I agree but that's not at all what I was getting at. Quite the opposite. The mistake America made, what made it vulnerable, was playing everything like a zero sum game. We're in the early days of that behavior coming to roost.
> China played the smart long game and took advantage of America's...
Zero sum games imply that if there is a winner, there has to be a loser. That one country takes advantage of another.
“If you assume everyone only has hammers, you'll end up getting screwed”, or something like that.
I didn't bother responding earlier, and I'm not sure why I'm responding now because I don't think "because they framed things as a zero-sum game." explains anything, and it sounds like something that sounded like a retort but offered without any evidence means nothing.
If even the suggestion of considering different points of view feels like an attempt to disprove your own position, then that mainly says something about how you are approaching this exchange.