This is a good point, and China has basically already risen to European levels of energy use and emissions. For the services available to the typical Chinese person, I wouldn't expect this to rise a ton more, unless China adopts US-style car-dependent land use for the majority of its population. Look at the difference in consumption between car-dependent city planning and the urban cores where cars are not a necessity:
That's a bigger difference than the US-China difference.
But even if China does decide to go that route, they have two other advantages over the US: 1) the housing growth will come from new builds that are far better insulated, and use heat pumps rather than fossil fuel heat, and 2) they will be able to grow the car fleet with EVs, rather than having a huge existing fleet of ICE.
https://coolclimate.berkeley.edu/maps
That's a bigger difference than the US-China difference.
But even if China does decide to go that route, they have two other advantages over the US: 1) the housing growth will come from new builds that are far better insulated, and use heat pumps rather than fossil fuel heat, and 2) they will be able to grow the car fleet with EVs, rather than having a huge existing fleet of ICE.