Historically speaking, the Chinese people have cared a LOT about how their "honor" was perceived by others. Unfortunately for them, while their culture still claims that, their government obviously uses that as a smoke screen to conceal that they're nothing except worthless thieves without any. Which can be proven by how many things that Chinese companies have taken & made overwhelming ripoffs of from across the globe, then denied they did it while being offended & making threats if those that were stolen from didn't take back their words. Hell, China would never have been able to have nuclear tech if not for their spies stealing the tech from the US & USSR. So I've never had any fear of the Chinese military surpassing us in tech, because you can never do so while using spies to steal it from others.