presidents were plotting to contain China by bombing it to a flatland like the cities in Japan.  But China back then had no dense urban populated cities.  People lived wide spread apart in countrysides. Large percentage of China's terrains is mountainous and US was under the threat of USSR.  They didn't want to waste bombs on China to target the enormous areas. They spared China from its fate.

The West has been at war for the last couple centuries, almost everyay. No doubt they will be at war with others continueously for the next couple centuries. That is why China is trying to be self sufficient at its food sources, energy and hardcore techs for survival. They don't want any nations to blackmail them into something they don't want to do. At worst, they produce enough food and energy to keep it alive.

Soft power is nice, but it is not what China depend on long term survival, because any nations can cancel  its soft power overnight if they don't like it.  For China, developing hardcore techs are the keys to survivie because no ones can take it away.