Man power with all the infrastructure let the China to become the manufacturer hub of this world but since covid attack every country realized that they shouldn't be dependent on one country for everything they import so which resulted in some of the biggest companies moving their plant to other countries. Probably China may surpass US economy in the next few years but I swear that US is not going to let them to make it is easier.
No one claims that the United States will calmly look at how China becomes the number one economy in the world, although it is quite strange when they begin to be surprised and even arrange hysteria about this, that a country with 1.4 billion people can overtake a country with 329 million people. Yet, mathematically, China has four times the population of the United States, and the economic growth rate in recent decades has been several times higher.
Because instead of a burden, Chine wisely leveraged its huge population to develop the economy. It may not necessarily be this way. High population may not necessarily be an economic catalyst as it may also be a cause for problems related to food shortage or hunger, but it seems China is in fact gaining from it, at least in the past several decades.
With a huge population which are predominantly impoverished, the country started attracting large manufacturing companies by selling dirt cheap labor. It started somewhere there and the economy followed. However, it seems the economic rise of China whose effects are now trickling down to ordinary citizens is also the reason why China is not as attractive as before in terms of labor cost.