America's military is far beyond China's and they will not catch up in that aspect for at least 30-40 years if not longer. It's obviously a different story economically, and most experts agree that it's only a matter of time before they overtake America. Richard Nixon said when he visited China that if they got their shyt together, they would easily become the #1 economy in the world due to their massive population. It is a mistake to think that their economy will continue to depend on manufacturing cheap goods for the USA or EU; their middle class (now hundreds of millions of people) has grown rapidly and soon domestic demand for products will sustain their economy like it does in America. Trump's actions (like banning semiconductor companies from trading with China) are only making them more independent; see the progress their national semiconductor company SMIC has been making (through hiring away scientists from Taiwanese and Korean companies and also probably industrial espionage).
IMO the correct way to deal with China is to focus on improving our own domestic infrastructure, put more money into education and research, and increase trade presence in Southeast Asia and Africa to balance Chinese investments. We need to stop focusing on regime change (never gonna happen, China has had an authoritarian govt their entire history and this is accepted by their culture) and isolationist policies like the ones Trump has promoted. America and China will be on equal terms as dual superpowers in the future, that is inevitable.
. One thing I can give Trump is that he truly expose how far this country has to go in order to catch up
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