The ongoing skirmish between Houthi guerrillas and the U.S. Navy in the Red Sea was a spectacle that allowed Beijing to watch and assess U.S. anti-missile capabilities. The outcome is alarming. The destroyer
resorted to its Phalanx Gatling guns to destroy an incoming cruise missile only four seconds from hitting the ship, implying that its missiles failed to intercept the attacker. An American destroyer carries about 100 anti-ship missiles. China claims to have an automated factory that can produce
. That’s unverified, but China has plants that assemble more than 1,000 electric vehicles a day; I visited a Chinese facility that produced 2,400 5G base stations a day with just 45 workers.