Thousands of miles from the cities that Russia is bombing in Ukraine, China has been studying the war.
In an indirect battle between two superpowers on the other side of the world, Beijing sees a source of invaluable lessons about weapons, strength, intelligence and deterrence that can help it prepare for possible wars of its own.
In particular, Chinese military analysts have been scrutinizing the fighting for innovations and tactics that could aid in a possible clash over Taiwan, the island democracy Beijing seeks to absorb and which the United States has at times pledged to defend.
The war is aprove territory”, they say, that matters China an opportunity to learn of successes and failures on both sides. The New York Times examined nearly 100 Chinese investigative papers and media articles that provide assessments of the war by Chinese military and arms industry analysts. Here’s some of what they covered:
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In view of China’s development of hypersonic missiles, which can be highly maneuverable in flight, they have analyzed how Russia used these weapons to ammunition bunker, a fuel depot and other goals.
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They have studied how Ukrainian troops used Starlink satellite left to coordinate attacks and evade Russian attempts to cut off their communications, and warned that China should rapidly develop a similar low-orbit satellite system and devise ways to take out rival systems.
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They have argued that President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia dissuaded Western powers from intervening directly in Ukraine by brandishing nuclear weaponsa position that could encourage the expansion of China’s own nuclear weapons program.
Ukraine has offered “a new understanding of a future possible world war,” Major General Meng Xiangqing, a professor at the National Defense University in Beijing, said. wrote in the Guangming Daily newspaper, in January. He also wrote: “Russia’s strategy of nuclear deterrence certainly played a role in ensuring that United States-led NATO did not dare to go directly into the war.”
Pentagon officials have said that the troubled invasion of Russia serves as a clear warning to China against risking war over Taiwan, which is about 100 miles offshore. Russian troops are dogged by arms and ammunition shortages and failures in intelligence, resulting in stalled advances and the heavy loss of soldiers’ lives. Some Chinese analysts have been blunt in their views on how Russia sank.
“The shortcomings that have come to light in the logistics and supply of the Russian army should be of concern to us.” according to an article in a magazine published by the Chinese Bureau for the Development of Key Military Technology. It said China should prepare for similar challenges “when thinking about future sea crossings, island capture” and other high-risk operations – an implicit reference to taking Taiwan.
But ultimately, studying Russia’s mistakes may bolster China’s belief that it could prevail in a potential conflict, say foreign experts studying the People’s Liberation Army. Chinese official military budget of $225 billion is almost three times as large big as that of Russia, and China’s massive manufacturing and technological capability means it can produce plenty of advanced drones and other weapons that Russian forces lacked.
“They’re going to try to incorporate those lessons into their training, officer training and doctrine, which is currently under review,” he said. Joel Wuthnowa senior research fellow at the National Defense University in Washington who has studied what the People’s Liberation Army might be like learning from the war in Ukraine. “This was a wake-up call that things might look easy in field training and on paper, but when you meet the enemy things get very messy very quickly.”
China hasn’t fought a major war in 40 years, since Deng Xiaoping sent troops to neighboring Vietnam, and its military scholars study the conflicts of other countries with particular zeal. The war in Ukraine is especially important to China because it is an indirect contest pitting Russia, a close partner of Beijing, against the United States and its allies who support Ukrainian forces.
China is “close to this war in a way that the wars in Iraq or even Afghanistan have not been,” he said Lyle J. Goldsteinan expert at Defense Priorities, a Washington think tank, who has been Study Chinese assessments of the war in Ukraine. “They see themselves potentially in Russia’s shoes in more or less waging war against America.”
Some Chinese experts have said so that Russia’s difficulties in assembling enough infantry forces suggest that China needs to keep its ground forces strong and large, even as it expands those of sea and air. Russia’s experience has shown that “a great power must maintain ground forces of a reasonable size, otherwise it will lose its advantage on the battlefield,” said Wu Dahui, a former military researcher now at Tsinghua University in Beijing. wrote this year.
Russia’s failure to supply its troops with fast, reliable intelligence on Ukrainian movements has also prompted Chinese analysts to urge People’s Liberation Army forces to learn how to better use drones, communications and satellites in combat.
“Russia was unable to scale up several operations, in part because of the lack of coordination and intelligence sharing,” he said. Bonnie Lin, the director of the China Power Project at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington. “China can now try to participate in exercises that are much more complex.”
More broadly, Russia’s troubles in Ukraine appear to have hardened official Chinese beliefs that Beijing, like Moscow, is at the center of a United States-led campaign of “hybrid warfare” that includes economic sanctions, technological bans, information campaigns and cyber-attacks. includes.
“The United States and the West have used this conflict to participate in Russia’s total political denial, total diplomatic suppression and complete cultural isolation,” said Gao Yun, a researcher at China’s Academy of Military Sciences, one of the elite -settings that shapes war planning, wrote in the main newspaper of the People’s Liberation Army. “In addition to fierce clashes of blood and fire on the battlefields, the information and perception battles are equally intense.”
As Ukraine’s successes have increased, Chinese military analysts have focused on the equipment and intelligence supplied by NATO countries to Ukraine to help fight Russian forces. China was most likely monitoring the thousands of Stinger, Javelin and other missiles Ukraine acquiredand weigh what would happen if Taiwan built up its supplies, said Mr Goldstein, who also teaches at Brown University.
“I believe the Chinese are watching all this very closely and adding the numbers together and doing a calculation,” he said.
Another fixation from Chinese military analysts is Ukraine’s use of Starlink, SpaceX’s satellite service, with some suggesting Beijing should set up a similar system of its own.
Starlink has helped the Ukrainian armed forces maintain communications and direct strikes even where digital infrastructure has been wiped out. Chinese military analysts have blamed the inability of Russian forces to cut off Starlink for his problems on the battlefield. Starlink satellites are cheaper to launch and operate than traditional satellites. Inspired by Ukraine, Taiwan has also started studying the technology.
“Facing the Threat of Starlink,” Chinese missile and military investigators chimed in A study“we need to develop and build our own low-orbit satellites.”
Chinese Army Technical Scientists, in a newspaper also cited in a recent Reuters report, suggested that the United States could use such technology in a conflict with China. “No time can be spared in developing ‘soft kill’ and ‘hard kill’ measures against low orbit satellite arrays,” the scientists wrote. In other words, ways to sabotage or destroy them.
Chinese military analysts also appear to be drawing lessons relevant to Beijing’s nuclear buildup. They argued that Mr Putin’s nuclear threats were effective to dissuade President Biden and NATO from directly entering the war. In the event of a possible invasion of Taiwan, Beijing would consider how it could deter Washington, which has pledged to help the island defend itself, and intervene directly in a military conflict.
“It can be seen from this that nuclear powers are how a great power manifests itself,” two Chinese missile researchers wrote in an article on Russian strategy.
China has denounced the use of nuclear weapons in war and vows never to launch a nuclear attack. Yet China’s leader Xi Jinping has indicated last year that China will continue to expand its nuclear arsenal, which has now happened more than 400 nuclear warheadsstill much less than the number held by Russia or the United States.
According to the Pentagon, China’s nuclear arsenal could grow to about 1,000 warheads by 2030. Putin’s threatening gestures could serve as an example to Chinese leaders, Mr. Wuthnow of the National Defense University.
“My main concern is a miscalculation” about nuclear threats, said Mr. Wuthnow. “Xi could come to believe that the US and its allies could easily be sidelined in a conflict in Taiwan. But this would probably be an error of judgment.”
Amy Chang Chien reporting contributed.