Exactly, the west is far more dependent on China than the other way around. That said, there's a good passage from This Soviet World about the way USSR was trying to navigate things after the revolution, and I feel like it might be the rationale behind what China is doing right now as well:
It is a pretty good strategy to smile and shake hands while the other guy is flailing his arms and screaming at you for being evil while actually committing genocide. But at the same time, the USSR was very involved with trying to establish world communism. I'm hoping China's strategy pays off.
China is winning under status quo dynamics so any significant shift requires an underlying political change, itself fueled by material impetus. Both the state and the private sector rulers benefit from the status quo. The US' prodding is helping political development in China, namely consciousness that the US government is hostile, but it will take years for that to percolate to significant policy change via the party, barring the US doing something very stupid (don't discount this) like giving Taiwan a bunch of nukes and air capability.