> Protectionism and self-sufficiency is the same thing

please revisit the dictionary

There’s no local industry to protect if you ain’t self-sufficiency. And it’s damn hard to protect self-sufficiency long term without protectionism if possible at all.

protectionism is an optional downstream branch of self-sufficiency - being self-sufficient does not automatically imply that it will devolve into protectionism

But without protectionism self-sufficiency is very likely to fall apart. Be it Chinese manufacturing or EU agriculture.