25,000 Sailors, 50 Commands Across 22 Time Zones: US Navy & Marines Gear Up For Large Scale Exercise 2023 (6 Carriers)

[beijingwalker]

meanwhile the UK has the ability to surge 2 x Carrier at one time Chinese Casino Carriers are pier queens

UK is on the most top tier navies of the World with a extra ordinary high training and professional standard and a long rich history and tradition

with 4 x SSBN + 7 x SSN it has had a continuous at sea nuclear deterrence since 1969

Chinese nuclear submarine copies of those terrible Russian ones has not even conducted a deterrence patrol yet

Trident has been tested and retested and validated and optimised over 200 launches in last 30 years

how many launches has JL-2 and JL-3 done? less than 10

UK is ready

UK？ lol, China builds one UK whole fleet every year.

 

[gambit]

USA is / was never a super power , it is only projected as such under the guise of modern world .

True. The image of a 'super power' is partially created by perception. Not by the self, but by others. So if the rest of the world PERCEIVED the US to be a 'superpower', why should we argue otherwise?

In Reality super power or any power has to conquer and sustain itself on conquered land as rulers . Which US never did in its entire history .

So according to your standard, there are two main components:

1. Defeat of a regional power​

2. Occupation of foreign territories​

I have no problems saying that the US failed at 2, at least for the long run.

Now, when I received orders to Desert Storm, I did a little reading and learned that with Desert Shield, the US was the only power to date to EXTRAHEMISPHERICALLY project its military forces. Historically, armies transport on land and lived off the land, whereas the US military took everything we needed from one hemisphere to the other. For most people, that capability is enough to put them on guard when dealing with US. But, if it make you feel good put US down a notch because we refused to rule over Iraq and Afghanistan, as how past conquerors have done, I have no problems with that. In fact, I want YOU to believe the worst of the US military as you can think up. As long as YOU are happy and safe in Canada, our 52nd state, I am happy.

 

[Nan Yang]

Good luck

JOSEPH TREVITHICKView Joseph Trevithick's Articles
PUBLISHED JUL 11, 2023 1:25 PM EDT
AU.S. Navy briefing slide is calling new attention to the worrisome disparity between Chinese and U.S. capacity to build new naval vessels and total naval force sizes. The data compiled by the Office of Naval Intelligence says that a growing gap in fleet sizes is being helped by China's shipbuilders being more than 200 times more capable of producing surface warships and submarines. This underscores longstanding concerns about the U.S. Navy's ability to challenge Chinese fleets, as well as sustain its forces afloat, in any future high-end conflict.

In a statement to The War Zone, the U.S. Navy has confirmed the authenticity of the slide, seen in full below, which has been circulating online.

U.S. Navy briefing slide is calling new attention to the worrisome disparity between Chinese and U.S. capacity to build new naval vessels and total naval force sizes. The data compiled by the Office of Naval Intelligence says that a growing gap in fleet sizes is being helped by China's shipbuilders being more than 200 times more capable of producing surface warships and submarines. This underscores longstanding concerns about the U.S. Navy's ability to challenge Chinese fleets, as well as sustain its forces afloat, in any future high-end conflict.

In a statement to The War Zone, the U.S. Navy has confirmed the authenticity of the slide, seen in full below, which has been circulating online.

The most eye-catching component of the slide is a depiction of the relative Chinese and U.S. shipbuilding capacity expressed in terms of gross tonnage. The graphic shows that China's shipyards have a capacity of around 23,250,000 million tons versus less than 100,000 tons in the United States. That is at least an astonishing 232 times greater than the United States.

U.S.-based shipbuilding capacity was in decline even before the end of the Cold War, but steadily shrunk even more afterward. It is at a particularly low point, across the board, now.

The slide also includes a note about the relative "naval production % of overall national shipbuilding revenue" for each country, and that this is estimated to be over 70 percent in China. The stated estimated percentage for U.S. shipyards is clearly legible in the versions of the slide available online, but it appears to be 95 percent.

The slide also includes projected sizes for the U.S. Navy and PLAN "battle forces" – defined as the total number of "combatant ships, submarines, mine warfare ships, major amphibious ships, [and] large combat support auxiliary ships" – for every five years between 2020 and 2035. It says that as of 2020, the PLAN had 355 battle force ships and the U.S. Navy had 296. By 2035, the gap between the figures for China (475) and the United States (305 to 317) widens substantially.

