Recent midlife upgrades to China’s older surface combatants highlight an ongoing debate over whether preserving naval fleet mass provides an operational edge over purely qualitative technological modernization in naval warfare. This month, the South China Morning Post (SCMP) reported that the People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) has carried out an extensive midlife refit of its […]

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The Russia-Ukraine War has become a real-time laboratory for the Chinese military, spurring rapid defensive modernization while exposing deep friction between its centralized command hierarchy and the decentralized demands of modern combat. This month, the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) released a report detailing how China is aggressively leveraging the Russia-Ukraine war as […]

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