I don’t want to be over-confident, but this story follows the same pattern of every story we’ve ever seen from the Cold War. The Russians are beating us. The US lead is fragile. The Soviets are going to pass us because their command economy allows it. And usually, the article relies on statistics that the Communist government produces. And guess what? The stories from the Cold War were completely over-hyped. The Russian economy was nowhere close to overtaking the US economy. The Soviets weren’t spending 20% of their economy on military - they were spending 50% of their economy on military and that was before the Reagan defense build-up. Do we have to worry about the Chinese? Yes. Why? Because they are stealing our technology? But should we believe their data and this idea that they are close to us in terms of advanced technology? No. They aren’t remotely close.
Even if they are not, we should act as though they are.
Incidentally, the GOP should adopt a similar policy going into the midterms.