This has been a trope in scifi since years.
I remember the original Black Ops 2 video game campaign literally built on microprocessors all coming from China.
I remember the original Black Ops 2 video game campaign literally built on microprocessors all coming from China.
Without the USSR, the US didn’t have any other power to serve as a credible enemy.
I’m certainly not some insightful prophet: I can’t discount SF playing its part in influencing me; but it also makes sense in the long term (Carthage and Rome; Greece Polis’ and Persia…).
Headbutting is inevitable and China clearly was getting stronger even in the 1990s.
In Black Ops 2 the campaign is about stopping a latin american drug lord/terrorist who is trying to start war between the US and China to wipe them both out. He is developing some magic chip quantum tech to hack into both the US and China to trigger a war. Activision has taken the Hollywood approach and carefully avoided making China a bad guy.