https://thehill.com/policy/defense/580248-china-triggers-growing-fears-for-us-military

China’s military buildup and its push to develop nuclear-capable missiles is unnerving Congress and U.S. defense officials alike.

America’s defense establishment has watched threats from Beijing rapidly grow in multiple areas, including recent hypersonic missile tests, an expanding nuclear arsenal, strides in space and cyber and seemingly daily threats to Taiwan.

“We’re witnessing one of the largest shifts in global geo-strategic power the world has witnessed,” Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Gen. Mark Milley said Wednesday when speaking about China’s recent military advances.

“They are clearly challenging us regionally and their aspiration is to challenge the United States globally.”

A potential shift in the global balance of power is worrisome to U.S. officials and lawmakers.

For decades, America has held the stance of the world's foremost economic and military power. A shift to China, while not a direct threat, could upend alliances in the Indo-Pacific region at a time when U.S. and Chinese militaries increasingly butt heads in the South China Sea.

The outgoing Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. John Hyten last week said that the pace at which China is developing military capabilities is “stunning,” and on track to surpass the United States “if we don't do something to change it.”

A major example of the speed at which Beijing is moving was a test in August of a hypersonic weapon that partially orbited Earth, reentered the atmosphere and rocketed towards its target which it missed by less than 30 miles. 

Milley called the test “very concerning” and “very close” to being a “Sputnik moment,” referring to the Soviet Union's 1957 launch of the world’s first space satellite that gave Moscow a lead in the space race and shocked the United States.

China has maintained that the test was “a spacecraft, not a missile.”

On Wednesday, Milley called the launch indicative of “a much, much broader picture of a military capability with respect to the Chinese.”

“Today [China] has capabilities in space and cyber, land, sea, air, undersea, and they are clearly challenging us regionally. ... So we have a case here of a country that is becoming extraordinarily powerful, that wants to revise the international order to their advantage. That's going to be a real challenge over the coming years. In the next 10, 20 years. That's going to be really significant for the United States.”

That view was reflected in the Pentagon’s latest report on China’s military power, released Wednesday, that details a country that is aggressively building its nuclear stockpile, developing new missile capabilities and bolstering its armed forces, even in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic.

“Despite challenges posed by the COVID-19 pandemic, Beijing continued its efforts to advance its overall development including steadying its economic growth, strengthening its armed forces, and taking a more assertive role in global affairs,” according to the nearly 200-page report.

China since 2018 has been named as the top defense threat to the country alongside Russia, but its latest advancements had congressional Republicans this week sounding the alarm on its growing threat. 

“We are in the most, I believe, the most endangered position our country has ever been in terms of what China is demonstrating, clearly, what they have the capability of doing,” Senate Armed Services Committee ranking member James Inhofe (R-Okla.), said in a news conference Tuesday.

And after the Pentagon’s report, Rep. Mike Rogers (R-Ala.), ranking member of the House Armed Services committee, said in a statement that the United States needs to respond to China with “unprecedented defense modernization.” 

“This report should crystallize for the Biden Administration what has been self-evident for some time – that China poses a real and imminent threat. Kicking the can down the road for our own military modernization is no longer an option,” he continued.

Analysts have also picked up on China’s growing nuclear capabilities, with the Federation of American Scientists (FAS) on Tuesday releasing a report detailing three apparent missile silos that are in development in the cities of Yumen, Hami and Ordos. 

Hans Kristensen, one of the authors of the FAS report, told The Hill that Washington should be more concerned about Beijing modernizing its military on the conventional side, which doesn’t involve nuclear weapons.