All your West Pacific belong China
What a difference a year makes
Godfree Roberts
Last year I explained why China dominates the West Pacific militarily. Since then, things have developed not necessarily to America’s advantage.
Last year, for example, a US carrier docked at Darwin Port had zero chance of surviving a volley of Chinese DF-26D anti-ship ballistic missiles and a 50-50 chance in open ocean.
Its chances are now zero and zeo. A new surveillance satellite with onboard AI recognizes and identifies individual warships, tracks them through rain and storm, and transmits better-than-human information to HQ in real time 24×7. Time on target is infinite, so PLAN ashore screen-shares and discusses the information directly with battery commanders, eliminating delays and miscommunication. Naval vessels are also tracked by a million human sailors in China’s fishing fleets, by gigantic drones that spend months in the stratosphere, by the PLAN’s ‘undetectable’ conventional subs, and by a network of passive receivers on the ocean floor. ‘Spray and pray’ is not a Chinese thing. Missiles are expensive.
Food for Thought: What admiral would sail a $30 billion battle fleet and 7,000 sailors in range of such weapons when his air wing is a thousand miles beyond operational range?
Firstest with the Mostest
While never denying its power, Mao labeled the US military-industrial complex a ‘paper tiger’. One hard, early punch in the nose, he said, is worth 100 later, and the punch he delivered in Korea proved his point. The PLAN is now prepared to repeat the lesson.
Early next year, Xi will commission five new Burke Class destroyers simultaneously, whose thousands of missiles outrange their USN counterparts. China’s fleet is the newest, biggest, most modern, powerfully armed fleet afloat, manned by the world’ best educated and motivated sailors. Why China dominates the West Pacific.
Mighty Dragons
The PLAAF’s (now mass produced) J-20 Mighty Dragons have an unparalleled combination of range, speed2 and payload. In their 2-seater version, the co-pilot controls three drones that zip ahead to draw fire or attack targets. There is no room in the F-35 fuselage for a second seat, and the F-35 will be our frontline fighter through 2050.
Asymmetry in the Pacific
Any attack on Chinese territory would draw an equally powerful counterstrike on the US West Coast. Of this there is no doubt. China’s ICBMs are longer ranged than America’s, and carry more powerful payloads faster and, says Fred Reed,
Defense is impossible. Missile defenses are meaningless except as money funnels to the arms industry. This is not the place to go into decoys, hypersonics, Poseidon, maneuvering glide vehicles, bastion stationing, MIRV, just plain boring old cruise missiles, and so on. Coastal cities are particularly easy targets, being vulnerable to submarine-launched sea-skimming missiles. Washington, New York, Boston, San Diego, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Seattle for starters. All gone.
Be Prepared
Chinese and Russian preparations for ICBM exchanges are thorough, sophisticated, and coordinated while, beyond detection, the US has no effective defense at all.
Food for Thought: Undefended America is provoking a nuclear exchange with the two best defended nations on earth, which have superior intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance superiority, and can easily strike the US at strategic and operational depths.
Fair Weather Friends
Internationally, Biden is a pariah, insulted to his face, while Xi and Putin are rock stars. Xi, having risked $3.5 trillion helping poor countries develop, is God of Plenty to Putin’s God of War, and the Putin-Xi bromance has deepened with age. Putin’s reaction to his first standing ovation from other national leaders: “For God’s sake, sit down!”. Matteo Salvini, Italy’s Deputy Prime Minister, makes no secret of his admiration.
Our party’s over
We squandered our natural riches, degraded our human resources and hocked our assets to the usual suspects, who now staff the White House and control our banks and media. Former friends, seeing this, now decline our invitations and, if they do show up, bring people we can’t stand, then leave early and surly3. Africa couldn’t make it. Turkey’s almost out the door. The Saudis, like the Turks, spent billions on Russian S-400 systems, and have now said their goodnights. Latin America is waiting for a cab.
The neighborhood has gone downhill for 40 years, we’ve maxed our credit cards and, in front of six billion people, we’ve been stealing stuff their governments entrusted to our care.
By Christmas next year it will be over bar the shouting. Ukraine will be de-Nazified and its ports in Russian hands. NATO weapons will be back at their 1979 boundaries. Intra-EU cooperation will be a memory. Washington will be grappling with a shrinking economy, expanding inflation, 40 million Covid invalids, mass homelessness, and, for the first time since the 20’s, mass hunger4. Already, there are more illiterate, homeless, hungry children, drug addicts, poor people, prisoners, suicides, and executions in America than in China.
Theirs is getting started
By Christmas next year, the world will have a new reserve currency. Started in 2009 in response to the GFC, it’s currently running simulated transactions between five central banks and is ready to announce that fact. For the 90% of the world’s people who are sick and tired of US violence, bullying, and cultural destruction, it will be a liferaft to nations drowning in the financial cesspool the US has created. Oddly, it should have no immediate impact on the US dollar, since the greenback has the biggest share of the currency basket. Only difference? It’s one currency among seven in the basket, which also contains globally traded commodities. Almost impossible for one nation to influence, especially when every one of the 193 reserve banks has an equal vote in its composition and administration. One could even call it democratic, but it was invented by Russia and China, so it can’t be democratic, can it?
By Christmas next year Ukraine will have surrendered unconditionally and have been abandoned by its Western ‘allies’ who, coincidentally, began conniving to kill 10,000 Russian-speaking Ukrainians in the donbas to bait DPutin into attacking their NATO armed, Nazi forces. Long before that, Taiwan’s President Tsai will have seen the writing on the wall. Everyone knows the Breakaway Province/Warlord storyline, from hundreds of historical movies. They’ll slow dance this one, because it’s dangerous.
Taiwan Customs will merge with China Customs6, leaving cross-straits relations otherwise unchanged. TSMC will still produce high end chips, but some buyers may experience paperwork delays.
China wins the Chip War
Next year, Beijing’s new fab will start mass producing the world’s first photonic chips, signaling sunset for copper circuitry and dawn for a new low-energy, high speed computing era. Compared with electronic chips, photonic chips offer calculation speeds and transmission rates 1,000 times those of electronic chips. All built with Chinese IP and Chinese equipment. Game over.
The American century will finally be over for all to see.
__________________________________________________
- 1. Chinese soldiers have a three year advantage over their US counterparts in STEM subjects. (2020 PISA).
- 2. The J-20 cruises supersonically without afterburners.
- 3. A SE Asian Ambassador cursed President Biden in his presence and another loudly upbraided colleagues for rising when Biden entered.
- 4. In 2021, 53 million Americans turned to food banks to put food on the table.
5. China Customs already processes 52% of Taiwan’s exports.
