The earliest Malthusians were wrong in a lot of their models, but especially in their models regarding climate. Global population is rarely more than a red herring in climate models, and should be among the least of our concerns right now.

So too the "global carbon emissions arms race" seems to be a wildly popular red herring. Yes, China has a brief window now where they have the highest emissions, but China is also moving the fastest at mitigating carbon emissions and is on track at moving a lot faster than the US or EU in cracking down on carbon emissions. Perhaps ironically to someone of your apparent perspective, but the higher population density of China, and predominance in massive river and coastal cities, has left China with far more incentive and immediate climate crisis concerns than most of the US and some of Europe are currently facing. The US and EU "developed world" seems more at risk of being "rolled over" by the efficiency gains China is making in "green" markets than any threat that China is just going stockpile gas in some Mad Max style race to the bottom (of the oil well). Your next car could be Chinese because they are taking Battery Electric seriously, whereas US manufacturers still have some weird idea that the market for BEV is just a toy to play with. (At least the EU manufacturers aren't rolling over and practically giving the market away.)