Earlier quoted context omitted.
My personal opinion is that, it's because with the previous political and cultural trends, West had (maybe still has) actually quite high chances of collapsing and falling in the long term due to its own indecisiveness, lots of words mixed a lack of actions against coordinated and targeted efforts of Russia, Iran, Venezuela, Belarus, Cuba, China, Syria and North Korea. I remember national state TV in Russia talking a…
> Russia, Iran, Venezuela, Belarus, Cuba, China, Syria and North Korea. Putting these all in the same list conflates very different situations. - Big actual threat with body count: Russia. - Russian proxies: Syria (very lethal, but mostly within Syria, not a "threat to the west", complicated by Daesh and AQ) - Nasty autocracy but stable cold war: NK - Autocracy, but largely minding their own business and with no real…
China has a far bigger economy and far bigger armed forces. It has a history of aggression and has border disputes with multiple countries.
I strongly suspect that people who downplay the risk from China have not yet internalised the fact that no-white countries are powerful too now.