
madrat wrote:Capability is a function of exposure. The U.S. is much more widely dispersed, therefore needs much more overall force quantity. The U.S. has to contend with China being able to concentrate more power in any one places while within its own sphere of influence, which explains the discrepancy between inventories.
Yes, but the PPP GDP doesn't mean the Chinese have the same military budget to play with. Equipment is expensive, the J-20 at 700 RMB is about 90 million USD right now, but it's likely 210 million when you consider PPP.
You have to think about China in terms of full-spectrum or rather hybrid warfare. Their goal is to set up a regional sphere of influence; i.e, Japan flips and PLA bases in Japan now provide protection for the vulnerable Chinese coastline instead of the PLAN and PLAAF.
To achieve that end, they're better off working on IRBM / MRBMs that have the ability to penetrate Japanese and American BMD with HGVs; the US can counter by increasing basing, but the prospect of getting caught in the crossfire will eventually pressure Japanese elites to switch sides or Finlandize.
For all the talk about traditional Sino-Japanese enmity, you have to remember that Mao actually thanked the Japanese invaders for "teaching" the Chinese how to be nationalist and how to be militant. The Chicoms are incredibly flexible ideologically, Communism, after all, is the model for 1984, and "we were always at war with Oceania / East Asia / Eurasia" isn't beyond their purview. The Chinese problem with Japan isn't fundamentally ideological, but rather strategic, in that Japan is like an unsinkable aircraft carrier pointed at the Chinese heartlands. This is not wholly incompatible with Japanese nationalism, remember that the Chinese never nuked Hiroshima or Nagasaki, and that the Chinese didn't firebomb Tokyo.
If we're talking, say, Taiwan, I'm more expecting the Chinese to blink and go "well, okay, see you in 10 years". The Chinese are obligated to invade Taiwan if it declares independence, but they never said when. Building capability over time and getting through the tech gap is more important for them than the Russian tendency to snap brutally at any encroachments on their sphere of influence, notice that the PAP has not openly intervened in Hong Kong yet.