One thing people tend to forget is China lucked out in some ways by 9/11. On April 1st, 2001, less than three months after Bush became president, he sent a US plane to the Chinese border, it rammed into a Chinese pilot's plane, killing him, then landed on Chinese soil without permission. Then the US government and press went crazy because the Chinese went in to inspect the plane. Continual press reports about how "we can see with satellites them looking at our plane and technology".

Luckily for the Chinese, all this warmongering ended five months later when the guy who the US armed to overthrow Afghanistan's secular government crashed into the Pentagon etc. because he opposed US bases on Saudi soil.

In all the mawkish tributes to the dead in the Pentagon and changed focus to Afghanistan and the Middle East, the Chinese got about a decade's breathing room from US imperialism. Of course the US is now redeploying to the Philippines and so forth, so that is changing again.