I guess I do see things mostly from an economic perspective, yes. Even on the biggest military issue of all, Taiwan, I get the impression that China is deterred from invading as much or more by the extreme economic damage to the entire world but most of all to themselves which would result from an invasion, than by the actual military deterrence of the US and Taiwan itself.

Regarding the US goal, that makes more sense than what Trump's goal seems to be and certainly that requires a more multilateral approach, as otherwise the US contributions would just be replaced by those from other countries.

Oh absolutely, they're investing all over the place and making many governments indebted to them, but as I said, those are purely transactional relationships without much interest in the partner country's interests. The US and EU aren't exactly angels in their relationships with developing countries either, but they're a lot more accommodating than China.

It cares about Chinese interests, not about Pakistani ones, that's what I said. Nor does it care much about making itself popular among Pakistani citizens. In recent years, people in developing countries have sometimes been talking about how China is willing to invest in their countries without the patronizing attitude of the West, or simply more cheaply than the West - but once those investments have been done and they've spent some time watching how the debts for them cripple their government and China doesn't show the least bit of mercy, that attitude sours quickly. And I do think that things like that would also make a difference if it ever came to military conflict between the US and China and countries had to choose sides.

So if China is really trying to build an alliance, they're really going to need to change their attitude and start working on making friends, rather than just making countries indebted to them. After all, if war breaks out and your would-be allies are mostly tied to you for no better reason than because they owe you money, it gives them all the more reason to defect to the other side and try to get out of repaying the debts...