China's People's Liberation Army Navy is already the largest in the world in terms of total vessels and is steadily acquiring a range of more modern and capable designs, including a growing fleet of aircraft carriers. The figures provided show the size gap between China's naval fleets and those of the United States only continuing to grow.

It is important to note up front that the slide presents estimates and projections, and that gauging shipbuilding capacity is a complex and multifaceted affair, in general. For instance, is unclear how the naval percentage of total shipbuilding revenue was calculated.

How ships are categorized can often be a point of debate, as well, though this often does not impact whether or not ships fall into a broader "battle force" definition. As a relevant example, the PLAN's Type 055 warships, its most modern and capable surface combatants, are typically described as destroyers. However, the U.S. Navy often refers to them as cruisers based on their displacement and other features.

The U.S. Navy itself has acknowledged that the Office of Naval Intelligence (ONI) slide does not reflect a definitive data set and is, at least in part, a living document.
“The slide was developed by the Office of Naval Intelligence from multiple public sources as part of an overall brief on strategic competition," a U.S. Navy spokesperson told The War Zone. "The slide provides context and trends on China’s shipbuilding capacity. It is not intended as a deep-dive into the PRC [People's Republic of China's] commercial shipbuilding industry."

"It’s been iterated on over time and the unclassified sources used most recently were commercially-available shipbuilding data, publicly-available U.S. Navy long-range shipbuilding plans from the 2023 Presidential Budget (PB23), and the publicly-discussed approximate projected future PLAN [People's Liberation Army Navy] force," that spokesperson added.

With this in mind, it is worth pointing out that the slide's projections and estimates are heavily influenced by the inherently dual-purpose nature of China's state-run shipbuilding enterprise.

"PLAN surface ship producers are mixed military commercial" and "most PLAN-associated construction [is] completed in CSSC [China State Shipbuilding Corporation] facilities," the slide says. "China is the world's leading shipbuilder by a large margin" and the country "controls ~40% of [the] global commercial shipbuilding market."

This is certainly true and relevant to the emerging gap between the PLAN and U.S. Navy's battle force sizes. At the same time, it's not clear how much the U.S. shipbuilding capacity figures in the slide factored in commercial capacity. The commercial shipbuilding industry in the United States is far smaller and has less involvement in naval projects, overall, as well as not being subject to centralized state control.

Still, some examples do exist. U.S. shipbuilder General Dynamics NASSCO is a prime example, with its two main business areas being large commercial cargo and tanker ships and auxiliaries for the U.S. Navy. The design of the U.S. Navy's Lewis B. Puller class of seabase ships is derived directly from NASSCO's Alaska class oil tanker.

In addition, the slide's overall battle force figures do not directly line up with other official U.S. military data. The long-term shipbuilding plan that the U.S. Navy published in March 2019 indicated that the service would have 301 battle force vessels in the coming fiscal year. The Pentagon's annual report to Congress on Chinese military and security developments in 2020 put the respective Chinese and U.S. Navy battle force figures at 350 and 293.

The most recent report on China from the Pentagon, published last year, says that the PLAN's battle force inventory was 340 vessels in 2021. The U.S. Navy's long-term shipbuilding plan for the 2024 Fiscal Year, released earlier this year, says the service expects to have 293 vessels in its battle force in the upcoming fiscal cycle (which starts on October 1, 2023). That same document says that it could have as many as 320 or as few as 311 battle force vessels by Fiscal Year 2035 depending on what courses of action are pursued.

These discrepancies are relatively minor and do not change the fact that there is clearly a major and widening gap in battle force sizes between China and the United States. Still, they do highlight the complexities of comparative counting of naval inventories, which change regularly as older ships are decommissioned and new ones are brought into service, especially based on publicly available information. Beyond that, it is important to point out that a realistic accounting of China's naval forces is not limited to the PLAN.

In fact, last year, the Pentagon noted that the PLAN's battle force inventory had actually shrunk in 2021, but that this was due to the fact that 22 Type 056 corvettes had been transferred to the country's Coast Guard. These are 1,500-ton-displacement warships that, at least in PLAN service, had been armed with anti-ship and surface-to-air missiles, among other weapons. That kind of armament is atypical of vessels in service with most other coast guards around the world, including the U.S. Coast Guard.

