This is probably just the US Navy making an indirect play for a bigger budget. The Chinese navy and US navy are not comparable.

But there is a real change afoot, it seems likely that the Chinese will master making battleships if they put their mind to it. It seems likely they have the industrial supply chains to sustain a real military build-up if they want to. Their manufacturing capacity is a very real thing and they're are no shortage of brilliant, well educated and respectable Chinese engineers, scientists and workers.

It is notable that they probably have cutting edge capabilities in nuclear engineering, software engineering and manufacturing engineering. They definitely know how to build drones better than everyone else. Hopefully the future of warfare doesn't involve drones.