Wait, do you want to seriously study the way that China is able to do the prestige projects you point to, or do you want to ignore the historical patterns that provide evidence of what the reason is that they are able to do them?

And the US was also able to do some impressive projects in the past. Does that say anything about previous governments?

It says that infrastructure accomplishments shouldn't be the sole metric on which nations are measured.

Many people are happy to self-identify as German or Italian.