The Chinese don't conquer by armies. They do it by business.

There was a documentary on YouTube about this. China has a long history of commercial dominance. We often forget about that because when Mao Zedong took over, China had massive poverty. But then the CCP embraced capitalism more over time and China's fortunes changed for the better. Unfortunately even though the CCP liberalized the Chinese economy, they did not embrace civil liberties. The western hope was that as China got more of a taste of capitalism, the people would want more freedom.