This is a textbook example of why Opsec is so useful and powerful for the PLA, especially when it comes to experimental stuff still in the pipeline.
Western politicians and most of their most vocal analysts cannot help but look down on the Chinese. Thus it’s very hard if not impossible to convince them that China is working on super advanced next gen stuff, because even if there is credible intelligence of such, the politicians will simply chose to not believe it.
It’s only when China demonstrates actual operational capabilities that are basically indisputable that the politicians finally take notice, and promptly panic since the actual capabilities are so much more advance than what they expected the incapable-of-innovation-backward-Chinese to be able to achieve.
The 2030 timeframe is when the ‘hard counters’ for currently deployed PLA systems might be available by. There is no real hard counter for assets the PLA might be bringing online themselves by 2030 because China isn’t helpfully mapping out their planned future systems for the US to develop counters for. There might be intelligence on what China might be working on, but it’s not going to be anywhere close to 100% accurate or complete, with also the possibility China might deliberately feed the US false intel to get them to waste time and money developing counters to imaginary systems, so good luck convincing the politicians to allocate funds for those counters.
One thing that separates China from Russia is that the USA has a good idea now on what capabilities that Russia now has and are rightfully scared about what Russia can do and are using all kinds of measures to avoid direct confrontation (with all these international back door methods of sending support to Ukraine rather then straight up just sending that support in the open) due to Russias now obvious capability to bring down the USA fast at anytime should the USA continue to escalate further. At no point has to USA been keen on actually openly fight an actual ground fight with Russia because they are indeed equally vulnerable to shelling as the next Ukrainians. Hence the USA is on guard against Russia at all times, not to give Russia an inch but never to escalate to the point where New York becomes a crater over night. This is hard given the progress Russia is making and the general state of how the west is going financial right now.
With regards to China, it’s a different story given that China hasn’t really fought many overt wars, thus the USA is a bit more in the dark with regards to Chinas true capabilities other then the fact that China can easily out produce the USA and the EU combined and the prospects of China arming Russia is enough to completely freak the west out to the point of begging behind the scenes for China not to arm Russia. It is known but not really well enough it seems that China is building new technologies across all fields that are designed to counter all the advantages that the US has currently deployed and given that China has yet to show them off has a dual effect of giving the US a false sense of security and a general blindness to what China can do when pushed into a war like scene. As of now, China is the only nation in The world to have driven the USA away from the fight twice essentially while being armed poorly in comparison to the west at those times, a feat that Russia has yet to accomplish. That alone should scare the west but due to decades of media brain washing, the USA thinks they can take China when most people could see on the surface is at least equally as well armed as the USA and that alone with Chinas strength of will that has yet to diminish from the time of the Korean and Vietnam war should be enough to scare the USA away from a war (I mean the Pentagon seems to be somewhat aware of the risks while the White House seems extremely oblivious to the dangers). How ever, given that Chinas hypersonic weapons is more advanced then the USA and Russia, along with programs like the hypersonic unmanned fighter ‘dark sword’ and even a six generation fighter in development that is touted to even more dangerous compared to anything prior along with unmanned sea attack drones (which should scare anyone with a hint of an idea as to what this should mean), really should be an indication that a fight against China for the USA should’ve been the last thing the USA should ever push for and that the USA is monumentally stupid for drive Beijing towards Russia, given them an ally
That could even now spell victory for the west if China is on the side as the west, but isn’t because the USA isn’t capable of seeing this anymore nor trying to earn Beijings trust. The USA from the point of view of the general population has 100% no idea what China can do and from where I am at, neither does the rest of the US allies as well, hence a fight with China is likely to contain a massive element of surprise on China’s part and that is critical given how over exposed the USA has been in general. Really if the USA is advanced as they should’ve been, that could’ve outfought Russia, especially with 8 years of prep time in Ukraine, anyone imagining that the USA is remotely ready to face China other then setting up more cannon fodder in the South China Sea has got to be dreaming given how face China deployed counter measures in that Taiwanese crisis last year that scared even the US super carrier far away from the mainland for fear it will be sunk, one shouldn’t think that China isn’t prepared to strike back anytime when required. Though it seems China is doing a good job of wrecking the USA with the method China does best, simply using diplomacy where it counts and ensuring that Russia can economical endure in the fight against the west given how badly the west is going right now with all these bank runs in the USA, the USA might as well give up if it’s banking industry ends up suffering a little too much from what has been happening recently.
China isn’t invincible by themselves given that even China has problems they need to address, but with Russia on Chinas side to sort out their energy needs, this alone should be an extreme nightmare for the west to face and from what I can see, even Biden is becoming more and more incoherent from the stupidity his actions in the last two years have unleashed and has up until now has no solution to a single issue both domestic and abroad. The rest of his cabinet is useless, I mean take a look at the disaster domino that is Blinken