China is a nuclear power and has been recognized as a major security threat since they acquired nuclear weapons (in the sixties?).

But your last sentence is true. Politicians and corporate executives failing to accurately extrapolate long-term consequences have not done us any favors over the past 50 years, and now we’re super fucked. It’d be hard even if we still had a competent government instead of the smoking ruin in progress.

(Thomas Friedman and his globalization-is-brilliant shtick making people think this was all OK wasn’t great either.)