check the influence china over S.america, africa etc. china is a rising power. they are in for the long term. US still ahead of china both military, technology etc. but you only need to see china growth of the past 20yrs to know where its heading. back in 60-70's we think japanese stuff is cheap/subpar quaility, but look at them now.There are very few markets that USA and China clash over. China is at best a off shore manufacturing hub, currently. I do not say it will stay that way, but you got to be realistic.
Russia was a US competitor in the cold war days. China is no where close.
china has its own internal issues, corruption, land grabing that could hurt their economy/government/stability etc, but so far they able to manage that, so guess we'll have to see.
USSR was never a trading partner with US. this is different with china, china is pretty much the biggest trading partner with pretty much everyone now. US corporation can't wait to sell their products to rasing chinese middle class, they are willing to move the factory, transfer technology etc etc at the expense of US. pretty much all US auto industry have factory in china, and transfer/sold technology to chinese industry in varies degree.