You might want to review the Chinese economy vs the Soviet economy. Very different ballgame now that we have outsourced our factories and technology to China.
Fixed it.
Don’t need to. One of the aspects of my job is working with the analysts that actually analyze the telemetry from chinese platforms and weapons, all of them say chinese military is crap too, that their actual capabilities are far less than advertised by china and their bought and paid for western journals and fake journalists. The difference between my opinion and yours is that mine is informed by true facts, not stupid bullshit read from magazines and written by people with an agenda whom are likely collecting thousands of $ for being an agent of influence for the CCP.