[ExI] China's military power implications for American companies, investors

[Dan TheBookMan]

On Sat, Sep 26, 2020 at 6:30 AM John Grigg via extropy-chat
<extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote:
> How should the the West respond to the potential military and economic threat of China? They already have a larger navy than the United States, though America still has an edge with technology and real world military experience. But this will definitely erode over time.
>
> The senior leadership of China envision a military better than the U.S., by 2050. Xi wishes to see the retaking of Taiwan by force before he dies or retires. And so we may see an invasion by 2035.
>
> This will be a war with many new or at least cutting edge technologies, such as lasers mounted on warships, railguns, cyber-warfare, super hypersonic missiles to attack warships, and underwater, surface and aerial drones for surveillance and combat. This will be a true 21st century armed conflict.
>
> https://www.cnbc.com/2020/09/25/chin
> as-military-power-implications-for-american-companies-investors.html

One has to be careful with evaluating armed forces merely by size or
technology. In China's case, having a large fleet doesn't seem to mean
much. It's fairly easy to churn out (or otherwise) materiel and forces
and yet still not be a significant military threat. Much depends on
the ability to use those forces and that relies on them being trained
and having combat experience -- especially training and experience
against likely rivals. In which case, I don't think China's military
really has anything like Western-style navy at this point.

I used to debate this issue with New Zealanders who feared a Chinese
amphibious invasion. The problem there would be twofold: ability to
project power across an ocean and the ability to carry out an
amphibious assault/invasion once was able to master the sea around the
target. Both require lots of experience -- not simply pouring in
technology and ships, the equivalent of sending ever more troops
against the trenches in WW1. It wouldn't be easy to obtain those
capabilities. It'd probably take decades in fact. (Think of why
Germany almost bungled Crete and didn't even manage to implement
Operation Sea Lion. And also think of how the Allies managed to pull
off Overlord only after years of prep. Even Operation Torch took years
of prep and that was relatively easy.)

Of course, arms manufacturers have a field deal stoking fears of any
foreign menace because they're looking for new contracts. But let's
think more critically about how these fears are almost certainly
overstated. And the best response to China is more trade, in my
opinion. This is the old liberal saw that if goods don't cross
borders, armies will. So let goods flow freely. Nations that trade
with each other tend to become economically interdependent and so less
likely to go to war with each other.

Regards,

Dan
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