I think I need to clear a few things up. In this AU, China would be ahead quite a bit from it's irl position, having already completed the Varyag and having developed the J-20 signifigantly sooner. This is what allows this scenario to even be possible, otherwise and insta-crush by American forces would be too likely for China to risk war.
Thing is, that goes both ways.
If China aims to go to war with the US and her allies then the signs will be obvious and will most likely trigger an arms race. A race, I might ad, the west is still in a position to win. True, China probably has the single highest production capacity in the world, but by far the majority of it is geared for civilian production and it's barely even capable of that much. (It's not uncommon for a newly delivered ship to be unable to leave the drydock because it can't get its engine to run)
The western world on the other hand has a production facility that has been tailored to high quality production since that's the only way it's going to survive. This means that a whole lot more of it is capable of being retooled for weapons production
Anyway, my point is if China starts pushing, the US will respond. They even have a couple of likely choices including keeping the Enterprise for a couple of more years, increase funding for the F35, build more F22s (As far as I'm aware they haven't finished the current order yet, so the production line and the workers are still there)
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