There is an arms race going on among the major powers to develop hypersonic missile technology (missiles flying above Mach 5 speed – 6,400 kilometres per hour).
the aim of Chinese military modernization is defensive. the ability to neutralize any foolish brinkmanship serves as deterrent to the aggressor. as for nuclear weapons, any advancement is to ensure that mutually assured destruction is sustained. even the crazies in Washington probably have enough sanity not to go there. those people are fundamentally cowards and don't want to die for their cause, whatever theatrics they might put up.
I like the comments - very thoughtful. I don't pretend to know all the answers here but one thing is clear - China is closing the techologicial and military gap at an incredible rate. While dismissing your enemy lightly is never advisable, the US is not a ten feet tall giant. Even if China opens up more about what it is pursuing and how, I am not sure the US can copy that. The weakness of its system is more exposed today than ever. If the US is really confident about its prospect against China in a war, it should have already found a way to start the war as time is on China's side. The fact that the US has not done that tells you it is more afraid than letting on.
Military chaseup aside, Trump's final administration presents the only opportunity left for US-China socio-economic reengagement, entente even, with view to laying the foundation of Chinamerica and using that to deflect conflicts, build trust and collaborate on scitech. If Cn scholars can do US research and work in the US, by the same token US scholars can park, even lead research in Cn -all provided the US conveniently using Cn's CPC as an orwellian totem pole can be quickly put to pasture.
Look at Trump. He's old, tired and suddenly realizing its not so easy to drain the swamp on legal grounds and revivify US manufacturing. He's depending on his cabinet members and while they may be young, they are either looking to him for validation or going ahead, finding blockades and backflow, then reversing using communications; some of the more vocal media are actually against DJT and his hacks, and there's nothing like the power of new post-Meta, post-X social media and Gen Millennial, Z
Meanwhile, because he's analog in a digital world, Trump is finding out that tariffing carries dire consequences and short-term gains mean long-term pains. After all, while he says he just wants the world to be fair to his US, his zero-sum gaming and nuclear dare-you-chicken tactics have been seen thru' so he has no card left to play.
His Ca, Mx, Cn, Jp, Eu (xcept UK for unfathomable reason) tariff targeting will weaken the global economic growth and reopen closing disparity wounds. The US will finally decouple itself from other players it wants to decouple.
It will also inflate costs to itself, reduce its competitiveness and productivity, and with its sanctioning regime, pariah its foreign relations policies. Its allies will now only pay lip service to US pontification on human rights and international rules-based order. Its exposure of internal corruption but with audits blocked by its letters of law will only create new torsional forces beyond those of Jan 6 capitol hill.
On the above basis, it makes sense to meet for Cn to strike some final deal whose success will also reinvent the CPC in the eyes of the US. The ghost of gorbachev's naivete can be put to rest by a higher level transactional dialog between Washington DC and Beijing:
1. Cn confers MFN status on the US; the US reinforces MFN status of Cn, and recognises Cn is still a developing nation because it has still be more 400 million poor;
2. The US abrogates its strategic ambiguity on One-China; the US confirms China is China and Taiwan is a part of China best left to both peoples to reintegrate peacefully without Pelosian interference, USAF/N presence or cross-straits tensions; the US will interim respect the 9-dashed line with view to see how Cn can lift up Asia with the cooperation of Jp, Kr, Asean, India.
3. Import duties and tariffs of all products from both countries with respect to each other will be reduced to a nominal 5%; all primary and secondary sanctions will be lifted.
4. The US will invite and assist Cn to be the primary investor of choice in the US manufacturing sector with view to creating and enhancing US jobs; exports from those plants will contribute to reducing US trade deficits.
5. Cn will revive the US-Cn Phase I deal but exclude oil and gas, expand semiconductors and chemicals, and open full channels for research collaborations and tourism inside both countries;
6. Confucian institutes will be reincarnated as HB culture centres; likewise the US peace corp and culture centres will be invited to set up across Cn; the ElibraryUSA databases will be reintroduced, expanded and adapted for Mandarin readers; this step a prelude to mutual exchange of journalists as trust expands;
7. Trade, commerce, scitech and military personnel of both sides will be invited to reestablish in new offices firmer connections and consultations on issues without fences, walls, borders. Both will consult each other before any disagreement leading to new regulations which will be explained clearly and given ample notice.
