A new assessment of China’s military power issued by the Pentagon on Wednesday is notable for a subtle but distinct shift in tone, being more firm and candid than previous appraisals. The review stopped short of accusing the Chinese of being devious or lying but was headed in that direction.
The Pentagon’s evaluation, as before, laments a lack of “transparency” in Chinese objectives and strategy, saying that the Chinese publish “incomplete defense expenditure figures and engage in actions that appear inconsistent” with Beijing’s declarations.
Throughout the report, China is more sharply criticized for “creating uncertainty and increasing the potential for misunderstanding and miscalculation.” Graft “remains pervasive, structural, and persistent.” Corruption in the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) includes “bribery for advancement and promotion, unauthorized contracts and projects, and weapons procurement.”
The annual report has grown to 78 pages from 56 pages in 2002 and reflects the Pentagon’s increased attention to China, the improved ability of US analysts to discern trends in China and a greater anxiety that Beijing potentially poses a serious threat.
An unnamed official who briefed the press on the report in Washington acknowledged the greater apprehension. China’s military modernization, he said, “is of growing concern to us.”
China’s response was swift and bitter. Defense ministry spokesman Hu Changming (胡昌明) was quoted in the China Daily as saying: “China is strongly dissatisfied with it and resolutely opposes it. China unswervingly sticks to a path of peaceful development and pursues a national defense policy which is purely defensive in nature.”
“We urge the United States to stop issuing such a report on China’s military strength and immediately take effective measures to dispel the baneful influence caused by the report so that bilateral military ties will incur no further damage,” Hu said.
Hu said issuing the report would block resumption of military exchanges with the US that China broke off in October after Washington announced the US would sell US$6.5 billion in arms to Taiwan. The US has been trying to get the Sino-US exchanges started again, asserting that dialogue helps to prevent miscalculation.
The new report emphasizes the secrecy in China’s military affairs: “The PLA draws from China’s historical experience and the traditional role that stratagem and deception have played in Chinese doctrine.”
The Chinese have shown renewed interest, the report says, in classical thinkers such as Sun Tzu, who wrote 2,500 years ago: “All war is based on deception.”
“There is a contradiction between the tendencies of China’s military establishment, which favors excessive secrecy, and the civilians’ stated goal of reassuring neighbors and existing powers about the peaceful nature of China’s development,” the report said.
It points to passages in Chinese military writing as examples of the Chinese saying one thing and doing another: “These passages illustrate the ambiguity of PRC [People’s Republic of China] strategic thinking as well as the justification for offensive — or preemptive — military action at the operational and tactical level under the guise of a defensive posture at the strategic level.”
Several commanders at the US Pacific Command have quietly cautioned Chinese military leaders not to miscalculate US capabilities and intentions. The new report brings that out into the open, saying Chinese leaders should realize “that a conflict over Taiwan involving the United States would lead to a long-term hostile relationship between the United States and China — a result that would not be in China’s interests.”
Richard Halloran is a freelance writer based in Hawaii.
Concerns that the US might abandon Taiwan are often overstated. While US President Donald Trump’s handling of Ukraine raised unease in Taiwan, it is crucial to recognize that Taiwan is not Ukraine. Under Trump, the US views Ukraine largely as a European problem, whereas the Indo-Pacific region remains its primary geopolitical focus. Taipei holds immense strategic value for Washington and is unlikely to be treated as a bargaining chip in US-China relations. Trump’s vision of “making America great again” would be directly undermined by any move to abandon Taiwan. Despite the rhetoric of “America First,” the Trump administration understands the necessity of
US President Donald Trump’s challenge to domestic American economic-political priorities, and abroad to the global balance of power, are not a threat to the security of Taiwan. Trump’s success can go far to contain the real threat — the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) surge to hegemony — while offering expanded defensive opportunities for Taiwan. In a stunning affirmation of the CCP policy of “forceful reunification,” an obscene euphemism for the invasion of Taiwan and the destruction of its democracy, on March 13, 2024, the People’s Liberation Army’s (PLA) used Chinese social media platforms to show the first-time linkage of three new
If you had a vision of the future where China did not dominate the global car industry, you can kiss those dreams goodbye. That is because US President Donald Trump’s promised 25 percent tariff on auto imports takes an ax to the only bits of the emerging electric vehicle (EV) supply chain that are not already dominated by Beijing. The biggest losers when the levies take effect this week would be Japan and South Korea. They account for one-third of the cars imported into the US, and as much as two-thirds of those imported from outside North America. (Mexico and Canada, while
The military is conducting its annual Han Kuang exercises in phases. The minister of national defense recently said that this year’s scenarios would simulate defending the nation against possible actions the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) might take in an invasion of Taiwan, making the threat of a speculated Chinese invasion in 2027 a heated agenda item again. That year, also referred to as the “Davidson window,” is named after then-US Indo-Pacific Command Admiral Philip Davidson, who in 2021 warned that Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) had instructed the PLA to be ready to invade Taiwan by 2027. Xi in 2017