You're right about the history and every country will have their own strengths and weaknesses, but there's a difference between Russia being one step ahead of s

You're right about the history and every country will have their own strengths and weaknesses, but there's a difference between Russia being one step ahead of several countries and China being several steps behind several countries. Russia is singularly good at something, while China is singularly bad. The top student in a class typically doesn't laugh when everyone is worse than them, but the entire class often laughs at the one student that still can't grasp what everyone else understands, and has for a while. In this case the class is the countries with a permanent seat on the UN security council. China didn't realize how far behind they were at metallurgy until they tried making jet engines. Jet engines are complex, so we weren't surprised the first time a domestic Chinese engine sucked. Not surprised about the second engine sucking either. But it's kind of funny now seeing as they still haven't gotten the hang of it.