In 2008, before his first serious bid for the US presidency, Donald Trump expressed unreserved admiration for China’s economic model. Back then, China was seen as a place where capitalists like him could freely pursue profits without any regulatory restraints:

In China, they fill up hundreds of acres of land, constantly dumping and dumping dirt in the ocean. I asked the builder, did you get an environmental impact study? He goes, “What?” I asked, “Did you need approval?” No, the Chinese said. And yet if I am the last guy to drop one pebble in the ocean here in this city, I will be given the electric chair.

In the same spirit, British billionaire Alan Sugar, host of the UK version of The Apprentice, was horrified by the prospect of Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour Party coming to power, suggesting in 2015 that “if they ever got anywhere near electing him [Corbyn] and him being the prime minister then I think we should all move to China.”