The Chinese military is unveiling a range of sophisticated military technologies, from underwater stealth explosives to use against foreign ports to drone fighters and military artificial intelligence (AI).
“If we can use stealthy ways, like underwater explosions to destroy the ports, we can kill off the enemy’s war potential,” Capt. Zhao Pengduo, the deputy director of the Naval Port Demolition Test Program, told a China Central Television (CCTV) program.
Just in case the West missed it, Global Times translated the comments and published them on Oct. 25. The testing and its publication—in English—could be an attempt to prove the credibility of China’s naval threat to the United States as tensions rise over Taiwan, the South China Sea, and Japan’s Senkaku Islands, all of which Beijing claims as its territory. The CCP thus has revealed that its intentions aren’t honorable.
Scientific sensors were placed on the small wharf prior to its destruction as part of the test. Chinese state media reported that “as the explosion took place, nearly 1,000 pieces of data were gathered, which were then analyzed to accurately evaluate how the wharf was damaged ... noting that this will provide scientific support to attack hostile ports in a real war.”
“This tactic can play a significant role in many combat scenarios, including countering the U.S. naval warfare aimed at China,” a Beijing military expert told Global Times.
“Since the U.S. now understands its large vessels like aircraft carriers and large military facilities near China are vulnerable to attacks, it is scattering its forces to ... smaller locations.”
The expert claimed that the scattering of the U.S. Navy would make logistics, command, and communications more difficult, presumably forcing U.S. ships to rely on numerous regional ports that are vulnerable to China’s stealthy underwater explosions. Beijing’s apparent military strategy is to force the failure of port-based logistics chains upon which the U.S. and allied navies rely.
Based on publicly available Chinese military procurement records, the Georgetown researchers concluded that the Chinese military is spending between $1.6 billion and $2.7 billion annually on AI. The United States only spent $800 million to $1.3 billion on AI in 2020. The Chinese military’s primary source of AI technology may be the United States, according to the report.
AI will be critical to the future of air combat as well. Simulations over the past couple of years have shown that AI-enabled fighter jets often out-compete their human-only counterparts.
“Experts said the variant showed China had beaten the U.S. and other competitors,” according to SCMP, which is owned by China’s Alibaba Group. Development of the J-20 variant “was an attempt to prove that the US concept of next-generation air dominance (NGAD) could be successfully applied in Chinese aircraft technology,” the report reads.
Prior news of China’s hypersonic missile development and the installation of hundreds of intercontinental ballistic missile silos in the Xinjiang region add to more recent concerns of underwater explosion tests, AI progress, and stealth fighter jet development to paint a dim picture of the CCP’s intentions and willingness to execute goals, such as the invasion of Taiwan.
On Oct. 26, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) appealed to national security considerations in the revocation of a China telecom subsidiary’s authorization to operate in the United States.
The Senate voted unanimously on Oct. 28 for legislation that prevents U.S. regulators from granting new equipment licenses to five companies designated on the FCC’s “Covered Equipment or Services List.” The companies include Huawei, ZTE, Hytera, Hikvision, and Zhejiang Dahua, all of which are considered to be security threats.
By a vote of 420–4, the House had previously approved the law. The majority is veto-proof in both congressional chambers, so President Joe Biden will likely sign the measure into law shortly.
But restrictions on Beijing’s ability to steal U.S. technology are entirely inadequate to date. The Georgetown study found that the U.S. Commerce Department only restricts 22 of the 273 firms that supply the Chinese military.
The United States must get much more serious about defeating Beijing’s plans to steal U.S. technology and use it to build the CCP’s economic and military strength against democracy and human rights on a global scale. More subsidies of U.S. technology, before stopping the technology leakage problem, could only make it worse.
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