This is the part I find being left surprisingly hand-wavey.
If you extrapolate it out, you see that it has a high likelihood of inciting physical force (read: military action) as a means of enforcement, so perhaps that's why nobody promoting ideals has been direct about it.
America doesn't want to pay the price of handling Iran. There's a difference. Clearly the US could conquer Iran but it requires a land war with mass casualties, not just sporadic bombing.
Obviously China is in an entirely different league.
If you extrapolate it out, you see that it has a high likelihood of inciting physical force (read: military action) as a means of enforcement, so perhaps that's why nobody promoting ideals has been direct about it.