A Type 056 corvette in PLAN service in 2013. This ship has since been transferred to the Chinese Coast Guard. 樱井千一 via Wikimedia

A true discussion of China's current and future naval capacity would have to include at least some ships from its Coast Guard and a number of other nominally civilian maritime security agencies, as well as the country's substantial maritime militia.

An unclassified graphic ONI published in 2022 showing the full breadth of Chinese 'naval' forces beyond just the PLAN.

The U.S. military has made its own moves in this regard in recent years. The U.S. Navy, U.S. Marines, and U.S. Coast Guard notably put out a tri-service "naval forces" white paper in 2020. Since then, there has been a clear push to increase routine Coast Guard maritime operations abroad together with the Navy and independently. This has included sending Coast Guard ships to patrol in areas of the Pacific where China has extensive and largely unrecognized territorial claims, like the South China Sea and the Taiwan Strait.

None of this necessarily changes the overall direction of the trend line. U.S. military officials, members of Congress, and naval experts have all been drawing attention to the widening gap in total size between the U.S. Navy and the PLAN, as well as concerns about shipbuilding capacity, for years now.

"They have 13 shipyards, in some cases their shipyard has more capacity – one shipyard has more capacity than all of our shipyards combined," Secretary of the Navy Carlos Del Toro told members of Congress at a hearing in February. "That presents a real threat."

Overall shipyard capacity has a massive impact on sustaining ships. The ONI slide now circulating online includes a note that "50+ dry docks can physically accommodate an aircraft carrier." The PLAN is working hard to increase the size of its carrier fleets and this also reflects yards that could be used to conduct work on other larger surface ships and submarines.

Shipyard capacity for sustainment of existing fleets is also something that has been a subject of great concern in the United States for some time now. After decades of cutting back on spending, the U.S. Navy has been trying to explore ways to alleviate those issues, including by modernizing its own remaining shipyards and expanding its use of commercial yards to conduct various types of often sensitive work. Reflecting the trend of shipbuilding capacity increasingly being found outside of the United States, the latter category could eventually include more foreign-owned and operated yards, including ones in Japan, too.

Shipbuilding is also a complex and costly affair that requires large amounts of skilled labor and resources, which can take significant time to source. Delays or other hiccups in shipbuilding, as well as repair and overhaul work that requires shipyard capacity, can easily cascade. This reality has manifested itself to an especially extreme degree for the U.S. Navy when it comes to submarine maintenance.

Rear Adm. Jonathan Rucker, the Navy's Program Executive officer for Attack Submarines, told reporters in November 2022 on the sidelines of the Naval Submarine League’s annual conference that 18 of the service's 50 attack submarines of all classes were undergoing or awaiting maintenance at that time. This is significantly higher than the service's target of having no more than 20 percent of all attack submarines down for maintenance at a time.

The Los Angeles class attack submarine USS Boise, which was first commissioned in 1992, has become an unfortunate poster child for these issues. Boise has been sitting pierside since 2017 and when it hopefully returns to active duty next year it will have spent around 20 percent of its entire career idle awaiting maintenance.

In addition, this reality has prompted major concerns with regard to the U.S. Navy's capacity, or lack thereof, to repair battle-damaged ships and get them back into service relatively rapidly in a major future conflict. The multi-day fire that gutted the Wasp class amphibious assault ship USS Bonhomme Richard while it was in port undergoing maintenance in 2020 reinvigorated discussions about the service's limited capacity to process damaged ships in an actual crisis. This has only been magnified by the increasing possibility of a major conflict in the Pacific.

"The Navy has not needed to triage and repair multiple battle-damaged ships in quick succession since World War II," the Government Accountability Office (GAO), a Congressional watchdog, said in a report published in 2021. “After the end of the Cold War, the Navy divested many of its wartime ship repair capabilities, and its ship maintenance capabilities have evolved to focus largely on supporting peacetime maintenance needs."

"However, the rise of 21st century adversaries," like China, "capable of producing high-end threats in warfare – referred to as great power competitors – revives the need for the Navy to reexamine its battle damage repair capability to ensure it is ready for potential conflict," the 2021 GAO report added.

A flow chart from GAO's 2021 report on US Navy capacity to triage and repair significant numbers of battle-damaged ships.

