Look at actions not words.
Comparing the damage to NATO economies vis a vis to China's, it's clear who is still in the driver's seat and who can afford to keep disrupting the other without taking personal losses.
China's fighting path is to hollow out the US as much as possible while increasing the economical and tech gap between the 2 countries. 2 years into Ukraine and US wasn't able to make their own replacements for DJI, or pump out replacement levels of AD missiles. NGAD returned to drawing board while J-XY moving ahead by all accounts.
Most certainly if China is hostile all the time and refuses to work with US on anything, US would have been forced to improve. The key to a succesful sanctions regime/economic war against a near peer economy is to leave them paths of least resistance, trying to cut off everything and act hostile all the time only leads them to developing their own tech and industry. Even in small economies like Iran. Boiling frogs.
Realistically, China should keep widening the gap until the day the west isn't profitable anymore. Then it can use it's overwhelming forces to reopen the west's gates for continued profit.
Disingenuous argument as China has proportionally much less expats that other developed countries. Also I'm not seeing the benefits China has "bend over backwards" to give in the EU or on mainland USA. You'd have assumed if these entities had the blessing of the world's largest economy, they wouldn't have runaway inflation.
