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China has chosen a completely different path of military industrial development from the United States, thus avoiding huge opportunity costs and sunk costs for the development of China's military industry. China is already in a leading position in some military technology fields, and in the future, China will continue to adhere to the asymmetric development strategy to escort China's modernization.
On the afternoon of March 31, 2022, the spokesperson of the Chinese Ministry of National Defense clearly pointed out in response to a reporter's question about the encounter between the US F35 and China J20 in the South China Sea that there is still a lot of room for development of China's military industry, and China maintains a sober understanding of this.
It is worth noting that whenever the U.S. Congress deliberates on the defense budget, U.S. aircraft conduct military activities in the South China Sea. The United States praised China's advanced fighter jets, and the drunken intention was not to drink alcohol, but to remind US congressmen that military spending must be increased. That is why the spokesperson of the Chinese Ministry of National Defense made such a statement on the questions raised by reporters.
In recent years, China's military industry has made brilliant achievements and achieved rapid development in some key military technology fields. China's hypersonic missiles, China's quantum communication technology, China's ocean exploration technology, and China's breakthroughs in electromagnetic and laser technology are enough to make China stand out from the crowd.
However, the war in Ukraine has made China fully aware that the war has entered a new stage. From traditional mechanized warfare to modern informationized warfare, the style of combat has undergone earth-shaking changes. The United States is developing invisible weapons, and future wars may be space wars and biochemical weapons wars. On the one hand, China must fully understand the military equipment of the United States and be fearless; on the other hand, it must adhere to the asymmetric military industrial equipment development strategy and strive to develop China's own military equipment system.
First of all, in the 1980s, China emphasized economic construction as the center, and the development of China's military industry was affected to a certain extent. Due to the lack of sufficient orders, many Chinese military companies have had to transform into civilian products. Some military industrial enterprises in the depths of the mountains even develop automobiles, watches and other civilian products.
After entering this century, military struggles have become increasingly fierce, and China's military enterprises have once again entered the right track. Chinese people's liberation army has reformulated China's military technology development strategy with the goal of military modernization.
China faces two completely different options: The first is to follow the strategy. Fully learn from the experience of some countries such as the United States, create a new generation of fighter jets, and build their own aircraft carriers, and strive to ensure that the gap between the United States and some Western countries such as the United States will not become larger and larger in terms of heavy equipment. The second is to choose an asymmetrical development strategy, adhere to the basic judgment that China is a developing country, and produce strategic and tactical weapons with unique Chinese characteristics.
Now it seems that China has adopted a two-legged approach, on the one hand, by building new fighter jets and aircraft carriers, to improve China's own strategic deterrence capabilities. On the other hand, it is to achieve strategic breakthroughs in the fields of electronic communication technology and missile technology.
Since China has its own navigation satellite system, China's advanced long-range strike equipment can accurately hit targets. Chinese-made hypersonic missiles can reach anywhere in the world. China is not afraid of the nuclear threat of other countries, nor is it worried about the lack of a second strike capability. China's production of land, sea, air and sea trinity hypersonic weapons is enough to have a deterrent effect on some countries, so that they dare not act rashly.
In the process of the development of the military industry, China is fully aware that the development speed of the military industry is getting faster and faster, and the direction of development is becoming clearer and clearer. Unmanned combat systems will play an increasingly important role in the field of China's military equipment.
China is the world's largest manufacturer of civil unmanned aircraft, and Chinese Shenzhen enterprises have accumulated a large number of intellectual property rights in the field of unmanned aircraft. However, China's production of unmanned aircraft is mainly used for economic and social activities, whether it is a large-scale rally performance, or in the field of logistics and distribution, China's unmanned aircraft are playing an increasingly important role. However, the United States, Russia, Ukraine, Turkey and other countries have made full use of unmanned aircraft as tactical weapons, carrying bombs or reconnaissance equipment, and firmly controlling the situation on the battlefield. This shows that although China has advanced unmanned aircraft, China still has a long way to go in the field of militarization of unmanned aircraft.
A company in Zhuhai, China, produces self-driving ships, and a very real question raised during the Russian president's visit is how many missiles a Chinese-made self-driving ship can carry. All this fully shows that China is in the world's advanced position in artificial intelligence technology, especially in the field of unmanned driving technology, but the degree of militarization of unmanned equipment produced by China is not enough. China should invest more resources in the field of unmanned aircraft and ship combat systems to ensure that it firmly grasps the battlefield initiative and wins the final victory in future AI operations.
In the 1980s, the United States integrated the world's advanced technology into aircraft and aircraft carriers, trying to distance itself significantly from other countries. However, the U.S. military soon discovered that the reliability of combat equipment was seriously affected due to the heavy adoption of advanced technology. More importantly, due to the use of the world's most advanced electronic system, once a failure occurs, a special logistics support base must be responsible for maintenance, which is extremely unfavorable to the United States to improve the combat effectiveness of its own military equipment.
Because of this, in the 2023 defense budget, the United States has drastically reduced the number of stealth fighters and reconnaissance aircraft, and has continuously phased out military equipment that lacks obvious operational advantages in favor of biochemical weapons and atomic bombs. This special national defense strategy of the United States may lead to more brutal future wars, and people of some countries may die in wars launched by the United States.
