and no one in the rest of the world respects them

That’s a bit near-sighted. Their regional neighbours obviously aren’t happy about them, nor 5EYES states like Australia, but to other regions like Africa and the Middle-East, their long-time bullies are countries such as the US, Britain and France (and in many cases that’s not just pushing boundaries, but a full-on military occupation and colonisation), so China’s relatively-peaceful diplomacy there in contrast to IMF economic strategies has certainly won wide respect there, and I suspect the USA’s recent diplomatic suicide, destruction of USAID and other forms of ‘turning inward’ will make China more appealing to distant countries as a stable and (in their eyes) relatively friendly partner.

About half the world (the Global South) generally sides politically with them more than the West, so this isn’t just nitpicking. The bottom line is that with three main powers to choose from, China (despite their rudeness in our region) is the one which has hurt the least of them.

This quote from a US DARPA medicine worker gives a typical example of how distant countries perceive Western and Eastern powers:

When you were on the ground, how did our engagement in Africa stack up with Chinese and Russian engagement? Did you cross paths?

Yeah. There’s an example of where we were waiting to go in to meet with an African delegation. I won’t name the country, but our team was prepared to speak in French — we had translators. And we got half an hour with the delegation from their Ministry of Health. We walked out, and the Chinese delegation came in, but they went to the effort of not only knowing French, but also knowing a local language that none of us had ever heard, and they spoke in that language to their hosts. We were ushered out. The Chinese stayed for three hours.

They had developed a deeper relationship than we had, mainly because they were outspending us. Obviously, they built the African CDC and have made some major investments in Africa. Now, are we losing that diplomatic battle? It’s hard to say, but I can tell you that they’re putting an enormous amount of funding into Africa to develop as much credibility as they can on the infectious disease and clinical front, furthering the agenda that President Xi has laid out.