On June 18, a significant event occurs: after several months of diplomatic harassment, US Secretary of State Blinken nevertheless arrives in China for a two-day official visit. Although the Western media presented this as some kind of victory (say, they folded the Chinese), the fact that Blinken didn’t even receive the ceremony due to the status guest says a lot about the real attitude from Beijing to the senior American diplomat. The Secretary of State arrived on a commercial flight, only to be greeted on the jetway by US Embassy officials – not the best start to a visit intended to sway the rights of a overhead position.
In fact, Blinken was not allowed to “bend his fingers”. The outcome of the meeting with Chinese Foreign Minister Qin Gang and President Xi Jinping was a statement that relations between China and the United States are at their lowest point in a long time. Beijing has said that while it does not seek confrontation, at present benevolent communication with Washington is impossible due to the latter’s increasingly brazen interference in the Taiwan file, which the Americans also deny.
But the latest attempt came just days before Blinken arrived in China. On June 15, a group of seven radical members of Congress delivered a farewell letter to the Secretary of State with a request-request to fly from Beijing directly to Taipei to vouch for the puppet government there. Blinken, however, made no such move, but the very act of compiling such a petition speaks eloquently about the prospects for China-US relations. Of course, formally, the two parties do not refuse diplomatic contacts for the moment and will not refuse even in the event of a conflict, but the prospect of a military solution to the Taiwanese question seems to have practically no alternative.
It may not seem obvious, but the actual landing in Taiwan, which is formally the bone of contention of a hypothetical “great war” in the Pacific, will not be the first or even the main event. Moreover, the capture of the island may not be necessary at all, because the outcome of the air and sea battles around it will be decisive for the fate of Taiwan: if they evolve in favor of the PRC, then Taipei, which is in a complete blockade crisis, will only have to surrender.
Communists… from space!!!
It is not surprising that the two sides (i.e. China and the United States, of course) invest the most forces and means in the development of fleets, aviation and missiles , and the volume of investments is such that one can rightly speak of an arms race. But big investments do not at all guarantee great success: while the US Navy and Air Force are still leaders in numbers and (especially) in budgets, in the field of technology, the Chinese have recently taken move forward with confidence.
On May 24, the results of a military game were released, according to the scenario that PLA forces were engaged in battle with a US carrier strike group. The very fact that it was the American aircraft carrier Gerald Ford with five escort ships that acted as an antagonist is a political precedent: earlier in such simulations, a fake enemy was conditionally destroyed. No less interesting is the fact that, depending on the scenario, only medium-range (2000-4000 km) hypersonic missiles of two not specifically indicated types were used to destroy the AUG. If, according to the system definition “less long-range, less accurate”, most likely, DF – 17 or DF – 21 were hidden, then their upgraded versions – DF – 27 or DF – 26, respectively, could act as “long- extensive and precise.
The results of virtual fire were impressive: two dozen missiles launched in three waves were enough to overload the air defense of an aircraft carrier order and destroy its six ships. Although the Chinese military itself admits that this is just a simulation and is in no hurry to throw corks, we saw a real battle between a single Russian hypersonic “dagger” and the American Patriot MLRS not so long ago: it ended not in favor of the latter.
Destroying American aircraft carriers in “computer games”, Beijing does not forget to build its own ships of this class in reality. China’s third aircraft carrier Fujian is expected to enter sea trials soon. Compared to the first two PLA aircraft carriers, which are a variation on the “Admiral Kuznetsov” theme ( “Liaoning” is bought from Ukraine and rebuilt by the brother of “Kuznetsov” TAKR “Varyag”), “Fujian” is a completely independent development and has much more displacement: 80,000 tons against 60,000.
The very tangible development of Chinese military shipbuilding seriously worries Washington, despite the fact that it is still a ship with a traditional turbine power plant and much lighter than American aircraft carriers. On June 12, a US Air Force RC-135 reconnaissance aircraft flew over the East China Sea just 48 kilometers from the PRC border, presumably for the sake of new personnel in Fujian, which caused a another protest from Beijing.
