France is very developed Western country with high living standards. It is part of the Western world and has benefited from technology transfer from the leader of the West, United States, that China will never get.
Quite irrelevant. We could also say that the United States benefitted from tech transfer, and importantly, a great 'brain drain' from Europe during World War II.
Australia or New Zealand are also developed, Western countries. They can design or build no 'high tech' civilian or military items in any sector. They can not introduce any innovative products or concepts either.
France can, same as Russia.
True Russia was only as rich relative to the West as the Chinese are now. However the great difference is that Russia benefited to access to the best WW2 technology from the Nazis and also Rollys-Royce sold them the best turbofan engine at the time to Russia which they used to power the Mig-17s. These Mig-17s ironically shot down many Western aircraft in Korea. Also remember that the Russians were spending 10-14% of their GDP on the military for 5 decades after WW2 whereas China has been spending around 2% for the last 2 decades.
That's not any 'great difference' but a 'great similarity'.
Do you think China is under any intense embargo or sanction like Iran, Iraq (during Saddam Hussein era), or North Korea?
China got its Z-9 helicopter from France, so even its military is strictly not under embargo in reality but only under embargo on paper.
China still gets most of its military aero engines from Russia for its top of the line fighter aircrafts. Did you forget how most Chinese members said they need to wait before they can export fighter aircrafts to Bangladesh?
That's not a 'restriction' for France, Russia, America or a consortium of European countries (Eurofighter Typhoon).
Besides that, Soviet Union in the past and Russia today introduced lots of innovative new weapons unseen before, anywhere. Not quite the case for China, yet, for both military and civilian sectors.
No offence but it is very difficult to feel inferior to Gulf Arabs who became rich by an accident of geography under their feet.
Difficult or not, the issue is irrelevant.
You implied that the Chinese feel inferior because "Even now the average Chinese has living standards only around a 1/3rd to 1/4 to that of Western countries.".
The same holds true for the Westerners with respect to the rich Gulf Arab citizens, or for the Soviet Union with respect to the Western world.
True, that as long as you need knowledge from others, then you can no longer be a superpower but the question is how long will large numbers of Chinese students keep going to the US?
These students can not come back to China in a day, or settle themselves in and mature in their respective fields all in a day.
It takes many years, or a decade or two, for a general transition from a knowledge-deficit country to a "knowledge-sufficient" country, simply because human brains can not absorb all the information and hone all the required skills that take multiple years of experience to master, within a year or two.
I think not much longer as the Chinese are rapidly closing the technological gap with the West.
You can think so, it's your choice.
But, even with this rapidity, they would not feel self confident enough to assert themselves against the West at the "micro level", at the ground level, in another two decades.
If China becomes "developed" it will become the most powerful country in the world. This is an intrinsic human trait.
We need wait another decade or two to find out.
The definition of 'developed country' is not set in stone, and there is no unique criterion to determine which is the strongest country in the world.
For example, if we restrict our analysis to only publicly declared nuclear weapons arsenal (yields), then Russia is the strongest country.
Using different criteria, United States comes out on top.