Replace "China" in that analysis with just about any other country in the world, and alot of it still stands up.
I think you are missing the point a little. Very few countries have both an interest in and enough power to manage standing up to the US. Quite a few countries would like to, but cannot stand up properly to the US (i.e. Equador, Bolivia, India(?), Brazil, Japan(?), the Eurozone(?), Pakistan, etc.) . Then you have a few like DPR Korea, Iran, Cuba and Venezuela that barely are able to muddle on against the full economic and diplomatic pressure of the US government (and these countries are technological backwaters that would struggle to adopt Bitcoin with the speed that China could). China is a country that increasingly looks like it can stand up to the US with it's back straight (that's why so many American politicians are panicking about China). You could of course point out Russia, and although it has some clout, that is still mainly based on its oil crutch.And that's the point, that if the US tries to make a War on Bitcoin in terms of regulation, propaganda and other hurdles, China would have enough power to resist and provide a billion-people market for Bitcoin whereas most other countries would struggle to go against US will on this.
Sorry, I should have worded it to emphasize the "alot of your analysis still stands up" part, I guess "alot" is a tiny little word to easily slip past the eyes.
I would broadly agree with your perception, and add that the Western press is filled with negative stories about China and the Chinese people, not just biased reporting of actual political developments, but the also the more insidiously biased editorial decisions too. "CHINESE BABY FOUND IN SEWAGE PIPE" was a propaganda classic IMO. Equally appalling treatment of children is happening in other countries, the US not least, and yet it was difficult not to chance across that story amongst the more prurient tabloid press (replete with photo of the unfortunate sprog). You'd assume that the Chinese papers are full of these horror stories, that's all that ever happens in China, right? Strangely not, but the Chinese don't have a free press, of course (whisper it only, "just like us").
I also find interesting your question marks (?) after states that should be defending against the US, but are too weak to do so. Pakistan is a fascinating one, quite clearly heavily influenced by the US in it's politics, but is more than happy to trade with Iran, probably one of the more implacable enemies of Uncle Sam. If you want to paint Pakistan as a US client state, as some do, how on earth do you explain that? I sometimes wonder if large amounts of these world "events" are nothing more than an elaborate state run puppet show, with the occasional genuine stand-off when someone stops reading from the script. That's too worrying a reality, and it's difficult to explain some elements of the ostensible "script" throughout the past 100 years, but some variation of this is not impossible either.
Pakistan is a state that would love to stand up to the US about illegal drone strikes killing hundreds of Pakistani civilians - but they can't. By any standard that's more than good enough a reason to declare war after being attacked by a hostile foreign state. With regards to Iranian-Pakistani relations and trade, well the US is working on making the most pro-Iranian country in the world stopping trade with Iran. Already, the US has derailed the IPI pipeline project until further notice and are now threatening Pakistan with an embargo.
It looks like Pakistan is pretty desperate for support from China with a whole set of different projects, but at the moment it looks like China is sitting on the fence to avoid angering its biggest neighbour India (and by inference, the US). So until China jumps on board, it looks like the weak Pakistani state is still pretty much a client of the US. Whether or not the Pakistani state manages to impose the US's wishes on its population remains to be seen - regardless, Pakistan is not the first place for Bitcoin to be widespread since most of the population is still living in grinding poverty (though cheap Nokia's, an M-PESA-like Bitcoin system like Kipochi and support from a Bitcoin-powered China could help change that).
Otherwise, I put the question marks there for some of the countries because I believe that some of the traditionally US-friendly countries are getting increasingly fed up with their hegemon but are still situated squarely within US influence and has no choice for the time being than to follow Washington's decrees.
Many people, Chris Hedges, among others, writes about "Empire" when considering the US. Oliver Stone's "The history of the US" is another hegemony-oriented one. If one lists the abuses of the US since the start of WW2 and the foreign civilian lives that can be credit to the US it is hard not to draw comparisons to the Soviet Union or Nazi Germany - I'm of course not blaming ordinary Americans, but their leaders. Another critic of the American Empire is Patrice Ayme who writes long rants, often bringing in comparisons with the Roman empire and the US empire. But judging whether the US is an empire or a hegemony with puppet states, or simply an independent country with more power than others will be up to history-scholars a hundred years from now. My bet is on the former.
