Chinese military industry produces its equipment "6 times faster and 20 times cheaper" than the United States

In 2021, the Chinese naval forces admitted to service 5 Type 052D/DL destroyers and 3 Type 055 cruisers, while the US Navy, for its part, will not have admitted to service any new destroyer Arleigh Burke. According to current planning, the situation will be comparable in the coming years, although in 2022, 2 Arleigh Burke destroyers, the USS Franck E. Pertensen Jr and the USS John Basilone were admitted to service.

In total, over the last 3 years (2019-2021), the Chinese military industry will have delivered 11 Type 052D/DL destroyers and 4 Type 055 cruisers to the Chinese Navy, for only three new destroyers within the US Navy. This situation is far from being anecdotal in the arms race that Beijing and Washington have been engaged in for several years now, with the objective of controlling the Western Pacific and the Indian Ocean, including in the field of air forces.

Thus, while speaking at the Government Contracting Pricing Summit, the Assistant to the Under Secretary of the Air Force in charge of acquisitions, Major General Cameron Holt, estimated that China was producing its defense equipment 5 to 6 times faster than the United States.. And to add that today, Beijing could invest only $1 where Washington had to invest, for its part, $20 to obtain a similar operational capacity.

In conclusion, General Holt, who retired a few days later and in fact had a certain freedom of expression, invited his listeners to wonder about the consequences, but also the origins of such imbalances for the years to come.

The price gap between US military equipment is not, in itself, exceptional news. Thus, a J-10C combat aircraft is offered on the export market at a unit price 2,5 times more attractive than an F-16 Block 70, and a Type 054A frigate is offered for half the price of a frigate of the same tonnage, such as the FDI.

However, until recently, the performance and reliability of Chinese military hardware was known to be significantly lower than that of its American or Western counterparts, with less lifespan, scalability and operational performance. These certainties are now called into question, both in the air and naval fields and even concerning land armaments, while at the same time, the new American programs continue to see their costs grow.

Thus, the new light tank which will equip the US Army, the MFP from General Dynamics Land System, will have a unit price of around $12 million, equivalent to that of a heavy tank like the Leclerc or the Leopard 2, where its Chinese counterpart, the Type 15 dela in service, was acquired in its export version for less than $2 million per unit by Bangladesh, this including ammunition and spare parts.

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