This is the sixth part of a series of posts where I examine what would happen if the PRC invaded Taiwan. For deep background, check out my book on Chinese military history, Walls of Men.
While the United States and the Soviet Union never came to blows during the Cold War, both sides had a good idea of the other’s capabilities. In addition to watching each other’s military exercises on each side of the Iron Curtain, proxy wars raged in Vietnam, Korea, Afghanistan, and across Africa and Asia. This provided ample opportunity to study doctrine, tactics and equipment.
The Arab-Israeli conflict also provided an arena to see what the opposing tank and aircraft designs could do. Of course both side were using export versions to prevent the exposure of key systems, but things like engine power, maneuverability, etc. are hard to disguise. Maybe the Soviet version of that MiG has a better targeting radar, but the aircraft’s radar profile is going to be the same.
With China, we have had very little in the way of field testing for their equipment. Their last armed conflict was 40 years ago and since that time China has completely rearmed the PLA to the point that even their basic infantry weapons are new designs. Indeed, from tanks to aircraft, there has been a complete break from the old technology, so whether they work in the field is anyone’s guess.
Imitation, Not Innovation
In an earlier installment, I noted that the Chinese are not the Soviets, and nowhere is that more obvious than in military technology and equipment. While the Soviets ultimately were surpassed by the West, the USSR actually produced innovative weapons and for time seemed to have the upper hand in the Space Race. From the T-34 tank series, to the development of the AK-47 and in the use of rockets for artillery and anti-aircraft rules, the Soviets showed remarkable creativity, despite being a totalitarian society. This was because the Soviet concept of Marxism was a futuristic one which idealized technological advancement and lionized industry and its workers.
Maoism is the antithesis of this approach, and while the current party line is that “China lives ten years in the future,” the intellectual environment in China is paranoid and stagnant. The purges that swept through society during the Great Leap Forward and especially the Cultural Revolution were fundamentally anti-intellectual, rather than targeting cliques or political heresies. There is no place in the Chinese military-industrial complex for doctrinal debates about the employment of specific weapons and tactics, let alone their development.
As a result, all Chinese weapons designs are copies, either cribbed from Russia or stolen from other countries. This can help produce advancements by creating a short cut, but without the underlying development or an understanding of how development actually works, the results are uncertain.
There is also the problem of quality control, the famed “tofu dreg” problem of using inferior materials to turn a profit. All of these strike against Chinese weapons working well in combat conditions.
The point is that when one hears of some amazing new “Thunder Dragon Power Missile” in Western media, it is likely just a Russian weapon with a slick paint job.
About Those Air Defenses
In the last year, we have seen multiple failures of Chinese-made air defense systems. The first instance was over Iran in June 2025 when Operation Midnight Hammer took out Iran’s primary weapons enrichment center without a shot being fired. Given the extensive use of stealth technology coupled with the extensive preparations and deception, one might be willing to give China the benefit of the doubt, but the failure defend Venezuela and the subsequent large-scale air campaign over Iran have shown that the US has little to fear.
Apologists might say that these were not top-shelf systems or that their crews lacked the training of the PLA, but that begs several questions. As noted before, it is assumed that some features will be held back, but in two out of three instances, no shots were fired, and in Venezuela, the targets included low and slow helicopters. As for the skill of the operators, the Iranian regime has been in a state of war since its foundation, only pausing to reload during lulls in the action. To put it another way, Iranian pilots and air defense artillery have had far more experience than the PLA.
Then there was the instance of the aircraft crash in Beijing earlier this summer. A single-engine prop aircraft loitered overhead for 20 minutes without a shot being fired until it crashed into a high-profile building. Was the air defense system incapable of detecting it or was it a failure of a chain of command ravaged by political purges?
Deadly Tanks – To The User
Recently a video surfaced of a live-fire exercise in Bangladesh. The troops were using refitted Type 59 tanks supplied by China and one of them experienced a catastrophic failure, which killed the crew. Since this happened outside of China, there is a reasonable chance that the truth will come out, but this is not the first mishap for Chinese-made armor. The Chinese will likely blame ammunition quality or poor crew training, but it keeps happening. There’s a whole genre of videos featuring structural failures with Chinese construction/engineering projects.
There is also the fact that with every other product, China’s export version is superior to those designed for the domestic market. The reason is obvious: Chinese industries have no internal competition, while overseas they must compete with other brands. Arms exports are a lucrative industry, and having a large customer base helps support the military-industrial manufacturing base, lowering per-unit costs of production. One of the reasons why so many Western countries abandoned military aviation was that the small run of aircraft they needed was hugely expensive to produce. It made much more economic sense to piggy-back onto American factory orders.
If China really is willing to deliberately sell unreliable junk, it is staggeringly incompetent. I think a more logical explanation is that the corruption within China has penetrated every corning, including military procurement. Senior Party members can always find a scapegoat if something goes wrong, and small nations can strong-armed (or bribed) to look the other way.
The Western Reliability Bias
It should be said that a lot of the positive assessments of China’s military hardware come from people who assume that the PLA is very similar to our military in terms of valuing competence and integrity. However, there is zero evidence to back up this belief. What we have seen is that Chinese officials will sign of on just about anything so long as they get paid. “Tofu dreg” is proven, and the only question is how far into the military it goes. The idea that “well, sure they poison their own citizens and build unstable buildings and bridges that fall down, but they would absolutely draw the line at tanks and aircraft” is a total cope. The assumption should be that Chinese military hardware is garbage until proven otherwise. Now in terms of planning, yes, by all means assume it will work. Take nothing for granted.
But if you are providing and honest, clear-headed assessment, there shough be a high degree of skepticism. For example, a Chinese nuclear submarine sank at its pier, and likely had a meltdown since radioactivity has spread to the South China Sea. This is an indictment of both equipment and personnel. The only reason we know is that the fallout was quite literally beyond the CCP’s ability to contain and conceal.
Indeed, over the past decade Western institutions which were once trusted have stumbled. Why would Communists be immune from this? Communist regimes are notorious focused on image over substance, and China seems to be taking this to unheard of levels.
Chateau Lloyd 
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