8. Permanent Trump-Xi secretariats will be set up in both countries staffed by international relations experts from both countries. Rubio may visit but only if he behaves.
9. Trump will invite Cn to jv on US infrastructure building, tech developments, social AI and space explorations.
but somehow one doesn't think the present Bjg batch has enough panache and good sense to see the opportunity; too much straightjacket leninism which is so unHan.
Why would China and the people of China want to do such a stupid thing. The honeymoon with America is over thanks to the TikTok refugees who showed the real America to the Chinese people on Redbook. No thank you. America was a propaganistic dream that is in truth more a nightmare for an increasing percentage of Americans.
Why? to win the hearts of the American conservatives and drive a wedge against their democrat counterparts who under Biden can be seen to be strategically against China across the globe, especially in tech-strong Europe. If it doesn't work, then we will all have the answer and prognosis that the present discord is permanent. If it works, then China scholars won't have to be sent home only to do 996 and with all hopes and funds dashed furthermore minus their laptops and handphones, and China SMEs won't have to eat dust from loss of export market and need to unload at loss, given additional freight costs. Did you even think of all that? Be careful of smirky overconfidence. But then you could be another one of those trolls. Btw on hypersonics, i have a good guess where and when China first got the idea.
No need to resort to name calling but I would like to ask when was the last time you were in China? China in 2025 is very different from China 2020 let alone 2015 or 2010. Do you think American conservatives can ever be won over to China. That is really the most fantastic thing I have ever heard. If there is one thing that truly unites the elites of American it is a fear and loathing of China. The left right divide is simply for domestic consumption to divide the people so they can maintain their rule. What do you mean by tech-strong Europe? What tech are you referring to? ASML? Which as we see is completely subservient to US dictate. Europe is a non entity in tech or any semblance of global power except in their past dreams. If you believe China is still a bunch of mindless workers pushing pulling lever in 996 hopeless workers dystopia you are seriously misinformed. Salaries of top executives and top scientist may not be as high as offered in the west but quality of life and national moral pride is more than an offset for pure financial reward. This can be extended from the lowest tier "peasant" to top CEO, average quality of life is way higher than the American equivalent if the metric is not just solid gold faucets but satisfaction in your daily accomplishments and confidence in national and personal progress.
China has been publishing and publicising many of her tech achievements in west-accessible peer-reviewed journals. Those articles tell what, how and why.
One wonders the wisdom of doing so when the west consider China a rival even if she doesn't them, and in delving into those findings, the west must be smirking they won't complain to look a gift horse in the mouth in much the same way Lockheed-Martin's Skunkworks engineers had taken an obscure Russian paper and turned it into a first and forminable military application - stealth technology.
If the reason for sharing one's achievements is to tell the west that China has countermeasures to defend when attacked, the very fact they can mount countermeasures to those countermeasures will render China's defense superfluous.
If the reason is just to shock-and-awe, then that would create sputnik moments in the west to chase up when they weren't looking at the achievements or were but had dropped their discoveries earlier.
If the reason is to cause the US to go into a financially ruinous military race, one must note the US has a full global ecosystem including 700+ military bases, a network of military alliances, unmatched combat experience, the most robust university-military-industrial triple-helix co-research system fueled by IP-capturing incentives for their researchers, military intelligence that had sharply penetrated even the kremlin and its military intelligence agenices until Moscow's configuration for attack and Russia's miitary weaknesses were known months ahead of the Ukraine campaign. And the US is financially immunized by dint of its weaponizing of the US dollar on threat to any alternative, as seen by Saudi Arabia, Brazil, India etc. demurring from BRIC's alternative.
One obvious result of China not hiding-and-biding is the west, especially the hegemon US, working to kneecap, demonize and decouple from her supply chains including her STEM specialists wanting to learn in the west and contribute to maintaining its research forte. Today, this result drips even more grief on her assets domestic and international.
