It hasn't happened yet, but it might. The decline and fall of the Soviet bloc provides mixed evidence. Free markets and the free exchange of ideas are not novel practices there. But in Russia and those satellite nations long tied to it, free markets seem to have brought the most destructive features of capitalism while preserving the most corrupting influences of communist political and civic life.
China looks more like Russia than Poland or the Czech Republic.
It looks potentially more like its neighbor Singapore, which couples a booming capitalist economy with an oppressive political regime. Multilateral sanctions against Serbia and Iraq have had mixed results politically, and the sanctions against Iraq, which have caused dire shortages of food and medicine, may themselves now constitute a form of human rights abuse, especially against children. The example of South Africa calls to mind the pressure that U.S. stockholders brought to bear on companies doing business there, if only by embarrassing them. Recent efforts of a presidential task force to get U.S. apparel companies to agree upon worldwide minimum labor standards in the factories they own or buy from could have an impact on labor practices in China. A concerted and well-publicized effort of American consumers refusing to buy items made by children might slowly begin to eradicate exploitation of the young.