Google can't do it, OpenAI didn't do it, Meta didn't do it etc etc.

Why do you think China will?

I am quite certain the gap will only grow

DeepSeek took everyone by surprise with R1. I'm pretty sure they and/or others will do the unexpected again. Not as if the US has a monopoly on awesome talent.

A quick look at the author names on most recent big AI papers, says that's an understatement. US's comparative advantage is in data centers, not in expertise.

Of course, they're betting they won't need those experts soon.

The question you (and parent) are dodging is why doesn't Google and Meta catch up?

US closed labs don't release papers as I'm sure you know

US companies used to release lots of papers. You can go back to when they did, and see for yourself how many Chinese names there are on them. Or you can look at those which still publish a lot, like Nvidia.

Google is catching up, especially by the metric of "making money".

Meta from the start clearly had a strategy not of competing to dominate, but preventing their competitors from dominating by releasing open models and software. (You have them to thank you're not working in Tensorflow right now)

That's a skill issue, not a technology issue.