Is China’s Military Built Upon A House Of Cards?

For the past few years, China has been constructing a vast armada of surface ships and has quickly become the world's largest naval power. Remarking upon the concerning buildup of the Chinese, Admiral Charles Richard forewarned, “… they are putting capability in the field faster than we are. As those curves keep going, it isn't going to matter how good our [operating plan] is or how good our commanders are, or how good our forces are — we're not going to have enough of them. And that is a very near-term problem.”

The new ships making up China’s growing arsenal include big destroyers like the Type 55, which house hefty armaments including anti-ship, anti-submarine, and air defence missiles. Destroyers like the Type 55 are intended to protect Chinese naval strike groups led by aircraft carriers. Speaking of which, the Chinese Navy now has three aircraft carriers with plans to commission a fourth in the next few years. Aircraft carriers give states the tremendous ability to project power abroad. To put things in context, three aircraft carriers and the planes accompanying them helped to bring down the Gaddafi regime in Libya. 

Paper Tiger?

While China's rise seems impressive, its buildup is not without faults. A Chinese nuclear submarine sank at a dock while under construction a couple of months ago. While the cause of the sinking is unclear, we do know that China’s military is fraught with a series of issues. One of them is corruption, which has caused Xi Jinping’s government to carry out a campaign against it. The Premier’s campaign has yielded some notable results, with two former defence ministers currently under investigation for corruption. Additionally, two former members of China’s Central Military Commission, a body that oversees the People’s Liberation Army, have been jailed. 

There are also concerns that China’s military isn’t producing the best quality equipment. Aircraft like the JF-17, exported to Myanmar, possess radars with poor accuracy, and the K-8W aircraft exported to Bangladesh couldn’t fire ammunition soon after delivery. Over in Pakistan, after receiving the F-22P frigates from China, the vessel was plagued with technical problems, including with the anti-air missile system, which wasn’t capable of locking onto targets. Despite its issues, the military is growing more sophisticated and capable. 

While suffering an embarrassing episode, all things point to a China that is becoming more able to match American military might. Most notably, the DF-26B, known as the carrier-killer missile, has a maximum range of 4,000 kilometres and an older DF-21D holds a max range of 1,600km. Both missiles have publicly shown the ability to block American aircraft carriers from accessing the region around Taiwan. Beijing also has a devoted wing of its military called the People’s Liberation Army Rocket Force that is dedicated to manning and firing a multitude of missile systems. As of 2021, the force has at its disposal over 2,000 cruise and ballistic missiles and allegedly possesses enough anti-ship missiles to overcome the defences of all U.S. ships in the South China Sea.  

Even if some of its missiles fail and vehicles break down, China might just have the requisite mass to potentially overwhelm U.S., Japanese, British, and Taiwanese defences.