Thousands of miles from the cities that Russia is bombing in the Ukraine, China has been studying the war.
In a proxy fight between two superpowers on the other side of the world, Beijing sees a source of invaluable lessons on weapons, troop power, intelligence and deterrence that can help it prepare for potential wars of its own.
In particular, Chinese military analysts have scrutinized the fighting for innovations and tactics that could help in a potential showdown over Taiwan, the democratic island that Beijing wants to absorb and that the United States has at times vowed to defend.
War is aproving groundthey say, that gives China an opportunity to learn of the successes and failures of both sides. The New York Times examined nearly 100 Chinese research papers and media articles providing assessments of the war by Chinese arms sector and military analysts. Here’s some of what they’ve covered:
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With an eye on China’s development of hypersonic missiles, which can be highly maneuverable in flight, they have looked at how Russia used these weapons to destroy a ammunition bunker, a fuel tank and other objectives.
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They have studied how Ukrainian troops used starlink satellite links to coordinate attacks and circumvent Russian efforts to shut down their communications, and warned that China should quickly develop a similar low-orbit satellite system and devise ways to eliminate rivals.
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They have argued that President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia discouraged Western powers from directly intervening in Ukraine by brandishing nuclear weaponsa vision that could encourage the expansion of China’s own nuclear weapons program.
Ukraine has offered “a new understanding of a possible future world war,” Maj. Gen. Meng Xiangqing, a professor at the National Defense University in Beijing, said. wrote in the Guangming Daily newspaper, in January. He also wrote: “Russia’s nuclear deterrence strategy certainly played a role in ensuring that NATO, under the leadership of the United States, did not dare to enter the war directly.”
pentagon officials have said that the problematic invasion of Russia serves as a clear warning China against the risk of war over Taiwan, which is about 100 miles from its coast. Russian forces have been beset by shortages of weapons and ammunition and failures in intelligence, resulting in stalled gains and the heavy loss of soldier life. Some Chinese analysts have been forceful in their views on how Russia has sunk.
“The shortcomings that have been exposed in the logistics and supplies of the Russian military should be a focus for us,” said an article in a magazine published by China’s agency for the development of important military technology. He said China had to prepare for similar challenges “as we consider future sea crossings, island seizures” and other operations fraught with danger, an implied reference to the seizure of Taiwan.
Ultimately, though, studying Russia’s mistakes may bolster China’s belief that it could prevail in a potential conflict, said foreign experts who study the People’s Liberation Army. china official $225 billion military budget is almost triple big as Russia and China’s vast technological and manufacturing capacity means it can produce many advanced drones and other weapons that Russian forces have lacked.
“They are going to try to incorporate those lessons into their training, officer education and doctrine, which is being reviewed right now,” he said. Joel WuthnowSenior researcher at the National Defense University in Washington who has studied how the People’s Liberation Army can be Learning from the war in Ukraine. “This was a wake-up call that things may look easy in field training and on paper, but when you meet the enemy things get complicated very quickly.”
China hasn’t fought a major war in 40 years, ever since Deng Xiaoping sent forces to neighboring Vietnam and his military scholars study the conflicts of other countries with particular diligence. The war in Ukraine is especially significant for China because it involves proxy competition pitting Russia, a close partner of Beijing, against the United States and its allies who support Ukrainian forces.
China is “close to this war in a way that was not the case with the wars in Iraq or even Afghanistan,” he said. Lyle J Goldsteinan expert from Defense Priorities, a think-tank in Washington, who has been studying chinese assessments of the war in Ukraine. “They see themselves potentially in Russia’s shoes by more or less going to war against the United States.”
Some Chinese experts have said that Russia’s difficulties in mustering enough infantry suggest that China needs to keep its land forces strong and large, even as it expands its sea and air forces. Russia’s experience showed that “a great power must maintain ground forces of a reasonable scale, otherwise it will lose its advantage on the battlefield,” Wu Dahui, a former military researcher now at Tsinghua University in Beijing, wrote this year.
Russia’s failures in supplying its forces with fast and reliable intelligence on Ukrainian movements have also led Chinese analysts to urge People’s Liberation Army forces to learn how to best use drones, communications and satellites in battle.
“Russia was unable to scale up different operations, partly due to a lack of coordination and intelligence sharing,” he said. beautiful lin, the director of the China Power Project at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington. “China can now try to participate in exercises that are on a much larger scale of complexity.”
More generally, Russia’s troubles in Ukraine appear to have hardened official Chinese views that Beijing, like Moscow, is the focus of a US-led “hybrid warfare” campaign that includes economic sanctions, technology bans, information and cyber attacks.
“The United States and the West have taken advantage of this conflict to engage in total political denial, total diplomatic repression and total cultural isolation of Russia,” said Gao Yun, a researcher at the Chinese Academy of Military Sciences, one of the elite institutions. that shapes war planning, wrote in the main newspaper of the People’s Liberation Army. “In addition to fierce firefights on the battlefields, the combat in the realm of information and perceptions is equally intense.”
As Ukraine’s successes have mounted, Chinese military analysts have focused on equipment and intelligence NATO countries have provided Ukraine to help combat Russian forces. China was most likely monitoring the thousands of Stinger, Javelin and other missiles that Ukraine has acquiredand weighing what would happen as Taiwan builds up its stocks, said Goldstein, who also teaches at Brown University.
“I think the Chinese are looking at all of this very carefully and adding up the numbers and doing a calculation,” he said.
Another fixation of Chinese military analysts has been Ukraine’s use of Starlink, the satellite service operated by SpaceX, with some suggesting that Beijing should set up a similar system of its own.
Starlink has helped Ukrainian forces maintain communications and direct attacks even where digital infrastructure has been destroyed. Chinese military analysts they have blamed the inability of Russian forces to cut Starlink for their problems on the battlefield. Starlink satellites are cheaper to launch and operate than traditional satellites. Inspired by Ukraine, Taiwan has also begun to study the technology.
“Faced with the threat of Starlink”, chinese rocket and military investigators said in A study“We must develop and build our own low-orbit satellites.”
Chinese Army Engineering Scientists, on a paper also quoted in a recent Reuters report, suggested that the United States could use such technology in a conflict with China. “Not a moment can be lost in developing ‘soft kill’ and ‘hard kill’ measures against low-orbit satellite ensembles,” the scientists wrote. In other words, ways to sabotage or destroy them.
Chinese military analysts also seem to be drawing lessons relevant to Beijing’s nuclear buildup. have argued that Putin’s nuclear threats were effective to prevent President Biden and NATO from going directly into the war. In a possible invasion of Taiwan, Beijing would consider how it could deter Washington, which has pledged to help the island defend itself and could directly intervene in a military conflict.
“From this, it can be seen that nuclear forces are the way a great power shows its stature,” two Chinese rocket researchers wrote in a paper on Russian strategy.
China has denounced the use of nuclear weapons in the war and vows that it would never launch a nuclear weapons attack. Even so, the leader of China, Xi Jinping, stated last year that China will continue to expand its nuclear arsenal, which now has more than 400 warheadsstill far less than the number held by Russia or the United States.
China’s nuclear arsenal could grow to about 1,000 warheads by 2030, according to the Pentagon. Putin’s threatening gestures may set an example for Chinese leaders, said Wuthnow of the National Defense University.
“My main concern is a miscalculation” about nuclear threats, Wuthnow said. “Xi could come to believe that the United States and its allies could easily be sidelined in a conflict with Taiwan. But this would probably be a misjudgment.”
Amy Chang Chien contributed reporting.
