Political Memes

They do occasional saber-rattling in their part of the world. The US does saber-rattling all over the world and is continuously engaged in much more than that, invasions, bombing campaigns, etc. The US spends more on the military than the next 9 countries combined and that's before taking into account foreign aid in the form of stuff like giving bombs to Israel. There is absolutely no comparison between the two.

even ignoring these two things, i wouldn’t be surprised if this was a short term loss, long term gain expectation, not dissimilar from theories of venture capital funding.

Uh, yeah, that's exactly what the deals are about. It's an investment and they hope that the countries will develop and pay them back and they'll get a return. Helping countries develop and expanding their economic bloc is how they intend to grow and continue developing, and it's been working quite well for them, with more and more countries falling into their sphere of influence, or triangulating between the two instead of dealing with the West exclusively (especially middle-income countries, that don't get a lot of attention in the media). You say it as if it's a bad thing, but that sort of trade and investment is mutually beneficial and the most practical and proven pathway towards eliminating poverty.

China is on track to eclipse the US simply by winning the peace, while the US burns itself out on constant wars and conflicts to fuel the military-industrial complex. Tbh my biggest concern is that the US will see that and decide that the only way to maintain hegemony is to start WWIII, because it's invested so much into the military that that's increasingly the only area where it has an advantage.