One can say only 19% of China's exports go to the US and so she can absorb any shortfall by using her domestic circular economy and subsetting her supply chain to others only to find the US is sanctioning almost all her key major tech players from buying any major G7 tech to pull themselves up and energize her economy (and market), imposing threat of secondary sanctions on any country that takes her supply chain to make for export to the US, closing the de minimis channel and thus her household-products ecommerce export players, and to prevent her inroad into the US, erecting high tariff fences against her EVs and solar products which would otherwise have reduced fuel costs that the present US administration is focused on to reduce its overall manufacturing costs.
China's overreach started after 2008. But one is dismayed why she abandoned camouflaging her achievements. Even parading old russian-type junks at Tiananmen every year would have bought her time. Too big to hide? Was it even conceived and considered and sample-tested?
China made four huge mistakes: one, letting her property developers run riot with bank funds to overbuild and then wildly burn earnings buying window-dressed G7 assets with sideways leakages; two, being the one and not the recipients who fell into debt-diplomacy vs-a-vs domestic funds-needs even if mineral rights are promised by the foreign recipients, made mostly of unstable characters (think Africa, India, Philippines, South-Pacific islands); three, not realizing enough and in advance that microchip fabrication technology is the most important and only global growth-generating capital asset she needs besides being the foundation for all her industrial design and automation ecosystem, and four, letting her ideological underpinnings overrule her strategic thrusts so that while her government's iron-will to make progress may have earned admiration, it remains the only target of calumny, invented and real, that forms the thrust of G7 soft power and thus a monkey-wrench hindrance against the momenta push-and-pull of strategic development.
Of the last mistake, it is strange how America Against America ( https://tinyurl.com/2tuhvap9 ) has resulted in two opposing forces: admiring US scales that eclipsed others while dismissing US ascent based on a reading of its inherent internal strife. Personal overconfidence caused national policy overreach that prevented seeing the US does not subscribe to cyclicity of destinies and thus in its 'inevitable' decline.
Your lack of knowledge on the history of hypersonics is breathtaking.
Russia first deployed and used the mach 5-6 iskander in 2008 in the georgia war. Been used well over 1000 times since in ukraine. They also used them in syria during their intervention.
Also russia has had the mach 5-6 R-37 air to air missile for decades. With a proven 400km range used successfully in ukraine. First only by MIG-31s but now SU-30s and 35s. They even have a tactical nuke version to take out swarms of enemy aviation.
China is the only country known to have deployed hypersonic missiles against naval targets such as carriers.
Again the Russians deployed in 2018(and have since been proven in combat) the mach 10-12 khinazal air launched antiship missille and the mach 8-10 zircon antiship cruise missille. Both as seen in ukraine can hit land targets. They travel in plasma envelopes. The first use of khinzals was against a patriot SAM batteries in kiev years back.
They have the mach 26 avengaurd hypersonic glide vehicles deployed since 2020 but never tested in combat conditions.
Ilso their ABM missiles are all hypersonic.
I have no doubt the chinese missilles will work in combat, but to give the impression china leads the world in hypersonics is crazy.
I refer to US DoD reports on the subject but you could be right and the DoD info inaccurate. there are tons of reports about DF17 and DF21 you can easily find in open sources.
It's no secret ICBMs are hypersonic and they have been around for decades. short and medium range hypersonic missiles are more recent. as for anti-ship and air to air hypersonic missiles, there is plenty of literature there about Chinese arsenal. whose weapon is better is tested on battlefield and the Ukraine war speaks for itself about Russian tech, your commentary being subjective and irrelevant.
I think you underestimate the (((crazies))) in Washington... I think they will need to lose a carrier to wake them up. I like the track of China it seems that China does not want to rule the world. Only (((crazy people))) would want to do that.
"As the hypersonic arms race continues, China’s lead will force its adversaries to make huge investments in defensive measures. Bankrupting your enemy is part of Sun Tzu’s Art of War"
As sales of weaponry depend upon evidence of performance may I suggest that you have a word with your leaders for them to supply Hamas with the new missile for testing!
the aim of Chinese military modernization is defensive. the ability to neutralize any foolish brinkmanship serves as deterrent to the aggressor. as for nuclear weapons, any advancement is to ensure that mutually assured destruction is sustained. even the crazies in Washington probably have enough sanity not to go there. those people are fundamentally cowards and don't want to die for their cause, whatever theatrics they might put up.
haha, "unfortunately", China does not want to proliferate. One imperialist is enough for the world.
