Reverse engineering is the easy part. China still lacks EUV lithography manufacturing technology. They'll figure it out eventually but the point is to stay a generation ahead. Just like China can manufacture turbine engines but only ones equivalent to what we had some years ago.
I think China does not need cutting edge of everything to be successful. If they build a nuclear power plant that has turbines from 5 years ago they are still going to be ok. The question what kind of power plant to build is much more important.
