China beating the US in military technology

[beijingwalker]

China beating the US in military technology​

Brandon J. Weichert

February 19, 2022,

The Americans are fighting with their domestic airline industries about implementing 5G internet and the Chinese are already progressing onward to 6G internet.​

With the advent of fifth-generation (5G) internet technology and China’s dominant role in that area of technological development, the United States and China have already begun a new race to develop sixth-generation (6G) internet technology. Of course, the world is only just now starting to roll out the 5G technology that China has pioneered for years and there are many issues to be worked out as the civilian economy increasingly adapts 5G. Yet, this has not stopped Beijing from yet again leapfrogging their American rivals in the nascent 6G research field. And unlike the Americans, China’s first breakthrough in 6G has direct military implications.

Last summer, Beijing shocked the world when it successfully tested a hypersonic glide vehicle. Travelling at more than 3,800 miles per hour, a hypersonic glide vehicle can travel in any direction and overcome most known air defence systems. Armed either with conventional or nuclear weapons, and able to avoid both detection and defence, a hypersonic glide vehicle can wreak havoc on any country in the world. But there are technical limitations to this destructive new technology.

For example, whenever a hypersonic vehicle travels at five times the speed of sound (or faster), a communications blackout occurs for at least ten minutes as a plasma bubble forms around the hull of the hypersonic vehicle travelling at those hypersonic speeds. Standard communications signals cannot pass through this “black barrier”, meaning that for ten minutes, the hypersonic vehicle is approaching its potential target without any control whatsoever.

Not only does the plasma shield prevent communications from penetrating it but that “black barrier” can also mask the radar signatures of any incoming hypersonic vehicle from traditional air defence systems. So, if a method could be found for an attacking country to have continuous contact with its hypersonic vehicles while on their attack vector, these weapons could prove to be the nightmare weapons that many Pentagon defence experts fear they may become.

Chinese scientists at Tianjin University now claim to have overcome the communications deficit. Their solution uses a laser trained at the hypersonic vehicle to penetrate that plasma shield with powerful electromagnetic waves. As it happens, 6G internet requires electromagnetic waves to function. Essentially, the Tianjin researchers believe they can have complete communications and control of China’s hypersonic glide vehicles courtesy of China’s early investment in 6G internet technology.

Meanwhile, the Americans are fighting with their domestic airline industries about implementing 5G internet and the Chinese are already progressing onward to 6G internet. Now, the 6G development is still in its infancy. However, the fact that China has working experiments in 6G and in the hypersonic fields—and that China is now fusing the technologies together in a potentially lethal package directed at America’s ailing military—means that Beijing is likely ahead of the United States in the race for next generation technologies. This, as 60% of the world’s patents for 6G-related technologies are held by Chinese individuals and/or companies.

For too long the Americans have assumed that their technological advancement would prove decisive in deterring any challenge to their global primacy. Thirty years ago, when America’s power was at its apex, this was a fair assumption. Yet, in the intervening years, the Americans have squandered their Cold War victory on ruinous and inconclusive wars in the Middle East.

As that occurred, Washington abandoned its support for high-tech research and development, leaving it to a private sector that was incapable of prioritizing strategically important innovations over more cost-effective, less strategically vital ones. This explains why China in a single decade has outpaced their American rivals in critical high-tech industries, such as 6G internet and hypersonic weapons—even though the Americans have invested in R&D for both these technologies for far longer than China has.

America has dithered while China has engaged in a long march to what it believes will be global dominance. Beijing has married the desire to spearhead the next industrial revolution to the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) need to rule the world. The primary goal for Beijing is to first be able to keep the Americans from projecting power into what they view as their sphere of influence, the Indo-Pacific. Therefore, China’s new hypersonic weapons capability along with the advances in 6G could prove decisive in holding American military power back. If Washington knows that China has a functioning arsenal of hypersonic glide vehicles that can threaten any location on Earth, against which there is little defence, American leaders might be more restrained in their application of power beyond their shores out of fear of being made to endure such a brutal attack.

Of course, China’s leaders know that Washington would retaliate in a significant way if Beijing ever did launch a hypersonic attack on the United States. Although, fortune favours the bold and the technology in question not only increases the risk of attack on the United States but the fact that the Americans lack their own working hypersonic weapon or that they have a defence against these systems gives Beijing clear advantages. It also gives China’s leadership the all-important escalation dominance. And from these technological advances that Beijing has masterminded, more will come—as the Americans are left behind.

