THE TELEGRAPH S CORRECTION TO THE PENTAGON REPORT DOES NOT GO FAR ENOUGH IN STATING CHINA S MASSIVE ADVANTAGE OVER THE US IN 2026
The Telegraph has published a more realistic report on China s mlitary capacity than the Petnagon yesterday.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2026/01/25/a-great-war-for-global-hegemony-is-looming-could-china-win/
The Pentagon in new document offered an absurd, abritrary figure in USD to gauge the relative power of the US army and the Chinese army and found the US has a 13 to 1 advantage.
The Telegraph notes that the USD as a unit of currency is not an objective measure but a fluctuating unit biased to the USA.
A better guage is purchasing power. By that measure, China s is one third bigger than the USA, accepts the Telegraph.
A third bigger!
If a modern war is all about military industrial and economic might, that extra third counts.
"Comparisons like this explain the fact that on a purchasing-power parity basis, as opposed to nominal GDP, the Chinese economy is actually a third again bigger than the US.
This suggests that in terms of buying and hiring power the American war department only enjoys a 50pc advantage, rather than a three-fold one" says the Telegraph.
It states
"But that isn’t the whole picture. Both China and the US mostly make their own armaments and recruit from their own labour markets: and the cost of Chinese-made weapons, planes, ships, etc, is much lower than US-made ones. Chinese soldiers, sailors and airmen are much cheaper than Americans.
This cost difference is illustrated by the fact that China’s vast shipbuilding industry, far and away the biggest in the world, built warships of a combined tonnage equal to the entire Royal Navy in just the four years up to 2025 and this rate is accelerating. American shipyards, so expensive that they can mostly win business only from the Pentagon, are struggling even to replace existing US warships as they wear out – let alone expand the fleet."
The report accepts Chinese economy is actually a third again bigger than the US when viewed in terms of what things can be bought for the same unit of money, which is the right way to view an economy.
But there is an important caveat.
Not all economies are equal. Some have more manufacturing, others have less.
China is a manufacturing power and the US is not. It is a debt ridden, corrupt, oligarchiy led financial bubble with an ever shrinking manufacturing base.
China can produce vast amounts of planes, missiles, ships, weapons while the USA can produce hardly any in 2026.
Gov debt and corruption are also a constraint to US military action.
While acknowledging the strength of China a economy, the Telegraph report
X Fails to factor in the power of Chinese hypersonic missiles considered the decisive weapn in US wargames.
"China would defeat the US military in a war over Taiwan, according to a top-secret US government assessment.
US reliance on costly, sophisticated weapons leaves it exposed to China’s ability to mass-produce cheaper systems in overwhelming numbers, the highly classified “Overmatch Brief” warns.
A national security official under Joe Biden who reviewed the document is said to have turned pale on realising Beijing had “redundancy after redundancy” for “every trick we had up our sleeve”, The New York Times reported.
Losing Taiwan, the US’s key bulwark against Chinese power in the western Pacific, would deliver a severe strategic and symbolic blow to Washington.
The country’s most advanced aircraft carrier, the USS Gerald R Ford – recently sent to the Caribbean for Donald Trump’s crackdown on drug traffickers – is often destroyed in the wargames outlined in the brief.
The $13bn (£9.75bn) vessel, which entered service in 2022 after years of delays, is vulnerable to attacks from diesel-electric submarines and China’s arsenal of some 600 hypersonic missiles, capable of travelling at five times the speed of sound.
The Pentagon is planning to build nine additional Ford-class aircraft carriers
The Pentagon is planning to build nine additional Ford-class aircraft carriers Credit: TAJH PAYNE/DoD/AFP via Getty Images
Beijing displayed its ship-destroying YJ-17 missiles, estimated to travel at eight times the speed of sound, at a military parade in September."
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/us/news/2025/12/10/china-will-destroy-us-military-fight-over-taiwan/
X Fails to factor in the mass production of Chinese missiles and low production rates of US missiles and weapons
X Fails to factor in large amounts of iron ore are not needed for missiles
In general overstates China a deependency on iron ore imports for a war. It will have stockpiled iron ore and weapons.
X Fails to acknowledge the YJ 12 supersonic missile has a range, which may be 400 to 500 kilometres
X That means, it can shoot down also radar plane or F 18 Hornet plane from 400 to 500 km
Meanwhile, a F 18 hornet has missiles of far shorter range and far fewee of them
From media
The YJ-12 is a Chinese supersonic anti-ship cruise missile with an estimated operational range of 250 to 400 kilometers (155 to 250 miles), depending on the flight profile. It is designed for high-speed, long-range, anti-access/area-denial (A2/AD) missions, capable of reaching speeds between Mach 2.5 and 4.
Key Details on YJ-12 Range and Performance:
Operational Range: While commonly cited around 300-400 km, some assessments place the range at 270 nmi (approx. 500 km) for air-launched variants.
Flight Profile: The missile often utilizes a "high-low" flight profile, cruising at high altitude for maximum range and diving at high speed (Mach 3-4) for terminal guidance, which makes it harder to intercept.
...
/A-18 Hornet and Super Hornet fighters carry a diverse missile payload with ranges extending from under 10 miles for close-combat Sidewinders to over 150+ miles (240+ km) with newer long-range air-to-air missiles. Key capabilities include the AIM-120 AMRAAM (75–160 km) and the new AIM-174B (150-300+ miles), which significantly extends their, particularly the Super Hornet's, engagement capability.
...
The exact total number of AIM-174B "Gunslinger" missiles produced has not been publicly disclosed, as the program is largely handled under classified or restricted procurement, but the Pentagon is currently limited to producing fewer than 125 units per year.
Production Constraints: Due to high costs (approximately $5 million per unit) and industrial limitations, production is currently low, with efforts underway to expand capacity.
Future Production Goal: The U.S. Department of Defense has plans to increase production of the SM-6/AIM-174B missile family to 300 per year by 2028.
Operational Status: The missile was officially acknowledged in July 2024 to be in limited operational service with the U.S. Navy, spotted on F/A-18E/F Super Hornets.
The AIM-174B is an air-launched variant of the SM-6 (RIM-174) ship-launched missile, meaning it leverages existing production lines for that system.
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