I'm going to say having a fairly nascent movie industry is part of this. China was not exactly a movie making powerhouse in 2008. Basically only Hollywood was making 3D animated movies like that at the time.

Let's say due to the lack of infrastructure to make such movies a group of Chinese creatives pitch it to a Hollywood production company, guaranteed they get laughed out of the room for the story being too ethnic in 2008.

Almost every story about other cultures made in Hollywood (except for the past 5 to maybe 10 years) had to have a white person in a high ranking role otherwise producers would be afraid the story was too niche. Its a manifestation of Westerners (most of whom are white) holding disproportionate wealth and purchasing power. Thankfully the world is changing for the better, slowly.

No one group should be catered to like that. It creates a false sense of self importance and imbalance in the universe. Its one of many reasons why Nazis are making a comeback.