Army, top 3, Naval size, top 3, airforce size, top 3, but the second artillery is pretty small compared to superpower US and former superpower Russia...
Why isn't China's nuclear force among the top 3?
Why is tiny countries like UK and France have a bigger nuclear force than China?
It just doesn't seem right...
Maybe by the numbers on paper, but in quality and in context Chinese conventional military power is still more of a paper tiger on the road to improvement, while Chinese nuclear forces have actually been and still are competitive but is in a slow decline. I would rank China's overall military power to maybe around the top 15th spot in the world, let me explain.
Military power judged by the numbers in a vacuum is easy, and easy to manipulate to promote any agenda, but not accurate at all. The accurate way to determine military power needs to account for the per capita, per territory responsibilities, the quality of personnel and equipment, relative strength versus others, and likelihood of success in achieving desired missions/goals.
For example, China has one of the largest populations on earth, one of the largest territories and longest borders to defend, these responsibilities dilute China's overall military power. These are significant burdens given the capability of special ops and psych warfare to infiltrate and destabilize countries these days.
China's missions for its military has been very limited and mostly reactive in the past several decades. If China is to secure its overall economic and political standing and improve it in the future then the missions for its military will become larger in scope and needs to be more proactive. This increasing scope dilutes China's overall military power.
The quality of China's military personnel and equipment have both been improving but this is an ongoing effort and is more catch up than cutting edge, this lowers China's overall military power ranking compared to the longstanding leading militaries and military industrial complexes of the world.
If the Chinese military's strength still seems impressive, then it’s time to take into account its goals and likelihood of success at achieving them. The most famous goal would be the retaking of Taiwan by force if it comes to that, China still does not have the power projection capability to do this with negligible losses if only China and Taiwan face off. Given it is likely that other parties including the sole military superpower the US may intervene on Taiwan’s behalf, military action on Taiwan is not practical for China at all and is more of a statement of principle.
Less specifically, China does not have any reliable and competent military allies in case of any conflict, while many countries who may enter into a military conflict with China do have reliable and competent military allies, more often than not counting the US among them.
Also regardless of how China behaves, it will be in the crosshairs of others simply because of its sheer size and the fact that it is moving up in the world. This hostility can manifest trouble in many ways, reducing China’s soft power and thereby also diluting its hard power.
Given all of this context surrounding China’s military, I think it is a solid case as to why Chinese military power does not place in the top 3 in the world. China definitely ranks behind the dozen or so countries who qualify as one or more of the following: have significantly more power projection capability (US, UK, France, etc), dominates their neighbors in terms of relative military power (Russia, Israel, South Africa, etc), or have significantly more military capability relative to their basic defense needs due to their geopolitical situation (India, Japan, Brazil, etc).
Speaking to China’s nuclear force, it is centered around several hundred land based ballistic missiles , with only less than a hundred with intercontinental range. This force is effective in deterring every country in the world but the US. Unfortunately for China it probably shares the top spot with Russia on the US nuclear forces’ target list. With the US and its allies fielding an effective ABM shield while maintaining their nuclear arsenals with viable delivery by land, sea, and air, the effectiveness of China’s limited and really only land based nuclear arsenal is steadily eroding.
In the areas of space and cyberspace warfare there is simply too little public information to determine any country’s military prowess. To venture a guess in relative terms, the US is probably on top with China being a competitive second tier power in the top 10.
If China is to be in even the top 10 in terms of overall military power, then it at least needs to be able to possess, produce, and operate in significant numbers: an ABM shield of its own, more ICBMs with MIRVs with enough range to cover the entire globe, more ballistic missile subs and escorting attack subs, more multi-role major surface combatants, more top-of-the-line multi-role aircraft, and most difficult of all, get some reliable and competent military allies!
If China can fulfill the fairly impossible list above then bonuses would be: strategic bombers, several aircraft carriers, LHDs, and LPDs, and maybe several overseas military bases.
