freaked out at China's claim for dominance with absolutely no head of state calling them out for it

In the early days of covid, Taiwan was basically the only country to take the virus seriously and proactively impose measures such as travel bans and quarantines. Consequently Taiwan has weathered the pandemic extremely well despite its proximity to the epicenter. In contrast, most of the rest of the world largely went along with China's initial downplaying of the virus because no one wanted to signal distrust, which might anger the dragon that produces all their cheap plastic junk (recall the drama around Trump taking the U.S. out of the W.H.O. because he thought it was too China-centric). Price paid.

Part of the sales pitch for the global economy is that when everyone is materially dependent on everyone else, no country will go to war against another because doing so would disrupt their own supply chain. In practice, the ironic result is that everyone has to pussyfoot around whoever is the most economically dominant, which is likely to be the country most willing to ruthlessly take advantage of liberal globalists.