China is very smart to pursue this strategy. The US is committed to fleet carriers and expensive aircraft, while the Chinese focus on island bases and balistic missiles. The US is hampered by the organizational inertia that keeps us poring resources into systems that worked in WW2 or the Cold War.

In that sense the failurs of the F-35 are kind of a blessing for the US Navy. It forces them to think about drones. If there is a future for surface ships it is probably as missile platforms or as some sort of drone platform, not aircraft carriers.