Beijing’s epic military parade in early September triggered Western anxiety over China’s mounting hard-power potential. Indeed, the weapons trotted out were fearsome. Unmanned submarines capable of wielding nuclear arms were showcased, as were robotic dogs, wingman drones, hypersonic missiles, laser cannons and electronic warfare batteries. All as the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) openly menaces Taiwan and extends its global reach.
But there’s a danger in fixating on China’s military upgrades. In fact, the country is fast eclipsing liberal democracies in more pragmatic ways — or already has. Grand set pieces of military theatre highlight combat threats to be taken seriously. Yet the ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP) is positioning the nation as a twenty-first-century leader for different reasons. Among these are China’s near monopoly on critical mineral processing and refinement, its application-centric approach to artificial intelligence (AI), and much more.
“I just saw the future. It was not in America,” wrote New York Times veteran foreign affairs columnist Thomas L. Friedman, after his April visit to Huawei’s sprawling corporate campus in Shanghai.
Make no mistake: China’s military ambitions are real, although it’s uncertain how the PLA would perform in live battle. No such ambiguity surrounds China’s other more fundamental strengths.
A Fire-Breathing Dragon — or Paper Tiger?
The September ceremony in China’s capital was undeniably spectacular. Domestic audiences were treated to hours of ultra-nationalist pageantry and zeal. However, the event was mostly intended for foreign consumption. Weapons systems were emblazoned with white Roman lettering — not Mandarin characters. It made them easy for Western analysts and China’s growing list of military clients to identify.
Chinese arms quality has drastically improved in recent years. Evidence came amid hostilities flaring between India and Pakistan earlier this year. Using Chinese warplanes, Pakistan shot down several of India’s French-made Rafale fighter jets. It was reportedly the first time Western and Chinese military kit have matched up in combat.
“It is no longer enough to say that China’s military…is catching up or that it is copying foreign military equipment designs,” writes the director of the international security program at the Lowy Institute in Foreign Policy. “China is now innovating, and it is leading.”
China is already the top trading partner for more than half the planet.
Much of this stems from the CCP’s successful pursuit of civil-military fusion. The nation’s private sector and vast start-up ecosystem are key to advancing the dual-use technology vital to Chinese military systems, especially in frontier realms such as android soldiers or covert nano-drones.
But there are caveats, too.
China’s military is wholly untested. The country hasn’t fought a war since its 1979 border dispute with Vietnam. A military expert at Singapore’s Nanyang Technological University told the BBC after the September parade: “They can show off these flashy advanced platforms, but are they organisationally agile to use them in the way they want to?”
It’s a fair question. Last year, a newly minted Chinese nuclear submarine abruptly sank while docked in Wuhan. A few months ago, a Chinese navy vessel crashed into a Chinese coast guard ship while harassing a Filipino patrol boat in the South China Sea. President Xi Jinping has purged numerous top generals over alleged corruption.
Annexing Taiwan — the likeliest flashpoint for Chinese aggression — would be the most complex military operation in history. Xi knows a bloody, spiralling conflict that rallies the West to Taiwan’s defence, akin to Vladimir Putin’s disastrous gambit in Ukraine, might backfire badly for China.
There are signs Beijing instead may force Taiwan’s reabsorption by the mainland using the “anaconda strategy.” A vicious but deniable campaign of maritime quasi-blockades, cyberattacks, undersea cable sabotage, cognitive warfare, election interference and economic coercion might achieve reunification absent a hot war.
This preference for cloak-and-dagger methods is telling. It also extends to Beijing’s geostrategic approach writ large.
Combat By Other Means
China is already the top trading partner for more than half the planet. It is also a manufacturing juggernaut that dominates emerging technologies and the so-called electric tech stack. Essentially, China’s tens of millions of factory workers, managers and engineers are uniquely able to build almost anything and get it to market, fast — and then iterate to make it better.
Elsewhere, Beijing’s painstaking work to alter regional media landscapes using its hulking state media apparatus allows it deftly export its political model abroad. Featured within this are efforts to fashion China as a benevolent guarantor of multilateralism and global stability. By contrast, the White House continues to openly vandalize the international system and give a free pass to autocrats. The US State Department in April caved to MAGA outrage over supposed government censorship by closing its Global Engagement Center — an office tasked with thwarting foreign disinformation campaigns. Voice of America is on court-ordered life support. Washington has terminated funding for Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty. More and more, CCP propagandists are liberated to fill information vacuums worldwide with fictions and distortions favouring China.
Liberal democracies are also lagging in the global cyberwar. In late August, Western intelligence agencies declared the expansive Chinese state-backed Salt Typhoon hacking campaign a “national defense crisis” affecting some 80 nations. Only recently discovered, the hackers had for months — even years — been stealthily exploiting hardware vulnerabilities within global internet architecture. Government systems, military facilities and communications networks worldwide have apparently been compromised.
A former official at the US National Security Council during the Biden administration, Anne Neuberger, has warned Chinese malware is being installed in critical infrastructure of America and its allies, and then lying dormant. During a future crisis, these “pre-positioned capacities,” Neuberger says, may “impede air traffic control systems,” paralyze fuel and water pipelines and “cause cascading power outages.” Even their mere existence is a deterrent against confrontation with China, by “raising the specter of disruption at home.”
Elsewhere, Beijing has made deep inroads across the Global South by exporting digital infrastructure to dozens of developing countries in Africa, Latin America and Southeast Asia. Hardware comes complete with wraparound services, financing and expert training. Such packages also feature authoritarian-friendly surveillance tools — and now, high-performance Chinese open-source AI models. Even AI development in the United States is increasingly occurring in a political environment that disincentives democratic oversight over the technology.
This doesn’t negate China’s own internal challenges. Economic momentum has slowed compared to in previous decades, despite massive government stimulus. The collapse of the country’s real estate market and industrial overcapacity are also stoking the prospects of involution and deflation. So much so, that zombie businesses are being kept alive by the state to preserve jobs and avoid civil strife. And its population is rapidly aging, with a minimal social safety net in place. The government, in full damage-control mode, is taking extreme actions to wall off access to information. President-for-life Xi, 72, also won’t be around forever. Yet by so far refusing to signal an heir apparent, he is inviting a brutal succession battle between rival factions of political elites.
Nevertheless, China may still ascend to being the centre of gravity in a multipolar world. If so, it could come via the violence and fury of military action. More likely, though, is that it will be achieved through the slow, strategic strangulation of Beijing’s democratic rivals.
