Perhaps the article has different sources. Wikipedia puts the Chinese destroyer at 10,000 tons (versus 14,000 for the Z). Cost difference is notable. $7.5 billon versus $750 million.
The stealthiness of the Z would be betrayed if operated as part of a carrier strike group, or if accompanied by a resupply ship. It is, therefore, something of a boutique (limited mission) weapon system.
With this fiasco and the fiasco of the Littoral Combat Ship, our Navy finds itself with an aging inventory of (conventional) destroyers, frigates and other smaller warships.
This is similar to the problem of our Air Force, having sunk so much money in the F-35, also a boutique weapon system, leaving us with an aging fleet of fighters and ground support aircraft.
DoD procurement usually leaves a lot to be desired, but the money we are pouring down rat holes has now reached the level of jeopardizing our nation’s defense.
What China is missing is 300 years of naval experience. That’s really hard to fabricate. That’s what got the Soviets in the end. All their incredible naval hardware turned out to be “on the drawing board”.
The Chinese ship is a tenth of the cost of ours, and they have the cash to build a bunch. As the Germans found out when faced with Soviet tanks “quantity has a quality of its own”
We are planing to have a Flight III of the Arleigh Burke class destroyerswith te AMDR or APY-6 radar.