China wasn’t an important rival of the US back in the 1960s.
In fact that’s when the Sino-Soviet split started happening
sino soviet split happened due to ideological problems and intolerance towards various philosophical aspects of Marxism , like Stalin tito split happened due to market oriented socialism in the initial years of Yugoslavia which Stalin rejected , similarly chinese side were more aggressive towards fundamental issues of class struggle in which soviet sought out a holistic picture of the world . Soviets worked with Indians (centrists at that time) , Nasser and others where Mao sought out fierce ideological dogmatic positions in 3 world theory and labeling Soviets as social imperialism when Soviets invaded Czechoslovakia . Though it doesn’t matter much nowadays , Soviets are gone and China has gone through tremendous change , from Deng reforms , corruption , markets , businesses , SEZ , low wages to standard wages to innovation and then high tech development .
