New strategies are moving the goal posts in favor of America and her allies. If its countering China’s goal of regional supremacy you may want to become familiar with this new strategy named OC. This goes beyond the old Air-Sea Battle idea and evolves a strategy of engaging China in ways that play to the strength of America and her allies while placing China at a disadvantage.

“In the highly unlikely event of conflict with China, the United States needs a strategy that plays to its strengths, minimizes the risks of nuclear escalation, and limits physical destruction.”

Offshore Control is the Answer | U.S. Naval Institute

“..Offshore control would deny China the use of the sea inside the first island chain, at the same time defend those islands, and dominate the air and sea outside that theater. It envisions a stand-off military campaign focusing on a war of economic strangulation rather than on penetrating Chinese airspace to physically destroy its infrastructure. It seeks to force China to fight in ways that maximize U.S. strengths while minimizing China’s. In essence, OC provides a strategic context for an operational approach that goes beyond Air-Sea Battle to use the U.S. geographical advantage to maximize the effectiveness of a campaign using our air, sea, and land assets.”

http://www.usni.org/magazines/proceedings/2012-12/offshore-control-answer

Obviously such a strategy would seek to cut china off from global trade, and how successful it will be depends on when if ever such a tactic is utilized. China however is now such an important component in the world economy, even America would have to seriously think twice or thrice about implementing outright large scale hostilities. Let alone America’s more ancillary allies and the neutral.

China’s economic contribution to the world economy is arguably the biggest deterrent against conflict it has, so the US will have to win over at least a majority of the worlds nations first.

Of course, if they really want to remain being number one, the US can always start a war before China’s projected economic and eventual technological overtake.

Note: We may already be seeing the early stages of OC with Japan’s proposed emplacement of surface-to-surface missile batteries on offshore island chains

A few trucks with Type 88 missiles deployed for exercises without long term logistics support is merely a gesture.
I’ll take this entire strategy more seriously once Japan actually reveals a strategy to support a high and permanent military presence on the more frontier islands.

Agreed. So how far do Chinese engines lag the west? And more importantly why do they lag? It surely cannot be due to lack of money invested.

Actually it is a lack of money invested.
Because china has only recently started to invest heavily whereas the industries of other nations have had decades and decades of prior heavy investment and experience.

I’m going to give china twenty years to catch up to the moving target which is the west, assuming long range economic forecasts are accurate.

If you mean source try this. Its by your favorite commentator Andrew Erickson who you have identified as someone you admire for his knowledge of Chinese military affairs. If you are talking about sauce, as in secret sauce, I cannot help you there.

Yes, sauce as in source. Autocorrect is annoying.

As I say, I’d still like the original article you refer to.
He is definitely one of the better western writers, however he has also made a few mistakes before.

Here is an interesting tidbit of information: The Beidou navigation system – developed with EU help – is a striking example of Beijing’s global dragnet for military know-how.

China begged, borrowed, or stole the know-how to build their Beidou system.

http://www.reuters.com/investigates/china-military/#article/part7

All projects have foreign subcomponents, foreign expertise or foreign consultants… China is no exception.

I suppose in your opinion, it was really the Nazis who landed on the moon rather than america.

And maybe the moon is made of green cheese. One thing we do know and that is that China today is unable to make a modern jet engine in spite of having many examples in their possession to copy from. It is difficult to imagine China making improvements on other technologies when they cannot even master the basic building of a reliable modern jet engine.

There are over 200 WS-10As in service on over a hundred J-11Bs since serial production began circa 2009, I consider that mastery of building a reliable modern jet engine. And more importantly, I consider it mass production of a reliable modern jet engine. Building a single working engine by hand is fairly easy, producing the same thing over and over is a fair bit more difficult.

Now China is probably doing the best it can in trying to create a modern military machine. I’ll give them that. But the fact remains: China cannot innovate and has to be content to make copies of, derivatives if you like, of other people’s technical work in order to stay in the game.

The only part of this paragraph worthy of note, is this:
“to stay in the game”

But first let’s get the obvious out of the way. The Z-20 is clearly derived from the blackhawk. J-11B is also a modernized Su-27SK, as is J-15 to Su-33 etc etc. No one’s denying that.

But the Chinese have clearly proven that they can come out with original designs, from even as early as the J-8II, to JH-7, to J-20, to name a few in their aerospace industry.
The question we have to ask, is why would China want to “copy” a blackhawk, when designing a new helicopter ground up could achieve the same specifications?

That answer, is pragmatism tinged with a few flakes of urgent need.
In case anyone hasn’t noticed, the PLA is currently undergoing possibly the most urgent overhauling of any military seen in recent times, and all under an arms embargo. They need new equipment that meets their standards, as fast as possible, as reliably as possible, while being as indigenously sourced as possible while also providing the indigenous industry as much experience as possible.

Z-20, despite its obvious heritage from the blackhawk, is clearly a different design, with a different nose, different fuselage, different rotors, different engines, and almost certainly different materials and circuitry and avionics. Being able to do all that is effectively building a new helicopter, so why did they choose a design that so resembled the UH-60?

