A few days after Chinese President Xi Jinping in his address to the CPC Dialogue with World Political Parties High-level meeting in Beijing on March 15, highlighted that China “advocates solidarity and win-win mentality in handling complex and intertwined security challenges”, the PLA Daily in its opinion piece called the country’s military to seek people’s support and mobilise civilian economy in the event of a conflict.

In hindsight, both XI’s speech and the PLA Daily’s opinion piece, were speaking about possible conflict with the US and its allies over Taiwan as tension has further escalated between China and America after Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen met US House Speaker Kevin McCarthy in Los Angeles on her way back home after finishing her visit to Latin America.

Last week, China warned that any meeting between Tsai Ing-wen and the third highest ranking US official could lead to the US seeing “serious repercussions”. This threat has been issued by China at the time when the PLA Daily has called for the adoption of total war to defeat the country’s adversaries.

“A people’s war is a total war, and its strategy and tactics require the overall mobilisation of political, economic, cultural, diplomatic, military and other power resources, the integrated use of multiple forums of struggle and combat methods,” the PLA Daily said.

Experts look at these arguments with a pinch of salt; they say the PLA Daily is trying to exaggerate a scenario where society will find itself compelled to dance at Chinese army’s tune and surrender itself to its dictates at the time of war against Taiwan, which several experts and think tanks say China will never win.

“Under most circumstances, China is unlikely to succeed in its operational objectives, or to occupy Taipei,” Eric Heginbotham, a security expert at Massachusetts Institute of Technology was quoted by The Guardian as saying.  CIA Director William Burns, on the other hand, said given Russia’s experience in its war with Ukraine, “I think our judgement at least is that President Xi and his military leadership have doubts today about whether they could accomplish that invasion.”

However, experts feel Chinese President Xi Jinping’s instructions to his country’s military to be ready by 2027 to invade Taiwan, should not be seen as a mere posturing to deter the US and its allies. Instead, the PLA Daily’s stress on “the integrated use of multiple forms of struggle and combat methods” must be seen as an indication towards China’s preparedness for the possible conflict with the US over Taiwan.

In this regard, new data from the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) about a drop in China’s arms sales in the midst of surging geopolitical tensions, warrants international attention. As per the SIPRI, arms exports by China from 2018-2022 dropped by 23% compared with 2013-2017.The Sweden-based think tank said the overall share of China’s arms sales across the world slipped from 6.3% to 5.2% during the same period.

This drop in arms exports by China is analysed by experts as a broad hint towards stockpiling of arms by the country’s military. “The decline in arms exports from China could be a sign that Beijing was focussing more on domestic needs as geopolitical tensions rose,” Ni Lexiong, a Professor at Shanghai University of Political Science and Law was quoted by the South China Morning Post as saying.

However, there are different opinions over the decline in arms sales and they are about the faulty nature of Chinese weapons and their quality. Thailand, which happily agreed to boost military ties with China in 2015, has now put on hold the US$1.05 billion deal for the purchase of three Chinese S26TYuan Class submarines.

The Prayut Chan-o-cha government has made it clear that under China fits German-made MTU 396 engines in these submarines, it will not go ahead with the deal. On account of the European Union embargo, imposed on China in the aftermath of the Tiananmen Square crackdown in 1989, Germany cannot export its defence technology to Beijing. This has resulted in China’s inability to fulfil Thailand’s demand and hence, continued deadlock in the purchase of China-made submarines by Bangkok.

Pakistan is in deep shock after finding its army was supplied with substandard drones and missiles technologies by China. ALIT, a China-based firm that manufactures CH-4 UAVs, had supplied the Pakistan army with multiple drones. Most of these drones are lying unused as they have manufacturing defects.

As per media reports, the Pakistan army has now approached Austria-based defence manufacturer Schiebel for its S-100 UAV, which has ability to fly at a maximum altitude of 5,500 metres and has a range of 180km. It can generate a top speed of around 185 km per hour with a maximum endurance of six hours.

Pakistan is also saddled with a problematic Chinese missile system, AR-2 Air-to-Ground Missiles. These missiles are reportedly fitted with faulty seekers which make the projectiles non-functional. Due to such faulty seekers, missiles are not able to locate their targets. Pakistan has reportedly sent seekers for repair.

But Bangladesh is at its wits end as it does not know how to handle Chinese weapons which are faulty and low in quality. The South Asian country recently acquired two Chinese 053H3 frigates—BNS Umer Farooq and BNS Abu Ubaidah. These frigates are reportedly saddled with non-functioning navigation radar and gun systems.

The two Ming class Type 035G submarines acquired by Bangladesh at US $100 million each in 2017—are in bad shape. They are reportedly lying unserviceable at a port in Bangladesh. Even the recently unveiled submarine base, BNS Sheikh Hasina, built by China at Pekua in Cox Bazar is facing multiple technical problems. While K-8 aircraft purchased from China for the Bangladesh Air Force are struggling with various technical snags.

According to reports, regular maintenance problems, limited number of spares readily available and non-delivery of major spare parts even required urgently, haunt the countries which purchase Chinese weapon systems. This is what led Myanmar to shake off its reliance on China for the purchase of defence technology.

From 2014 to 2019, China accounted for 50% of Myanmar’s major arms imports, which included warships, combat aircraft, armed drones, armoured vehicles and air defence systems, Nikkei Asia quoted Stockholm Peace Institute as saying. But unhappy over the quality of Chinese weapons, Myanmar’s military leadership has looked towards Russia to source defence technologies for armed forces.

Yet experts believe that China cannot be underestimated when it comes to its readiness to fulfil its strategic objectives. In his keynote address at the CPC Dialogue with World Political Parties High-level meeting, President Xi Jinping said: “A modernized China will strengthen the force for world peace and international justice. No matter what level of development China achieves, it will never seek hegemony or expansion.”

Those who know China must not gloss over the ground reality over the situation around South and East China Seas and the Line of Actual Control—all facing threats of Beijing’s expansionism. While Taiwan continues to fiercely resist China’s egregious military takeover for decades.

Clearly, whatever the Chinese leadership says in public is not the one which has any correlation with truth on the ground. A peace-loving country will never stoke fire in the already tension-filled global atmosphere, say experts, while pointing their fingers towards China’s 7.2% hike in its defence budget in 2023.

–The writer is a senior journalist with wide experience in covering international affairs. The views expressed are of the writer and do not necessarily reflect the views of Raksha Anirveda