If this drag reducing pattern is public knowledge and is effective, why wouldn't the US also be using it? There's nothing about 3d printing TI that's unique to China.
Lufthansa subsidiary Swiss said in a May 15 statement that it has modified all its 777-300ERs with sharkskin technology over the past one-and-a-half years.
Looks to me that using shark patterns inside a jet engine (vs as outer skin) incl hardened printing methods is a new tech, and yes everybody can eventually imitate/repeat other peoples tech, but it'll take time to get things right, so the article seem unbiased enough.
Because they didn't have a need to sink super carriers? Or because they understate the capabilities of their weapons instead of over hyping them? US definitely could have strapped a ballistic missile on an f15 like Russia did and called it a day, but that wouldn't be useful. I don't see how that's connected.