How is China’s hard power Surpassing that of the United States?

Hard power refers to both military strength and economic-industrial capacity. In terms of manufacturing scale, China surpassed the United States some time ago. However, in terms of quality, there have long been noticeable gaps and weaknesses. The technological chokepoints and sanctions imposed on China since 2018 amid the U.S.–China tech war are a clear reflection of this disparity. Yet, with the successful implementation of the “Made in China 2025” initiative, even high-end chips are on track to cease being a major obstacle. In the near future, China’s manufacturing industry is expected to surpass that of the United States not only in scale, but in quality as well—an assessment that most observers would now agree with. The real debate lies in the comparison of military capabilities.

“The military strength of China is systematically overtaking that of the West.” Over the past three years, both Professor Jin Canrong of Renmin University and I have been making this judgment publicly in various forums. However, among many scholars, policymakers, and professionals in related fields, this view is still seen as overly optimistic and difficult to accept. Even among senior military officers, most are hesitant to agree.

People’s worldviews are largely shaped in their youth, and once established, only extraordinary wisdom or transformative experiences can alter those cognitive frameworks. New information is typically absorbed into old paradigms: contradictory data is downplayed or ignored, while information that fits preexisting beliefs is amplified and reinforced. Among the generation born in the 1960s and 1970s, who encountered a far more advanced and prosperous Western world at the turn of the millennium, many developed a deep admiration for—if not fear of—the West. But China’s rise has been so rapid that, even before this generation has fully stepped back from public life, the balance of power between China and the West has already undergone a qualitative shift.

In the defense sector and in dual-use technologies, many of the pioneering concepts and performance metrics have indeed been first proposed by Americans—often prompting initial astonishment among their Chinese counterparts. Yet time and again, it has been China’s defense industry that ultimately leapfrogs ahead, realizing and deploying these innovations before the U.S. military. Electromagnetic railguns, electromagnetic aircraft launch systems, hypersonic missiles, sixth-generation fighter jets, superconducting radar, laser weapons, supersonic drones—the pattern holds across virtually every domain. Most recently, President Trump announced a plan to build a homeland-wide missile defense system. My estimate is that within five to eight years, China will likely be the first to develop and operationalize an advanced missile defense system enhanced by artificial intelligence, while the U.S. program may well remain an unfinished project.

This phenomenon of “latecomer overtaking” is underpinned by four key areas in which China holds structural advantages over the United States and the broader West.

First is the industrial cluster effect and technological spillover effect of China’s manufacturing sector. The Yangtze River Delta and Pearl River Delta regions are not only the core of East Asia’s production network but also among the most critical hubs in the global manufacturing landscape. China’s industrial chains are not only highly integrated but also enormous in scale. This completeness drives high efficiency, while sheer scale helps lower manufacturing costs. Thanks to a fully developed ecosystem of suppliers and manufacturers, Shenzhen had already become the global center for hardware innovation even before the COVID-19 pandemic. Even hardware startups on the U.S. West Coast found themselves relying on Shenzhen for the R&D phase, since every kind of non-standard component could be custom-made there within a day or two.

Second is the density of technical talent. Nearly 10 million students graduate from Chinese universities every year, around 4.2 million of whom have degrees in science, technology, engineering, or mathematics (STEM)—more than the annual STEM graduate output of all developed economies in North America, Europe, and Japan combined. In terms of quality, China’s STEM education is not inferior. Especially when combined with the ongoing wave of industrialization and infrastructure development, Chinese professors and graduate students have access to abundant funding, equipment, and opportunities for hands-on experience that help build their research and engineering capabilities. While the United States still attracts global top-tier talent through its higher education system and high salaries, many of its STEM graduates ultimately shift into finance or software engineering, rather than becoming experts in their original technical disciplines.

Third is long-term planning and rational investment. China’s military-industrial complex is a hybrid system, combining features of the Soviet-style state planning model with market- and capital-oriented practices learned from the United States. Crucially, China has managed to integrate these institutional elements without triggering destructive internal contradictions. Since 1999, the country has steadily increased R&D investment in advanced military technology, but without rushing into large-scale equipment procurement. As a result, relatively limited defense spending has supported a continuous, iterative upgrade cycle. By contrast, while the U.S. defense budget far exceeds that of any other country, post-Cold War complacency led to an R&D focus on counterinsurgency and force protection rather than preparing for peer-level military competition. Moreover, American defense firms are under pressure from capital markets and stock valuations, often exhibiting the short-term logic of “quarterly capitalism.” They have lobbied politicians to engage in opportunistic, conflict-driven interventions—effectively squandering enormous military expenditures on endless entanglements in the Islamic world.

