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Mark Magnier

Yuanyue Dang

Amber Wang

A Pentagon report contends that China’s development of its aircraft carriers, sixth-generation fighters and nuclear arsenal illustrates Beijing’s “historic” growth in military power and has left the US “increasingly vulnerable”.
The annual report, to be submitted to the US Congress, also stated that Washington was not pursuing a forceful strategy towards Beijing.
“We do not seek to strangle, dominate or humiliate China … We seek only to deny the ability of any country in the Indo-Pacific to dominate us or our allies,” the 100-page report released on Tuesday said.
“China’s historic military build-up has made the US homeland increasingly vulnerable,” it added, citing Beijing’s growing arsenal of nuclear, maritime and conventional long-range strike, cyber and space capabilities “able to directly threaten Americans’ security”.
The report said the PLA Navy sought to produce six aircraft carriers by 2035, bringing the total count from three to nine, exceeding observers’ previous estimates.
The projection came a month after China’s most advanced aircraft carrier, the Fujian, entered service. With the Fujian, China became the second country after the US to operate an aircraft carrier with electromagnetic catapults.


The report also predicted the development of several advanced Chinese weapons, suggesting Beijing’s sixth-generation fighter jets would enter service in 2035. Washington had estimated that its own sixth-generation fighter, the F-47, would enter service by 2029.
In addition, the report addressed the PLA’s nuclear deterrence, stating it “remains on track to have over 1,000 warheads by 2030”. This projection holds even though growth slowed last year, leaving the 2024 count in the low 600s.
Zhou Bo, a retired senior colonel in the PLA and a senior fellow at Tsinghua University’s Centre for International Security and Strategy, said the growth of China’s nuclear forces “is because the original base was too small” and that “it doesn’t mean we want to be on equal footing with [the US].”
Zhou dismissed mentions in the report about Chinese military capacities to reach the US homeland, saying the PLA “has neither operated near the US mainland nor has the intention to do so”.
The read-out, which was released late in the day during a holiday week, said America’s goal was to be so strong that aggression by its adversaries would not even be considered “and that peace is therefore preferred and preserved”.
In keeping with an oft-repeated theme by the Donald Trump administration, the report argued that US-China military relations had rarely been in better shape than under Washington’s current leadership.
“Under President Trump’s leadership, relations between the United States and China are stronger than they have been in many years,” the report said, adding that the Pentagon would “support efforts” to build on that momentum with the People’s Liberation Army.
“We will do so in part by opening a wider range of military-to-military communications with the PLA with a focus on strategic stability as well as de-confliction and de-escalation, more broadly. We will also seek other ways to make clear our peaceful intentions.”
The report pointed to China’s growing capability as a cause for concern and potential instability. It touted Beijing’s foremost military strategy as overcoming the US through “national total war”, using a whole-of-nation mobilisation campaign.
Titled “Military and Security Developments Involving the People’s Republic of China”, the report said the Chinese military continued to make steady progress towards three 2027 goals: to be able to achieve “strategic decisive victory” over Taiwan; to gain “strategic counterbalance” against the US in nuclear and other strategic domains; and “strategic deterrence and control” against other regional countries.

Beijing sees Taiwan as part of China to be reunited by force if necessary. Most countries, including the United States, do not recognise Taiwan as an independent state, but Washington is opposed to any attempt to take the self-ruled island by force and is committed to supplying it with weapons.
The report outlined four possible military options for Beijing’s plan to reunify Taiwan by force: “coercion short of war”, a “joint firepower strike campaign”, a “joint blockade campaign” and a “joint island landing campaign”.
Zhou said the manner of achieving reunification with Taiwan “does not depend entirely on us” and that “it depends more on the Taiwan authorities”.
“We still have hope for peaceful reunification and have the utmost sincerity because this is definitely in the interest of the Chinese mainland.”
Washington should make a clearer statement in support of Taiwan “maintaining communication with the mainland under the 1992 Consensus”, he added, referring to an acknowledgement that there is only one China.
The Pentagon report also assessed the impact of the anti-corruption campaign sweeping through the PLA on its combat readiness, noting that unscrupulous equipment procurement had previously led to “capability shortfalls”.
The campaign “has caused uncertainty over organisational priorities and lack of continuity in those priorities” amid leadership changes, according to the report.
However, the changes could “potentially set the stage for long-term PLA improvements overall”, it added.
While the annual report noted that Beijing and Moscow continued to deepen their ties, possibly “driven by a shared interest in countering the United States”, it said cooperation was undercut by their mutual distrust.
The report came a few weeks after the release of the US National Security Strategy – also issued without much fanfare on a Friday – which was less focused on China than on domestic issues and what the administration has termed the “Trump Corollary to the Monroe Doctrine” emphasising the strategic importance of the western hemisphere.


Analysts said Tuesday’s report appeared to have been put together quickly. It lacked a table of contents and some sections seemed to be dated. It cited, for instance, tepid relations between China and North Korea “with minimal high-level exchanges”, without mentioning that North Korean leader Kim Jong-un featured prominently at China’s showcase military parade on September 3.
Furthermore, the report’s assessment of the PLA’s weapon capabilities did not cover many of the new weapons that appeared at the Victory Day parade in Beijing, including advanced uncrewed combat systems and strategic nuclear missiles.
That said, the report provided insight into how the Pentagon and the White House viewed bilateral relations, according to analysts.
“The tone is notably constructive towards China, stressing that bilateral relations are ‘stronger’ than they have been in years,” said Jeremy Chan, senior analyst with the Eurasia Group.
“While this claim is dubious, it is also a revealing signal of how Trump views his policy towards China and his reluctance to press any claims with Beijing that might disrupt the detente reached in Busan [South Korea] in October.”
The report recognised China’s military ambitions and steady progress but did not attempt to project too far into the future, added Chan, a former official in the US consulate in Shenyang, Liaoning province.
“It is only a matter of time until China’s power projection goes global,” he said. “This recognition of China’s expanding military capabilities will have potentially far-reaching implications for US defence commitments in the western Pacific.”
Shi Yinhong, an international relations professor at Renmin University of China, said Beijing and Washington were actually “both dissatisfied with the current state of China-US relations”, so the claim that bilateral relations were “stronger than they have been in many years” under Trump was “empty talk”.
Furthermore, Shi added that “all US weapons systems, together with those of its allies, are aimed at deterring China”.
For this reason, he said the assertion that Washington would achieve deterrence in the Indo-Pacific “through strength, not confrontation” was “completely impossible to convince a China that is deeply suspicious of the United States”.


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Report adds that Americans’ security is threatened by Beijing’s development of its ‘historic military build-up’, including nuclear arsenal


Report adds that Americans’ security is threatened by Beijing’s development of its ‘historic military build-up’, including nuclear arsenal.


Pentagon says Chinese aircraft carriers, 6th-generation fighters make US ‘vulnerable’

.css-1c6uqr6{color:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-size:inherit;font-family:inherit;line-height:inherit;overflow-wrap:break-word;}Report adds that Americans’ security is threatened by Beijing’s development of its ‘historic military build-up’, including nuclear arsenal

Report adds that Americans’ security is threatened by Beijing’s development of its ‘historic military build-up’, including nuclear arsenal