It is essential to victory to understand what your enemy is doing

Yes, very good, except that I don't think the sci-fi author is directing foreign policy here, he's just writing about his own fears of the future of his country into his fiction.

I don't see any wisdom or strategy in what Liu Cixin is discussing. It's all premised on game theory, rational self interest, and that does not apply to America.

If this were true we'd all be radioactive dust right now. Ask yourself: what would China going to war with America achieve? Especially at any point in history prior to the present day, when China had less military and economic capabilities than it does now? Is China's continued existence as an independent nation not, at the very least, a nod to the efficacy of Deng's "keep a low profile" foreign policy, at that particular historical context? Is it so strange that Liu Cixin would want a continuation of that?

I don't have words for it and I'm terrified that the rest of the world doesn't understand what we are.

Being a leftist means you believe that a better world is possible. Americans are just like everyone else: people bound by their material conditions. Which means that when those material conditions change, people can change too. Any other belief is hyperbolic idealism and not historical materialism.

I don't live in America, and I don't deal with Americans in my day to day life. But it seems to me that you're the one who doesn't understand the rest of the world, of it's resilience and bravery.