I like the comments - very thoughtful. I don't pretend to know all the answers here but one thing is clear - China is closing the techologicial and military gap at an incredible rate. While dismissing your enemy lightly is never advisable, the US is not a ten feet tall giant. Even if China opens up more about what it is pursuing and how, I am not sure the US can copy that. The weakness of its system is more exposed today than ever. If the US is really confident about its prospect against China in a war, it should have already found a way to start the war as time is on China's side. The fact that the US has not done that tells you it is more afraid than letting on.
Military chaseup aside, Trump's final administration presents the only opportunity left for US-China socio-economic reengagement, entente even, with view to laying the foundation of Chinamerica and using that to deflect conflicts, build trust and collaborate on scitech. If Cn scholars can do US research and work in the US, by the same token US scholars can park, even lead research in Cn -all provided the US conveniently using Cn's CPC as an orwellian totem pole can be quickly put to pasture.
Look at Trump. He's old, tired and suddenly realizing its not so easy to drain the swamp on legal grounds and revivify US manufacturing. He's depending on his cabinet members and while they may be young, they are either looking to him for validation or going ahead, finding blockades and backflow, then reversing using communications; some of the more vocal media are actually against DJT and his hacks, and there's nothing like the power of new post-Meta, post-X social media and Gen Millennial, Z
Meanwhile, because he's analog in a digital world, Trump is finding out that tariffing carries dire consequences and short-term gains mean long-term pains. After all, while he says he just wants the world to be fair to his US, his zero-sum gaming and nuclear dare-you-chicken tactics have been seen thru' so he has no card left to play.
His Ca, Mx, Cn, Jp, Eu (xcept UK for unfathomable reason) tariff targeting will weaken the global economic growth and reopen closing disparity wounds. The US will finally decouple itself from other players it wants to decouple.
It will also inflate costs to itself, reduce its competitiveness and productivity, and with its sanctioning regime, pariah its foreign relations policies. Its allies will now only pay lip service to US pontification on human rights and international rules-based order. Its exposure of internal corruption but with audits blocked by its letters of law will only create new torsional forces beyond those of Jan 6 capitol hill.
On the above basis, it makes sense to meet for Cn to strike some final deal whose success will also reinvent the CPC in the eyes of the US. The ghost of gorbachev's naivete can be put to rest by a higher level transactional dialog between Washington DC and Beijing:
1. Cn confers MFN status on the US; the US reinforces MFN status of Cn, and recognises Cn is still a developing nation because it has still be more 400 million poor;
2. The US abrogates its strategic ambiguity on One-China; the US confirms China is China and Taiwan is a part of China best left to both peoples to reintegrate peacefully without Pelosian interference, USAF/N presence or cross-straits tensions; the US will interim respect the 9-dashed line with view to see how Cn can lift up Asia with the cooperation of Jp, Kr, Asean, India.
3. Import duties and tariffs of all products from both countries with respect to each other will be reduced to a nominal 5%; all primary and secondary sanctions will be lifted.
4. The US will invite and assist Cn to be the primary investor of choice in the US manufacturing sector with view to creating and enhancing US jobs; exports from those plants will contribute to reducing US trade deficits.
5. Cn will revive the US-Cn Phase I deal but exclude oil and gas, expand semiconductors and chemicals, and open full channels for research collaborations and tourism inside both countries;
6. Confucian institutes will be reincarnated as HB culture centres; likewise the US peace corp and culture centres will be invited to set up across Cn; the ElibraryUSA databases will be reintroduced, expanded and adapted for Mandarin readers; this step a prelude to mutual exchange of journalists as trust expands;
7. Trade, commerce, scitech and military personnel of both sides will be invited to reestablish in new offices firmer connections and consultations on issues without fences, walls, borders. Both will consult each other before any disagreement leading to new regulations which will be explained clearly and given ample notice.
