What are they currently leading?
China is leading in pretty much everything right now. They are the top trading partner of pretty much every significant country. And they are planning on building another 100 cities in the next 10 years.
It is ridiculous how much change china is going through right now. Historically, urbanization/cities correlated with economic/military strength. Will that trend hold.
China currently has 100 million man cities...
https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2017/mar/20/china-100-cit...
They are planning to double that in the next 10 years.
We have 10 cities that are 1 million+ people. Europe ( including turkey and russia ) has 33 million man cities.
Think about that.
If anything, the modern era should be a boon to them, since developed countries are virtually conquerable at a certain scale, via modern technology instantly turning that industrial base into a top tier military, if needed, and via the usually strong alliances provided by strong trade relations.
I actually believe China can be a peaceful #1, provided they can be stopped from bullying their neighbors and Africa when the latest political scandal demands a distraction (à la Clinton - Kosovo).
Is extrapolating from the past really useful if the Chinese government has been completely replaced in a civil war, which was followed by the massive changes of the cultural revolution?
Likewise, is Germany a dangerous country right now because "we" have started 100% of world wars within the last century? Honestly, I wouldn't even trust our military to capture Luxembourg right now... (probably for the better!)
This applies to all aspects of China's development, of course, not just their military.
Perhaps they were not, though they were so dominant that they had no security fears and had other levers of power.
Contemporary China has militarily threatened or even had conflicts with most of their neighbors, including Japan, The Philippines, Vietnam, India, and Taiwan, and also the U.S. Communist China fought a war with Russia in the mid-20th century, invaded S. Korea (with the N. Koreans' assent), and invaded and annexed Tibet. They have built-military and quasi- military bases in Sri Lanka (not sure of the status of that one), Pakistan, and Djibouti. They've built infrastructure supporting potential military logistics throughout Asia.
The Chinese government's talking point is in the comment above: China does not interfere in other countries affairs and they seek a 'peaceful rise', citing their history as if President Xi restricts himself to what was done in the Qing, Ming or prior dynasties centuries ago. Almost all warmongers in history, or the ones with any sense, have made the same claims about peace; look up some German propaganda from the 1930s.
They are also developing production low-speed maglev trains.
Of course there are a lot of political factors in both of those achievements. But money definitely translated into results.
(I'm not arguing that China is the best nation in this area either, but they are clearly a leader.)
Not many actual breakthroughs come from China so far, even though they could fill a few Olympic pools with PhDs.
Look at their debt and then tell me they dont try.