Photo By Senior Airman Gianluca Ciccopiedi | Dr. Brendan Mulvaney, director of the Department of the Air Force China Aerospace...... read more read more
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JOINT BASE ANDREWS, Md. – China’s ability to execute long-term strategic goals through a state-controlled system — vastly different from the United States — is accelerating the modernization of its military and technological capabilities, according to Brendan Mulvaney, China Aerospace Studies Institute director.
Mulvaney outlined how China’s state-controlled model drives long-term military and technological advances during a presentation April 21 at Joint Base Andrews.
Speaking to military and civilian personnel, Mulvaney explained how China’s unique political and industrial system has enabled it to challenge U.S. dominance across key domains.
“They have things called state-owned enterprises,” Mulvaney said. “It’s like if Lockheed Martin, Bank of America and General Motors were all part of the U.S. government. It’s really that whole system we’re competing against.”
Mulvaney emphasized the role of the Chinese Communist Party in shaping national priorities. Although, their general secretary is elected for a five-year term, leaders typically serve at least two terms with no formal limits.
“When a Chinese leader comes to power, he knows he has 10 years,” he said. “It’s not 10 years of just being president – it would be 10 years of being president and being in charge of Congress and the Supreme Court” while also having control of state-owned enterprises.
Highlighting past leadership strategies, Mulvaney noted that when Hu Jintao assumed the role of general secretary in 2002, he prioritized building the world’s largest navy. Today, a single Chinese shipyard exceeds the combined shipbuilding output of the United States.
Similarly, when Xi Jinping succeeded Jintao in 2012, he looked toward bolstering China’s space enterprise, which is now advancing at what Mulvaney described as “quite a remarkable rate.”
While China has the world’s largest Navy, Mulvaney said its fleet remains largely concentrated on Chinese waters and is unlikely to maintain a global presence similar to the U.S. Navy.
Mulvaney expressed greater concern over China’s growing interest to understand U.S. financial and communication systems. Unlike Russia’s approach of disruption and destruction, China’s actions resemble “intelligence preparation of the battlefield” aiming at quietly studying how critical networks operate.
“Xi Jinping has said the first shots of the next major conflict will be in the information domain,” Mulvaney said. “That tells you he is thinking space and electromagnetic, and he’s thinking the cognitive domain, focused on you and the critical infrastructure here in the United States.”
During a question-and-answer session, Mulvaney also touched on the conflict between China and Taiwan stressing that the U.S. should be rooted in shared democratic values, not just economic interests like semiconductors.
He added that most people living in Taiwan do not perceive an immediate threat from mainland China.
“I was there last November,” Mulvaney said. “The people in Taiwan don’t have a feeling that the PLA [People’s Liberation Army] is coming over anytime soon. They don’t feel it like you do here in D.C., especially the military.”
Mulvaney served in the U.S. Marine Corps for more than 20 years and was an Olmsted Scholar, earning a doctorate in international relations at Fudan University in Shanghai from 2003 to 2005.
CASI, part of Air University, specializes in analyzing China’s military and aerospace sectors, translating Chinese doctrine, and producing publicly available reports. Their reports, including the “In Their Own Words” series, are available at https://www.airuniversity.af.edu/CASI/Publications/ and serve as resources for understanding the Chinese military-industrial complex.
| Date Taken: | 04.21.2025 |
| Date Posted: | 04.29.2025 13:34 |
| Story ID: | 496450 |
| Location: | JOINT BASE ANDREWS, MARYLAND, US |
| Web Views: | 179 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
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