8. Permanent Trump-Xi secretariats will be set up in both countries staffed by international relations experts from both countries. Rubio may visit but only if he behaves.
9. Trump will invite Cn to jv on US infrastructure building, tech developments, social AI and space explorations.
There are a few more.....
6.
but somehow one doesn't think the present Bjg batch has enough panache and good sense to see the opportunity; too much straightjacket leninism which is so unHan.
Why would China and the people of China want to do such a stupid thing. The honeymoon with America is over thanks to the TikTok refugees who showed the real America to the Chinese people on Redbook. No thank you. America was a propaganistic dream that is in truth more a nightmare for an increasing percentage of Americans.
Why? to win the hearts of the American conservatives and drive a wedge against their democrat counterparts who under Biden can be seen to be strategically against China across the globe, especially in tech-strong Europe. If it doesn't work, then we will all have the answer and prognosis that the present discord is permanent. If it works, then China scholars won't have to be sent home only to do 996 and with all hopes and funds dashed furthermore minus their laptops and handphones, and China SMEs won't have to eat dust from loss of export market and need to unload at loss, given additional freight costs. Did you even think of all that? Be careful of smirky overconfidence. But then you could be another one of those trolls. Btw on hypersonics, i have a good guess where and when China first got the idea.
No need to resort to name calling but I would like to ask when was the last time you were in China? China in 2025 is very different from China 2020 let alone 2015 or 2010. Do you think American conservatives can ever be won over to China. That is really the most fantastic thing I have ever heard. If there is one thing that truly unites the elites of American it is a fear and loathing of China. The left right divide is simply for domestic consumption to divide the people so they can maintain their rule. What do you mean by tech-strong Europe? What tech are you referring to? ASML? Which as we see is completely subservient to US dictate. Europe is a non entity in tech or any semblance of global power except in their past dreams. If you believe China is still a bunch of mindless workers pushing pulling lever in 996 hopeless workers dystopia you are seriously misinformed. Salaries of top executives and top scientist may not be as high as offered in the west but quality of life and national moral pride is more than an offset for pure financial reward. This can be extended from the lowest tier "peasant" to top CEO, average quality of life is way higher than the American equivalent if the metric is not just solid gold faucets but satisfaction in your daily accomplishments and confidence in national and personal progress.
China has been publishing and publicising many of her tech achievements in west-accessible peer-reviewed journals. Those articles tell what, how and why.
One wonders the wisdom of doing so when the west consider China a rival even if she doesn't them, and in delving into those findings, the west must be smirking they won't complain to look a gift horse in the mouth in much the same way Lockheed-Martin's Skunkworks engineers had taken an obscure Russian paper and turned it into a first and forminable military application - stealth technology.
If the reason for sharing one's achievements is to tell the west that China has countermeasures to defend when attacked, the very fact they can mount countermeasures to those countermeasures will render China's defense superfluous.
If the reason is just to shock-and-awe, then that would create sputnik moments in the west to chase up when they weren't looking at the achievements or were but had dropped their discoveries earlier.
If the reason is to cause the US to go into a financially ruinous military race, one must note the US has a full global ecosystem including 700+ military bases, a network of military alliances, unmatched combat experience, the most robust university-military-industrial triple-helix co-research system fueled by IP-capturing incentives for their researchers, military intelligence that had sharply penetrated even the kremlin and its military intelligence agenices until Moscow's configuration for attack and Russia's miitary weaknesses were known months ahead of the Ukraine campaign. And the US is financially immunized by dint of its weaponizing of the US dollar on threat to any alternative, as seen by Saudi Arabia, Brazil, India etc. demurring from BRIC's alternative.
One obvious result of China not hiding-and-biding is the west, especially the hegemon US, working to kneecap, demonize and decouple from her supply chains including her STEM specialists wanting to learn in the west and contribute to maintaining its research forte. Today, this result drips even more grief on her assets domestic and international.
