‘Surprising’ how quickly China’s military is closing gap with US: analyst Lyle Goldstein
Beijing’s challenge is to resist temptation to build the PLA into a ‘hammer looking for a nail’, former US Naval War College professor says
Lyle Goldstein is a senior fellow at the Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs at Brown University, and director of Asia engagement at the Washington think tank Defence Priorities.
My view is that China’s military has made tremendous progress in the process of modernisation over the last 10 years. It’s almost like an aircraft going full throttle or a car that’s going into fourth gear. It really is the pace that has picked up a lot. We had an inkling that this was under way and that major results were going to be forthcoming. But here they are. I have to say, as a military analyst, it’s very impressive. I might even go as far as to say that it could even be unprecedented in its scale and dimensions, and also implications.
If we talk about history, what does it mean in modern military history? This is a very big moment. China has said for a long time it wants to be a world-leading military, a world-class military. Clearly, China is there. The areas where it has achieved that status seem to be increasing every day. In a sense, they have achieved what they’ve set out to do.
There are areas where there’s now emerged a big discrepancy between China and other countries, and ultimately that does hurt China because there is fear. You can sense it in the region. There’s quite a palpable anxiety about where the region is going in a world where clearly the United States is playing less of a role and China is playing much more of a role.
If China was more transparent, people would begin to feel less anxious. Although it’s quite reasonable why China has in the past not been so transparent. Chinese military leaders would say, “we’re hiding our weakness” and that transparency is a luxury for the strong. Well, now China is strong, so it pays for China to gradually become more transparent.
Based on its latest modernisation, do you think the PLA is expediting its own pathway for military advancement or is it merely copying the history of other countries’ military development, such as that of the US? What are the major signs that suggest the former or latter?
But my response is it’s quite plausible that the Chinese platform is actually superior. Just because the exterior looks similar does not mean they’re equivalent. And I do think that they have innovated. And by the way, so many standard Chinese PLA platforms are based off of Russian designs. China doesn’t deny that. They understand that to get ahead, you do whatever you have to do. It has pushed China to the forefront, and it would be foolish to dismiss Chinese development that way.
So now China’s submarines are firing hypersonic anti-ship missiles, and the United States is still firing subsonic missiles from its submarines. It suggests that at least in this one realm of undersea warfare, that China is not just ahead but far ahead. That is a new reality. I don’t mean this trend holds for undersea warfare as a whole. Rather, I mean that one narrow domain of submarines firing anti-ship cruise missiles. But that’s an important issue. So, what we’re seeing is something quite momentous.
There has been a lot of talk about the narrowing gap between the US and China in their military capabilities. If the PLA modernisation drive continues, what do you think are the major areas where the PLA may gain an edge over the US?
That is a very tough question, to look into a crystal ball. The good news is the Chinese military has not been tested in combat. The point is that a lot of this is unknown. Now, US weapons have been tested more regularly. But again, that even is not a perfect crystal ball at all because a lot of these wars that the US has been fighting have been against much weaker opponents. So there has been no peer-to-peer engagement, thankfully.
We have seen a very gradual but steady increase in China’s capabilities. I think it started in air defence; we can imagine why Chinese air defence got serious before these other areas. Partly it was the lessons of the Korean war, but it was also that they were able to grasp the Russian technologies pretty quickly and move up several levels.
But what has been surprising now is how quickly they’ve closed the gap. I would even say at this point it’s hard to think of an area where they’re not either closing the gap or pushing ahead. In terms of the navy, sinking ships is pretty important. China seems to take that with utmost seriousness. I’m extremely impressed by this new array of anti-ship cruise missiles that we’ve seen. Basically, China’s done a lot of things in the realm of anti-ship weaponry that suggests that it’s ahead and not just ahead but far ahead.
What do you think are the usual misunderstandings about the PLA in the West? What do you think the US or other regional US allies are overestimating or underestimating about Chinese military capabilities?
