How advanced and powerful is the Chinese military

Factual Questions
1

The Chinese military spending is about $100 billion a year. How large and advanced is their military?

There is some info here obviously

But I’m wondering how that translates into how effective they would be at waging war offensively or defensively, or how far they could travel in a war.

I know they have nuclear weapons, they have ICBMs that can reach almost anywhere from Mainland China (except latin america). I also know a few years ago they showed they can shoot a satellite out of the sky, plus they are as of now building aircraft carriers.

But I’ve heard they don’t have the ability to move enough land units to invade Taiwan, even if they wanted to. Can they deploy a corp or division anywhere in the world on short notice?

Do the Chinese innovate any novel military technology, or do they get most/all of their military technology from theft? I know they steal some US military technology, are there issues of them stealing from other wealthy western countries with advanced militaries like South Korea, Israel, the UK, etc?

2

Um, actually China could probably land a few division in Taiwan at will.
I heard a story (FWIW): as the UK’s lease on Hong Kong was about to expire, Thatcher was dragging her feet as to the turnover. The President of China (whoever at the time) was quoted as telling her “We can have 2 divisions there in 48 hours. I suggest we (work out the details)”.

Attacking China has never been a good idea, and they have rarely been interested in attacking anyone. Nepal is an exception - I have no idea why they want it.

Their missile program is second to none, and they are past the point of needing to steal or copy. They steal for the same reason we do - it is quicker than doing it from scratch.

3

I’m not sure how valid this website is, but they talk about China lacking the ability to invade Taiwan by sea.

4

Taiwan has a military that could likely hold off an invasion from the mainland. It can’t be compared to Hong Kong, which is just across a land border from Shenzhen.

China has never claimed Nepal, you are probably thinking of Tibet.

5

Ooops :smack:

6

And before anyone points out my error or the other statement: Yes, China was invaded and conquered. By bribing a gate keeper on the Great Wall, as I heard.

7

To address the other side of the OP Defense

I have a nagging feeling that the US could not beat them in China, I even doubt that a “coalition of the willing” could do it.

They have ICBMS that if they cannot hit you at Home, they can make D-Day a bad one

Huge army and defense in depth is not a problem for them, they have a lot of room to retreat and regroup

Excellent air defenses and an understanding of stealth tech. The battle for air superiority is going to be tough.

In short I doubt China can be beaten on their turf. There is a guy in the Pentagon(probably a bunch of them) thats sole job is thinking about this and I bet it gives him/them nightmares.

The short version but you get the gist
Capt

8

China is a strong regional power with little ability to project power far beyond it’s immediate borders. China’s military spending is under a quarter of the USA’s.

China has acqured 3 ex-Soviet carriers (2 of which are now amusement parks), with one ‘operational’.. The Liaoning is much smaller than American carriers and is appears to be a testbed to allow the Peoples Liberation Army Navy to start trining for indigenous carriers that are yet to be built. China has some 11 nuclear-powered submarines and around 50 diesel-powered submarines.

This 2010 articleestimates China’s amphibious landing capability at around 10,000 men - roughly 1 infantry division. Far less than an invasion of Taiwan would require. By comparison around 160,000 landed on D-Day.

China hasnt been at war since 1979. China’s large and relatively well equipped army could perform creditably well defensively, but probably lacks the transport capability to engage in large scale offensive operations.

9

Best way to quagmire their military — supposing some nut is worried about their growing power — would be to get them to occupy Afghanistan.

10

FWIW Thatcher was out of power at least a half dozen years before the hand over.

11

China’s military is primarily internally focused. Realistically, they have limited ability to project power, mostly because they have limited routes by which to do so. Their borders and population is such that their only real way to move troops out by sea, and the US still decisively controls the world’s seas. There are strong signs that China would like to change that and become the hegemonic power in Asia and control the nearby seas, But they have a long way to go, and building up a navy is a much slower and more expensive process than building up other types of military force.

It’s really split as to if China has the capacity to successfully invade and hold on to Taiwan. Half of the experts you speak to will say yes, half will say no. Frankly, it’s unlikely to happen unless the Communist Party finds itself in an unexpected severe political crisis. The leadership has long lost any true desire to invade Taiwan, but unfortunately it’s been a sticking point for so long that they can’t back down from it without upsetting the hardline nationalists, who are important to the party’s stability and need to be kept happy. The only situation where invading Taiwan would make any sense would be if the party felt it was in serious danger of losing control of China, and wanted to use the invasion to whip up enough nationalist fervor to get through the crisis. That’s not looking particularly likely at this time, as they Party has actually been pretty good at planning through potential rough patches.

That said, Capt Kirk is right that we could not successfully invade and control China. We can’t successfully invade and control freaking Afghanistan. China is enormous and the Chinese people would be unlikely to be amused by our attempt. I can’t even conceive of a military that would be capable of military takeover of a country that big in the modern world.

12

China has somewhere between a 5-1 to a 10-1 advantage against Taiwan in just about anything you care to measure. And while 20-30 years ago Taiwan could depend on having better gear, the mainland has caught up and likely surpassed them just about everywhere as well.

