China doesn’t yet have the jet engine technology to compete with American 5th gen fighters. I certainly don’t think the US or anyone else should be complacent, but the US has a substantial lead for now.

Not sure fighters matter as much these days - Russia has air superiority in terms of jets over Ukraine - but it uses them infrequently - appears the problem is the ground based counter measures are quite effective and much cheaper.

If they want to attack by air - drones and missiles rather than planes appear to be the way to go.

Similarly aircraft carriers - they can only really be used now to bully small countries. To anybody with significant missile/drone tech they are just massive, slow, sitting ducks.

What matters is drones and missiles etc and how fast you can churn them out. Who would win that?

The US is going to have to find a way to live with countries like China and India, rather than trying to suppress them.

The current US policy of trying to dismant all the organisations that were set up post world war II in order to keep the peace is madness.