@Tommy Knocks your perspective is interesting.
I do believe China is on the verge of leading the world
economically, because the US is so beaucratic and divided socially. 1 thing to note however, while China indeed has some sophisticated technology, it's all American inspired. I know America stole from other countries as well, but America like or not, as a whole country has been the greatest innovator the world has ever seen.
Admittedly, not having been to China myself the culture to me does not seem to lend itself to innovation and that's because they appear; at least to an outsider like me; very homogeneous and oppressive. Until they become more of a melting pot for cultures and ideas there's only so much innovation that you can get from a country that chooses to operate like that. And I get it, in order to grow at the magnitude that they grew at, you have to be uniform...but while being uniform, they are just copycatting. Innovation does not come from homogenization. It's literally the antithesis of it.
We can go tit for tat all day on what China has created vs. who did it first, but that won't get us anywhere.
China will have the ball soon enough, but what exactly are they going to do once they have it.
What's funny is, the US could get the ball back at anytime they wanted right now, but they seem more concerned with roofing the ball than letting anyone playing with it domestically.