More like 4x, and closing in on 5x. And China has done a good job of tying many smaller nations, globally not just regionally, to themselves economically. That gives them an edge in terms of resource extraction where the US has been losing ground. It doesn't help that the US also sends many "waste" products to China like steel that could be processed and reused domestically.
And then there's just the cluster fuck that is the US defense industry. Who could make aircraft for the US in mass numbers anymore? Boeing can't even figure out if they installed a few bolts, NG can't do basic maintenance without wrecking a plane, LM will get you your aircraft for 5x the initial estimate and a decade late.
> And China has done a good job of tying many smaller nations, globally not just regionally, to themselves economically. That gives them an edge in terms of resource extraction
The US has the capacity, in the event of conflict, to nullify most if not all of the out-of-region advantage China has in resource extraction, unless China’s build up pre-conflict is sufficient to nullify the global force projection capacities provided by the US Navy and the US Air Force to which China currently has no equivalent or counter beyond its region.
(The US usually presents these capacities as being oriented to protecting free resource flow in peacetime, but they can be directed at the opposite purpose equally well.)
Presently, yes. If China doesn't push too hard, though, they've got the right partnerships in place to start building out a global military presence under the same pretenses as the US within its partner nations' borders. Give it a decade (maybe less) of serious effort on their part and they could rival the US globally, not just regionally.
If they decide to start a hot war (say by invading Taiwan) today, then it'd be catastrophic for them. Most of those partnerships would dry up (by being a good excuse to end a bad deal for the partner nations or by force from the US and other nations).
Yeah, but if they do it 10 years from now, it could well be different. Thus the very interesting book, "2034: A Novel of the Next World War", 2022,
by Elliot Ackerman (Author), Admiral James Stavridis USN (Author).
The interesting thing was about how India had also advanced in those 10 years from now.
A hot war would massively disrupt trade, among that food. The US provide a significant proportion of food to China. I am not sure if China could survive on a smaller food supply but it would mean austerity if that was the case. Worst case scenario, they cannot use their manpower advantage because they need that for their farm.
And then there's just the cluster fuck that is the US defense industry. Who could make aircraft for the US in mass numbers anymore? Boeing can't even figure out if they installed a few bolts, NG can't do basic maintenance without wrecking a plane, LM will get you your aircraft for 5x the initial estimate and a decade late.