China's Mystery Warplanes: Head Fake Or Another Sputnik Moment?

If a smart China believed the US could quickly reinvigorate its engineering and industrial capacity with“Sputnik moment” policies, China would not heedlessly provoke its opponent with advanced weapons demonstrations.

The intelligent American response desired by an intelligent China is to recognize that its industrial and engineering capacity is hopelessly outmatched in the medium term and to rebuild that capacity will require a period of retrenchment, détente and isolation.

If China is smart and the US is stupid, then China's weapons demonstrations are designed to flatfoot America and force a fumble. A smart China would know that a stupid US would have little intelligence on the progress of its weapons program and would be flummoxed by the demonstrations.

In this scenario, China could very well be pulling a fast one on the US by flying embryonic technology demonstrators decades from deployment. A smart China in this scenario would know that the American military-industrial complex has been hopelessly degraded by decades of corruption and substandard education of America's youth.

The stupid American response desired by an intelligent China would be to double down on defense spending, wasting national resources in a vain attempt to tread water.

A nation's defense industrial complex is a parasite that sits atop its commercial industrial complex. Total defense spending in the US is ~25% of total industrial output. In China, it is ~4%. Allocating even more resources to the military-industrial complex now only robs from commercial industry which, at some point, results in a death spiral. Ronald Reagan forced a fumble of this sort on the Soviet Union.

If China is stupid and the US is smart, then China's weapons demonstrations are at best a chest-thumping exercise, showcasing technology that the US has long possessed, all under the watchful eye of the CIA and NSA.

American analysts and strategists would chuckle and brief President-elect Trump that he has nothing to worry about. These demonstrations only strengthen America's negotiating position as the opponent has chosen to reveal a few lousy cards that they hold in a poor hand.

The smart American response to flummox a stupid China would be to dial up US security pressure in the Asian theater – casually deploying 6th-gen fighters and other weapons systems – and watch China's inability to respond.

If China is stupid and the US is also stupid, then we are in for much fun and games. China's cobbled-together demonstration of embryonic technology would surely be met by a US response – some premature test flight of a cocked-up prototype.

The two sides will square off against each other like drunken meatheads before a bar fight, flashing biceps, knives and brass knuckles, both dismissing the capabilities and intentions of the other.

Except, of course, we are not exactly dealing with biceps, knives and brass knuckles. Two stupid nuclear-armed superpowers with erroneous understandings of each other's intentions and capabilities are the last standoff that will occur in human history. But at least we'll get to see lots of cool weapons being showcased.

So what is the most likely scenario? As much fun as both sides being stupid would be, Han Feizi dismisses that possibility because China has managed to grow its economy over 45-fold in real terms since the last time it was at war (the Sino-Vietnamese war in 1979). Navigating that kind of tumultuous growth without fighting wars is unheard of in human history. China is clearly not run by imbeciles.

Five days before Hamas attacked Israel, Foreign Affairs published an article by Jake Sullivan saying that“the [Middle East] region is quieter today than it has been in decades.” This is the same Jake Sullivan presiding over the war in Ukraine. Given his questionable senile state, it would be unfair to pin the blame on President Joe Biden. Of course, blaming it all on Jake Sullivan is also unfair. Anthony Blinken and many others were just as stupid.

And, of course, blaming the imbeciles of the Biden administration is also unfair. The US has been at war for over 95% of its history and has only suffered significant setbacks in the past 50-60 years as global empire proved to be too much of a stretch. Old habits die hard and the knee-jerk habits of empire may be unavoidable stupidity given a couple of centuries of successful expansion.

While the likelihood of the US being stupid is high, China would probably prefer a smart America. Forcing a stupid US into a Soviet-style downward spiral is a risky proposition in the nuclear age. Who knows how dying empires might lash out? The world got lucky when the Soviet Union, in its death throes, either refrained from or did not have the energy to lash out.

What a smart China should want is a smart US that recognizes that it cannot compete militarily in Asia and that its industries and institutions have become too degraded and ossified to shoulder the burdens of empire. Nestled in North America, the US is the world's most secure nation, perfectly situated to circle wagons, lick wounds, rebuild and bide time.

The discussion is already underway. The H1B controversy is, at its root, a debate over whether the US wants to compete with China and how to do it if so. This is a worthy debate to have if done in good faith. Unfortunately, America's polarization and social media do not make it easy. Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy are just another flavor of globalists despised by the Heritage MAGA crowd.

Elon Musk has publicly told opponents of H1B to“F-K YOURSELF in the face” and that he will“go to war on this issue the likes of which you cannot possibly comprehend.” His capitalizations. So far, no congressman nor senator has yet come out to oppose H1B, despite rumblings from the MAGA crowd, which we attribute to a not-so-veiled threat of being primaried given Elon's infinite war chest.

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While the US sorts through what MAGA represents and what kind of society it wants to be, China has already decided. Fourteen years ago, the introduction of the J-20, China's 5th generation fighter (4th generation in PLA nomenclature), marked a seminal moment in China's Industrial Party consciousness.

Upon seeing the J-20, Wang Xiaodong, a leading Industrial Party intellectual, dismissed the Sentimental Party and their precious left/right obsession as hopelessly ineffectual, writing:

When I saw the fourth-generation fighter take flight, I did not break down and sob as some young people did, but a tear did come to my eye. That is emotion, but it is the emotion of the Industrial Party.

A young person summed it up quite well:

Fourteen years later, China's Industrial Party stands vindicated as the flight of two 6th generation planes renders inconsequential the handwringing angst of the Sentimental Party. Wang Xiaodong's dismissal of the Sentimental Party 14 years ago has proven prescient:

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