Any big grouping can compete if there’s enough will. Look at how eg Russia has rejigged much of its war machine during the Ukraine war. Look at how Ukraine has turned themselves inside out to compete. At some level of pressure, countries transform. How much will it take? Is simple economic pressure enough? Can eg Europe gather enough of its massive educated population to transform?
In economic competition, as with poker, if you don’t know who the sucker is…you’re it. China has been making suckers of many countries and they are slowly waking up.
There is a sense in which China has made a sucker of itself, too. China has some serious internal economic structure issues and it remains to be seen how long those issues and the downstream problems it creates are sustainable.
For an example, remember the amazing speed of construct demonstrated by the Chinese government building covid quarantine facilities? Hundreds of square miles of em across every province. They're all gone now.
I always hear this as a criticism of China but then I watch some footage of the actual place and it looks like it lives in the future (to be fair, it's uneven, but let me tell you I've traveled to the US enough times to be shocked at how uneven it can get). Sure, there's real problems I'm sure, where isn't there, but here in Canada by the time we've built a kilometer of an LRT line massively over budget, China has added a new high speed rail line.
Never forget that China somewhat strictly controls what comes out of the country innterns of media and footage. Much contending out of there is paid for. You can see this in influencers who very awkwardly point the camera away from homeless people when they come into frame briefly. And also the plethora of videos by influencers "going out looking for homeless people" and not finding any.