I do believe the West engages in a vast tendency towards threat inflation, and I see it literally in almost every media article. You can see that there’s a natural anxiety at a period of major change. This rather pervasive hinting that China has very expansive military goals, whether it’s conquest of the western Pacific or Africa or the Middle East, is not warranted and constitutes analytical malpractice, to my estimate. I hasten to remind people all the time that there’s just no record at all of Chinese military aggression, certainly not in the modern era, and that should give us substantial confidence that we are not confronting some kind of enormous threat.
A lot of people in Washington are fond of saying, “China is much more powerful than the Soviet Union ever was. So we need to not just do what we did in the Cold War, but do two or three times what we did in the Cold War” in terms of gathering up alliances and preparing for war, basically. I think this is very foolish. It is true that China is very powerful and formidable, but I maintain that national security calculations have to take intentions into account, and there is this tendency to try to act like China has very aggressive intentions, which I just don’t see any evidence for.
It’s also interesting and quite dangerous that Westerners tend to underestimate China’s strength, including its military power. One of the things that has to be realised is that China’s industrial strength stands behind its military strength. I tell people, for example, what if the US and Chinese navies go head-to-head and they both experience huge losses, which is quite likely in a naval war, both losing dozens of ships. Tell me which navy can reconstitute faster? The answer is obvious. China has much greater shipbuilding capability, so that could be a huge difference maker.
But overall, people have not come to grips with what it means that China has more than 200 times the shipbuilding capacity of the United States. That is a force multiplier and of great significance. Generally, I would say the US and its allies, in my view, underestimate China’s capabilities and there are many reasons for that. But some of it could be somewhat legitimate in the sense that China’s military in the modern era is untested. We don’t have a single case of China fighting a large-scale naval battle. That is an issue. But I don’t regard that as much of a problem for China’s military.
How successful do you think the civil-military fusion strategy in the Chinese defence industry has been?
China’s military industry is very impressive – it’s both broad and deep. I cannot think of a single area where China has neglected or where we see pockets of weakness at all.
China understands just how crucial this is in conflict. It doesn’t have any illusions about short wars or cost-free wars or wars that don’t impact the homeland. China is well aware that wars are bloody and costly, and the homeland is badly affected and that it often comes down to who is willing to pay the heavier price and who can outproduce the opponent.
As for the civil-military fusion, part of this is just in the DNA of the PLA – the “people’s war” doctrine – looking for that kind of deep integration between society and the military, and that seems to make sense intuitively to many Chinese.
In some respects, however, they’re also reading off the US script, and they’ve studied our military-industrial complex very thoroughly. They know where much of the innovation happens in the US military: it’s places like Caltech and MIT. The Chinese know that very well, and so you can see a real determination to have their leading universities, their leading research centres and their leading companies tied in with the military.
The number of engineers in related fields that are produced, like naval architects, for example, is astounding. If you put China versus the West or China versus the United States, it’s not even close. That’s a very important asymmetry that has served China’s military very well.
The lack of combat experience is a much-talked-about weakness of the PLA. How important is it in your mind?
It does have some importance. Looking on the naval side, it is very striking that in the modern era, China has not fought any major naval battles. It’s not only the practical issues related to that in terms of training, institutional learning and culture, but also there’s a bit of a self-confidence issue, which is natural.
I just don’t think the United States has faced a peer military in combat since 1945, and I can’t underline that strongly enough. So, therefore, I don’t think that China is at a major disadvantage due to lacking combat experience.
Unprecedented numbers of top PLA generals have been sacked in the country’s anti-corruption drive over the last few years. How big do you think the impact is on the PLA’s combat readiness in the short term and in the long run?
Here as usual, I’m departing from conventional wisdom. I don’t see any major impact. It may be the opposite. It’s just common sense that you want a military run by younger folks. And having a military run by people in their 40s and 50s is going to be much better for a lot of obvious reasons than by a bunch of elderly gentlemen. Is there corruption in the PLA? Absolutely, but there’s corruption in every military, and therefore, I do not think the PLA is any kind of outlier here.
