[quote=FlyerInHi]We only worry about China now because they are threatening our dominance.
From a competition standpoint, China is good for the world because they are providing an alternative to the American model. If American ideas were sure to create greater wealth, nobody would follow the Chinese model. The thing is that the world is not so certain that the American way is the best way.
[/quote]
I would certainly agree that China’s public development model has been successful so far. I question whether other countries would be able to replicate due to factors such as demographics, education, geography, etc. But it’s not China threatening dominance that we are worried about China. It a change in the status quo of international commons, a return to mercantilism/state competition, and impact to democracy/personal rights.

[quote=FlyerInHi]
for example transport authorities around the country. Imagine Caltrans as a massive construction company that can innovate and bid for jobs all over the world. Would we not be better off?
[/quote]
The problem with SOEs (US, China, wherever) is that the prevent private companies from doing the job more efficiently. Because they are backed by the state, they can get favorable financial terms, which can cause distortions in the funding market (you see that in China now when the SOEs are too big relative to the private market). We accept the existence of SOE where it’s not easy for multiple private companies to compete – but we really would be better off if Amtrak had competition.
Outside the country is different – yes, countries can back certain businesses to work projects. The US does that too, just not companies like Caltrans. We have Bechtel and others that did that in the past – Or Boeing, Google, MSFT, Intel, etc now. The US economy has long moved away from large public works, while China’s economy is in this phase.

Public transit in the US is often funded by via government and run like a government department. NYC’s system has been underfunded for 40+ years – it’ll take a long time to fix. But transit by itself is unable to pay for major capital projects without other sources of funds. You could wait for the government, but you could also follow the HK model
https://www.theatlantic.com/china/archive/2013/09/the-unique-genius-of-hong-kongs-public-transportation-system/279528/

[quote=FlyerInHi] On trade, the USA is so hopelessly hooked on cheap products that even a 25% tariff will not affect the trade deficit which will keep on rising. Things we don’t buy from China, we will by from Vietnam. And Vietnam will turn around and buy Huawei and other Chinese products.[/quote]
I have no problem with that and understand probably won’t materially change the trade deficit. However, it’ll create a vast inefficiency to trade with China directly.
The problem I have with China is that they had a chance to just work with the existing global trade/commons system to increase economic benefit. But now we have to deal with the BS territorial ambitions in SE and East Asia. If you go back 10 years, we didn’t have the military buildup going on in Asia. There wasn’t even an aircraft carrier assigned to the Pacific for a while. Now we have every country in Asia increasing their military.

Also all the crap that China does in HK, Australia, and here – but I guess we’ve been allowing that to happen in our society.

But what is China’s end goal here? Do they really want global great power competition?
We can make life a lot more difficult for China. We could also steal technology from China and hand it to our designated state champions. We can spend significant % of GDP on international development too. We could call BS on the one country, two systems and recognize Taiwan independence. Spheres of influence in Africa – that can happen too. But heh this time, I doubt the Belgians will go back to the Congo and Italy to Ethiopia 😉