Pentagon warns China’s military buildup makes US more vulnerable
China is drawing lessons from Russia’s failures in Ukraine (Photo: Getty Images)
At the request of the US Congress, the Pentagon has published a report on the capabilities of the Chinese military and the potential threat to the US, according to Bloomberg.
As the outlet notes, this report is the first version released during the second administration of US President Donald Trump.
The document describes how the Chinese military is becoming increasingly sophisticated and resilient. It states that China is wary of large-scale agreements with the US and is also drawing lessons from Russia’s failures in Ukraine while increasing pressure on Taiwan.
The report emphasizes that China and Russia continue to deepen their strategic partnership, which is almost certainly driven by a shared interest in countering the US. However, cooperation between Beijing and Moscow is hampered by mutual distrust between the two sides.
“The Chinese military is in the midst of a “historic military buildup” that has made the US homeland “increasingly vulnerable,” according to the latest edition of a Pentagon report on the capabilities of the Chinese military,’” Bloomberg writes.
Experts warn that China is outpacing the US in the development of hypersonic weapons. In response, the Golden Dome system planned by Trump is intended to protect the country from these and other emerging threats, as well as from more traditional ballistic missiles.
The release of the report followed the publication of the National Security Strategy, which devoted less attention to the threat from China than to issues in the Western Hemisphere and domestic challenges.
What came before
In the latest edition of the report published by the Biden administration in December 2024, there was a warning that China is the only US competitor with both the intent and an increasing ability to reshape the international order. It emphasized the importance of countering the challenge posed by China’s increasingly capable military.
Earlier still, in September 2020, during Trump’s first term, the document stated that Beijing was pursuing a purposeful drive toward political and social modernization that entails far-reaching efforts to expand China’s national power, improve its systems and governance, and revise the international world order.
Bloomberg also noted that the Biden administration’s 2022 National Defense Strategy identified China as the primary geopolitical challenge shaping the development trajectory of US armed forces in the context of military competition.
Earlier this week, Reuters, citing a Pentagon report, said that China is accelerating its nuclear buildup. In particular, there are grounds to believe that China has deployed more than 100 intercontinental ballistic missiles in new silos near Mongolia.
A day earlier, US President Donald Trump said he had approved a plan to build two new battleships for the US Navy. According to him, the ships will be the largest and most powerful in history.