Allowing for such game-changing technology to be left in the exclusive possession of the People’s Republic of China is hugely destabilising in the context of Sino-American relations. Already tensions between the two juggernauts are at all-time highs. Beijing has consistently proven its commitment to asymmetrical forms of warfare as a means of undermining America’s overwhelming conventional military dominance. The presence of active hypersonic glide vehicles with a reliable command-and-control system in China’s growing arsenal is a clear-and-present danger to the United States.

We hear often about a “Sputnik Moment”. Well, here it is. And if Washington does not respond; if America does not take high-tech research and development more seriously than it has, we risk being defeated soon by China and their next generation weapons technology.

China beating the US in military technology - The Sunday Guardian Live

The Americans are fighting with their domestic airline industries about implementing 5G internet and the Chinese are already progressing onward to 6G

www.sundayguardianlive.com

 

[ChineseTiger1986]

The millennial generation in the US sucks at the STEM, and the US right now needs those Indian scientists and engineers for lifeline support, and they never trust the Chinese-Americans.

Expect more humiliation in the future.

 

[khansaheeb]

Losing Tech War To China? After Hypersonic Missiles, Ex-Google CEO Says US Far Behind In Another Critical Technology

The United States is lagging behind China in the research and development of hypersonic weapons technology. Top American military officers and defense industry leaders have already raised the alarm about China’s rapid progress in the hypersonic domain. In July last year, China conducted a...

eurasiantimes.com

The United States is lagging behind China in the research and development of hypersonic weapons technology. Top American military officers and defense industry leaders have already raised the alarm about China’s rapid progress in the hypersonic domain.

In July last year, China conducted a hypersonic weapon test, propelling a missile around the world at Mach 5 speed or five times the speed of sound. This sparked widespread panic among the US military top brass, who described the situation as “very close” to a “Sputnik moment”.

Later, Raytheon’s Chief Executive Officer claimed that Washington is years behind Beijing in its development of hypersonic weapons. However, it appears that this is not the only domain where China is ahead of the US.

Eric Schmidt, the former CEO of Google, has chastised the US government for its delayed 5G rollout, claiming that the government’s “dithering” has left America “well behind” China.

Schmidt and Graham Allison, a Harvard professor, stated in an op-ed for the Wall Street Journal that America is “far behind in almost every dimension of 5G while other nations—including China — race ahead.”

The authors argue that 5G should be a “national priority” for the Biden administration. If not, “China will own the 5G future”, they said. 5G stands for fifth-generation wireless internet, which promises extremely fast download speeds. It could also serve as the foundation for industrial and military applications.

Former Google chairman, Eric Schmidt (via Twitter)​

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Schmidt and Allison cited statistics from PCMag to suggest that most 5G services in the US are substantially slower than those in China. They also claimed that, despite ongoing US sanctions against Huawei, the Chinese company remains a top 5G provider globally. They also referred to the Federal Aviation Administration’s “hysterics” over the possibility of 5G operations in the C-band spectrum interfering with aircraft radio altimeters.
They claimed that the Chinese government has invested a total of $50 billion in 5G networks in the country, but the US has only allocated $1.5 billion so far. “The pathetic U.S. performance in the 5G race is a sign of America’s larger failure to keep up with China on strategically important technologies. China is also ahead of America in high-tech manufacturing, green energy and many applications of artificial intelligence,” they added.
“On current trajectories, by 2030 it will likely lead the US in the number of semiconductor chips it produces and in applications of biotechnology to defeat diseases like cancer.”
Schmidt has been critical of the US government’s slow pace of actions on the technology front that he considers crucial for the future. Last year, the National Security Commission on Artificial Intelligence, which Schmidt heads, released a report claiming that China might overtake the United States as the world’s “AI superpower”, with military ramifications.​

China’s Rapid Strides​

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Last month, Chinese researchers claimed to have reached a world-record wireless transmission speed of 206.25 gigabits per second. This could mean that 6G technology will be up to 100 times faster than 5G.
China has also demonstrated that a hypersonic weapon could communicate and detect targets using 6G technology, eliminating some of the issues about blackouts that occur at speeds of five times the speed of sound or more, according to Soth China Morning Post. ​

Artist’s rendering of a hypersonic missile​

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Such claims came at a time when the US has been having difficulty testing 5G due to interference with key instruments in aircraft as both use the same frequency. The United States likewise lacks an operable hypersonic weapon, having failed three consecutive tests in the past, as previously reported by the EurAsian Times. ​

The US is also stepping up its efforts to roll out 5G services across the country. Telecommunication companies including Verizon and T-Mobile now have substantial and fast midband 5G networks, and AT&T has promised to start its own buildout.
On the other hand, President Biden recently signed legislation granting $65 billion to broadband in the United States, money that could be used for both wireless and broadband networks.​

• Contact the author at ashishmichel@gmail.com​
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