It is possible that the problem in the USA is the woke indoctrination that stems from  the anti-enlightenment traditions [anti reason], and that the rise of China stems from its adoption of the enlightenment tradition stemming from Hegel. [Marx was after all in the Hegelian tradition.]

See Allan Bloom's The Closing of the American Mind that in fact traces the difficulties in the USA education system to this contradiction between the Enlightenment philosophers and the Anti Enlightenment ones.

The rise of the USA was during the time it was firmly embedded in the Enlightenment with John Locke. But after the 1960's this has all been changing.

Now China and Russia teach their students Calculus and Quantum  Mechanics. The USA teaches its students "gender pronouns".  Where this will lead to is fairly clear,