Beijing Is Used To Learning From Russian Failures

Source: Foreign Policy

Russia's invasion of Ukraine has been a disaster for Putin
China has faced many of the same limitations with its military that Russia is facing right now
However, China has done more to address these limitations, and thus we should not expect the Chinese military to perform as poorly in a Taiwan invasion scenario as the Russian military has performed in Ukraine
China's economy is also more resilient to sanctions
Russia badly overestimated its military capabilities
- Poor air-to-ground coordination
- Struggles with logistics
- Poor intelligence assessments of Ukrainian will to fight
- Outdated platforms
China has moved to address these deficiencies in its own military
- Massive increase in military spending — China spends 4x as much on its military as Russia
- Large increases in the number of modern 4th and 5th generation fighter jets
- More modern submarines and ships
- Large stockpile of precision long-range cruise and ballistic missiles
In addition to buying hardware, China has moved to improve the training and professionalism of its military
- Specifically training small units to be more effective and autonomous
- Building integrated theater commands to provide unified command and control for major operations (much like the US)
- Consciously training with multi-domain operations
This improved training and professionalism is demonstrated by the vast military exercises that China is able to conduct and the capability it is able to demonstrate in those exercises
- Demonstrated multi-domain capabilities in
  - ISR
  - Strike
  - Logistics
- Well, Russia could do large military exercises as well
- There's a huge difference between the pre-determined choreography of a military exercise and the chaos of a real war
The Chinese military appears to be taking a more balanced approach than Russia's artillery and armor heavy army
Despite improvements, the Chinese military still isn't at the readiness level that Xi wants for a potential Taiwan invasion scenario
- Still building up its non-commissioned officer corps
In addition to having a higher quality military, the Chinese economy is more resilient to Western sanctions
- China has demonstrated a higher level of political tolerance for economic disruption
  - Great Leap Forward
  - Economic depression in 1989-1990
  - COVID lockdowns
- Beijing can use its greater integration with the West as a source of strength
  - Chinese exports are more vital to the world economy than Russian exports
  - China is a far larger market than Russia, so even blocking exports from the West to China would be far more hurtful to Western economies
- China has far more domestic capital than Russia does and a higher rate of domestic capital formation
- More currency swap agreements, which would make it difficult to freeze central bank reserves as the US and EU did with Russia
Attacking Taiwan won't be easy for China, but China is far better prepared for a fight over Taiwan than Russia was for its fight over Ukraine