One can say only 19% of China's exports go to the US and so she can absorb any shortfall by using her domestic circular economy and subsetting her supply chain to others only to find the US is sanctioning almost all her key major tech players from buying any major G7 tech to pull themselves up and energize her economy (and market), imposing threat of secondary sanctions on any country that takes her supply chain to make for export to the US, closing the de minimis channel and thus her household-products ecommerce export players, and to prevent her inroad into the US, erecting high tariff fences against her EVs and solar products which would otherwise have reduced fuel costs that the present US administration is focused on to reduce its overall manufacturing costs.
China's overreach started after 2008. But one is dismayed why she abandoned camouflaging her achievements. Even parading old russian-type junks at Tiananmen every year would have bought her time. Too big to hide? Was it even conceived and considered and sample-tested?
China made four huge mistakes: one, letting her property developers run riot with bank funds to overbuild and then wildly burn earnings buying window-dressed G7 assets with sideways leakages; two, being the one and not the recipients who fell into debt-diplomacy vs-a-vs domestic funds-needs even if mineral rights are promised by the foreign recipients, made mostly of unstable characters (think Africa, India, Philippines, South-Pacific islands); three, not realizing enough and in advance that microchip fabrication technology is the most important and only global growth-generating capital asset she needs besides being the foundation for all her industrial design and automation ecosystem, and four, letting her ideological underpinnings overrule her strategic thrusts so that while her government's iron-will to make progress may have earned admiration, it remains the only target of calumny, invented and real, that forms the thrust of G7 soft power and thus a monkey-wrench hindrance against the momenta push-and-pull of strategic development.
Of the last mistake, it is strange how America Against America ( https://tinyurl.com/2tuhvap9 ) has resulted in two opposing forces: admiring US scales that eclipsed others while dismissing US ascent based on a reading of its inherent internal strife. Personal overconfidence caused national policy overreach that prevented seeing the US does not subscribe to cyclicity of destinies and thus in its 'inevitable' decline.
Thank you Hua, another fine article on Chinese technology superiority. First the US naval projection abilities are neutralized, now
Its air power is neutralized. I look forward
to seeing its nuke threat neutralized.
The US does not need any help in Bankrupting the nation.
Your lack of knowledge on the history of hypersonics is breathtaking.
Russia first deployed and used the mach 5-6 iskander in 2008 in the georgia war. Been used well over 1000 times since in ukraine. They also used them in syria during their intervention.
Also russia has had the mach 5-6 R-37 air to air missile for decades. With a proven 400km range used successfully in ukraine. First only by MIG-31s but now SU-30s and 35s. They even have a tactical nuke version to take out swarms of enemy aviation.
China is the only country known to have deployed hypersonic missiles against naval targets such as carriers.
Again the Russians deployed in 2018(and have since been proven in combat) the mach 10-12 khinazal air launched antiship missille and the mach 8-10 zircon antiship cruise missille. Both as seen in ukraine can hit land targets. They travel in plasma envelopes. The first use of khinzals was against a patriot SAM batteries in kiev years back.
They have the mach 26 avengaurd hypersonic glide vehicles deployed since 2020 but never tested in combat conditions.
Ilso their ABM missiles are all hypersonic.
I have no doubt the chinese missilles will work in combat, but to give the impression china leads the world in hypersonics is crazy.
The dark eagle was scrapped a while back
I refer to US DoD reports on the subject but you could be right and the DoD info inaccurate. there are tons of reports about DF17 and DF21 you can easily find in open sources.
It's no secret ICBMs are hypersonic and they have been around for decades. short and medium range hypersonic missiles are more recent. as for anti-ship and air to air hypersonic missiles, there is plenty of literature there about Chinese arsenal. whose weapon is better is tested on battlefield and the Ukraine war speaks for itself about Russian tech, your commentary being subjective and irrelevant.
I think you underestimate the (((crazies))) in Washington... I think they will need to lose a carrier to wake them up. I like the track of China it seems that China does not want to rule the world. Only (((crazy people))) would want to do that.
"As the hypersonic arms race continues, China’s lead will force its adversaries to make huge investments in defensive measures. Bankrupting your enemy is part of Sun Tzu’s Art of War"
As sales of weaponry depend upon evidence of performance may I suggest that you have a word with your leaders for them to supply Hamas with the new missile for testing!