You pointed out an obvious and irrelevant fact but neglected my main point. This isn't that complicated. If there are two countries with equal technology and education levels, the larger one will have a greater scientific output. All other things being equal, bigger countries should produce more science. And the things that prevent everything from being equal are largely historical aberrations that will decrease with time.

Obviously, there today isn't a direct correlation between population and scientific output. But that's not what I argued. My assertion is that all other things being equal, a larger country will be able to produce more science. This shouldn't be controversial. More people. More resources. More ability to employ scientists to do science.

Yes, there isn't a direct correlation today between population and scientific output, but different countries have radically different levels of development, wealth, and education. But these differences tend to average out over time as the world as a whole becomes more industrialized and developed. For most of human history, China was the leading scientific and technological power. And this was largely because they were simply had the largest population able to invent and discover things. For a time, small European countries had an advantage. But that's just because Europe got lucky and happened to be where the scientific revolution happened to start. That was never a stable position that could be maintained forever. There is no timeline where tiny England continued to control the world forever.

My point is not that, today, there is a direct correlation between scientific output and population size. You pointed out this obvious fact, but you missed the entire point of my comment. My point is that China overtaking the US in scientific output is not unexpected at all. It's exactly what we would expect to happen. It's a returning to the historical norm, the end of an anomalous period of history. A regression to the mean.