In February, Navy Secretary Del Toro highlighted how the differences between a democratic United States and a totalitarian China come into play in this part of the equation.
“[W]hen you have unemployment at less than 4%, it makes it a real challenge whether you’re trying to find workers for a restaurant or you’re trying to find workers for a shipyard,” he explained. "They’re a communist country, they don’t have rules by which they abide by."

"They use slave labor in building their ships, right,” Del Toro also asserted. "That’s not the way we should do business ever, but that’s what we’re up against so it does present a significant advantage."

As a result, the U.S. Navy has often called into question the basic viability of trying to maintain parity with China on a quantitative level. The service's senior leadership has often argued against focusing solely on total numbers and for pursuing advanced and novel capabilities, including hypersonic weapons and uncrewed surface and underwater vessels, which will allow it to keep a qualitative edge.

"They [the PLAN] got a larger fleet now so they’re deploying that fleet globally,” Navy Secretary Del Toro said at the hearing in February. "We do need a larger Navy, we do need more ships in the future, more modern ships in the future, in particular, that can meet that threat."

"For us to pivot, under the budget line that we have right now, to pivot to a more lethal force, we need to give up some stuff," Chief of Naval Operations (CNO) Adm. Mike Gilday, the Navy's top officer, told reporters in Febraury 2022. "And you can’t just look at it through the lens of surface VLS [vertical launch system] tubes."

Gilday was responding to a question about the U.S. Navy's plans to decommission its Ticonderoga class cruisers, each of which has 122 Mk 41 Vertical Launch System (VLS) cells that can be loaded with various missiles. The ships typically carry a large load of Tomahawk land attack cruise missiles and represent a significant portion of the service's current surface-to-surface strike capacity.

All of this of course comes amid concerns about China's rising military capacity and capabilities, writ large, particularly within the context of a potential future intervention against Taiwan. U.S. officials have repeatedly warned that the People's Liberation Army (PLA) could feel that is capable of succeeding in such a major operation by 2027, if not sooner. Of course, those same officials routinely stress that this does not mean that the government in Beijing is actively planning to act on any particular timeline.

Though The War Zone has not yet been able to confirm this, the shipbuilding slide appears to be from a larger ONI briefing intended for members of Congress that calls for more actively challenging Chinese ambitions over Taiwan and elsewhere. The briefing in question at least contains the same details about China's control of worldwide commercial shipbuilding and the number of drydocks it has that can fit an aircraft carrier as the unclassified slide that has been circulating online, according to a report last week from Air & Space Forces Magazine.

"'The survival of Taiwan’s democracy is a critical geostrategic issue that carries long-term consequences for China, the U.S., and the broader international community,' the ONI said, but 'the China problem is not all about Taiwan,' noting that all of China’s neighbors, both on land and sea, are facing military, economic and diplomatic pressures from Beijing which would be extremely hard to hold at bay individually," Air & Space Forces Magazine reported after obtaining a copy of this larger briefing. It "noted ten geographic areas where China is actively challenging borders and territory, and it is increasingly characterizing itself as an 'arctic nation' with rights to exploit resources in that area."

A trio of Chinese warships are seen from the deck of a US Coast Guard ship shadowing them near Alaska's Aleutian Islands as they headed north toward the Arctic Region in 2021. USCG

The briefing also reportedly at least contains the same details about China controlling 40 percent of worldwide commercial shipbuilding and having 50 drydocks big enough to fit an aircraft carrier as the unclassified slide that has been circulating online.

It also warns against China's use of "espionage, coercion, pressure, subversion, and disinformation" to "shape the international system" and otherwise gain global leverage, that report says.

“We are engaged in an international struggle between competing visions," the briefing, which carries the signature of ONI head Rear Adm. Mike Studemans, adds, according to Air & Space Forces Magazine. "China is executing a grand strategy, and has been unified in pursuing it comprehensively and aggressively for many years."

When it comes to the Navy, in particular, ONI is clearly sounding the alarm anew that the startling disparity, which is still rapidly growing, in total fleet sizes and shipbuilding capacity between it and the PLAN is a major concern when it comes to the service's ability to help challenge the Chinese government's global ambitions.

Alarming Navy Intel Slide Warns Of China's 200 Times Greater Shipbuilding Capacity

The Office of Naval Intelligence is sounding the alarm about the huge gap in U.S. and Chinese shipbuilding capacity and its implications.

www.thedrive.com

China's Navy expansion only took off after Obama announce the Pivot to Asia in 2011.

