Partially in jest, once/if Chinese companies start to hold more patents than American companies (as in "value", not numbers) you will see the US attitude versus patents to be different.

You may be correct regarding American response. I'd suggest that alongside that, what we're likely to see is the Chinese government significantly tightening up on IP-rights enforcement because it would then be to their advantage to do so. So a nett result of greater IP-rights enforcement globally rather than the original optimistic/hopeful "it will be over soon" assessment.

Thats quite optimistic.

I'd say that if they steal from the Chinese, they won't talk about it much (or say it was the other way around) and continue just the way it was in case they come up with something patentable again.

Did the British attitude to patents change when German companies started owning more patents than British companies?

Yes. For example the British arranged to cancel all German patents after ww2. This led to eg the development of the Japanese camera industry among many other things.

I fail to see the parallels between Germany after World War II and China in 2019. China's patent situation is much closer to Germany in the late 19th century and the British didn't throw away their patent system in the 19th century just because Germany patented more.

Yes, when those patents started pointing guns at British interests :)

Not a patent example, but there's a reason "asprin" is a generic term in the US.