>it was the US who led the world in opening up to China in the 90s/early 2000s, opening its markets to China, bringing China into the WTO, etc. (all at great cost to middle class Americans). China was an economic basket case and incapable of developing on its own. No country in history has been more generous to another.
This is hilarious revisionism. We didn't do any of that out of generosity, we did it for profit. We saw a huge pool of cheap labor and decided we wanted to let our companies exploit that. We rubbed our hands together and grinned while selling them the proverbial rope.
If by "we" you mean the 1% of bankers and corporate executives who are the primary beneficiaries of drastically increased profit margins from outsourcing production to countries with no labor or environmental protections, then yes "we" did it for profit.
But if by "we" you mean the large portion of the US middle class whose financial security and upward mobility was obliterated, then no "we" did not do it for profit and were extremely generous, sacrificial even, in lifting hundreds of millions of Chinese out of poverty when the CCP was unable to do that on their own.
The second "we" was all too happy, and still is, to buy cheaper products, even when apprised of the economic consequences. The third beneficiaries are businesses, for whom components and manufacturing are now vastly cheaper, enabling further (taxable) wealth generation that could support the middle-class.
If the US had a sensible culture (and hence democratically driven government policy) behind education, a skilled labor pool could have emerged to develop high-tech manufacturing that leveraged China's low-skill labor pool. Instead, China has 'hid its strength, and bided its time', establishing its own high-skill labor pool and advanced manufacturing capability, giving it substantial leverage over the entire world, without so much as starting a proxy war, usurping foreign lands, assassinating foreign political leaders, etc.
US hegemony is absolutely its own to lose, but it all depends on the culture driving it.
This is hilarious revisionism. We didn't do any of that out of generosity, we did it for profit. We saw a huge pool of cheap labor and decided we wanted to let our companies exploit that. We rubbed our hands together and grinned while selling them the proverbial rope.