China hardly needed to change any views about human rights to make the US its ideological brethren. After all, "enemy combatant" was the American way of dancing around the Geneva Convention, and I doubt that everyone has honestly forgotten Gitmo so quickly.

As for those "small countries that really need our purchases," they're actually beating China at its own game. China's labor practices have been (slowly) improving over the last twenty years, to the point where those "small countries" with no enforced laws against child labor and forced labor (most of the Southeast Asian countries, Sri Lanka, etc.) can provide cheaper labor than China. US companies have moved their outsourcing accordingly.

As for thinking of the bottom line, the "bottom line" is the sole goal of "capitalism," which we Americans seem to be in love with when talking abstractly, but conspicuously brush under the rug when talking about its less moral effects. Case in point, your "we do not deliberately try to hurt other human beings" line is definitely not part of the American way. Not since before the US was the US.

The Chinese gov't is already a huge part of the world community, though it's amusing that "they've gotta be just like an Axis power or a Cold-War-era US proxy nation" is apparently your requirement for officially endorsing their status as such.