Cause the west did manufacture an effective vaccine?
I find it quite feasible as:
The pay of the it gurus in china are nearly a 10th of US
While startup people work their ass off in China and in the West, google or meta are not startup anymore.
I have no doubt whatsoever that the IT gurus in the fangs have to go thru their HR training, diversity reeducation, h&s workshop, etc etc and spend a lot of time replying to email chain BS.
So a 2x factor in efficiency easily reachable.
10 times cheaper, twice productivity and 1.5 billions of school educated pool to find the geniuses...
That's it.
India could match but their education system, class idiocy, poorer health and western deficiencies reduce their IQ pool.
So china advance doable, especially if you take a step back and do not try/can not compete by adding bigger tools
To an extreme, look at a WWII jeep, look at a Humvee, yet who had to piss of Afghanistan.
Bigger tools are not always the winners..and i prefer it that way