I think Chinese economic expansion has been part and parcel of a Chinese Homeland Defence program for years.
China is paranoid (as were the Soviets). For whatever reason they think that their neighbors are threats (maybe they remember the 1930’s?). Anyway, one of the best ways to secure your position is to make it economically unviable to attack you. One of the surest ways to invite attack is to disrupt the economy of a powerful country. China is going from third world hellhole to major economic power primarily as a defensive measure.
As for the “economy as defence” plan, why do you think we haven’t kicked Saudi Arabia’s butt? Or at least put them on alert that we will, like we did with Quadaffi? When many of the terrorist in the world claim to be Saudi, when the #1 terrorist in the world is Saudi, why do we treat them so nice?
Which is exactly why I was trying to imply that nothing will be done to curb China's lust for power. Hell, the whole world de-recognised Taiwan as a nation only to replace it with China. And this was decades before the Saudis were really mollycoddled.