Some important points, Sam Jandwich.

>>...they will probably say something to the effect that "I didn't know it was supposed to be a competition"<<

The way I see it, it is a "competition" only in the sense that any country has ever been in competition with any other.

Tradition has it that the Germans are hard-working industrialists with a flair for engineering, while the Spanish enjoy lunch in the sun, followed by a siesta. You would not find many Spaniards willing to exchange their lifestyle for the German's, nor vice versa, but in economic terms, one is palpably more effective than the other.

We have managed over the years to give some aspects of our lives greater emphasis, without thinking too hard whether this is "good" or "bad" for us - mainly, I suspect, because we would be hard-pressed to agree on what "good" and "bad" mean in this context. As with the Spanish, you wouldn't find many Australians willing to exchange their way of life for that of an equivalent citizen of China. And by definition, the different approaches will yield vastly different outcomes.

Is this a "bad" thing? Hardly. It is what we, and they, have collectively chosen to do.

Will it disadvantage us somehow, in coming decades?

All depends on your definition of disadvantage. It won't be fantastic, economically speaking. But it won't affect the surf conditions.

And on the whole, we would rather be surfing, wouldn't we?

Fact is, there's not a lot of surfing to be had in Beijing. According to the "People's Republic of China Outdoor Activity Finder", the nearest surf beach to Beijing is Gyongpo Beach.

In South Korea.

The message is that we won't "beat them at their own game", because we are on a different playing field, with a different shaped ball, with different rules.

By the same token, nor can we "lose".