Building and buying global power

Look, China is a worry, given their system of government and rapidly developing high tech population control techniques, but it's still kind of fascinating watching how they're trying to buy their way into total global control, more or less.   It makes for a pretty fascinating contrast with Soviet Union attempts to win control and influence people.   Maybe if smart phones and electronic devices had been invented by the 1960s, it would be Russia that could have become assembly central for the rest of the world and gained riches that way?   Then again, China didn't never had a vodka problem, and Mao apparently dealt with opium...