I disagree. While the PLA could certainly ramp up its own procurement tempo, there are hard limits on the total scope and scale of such an effort which are driven far more by internal resource and economic priorities than external factors.
While I can completely see the rationale behind this assessment, I would point out that it is precisely because the constraints are primarily driven by internal factors that China has significant scope for military ramp up if it deem that necessary by pulling levers to change its internal priorities.
China is currently only spending around 2% of its GDP on defence, so it has massive budgetary leeway to spend a hell of a lot more and not suffer any major drag on its broader economy.
In addition, China being the factory of the world, as well its past military industrial investment strategies, gives it far more ramp up potential and capabilities. So if China did decide to double its military expenditure tomorrow for example, it will get far more tangible benefits far sooner than say the US or UK doing the same, who do not have the necessary industrial and human capital assets or the control over private industry to quickly redeploy to translate that massive increased spending into a corresponding increase in production of military goods, so the extra military expenditure will just turn into inflation and profits into the pockets of the MIC, as illustrated by the Ukraine war logistics fiasco.
But even for China, any increases will need to be done gradually to avoid unnecessary waste and inflationary pressures, and with China’s general obsession with opsec, it may be years later that we get any concrete proof of past massive increases in military expenditure.
The biggest hard cap constraint the PLA will face in any large scale ramp up will by on the human training side to produce pilots, sailors and soldiers fast enough to crew all the new toys it can surge produce. But increasing use of unmanned platforms is significantly easing that problem.
The level of expenditure and overall allocation of effort towards PLA modernization and evolution have remained mostly constant over the past quarter decades, despite the significant changes in the balance of military power. Some degree of mirroring would likely occur, yes; but for all intents and purposes, the PLA has its own vision of its future force structure, and is likely to continue pursuing this vision regardless of actions we take on our end.
That feels like an uncharacteristically simplistic view of things.
The very steady level of expenditure China has made in its military modernisation over those decades is the product of a combination of a much more stable and friendly relationship with the U.S.; and the fact that its own military modernisation was going exactly according to its plans. Plans that are in turn dependent on catching up to a projected future point in the US military’s development power curve.
With the first foundational factor of good stable relations with the US out the window, it would be highly irrational for China to not course correct aggressively if the U.S. then take actions to fundamentally improve the projected future growth path of its own military power.
Further, many lines of effort present themselves which the PLA would be hard pressed to address in a meaningful capacity, but which still provide the US a notably improved position in some way. There is a lot of low hanging fruit that current senior leadership have utterly failed to harvest due to misaligned incentives and general incompetence, but even simple successes in this capacity would render our position far less tenuous than its current state. Significantly reducing overseas US commitment and operational tempo in low-yield theaters, recapitalization of our yards - even if just to maintain currently in service platforms, realigning fiscal priorities strongly in favor of Air Force and Naval procurement and modernization efforts, and more sensibly approaching procurement and sustainment endeavors such that we are no longer paying enormous fees to rent-seeking contractors to conduct support activities which are fundamentally ill-suited to civilian involvement, etc. etc. etc. would substantially reduce the barrier to fielding a capable and credible force to operate in the WestPac. Unfortunately, all of those things seem vastly beyond the capacity of our existing institutions to act upon.
Again, while the US can most certainly do a lot of things in its own power to improve its own position that China will be hard pressed to directly counter or interfere with, the very fact that the U.S. is taking concrete steps to address its own problems and improve its own capabilities will materially alter the PLA future threat assessment outcomes, which in turn will affect the PLA’s current investment and procurement decisions as it adjusts to try and address that projected future change.
It would be a mistake to assume that just because the PLA has not changed its own plans when the US has stumbled and faltered that it would also be so unresponsive if the US massively picked up the pace and got its own house back in order.
