The U.S. failure to correctly predict how the Russian and Ukrainian militaries would perform in the early stages of their ongoing war is fueling fears in Washington that America may have major blindspots when it comes to the fighting force of an increasingly powerful adversary: China.
The concerns are rising as American spy agencies are reexamining how they assess foreign militaries, and, according to a Biden administration official, are a key driver of a number of ongoing classified reviews. U.S. lawmakers are among those who’ve requested the intelligence reviews, and some have concerns about China in particular.
China’s communist government is secretive about many of its military capabilities, and it is believed to be closely watching and learning from Russia’s botched opening act in Ukraine. The post-9/11 U.S. emphasis on counterterrorism and the Arab world has undercut efforts to spy on China, former officials and analysts say, leaving some agencies with too few Mandarin speakers. Beijing also has dismantled some American intelligence networks, including reportedly executing more than a dozen CIA sources“,”link”:{“target”:”NEW”,”attributes”:[],”url”:”https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/20/world/asia/china-cia-spies-espionage.html”,”_id”:”00000181-6a75-d00d-a9a3-eaff8e030003″,”_type”:”33ac701a-72c1-316a-a3a5-13918cf384df”},”_id”:”00000181-6a75-d00d-a9a3-eaff8e030004″,”_type”:”02ec1f82-5e56-3b8c-af6e-6fc7c8772266″}’>reportedly executing more than a dozen CIA sources starting in 2010.
Growing U.S. worries that China will sooner rather than later attack Taiwan as part of a broader effort to eclipse American power in the Pacific make the topic of Beijing’s military prowess more salient than ever, said lawmakers and eight current and former officials interviewed for this story. The concerns about a lack of U.S. understanding of China’s military are compounded by the fact that the People’s Liberation Army has not fought in a war in more than 40 years.
China has undertaken an extraordinary modernization of its armed forces over the past decade. The country now has the world’s largest navy in terms of ship numbers, with an overall force of roughly 355 vessels including more than 145 large warships as of 2021, according to the Pentagon’s most recent annual report“,”link”:{“target”:”NEW”,”attributes”:[],”url”:”https://media.defense.gov/2021/Nov/03/2002885874/-1/-1/0/2021-CMPR-FINAL.PDF”,”_id”:”00000181-6a75-d00d-a9a3-eaff8e030005″,”_type”:”33ac701a-72c1-316a-a3a5-13918cf384df”},”_id”:”00000181-6a75-d00d-a9a3-eaff8e030006″,”_type”:”02ec1f82-5e56-3b8c-af6e-6fc7c8772266″}’>Pentagon’s most recent annual report on China’s military power. Meanwhile, the People’s Liberation Army has grown to roughly 975,000 active-duty personnel, and the nation’s aviation force totals over 2,800 aircraft, including stealth fighters and strategic bombers. China began fielding its first operational hypersonic weapons system, the DF-17, in 2020, and its nuclear arsenal is projected to grow to at least 1,000 warheads by 2030.
The U.S. closely tracks developments in China’s military might. But what officials know less about is what Beijing intends to do with this increasingly powerful fighting force.
“This is hard, but at the end of the day, I do think there’s lots of scope for us to ask if we can learn,” said Rep. Jim Himes (D-Conn.), a member of the House Intelligence Committee. “It would have been nice, at least on the non-human factors, to have had a clearer view of what was going to happen in Ukraine, and there’s probably lessons to be learned there with respect to China.”
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https://www.politico.com/news/2022/06/15/china-military-00039786