In the past two days, Admiral Aquilino, who has just left his post as commander of the U.S. Indo-Pacific Command, has made a series of remarks on issues between China and the United States, most of which revolve around the military, and the part related to the comparison of Chinese and U.S. military forces is particularly noteworthy.
Former commander of the U.S. Indo-Pacific Command - Admiral Aquilino
Admiral Aquilino said in an interview with the American media PBS NewsHour that during his three years as commander of the U.S. Indo-Pacific Command, China used its strong industrial strength to build more than 400 fighters of various types and more than 20 capital ships in just three years, and also doubled the number of missiles in stockpile.
Although the mainstream media in the United States has been talking about how the US military is ahead of China in the past, the US military has the absolute certainty of winning the PLA, and China is catching up with the backward side of the US military development.
But in Admiral Aquilino's latest statement, the situation was completely reversed. Admiral Aquilino bluntly said that the United States, along with its allies and partners, must now step up the pace to catch up with China's rapid military buildup.
Although high-ranking US military and political figures have been in the habit of advocating the theory of the China threat all year round. However, there are still some differences between Admiral Aquilino's remarks and the previous blind concocting and exaggeration of the China threat theory. The crux of the matter lies in the fact that China's military has really achieved such unparalleled development results in the past few years.
In terms of the development of the air force, the construction of stealth fighter units between China and the United States can best reflect the gap between the aviation industries of China and the United States today. In the past 2023, the annual production capacity of China's J-20 stealth fighter exceeded 100 for the first time, reaching triple digits.
A number of US military media have also reported on this, discussing the rapid development of China's stealth fighters in recent years from the perspective of exaggerating the theory of the China threat or objectively admitting facts, and acknowledging the fact that China's stealth fighter force has advanced by leaps and bounds.
In contrast, it is a decline in the production capacity of American stealth fighters. After suffering the impact of the new crown epidemic and the multifaceted impact of kicking Turkey out of the F35 industry chain, Lockheed Martin's F35 production capacity will be difficult to rise as soon as it falls, and it is difficult to even stop the downward momentum.
In the past 2023, the annual production capacity of F35 fell below triple digits, coming to the order of only 98 aircraft in total annual production, and it is also the first year that the annual production capacity of F35 is lower than that of J-20, which can be called a major inflection point in the comparison of stealth fighters between China and the United States.
But even if these 98 F35s can actually be distributed to the US military itself, only 60 are actually available. As a general-purpose model led by the United States and jointly developed and produced by many countries, a considerable part of Loma's F35 production capacity must be exported and handed over to those American allies who have invested huge amounts of R&D costs and production costs.
On the other hand, China's J-20 production capacity, that is, how much is made will be delivered to the PLA, and the conversion rate from production capacity to the number of PLA equipment is 100%.
Lockheed Martin F35 stealth fighter production line
In this way, the difference between the speed of stealth fighters of the Chinese and American armies is actually even greater. Considering that China's second stealth fighter J-35 has reached the eve of finalization and production, Shenfei's new factory area specially expanded for J-35 and the production line using new technology have also been put in place, and the annual production capacity after the ramp-up is completed is only higher than that of J-20.
This also means that in a few years, the US military will have to face the People's Liberation Army (PLA) with an annual production capacity of "J-20 + J-35" dual models exceeding 100 and the total annual production capacity of stealth fighters easily exceeding 200+.
It is naturally impossible to say that the US military, which has only fifty or sixty F35 increments throughout the year, is not in a hurry about such a huge gap that can be foreseen.
Whether it is Admiral Aquilino or Admiral Wilsbach, former commander of the US Pacific Air Force, these senior US generals who are on the front line of confrontation are different from American politicians who sit in Washington offices and talk rhetorically, and they can really see the gap in the development of Chinese and US military capabilities and point out the problem.
As for the development of the navy, the gap between the Chinese and US militaries is even more wide. The Chinese Navy's aircraft carriers have grown from scratch, from weak to strong, from buying scrapped and second-hand aircraft carriers for refit, to building the world's most technologically advanced electromagnetic catapult aircraft carriers on their own, in just 13 years.
In 13 years, China has become the second strongest three-aircraft carrier power in the world, so what has the development of American aircraft carriers in the past 13 years?
The USS Ford, the lead ship of the Ford-class aircraft carrier launched in 2013, has only completed its first combat readiness deployment this year after 11 years; as for the second ship, the USS Kennedy, which was launched in 19 years, is a typical example of the collapse of the US shipbuilding industry and the incompetence of the US military in project management.
So far, even the outfitting has not been completed, and it is still soaking in the shipyard. The Fujian aircraft carrier, which was delayed by 7 years, successfully overtook the progress of the project and preemptively carried out electromagnetic catapult tests and sea trials.
The Fujian ship began sea trials
The development of aircraft carriers is still like this, and the development of destroyers cannot be seen even more. The construction of 2 destroyers a year is already the limit of the American shipbuilding industry today, on the other hand, China, only a slipway in Dalian Shipyard, can put 5 052D under construction at the same time. In terms of the ability to build destroyers, it is a clear fact that a Chinese shipyard can easily surpass the national shipbuilding capacity of the United States.
And a shipyard of this level like the Dalian Shipyard, there are still shipyards along China's coast from north to south, no matter what the Americans look at and think, this is the fact in front of us.
As for Admiral Aquilino's remark that "the United States is catching up with China," this also requires the United States to really have the strength to do so. The United States, which has hollowed out its industry and is seriously deindustrialized, is still in an environment of high dollar interest rate hikes, which is extremely unfavorable to industrial development.
The Americans have shouted "increase the production of shells" from the beginning of the Russian-Ukrainian conflict to the present, but the result is that the production capacity of artillery shells in the United States has not increased but decreased, and the US Army Arsenal in Scranton accidentally caught fire and exploded, making the monthly output of 155 artillery shells in the United States of 20,000 rounds no longer possible.
More than 2 years have passed since the Russian-Ukrainian conflict, and for more than 2 years, the Americans have not been able to even increase the production of basic artillery shells. In this way, what confidence and basis is there to dare to say that China, the strongest industrial country in the history of mankind, will surpass China in terms of the production capacity of large equipment such as warplanes and warships?
Here, I would like to advise senior US military and political officials to be more pragmatic, to understand the concept of a modern industrial power and military industrial production capacity first, and to do more practical things than to run trains all day long.
Part of the information source of the article: The U.S. Indo-Pacific commander vainly discusses China's "expansion of armaments"丨Global.com