In November 2021, the annual defence report presented to the US Congress outlined China’s growing military depth and rapid militarisation, emphasising the latter’s pursuing a power parity with the US. The report iterated China’s endeavour to usurp the current global status quo in its favour, by pretending to enact `the great Chinese national rejuvenation.’
It noted that China is pursuing an `active defence’ concept and seeks to create a `world class’ military by 2049. The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) are adopting a policy condoning pre-emptive attacks, if they work in China’s interests. Military planning and development, for the time being, is purportedly focused on China’s claims to peripheral disputes with neighbours. As also its ability to invade Taiwan, with a strategy to repel an enemy, namely the US.
Cross-Strait deterrence still holds today because Chinese leaders remain deeply concerned about the uncertain success of an attempted invasion as well as its risks and consequences. Failed attempts by the PLA to invade Taiwan or to counter US intervention risk undermining the CCP’s legitimacy, the report said.
To that effect, China has been strengthening its army by fielding PCL-171 120 mm and PCL-181 155mm self-propelled howitzers, as well as the field testing of the Z-8 l heavy-lift transport helicopter.
The major focus is on strengthening its navy because of China’s overwhelming obsession with the South and East China Seas, that it claims as its territories, and the prospect of a clash with the US over these and also over Taiwan.
The PLA navy now has 355 ships and submarines, 145 of which are major surface combatants. The PLA plans to have a total of 460 ships by 2030. The US, in comparison, has 305 ships, and will have a fleet of 355 by 2049. The PLA plans to equip itself with its second domestically built Renhai class cruiser by 2024. This will bolster China’s anti-air and anti-ship capabilities. It plans 4 such ships by 2030.
In 2020, the Chinese navy deployed its second Yushen class amphibious assault ship and a third is now under construction. This, China hopes, will enable it to ferry a large number of troops on land, in the event of a clash with the US over the invasion of Taiwan.
The Chinese navy is also on the verge of capabilities to launch long-range cruise missiles from surface combatants and submarines. The PLA now operates six nuclear-powered ballistic missile submarines, six nuclear-powered attack submarines, and 45 diesel-powered attack submarines. By 2030, it plans on garnering 65-70 subs. The US navy presently has 68 submarines.
The PLAAF (air force) has developed the H-6N bomber, a long-range nuclear-capable aircraft, which also can be air-to-air refuelled. The PLAAF has a total of 2,800 aircraft, of which 2,250 are combat aircraft.
The PLAAF now has one of the largest long-range SAM (surface-to-air missile) systems in the world, composed of Russian S-300 battalions and the domestically-produced H-Q9s. Recently, the PLAAF acquired one newer S-400 system from Russia. To sum it up, the PLAAF and the aviation wing of the PLA navy constitute the largest air force in the Indo-Pacific region.
The PLA Rocket Force (PLARF) is the wing responsible for China’s land-based nuclear and conventional missile forces. The PLARF’s growing inventory of DF-26 intermediate-range ballistic missiles is capable of conventional and nuclear strikes on ground and naval targets at ranges as far as 5000 km. Three new ICBM silo fields are now under construction, and the number of land-based ICBMs that could target US soil is expected to reach 200 in the next five years.
According to the US military, China recently launched a long-range missile that went around the world, dropped off a hypersonic glide vehicle which glided all the way back to China and came close to hitting the target.
In the South China Sea, China has been building military bases on artificial islands in a region also claimed by Brunei, Malaysia, the Philippines, Taiwan and Vietnam. Over the last five years China has rapidly built artificial islands housing significant military infrastructure on what had been low-lying reefs. China, in fact, claims 90% of the South China Sea as territory that historically belongs to it.
On 12 July 2016, The Permanent Court of Arbitration at The Hague dismissed Beijing’s claim to much of the South China Sea. It stated that there was no evidence that China had exercised exclusive control, historically, over the key waterway.
China has repeatedly said it does not accept the Court ruling and has continued to expand its South China Sea presence.
On 28 November 2021, Chinese President Xi Jinping talked of rapid modernisation of the armed forces and triumphing in future wars. “Strengthening the capabilities to fight and win should be the starting point and ultimate goal of military talent cultivation,” Xi said. This statement came amid reports that the Chinese military has committed more resources to enrol an additional three lakh personnel for front-line positions.
The fact is China is not only looking for parity, in its neighbourhood, with Western forces; but is stridently looking for global ascendancy. This is why Beijing is seeking new military bases in Asia and Africa, while adding to its pre-existing facility in Djibouti. It is reportedly seeking military footholds in Cambodia, Thailand, Myanmar, Indonesia, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Kenya, Seychelles, Tanzania, Angola and Tajikstan. These bases would facilitate an enormous variety of military capabilities, including naval, air, ground, cyber and space power projection. Such a situation would establish China’s superiority over the US in the new global power struggle.
China views itself as the future of the world, even as it perceives that American power is on the wane. It sees the American mishandling of the coronavirus pandemic, the polarisation of American society over the race issue and the US defeat in Afghanistan as tell-tale signs of this. Chinese influence in lesser developed countries has been burgeoning, as it bankrolls development and infrastructure projects in a number of countries in Asia and Africa.
Many among the lesser developed nations of the world seem to be inviting China’s redoubtable attempts at a New World Order. But regardless of whether the US is an exemplary superpower or not, the fact is, China should be a most unwelcome future apex power, given its human rights record, its being undemocratic, and its belligerent bullying of its neighbours…
montes-musings.blog 
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