Pentagons annual report on Chinese military developments (2020)

[Figaro]

US intelligence on Chinese military matters is predictably very poor ... and they have demonstrated this through the years. In 2005, a relatively old Chinese conventional submarine literally surfaced in the middle of the Kitty Hawk CBG while it was on active training . In 2009, Robert Gates said the J-20 would only become operational in the mid 2020s. To me, most of the intelligence gathered is worse than what you would find on Chinese military forums or corresponding social media rumors ... the only advantage US intelligence has is it can observe Chinese missile tests (including of hypersonic vehicles) via ELINT but that is about it. Someone like @Deino or @Blitzo could have written a far better report than they did (even though the Pentagon wasted 154k dollars on this).

 

[FairAndUnbiased]

US intelligence on Chinese military matters is predictably very poor ... and they have demonstrated this through the years. In 2005, a relatively old Chinese conventional submarine literally surfaced in the middle of the Kitty Hawk CBG while it was on active training . In 2009, Robert Gates said the J-20 would only become operational in the mid 2020s. To me, most of the intelligence gathered is worse than what you would find on Chinese military forums or corresponding social media rumors ... the only advantage US intelligence has is it can observe Chinese missile tests (including of hypersonic vehicles) via ELINT but that is about it. Someone like @Deino or @Blitzo could have written a far better report than they did (even though the Pentagon wasted 154k dollars on this).

One reason is racism. They will never hire a Chinese American to write these reports because they will only believe a white man. I don't know if you noticed but there are almost zero Chinese Americans reporting on China in any capacity. The only ones I know are Gordon Chang (lmao) and Dean Cheng at the Heritage Foundation (double lol). They will only write what they want to hear.

 

[Figaro]

One reason is racism. They will never hire a Chinese American to write these reports because they will only believe a white man. I don't know if you noticed but there are almost zero Chinese Americans reporting on China in any capacity. The only ones I know are Gordon Chang (lmao) and Dean Cheng at the Heritage Foundation (double lol). They will only write what they want to hear.

I disagree ... the CIA/NSA/DoD has plenty of room for Chinese-Americans, especially now that China is becoming the next USSR style enemy. More likely than not, this was just compiled by a bunch of lazy bureaucrats. The US government has no history of active discrimination against Chinese Americans or any group in particular. I'd presume maybe US government jobs are too low paid for Chinese-Americans?

 

[FairAndUnbiased]

I disagree ... the CIA/NSA/DoD has plenty of room for Chinese-Americans, especially now that China is becoming the next USSR style enemy. More likely than not, this was just compiled by a bunch of lazy bureaucrats. The US government has no history of active discrimination against Chinese Americans or any group in particular. I'd presume maybe US government jobs are too low paid for Chinese-Americans?

Chinese Exclusion Act was passed in 1882 and not repealed until 1943.

Then the quota was set extremely low until 1965.

 

[IblinI]

ASBM on type 055 with a range of at least 1000km is quite a something.

 

[Globenim]

I skimmed through this ... honestly their information is considerably worse and more vague than things you will find on Chinese defence forums (including here on PDF). The fact that this report cost 150k to compile really shows inefficiency in the US federal bureaucracy .

Its a polit guideline for American career politicians who have usually no clue what they are talking about outside law and economic schoolbooks and art of deception and spin, so they dont all come off as complete meritless idiots. The focus is about setting tone and the right buzzwords in line for the next year not about some objective information of the Chinese military.

Like mentioning only Russian airdefense systems but not the bulk of Chinese systems which plays into the anti-Russian government narrative and sets ground for talks about Russia related sanctions, repeating dumb ideological talking points like China "benefiting" from Americas "freedom of navigation" somehow provided by Americans dicking around in Asia, and pounding on referring to the South China Sea an "Indo-Pacific" issue.

 

[Team Blue]

We Chinese Americans definitely exist in intel.