>>17849222
>China has none of these qualities
China has several other stats that are in their favor that are far more important than more abstract concepts like HDI or GDP.
An example would be research, where top Chinese universities such as Tsinghua, Peking, and Nanjing along with other ones punch well above their weight given the country they are in and produce some of the most important and cutting-edge research and scientists in the world (no matter how unethical or dystopian the research often is). China brutally mogs every country in terms of industrial capacity in virtually every field (with some vital exceptions such as chips), they have the busiest ports, conduct the most international trade of any country in the world, and have the largest (and most rapidly modernizing) military. The Belt and Road is the largest infrastructure program in history and has had an impact on the third world comparable to the Marshall Plan, while China has also managed to swallow the economic influence of the U.S in several deeply entrenched American spheres of influence such as East Asia, Australia, Eastern and Southern Europe, and Latin America.
These are the things the U.S really needs to worry about, and it is the sad reality that the U.S is increasingly uncapable or unwilling to confront due to both imperial hubris and rampant institutional rot domestically.