Fourth is the advantage of late development. China has excelled at “crossing the river by feeling for stones”—learning from American technologies through reverse engineering and re-innovation to catch up and even leap ahead, all while avoiding wasteful investment and reducing the cost of trial and error. This latecomer advantage has served China well over the past three decades. But as China begins to assume a relatively leading position in some domains, its military-industrial complex must now shift gears—daring to imagine, and daring to create. Without originality, even the most well-equipped system risks finding itself directionless.

Some friends have reminded me that warfare is not an arms parade—equipment alone does not tell the whole story. Human factors—such as organizational efficiency, strategic awareness, decision-making capacity, and troop morale—are all important variables. The common argument is that the U.S. military has an advantage over the PLA because it has been engaged in continuous operations since the end of the Cold War and has accumulated far more battlefield experience. But this claim deserves scrutiny.

While it’s true that the U.S. military has been involved in numerous conflicts since the Cold War, those operations were more akin to hunting than actual warfare. A hunter typically does not worry about whether the prey is smarter than they are, whether it has better weapons, or whether it might set a trap for the hunter. Warfare, by contrast, involves adversaries who are both striving to win, investing all their resources, intelligence, and willpower to overcome one another. That makes unpredictability and the “fog of war” the norm, and outcomes often resemble games of chance.

In this sense, the practical consequence of over three decades of U.S. operational experience is this: when a direct military conflict breaks out between two great powers equipped with artificial intelligence and space-based weaponry, no one truly knows how to fight that war—at least not before it actually happens. The difference is that the Chinese know they don’t know, while the Americans don’t know that they don’t know.

Others have challenged me with another point: warfare isn’t a solo endeavor—doesn’t the U.S. have a vast alliance network, whereas China has few, if any, strong allies? How should this be answered?

From one perspective, the presence of AI, nuclear weapons, and global strike capabilities means neither China nor the U.S. is likely to declare war on the other directly—especially not by openly attacking each other’s homeland. Doing so would risk mutual destruction. As a result, military conflict is more likely to take the form of proxy wars, as exemplified by the war in Ukraine. In such scenarios, alliances may become liabilities rather than assets. If one’s ally is attacked and one fails to provide support, it damages strategic credibility and the confidence of other partners. If one steps in and still loses, it reveals weakness and undermines prestige. The United States has signed numerous security commitments and is overburdened with defense obligations. In an era of great-power competition, this creates the risk of a “run on the bank” as allies simultaneously demand protection. In contrast, China maintains only one formal treaty ally, and that country currently requires no protection from China.

From a second perspective: if we compare U.S.-China strategic rivalry to a futures market showdown between two major players—long versus short—then China, as the “long” position, has yet to use leverage and is operating solely on its own capital. The U.S., as the “short” side, has gathered a group of small retail investors to help it talk down the market and suppress the opposing trend. Even so, the overall momentum is gradually tilting in favor of the long side. Anyone with experience in financial markets knows what happens when the long side makes a forceful move: short sellers begin to panic and flee, triggering a cascade of self-reinforcing losses. Many of America’s smaller allies may switch sides. Some may even attempt to prove their loyalty to China by making early symbolic gestures—thus triggering a short squeeze.

Conclusion

This article’s argument—that the balance of hard power is tipping in China’s favor—is not meant to boost morale or provoke strategic recklessness. Rather, it aims to offer a sober and objective view of evolving dynamics. If this trend is broadly accurate, it prompts serious questions for China’s foreign policy community: How can we craft a new strategy that reflects a position of strength? How can we translate advantages in hard power into greater influence through soft power?

Six hundred years ago, Admiral Zheng He’s fleet held an indisputable hard-power advantage throughout the Indo-Pacific. Yet in the end, it fell victim to self-imposed restraint and a failure to seize the moment. How can we—six centuries later—avoid repeating the mistakes of the Ming navy?

Editor: LQQ