I don't know what to think about the economic relationship between the united states and china. I do wonder how much of china's recent economic success can be measured in china pirating patented american technology and media. China pirates everything from gaming consoles to CD's/DVD's, to technology and industrial processes which are copyrighted intellectual property which in theory should be protected under international law. China has even gone so far as to counterfeit ferraris, luxury automobiles, car parts and other brand name products.
The chinese like to take a lot of pride in their history and culture. They had to undergo subjugation during the modern times because of falling behind in the race for technology. With centralized leadership, they have given a whole new model of governance. A shrewd, whatever-works-goes model.
They stamped out dissenters mercilessly and now spread propaganda by making people chauvinize over South-China Sea, One-china policy etc. etc. They often raise issues with India just because they want to keep the "nationalism" issues burning. Despite it being clear that India poses no danger whatsoever to them. They are just too big.
They have shamelessly copied and reverse-engineered most western technologies. They have invested heavily in their millitary and are now well on their way to establish the silk-route lead supremacy of the old world.
They are motivated by clear selfish interests and the Chinese government acts like a selfish, shrewd individual. Normal democracies like USA, India on the other hand have to spend much more time in managing internal differences and trying to arrive at a consensus.
In terms of consensus, Chinese are like single-majority PoS while our democracies are like fairly decentralized PoW.
Despite all the platitudes offered by China regarding having no intentions to replace America, it's only a matter of time before they make the moves.
It seems that China and the US are constantly at war with one another when it comes to politics and trade but the truth of it is that they each need one another. The US needs to be able to import many things from China for its continued success and China needs to export to the US. I see that it will continue like that for some time, until perhaps China feels that they can generate enough in sales nationally or from exports to other countries that they can play hard ball a little more so with the US. It reminds me almost of a larger bigger and a hungrier smaller brother. USA being the big brother who right now can win all the fights but once the little brother grows up it won't be the same story.