- China missiles filled with water, not fuel: US intelligence
- Xi seeking to root out corruption, prepare military for combat
US intelligence indicates that President Xi Jinping’s sweeping military purge came after it emerged that widespread corruption undermined his efforts to modernize the armed forces and raised questions about China’s ability to fight a war, according to people familiar with the assessments.
The corruption inside China’s Rocket Force and throughout the nation’s defense industrial base is so extensive that US officials now believe Xi is less likely to contemplate major military action in the coming years than would otherwise have been the case, according to the people, who asked not to be named discussing intelligence.
China missiles filled with water, not fuel: US intelligence
oops
US officials now believe Xi is less likely to contemplate major military action in the coming years than would otherwise have been the case
So this is a good news story.
I mean…the US Navy is roughly 40 times more capable than the Chinese navy just looking at aircraft carriers compared, nevermind the carrier group components or the planes. A US super carrier is so much more capable than the 2 Chinese carriers combined.
China’s ship building capacity is greater than the US. They may be able to overwhelm the US Navy in an extended conflict.
That said, China is looking at a demographic cliff from the One Child Policy. Too many old people and not enough young ones to take care of them. If they’re going to start a war, it has to be in the next few years or not at all. It’s possible the window is already closed.
China would need to build ships faster then the US can build antiship missiles. The US has thousands of stealthy Long Range Anti Ship Missiles. The only thing that quantity of ships would do is make a bunch of reefs.
Mmm.
Hopefully.
Unless you think war is inevitable.
The current Chinese doctrine in a theoretical conflict with America relies heavily on saturation of missile defenses to take out things like carrier groups.
If they didn’t know they’d have a 10% failure rate or whatever it could have completely invalidated their tactics.
But it you accept both that war is inevitable and that China will be the aggressor it would have been better for them not to discover this and thus be unprepared for the conflict, like we see with Russia and Ukraine.
While having China’s rockets fail at a high rate during an invasion would be good. They may be weaker by the time they rebuild their arsenal and an invasion is not possible. They are going to have to check a huge amount of rockets then start rebuilding. A lot can change in 2 years.
What even uses a liquid fuel in the Chinese arsenal? The newer Dongfengs are all solid fuel. US intelligence once again demonstrates their impeccable research ability.
I guess the DF-4, but it was mostly decommissioned ages ago. There’s like one or two hanging around for historical reasons.
A 1 minute google search would have revealed that the main ICBM used by the PLA uses a liquid fuel rocket. It is being replaced with the DF-41, but it is very likely DF-5 is the missile being referenced by the article.
The DF-5s are used in two main operational modes: erecting a mobile launch platform commonly on rails (missiles stored inside mountain tunnels) or stored vertically and ready to launch in silos.
China has maintained a sort of minimalistic nuclear deterrent for years - I think very responsibly - where a handful of quick to launch and well hidden nuclear weapons ensure other powers don’t get too uppity. The pre-fueled missiles in silos therefore represent an essential retaliatory strike component for China’s nuclear deterrent.
Although embarrassing, this sort of corruption can cause catastrophic consequences. I would be happy that rotten apples like this are rooted out.
I disagree. ICBMs serve no purpose in a war unless you’ve already lost. Nuclear strike capability is suicidal and China’s no-first-use policy makes ICBMs completely irrelevant to the discussion of China’s war capability (particularly w.r.t. Taiwan and the SCS).
You don’t launch nuclear weapons unless you’ve lost and you want the other side to lose, too.