[sudosysgen]

This is because when comparing manufacturing outputs, you should look at it in PPP terms, not in absolute dollar terms, due to devaluing and other factors. When you want to calculate how many tanks, missiles, bombs and airplanes, PPP output is what matters. Or if you want to take a page out of the Soviet playbook, Gross Material Product.

The US manufacturing sector is 11.6% of GDP, so 2.33 trillion dollars PPP. In China, it accounts for 40% of the GDP, so more or less 10 trillion dollars of manufacturing output PPP (!). This is a manifold advantage.

The reason why this is to be done is because if you wanted to build say, a tank in the US vs China or Russia, you would need many more dollars for the exact same tank. So measuring manufacturing output must be done PPP.