How Does Technology Factor in for US Militarism toward China?

The United States is about militarism. Its economy is largely based on the military-industrial complex. It has hundreds upon hundreds of military bases in lands around the planet. Yet, despite a bloated military budget, the US fails to care for all its citizens, certainly not the millions of homeless, poor, and those unable to afford medical procedures because they are without medical insurance; however, the US does house and feed its soldiers, marines, and air-force personnel abroad. Yet, when it comes to its veterans there is often a price they must pay. Nonetheless, what must not be forgotten is the far greater price paid by the victims of US aggression.

The US claims full-spectrum dominance. US politicians make bellicose statements about which country the US will attack next. And when a pretext is required the US will fabricate one. (See AB Abrams’s excellent book Atrocity Fabrications and Its Consequences, 2023. Review)

I asked Wei Ling Chua, the author of 3 books including Democracy: What the west can learn from China and Tiananmen Square’s “Massacre”? The Power of Words vs Silent Evidence, how aggressive US posturing impacts China.

Wei Ling Chua: The US is the most warmongering country on the planet with every inch of its territory looted from others. Like former US President Jimmy Carter told Trump in a (2019) phone conversation: “US has only enjoyed 16 years of peace in its 242-year history.”  The US is also the only nuclear power ever to use such a weapon of mass destruction, which it did on 2 populated civilian cities (Hiroshima and Nagasaki). So, any military threat from the US cannot be taken lightly.

Africa Command (AFRICOM), Southern Command (covering Latin America), European Command (covering Europe, part of the Middle East and Eurasia), Central Command (covering the Middle East), Indo-Pacific Command (covering the entire Asia Pacific Region, and half the Indian Ocean), and Northern Command (covering the US, Alaska, Canada, Mexico, and Bahamas)]. The US military is obviously imperialistic in nature.

However, the good news is that after WW2, the US-led military coalition never won any war in Asia. Their military coalition was badly beaten in the Korean War and Vietnam War (both of which involved China). The latest sudden and messy US withdrawal from Afghanistan after 20 years of brutal occupation demonstrates that the US military is not as powerful as perceived. It appears to be as Mao famously described: “A Paper Tiger.”

Many people may not have noticed that, in 2015, the US ordered 20 rocket engines from Russia. So, in 2022, when Russia counters US-Ukraine war sanctions with a ban on selling their rocket engines to the US, TechCrunch+ reported the situation with an honest title in recognition of the reality: “Russia halts rocket engine sales to US, suggests flying to space on their ‘broomsticks’.”

GPS Vs Beidou Global Navigation/positioning systems

• Global positioning technology is a vital part of many advanced weapon systems including land, sea, and air travel: In 1993, the US government falsely accused a Chinese commercial cargo ship with the registered name ‘Yinhe’ of transporting chemical weapon materials to Iran. The US government then cut off Yinhe’s GPS for 24 days to strand them in the Indian Ocean and forced them to allow US officials to board the cargo ship for inspection and nothing was found. Again, in 1996, the PLA conducted a series of missile tests in the Taiwan Strait, and the US again suddenly shut down the GPS used by the PLA. Both incidents led to the Chinese government’s investment in its own Global positioning technology.

In 2003, the cash-strapped EU invited China to participate in their Galileo navigation satellite project. However, after China transferred €200 million (US$270 million) to the project, in the name of security concerns, China was forced out of major decision-making by the EU in 2007. The irony is that China managed to develop its own Global positioning system (Beidou) faster than the EU’s Galileo project. As a “revenge” perhaps, on a “first-launched, first-served” international wavelength application rule, China successfully registered the use of transmit signals on the wavelength that the EU wanted to use for Galileo’s public regulated service. The New York Times reported the story with a title: ‘Chinese Square off with Europe in Space’.

One may notice that the US’s aging GPS satellite system has been having a lot of problems in the past years. Just do a web search under GPS breakdown, GPS jamming, GPS outages, GPS error, GPS problems, GPS malfunction, etc., to find out about the reliability of the GPS system.

Contrariwise, the Chinese Beidou navigation system is a Chinese owned technology with new functions and apparently more precision than the GPS. For example:

• The Chinese Beidou can be used for text communication between users, while the GPS cannot. So, Huawei became the first company to add satellite texting to their phone device (Mate 50). The significance of such a new communication feature is that, during wartime, the PLA command center or between individual PLA soldiers will be able to communicate with each other with no blind spot. That will enable rapid battlefield intelligence gathering and transmission.
• In addition, if one ever uses a Beidou navigation device while driving, one should notice that the device’s screen displays the position of the specific car on a specific lane. Should the driver change lanes, the screen will display the changes instantly. That is an indication that Beidou’s navigation system is far more accurate and advanced than the GPS in terms of positioning precision and processing speed. This may imply that the Chinese satellite-guided missiles will be more accurate than the US GPS-guided missiles.
• A report by Japan Nikkei in 2020 headlined, “Chinese Beidou navigation system has surpassed American GPS in over 165 countries.” That indicates that the Beidou system is a tested, mature navigation technology.
• A recently published report of a series of computer simulations run by a research team in China revealed that China needs only 24 hypersonic anti-ship missiles to destroy the newest US aircraft carrier and its accompanying warships.

I consider that China is superior in technology to the US. For example, a recent Australian Strategy Policy Institute report acknowledged, “China leads the world in 37 out of 44 critical technologies.”

Of course, unless the US regime is crazy enough to start a mutually destructive nuclear war, there is little reason to believe that the US would be able to win a war with non-nuclear weapons on China’s doorstep.

Winning a war is not just about weaponry: the Korean War, Vietnam War, and Afghanistan War have already demonstrated that a coalition of the most militarily powerful imperialistic nations can be defeated by the people of a lesser-armed nation fighting for their freedom. So, beyond the use of advanced weaponry, the factors that determine who will win a war include:

• • • the unity of the citizens,
    • the fighting morale of the soldiers,
    • the logistical support,
    • the military strategies,
    • the manufacturing supply chains
    • the energy supply and reserve,
    • the food supply and reserve,
    • the money to sustain a war, and
    • the neighboring countries’ attitude toward the warring parties.

So, when one goes through the above list, one should easily come to the conclusion that the US is in a  disadvantageous position to travel across the Pacific Ocean to attack China on its doorstep.