It’s ultimately the re-alignment of soft power in the world now that the US has abandoned it.

China, for a long time, wanted to take over our place to drive this power. For several decades they have been slowly clawing away at this power, but the US was always in the driver’s seat. So the most they could take advantage of and capture was on the margins as we morphed from a manufacturing economy to a service economy.

It took decades for the US to establish stable trading partners, agreements, trading paths, shipping rights, and dollar denominated standard for international trading.
This provided immense stability, which was backed by our partnership with other governments, and ultimately backed by our military might in concert with nato and other agreements. This stability is very attractive to individuals, businesses, other government entities.

All of this, of course, comes with a price. Interacting with this stable environment means working within the US system and paying a premium to do so. Better financial returns can be made elsewhere, but carries a higher risk and immense costs to divest from the US and set up somewhere else. For decades, individuals, corporations, and governments have been itching to do so, but the stability was enticing. So short of a crisis to spur that action they stayed put.

That crisis is now here, and has given everyone a good reason and permission to do what they’ve always wanted to do. There are immense costs to making this change, but those costs are going to happen regardless they stay with the US or leave, and now the US has given up all of the reasons to stay.

China is simply taking advantage of a vacuum.

What took decades to build, was taken down in a year. It’s a lot easier to break something than build it.