China Probably Isn't an Imminent Threat
But let's not mirror image what the Chinese Communist Party calculates
China is the "pacing threat" for judging American military capabilities. If we can handle China's military, any other foe is a lesser included threat. The Soviet military had that role as the standard to beat in the Cold War. Preparing for that threat made crushing Saddam's army in the 1991 Persian Gulf War offensive a conventional cake walk. But don't redefine a "pacing" challenge as the "imminent threat" or even current threat. The Soviet Union was the pacing threat and the imminent threat. Russia remains the imminent threat made apparent by its open invasion of Ukraine in 2022 and its continued threats and actual so-called "hybrid warfare" threats against NATO.
Two measures currently underway – the substantial stimulus measures meant to revive the country’s lagging economy and the efforts to regain full control over and modernize the military – are self-reinforcing. If the economy manages to regain traction, measures to reform the military will also become easier to implement. New recruits can be offered better wages, high school military programs and courses can get a bigger budget, and longer, more frequent, more targeted and higher quality training can take place in the PLA. Technological capabilities can also receive a steadier inflow of money. Under such circumstances, China could root out the most pressing problems and achieve the desired level of modernization. But that could take as long as 15 years, and in the meantime, the risk of escalation to armed conflict with the U.S. remains low.
I tend to agree. The authors note problems with training to use the new weapons effectively, recruitment, logistics, and corruption. As well as a fixation on internal security. Truly, the PLA has problems. And I sometimes wonder if modernizing the PLA is the means for multiple five-year plans rather than the end.
China's shiny new weapons with their new car small still wafting in our noses has problems difficult to see. Yet we should not be lulled into thinking their leadership corruption is our silver bullet:
Recent corruption investigations into People’s Liberation Army (PLA) officers and their impact on military readiness in the People’s Republic of China (PRC) have generated tremendous interest. Hyperbolic headlines trumpeting a slowdown in PLA operational readiness surged following the Pentagon’s release of its 2024 China Military Power Report at the end of December, which squarely addressed PLA corruption as one of three special topics in that year’s edition. Importantly, however, although corruption runs deep in the PLAN and across China’s armed forces, the disciplinary-related removals appear not to have a major impact on naval capabilities or operations.
I would really like a definition of "major impact", please. If the lack of a major impact is limited to leadership capabilities, what about the training, recruiting, and logistics? Does corruption really not filter down to infect the rest of the PLA?
But my (fairly confident) dismissal of the nearness of the threat—notwithstanding the so-called Davidson Window theory—has a strong caveat:
As I've droned on repeatedly here, China does not need to defeat America to conquer Taiwan. China needs to defeat Taiwan to conquer Taiwan. And to defeat Taiwan, China only needs to delay our intervention long enough to defeat and conquer Taiwan. This is a far less difficult mission than deterring America or defeating us.
People get confused by conflating China as the "pacing" threat with China as an "imminent" threat. Although stuff can happen. And China will decide what is rational for them when the stuff hits the fan:
How many times have you heard that China would not risk war with America and put their economic growth at risk? Sadly for this view, China's rulers consider the continued rule of the Chinese Communist Party as the ultimate objective. Losing a war that keeps the party in power is acceptable collateral damage.
I’ll listen to your arguments for why they would never wage a war they knew they’d lose to maintain control at home, but don't you dare bestow near-magical predictive and planning abilities on the Chinese as part of that argument!
Things can spiral out of control regardless of intent. If the CCP faces severe internal problems, it define all solutions—foreign and domestic—as means to defeat threats to their monopoly of political power.
Have a super sparkly day. I’m not even sure I reassured myself.
NOTE: I made the image with the Substack capability.