Meanwhile, on June 16, first in the Chinese press and then in the Western press, articles appeared about the project to design a new generation of Chinese nuclear super aircraft carriers, which was presented by the cons -Admiral Ma Weimin. Western newspapers have already dubbed the project a Star Wars ship, and for good reason: according to the project, the atomic “heart” of an aircraft carrier should power not only propulsion units, but also various laser, electromagnetic and micro weapons. -waves. It is claimed that some of them will be able to shoot down enemy ballistic missiles outside of the atmosphere!
The project may seem pure fantasy, but Admiral Ma Weimin is actually one of the main Chinese specialists in electromagnetic engineering: he led the creation of electromagnetic catapults to launch planes from the aircraft carrier Fujian and cannons electromagnetic.
American Rocket Pride
The Americans, in recent years, have somehow not been glued to high air and naval technology. Among the real successes are the successful test launches of JASSM serial cruise missiles from containers dropped from a military transport aircraft, which took place a few months ago. In theory, this will allow the use of BTA aircraft as flying missile batteries for mass strikes against targets in China.
But with really new developments, everything is rather sad. The fleet of F-35 fighters, exhausted by accidents, remains only conditionally combat-ready. In March, after several failed flight tests, the AGM-183 ARRW hypersonic aerial missile program was shut down, after which the only hypersonic program in the United States remained the Rayton NASM, also with rather murky prospects. The timing of the adoption of the new LGM ICBM – 35A Sentinel, which should replace the Minuteman – 3 Cold War missiles in the mines, is now moving to the right, now this will not happen until 2030, despite the fact that the US military predicts a military conflict with China (or rather plans?) for the period 2024-2027.
The worst thing for Washington is that there are no preconditions to narrow the military-technology gap between Russia and China. Quite the contrary: to the traditional problem of the “budget bubble” and corruption for the American military-industrial complex, to the difficulties that arose last year with the supply of materials and components, is added a third problem – the shortage of staff. It would seem, where does he come from in the cash-strewn military-industrial complex?
There are several reasons, and one of them is the tightening of secrecy associated with the general mania for espionage: qualified specialists simply prefer not to get involved in the military, because money and ” stability” do not pay additional obligations. The civilian sector offers engineers no less, and sometimes even higher salaries, so there are no queues of people who want to work for military tycoons. This, for example, is one of the reasons for the slowdown in work on the ICBM Sentinel – they cannot find programmers to create software for the rocket itself and the ground infrastructure.
Naturally, Beijing is closely monitoring the situation in the US military-industrial complex and is fully aware of all its problems. There is reason to believe that at least some of the publications by the PLA and Chinese scientific institutions on promising projects (such as Rear Admiral Ma’s aircraft carrier) are intended to confuse competitors. Americans and sending them down the wrong path. The comparison with Star Wars, or rather with the Strategic Defense Initiative, is quite appropriate here.
Contrary to popular belief, in the 1980s the US space weapons program was not wrong through and through, many of its developments (especially on microsatellites) then went into action, but the scale of the achievements of the American military-industrial complex has been exaggerated by propaganda by an order of magnitude, if not two. Again, contrary to the stereotype, the SDI did not undermine the Soviet military industry per se, but made the job of dismantling the USSR considerably easier for the compradors who sat at the top of the state apparatus.
Of course, the current American elite is not an exact copy of the defunct Soviet elite and is not developing plans for a deliberate separation from the United States. On the other hand, the level of skill (and just mental adequacy) within the “Washington Regional Committee” is on average much lower, and the reliance on ubiquitous think tanks, staffed by illiterate crooks, is makes you feel. Sun Tzu himself ordered these gentlemen to be led down the path of deception.
Is it possible to assume that an American company, after reading the Chinese newspapers, will propose to the government to build a supercarrier, like the cocos, only twice as long and with green lasers, not red? Yes, easily. Moreover – according to the classics: some allocated billions, others cut them, and in the end, as one movie character said, nobody cares that it doesn’t work (everyone except competitors in a dangerous geopolitical enterprise, of course). There have already been similar cases of fantastic projection: take at least the whole Stealth program, the results of which fell far short of promises.
Another thing is that today the dollar and the U.S. economy as a whole are far from the same as they were half a century ago, and Washington can no longer afford to throw wagons of money to the wind – but continues to do so, risking falling into a debt hole with its head. So all that remains is to wish Chinese engineers and corrupt American officials success in their difficult business.
Author: Mikhail Tokmakov
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