Pointedly, I did not make any points about the state of the Chinese economy etc.

Rather, I observe that the Chinese continue to make large investments that will not pay off in the next couple of quarters. As the Chinese economy has expanded over the last 25 years, the average standard of living for Chinese people has increased. They continue to invest in infrastructure as if there will be a future.

This all stands in contrast to the United States, where eating seed corn (the OP reference) is a very good analogy for our policies and actions.

It isn't perfect, but it's also undeniable that China is dumping a ton of money into infrastructure. It also has and has been executing multiple long-term initiatives (for example, high speed rail, renewable build out).

Chinese culture isn't perfect by a long shot, in particular it's both pretty isolationist with a strong slash and burn mentality for resource acquisition.

We can see both the positives and negatives of a country. I think it is a positive that china isn't as focused on short term results as the US political ecosystem is.