Who are those next generation of China's leaders that you know of? Do you have names? Are you privy to the inner world of the CPC? Or do you assume future Chinese leaders are like that just by reading what posters write on this forum? China's next generation of leaders will not be elected into power by a mass of nationalistic, short-term thinking voters. They will be tested, evaluated, groomed, and qualified by a meritocratic system that is far wiser the common voters. Populist, and nationalistic imbeciles like Trump, Trudeau, Modi, Yoon, Marcos Jr. or Milei will have no chance of coming close to becoming top leaders in China. So you don't have to worry about the future of China's leadership. Bottom line is: China is not the same as Russia or any other common democracies. You are quite arrogant with how you think that you know China and Russia.
How the USSR fell is a complex process. But one of the big contributing factors is that it became yet another imperialist empire despite starting out with socialist roots. The USSR played its empire games in Europe, the Middle East, and in Asia. It could not accept China, a nation that was supposedly be beneath it, becoming a major player in Asia. It was fighting the Western bloc in the West, and China in the East at the same time. It needed to sustain the Warsaw Pact in the West. It needed to put millions of troops on the borders facing China, as well prop-up its Asian allies against China. It had to meddle in Afghanistan to save one of its few Asian allies bordering China. The USSR basically overextended, and its economy couldn't keep up. Why couldn't its economy keep up? Because it was a military-first economy, not unlike that of the imperial powers of old like the Russian Empire, and German Empire. When common Soviet citizens become increasingly unhappy, the central authority loses its grip on power. Had the USSR trusted China as an partner, it would have been able to sustain the Cold War with the West with far less strain on its economy.
By the time the Soviets realized that they were in trouble, it still wasn't too late. But it was that naivety that it can join the Western club that sealed its final doom. Instead of thinking for itself and gradually evolving according to own circumstances, the Soviets wanted to become like the West overnight. In its desperation, it made a deal with the devil: The West. The end result was the fall, and the ongoing calamity of the post-Soviet regions that we see till today. The Soviet Union's fall was mostly of its own doing. Putin lamented the fall of the Soviet Union as a grave tragedy. The leader of the Russian Communist Party, Zyuganov lamented that had the Soviet Union learned from Deng's reforms in China, it wouldn't have collapsed.
You're gravely mistaken into thinking that China is gonna follow the path of the USSR or Russia. China is following its own path; it is not walking into any US Cold War trap. China is not playing empire out there. Whatever territorial disputes that China is engaged right now is actually defending its own legitimate territorial claims. If you look at the map, these hotspots are actually around China's periphery. China does not maintain overseas territories off the coast of the US or Europe. China's military is big, but its mainly concentrated at home. Whatever overseas forces that China deploys is for anti-piracy, and anti-terrorist operations. And those overseas forces were deployed there on the invitation and approval of the host countries and the UN. China doesn't have a permanent PLA deployment in Pakistan to face India. China doesn't have a PLAN fleet on permanent deployment in the Indian Ocean or the Mediterranean Sea. China is not in any grand military alliance like NATO, or the CSTO. The SCO is not an equivalent to NATO, because there are no binding obligations to militarily defend member states. BRI is not an empire, because while China does have overwhelming economic power, it makes deals with nations on a roughly equal footing, instead of forcing its will on them. If anything, recipients of BRI have often abused deals with China with no serious consequences. Try telling the IMF that you can't pay your debts, and suddenly wanting to walk away from a deal.
Finally, I would argue that it is the US that is walking into its very own Cold War trap. The US is engaged in wars, its military is stretched around the world, and it had to maintain its numerous bases and fleets. The US economy is over-leveraged to the point of impossible recovery. Foreign opinions of the US are falling rapidly, no matter how much its media tries to spin it. The US military and elites are swimming in dollars, while the average US citizen is suffering from a rapid fall in living standards. The US can't even maintain its infrastructure, let alone build new ones. American streets are filling up with drugs, the homeless, crime, insanity, and depravity. This doesn't look like a superpower in its prime, it looks more like a sick man. Yet it still wants to start a Cold War with a much healthier superpower who is not interested in one. The last one certainly killed a superpower. The current one is killing another superpower, and that is not China.