The world has known for awhile that things were shifting toward drone warfare, but China just showed off, Air recon/strike craft and VTOLs, Naval surface and subsurface drones, Ground light forces(robo dogs), and heavy forces(mini drone tanks).
They could effectively wage a war without losing a single soldier. Combined with their industrial capacity, and the defensive capability they showed off (Directed energy anti missile systems for example). Its now clear that China would defeat the US in a conventional war. Many of the things shown off in Chinas parade are technologies still in the prototyping phase in the US. The tech gap is closed. Or honestly in Chinas favor at this point.
They had for example drones integrated into their heavy tank forces. With launch platforms on top, and likely piloted from inside. So their tanks can now get a birds eye view of their surroundings at all times. This philosophy is likely an example of how theyll operate in general. With large armored ships, and vehicles acting as mobile control platforms for their vast drone forces. Its the modern equivalent of the air craft carrier. Drone warefare taken to its logical conclusion.
Our comrades in the PLA arent fucking around.
Like others said, it’s already been clear, that the US wouldn’t be able to win a war of aggression against China on Chinese territory, since they can’t even beat Yemen.
But to call Chinas the strongest conventional military force is just wrong. The chinese military is focused entirely on defending China, because they aren’t trying to rule the world by force. The fact, that the US still exists and hasn’t totally collapsed yet is entirely due to it’s aggressive military stranglehold on most of the world. China couldn’t and wouldn’t do the same. To build the necessary bases all around the world would take many years and many wars would have to be fought over them.
China is winning economically, not militarily. And by using it’s defenses for holding out until the US collapses from it’s own internal contradictions.
Strong doesnt mean aggressive.
I know. That’s why I said they couldn’t. Not just they wouldn’t. At the current point in time, China is still weaker military than the US in that they are not able by far to force their will on most of the world anywhere near the way the US is currently doing, even if they were aggressive.
Why do you measure a nations strength by its ability to force its will on others? If the US were to bring all their forces to bear against China in a conventional war China would likely win. Them choosing to focus on the defensive doesnt make them weaker.
That would be like saying 1000 sword armed horsemen are stronger than a single fortress with machine guns on its battlements because the horses can attack other places and the fort cant.
‘Strong’ is a vague term that could mean ‘power projection’ or ‘resilience’ and I don’t think you folks need to decide which one ‘strong’ refers to by default when you already agree on the relevant details:
US has power projection.
China has no interest in power projection.
US doesn’t have anywhere near enough power projection to defeat China in China.
Yes, you’re right. Well said, thanks.
Because that’s how most of the West defines strength. Their view is that if you aren’t forcing others to submit to your will, someone else will do it to you. You can see this way of thinking every time they start to panic about how bad it would be if the US was no longer the number one world power because in their minds that means that instead of imposing their way of life on others, other people would do it to them. It doesn’t compute that a nation could have strength and not use it to subdue others.
You also frequently see the argument being made that China’s military is weak because it isn’t constantly involved in wars and as a result lacks experience. A lot of people believe that if you don’t go to war regularly then you lose your edge and you will be conquered by others who do. This sort of mentality is extremely common in the West, but is absolutely alien to China which has more or less had the same borders since the Ming dynasty and has always been inclined toward isolationism over expansionism.