Off the top of my head and probably the most obviously lacking aspect of the PLA:
Mass production of 095 submarines
Fourth Taiwan Strait Crisis
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Mass production of 095 submarines
Considering general mobilization, China should already have the capability to defend itself and inflict a strong defeat of invaders, even if it is both USA and Japan.
What China needs right now to secure the gap is H-20 bombers and ramped up J-20 production. China should pursue numerical parity or superiority in 5th gen platforms vs the US military.
Another sector is space warfare, where China has some secretive known capabilities but US is quickly expanding itself. China can absolutely not fall behind on the space arms race. PLA should invest in both ground to space, space to ground and space to space platforms, because if it doesn't take the lead, US will do it.
Such a force would give China not just defensive ability over its own territory but pursue proactive military containment against US expansionism.
That's interesting.
Feels like the space war race is even more secretive than the subs!
I think in terms of technical industrial base, China should already have the means for such weaponry.
Heavy lift helicopter in the H47/53 class.
escobar
Brigadier
They called it the Space-Earth Integrated Information Network Mega Project which consist of various types of satellite systems (reconnaissance & surveillance satellites, communication satellites, navigation & positioning satellites, early-warning satellites, meteorological satellites, etc.) on different orbits, supplemented by land-, sea-,and space-based information systems and application terminals to form an organic, intelligent, distributed, space-Earth integrated global information network system.8 This integrated network will support four application areas:
spacecraft, guided missile, and space launch centers, near spaceflight vehicles, and unmanned aircraft (UAVs).
1. Heavy propeller based loitering munitions. These are a midway between ATGMs on the low end, and cruise/ballistic missiles on the high end. Russia, Iran and Israel all use them to devastating effect. But I haven't seen any 50 kg, 1000 km class loitering munitions from China.
2. Strategic bombers better than H-6K, namely, H-20. You just need this shit for any real offensive action. Forget the bullshit about requirements for gravity bombing. Stick to hard basic requirements: stealthy, all internal weapons, internal launchers for heavy cruise missiles, long range. High payload is nice but if that's too expensive a F-111 sized plane is fine.
3. Integration of drones with piloted planes. Imagine a H-20 releasing 50 Shahed-136 style loitering munitions from 500 km away, each flying at 20 m height, each carrying 50 kg warhead and a camera. It is an easy kill on an entire region's air defense radars and mapping locations of launchers. Or have a J-20S direct a long range cruise missile from the front lines. Etc.
Basically, more drones, more strike planes.
China could knock Taiwan over in an afternoon. Heard of the Six Day War? This would be the Six Hour War. The problem isn't Taiwan, the problem is America. China will be ready when it achieves roflstomp levels of conventional overmatch over the US and its allies in the western Pacific and at least strategic and tactical nuclear parity with the US.
The immediate goal (next 10 years or so) is to turn the Second Island Chain into a Chinese lake like the First Island Chain presently is. The most crucial conventional system for that would be a large number of Type 09-Vs, followed by H-20 stealth bombers. A tier below that is the systems China currently fields like Type 055 destroyers and J-20 fighters - these are needed in much higher numbers. On the nuclear front, China needs to activate those three silo fields with DF-41s asap (with the intended DF-45 coming later) and the rumored new DF-5C silos. My feeling is the bottleneck here is fissile material availability, specifically weapons-grade plutonium.
Edit: Another system China requires which I should mention is, of course, nuclear-powered CATOBAR carriers.
Edit2: That's a very brief summary of what needs to be done on the military front. There's plenty that needs to be done on the technological and financial fronts as well.
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Well this is curious. National Taiwan University's research vessel New Ocean Researcher 1 was intercepted by Japan Coast Guard in an area both side claim to be their exclusive economic zone east of Taiwan. Rather than withdrawing the research ship called for help and ROC's Coast Guard Administration sent one of their own cutter Hualien which rushed to the scene and the three ships had a 10 hour stand off:
At the end of the stand off New Ocean Researcher 1 first left the disputed area, then the Japanese cutter left then Hualien left last.
CGA haven't done anything like this to the Japanese for a long while now, some kind of political message is behind this. ROC may be displeased at Japanese exercising how to withdraw their citizen in case of war.
At the end of the stand off New Ocean Researcher 1 first left the disputed area, then the Japanese cutter left then Hualien left last.
CGA haven't done anything like this to the Japanese for a long while now, some kind of political message is behind this. ROC may be displeased at Japanese exercising how to withdraw their citizen in case of war.
China and Taiwain's common ground, the integrity of Chinese sovereignty against Japanese claims.
Makes Japan a strange bed fellow for Taiwan in the case of AR.
It may hurt the rebels more than help to involve Japan.
As far as we know, not all or even most of the rebel forces are pro Japan, some if not the majority are just as anti Japan as rest of China.
Whatever is gained from having Japan would be lost in morale among rebel formations and in vastly increased war support for Beijing, both on the mainland and on Taiwan island.
I think in a Taiwan invasion scenario, Japan may end up acting like Belarus has done in the Ukraine war. The whole world assumed Belarus would invade together with Russia, but they ended up being pretty neutral so far. The assumption of Japanese and American joint invasion may be overblown, because there are great risks to Tokyo which the regime may not want to take.
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