"protectionism" is morally neutral to anyone except a hegemon. A nation can decide to protect itself from free expression and abolition of slavery just as it can protect itself from unsafe food imports and price dumping. It all depends on who is being protected from what.
You know exactly what kind of protectionism we are talking about here: economic protectionism. The kind that has to be employed by a decaying empire whose populist, anti-entrepreneurial, anti-business and anti-innovation policies led to it losing the high-tech race and now instead of working together for progress is walling itself off to dream of the memory of its lost glory.
