US and China: size matters

Comments on Jeong Lee "Why the United States should ‘lead from behind’ in East Asia", 23/03/2013, http://www.eastasiaforum.org/2013/03/23/why-the-united-states-should-lead-from-behind-in-east-asia/

While probably many people would not dare to think the following point as a serious possibility, the likelihood that the US falls into the same trap that eventually caused the former USSR to collapse will increase as the US continues its attempt to militarily contain China into the future.
One remarkably similar feature is the relative size of the populations. The US had a larger population and a stronger than the former USSR. China has much larger population than the US and the Chinese economy is rapidly approaching the size of the US’.
The shares of military spending in the economy and in central government expenditure in the US are much higher than those of China’s, though China’s military expenditure is increasing much more rapidly than that of the US.
It could be postulated that the US would have to increase the share its military spending relative to both its government expenditure and its economy in order to have a credible possibility to be able to contain China in the future, but that is unlikely to be sustainable at all for an extended period from now on.
China, on the other hand, does not have to match the US militarily on a global scale but on the most important geographic locations relevant to China, so China can concentrate its military power as opposed to a global race.
As a result, in the long run, as the Chinese economy will eclipse the US in absolute size, and it is hard to assume that the US will have the economic strength to continue its containment strategy.