lcloo
Captain
China does not have to fight a fighter jet with another fighter jet, or deploy a pilot against another pilot. SAMs downed more fighter jets than AAMs. Classic example is Vietnam War.I am sure by the time US and China tensions reach high enough levels that War seems imminent, US will vastly increase its budget to not only produce spare parts for those aging fighters, but it could also bring vast number of decommissioned F-16, F-15 out of the bone yards. That's another reserve of fighters that US has that China doesn't have.
War between US and China will be a war of productions, budgets, state capacities, political resilience. US has a huge reserve of former fighter pilots, civil pilots and 4th gen planes that are in storage. China will need to massively out produce US for many years to catch up to those numbers
China can make more missiles in shorter time than the number of recommissioned fighter jets from boneyards. Also bear in mind China's present aircraft production is at peace time rate, while US is producing at a rate that is much closer to war time rate.
Military budget of China is small as a percentage of its GDP at present. If US will to increase its military budget because of tension with China, and if China in return will to match it with the same GDP percentage for military, their fighter jet roll out rates will be several fold higher than current rates.