Fast forward 12 years ........ Does US feel better now ? Do US regret ?

 

[AtavisticAnomaly]

True. The image of a 'super power' is partially created by perception. Not by the self, but by others. So if the rest of the world PERCEIVED the US to be a 'superpower', why should we argue otherwise?


So according to your standard, there are two main components:

1. Defeat of a regional power​

2. Occupation of foreign territories​

I have no problems saying that the US failed at 2, at least for the long run.

Now, when I received orders to Desert Storm, I did a little reading and learned that with Desert Shield, the US was the only power to date to EXTRAHEMISPHERICALLY project its military forces. Historically, armies transport on land and lived off the land, whereas the US military took everything we needed from one hemisphere to the other. For most people, that capability is enough to put them on guard when dealing with US. But, if it make you feel good put US down a notch because we refused to rule over Iraq and Afghanistan, as how past conquerors have done, I have no problems with that. In fact, I want YOU to believe the worst of the US military as you can think up. As long as YOU are happy and safe in Canada, our 52nd state, I am happy.

Because rest of the world perceives this , and worst of all US itself perceives this , is a huge block on its road to world power .

52nd state and all the way down to Tierra Del Fuego Province will go down the drain , to keep it up and running you need to go where you are hired .

In reality you keep yourself safe not the state .

Apologies for late reply got busy .

 

[jhungary]

Agree with your historical perspective but disagree with your future view. America had industrial might now that thing is with China. Except for dollar US don't have anything that only it can sell to the world.

The issue is not industrial might, the issue here is who control more resource.

Let me give you an example. Many people think if US and China goes to war over Taiwan, US Navy will not have the number to make up or even able to make progress in a war between China and US over Taiwan.

I just done a China-Taiwan scenario with a think tank in Washington with me against a LTC. And you know what? It all depends on how you fight. The issue here is, if a war between China and US do exist, US would want to limit the physical war, but instead will focus on material war. US Navy don't need to actually fight the Chinese near China or even anywhere near Taiwan, all they need to do is to blockade the major transport route to and from China, ie the Suez Canal (That stop the resource from the middle east), Malacca Strait (Stop the resource from Indian ocean), The Strait of Japan/Bering Strait (that would stop resource coming from North America) and also the Tasman Sea (Which stop the resource coming from South America) unless China venture outside their protective umbrella near the mainland and fight the US Navy there, US don't really need to engage in fighting to subdue the Chinese because Chinese needs resource, every country need resource to survive.

 

[truthseeker2010]

The issue is not industrial might, the issue here is who control more resource.

Let me give you an example. Many people think if US and China goes to war over Taiwan, US Navy will not have the number to make up or even able to make progress in a war between China and US over Taiwan.

I just done a China-Taiwan scenario with a think tank in Washington with me against a LTC. And you know what? It all depends on how you fight. The issue here is, if a war between China and US do exist, US would want to limit the physical war, but instead will focus on material war. US Navy don't need to actually fight the Chinese near China or even anywhere near Taiwan, all they need to do is to blockade the major transport route to and from China, ie the Suez Canal (That stop the resource from the middle east), Malacca Strait (Stop the resource from Indian ocean), The Strait of Japan/Bering Strait (that would stop resource coming from North America) and also the Tasman Sea (Which stop the resource coming from South America) unless China venture outside their protective umbrella near the mainland and fight the US Navy there, US don't really need to engage in fighting to subdue the Chinese because Chinese needs resource, every country need resource to survive.

The change of goal from destruction to blockade shows the mindset of pentagon. It cannot fight in scs without irreplaceable losses.

For arab oil the alternative is russian oil. For Australian iron ore china is already ramping up its local production and Russia's iron ore production is also one of the largest in the world.

Meanwhile US survives on low cost Chinese goods.

 

[jhungary]

The change of goal from destruction to blockade shows the mindset of pentagon. It cannot fight in scs without irreplaceable losses.

For arab oil the alternative is russian oil. For Australian iron ore china is already ramping up its local production and Russia's iron ore production is also one of the largest in the world.

Meanwhile US survives on low cost Chinese goods.

It's not pentagon, it's just how we would simulate the war be fought.

