The Chinese dragon may spout fire but is not ten feet tall yet

11 April 2023

Chinese President Xi Jinping has said he is preparing for war. At the Annual Meeting of the Chinese Parliament in March 2023, Xi beat the war drums hard to the party faithful, telling his generals to “dare to fight”. With the West almost completely fixated on Ukraine and its war with Russia, for Xi now might just be the time to roll the dice and take Taiwan by force. A recent news report in the Asian Times and Forbes warned that the US is at a growing risk of a “firepower gap with China”, as the production of US explosives and propellants continues to decline and China’s continues to rise.

The fear that US’s supposed weakness throws Taiwan, and its US allies in the Pacific, to the Chinese dragon, is cultivated by Beijing. The view that the war in Ukraine is depleting the US and her NATO allies’ war stocks only adds to the perception of Western frailty. The US military-industrial complex needs to be ramped up, as it is a real concern to the US and its Indo-Pacific allies in deterring and fighting a war with China.

US firepower gap with China

According to the Forbes article, China has overtaken the US in developing new types of explosives. The report warned that almost all US military explosives are made at the ageing US Army plant at Holston, Tennessee, using World War II-style production practices that cannot produce explosives like China’s CL-20. By way of illustration, the US makes ten tons of CL-20 a year, but large-scale wartime use of CL-20 would require a production rate of 1,000 tons a year, and US industries need three to five years to catch up. Forbes also noted that the US depends on China as the only source for a half-dozen chemical ingredients used in its military explosives and propellants, bringing the security of US logistics chains into question in war. Lastly, in broad terms, the article warns that, due to China’s development of propellants and energetics, a war with China would confront the US with Chinese missiles with power and range greater than anything in the US arsenal.

A strong US industrial base with sufficient munitions stockpiles and weapons systems is critical for deterring Beijing in war.

Furthermore, a recent Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) study went on to warn that a future war with China over Taiwan could trigger a global shortage of semiconductors, upsetting the global microchip supply. It went on to caution that China has a near monopoly on rare-earth minerals that are critical for the manufacture of US missiles and munitions. China also dominates the global advanced battery supply chain, including lithium hydroxide, cells, lithium carbonate, anodes, and cathodes. Additionally, the US has supply chain concerns over access to titanium, aluminium, other metals, missile propulsion equipment/fuel, high-temperature materials, and a range of microelectronics. According to CSIS, supply chain problems might be addressed by updating and expanding the authorities of the Defense Production Act, with the goal of being able to fund longer lead times, expanded and modernised production lines, and efficiencies.

According to the same study, it would take an average of 8.4 years to replace Major Defense Acquisition Program inventories at surge production rates. It can take two years to produce the PAC-2/PAC-3 air and missile defence system, Tomahawk Block V, Joint Air-to-Surface Standoff Missiles, and Precision Strike Missile. It can take at least 18 to 24 months to implement investments in some factories to develop the capacity to meet surging demands. Meanwhile, the US and her allies are moving large amounts of money and weapons and ammunition out the door to Ukraine potentially weakening deterrence in the Pacific.

Ukraine

Complicating the US’s ability to counter China in the Indo-Pacific is the fact the US military aid to Ukraine is draining both national treasuries and war stocks. There are even reports that weapons like the M1 Abrams main battle tanks — bought by Taiwan — are being rerouted to Ukraine. With the West focused on Ukraine, there is an increasing fear in Washington and some allied countries that China may take advantage of these factors and try to settle accounts with Taiwan by coercion and war.

Ukraine could face a shortage of ammunition in the second half of this year unless the US and NATO invest in new production. Needless to say, some weapon and munition stockpiles are more abundant than others, and expanding or developing new production lines takes considerable time. Ukraine has reported that the number of shells arriving from Western countries has dropped by a third, and military experts report that Russia has also reduced its rate of fire, as both are struggling to resupply their artillery units. The Ukrainian army is firing 155 mm artillery shells so quickly that it could exhaust Britain's supply in just eight days. The demand for production is estimated at 10 to 20 times higher than currently available.

The US and its European NATO allies produce 480,000 155mm shells on an annual basis. That yearly production rate covers about two and a half months’ consumption for Ukraine in battle. To date, the US alone has given Ukraine more than 8,500 Javelin antitank systems, 1,600 Stinger antiaircraft missiles, and 38 HIMARS between February 2022 and March 2023. Imagine what Taipei could do with this influx of weapons if they were available in the lead-up to a hypothetical war with China, and imagine their potential deterrence effect on Chinese planners if Taiwan was a ‘porcupine’ bristling with missiles.

