It can be quite the shock to look back and see how the PLA was 20 years ago.
In fact, I think it even extends to the whole of China, especially in comparison to current day China.
Yeah, the country underwent one of the most rapid modernizations in history!
I think the comparison on a military basis would look more impressive from a Navy standpoint! China built a world leading shipbuilding industry between 2000 and today. So today they can output a large number of diverse warships.
On the other hand, the US military shipbuilding industry basically collapsed between the mid-80s and today. During the 80s they had three yards producing the Perry class frigates and commissioned as much as eight of them in a single year (the third yard went out of business when it didn't get a Burke contract). That was on top of launching about three Tico's per year, about ~four Los Angeles class and ~two Ohio class (with variations depending on year). Even their output in the 90s was considerably better. I want to say they were producing around 4 Burke's per year in the mid 90s.
EDIT: I think they are at like 1.2 Virginia's per year right now, maybe two Burke's (a class they used to be able to build around four or so per year) and one Constellation class frigate (maybe two in future years). So they have a huge hole to attempt to dig out of, and I am not sure even having unlimited money can fix it. People don't really want to go into shipbuilding and I don't think their shipbuilders are in areas young people live or want to go. So not sure how you can attract people to move to those areas and build up and industry. I figured you'd want to have your shipbuilders in major cities to attract talent.
