I completely agree with you, China is massively competitive, but it's because they're creating an unnatural peg to the dollar to keep their currency low to continue to be competitive. If we are all using the same money IE bitcoin, that bullshit goes away

Currently, East Asian countries, including China, are suppressing cryptocurrencies, including Bitcoin, by promoting them as dangerous speculative products.
The world I live in is monitoring individual transactions, accounts, text messages, and currencies.

We still have a manufacturing base and agriculture, but we are dumb enough to think service-based economies are the way to go like developed nations and it's going to bite us in the arse.

In the state where I live, manufacturing is already collapsing because of Chinese products. So, the state gives up manufacturing and shifts to a service industry-based economy, with disastrous results.
Currently, about half of the younger generation are temporarily or unemployed.
So, They depend on unemployment benefits from the state.

We've also obliterated our energy production, so not going well, we'll default on our debt soon enough

Still, South Africa has oil. The country I live in is a more difficult situation because energy resources, including oil, are not produced.😅