China's Potemkin military
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Recently, Xi was embarrassed to find that missiles were filled with water rather than fuel, with officials pocketing the money meant to make the missiles fly.
US intelligence indicates that President Xi Jinping’s sweeping military purge came after it emerged that widespread corruption undermined his efforts to modernize the armed forces and raised questions about China’s ability to fight a war, according to people familiar with the assessments.
The corruption inside China’s Rocket Force and throughout the nation’s defense industrial base is so extensive that US officials now believe Xi is less likely to contemplate major military action in the coming years than would otherwise have been the case, according to the people, who asked not to be named discussing intelligence.
The rapid growth of China's military appears to have led to plenty of self-interested bureaucrats taking advantage and enriching themselves. Along with the water-filled missiles, there are also reports of "vast fields of missile silos in western China with lids that don’t function in a way that would allow the missiles to launch effectively."
Xi's call for more discipline and less corruption is not a good look for someone who is supposed to be exerting complete control over his country through the power he's seized. The fact that he has to give such a speech shows the weakness inherent in a top-down dictatorship that is run via mandate and bureaucracy and with few checks and balances. Corruption can and does exist in every form of government (Hello, Senator Bob Menendez), but it's much easier to replace our corrupt officials than it is for China to even find theirs.
For years, the U.S. foreign policy establishment has been certain that China was ascendant. But recent civil unrest and these military corruption accusations, as well as China's dependency on stolen technology to develop their own systems, weapons, etc., can give one pause.
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This suggests that either China's government has lost control of its military production or it is incapable of producing what it purports to have for its military. Either would be a significant problem.
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