Well, it’s because they’ve had experience with their own UH-60s and they like the design, and why should they expend money to go for a different hull just for vanity’s sake of being “innovative” when a new fuselage and landing gear placement would mean introducing risk, introducing unknown variables?

don’t get me wrong, I would have preferred to see a different design to Z-20 as well, simply on the basis that the blackhawk’s profile is really old hat.

But using the PLA wanting a blackhawk of their own as proof that they can’t “innovate”? Please, spare us.

Under that way of thinking China will always remain a step behind. The ball is in China’s court to show the world they can innovate.

always

always

Lol….

Hey, remember that conversation we had about the PLAN and the timetable of their developing carrier expertise?
Yeah, what you’re saying now is even more ridiculous than that.
Your definition of innovation appears vague to me, and more than that, we all know China isn’t a leader in many of the industries we’re talking about — they’re using this time to catch up technologically as well as to catch up by producing machines that the military needs as quickly as possible. You can only innovate once you’re truly in the leading position, or at least, once you master the technology.

Specifically I am referring to the slowness of the PLAN to fully adopt the model of the USN as the path they had chosen. They seek to emulate the American navy. It is the gold standard of carrier operations. Yet the PLAN has been slow to fully adopt the US Navy model they have chosen.

For example the PLAN has shown an unwillingness to adopt the hand signals used by USN carrier deck personnel. I am not talking about the more known gestures as used by the PLAN during launch and recovery, but the hand signals used when communicating to other deck personnel and with aircraft crew. For example there has been no indication that PLAN deck personnel use different hand signals from below the waist to indicate communications with other deck personnel while using gestures ABOVE the waist to indicate communications with aircraft crew. Hand signals are the life blood of carrier operations.

We don’t have anywhere near enough videos to assess just how adequate their hand signals are, and unless any of us have served us on carrier decks I think we can’t really judge if their signals are any good or not.

Besides, they’ve only operated three aircraft on the carrier at one time as far as we know, and they only started operating the carrier a year ago. You’re passing judgement rather quickly, you know.

And properly using these signals is just as important as the PLAN attempting to adopt the Ouija board concept for spotting aircraft as they demonstrated during the visit of Chinese President Xi Jinping earlier this year

Well, they showed that they’re using somethign like an ouija board. Whether it’s an “attempt” or not really depends on how successful they are at it, and we’ll probably never know, will we?

The Cowpens and other intelligence ships could photograph and film flight deck procedures to determine the readiness and proficiency of the Liaoning and to measure the progress of the ship’ crew. This technique was done on the Russians when their first fixed wing aviation ship, the Kiev, emerged into the Med. There was intense monitoring of deck procedures to determine the true capabilities of the ship. You can expect no less from the Liaoning.

They would need to get really really close to see if the PLAN’s deck crew are “competent”.

Personally I think you’re reading too much into the Cowpens. It was there on an observation mission, possibly collect any SIGINT and ELINT that they want. I doubt they were pointing little

Just because you fail to note the details doesn’t mean that others have not. Where you may assign great weight to signal intelligence, others are watching the human element of the crew to gain a full picture of the readiness of Liaoning today. And yes I called attention to the foot wear of the Liaoning deck crew because human factors are an important part of the evolution of PLAN carrier operations. Its an important detail as to how adept the PLAN is with carrier operations today. Just the fact that the tempo of carrier operations is very low is questionable regarding the PLAN.

And to be sure there are other posters on other Chinese navy boards who are questioning the progress the PLAN is making on carrier operations. Are you aware of these questions? If you are not I can provide you with links.

It takes more than colored jersey’s to master carrier operations.

I think you’re making a straw man. Nobody said the PLAN had mastered carrier operations, and nobody suggested having coloured jerseys and what appears to be visibly competent equipment means the PLAN are suddenly at USN standards.

With regards to the rate of the PLAN is operating the Liaoning — we simply don’t have enough videos and pictures to judge. They only release a couple of seconds of video every few weeks, and we don’t know how often they fly their planes. Hell, they’re only receiving the first batch of J-15s now anyway.

Trying to cast judgement of the Liaoning’s crew competency at this early a stage is a redundant exercise, because obviously they’re going to be slow compared to a well trained and oiled deck crew in a US supercarrier.

In fact, if you step back and look at the Liaoning, for a navy that is not being helped by any other navy, and for a navy with no prior carrier experience, they’re doing a lot of things right

Oh not this all over again, this is just the same as your analysis based upon the shoes they were wearing on deck. What pictures the Cowpens could take would be little more then what we can already see on Youtube of the Liaoning.

The Americans if they were intelligence gathering will be interested in the signals data they can gather. The Cowpens will be there listening with her electronic systems trying to get a picture of the radars and radios operated by the Chinese carrier, also they will be using their radar to get an understanding of flight patterns around the carrier.

Understandably that is not exactly the kind of intelligence gathering the Chinese will be keen on. Also China is actively laying a stake to the South China seas, the US sending a Ticonderoga class destroyer through the area and close to their ships on exercise with their newest strategic asset is going to garner a response. This is nothing to do with them being embarrassed, this is geopolitics at play along with a desire to protect some of their secrets when it comes to the performance of their vessels.

