Why China is confident about a war with the US (Part 1)

War is physical and China has far superior physical capabilities

I wrote about the higher chance for a 2026 war in my last essay. Some ask how confident China is in prevailing in such a war.

This is a subject I wrote about over a year ago. https://huabinoliver.substack.com/p/comparing-war-readiness-between-china

Since a war between China and the US will only break out near Chinese shores (Taiwan or the South China Sea), Beijing feels near certainty with the outcome because it enjoys several critical asymmetric advantages.

These asymmetries include -

- Geography

- Will

- Military doctrine and preparedness

- Knowledge and intelligence

- Physical capabilities

I’ll touch upon each asymmetry and focus on physical capabilities in the essay.

For brevity, I have split the essay into two parts and will publish the second instalment in a few days.

Asymmetry in geography

Taiwan is 140 kilometers from mainland China and the geography of South China Sea is self-explanatory.

The shortest distance from mainland USA to Taiwan and the China seas is 12,200 kilometres.

By definition, such a war is fought at China’s doorstep with all the implications on logistics, sustainability, and will to fight.

China can deploy land-based as well as sea- and air-based assets in such a war. The US can only rely on sea- and air-power.

The weapon systems China can bring to the fight is an order of magnitude more than the US in quantity and far more lethal in firepower, such as the land-based DF hypersonic and ballistic missile families and J-20, the heaviest 5^th generation fighter in the world.

A comparison of logistics to sustain a protracted war near Chinese shores is unfair, therefore unnecessary.

A very imperfect analogy is the case of Yemen. The US retreated in disgrace in 2025 after it failed to break Yemen Houthi’s Red Sea blockade with an expeditionary navy and air force.

In the process, it lost 3 F-18 Super Hornets and a large number of high value advanced drones.

If the US Navy cannot take on Houthis successfully in their backyard, do your own math how they will fare at Chinese coastline.

Asymmetry in Will

A war at Chinese shores is one between home defender vs. home invader.

China won’t retreat because there is nowhere to retreat; and the US will have to field an expeditionary mercenary force whose will to fight is dictated by a calculation of cost and benefit, which will be its worst since WW2.

For China, Taiwan is an integral part of its sovereign. It may be temporarily separated as a result of Chinese civil war but destined to return.

No Chinese leader can afford to walk back on Taiwan reunification, peacefully or otherwise. It’s an existential issue.

For the US, Taiwan is a useful fawn that forms a node in first island chain to encircle China.

The US does get most of its advanced semiconductors from Taiwan but it is already in the process of coercing TSMC to Arizona at an accelerating pace.

Though important to US geopolitical and economic interests, Taiwan is not an existential issue to the country and hardly worth going down a suicidal nuclear escalation path.

For those who argue the US will fight for the Taiwanese democracy, take a reality pill and get real.

Lee Kuan Yew, one of the most astute observers on China, famously said “China will not give up Taiwan. It will fight a second war, a third war if needed”.

What is the will on the part of the US population?

In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised if Trump or a future US administration put Taiwan up for a trade with China in exchange for debt waiver or some such economic/ political quid pro quo.

Asymmetry in Military Doctrines and Preparedness

For the past 30 years since the third Taiwan Strait crisis in 1996, Beijing’s military strategy over Taiwan and the China Seas has been Anti-Access Area Denial (A2AD).

The PLA is organized along this doctrine and has been developing its military assets, capabilities, training and infrastructure accordingly.

PLA’s carrier groups, Type 055 super destroyers, hypersonic missile arsenals, stealth fighters, and wide range of unmanned aerial and underwater drones are designed to enforce an A2AD bubble from China’s shores to the Second Island Chain (Guam, etc.) and beyond.

Every element of the A2AD kill web has been meticulously assembled and fielded. The kill web is operational, not a theory.

In contrast, the US has been perfecting its military muscles fighting insurgents, non-state actors, and weak third-world banana republics since the staged 9/11 false flag.

And with mixed record. So much for the “greatest military in human history”.

As for fighting spirits of the soldiers, I wrote about the contrast between US and Chinese military parades (picture above) and Secretary of War Hegseth’s “Shaving Private Ryan” speech.

Little need to revisit the subject of what “great shape” the US military is in.

With regard to Beijing’s 3-decade A2AD doctrine, the Pentagon’s response has been shifty and telling.

The counter strategies have evolved from one eye-catching label to another to yet another:

- The Air Sea Battle (the 2000s and early 2010s): a concept to confront China in the traditional ship-for-ship and plane-for-plane fashion. In short, a real major power head-on clash

- Distributed Maritime Operations (DMO, late 2010s and early 2020s): avoid head-on confrontation with large vulnerable assets like carrier groups and disperse personnel and munitions to smaller and more survivable platforms/bases (such as abandoned WW2 airfields in the Pacific) to avoid concentrated destruction

- Hellscape (2020s): overwhelm Chinese landing force with cheap suicide drone swarms to be delivered with the Replicator program.

This is a funny one. Trying to use low-cost drones to defeat China, the world’s largest drone producer by a wide margin. China produces over 70% of drones made globally and is the only country with a complete supply chain.

The US government recently abandoned its planned ban on Chinese drones because it cannot produce the motors, batteries, cameras, and other parts used in the production process such as rare earth.

Unclear whether Replicator is a real strategy or it’s just someone in Pentagon who thinks that a scary marketing label – Hellscape – is enough to defy Beijing

- Porcupine strategy (2020s and most recent): the latest best idea is to make Taiwan “too painful to swallow” from guerilla-style urban warfare. The goal is to let Taiwan absorb most of the fighting and casualties rather than exposing US personnel.