I hope that’s not true. I hope I’m wrong here, but we have to consider that as a possibility that the PLA is being radically restructured for war. Unfortunately, that might be true. I hope it’s not.
Well, if my last answer sounded somewhat pessimistic, I’m generally pretty optimistic about the situation. I think there is a peaceful solution here, and it’s pretty obvious what needs to happen in terms of cross-strait relations and pacifying the situation. It takes goodwill on both sides, which we’re beginning to see.
I’m rather hopeful that both sides will step back from the brink. Both sides will realise that if they accommodate a little bit, there is a solution space here because this war just would be so devastating for everyone. So, I do think common sense will prevail.
That’s a big issue. First of all, the launch that we just saw was quite momentous because it shows China’s rising confidence. The naval part of the triad was previously seen as a much weaker part. So, this demonstrates the filling out of the PLA nuclear triad.
But speaking specifically to China’s submarine-based nuclear missiles, this was a big step because we had seen reports that China likely could now fire these missiles from locations near China. So that’s a very different situation. Five or 10 years ago, Chinese submarines would need to sortie out into the mid-Pacific, or at least into the Philippine Sea and beyond, to get into firing position. But now that doesn’t seem to be the case, and that does change the equation.
The truth is China’s nuclear deterrent is very formidable, and I don’t doubt that in a nuclear exchange China could destroy the United States. Of course, China would also be destroyed. So, I think we are firmly in a condition of mutually assured destruction. While many Americans are wringing their hands about this, I think this is good because both sides will be more cautious. It means that we are coming into a situation of greater balance. That balance implies greater stability in the future.
However, I will say I found the first evidence that I’ve seen of Chinese commentators connecting the nuclear build-up directly to the Taiwan issue, and that is a little bit troubling. Of course, there’s a hypothesis that this could make a Taiwan scenario more likely, and that’s concerning.
Unfortunately, the way I understand nuclear strategy, a lot of it comes down to what we call not just the balance of power but the balance of fervour. In other words, which side cares more? Which side is more willing to take risks and take losses? And unfortunately, in this case, it’s absolutely clear to me that China would win the balance of fervour and would have more credibility to take risks in that scenario. So, it’s just another reason why the United States and China should be extremely cautious and even wary of a Taiwan scenario.
How do you forecast the PLA’s future development after 2027? What role does the PLA have in global geopolitics in the future? Will it have its own sphere of influence?
I’m quite optimistic. I’m very impressed that China has built up its strong military without resorting to the use of major force. It is remarkable that China has not used force on a large scale since 1979. That’s an extremely impressive level of restraint – very admirable. I wish I could say that about my country. Can a great power exercise that kind of restraint? We have a saying in the United States: “If you have a really nice hammer, then everything starts to look like a nail.” So, in other words, if you have very large, robust powerful armed forces, which are almost unmatched, maybe you are tempted to deploy them to solve every problem.
I do think, unfortunately, the United States has fallen into that trap. Arguably, we’ve been in this trap for a very long time. Now I do think China has learned some lessons from that experience and is determined not to become the USSR or the United States. And of course, they say this again and again: “we do not seek hegemony”. China also says they don’t seek a sphere of influence.
I actually think China does have a sphere of influence, but here they are using slightly different terminology. What I think it means for Chinese leaders is that it just simply implies China has a set of core interests logically along its periphery. China will expect that its voice is heard very clearly and will have a veto on what goes on there. But I don’t think China is seeking a sphere of influence to control everything that goes on in Vietnam or Cambodia. That’s not China’s aim. Nevertheless, China will quite reasonably insist that it not be threatened from its peripheral areas.
So that is what we’re seeing in the region, and that is a hard transition to that new era of geopolitics, where China is very strong, and China is going to demand that its core interests are respected. There is a possibility that as a country gets more powerful, its core interests grow and expand. That will be the difficult challenge for Beijing, to resist the temptation or trap, wherein its leaders become that “hammer looking for a nail”.