Afghanistan: US beat USSR, and now China beat US?

In the current news culture where events from a month ago are equivalent to something from the Stone Age, it is easy to forget, for instance, the Google controversy in China.  Could the assertiveness of the Chinese government be because it senses the beginning of the end of the unique economic relationship it has/had with the US (the economic version of the mutually assured destruction)?  That the economic quagmire in which the US is trapped for various reasons is the equivalent to the the USSR's final days in Afghanistan, which was only months before the entire system collapsed?  While predicting is difficult, as Yogi Berra remarked, particularly when it comes to the future, I have no doubts that the Chinese economy is at a significant place.  As Ian Bremmer notes:

China’s leaders no longer believe that American power is indispensable for their country’s prosperity—or their own long-term political survival. The financial crisis has underlined the risk that China has accepted in relying on exports to developed states for economic growth. This has increased the urgency with which the leadership works to build domestic demand for Chinese products. Chinese officials have made news in recent months with the occasional call for the establishment of a new reserve currency to replace the dollar. That cannot happen overnight, but as China reduces its dependence on market conditions in the West, the need to purchase dollars will gradually ease, and much of the reserves will flow toward the purchase of commodities. This is a long-term project and one that will have to be undertaken carefully to ensure that the creative destruction that accompanies this transition does not force so many people out of work at one time that widespread social unrest reaches critical mass. 

It might be even harder to remember then, or even imagine, that before 9/11, China was the greatest threat to the US--not from an economic perspective, but in terms of military and national security.  These tensions came head-to-head, or plane-to-plane, only five months before 9/11 over Hainan Island:

While gathering intelligence off the coast of China, a U.S. Navy EP-3 electronic spy plane, piloted by Lt. Shane Osborn, collides in mid-air with a Chinese F-8 and is forced to make an emergency landing at Hainan Island. The Chinese pilot, Wang Wei, is killed in the incident. China charges that the U.S. plane illegally entered Chinese airspace, and detains the 24 U.S. crew members for 11 days. It demands that the U.S. take full responsibility for the incident and issue a full apology. In the end, the United States offers a letter in which it says it is "very sorry" for the loss of the Chinese pilot and "very sorry" that the aircraft landed in China without permission. The damaged U.S. airplane is not returned for three months.

Another interesting, and profound, coincidence?  A week after 9/11, China's membership in the World Trade Organization was green-lighted.  The economic, political, and military worlds have never been the same since the transformational September 2001.