I didn't say it would happen today so it is my fault. The ChiComs long range plan is to be the worlds sole industrial power. It may take 50 years but they will one day crank out ships at a pace no other navy will be able to keep up with. I see what they are doing. They are slowly and methodically de industrializing the west.
Sorry. I agree but then they will be bankrupt. We have over what 95 years of perfecting carriers and they have just started, so look at another 50 years for them by then we will have moved on to even more advance technology.
I agree with you on the long-term bit: China (along with Japan and South Korea) have monopolized the big shipbuilders club for a long time now. The West is nowhere those three in overall tonnage being built.
They are pursuing this goal at a great cost to their "citizenry" ( if citizen is even a concept there ) ... because of the insane levels of air pollution that this incurs. Beijing is regularly, especially in the winter, enveloped in smog of a density that is unthinkable in the U.S. I consider it an outrageous crime that this easily observable fact passes without notice here, while we whiplash ourselves with rhetoric of clean air etc. etc. etc.
When I say easily observable, I am refering to the "Modis Orbit Swath" ( this Google search will give you the site ) global images, which survey the globe twice over daily, once each with two satellites, named Terra and Aqua.
The extreme pollution of eastern China, including Beijing and industrial areas to the southwest, is shocking. It is visible in the form of a thick gray covering which flows like a liquid among China's industrial valleys, as this problem is exacerbated by the mountainous topography.
A casual perusal, persisently pursued, will reveal many egregious examples. I'll give you a link to a recent image, although I can't link to it, because who knows why these days:
https://lance-modis.eosdis.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/imagery/single.cgi?image=crefl1_143.A2016337033500-2016337034000.2km.jpg
Beijing is near the top right of the image, under the northern tip of that gray tongue. Note the density of it to the south, as well as that inland valley covered by its own emanations.
I say again, it's incredible that this passes without notice when we are bombarded with hysterical declamations against our pollutions. And then they swing it against us with, "Oh, China is beating us."