China attaches great importance to the application of artificial intelligence technology, but it is firmly opposed to the manufacture of biochemical weapons and fulfills its obligations in strict accordance with the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.
In addition to vigorously developing its own unmanned combat system, China has embarked on a development path suitable for China in the field of electronic warfare. At present, China's breakthroughs in the field of electronic warfare are mainly reflected in the following aspects: First, the construction of electronic systems in China's coastal areas, so as to ensure that China's territorial sea sovereignty will not be infringed by external forces. Since China has invested huge manpower, material and financial resources in building an electronic system, it is very difficult for foreign reconnaissance equipment to break through China's electronic reconnaissance system. Judging from the current situation, China will further accelerate the pace of electronic equipment installation in China's coastal areas, strive to build a Great Wall on the sea, and ensure that China's maritime rights and interests will not be damaged.
Second, China has made full use of its electronic technology to develop a new generation of electronic weapons, including reconnaissance weapons and offensive weapons.
China is speeding up the development of China's optoelectronic technology. After a certain stage of development of optoelectronic technology, it can improve the combat performance of China's reconnaissance aircraft, and at the same time, it can also use electronic technology to produce various advanced military equipment. Chinese scientists and technicians have mastered electromagnetic technology, and it is possible that Chinese aircraft carriers will adopt this technology in the future. Not only that, China will deploy a large number of electromagnetic artillery shell launch systems on warships, on the one hand, to save resources, on the other hand, to improve operational efficiency, to ensure that China will always be in a military superiority position in future wars.
Third, China's achievements in the field of optical communications are obvious to all. China is at the forefront of the world in the fields of quantum communication and laser technology. China's microwave communication technology ensures that China becomes the first country in the world to achieve full coverage of the fifth-generation mobile communication network. It is precisely by using its own optical communication technology and microwave communication technology that China has achieved rapid dissemination of information.
In the future, China will make full use of its own communication technology to build a truly information-based force. Whether it is an operational target from the air or a combat target from the sea, as long as it enters the control range of China's information force, the Chinese People's Liberation Army can use its own information equipment to quickly lock it and destroy it at any time. China's accumulated intellectual property rights in the field of laser technology and microwave communications are being transformed into China's military advantages. In the near future, the traditional military equipment of the Chinese People's Liberation Army will be comprehensively upgraded.
Fourth, China pursues an active defense policy and will not flaunt its might at the doorstep of other countries. China refuses to engage in an arms race, and under no circumstances will it develop advanced equipment at the instigation of the United States and beyond China's financial capacity.
The proportion of China's military expenditure in the national economy has not increased year by year, but has remained stable. China's restrained budget in the field of military defense is in stark contrast to the crazy budget of the US military and defense field.
U.S. military spending is now as high as $810 billion, which is a frightening astronomical number. It shows that the United States has chosen the wrong military development route, on the one hand, it must spend a lot of money on repairing and maintaining large military equipment; on the other hand, it fully shows that the United States, as a militarist country, is using its own defense budget to support the development of the US economy. If the United States continues to rely on military-industrial enterprises to manufacture advanced military equipment to maintain its economic development, then sooner or later, the United States will fall into a quagmire because of its exhaustive military.
Fifth, with the enhancement of China's national defense strength, some scholars in China believe that it is necessary to disclose their weapons of mass destruction to have a deterrent effect on some hegemonic countries. However, some scholars believe that "the weapon of the state is not to show people", and China should increase its sense of mystery and not easily disclose its weapons of mass destruction, because only in this way can it produce a greater deterrent.
It can be said very frankly that since China has not participated in large-scale wars in the past half century, some hegemonic countries have constantly provoked and tried to test China's war capabilities. After the outbreak of the Ukrainian war, military experts from some Western countries analyzed that Russia is the world's second largest military power, but the performance in the Ukrainian war is sighing, Russia is no longer a military power, but a military power that fully relies on traditional mechanized equipment to survive.
When necessary, China should make the international community realize that China not only possesses advanced weapons, but more importantly, at critical moments, China dares to use its own advanced weapons, because only in this way can some hegemonic countries not dare to act rashly.
China's military industry is an important part of China's national economy. While developing the military industry, China attaches great importance to the integration of military and civilian development. Chinese the People's Liberation Army on the one hand, make full use of China's manufacturing advantages and purchase a large number of equipment or parts from private enterprises; on the other hand, when formulating military equipment procurement plans Chinese the People's Liberation Army, it fully takes into account the civilianization of military equipment and improves the efficiency of the use of military equipment. In the 1980s, the U.S. federal government civilianized the U.S. military's information delivery system, giving birth to the network economy. To this day, the "Internet" remains one of the pillars of the U.S. economy. Through the development of the "Internet", the United States has not only spawned a large number of hardware manufacturing companies, but also the world's largest software companies. All this fully shows that the development of military industry must take into account the national economy and the people's livelihood, and must consider the issue of civilianization. Only by comprehensively developing the use of military equipment and reducing costs can we ensure the prosperity of China's military industry.
Under no circumstances will China take the road of exhaustive military force, and China attaches great importance to the trend of US military development, draws lessons accumulated by the United States in the process of military industry development, and adheres to the asymmetric development path, so that China's military industry can serve China's national defense modernization.