> The threat from China has been existent and ignored for the past 30 years, the same 30 years that China rose from 3rd world country to the superpower it is today.
... I'm moved to note that it was Kissinger, as part of the post-WWII globalization effort, who helped China industrialize.
As I understand it, the idea is that war is less likely among nations, at comparable levels of economic and technological development, whose economies are strongly linked through trade.
The Soviet Union had helped China develop militarily, with tanks, ships, planes, missiles, and nuclear weapons. But it did a shit job, overall. So diverting China from ideological military confrontation to economic interdependence seemed like a smart move.
Longer term, though -- as you argue -- we have an overall stronger adversary than the Soviet Union would likely have become. They could have, with our help, destroyed modern civilization. But they arguably would have never dominated the world as the US has since WWII. As China may.