China need Iron, Copper, Aluminium, Coal, Oil, Natural Gas, Hydrogen etc, the thing is, it's not just what they need is the problem, it's the volume that China need, Russia cannot ramp up production of oil and iron ore (and Russia only have low grade Iron Ore you can't make steel with anyway) Not to mention the only way the resource can flow into China in any signicant number is by ship from Overseas, either in Africa, South America or Australia. So if you strangle trade route, you are strange their production, you then strange their economy, either domestic or war economy.

China – Mining by the numbers, 2022

Having dominated the key mineral sectors of zinc and rare earth elements, China has shifted focus over the past five years to battery metals through developing and acquiring new lithium projects and securing supply chains for its manufacturing sector.

www.spglobal.com

On the other hand, what you want is to win, it does not matter how you win, you just need to and again, if putting blockade in outlying area win a war, then why not?? It's not like you need some epic battle to win a war, if I can win a war without firing even a shot, I think majority of us would take that chance, don't you think?

 

[beijingwalker]

It's not pentagon, it's just how we would simulate the war be fought.

China need Iron, Copper, Aluminium, Coal, Oil, Natural Gas, Hydrogen etc, the thing is, it's not just what they need is the problem, it's the volume that China need, Russia cannot ramp up production of oil and iron ore (and Russia only have low grade Iron Ore you can't make steel with anyway) Not to mention the only way the resource can flow into China in any signicant number is by ship from Overseas, either in Africa, South America or Australia. So if you strangle trade route, you are strange their production, you then strange their economy, either domestic or war economy.

China – Mining by the numbers, 2022

Having dominated the key mineral sectors of zinc and rare earth elements, China has shifted focus over the past five years to battery metals through developing and acquiring new lithium projects and securing supply chains for its manufacturing sector.

www.spglobal.com

View attachment 943657

View attachment 943658

View attachment 943659

On the other hand, what you want is to win, it does not matter how you win, you just need to and again, if putting blockade in outlying area win a war, then why not?? It's not like you need some epic battle to win a war, if I can win a war without firing even a shot, I think majority of us would take that chance, don't you think?

In case of war, after the international trade is disrupted and China doesn't have to supply the whole world, China won't need that much resources.

 

[jhungary]

In case of war, after the international trade is disrupted and China doesn't have to supply the whole world, China won't need that much resources.

Did you read the graph from my previous post?

Russia isn't really that big in production of Iron, Nickle and Lithium, also, both China and Russia do not have access to Bauxite ore, and China only have a modest production of copper, what you do have in China is an excess amount of gold, lead and zinc....That wouldn't get you anything, let alone building or rebuilding the military

Just because you don't need to produce for the world, does not mean those resource are enough for even domestic use, let alone militarizing.

 

[beijingwalker]

Did you read the graph from my previous post?

Russia isn't really that big in production of Iron, Nickle and Lithium, also, both China and Russia do not have access to Bauxite ore, and China only have a modest production of copper, what you do have in China is an excess amount of gold, lead and zinc....That wouldn't get you anything, let alone building or rebuilding the military

Just because you don't need to produce for the world, does not mean those resource are enough for even domestic use, let alone militarizing.

China used to be a net exporter of those resources before becoming the factory of the world. besides, Russia is not the only land border country of China, China has 14 land neighbors, most of them are very resources rich, enough for China's use for itself.

Now China's policy is to leave China's own resources and go for cheap resources in the global market.

China​

With around 20 billion tonnes measured in 2019, China ranks fourth on the world’s largest iron ore reserves.

It is also the world’s third-biggest producer, behind Australia and Brazil, with output going to the country’s massive steelmaking industry, which is by far the largest globally, accounting for more than half (53%) of total production, according to the World Steel Association.

China’s iron ore-rich regions include Liaoning, Sichuan, Hebei, Inner Mongolia, and Shanxi. Iron ore exported from Australia to China in 2021 was roughly 126.8 billion Australian dollars. In terms of value, China was by far the most important export destination for Australian iron ore at the time.

Despite having some of the world’s most significant iron ore resources, China’s steelmaking industry is so large that it needs foreign supplies to complement domestic production, accounting for 69 percent of the commodity’s global imports in 2019.

China’s iron ore reserves are of poor grade, necessitating costly heat treatment before being fed into steel plants. Production peaked at 1.5 billion tonnes in 2015 but has since declined due to the sector’s poor profitability and government measures to end environmentally harmful shallow strip mining. In 2020, China purchased most of its iron ore from Australia and Brazil, but imports from India increased by about 90%.

