Edgar Snow, Kissinger, Business Roundtable, Wall Street, US mainstream media.

All of them sold the American public and US politicians on the belief that the Chinese Communist Party would change into a multiparty democracy eventually, even when the CCP repeatedly stated that they would not allow "peaceful evolution" 和平演变 in all their speeches.

This repeats over and over. In the 1980s, there were the Afghan freedom fighters against Soviet occupation. Among that lot was Osama bin-Laden.

Some things never change.