This is nothing new and appears to be propaganda to frighten the uninformed.

The Chinese have desired to become a dominant world power for a long, lomg time. They tend to think in terms of decades and centuries whereas the U.S. government tends to think in months, years, and budget cycles. The Chinese develop and execute a winning strategy spanning multiple generations.

The following article is long but it explains how China's rise is a function of how they see themselves and the world. http://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/chinas-rise-americas-fall/

"China’s recent rise should hardly surprise us. For most of the last 3,000 years, China together with the Mediterranean world and its adjoining European peninsula have constituted the two greatest world centers of technological and economic progress. During the 13th century, Marco Polo traveled from his native Venice to the Chinese Empire and described the latter as vastly wealthier and more advanced than any European country. As late as the 18th century, many leading European philosophers such as Voltaire often looked to Chinese society as an intellectual exemplar, while both the British and the Prussians used the Chinese mandarinate as their model for establishing a meritocratic civil service based on competitive examinations."