US Lacks the Capacity to Rival China in the Indo-Pacific Region: Gen. Spalding

Chinese J-15 fighter jets being launched from the deck of the Liaoning aircraft carrier during military drills in the South China Sea on Jan. 2, 2017. (STR/AFP via Getty Images)

The latest Pentagon annual report on China’s military power reveals that the communist regime has outdone the United States in the Indo-Pacific region, according to retired Brig. Gen. Robert Spalding.

The Department of Defense’s annual China Military Power Report (pdf), released on Nov. 29, serves as an authoritative assessment of the military power and strategy of the Chinese regime, which the department considers to be the United States’ “pacing challenge.”

“In the Indo-Pacific, we just don’t have the ability to compete with China, particularly because of their advance in missiles and rockets on their side of the strait, particularly those that are guided and can go after aircraft carriers. And the ability of their space, intelligence surveillance and reconnaissance has gone up greatly,” Spalding said in an interview with the “Capitol Report” program on NTD, The Epoch Times’ sister media outlet.

General Robert Spalding (Samira Bouaou/The Epoch Times)

Spalding believes China’s military capabilities can obstruct the United States’ ability to aid Taiwan or other allies like Japan or South Korea, which he described as “a big problem for the United States going forward.”

He further noted the increasing capabilities of China’s satellites.

According to Spalding, China’s satellites can serve both defensive and offensive purposes. The types that the regime has in hand can be launched from the ground and function in space.

“And those satellites enable them to pick out U.S. ships and direct the missiles that can come in to attack them,” Spalding, a contributor to The Epoch Times, said on Dec 6.

“All in all, they are advancing their capability to be a global military and space phenomenon. Because these things orbit the Earth, it allows them to extend their reach,” he said.

“So I think this is a tremendous challenge for the United States going forward.”

Spalding believes the United States is now downplaying China’s military might because “we tend to call them a near-peer.”

He characterized this act as a “political red herring.”

“We don’t want to acknowledge that they’re superior to us. And what that does is it prevents us from actually making the [U.S. military] force changes that we would need to actually compete on a peer-to-peer basis with China.

“So we’re not actually making the investments to begin to meet that threat at the same level,” he added.

Influence Campaign

Spalding raised the alarm about the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) influence campaign via Chinese tech companies such as Tiktok, a video-based sharing app.

“And as long as that’s the case, I think what you’re gonna see is conflict happening in our population on a day-to-day basis,” he said.

The report released on Nov 29, which examines the CCP’s “way of war,” found that the regime is doubling down on systems-based warfare and increasing its “non-war military activities” to weaken the United States without overt, kinetic conflict.

Spalding said that weapons and information, and psychological warfare would be utilized hand in hand.

“The weapons certainly are meant to deter any military response by the United States,” he said.

“They’re going to use these [app] platforms for social control and influence to slowly erode the appreciation for our values and principles in the United States and other free countries.”

Andrew Thornebrooke contributed to this report.