While I do have a bit of skepticism about timeline, I am convinced these are all "must-have" requirements for the next 10 years. This simply attempts to achieve parity in quality with American assets in all classes, which is likely required in case of a full decoupling. Previously, there was the hope that China could spend less on military and the US continue its role as a global policeman. This possibility is now zero, and China will now unfortunately be required to "conventionalize" its forces and supporting logistics along american lines.
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While I do have a bit of skepticism about timeline, I am convinced these are all "must-have" requirements for the next 10 years. This simply attempts to achieve parity in quality with American assets in all classes, which is likely required in case of a full decoupling. Previously, there was the hope that China could spend less on military and the US continue its role as a global policeman. This possibility is now zero, and China will now unfortunately be required to "conventionalize" its forces and supporting logistics along american lines.
This is one unfortunate circumstances that I'm too happy about. Question, what is a clean sheet design?
There hasn't been much 'coupling' between the West and China in military technologies since 1989. From what I have read in the past year or so, the focus seems to be leaning towards ramping up Production as opposed to R&D. I am sure the CIA pays close attention to job advertisements and monitor new constructions and traffic flows around all the R&D institutes for clues. I am all for R&D spending which has much better economic payoffs/multiplier effect than an incremental increase in hardware quantities BUT...
CCP has been very consistently quantitative in its slogans and in gauging progress/success in all areas (e.g. 0% below abject poverty line). With Xi's very publicly stated objective of having a fully modernized military by 2027, one wonders what set of metrics are used to qualify each area as being 'fully modernized'. The stated goal of being the 'best' is further down the road (2035/2050).
A very simplistic but easily understood/verifiable metric is the retirement of all weapon systems introduced before 1997 (i.e. >30 years old tech). Couple that with the fact that COVID-19 has bled all of China's potential enemies dry and all of them must focus on reviving their own economies for the next few years, the urgency/competition for new toys is much lessened. Thus I can see the production focus is on manufacturing current and near-future systems to replace all outdated equipment like towed artillery, Song, J-8's, and <fill-in-your-favorite-blank> so by 2027, the only thing people can carp about the PLA is that they lack actual combat experience. Higher rate production also means helping the economy, shaking out supply chain kinks, boosting manufacturers' R&D budgets, enhances China's posturing, and potentially draw the U.S. and India into an arms race forcing these countries to divert their resources while China enjoys a substantial cost advantage.
Not for a second do I think China's goals are merely to match the U.S. Surpassing and bypassing the U.S. by a wide margin is the surest way to deter any real war. One silver lining of zero-sum based cultures is that when they do recognize something is a lost cause, they can be good losers, shake hands, accept being second, and move on.
Not sure where to put this is or if anyone is interested in it, but hushkit.net made an interview with me - in fact one, I enjoyed a lot - on the PLAAF and the Chinese aviation industry:
Everything you always wanted to know about Chinese air power (but were afraid to ask) – Interview with Andreas Rupprecht
Everything you always wanted to know about Chinese air power (but were afraid to ask) – Interview with Andreas Rupprecht
Congrats Deino!
Thanks and again as usual: I'm always open for any comment and even more for critics.
Well done
And I would also like to know your thoughts on the development of the Chinese army and navy.