Re: An impressive list
China, like Russia, will continue to be treated with the utmost caution so as to not push them too far.
I think both the US and the Russkies have hardly treated each other with caution, and if anything the US have been particularly aggressive, eg meddling in Ukrainian politics to the point of provoking the Russian invasion, moving tanks 5,000 miles round the globe to park on the Poland/Russia border, flying military aircraft right along the boundary of Russian airspace, etc. I'm under no illusions about the Russian provocations and interventions, and China's outlandish territorial claims to the South China Sea are a provocation of enormous magnitude.
Seems to me that there's no caution at all, just an expectation by the major powers that they can do roughly what they want so long as they don't directly attack another major power with military force. OTOH it is absolutely fine for the major powers to invade any non-nuclear armed country they choose - which seems to be an approach that (in the modern age) the US are cheerleaders for (aided and abetted by Britain?).
Of course, all of this is bad news for nuclear non-proliferation, because the obvious lesson is that you don't get invaded if you've got the big stick. Why end up like Saddam or Gadaffi, when you can build your own talisman to protect against invasion? Despite the claims about WMD, it is obvious to a two year old that nobody would have attacked Iraq if they actually believed that the country had a working WMD arsenal, since it would undoubtedly have been used.
Back to espionage: Does it matter? No. The big guys still aren't going to fight each other, and the US and Russians will be just as keen to steal any Chinese technology when the opportunity exists.