+1

In a source you think highly of , that is “War is Boring” I noticed this reference concerning the KongJing-2000 AWACS. Note the text in bold

??

I definitely do not consider war is boring as a very credible source.

Here was the hierarchy I typed up a little while ago, as you can see, war is boring is at the very bottom.

The hierarchy is generally about this, from my own experience:
Highest:
-Official and explicit official PLA statements (however this often isn’t wholly accurate and even state media gets it wrong more often than not — the trick is to separate the BS from the gold)
-Big shrimp/PLA insider forum posts on chinese BBS
-Mainland chinese military magazines with connections with the military to produce decently accurate articles and data
-Various “prominent” individuals such as huitong, tphuang (who basically repackage news from the two above sources into a more recognizable form for western audiences)
-A few select western specialists, with Andrew Erickson being one of them, who know what they’re talking about
-Western military official statements (think ONI, US DoD reports to congress on PLA)
-Andrei Chang and his Kanwa site
-Various publication sites and analysts from abroad: these include random news sites such as washington post, to war is boring, and yes, Japanese media sites as well strategy page, David axe, richard fisher to an extent.
Lowest

” The KongJing-2000 is China’s first operational airborne early warning and control aircraft. Similar to the American E-3 Sentry, the KJ-2000 is an Il-76 cargo plane adapted to carry a disc-shaped radar dome. The sensor can detect hostile aircraft more than 300 miles away.

Aircraft such as the KJ-2000 are considered force multipliers whose abilities enhance other aircraft. For example, a KJ-2000 could operate in the open, radar on, detecting enemy aircraft in all directions. Nearby Chinese fighters could fly with their radars off and rely on the KJ-2000’s sensor instead, making the fighters harder to detect.

Chinese Air Force pilots are known for relying heavily on ground controllers for instructions. As China’s air operations move farther from shore and away from ground radar stations, aircraft such as the KJ-2000 will be necessary to provide direction.”

So it seems the PLAAF does indeed still use controllers for command and control of its fighter forces most likely using voice instructions. And I believe that it can be inferred that these controllers are aboard the KJ-2000 AWACS

Like I said, I don’t consider their pieces very well informed at all, and anyone with half a brain can see just how little effort they make in actually researching their articles, David Axe in particular.

So no, I’m sorry, your article, if anything, only further serves to demonstrate the questionable positions held by people who know nothing about the PLA.

The only western based PLA watcher whose work I consider decent is Andrew Erickson. His AShBM piece is unparalleled.

—-

Also, you’ll be interested to see that the article you post actually doesn’t say anything about PLAAF AEWC being unable to datalink. It only says “Chinese air force pilots are know for relying heavily on ground controllers for instructions” — of course, this statement itself is over a decade out of date and probably draws from a preconceived notion that the PLAAF of the 80s and 90s modelled itself on the VVS (which is an interesting statement given the sino-soviet split during the cold war), but it doesn’t say that PLAAF AEWC can’t datalink, it only assumes PLAAF pilots rely on GCI.
If anything, in an earlier sentence, it quite obviously makes reference to their belief that KJ-2000 can datalink, i.e.: “For example, a KJ-2000 could operate in the open, radar on, detecting enemy aircraft in all directions. Nearby Chinese fighters could fly with their radars off and rely on the KJ-2000’s sensor instead, making the fighters harder to detect.”

Of course, the day I use war is boring as a source to back up claims about the PLA is the day hell freezes over. I was merely demonstrating that even this article you use doesn’t say PLAAF AEWC can’t datalink, and if anything, it says the opposite.

The hardest part of this whole exercise is obtaining solid information on the ‘soft’ capabilities of Chinese forces. Things like pilot skills and warfighting culture are hard to obtain creditable information on as China has limited exposure to other military forces outside of China and that China has not fought a war since the incursion into Vietnam in 1979

Yes, and that was discussed in great detail with Thobbes in a thread dedicated to that exact subject a few months ago.

Unfortunately the only thing we could agree on was how difficult it was to measure such an abstract and multi faceted factor.

So at he very least these datalink systems like JSILDS are not fully deployed and are in the process of being adopted by Chinese forces.

Well, 052D obviously has yet to enter service, but other aspects of the “joint” datalink system would be expected to be operational given they’ve had years to test, develop and ultimately deploy a number of advanced AEWC, support aircraft, and advanced frigates and destroyers.

This lends credibility that some form of voice based command and control might be in use as reported by the article I referred to.

That’s relying on a few false assumptions, namely that this “JSILDS” is the only datalink that the PLA have deployed and developed, or that other parts of it are not yet operational, etc, which are all hefty assumptions given the number of assets they’ve depoyed in the past decade years that would rely on datalinking.

And of course, the sheer idea of giving a Japanese military magazine anything near credibility on the PLA is eyebrow raising to begin with, and even more so considering the actual claim they make.

And thanks for the sources and links. I was aware of most of them.

No problem.
Unfortunately, there is nothing like hard evidence for many of what would otherwise be rightly called “claims” or “opinions” regarding the PLA. Their opacity means generating anything near a basic picture of their capability with “proof” is immensely difficult.