But Taiwan still has four huge advantages in a theoretical war.
The first is the Mainland can’t throw everything at Taiwan. The vast majority of their forces would have to remain on their other borders. So while they have a 6-1 advantage in combat aircraft probably only about a third of them could be devoted to Taiwan.

Second, the strait is a huge barrier. China has well over a million men in their army. But at best they can sea lift about 30,000 of them. And that is pretty much counting even every theoretically amphibious capable ship. Which means Taiwan effectively outnumbers the Mainland 4-1 in ground forces that would actually be engaged.

Third, Taiwan gets to fight in a defensive posture over known and fortified ground. This gives their forces an advantage. Even in aircraft, although likely outnumbered, Taiwan will be fighting over their bases with anti-air missile support. Whereas the mainland fighters won’t have any support and will have to fight their way in to their targets.

Fourth, Taiwan would likely have the US as an ally in any conflict. And that may bring in other Pacific rim nations in as well. Fighting through the US 7th fleet and maybe the Japanese as well as Taiwan’s navy means that China is going to have a hard time even landing their outnumbered ground forces.

All in all I wouldn’t give then a chance in a hundred.

That said that doesn’t mean China isn’t a first class military power. They have the largest army in the world. And significant portions of it are fully the equal of the US in training and equipment. They are still lagging in command and control. And they are in transition from a mass division based force to a more agile brigade based force (like the US). But where they have modernized they look to be very effective.

The navy is also in the middle of a huge transition. They are trying to create a true blue water navy. And so far are pulling it off. As it stands they definitely in the top five naval powers and within 20 years look to be number two. 20 years ago they couldn’t operate outside their adjacent seas. Now they have a permanent presence in the Indian Ocean. And that is the kind of navy they are looking to build.

Likewise they currently in third place for 4th generation fighters. And are one of only 3 countries working on a 4th generation fighter.

Even with friendly nations to base from they couldn’t pull off an invasion of Iraq like the US did. They don’t have the transport or logistic capability. But they probably could have occupied it better. And as a whole they are rapidly improving. Given another 20 years they may be able to insert and support 20 odd brigades anywhere in the world. All in all they are not the match of the US more or less in any category. And there are some categories that they are quite deficient in. But they aggressively working on everything. The US looks to still be the gold standard for the foreseeable future. But I expect anywhere China isn’t already number two they soon will be.

13

I think China could occupy Afghanistan much more easily than the US. They’re far less concerned about human rights than the Americans.

14

Are you sure of this? I thought that about everybody with a serious airforce was working on them?

15

Tell that to the Russians. They didn’t have much luck with Afghanistan either.

16

You are right. Poor wording on my part.

There are other countries working up designs. The US is the only nation with planes in actual service. The Russians and Chinese have planes built and in active testing phases. Everyone else is in pre-design or early design phases. And of course the US plans on making the F-35 available for export. So a lot of countries may end up with them. None the less the Chinese are currently in third place in the development of a native 5th generation fighter.

17

The USA’s.

18

IIRC from what I read, they have been working on their navy in recent years, so they may be far more able to invade Taiwan that previously. The problem with any such military endeavour (not unlike invading Iraq, Iran, or Afghanistan) is “how much do you want to pay for victory?” They most likely could eventually win, especially if they told the USA that they were willing to blow up the world if the USA interfered.

Plus, they are expanding their role as consumers of resources from Africa in recent years, and investing heavily there. A navy is more important when you have overseas assets that may need protection from time to time.

Since they can orbit large space stations, I don’t think there’s a problem for them in hitting anywhere in Latin America either.

Ultimately, they’ve put themselves in that category of states where it’s very very expensive to mess with them.

Tibet? The lesson of an empire is the crumbly edges come and go as the central authority weakens or strengthens. From time to time, Tibet was an ally, vassal, or subject. Other times, it was independent. After turmoil from before 1900, the west started to walk all over them; for the revolutions, the Japanese invasion, WWII and the revolution when nobody was minding the periphery there were various independent warlords who basically ignored Beijing. It seems to me that Mao was no less sensitive to acusations of weakness than the emperors were before him. To demonstrate complete and strong central authority, he cracked down on wayward provinces. To emphasize that a new, stronger power was in charge in Beijing, he went after areas that belonged to China at some point, that he knew he could win. That was Tibet.

Today, they pour money into developing it (badly), and they move thousands of ethnic Chinese in to help with the work. All that does is mean there is an economically advanced Chinese elite and the Tibetan locals have an immediate target to hate. Remember what happened to a lot of Russian nationals, in Estonia and Lithuania, in Uzbekistan and Azerbaijan, when the USSR broke up.

19

How will did that tactic work out for Argentina?

20

There’s a fuckton of difference between claiming that your military is as well organized, trained and equipped as the USA, and being able to demonstrate that capability when reality hits. The USA has had a very large amount of experience in actual combat in the last 20 years or so, whereas very few other nations have.