As of now from my perspective, China has a lot to improve on their military industrial complex. China still buys a lot of their equipment from Russia. China is the only country that is yet to develop an aircraft carrier within the P5. (I heard China was planning so correct me if I am wrong.)
A straight comparison between China and US, the technology, productivity, research done, all goes to the United States. China however managed to dominate in numbers. China has more men working on their army than that of the US and of course, airplanes, tanks and some other stuff. I don’t want to type all of them.
But with all that being said, China does not hold enough ability to distribute all these advancements. US for example have about 10 Aircraft Carriers and have more than 500 bases operating out of the US. There are bases even in South Korea, so literally all Chinese exports are in the risk and surveillance of the US navy. You know what is going to happen if a war breaks out; US can easily block the Chinese exports there by significantly affecting the country’s economy. (China is all on exports with countries having higher GDP per capita which is majorly western countries who are allies of the US)
So on a military basis, US is much superior and on economic basis, US economy comes from interest rates, that is more than half of it but all of Chinese economy are from exports/manufacturing which can be damaged by the US like I said before. So again, if there is a situation of economic warfare, US economy is very secure than the Chinese economy.
Now let me take a look on the political and soft power influence. US is a country with largest recorded political and soft power influence across the globe. The country has good influence over European economies that are of course other major economies that is also within the NATO. Due to the nature of the NATO alliance, you can’t expect them to do nothing and their involvement in a war can drastically pull the result to their side.
Now if you take China, well you know before I speak, Chinese lacks any influence over major countries but China have a good soft power influence over African nations. But those countries are well you know again, not going to be a drastic change and there doesn’t exist any alliance like NATO in the case of China. So the political battle is again won by the US.
While China may not win a war with the United States and there might be a set of deliberate agreements such as “not hurting each other’s exports” then China could do better, that is enough to damage US significantly even with an ultimate failure.
So both countries will be keen on not provoking a direct war and US may dare not to attack China because that could be a very bad decision for their continued dominance (Same as the case of Russia.)
So in the end, China is a formidable power that can defend and win their interest from any uni-polarity from US or west without the fear of any intervention because it won’t be so beneficial for the other and will continue to be a big economic game changer and regional dominator.
I am still yet to talk about domestic problems, stability and diplomatic power that is largely influence by the mode of regime, but I think all of them are much less inclusive on the subject in talk here.
You reached the end of my rant. Congrats.
1. powerful military force roots from powerful economy and decent R&D , after industry revoltion.
limited budget sinks more british navy fleet than any formidable enemy.
the whole Soviet red navy colasped without any enemy firing after the economy of Soviet colapsed
2. Powerful economy and decent R&D come from vigorous industry activity.
S.Arabia and other Opec countries are rich,but have no its own industry chains,so they can not have their own R&D and defence industry complex.. so, they are always clients states however rich they are.
Instead, only USA,EU,CHina and EU have their own indpendent industry chains and can mantain decent military force.
3. USA is not in a good position to keep on its military superiority,while its real economy scale has been surpassed by CHina.
If USA can not change its economy_going_down, Powerful US navy would be sunk by limited budget,just as powerful British navy was after WWII.
4. vigorous R&D activity were always supported by huge budget and fund.
Before WWII, German and UK had more advanced R&D than USA.but
it was that USA could provide more budgets for R&D that USA"S R&D could surpass UK,German after WWII.
Soviet had once very advanced R&D and was the first country that launched satellite and spaceships.but its R&D had been left by west countries because its economy was weakened and could not provide enough fund later.
Now, USA would face the same problem German and SOviet faced once, that is, its R&D might had less budget than its rivial.
5.Thus, in a word.
USA is still leading militarily and technically,but its leading is very hard to be maitained,because its industry scale is being surpassed by CHina( if it has not been surpassed).
Ulmimately, powerufl military force comes from vigorous industry .
when Industry superiority is gone, USA has to consider cutting its defence budget naturelly,just as Biritish did after WWII.