China world economic core in 2016.

[Anomalocaris]

As China need more oil, American dollars poured into the Pentagon to better protect the safety of oil shiekdoms and the traquility of world maritime oil trade will increasingly secure China's access to cheap oil, greatly reduce China's military burden to protect its own oil trade routes, and allow China to devote bigger portions of its bigger economy to kick our ass in non-military ways.

This is one of the few cases where a military build up on the part of one competitor actually allows the other competitor to reduce arms expenditure.