Taiwan war

With more than USD 32 billion in weapons committed to Ukraine since the start of Russia’s attack on Ukraine, another CSIS report warned that the US’s military-industrial base is ill-prepared to fight a two-front war with Beijing over Taiwan’s independence and a proxy war with Russia over Ukraine. A strong US industrial base with sufficient munitions stockpiles and weapons systems is critical for deterring Beijing in war.

One of the most important technologies to prevent a Chinese seizure of Taiwan is long-range precision-guided munitions, including missiles launched by US warships and aircraft. In some two dozen CSIS war games that examined a US-China war in the Taiwan Strait, the US expended more than 5,000 long-range missiles in three weeks of intense conventional war. Three weeks of fighting would consume an estimated 4,000 Joint Air-to-Surface Standoff Missiles, 450 Long-Range Anti-Ship Missiles (LRASMs), 400 Harpoon anti-ship missiles and 400 Tomahawk land-attack missiles.

The good news for Taiwan and the US is that another CSIS report said that a Chinese invasion of Taiwan would face defeat but at a high cost. Based on a Chinese amphibious invasion of Taiwan in 2026, military experts ran 24 war game scenarios. They found that in four weeks of high-intensity fighting simulation, the US lost hundreds of aircraft, two aircraft carriers, up to two dozen other surface warships, and the bulk of its attack submarine fleet. US bases in Guam were devastated, Taiwan and its economy suffered heavy damage, and Japan was forced to enter the fighting. However, China lost more than 100 warships and tens of thousands of soldiers were killed, wounded, or captured. In the scenario where the Taiwanese and their allies won most decisively, the Chinese amphibious and transport fleet lost 90 per cent of its ships.

Fraught with challenges

At present, a Chinese move to invade Taiwan would be fraught with many challenges — specifically, the number of troops needed to seize the island in offensive operations, the logistical challenges of getting those forces to Taiwan, and keeping them there with resupply. Hence, President Xi Jinping is not ready to throw the dice just yet. Right now, Xi is studying the lessons of Russia’s war in Ukraine with regard to war with Taiwan and the US. He is assessing the vulnerabilities of the US and its allies, but likely also realising the vulnerability of his weapons systems that were derived from Russia and Soviet-era equipment, the People’s Liberation Army’s (PLA) organisation, training, and tactics. Throughout most of the Cold War, we heard how the Soviet military was “ten feet tall”. That certainly remained the narrative about the rebuilt Russian Armed Forces, until they found themselves in a conventional war in Ukraine in February 2022. Russia was going to take Kyiv in two days, yet more than a year later the Russian invasion is mired in a ‘meat grinder’ war of attrition with Ukraine trained and equipped by NATO. Every day we hear that Beijing has a bigger military than the US and its allies, a 340-ship navy, a multitude of missiles, greater shipbuilding and weapons production capacity — and that maybe the PLA is ‘ten feet tall’.

Maybe Beijing is winning the arms race with the US; maybe it will replace the US as the dominant world power; maybe it cannot be deterred; and maybe war is coming in the Indo-Pacific where the US and its allies are increasingly up against a wall. Russia invaded Ukraine in February of last year, with three-to-one odds over Ukrainian forces, and is nonetheless stalled. Between marines, amphibious capable infantry, and special forces, China has about 100,000 troops for its initial landing forces. Taiwan has 88,000 ground troops and 1.6 million reservists. A hypothetical Chinese invasion force is likely going into land on Taiwan’s defended beaches, airfields, and ports, which back on to built-up areas with one-to-one odds or worse. President Xi needs five-to-one odds for a clear chance at victory. We keep hearing of outnumbered Indian troops on the Line of Actual Control being jumped by Chinese soldiers, with the odds well in Beijing’s favour, yet the PLA gets sent packing each time. So, while the US military-industrial complex is on idle, and should be on full throttle, do not count Washington out in a firepower war with Beijing yet.

DISCLAIMER: All views expressed are those of the writer and do not necessarily represent that of the 9DASHLINE.com platform.

Author biography

Joe Varner is the former Director of Policy to Canada's Minister of Defence, an Adjunct Scholar at West Point's Modern War Institute, and Deputy Director of the Conference of Defence Associations. Image credit: Flickr/Eugene Kaspersky (cropped).