Time will change that against us, certainly, but they are not the threat being made of them today. The time to seriously become worried about China is when they have a sustainable Blue Water Navy and the ability to project power around the globe
And that is exactly what I have pointed out many times.
Yes, China has a huge Army. However, as the saying goes "they have no legs". In other words, unless the nation shares a direct land border with them, they are actually very little of a threat. Because they have almost no sealift or airlift capability. And without those, you are of no real threat to anybody you do not share a border with.
And as you pointed out, they have almost no "Blue Water Navy" capability. They do not work as a "navy" as most would think of it, it is operated much more like a Coast Guard than anything else. Almost every ship operating almost completely independently, almost never doing any sort of actual fleet operations. They have no real UNREP capability, they have never done any kind of fleet operations beyond two week exercises.
Such a match-up would not be unlike creating a sports team of the very best College players in a country, and then having them face off against even a marginal professional team. The difference would be drastic, as what you would have is among the best in the sport, but they have never worked together before. And having them go against people who have played and trained together for years. Or taking some of the best musicians in the world, and throwing them into a band and handing them some sheet music and expecting them to sound like an actual orchestra doing the same music. The fact is, the PLAN has almost zero experience actually operating "like a navy", and if an actual conflict broke out that would quickly be obvious.
And that is not even something you can throw together in a couple of years, it takes decades to get that kind of proficiency. And that is the kind of experience they are completely lacking. And they seem to think that once a year sending out a handful of ships to work together is anything even close to what is needed. Their ability to operate their navy as a real navy is not even up to the Cold War era Soviet Navy, and even they were not very good at that.
No, if it ever came to blows, I rather expect that the PLAN would be about as effective as the Russian Navy has been in the last few years against Ukraine. In fact, as much as they outnumber the Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force, I think even the JMSDF by itself would largely wipe the floor of the PLAN because they actually have a rather long professional naval tradition, and operate regularly in fleet operations where each ship knows what to do in almost any situation.
Especially when one considers the current and future upgrades of the Izumo (2) and Hyuga (2) class Helicopter Destroyers. They will not have the missiles of the Chinese Aircraft Carrying Cruisers, but will have about the same number of a vastly superior fighters in the F-35B. The Chinese copy of the Su-33 does not even come close.
Many do not seem to understand it is not the amount of toys that matters, it is the quality and the experience of those using those toys.
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