Liam Casey makes some pertinent points: -China is world leader in Automation & no longer dependant on cheap labour -Durind the pandemic, Chinese factories quickly adapted within weeks to produce enormous amounts of PPEs for the global market -China has an enormous capacity to upscale
Add to that, China is the leader in World Trade.
IMO, when we think of the US/China economic decoupling we assume that western economies are going to decouple from China also which may not be so. For example the EC (minus the UK) is not likely to decouple from China but rather manage the relationship to its benefit; something that the US has failed to do over the past 20 years.
The USA has to be careful that its economy too is not a mix of command and free market . The US Government's imposition of icrippling import tariffs on some commodities is, IMO, the corollary to State owned enterprises in that it directs local manufacture while protecting it from global competition. If other contries were to apply similar strategies to US global capital markets , then the USD would not last long as the defacto global reserve currency, IMO. IE: Say if Australia levied a 2% tax on all transactions conducted via the USD into and out of Australia , then that would kill off the USD as the 3rd party of exchange pronto. IMO.
Since WW2 the US has gained Global economic hegemony with the Greenback leading global capital markets.
It is also to be seen how successful the Chinese OBI will be because , if so, China will successfully decouple from the USA & its allies and, because of sheer demographics, the OBI will have the timber on the "West" in terms of sheer numbers, IMO.
The 7 billion people question is: when/will decoupling lead to WW2 and if so who will be on the US side & who will be on the Chinese side. A nuclear battle will, no doubt, be sharp & swift. When one lines up Chinese arsenal against that of the US, its a no contest. If we add Russia to the Chinese side , then it looks a completley different kettle of fish (Russia currently has more nukes than te USA)
This is why its deserate times for the USA to maintain global hedgemony when an emerging China is closing the economic and military gap at a rate of knots and this is why (short of a Nuke war now) that Uncle Sam has to quickly and permanently stymie China's economic growth because the USA with its polulation base of just over 300 million doesn't have the capacity of outgrowing China economically in the foreseeable future, IMO.
For this reason, Australia's best foreign policy is to not take sides; but rather act as mediator to maintain the peace, because if there is an all out Nuke War, we're brown bread anyway either via direct hits or, in the best case scenario, a mass invasion afterwards!.
