In a way I agree with you...they certainly have a better economny since our corps sent all our jobs there and guess what they also have more money than us because of it.
Well, while China is not a bigger economy, it has more people, a bigger military, and produces most of the worlds goods. It controls key resources and can influence world politics considerably.. mostly with soft power. Even the US bends over when China says it should. No one wants to piss off the Chinese too much, since then we wont be able to get our iPads and iPhones at a cheap rate (yes that is ironic since they are hugely expensive and overpriced..)
If we look at it historically, then it even fits more. The British Empire was in decline from WW1 to WW2 and totally knocked out after WW2.
What made the British Empire powerful, was not its economic power, but its navy and military power... but that was expensive and that is where the economic power came in. Another factor was simply the amount of people in the Empire.. . As long as the money from colonies came in and it was profitable, then the Empire could keep its massive navy and military going and maintain its power over its subjects. But then WW1 came and the British military along with other colonial powers took serious hits both economically and militarily but also morally in the colonies. The colonies went from being profitable to be hotbeds of revolution and what not and not worth the military presence there. But because of pride and stupidity, the British (and others) maintained their empire. When WW2 happened, the economies of the former Imperial nations was gutted by debt and destruction and that let the new kid on the block.. the US into the frame and the time of the US empire started.
Driven by a massive military, and untouched industrial infrastructure and vast resources, the US basically took over the role of global empire from the British over night. They forced the British out of Egypt, and other places.. and yet maintained their own colonies in Puerto Rico and other areas. They used the military to spread economic power.. Coca Cola is a great example. The reason Coca Cola is so big today world wide, is simply because the company had a contract to supply the US military and built bottling plants on the US tax payers dime world wide, and then was able to establish it self cheaply in many markets and start selling to the locals as well. It is in many ways no different than what the British East India Company did. Monopolies are "great" no? They also set up a sign basically saying.. "forget your past come to our shores and we will pay you for your ideas and technology".. that is how you got to the moon first...and then there was of course the "payment" for helping the Europeans.. the British basically handed over their whole Jet technology research to the US because of this.
Now days, that economic power based on the surge after WW2 is declining, in part because others have been rising out of the ashes.. Japan and Germany, and then of course the new powers like China, South Korea, Taiwan, Brazil. The US is not nr. 1 in many industries as it once was, it is not the best at everything (despite what many Americans think) and the military power that created the economic world wide power is getting so expensive that in the medium and long term it is not sustainable .. much like the British Empire.
Look at the facts. Are new technology releases done in the US first these days? Most are not. Only major phone release that is done first in the US now days is the iPhone. How about movie releases? Nope, many of the big blockbusters are actually released in Europe and China first... Avengers had earned in its costs in Europe and Asia before it hit the US theatres over a month after the world release date. More and more technology innovation and especially manufacturing is done outside the US.. the list goes on and on.
It is exactly what happened to the British Empire. It started with industries popping up in the UK.. Liverpool, Manchester and so on.. driven on by resources from the colonies. The decline started when those industries were moved to "cheaper" areas of the world .. sound familiar?
Now will the decline take 2 decades as the British Empire or will it be a longer one like the Roman Empire.. I tend to think the few decades version more and more (maybe not as short as 2.. but under 100 years that is for sure), considering that China dwarfs the US in people alone... and future consumers.
Of course that can all change.. had WW1 not happened and especially WW2, then the world could still be run by the British Empire... so who really knows, but based on the facts as they stand now... China is near if not at the top of the global economic power house and the US is "only" nr 2. Russia is also banging on the US door.. alone on its massive amount of natural resources it has. Like it or not, the future is dependent on control of a few types of natural resources, and the US controls none of them, and China controls a considerable amount. If China wanted to hurt the US.. then it should not recall its loans.. but stop selling rare earth metals to the US.. bye bye the mobile phone and computers in general. Intel would go belly up over night. That is real power..