Its not just economics, there's also a racism component. Even though the Japanese and South Koreans are treated by white westerners as "the good Asians", they're still kept out of the white westerner club by forms of cultural othering that can be hidden and deployed when convenient. Japanese food is amazing high cuisine (except they're barbarians that eat whales). Korean pop music is great (except they're all tricking us with their plastic surgery). Etc, etc.

China's main crime as far as this dynamic goes is exceeding the West economically while having so much cultural confidence that it can simply not give a fuck how the West judges it.