As deadly as it is for Ukrainians, the conflict with Russia has shown the underlying weakness of the Russian military. Another DKer posted, for the most part describing Russia as a paper tiger. And as long as the conflict doesn’t involve meat waves or launching ICBMs, this is pretty much true. The same reader posted that they believe the threat from China is overblown. This is definitely not true.
China ≥ Russia as a potential military adversary. Here’s why.
First, the Chinese people for the most part really believe in their government and its leadership—Russians don’t. The reason that they believe is that within living generation 99% of the population were farmers and peasants. Now there are schools and high-speed rails everywhere, great jobs, and people live comfortably in new flats in every city. There is still corruption—what system doesn’t have it—but the economic opportunities are almost unimaginable from anyone born in the last 60 years. Much more than in the United States or anywhere else in the world.
Second, in any major city China’s economy is far more advanced and modernized than anywhere else in the world—again including the United States. It’s really hard to describe this in a way that Americans can really understand because we’ve been told for decades that we are no. 1. But how is this for an example:
Over the past 20 years, there were probably more skyscrapers being simultaneously built in any single major Chinese city than the top 10 U.S. cities combined.
The tax base from this economic activity is incredible. And any published number you see is likely low, because China was a very large amount of unreported economic activity. And a larger tax base translates into more resources for doing more things. Things like high-speed rails, shiny new shipping ports, and eventually new fighter jets, aircraft carriers, and so on.
Third, Russia’s economy is small (Italy’s economy is bigger!) because it exports raw materials with no value add: things like oil and grain. Russia will never grow because its system doesn’t allow for and encourage investment in building high-value items, like semiconductors. But China’s does: China’s economy is in fact built mostly on value-add exports. As a result:
The GDP of China is 900% larger than Russia—and continues to grow rapidly.
Fourth, those high-value Chinese exports not only give China the revenue to build a large, modern military, they give it the technical means. If Russia needs to replace a part on an aircraft or a missile, it has to source it overseas. Heck, even Russian tanks use imported steel at this point because Russia no longer has the ability to manufacturer high-grade hardened steel. But China has all these assets. In fact, it has more capability in this regard than any other country in the world, including the USA.
Fifth, China isn’t afraid of the United States. I have literally had Chinese business executives sitting across from me in a lunch meeting tell me that they anticipate and are very excited about a future conflict with the United States over Taiwan. They just said it was too early and that China has to build its domestic consumption base first. Otherwise, war would stop trade, which would crush the Chinese economy.
China’s military is taking notes from the Ukraine/Russia war.
Sixth, China is able to and definitely will master combined arms. They have the technical means and they have seen how effective it is in the Ukrainian/Russian war. For example, even when Russian’s try to coordinate infantry and artillery, they are hampered by a lack of walkie-talkies. There’s no shortage of those in China. (Yes, I know that’s not a great example of combined arms in action. It’s really mean to show how primitive Russia is in every aspect of combined arms, starting with communications)
Seventh, the Chinese are enormously inventive and industrious. I work with both Chinese and American factories and engineers. The Chinese are much harder working and better quality overall. There can be weaknesses on both sides, but overall they are driven—having five centuries of ancestors that were peasants is a hell of a motivation.
Eighth, the Chinese government is in the end a deeply authoritarian regime. All authoritarian regimes rely on xenophobia and external conflict—it’s just a matter of who and when.
I really enjoy my Chinese colleagues skills, professionalism, industriousness, and personalities. And those traits plus the resources of China could easily combine to create a top, top notch military.
Let’s not convince ourself that just because Russia is militarily incompetent, China is too. What do you think?