I don't normally post breast beating article But this fair assessment from DIA(Defense intelligence agency) caught my eye
DIA Says China’s Weapon Technology Advancing Fast While Russia Falls Behind
April 30, 2021 | By
China and Russia are the key adversaries when it comes to developing high-tech weaponry over the next 20 years, but while China’s rate of progress is accelerating, Russia is stymied by multiple factors, the defense Intelligence Agency told Congress.
DIA Director Lt. Gen. Scott D. Berrier said China will have “basically modernized” its military in just six years, and aims to be introducing the most “disruptive” military technologies by 2030-2035, according to prepared testimony for the Senate Armed Services Committee provided April 29.
During the next two decades, any of the three main powers—China, Russia, or the U.S.—may steal the lead “in one or more fields and seek to develop military capabilities and concepts to capitalize on perceived advantages,” Berrier said. Any one of the three could come up with new weapons or concepts that “will change the character of warfare.”
But China’s whole-of-government approach—which Berrier called “military-civil-fusion”—intentionally blurs the lines between civilian and military technology efforts, and its greater investment in these presents “the greatest threat to U.S. technological superiority.” In fact, Berrier said China has “already achieved peer or near-peer levels in many research areas” and has targeted 57 specific technologies in which to outpace and out-field the U.S. military.
Soon, China will “almost certainly be able to hold U.S. and allied forces at risk at far greater distances from the Chinese mainland,” the DIA said, while it enhances its power projection forces. By 2027, China expects to be able to win a small number of brief but high-level military conflicts—“including the forcible unification of Taiwan”—while deterring, dissuading, or defeating any third-party military intervention. By 2050, China plans to be the dominant world military power.
To underscore China’s advance, the DIA noted that China deployed its new J-20 stealth fighters to the border region with India during recent tensions between the two countries.
China did not slow its military modernization at all as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, the DIA said.(cont)