They know that while autocratic regimes are refining their methods, the countries that say they support human rights, such as the United States, can be unreliable when their own interests are at stake.

This is a huge one. There was a time when advanced nations could completely shut an autocratic country off from the rest of the world and that country would either change its ways or lag behind everyone else. Now those bad actors are global suppliers of vital resources like oil, rare earth metals, and anything electronic.

Advanced nations now have to decide on how many human rights abuses they’ll ignore in order to ensure they still get their next shipment.