Militarily, they have closed the gap incredibly fast. For every warship we build, they have built 5-7, and are warships of consequence. Their Type 055 destroyers are about on par with our Arleigh Burke destroyers, surpassing them in some ways. We’ve canceled our more advanced warships for a “flight III” of more cheaper Arleigh Burke destroyers that we expect to be in the fleet until the 2060s. In air to air capabilities, they are cranking out their J-20s, the only 5th generation fighters produced outside the USA. Overall, we still have a slight edge in terms of air superiority, but it is only by a thin margin now. Their PL-15 missiles that the J-20 carries has longer range than our AMRAAMs, though I believe the AMRAAM is slightly more capable, though shorter ranged. Our own Air Force generals were impressed with what they saw with the J-20, also noting that our AWACS aircraft couldn’t detect them soon enough to properly defend against them. They just launched their first supercarrier, with more on the way, with multiple other smaller carriers already in service. They’ve created 3 ports the size of Pearl Harbor with artificial islands, and a single one of their shipbuilding facilities is the size of all of ours combined. These are just a couple of examples of the overhaul China has done to its military. And that is only taking into account technology. In terms of leadership, tactics, techniques, procedures, organization, etc, they are getting much better than they used to be.We may have a slight edge now, but it is vanishing fast, and will likely disappear completely in the next decade or so. And any conflict with them will likely be in their back yard. We obviously have much more real world combat experience than their military has, but it has been focused on fighting counter-insurgencies and low intensity warfare. We are finally now training for fighting against major states rather than terrorists, but there is a lot of work yet to be done. The US has been too caught up in its own ideological BS conflict between the left and right to effectively counter what China has been up to. I’m sure both the left and right will blame each other for being the problem.
Perhaps, but only briefly. China is set to collapse in about 10 years due to having too many old people retiring and not enough young people working. Its likely that prior to that they will hypermilitarize, and may, breifly, be a world power before they collapse. Russia is in a similar boat, but Russia is more food-secure than China, and China will soon be suffering famine as a result of the countries they import their food from having reduced access to fertilizer due to Russias war in Ukraine.
