The fact is, the West has spent decades building up an entire doctrine of warfare that is slowly becoming obsolete—one that relies on high-tech, high-cost weapons which cannot be reproduced at scale. Part of this is due to the fact that with the increasing complexity of modern ‘high-tech’ weapons, supply chains become problematic, particularly when China controls most of the world’s rare earths.
Hate to tell you all this… but there is no such thing as a ‘stealth technology’ aircraft anymore. Never was. The simple fact is that any such aircraft employing so-called ‘stealth technology’ can in face be detected by old-fashioned ‘long-wave’ (WWII era) radar systems. Now combine this with modern, high-tech long-wave systems with enhanced resolution systems and voila--these aircraft light up the sky just as good as a Cessna 150.
China does not control most of the rare earths. rare earth elements are found every where. China is the only country, so far, to develop the methods of recovery and refinement of these elements. anyone else can do the same, IF they want to invest the money and resources. this requires a huge amount of money and labor. since China can and does use slave labor, they have succeeded in this task.
just because they are the only ones that have does not mean they are the only ones that can.