March 11, 2024
The DoD’s latest annual "China Military Power Report” identifies the scope of China’s global ambitions and many of the structural changes being implemented by Xi to make China the preeminent military power in Asia and the Pacific.
The report focuses correctly on the extent of China’s military buildup and modernization program. In 2022, the Chinese navy continued to beef up what is already the world’s largest fleet, working on delivering its third aircraft carrier and third amphibious assault ship, as well as additional guided missile destroyers, cruisers, and frigates.
Beijing’s navy will soon be able to conduct long-range precision strikes against land targets from both its submarine and surface combatants.
The Chinese air force continues to modernize and produce increasingly advanced, domestically built manned and unmanned aircraft. Together with the Chinese navy’s air assets, it now constitutes the largest aviation force in the Indo–Pacific. Led by its fifth-generation fighter, the Ju-20, Beijing’s air force is on its way to becoming the largest in the world.
Perhaps most worrying, the report documents that over the past 12 months, China built 100 new nuclear weapons—making it the fastest-growing nuclear power on the planet. Beijing is on track to numerically match the U.S. nuclear arsenal by 2032.
The report also notes that China is deploying its growing military power in increasingly provocative ways. Over the past two years, it conducted more than 280 coercive and risky air intercepts against the United States and its allies.
Finally, the report documents the growing use of Chinese naval assets to intimidate and coerce fishing fleets operating in international waters—not only in the Western Pacific but as far afield as Latin America. All of this is done against the backdrop of an unprecedented number of air and maritime exercises in the waters and skies around Taiwan.
media.defense.gov
Posted by: Timothy Birdnow at
08:34 AM
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