There's literally a category of diplomacy called 'wolf warrior diplomacy' because of the recently aggressive nature of China towards foreign nations. I'm not sure they have been "as friendly to the west as it can be while still protecting..." unless you believe that to protect their cultural and economic interests they need to expand.

Can you help me understand the logic of "generally more morally palpable than most western nations?" When I look at China's global activities, I see lots of IP theft, aggressive trade deals, debt diplomacy, investing in infrastructure yes... but then bringing in their own people to staff the projects (I saw this firsthand last year doing work in both Kenya and Cameroon and traveling through Uganda), bullying governments and organizations to toe the CCP party line (e.g. Houston Rockets), taking over Hong Kong and shutting down the free media there, basically paying off Muslim nations to keep them quiet regarding the Uyghur genocide.... and this is just off the top of my head!