Absolutely. Shared respect.
1) Yes agreed here. The investments/loans aren't gifts. They are expected back - with interest - and there is real risk that insolvency and default will stall the investments. This gives China leverage, it develops regions that create the possibility of alternative trade routes and supply chains from the US system, and ultimately China expects their investments not only to produce growth but also pay back into the Bank of China.
2) The 25 year forecast is for regional military parity. Economic parity is on a similar timeline, but I don't know offhand what the most recent projections are. If you look at the strategic literature, many analysts (even journalists) focus on China's ascention in 2040-2050: 25-35 years. (25 years is the smaller number of the projections.) You will have difficulty finding analysts discussing Chinese ascension in 2030 or 2020. I would be interested, of course, in any such literature.
3) "their Communist economic system was fatally flawed, would inevitably collapse, and all the West had to do was wait" - this was Cold War propaganda, which reinforced the message that "The USSR is the wrong trade network to be in" ("Our trade network is the one to be in ;)"). The strategic thinkings from the National Security core of the United States was focused on economic warfare of all kinds that would put pressure on the USSR to collapse. The USSR had attempted to organize strategic resources across nations. When these states were flipped, either by "accidents to their leadership", economic pressure from the US trade network, diplomatic pressure, or internal instability, the USSR needed to reallocate and adjust its system. Twenty five years of unconventional warfare intended to cut the Soviet Union from strategic resources in key areas (Middle East and Central Asia), raise its costs with proxy wars and arms races, containment strategies that limited its options for economic flexibility, and pressure on China to pry the Soviet Union apart from the inside ultimately thwarted the attempt to foment the Eurasian free trade network. The Security State in America was _not_ resting on their laurels, waiting for the USSR to "just collapse". The actions of the United States were meant to put as much pressure toward insolvency and inflexibility in the Union as possible.
> From what I've read many times from foreign policy insiders, such a thing doesn't exist. The foreign policy institutions are so massive and complex, from Dept of State to Dept of Defense to the National Security Advisor and staff, to all the large subcomponents of each, to Congress, to all the career bureaucrats that outlast any President, that getting them all moving in the same direction is impossible.
No, the US has Grand Stategies. You can download, for example, the once-leaked copy of the Bush Administration era "Wolfowitz Doctrine".
Now the interagency process of getting a giant organization like the United States government and private sector to act together in coordinated concert? That's another problem entirely, and something that -rightfully- foreign (and domestic) policy insiders complain about. The difficulty of administering a giant bureaucracy is not the same as there being no Grand Strategy: indeed you can find declassified documents, leaked copies (as mentioned), strategic advice for modernization of Grand Strategy and the like.
Thanks, I'll read this later! FP is... okay. It's just so full of childish references ("pee"-otus), quips and nationalist gilding it's hard to read some times. Though some of their authors are very nice when the editing isn't heavy handed and there's not much competition on the subject (incredibly).