These people are just trying to find an alternative narrative because the vast majority of the population have been rejecting neoliberalism for a good 30 years now. So they spin up the foreign enemy is better than us, so we need to deregulate more and not hold monopolies accountable.
If we broke up Google or Amazon, suddenly we're just as bad as China!
why can't we go "wow they're getting really good, maybe we should invest harder in education and research?" That makes wayyy more sense to me
Because it would first require one to acknowledge that they are no longer ahead. In some cultures this sort of thing is extremely difficult.
In humans*
Comedian Ronny Chieng has a bit about this: (sorry for short) https://www.youtube.com/shorts/1cmCueTZz1A
In the west greater education doesn't lead to people wanting to live in a factory compound in communal dorms with suicide nets where they can be woken up at midnight to start a shift on a whim. Doesn't lead to people wanting to eat all their meals in a cafeteria with the other people on their shift. The factories I visited even their children went to school in a school within the compound.