China's Military Power: Assessing Current and Future Capabilities

by Roger Cliff

Once termed the 'world's largest military museum', the Chinese military has made enormous progress over the past twenty years. With skyrocketing military budgets and new technology, China's tanks, aircraft, destroyers, and missile capabilities are becoming comparable to those of the United States. If these trends continue, how powerful will the Chinese military be in the future? Will its capabilities soon rival or surpass those of the United States? The most comprehensive study of its kind, this book provides a detailed assessment of China's military capabilities in 2000 and 2010 with projections for 2020. It is the first of its kind in outlining a rigorous, theoretically and empirically grounded framework for assessing military capability based on not just weaponry but also doctrine, training, equipment, and organizational structure. This framework provides not only the most accurate assessment of China's military to date but an important new tool in the study of military history.

Genres: China, War

378 pages, Kindle Edition

First published September 15, 2015

Reviews

[Justinian · Rating 5 out of 5]

Roger Cliff's assessment of China's capability to wage war uses in-depth analysis and comes to conclusions that I would support as probably correct. Unlike other analysts and military/political science pundits, Cliff not only assesses things with an empirical attitude, but also acknowledges some aspects of this kind of analysis cannot be done empirically. Cliff also recognizes that technology of systems is not the end-all/be-all of military combat in the modern age. Of particular interest to me what Cliff's assessment of China's logistical capabilities and how they compared to the United States. Logistical capability is a drastically undervalued aspect of power projection and is, in my assessment, the most powerful factor behind why China's military would struggle to resist American might.

Most importantly, this book does not read, like many of its peers, as a dry statistical fact sheet. The book was completely engaging and a true page turner, which is rare in this type of work.

[dcmetrolover · Rating 4 out of 5]

Really good overview about Chinese Military capabilities in 2000 and 2010. The book makes predictions about 2020 (being written in 2015). Some of these are true and some aren’t. However, I appreciate the breakdown in capabilities as it relates to doctrine, organization, weaponry, and scenarios. A bit dry at times but fairly good common ground for understanding the evolution of Chinese Military force posture.

[prachi joshi johar · Rating 4 out of 5]

Objective analysis

Military power of both China and US has been very objectively analysed. The scenarios are indeed very interesting. A must read for China watchers