Pentagon: China Could Pull Ahead of US Military by 2049

China says US misinterpreting Chinese defense policy

The Pentagon has offered a new report on China warning that by mid-century China may catch or even surpass the US military in capabilities.  They anticipate a “world-class” military by 2049.

This is one of those all-too-common Pentagon reports, which since the tensions began raising between the US and China have been coming nearly daily, playing up China as a growing threat that needs to be the focus of US military policy.

China doesn’t see things that way, faulting the US for misinterpreting China’s defense policy and promised a correction at a future date. China sees the US assumption as based on Cold War thinking about the situation.

The US reports all envision China getting a much bigger military in the future, but it is unclear if they really intend to spend so much on military assets as to compete with the US on a global scale, or will just keep working on being able to contest their immediate vicinity.

Author: Jason Ditz

Jason Ditz is Senior Editor for Antiwar.com. He has 20 years of experience in foreign policy research and his work has appeared in The American Conservative, Responsible Statecraft, Forbes, Toronto Star, Minneapolis Star-Tribune, Providence Journal, Washington Times, and the Detroit Free Press.