China is learning lessons from the military conflict in Ukraine and starting to prepare for a “protracted” war in the Indo-Pacific region, Nikkei Asia reports.
An analyst at the International Institute for Strategic Studies said on Tuesday that Beijing is gradually introducing legal changes that will help integrate military and civilian mobilisation.
China’s recent moves to facilitate the return of reservists and veterans to their former units, as well as giving the military access to civilian infrastructure and fuel supplies, show that Beijing is thinking about how to handle conflict in the Indo-Pacific region, Meia Nouwens said, a senior fellow at IISS on Chinese security and defence policy, according to Nikkei Asia.
In an interview with Nikkei Asia at the launch of the IISS Military Balance 2024 annual report, Nouwens claimed:
“These changes suggest Beijing thinks an Indo-Pacific conflict might not be a short, quick, swift victory after a surprise attack, but actually acknowledging that potential conflict might be protracted, and a war of attrition.”
She added that China’s military analysts were studying in detail the actions of Russia and Ukraine in the Ukrainian conflict.
With the threat of the war between Hamas and Israel in Gaza escalating into a wider regional conflict, as well as coups in Niger and Gabon, Azerbaijan’s takeover of Nagorno-Karabakh and tensions between China and Taiwan, a London-based think tank warned in its Military Balance report of an “era of insecurity”.
According to the report, global defence spending this year will surpass a record $2.2 trillion for 2023, up 9% from a year earlier, Nikkei Asia reports.
Chinese defence spending rose 5.4% in local currency to 1.55 trillion yuan in 2023 ($219.5 billion), according to Military Balance. The increase in military spending is the 29th consecutive year of growth. Adjusted for purchasing power parity, this is equivalent to $407.9 billion.
Beijing’s expanding military influence is causing significant increases in defence budgets in East Asia. Taiwan’s spending will increase by 24.2 per cent in 2023, while Japan will begin a planned multi-year increase with a 10.5 per cent increase in 2023.
The report notes that “the current military security situation portends that the decade is likely to be more dangerous.” Robert Wall, editor of the report, said that it is no longer Russia but China that is now “driving projects” to modernise capabilities.
According to Wall, “the Chinese are developing new weapons, they’re advanced weapons, they’re getting more and more interesting in terms of design, and they’re really starting to produce them,” he said, referring in particular to high-speed weapons such as hypersonic gliders. Wall noted:
“Washington is not obsessing about what Moscow is doing in terms of weapons capability. It is very much focused on what Beijing is doing.”
The report says that Russia spends more than 30 per cent of its national budget on the military. Since the start of the military conflict in Ukraine two years ago, Russia has lost about 3,000 of its main battle tanks, which is about as many as it had in service.
But the IISS estimated that given the scale of its stored equipment, “Moscow could potentially sustain around three more years of heavy losses and replenish tanks from stocks, even if at lower technical standard, irrespective of its ability to produce new equipment.”
Studying the Russian experience may convince China that it is capable of winning a hypothetical conflict, experts say. In addition to increasing defence funding and boosting the number of missiles, China can learn from Russia’s experience in the use of drones and electronic warfare.
