There is a quote from Larry Niven's novel "Lucifer's Hammer" that is something like "a society has the ethics that it can afford." Its pretty easy as an uncontested industrial super-power to take the hit to GDP that comes with regulation of working conditions, environment impact and so on. We didn't become an industrial superpower under those conditions and we are certainly no longer uncontested. China is going to do what it has to do, just like we did.