I've been recently studying more ancient Chinese history and the game of Weiqi (Go, as it is known in the US). Weiqi is a good way to understand the sociopolitical strategies of China. In Weiqi, it is often easier to surround and assimilate (embrace and extend) than it is to invade and conquer. If there is a grand strategy of the current political heads of China, it is to make China the pivot point of the world. America goes forth and spread democracy; I think the Chinese prefers to get other countries to orbits around them, the way the earth orbits inside the sun's gravity well.

An observation of the inventiveness of the (Han) Chinese I think is best written by Neal Stephenson in his essay published in Wired Magazine in 1994: http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/2.02/mao.bell.html

"This article is the result of a two-week trip to Hong Kong, Shenzhen, and Shanghai during September '93, during which I tried to get some sense of how the Chinese perceived the influence of technology - particularly digital technology - on their culture.

The answer is that this issue hasn't occurred to the Chinese yet, and probably never will, because it basically stems from a Western, post-Enlightenment perspective. Going to China and asking people about the Hacker Ethic is like going to Peoria and talking to the folks down at Ned's Feed & Grain about Taoism. The hacking part comes to them easily enough - China is, in a sense, a nation of analog hackers quickly entering the digital realm. But I didn't see any urge to draw profound, cosmic conclusions from the act of messing around with technology. "

It's true. People's perspective has been changing recently. Plus, when you have 1.6 billion of them, you can bet a good amount of the people are forward thinking (but a lot more are backward thinking too.)