSR could have everything they ever wanted under liberalism, and so there were calls for liberalisation, and liberalism is an ideology that cannot fail, it can only be failed, so the USSR’s attempts at liberalisation were “failures” when they didn’t give the people what they were promised, and the people were told that if they just liberalise a little bit more, everything they’ve ever wanted would be theirs.

I would imagine a similar situation in China as well, LGBTQ liberals could easily be swayed by the west’s empty promises. After all, if you only hear about the west’s opinion on gay rights from very loud internet liberals, you’d probably come away with the idea that the west is a haven of LGBTQ acceptance. No country is perfect, but liberalism is really good at tricking people that perfection is just a few liberalising reforms away…