China can devote its GDP to keeping pace.
Already happening. India will have three carriers (first being exGoshkov, the other two locally built) by 2025 and Japan will probably have at least four F-35B capable “helicopter destroyers”. The South Koreans and Aussies will have two similar ships each as well.
This war game strikes me as a classic choke point breakout exercise. I’m guessing it was VERY closely monitored by us, the Taiwanese, Japanese and South Koreans. Telling us a heck of a lot more about ChiCom strategy and tactics than they probably wanted us to know. Remember that the USN used a couple war games (Fleet Problems) in the 20s and 30s to show the possibilities of a Sunday dawn attack on ... Pearl Harbor. Something that a Japanese naval officer named Isoruku Yamamoto (amongst others) studied at great length.