I feel the American media and general public has gotten psyched by the recent announcements coming from China. This might be new weapons or Deepseek or conveniences in the cities. I wish the Chinese people all the best and sincerely hope they prosper. At the same time, I really wish Americans would get out of this panic mode. You answered several challenges over the last 250 years. Some were existential threats. America generally lays out its problems for everyone to see. Americans tend to be extremely self-critical. This is often misconstrued by some to be signs of weakness. Anyone who believes this is, in my opinion, delusional.

As an aside, there are some comments about the "Chinese way of thinking" and the "American way of thinking". I generally think these discussions veer off into notions of cultural superiority. That, also in my opinion, is the mark of weak minds. The fact is once something is shown to be possible, it is exponentially easier to duplicate and improve it. America did this with German technology, China did it with American technology and I am sure countries like India are going to quickly get there too (I am not suggesting the Germans didn't learn from others themselves). This sets a firm base for iterative improvements.

To riff off another comment, China's progress wasn't done by God. America will learn and adopt what's valuable and discard what's not. If I have learned anything about Americans (of all backgrounds), they don't shy away from a challenge. For all its faults, I still personally will root for a society based on something like the American constitution.