 

[jhungary]

China used to be a net exporter of those resources before becoming the factory of the world. besides, Russia is not the only land border country of China, China has 14 land neighbors, most of them are very resources rich, enough for China's use for itself.

Now China's policy is to leave China's own resources and go for cheap resources in the global market.

China​

With around 20 billion tonnes measured in 2019, China ranks fourth on the world’s largest iron ore reserves.

It is also the world’s third-biggest producer, behind Australia and Brazil, with output going to the country’s massive steelmaking industry, which is by far the largest globally, accounting for more than half (53%) of total production, according to the World Steel Association.

China’s iron ore-rich regions include Liaoning, Sichuan, Hebei, Inner Mongolia, and Shanxi. Iron ore exported from Australia to China in 2021 was roughly 126.8 billion Australian dollars. In terms of value, China was by far the most important export destination for Australian iron ore at the time.

Despite having some of the world’s most significant iron ore resources, China’s steelmaking industry is so large that it needs foreign supplies to complement domestic production, accounting for 69 percent of the commodity’s global imports in 2019.

China’s iron ore reserves are of poor grade, necessitating costly heat treatment before being fed into steel plants. Production peaked at 1.5 billion tonnes in 2015 but has since declined due to the sector’s poor profitability and government measures to end environmentally harmful shallow strip mining. In 2020, China purchased most of its iron ore from Australia and Brazil, but imports from India increased by about 90%.

Dude, first of all, this is just iron. What about Nickle, Copper, Bauxite and Lithium

Second of all, you need high density iron ore to make high quality steel, you can technically produce those using poor grade or lower density, but you would have needed more ore and more time to produce those steel beam. Time you don't have in time of war.

 

[beijingwalker]

Dude, first of all, this is just iron. What about Nickle, Copper, Bauxite and Lithium

Second of all, you need high density iron ore to make high quality steel, you can technically produce those using poor grade or lower density, but you would have needed more ore and more time to produce those steel beam. Time you don't have in time of war.

It depends on how long the war will last, China has huge stockpile reserves and can recycle old products, China has billions of cars, they are enough for China to hold on for couples of years, if you are talking about decades, sure, they are not enough, but modern wars tend to be fought, won or lost in a much shorter span of time.

 

[jhungary]

It depends on how long the war will last, China has huge stockpile reserves and can recycle old products, China has billions of cars, they are enough for China to hold on for couples of years, if you are talking about decades, sure, they are not enough, but modern wars tend to be fought, won or lost in a much shorter span of time.

You do know Russia is having a tough time building tanks or even drone now for just over 17 months sanctioning even with Chinese backing behind the scene, and Russia have more natural resource than China. China on the other hand, have almost 10 times the population of Russia and less land and resource, do you think how long China can last on reserve and "recycling"

Also, resource war will not just stop even after you defeated Taiwan however long it takes, Russia can technically trample Ukraine on paper and yet it took less than 20% of Ukraine in 17 months, and you are talking about a richer and more scientific Taiwan without sharing a land border, how long do you think the war will last if Taiwan decided to fight it out?

 

[beijingwalker]

You do know Russia is having a tough time building tanks or even drone now for just over 17 months sanctioning even with Chinese backing behind the scene, and Russia have more natural resource than China. China on the other hand, have almost 10 times the population of Russia and less land and resource, do you think how long China can last on reserve and "recycling"

Also, resource war will not just stop even after you defeated Taiwan however long it takes, Russia can technically trample Ukraine on paper and yet it took less than 20% of Ukraine in 17 months, and you are talking about a richer and more scientific Taiwan without sharing a land border, how long do you think the war will last if Taiwan decided to fight it out?

China is not Russia, and if it is only for Taiwan, all above will not happen, China is capable enough to keep all trade routes open.

 

[jhungary]

China is not Russia, and if it is only for Taiwan, all above will not happen, China is capable enough to keep all trade routes open.

lol, I like your optimism, land route maybe, but that's too depends on India and Iran.

Sea route? Very unlikely. Because China would need to split it forces all the while trying to control the sea around Taiwan, you are facing with 70 odd destroyer and a dozen aircraft carrier and that's just if US were to fight alone, and more importantly fighting far away from mainland China, I mean, how do you think Chinese Navy will fight in Malacca Strait when US have a COMLOG base in Singapore? Let alone Indian Ocean or Tasman Channel.