I think you would have been right with this analysis a couple of years ago, before Xi’s moronic “wolf warrior diplomacy” really took off. He managed to so thoroughly ruin China’s standing with almost every one of its neighbors (and beyond) that even a USA under Trump is considered a far more pleasant alternative right now.

You can see this wolf warrior mentality even in how their online trolls and the loyal part of their diaspora (often indistinguishable from one another) are behaving online.