The Chinese are bound by economic constraints even more daunting than ours, and they are in competition with India and South East Asia.
Just as America in the 1960s was spurred to graduate more engineers and scientists to meet the challenges of the space race and cold war, China creates this shining example of their progress to encourage their people and international investors, as well as poke the eye of their competitors.
I'm sure there is much to what you say but the communist Chinese are not restrained by economics when they can pour billions into the military/space program and have a cheap and plentiful labor force.