Are you arguing that China is the Sparta to America's Athens? Sparta was also mostly focused on maintaining their control and order in their country, the southern Peloponnese. Spartans who were successful abroad were a problem for the Spartan society and its stability.
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Also I'm not going to assume Brazil is a great military power based on footballing prowess.
The point about soccer is that, for some reason, China excels at individual pursuits but struggles with team-oriented ones. That's fine when you're assembling an iPhone but less so when you're designing one. China is also not known for courage or honor, important in war.