Other ideas drummed up by the Pentagon include conducting “hybrid warfare” to attack Chinese merchant ships, which will certainly be reciprocated by the PLA Navy.

Chinese merchant ships are getting armed in preparation for such potential piracy. https://www.navalnews.com/naval-news/2025/12/container-ship-turned-missile-battery-spotted-in-china/

https://www.twz.com/sea/chinese-cargo-ship-packed-full-of-modular-missile-launchers-emerges

https://www.twz.com/sea/chinese-cargo-ship-with-electromagnetic-catapult-to-launch-advanced-combat-drones-emerges

The doctrinal shifts tell a clear story that the Pentagon is increasingly wary of its chances and wants to offload the bulk of fighting and casualties to Taiwan and other vassals (i.e. the hosts of the dispersed US assets).

Contrast one side of the war with a consistent strategy prepared over 30 years with the other side with fly-by-the-pants “brilliant ideas” based on expediency and whims of the brass.

You can expect how the chips will fall.

Asymmetry in Knowledge and Intelligence

One of the key teachings from Sun Tzu’s Art of War is “know yourself and know your enemy”.

Beijing’s knowledge of the US is extensive – from language education, to the 300,000 students who study in the US every year, to the 20X more Chinese outbound travel to the US than inbound.

Beijing strategists and scholars focused on US studies are numerous and highly competent.

On the other hand, few Americans know anything about China.

Most of the so-called “China experts” in the US can neither speak nor read Chinese; many have never visited the country; and virtually none has received any education or lived in China.

The “China expert community” in Washington is tiny, poorly informed, and highly ideological. They operate with a rigid mental framework 20 years out of date.

This is so both generally and in the military sphere, specifically.

I bet no Pentagon general has ever read a single original Chinese military strategy document.

In addition to domain knowledge asymmetry, there is an intelligence asymmetry.

I don’t mean “intelligence” in the sense of information collection or covert actions, like the “intelligence agencies”.

A side note, CIA has openly admitted its spy network in China was annihilated by Beijing’s state security apparatus in early 2010s.

The omnipotent CIA has fallen so low as to post AI-voice generated spy recruitment ads on YouTube for its operations in China in 2024.

Instead, when I talk about intelligence asymmetry, I mean it in the original sense of the word – the Latin word intelligere, “to understand”.

I am referring to the cognitive ability to process information, solve problems, and make smart decisions.

Separate research done by Richard Herrnstein, Charles Murray and Richard Lynn has shown the average IQ of the Chinese race (107) is higher than the Caucasian race (99).

Considering the US is a multi-ethnic nation with a mix of races vs. China is a mostly homogeneous race, and considering the racial mix of the US military (heavily weighted toward lower IQ races), it is safe to assume the average intelligence of Chinese military personnel is 12 to 20 points higher than their US counterpart.

An example is the Commander-in-Chief of the US military. Trump just last week announced his domestic healthcare reform “victories” by declaring “we are cutting drug prices by 200%, 300% and sometimes 500%”.

Clearly he has no idea the entire price of something is only 100%. Cutting drug prices by 500% means you pay 4 times the price to the buyer of the medicine.

No wonder he had 6 bankruptcies, including casinos which are mathematically programmed for the house to win.

If the Commander-in-Chief is such math genius, you can imagine the intelligence of the average enlisted man.

Trump’s “very stable genius” (quoting himself) extends to geography, history and logic.

When talking to the press about why he wants to grab Greenland, the genius said “if we don’t take over Greenland, then Russia and China will. And we are not having Russia or China as a neighbor”.

The Napoleon-wannabe obviously has no idea or recollection there is a place called Alaska.

Trump was surgically sharp challenging Denmark’s relationship with Greenland when he declared “it doesn’t mean Denmark owns Greenland simply because they landed a ship there 500 years ago”.

One wonders what the very stable genius will say when the Cherokee Nation and Navajo Nation apply the same logic vis-a-vis the occupying Yankees.

Pentagon itself acknowledges 77% of 17 to 24 years old in the US do not meet the basic requirements for military service due to 1) overweight 2) drug abuse 3) insufficient intelligence and education fit for duty.

As a result, the US Army has proposed to drop the high school equivalent (GED) requirement from recruitment standards.

The July 12, 2020 San Diego fire on USS Bonhomme Richard is illustrative.

When begrudged Navy Seaman Recruit Ryan Saywer Mays set the ship on fire, over 100 sailors onboard didn’t know how to use the fire suppression system.

This resulted in an inferno that lasted 5 days and led to the total destruction of the $1.2 billion Wasp-class amphibious assault ship.

The US Navy estimated it would cost between $2.5 and $3.2 billion to repair the vessel and return it to service.

It further estimated converting the ship to a different type of vessel, such as a hospital ship, would cost $1 billion.

Replacing the USS Bonhomme Richard with a modern America-class (LHA) amphibious assault ship was estimated to cost approximately $4.1 billion in 2020.

Because repairs were deemed fiscally irresponsible, the Navy paid approximately $30 million to decommission and dismantle the ship.

The hull was sold to a Texas-based scrap yard for $3.66 million in 2021.

You get a pretty good sense of the intelligence level of the crew, when sailors on a billion dollar capital ship couldn’t read the manual and use the onboard fire fighting system.

The most important asymmetry between China and the US in a hot war comes down to the gap in physical capabilities.

This is the subject I will deep dive in the next instalment.