Great observation. I have this idea (apparently semi-obvious based on this discussion) that if there is a future war with China (sure hope we can avoid it), in terms of production and technology, the US is in Germany's position and China is in the place of the US in WW2 parlance.
There are the obvious parallels where the US has great advanced technology, China can sure make things in mass quantities; also they have plenty of brilliant engineers and scientists and can figure out anything. Some obvous differences are the US has been where people from the world flee to, to get freedom and liberty; now we are in a serious period of retrenchment though, with certain (ahem) groups wanting to restrict the books in the library if they are idealogically unacceptable and also anti-science and anti-education etc going along with that. China is not the place you want to go to if you are going to introduce heterodoxical ideas.
There are also all the echos of the '20s and '30s in our current times in the US and the world, groups of countries pushing different ideas and coming together in blocks. We have instant communication, nukes make everything even more serious than that time. The new ascendant anti-democratic countries want their shot at power and riches too.
One other factor that may help the U.S. is that America will have an easier time getting access to some resources as production ramps up than China given our excellent geographic position and China's lack of a blue water navy that can cut off American supply lines. However, while America's navy may get pushed back from the first island chain, there are several other chokepoints it can use to stop materials from coming in to China by sea (which is one of the only cost-effective ways to ship the amount of mass needed to produce war materiel at scale), and many of China's neighbors are not friendly to the CCP and not liable to support shipments of material to support a war through their territory even if it is economical to do so.
There are the obvious parallels where the US has great advanced technology, China can sure make things in mass quantities; also they have plenty of brilliant engineers and scientists and can figure out anything. Some obvous differences are the US has been where people from the world flee to, to get freedom and liberty; now we are in a serious period of retrenchment though, with certain (ahem) groups wanting to restrict the books in the library if they are idealogically unacceptable and also anti-science and anti-education etc going along with that. China is not the place you want to go to if you are going to introduce heterodoxical ideas.
There are also all the echos of the '20s and '30s in our current times in the US and the world, groups of countries pushing different ideas and coming together in blocks. We have instant communication, nukes make everything even more serious than that time. The new ascendant anti-democratic countries want their shot at power and riches too.