Instead of China asking, "How can we shape our products based on human emotions?" they seem to be making products that actually solve problems for less money. I'm not saying American products are not solving problems. But China seems to focus on that more. Take, for instance, the quick delivery of your coffee wherever you are. The cheaper price because not everyone can afford that expensive coffee. And so, with this, they have been able to brand themselves differently. Also, BYD isn't left out. Their focus seems to be producing cheaper electric vehicles that will compete with the big electric vehicle brands.
China thrives in production since they can make any quality of products for you, whether high or low or even very low qualities, you just need to place the demand and get it produced for you in the specified quality, that is another reason for the assumed low cost of production. The cheaper priced coffee sometimes doesn't mean quality, it's only tailored according to your budget.
So in the long run, which marketing idea will survive?
The country that will survive is the one with the best sales. Sales isn't "convincing to buy". Sales is understanding the problem a fellow person may have, communicating the problem with him, and after he's confirmed the problem, offer and deliver him the solution. That's it.
Sales is the best paying job, because it solves the world's biggest problem. Communicating with strangers and making their lives better. Civilizations with the best sales are those that will survive, because understanding and solving people's problems is what allows for economic growth. Even the most competent as a civilization, highly advanced in terms of technology, if the people fail to communicate between themselves, they will not succeed in thriving as a civilization.
You have a fairly good point, selling is different from marketing. While marketing tries to convince you to buy, selling makes you see that you really need that product because you see it as a solution to an existing problem you've. Most people often confuse marketing with selling and in the world we have more marketers and few people actually selling which makes any quality sales person very high in demand and earn a lot of money.
Organizations with better sales people always record more sales for a product, even if it has less quality compared to their competitors with more marketers.
On the other hand, I believe the countries that has a cheaper production cost would sell the more since a majority of people prefer affordable commodities, even though it isn't the best quality which makes importers to dive more into products with lower production costs.