AMERICA IS LOSING IS ABILITY TO DETER CHINA / THE WALL STREET JOURNAL OP EDITORIAL

America Is Losing Its Ability to Deter China

Beijing is relentlessly building its military as its leaders issue ominous threats against Taiwan.

By Seth G. Jones

A military parade in Beijing, Sept. 3. Photo: Liu Xu/Associated Press

China’s Defense Minister Dong Jun has renewed a threat to take over Taiwan. 

In remarks at a Beijing security forum on Sept. 18, Mr. Dong asserted that the island’s “restoration” to China was “an integral part of the postwar international order.” 

His comments came on the heels of China’s grand military parade, in which Beijing displayed a suite of missiles, aircraft and other weapons.

The signs are clear: Beijing presents a serious and growing challenge to the U.S. and is rapidly undermining U.S. deterrence in the region.

China is producing advanced-grade ships, aircraft, missiles, space technology, cyber tools and land systems. 

Its long-range missile capabilities have mushroomed over the past two decades. 

Standing against such a force would present a major test for the U.S. in a potential war over Taiwan and within the Second Island Chain, which extends from Japan south through the Ogasawara Islands, Guam, the Northern Mariana Islands and Palau.

China’s People’s Liberation Army has ballistic and cruise missiles that can be launched from a range of air, land and maritime platforms to strike the U.S. ships, aircraft, and ground forces in the Second Island Chain. 

China complements these capabilities with large numbers of advanced fighter aircraft such as the J-20 and J-35 and with long-range bombers. 

The PLA Navy is also modernizing its surface and subsurface fleets, including nuclear-powered submarines and antiship cruise missiles.

China is the world’s leading shipbuilder, outstripping the U.S. in a critically important industry. 

In 2024 alone, China’s largest state-owned shipbuilder built more vessels by tonnage than the entire U.S. shipbuilding industry has since the end of World War II. 

China’s navy now fields more warships than the U.S. and is on track to deploy a 425-ship fleet by 2030.

China is also becoming a major nuclear power. 

Since 2020, it has doubled the size of its nuclear arsenal from 300 weapons to an estimated 600, and it is on its way to more than 1,000 by 2030. 

China revealed five nuclear capabilities at its September parade that can all reach the continental U.S.

The result of China’s modernization: The U.S. is losing deterrence in the Indo-Pacific, particularly around the Taiwan Strait. 

U.S. bases and forces in the region are vulnerable to targeting before they even arrive to the fight. 

The U.S. has lost its overmatch—the ability to overwhelm an adversary in all domains of warfare.

But all isn’t lost. 

The PLA has weaknesses that the U.S. can exploit. 

One of the most significant is undersea. 

Antisubmarine warfare remains an Achilles’ heel for the PLA Navy, which has been slow to develop modern platforms and techniques to detect and counter submarines. 

The PLA also struggles to detect U.S. submarines, giving the U.S. a major undersea advantage.

Another weakness is rampant corruption. 

China’s leadership values political loyalty over more-useful qualities like operational competence. 

Since 2023, Xi Jinping has dismissed numerous top leaders in the PLA Rocket Force due to allegations of corruption, including fraud in the construction of ballistic missile silos. 

Corruption has raised serious questions about defective weapons and equipment, falsified training certifications, fabricated logistics and maintenance books, and poor quality control that could compromise the military’s fighting ability.

Finally, China hasn’t fought a major war since the 1979 border war with Vietnam. 

Some Chinese analysts—and even Mr. Xi—have referred to the PLA’s lack of combat experience as “peace disease.” 

A major war in the Indo-Pacific would likely require air, maritime, ground and other units to operate jointly. 

PLA war games, exercises and simulations appear to be highly scripted, showing a lack of battlefield experience.

A big test for the U.S. is how well it can exploit these weaknesses. 

So far U.S. officials haven’t shown the appropriate sense of urgency. 

The growing deployment of U.S. troops along the Mexican border, in U.S. cities, and in the Western Hemisphere risks undermining military readiness and focus for a possible war with China. 

U.S. defense spending is also notably smaller as a percentage of gross domestic product than at any time during the Cold War, the last time the U.S. faced a great-power adversary.

Moving forward, the U.S. military needs to generate combat power that can operate both inside and outside the reach of China’s weapon systems. 

Adm. Samuel Paparo, commander of Indo-Pacific Command, has said: “I want to turn the Taiwan Strait into an unmanned hell scape using a number of classified capabilities so I can make their lives utterly miserable.”

But creating a hell scape for China won’t be easy. 

It will require a major revitalization of the U.S. defense industrial base, a defense budget that rises to 4% or 5% of GDP, a streamlined defense acquisitions and contracting process able to deliver new and innovative weapons, and a focus on technology like undersea systems that can exploit PLA weaknesses.

China’s rapid military expansion and aggressive posture risk further eroding American deterrence in the Indo-Pacific. 

The U.S. can regain the advantage, but it will require more than rhetoric.

Mr. Jones is president of the Defense and Security Department at the Center for Strategic and International Studies and author of “The American Edge: The Military Tech Nexus and the Sources of Great Power Dominance.”