I notice the same
Like all countries, China strategic capabilities are guarded by secrecy. Its state media generally doesn't make outsized claims like the North Koreans. But my points were less a description of what the Chinese do, they were meant to show how positive bias on strategic/military reporting helps state interests. On a general level I don't see how they are wrong.
I think your original point is incorrect because what you described does not happen in the way you described it.
I'll go into more detail about this below.
For example, if you observe that the Chinese only reveal sensitive projects when they are relatively mature, it's a reasonable inference that they do so because they don't want to damage the perception of China's military as a credible deterrent by making outsized claims. Clearly, creating the perception of China's military as a strong deterrent is an incentive for them.
I mostly disagree with this.
One could very well make a strong and sensible argument that if China truly were interested in doign what you described ("producing a perception that Chinese military industry is more advanced than it is"), then China would be incentivized to exaggerate their military capabilites and do early reveals of new weapons in development in stages similar to what western military forces.
Instead, big ticket projects like fighters, destroyers, carriers, new missiles, radars etc, are virtually almost never officially reported on during their development period by state media in any sort of organic sense, but instead only convyed in a speculative sense by "non-official" experts at most where they give the impression that their words are as speculative as anyone else's.
One only needs to look at how open and brazen the procurement and development of new capabilities in western military forces are to see how utterly careful, subdued and controlled China is in releasing hard information about their own capabilities.
E.g.: the development milestones of the likes of F-22, F-35 were followed step by step by media and with USAF press releases virtually from the inception of announcing the winner of ATF and JSF. Contrast that to J-20, where the Air Force has only really officially declassified the J-20 this year at Zhuhai, despite the aircraft making its first flight five years ago and the programme beginning years ago before that.
One can use similar comparisons for basically every equivalent weapons system between China and the US and how closed and restrained China is vs how open the US is. Carriers, SSNs, SSBNs, fighters, bombers, destroyers, radars, missiles... virtually everything.
In my view, the goal of all of this, is to create a sense of false security and cause potential foes to severely underestimate not only the level of advancement of China's military industrial complex as a whole, but also the level of capabilities they are capable of deploying.
I agree that Chinese state media is more vague and restrained in how they talk about military/strategic developments than many other countries. But I hold firm to the claim that the incentives are there for the state to talk up military capabilities and effectiveness, and I also hold firm to the claim that the state media has acted on these particular incentives in their content. If we watch those brief snippets from CCTV that they make so many of, we notice that out of 100 reports, most are about some new technology, method, or idea being implemented to great success. Maybe 5 out of 100 will touch on some inadequacies, but then quickly suggest that these inadequacies are being addressed sufficiently.
I do agree that Chinese state media generally tends to report on some military news in the context of "developments/progress" whether it's in a new type of training or perhaps even a segment on a new kind of equipment being inducted.
However I do not perceive the effect of this sort of overall portrayal to be one of trying to create a "perception that Chinese military industry is more advanced than it is" nor even trying to create a perception that the Chinese military's capability is more advanced than it is.
Instead, I see those portrayals more for domestic consumption with the purpose of effectively being a way of conveying that they are continuing to seek and improve, train and develop their military capabilities but all while revealing very little about the details of how they are going about that improvement so as to preserve operational security against potential foes, and they also tend to disclose very little about the actual effectiveness of their capabilities either.
What it creates is not a perception of
having high levels of capability, but rather a perception that they are continuously trying to
strive for improvement of capability.
Displaying that one "has" high levels of capability would be to show off the highest end capabilities that they have by revealing sufficient amounts of information about new capabilities or capabilities under development to create a sense of deterrence. Things like reporting on J-20 testing development, reporting on rough capabilities of new AEW&C and ASW MPA and EW/ECM aircraft, reporting the rough capability of sensors suite and weapons suite of new fighters or destroyers or ships, etc. But instead, these things are virtually never given to us, or even acknowledged during the development process by any form of official state media or official military media.
OTOH, I believe Chinese state/military media is displaying that they are "striving" for improvement of capability. That allows them to simply show off far less strategic, less sensitive and arguably less important assets and training and capabilities -- whether it's artillery exercises or simple naval exercises or vague depictions of aerial exercises -- and the amount of useful information that is revealed by this is far more limited. The effect of this kind of portrayal does not effect the perception of their military capabilities very much in most circumstances, but instead merely conveys that the military's "character" of determination to continue and improve and develop.
In a way, what I'm describing is still a form of PR or propaganda, but I see their portrayal as one of the military's spirit/character to improve and develop, which is vastly different to what you are describing which is that they are trying to exaggerate their capabilities or industry to a certain level of effectiveness or advancement.
This difference is small, but not trivial at all IMO.
