The Pentagon has issued a report that comes to a fairly obvious conclusion: China is looking to build a military that is second to none, including that of the United States, though clearly, the Chinese have some way to go before that happens.
“The 2022 National Security Strategy identifies the People’s Republic of China (PRC) as the only competitor with the intent and, increasingly, the capacity to reshape the international order,” said the report, which referred to the official name for communist China.
“The PRC increasingly views the United States as deploying a whole-of-government effort meant to contain the PRC’s rise, which presents obstacles to its national strategy," the report noted further, adding:
In this decisive decade, it is important to understand the contours of the People’s Liberation Army’s (PLA) way of war, survey its current activities and capabilities, and assess its future military modernization goals. In 2021, the PRC increasingly turned to the PLA as an instrument of statecraft as it adopted more coercive and aggressive actions in the Indo-Pacific region. Having purportedly achieved its 2020 modernization goal, the PLA now sets its sights to 2027 with a goal to accelerate the integrated development of mechanization, informatization, and intelligentization of the PRC’s armed forces. If realized, this 2027 objective could give the PLA capabilities to be a more credible military tool for the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) to wield as it pursues Taiwan unification.
The report also notes that China is working diligently to enhance and expand its nuclear forces, which include a "triad" -- land, air, and sea-launched nuclear-tipped ballistic missiles, many of which are equipped with multiple warheads using technology stolen from the U.S. (or provided) during Bill Clinton's scandalous eight-year reign.
In addition, the Chinese Communists see the battle with America as ideological -- that is, China wants to impose its authoritarian model of government on the entire planet.
"The PRC has characterized its view of strategic competition in terms of a rivalry among powerful nation states, as well as a clash of opposing ideological systems. PRC leaders believe that structural changes in the international system and an increasingly confrontational United States are the root causes of intensifying strategic competition between the PRC and the United States," the Defense Department report continues. "In 2021, the PRC’s stated defense policy aims remained oriented toward safeguarding its sovereignty, security, and development interests, while emphasizing a greater global role for itself."
Also, China's military is advancing into information warfare: “The PLA considers information operations (IO) as a means of achieving information dominance early in a conflict, and continues to expand the scope and frequency of IO in military exercises,” the report reads.
“Chairman Xi Jinping has called for the PLA to create a highly informatized force capable of dominating all networks and expanding the country’s security and development interests,” the report says.
“PRC [People’s Republic of China] military writings describe informatized warfare as the use of information technology to create an operational system-of-systems, which would enable the PLA to acquire, transmit, process, and use information during a conflict to conduct joint military operations across the ground, maritime, air, space, cyberspace, and electromagnetic spectrum domains.”
But let's be clear: The U.S. military, as well as NATO, are aware of China's intentions and have been developing systems and weapons far in advance of what China has produced thus far. For instance, the PLA air force's J-20 stealth fighter has so far been produced in small numbers -- and nothing close to the numbers the F-35 has been produced. Also, the U.S. Air Force just unveiled the B-21 Raider bomber, a sixth-generation aircraft that is the only one of its kind on the planet.
The biggest pressing concern the Pentagon sees from China is its plan to 'reunify' with Taiwan, by force if necessary, and officials are preparing to deal with it.
"In a recent interview, Department of Defense comptroller Mike McCord said the fiscal year 2024 budget should account for record inflation and focus on munitions key for the defense of Taiwan," private intelligence firm Forward Observer noted in its daily subscriber newsletter on Monday.
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