Someone should kindly inform you that this comment was unnecessarily defensive.

There was no "how dare you" attitude, China-blaming, or really any negativity at all in their comment. All they did was use the common phrase "space race." There was no offense in that.

Consider this: when people run in a foot race with many other people, they don't think "how dare they participate in a race with me!!"

I hope you have a good day.

Doesn't matter what you want to call it but competition / research in the reusable launch sector is a good thing for all of us.