I think it is hardly arguable that China has the most technologically advanced retail market in the world. - Ordering everything online from food to furniture, paying everywhere else by mobile phone, introducing state-sanctioned digital currency [3], and it is closing the gap or even pulling ahead in many other fields as well.
[1] https://www.washingtonpost.com/science/2019/01/03/china-land...
[2] https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-53504797
[3] https://www.scmp.com/economy/china-economy/article/3096296/c...
Well, good enough is good enough. Boeing 737 is currently the most popular plane, and if China's regime manages to steal enough tech to be able build an equivalent product, even if it steals only 60s technology, then China's regime will be in a position to outcompete Boeing based on metrics that matter such as cost or soft power.
It really doesn't matter who has the cutting-edge after a point of diminishing returns. When that point is reached, good old economics start to become the leading criteria.
I'm sure China will manage to copy a Boeing 737 pretty soon, which is 1960s technology. Meanwhile we are doing:
https://boomsupersonic.com
https://www.spacex.com
... and who-knows-what at places like Area 51. :)
Last I checked China's most advanced fabs were doing 28nm, but that was in 2019. By now they've probably started to get EUV working as they feverishly race to copy TSMC. I would not be surprised if Chinese fabs are literal exact copies of prior generation TSMC and Intel fabs, since it takes time to steal inside information.