> California can't build a single fast train, while China is laying down more rail than anyone in history in a very short period of time.
The US has had high-speed rail since the 1960s (Metroliner service, now the Acela Express), in the same decade that the technology was introduced in Japan and France. The failure of the technology to see further adoption in the US is due to politics, economics, competition from alternative transport modes, etc, not due to any purely technological issues. China's lead in implementation of high-speed rail is due to a political decision to invest in deploying it, not because China has any significant lead in the underlying technology.
> Soon they will start building commercial aircraft and wipe out Boeing and Airbus in everything but domestic markets.
Comac hasn't wiped Airbus and Boeing out yet. That is surely their aim but time will tell whether they actually manage to achieve it. Their main customer base is Chinese airlines, who will follow the CCP’s instructions in buying local. Comac will likely have some success in Africa and parts of Asia, but is unlikely to challenge Airbus and Boeing's lock on major first-world air carriers. The US is unlikely to allow US airlines to buy from Comac, and will encourage allied governments to apply the same policy.
In some areas, they may not be so far ahead in key tech, but they are further ahead in operationalising it.
California can't build a single fast train, while China is laying down more rail than anyone in history in a very short period of time.
Soon they will start building commercial aircraft and wipe out Boeing and Airbus in everything but domestic markets.
The only two areas I think they will have difficult is with chips, and jet engines.
For most other things, the 'product' and 'operation' is just as much or more important than the 'key research'.
It doesn't matter if the US researchers 'published the paper' if China can take it to market to the 'rest of the world' 10x more quickly.