‘Surprising’ how quickly China’s military is closing gap with US: analyst Lyle Goldstein

Lyle Goldstein is a senior fellow at the Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs at Brown University, and director of Asia engagement at the Washington think tank Defence Priorities.How do you assess the progress of the People’s Liberation Army’s modernisation drive in the past 10 years and its significance in modern military history? How do you forecast the PLA’s position in 2027, which it set forth as one of three vaguely defined modernisation benchmark years?My view is that China’s military has made tremendous progress in the process of modernisation over the last 10 years. It’s almost like an aircraft going full throttle or a car that’s going into fourth gear. It really is the pace that has picked up a lot. We had an inkling that this was under way and that major results were going to be forthcoming. But here they are. I have to say, as a military analyst, it’s very impressive. I might even go as far as to say that it could even be unprecedented in its scale and dimensions, and also implications.