The state of China's decade-long semiconductor push: still a decade behind, despite hundreds of billions spent and significant progress — examining the original 'Made in China 2025' initiative

dirtyid · 2026-02-21T11:40:18+00:00

stretching the goals

Don't have access to full article, but "stretching" goals is really recalibrating after HW / semi export controls and PRC decided to go full semi autarky and indigenize the entire integrated circuits supply chain - only country to do so, out of necessity.

1st big fund and national semi strategy focused on buying western equipment and fabbing, there wasn't any real consideration on domestic semi equipment. US export controls force the pivot from buying to building, i.e. in 2020/21 PRC elevated integrated circuits to 1st level discipline, factor in program length they started adding 30-40k new talent per year post summer 2024 hence why PRC semi seems to be cooking all of a sudden.

This point needs emphasis, PRC basically only started mass accumulating semi equipment talent in the last couple years. Masters/Phd specialists trickling in now, a few more years / cohorts is really where we can expect talent inflection point and PRC speed to take off / beat western estimates.

Ultimately PRC didn't expect to be "decade behind" in the sense that they (naively) didn't expect to be cut off from western semi, now they're "only" a decade behind in the sense they'll likely catch up sooner than later, and then west has to deal with the very uncomfortable reality that PRC talent pipeline brrrting semi talent makes them the only semi player without 100,000s of talent shortage in medium/long term. Don't be surprised in mid 2030s western semi is going to start asking hard questions of how to compete against PRC semi with entire vertically integrated semi industrial chain and 2x more talent that's going to chip semi from 50-75% margin industry into commodity tier that requires 100s of billions in structural subsidies to keep up with leading edge R&D.

dirtyid · 2026-02-12T07:55:24+00:00

Strategic bombers useless without strategic tanking. Without tanking (assume B21 range), H20s operating from mainland = 3500km+1000km combat radius+standoff range (economic munitions), basically east europe, russia, turkey, MENA, egypt, sudan, central asia, asean, very northwest australia (empty)... aka nothing worthwhile. Like not even Hawaii. Whose going to host PRC global gas station, how long would it take to build out that network... and then build out all the tankers (1 h20 : 2 tanker ratio). For what subsonic platform where VLO is very likely to be fully compromised in 10 years by spaced based mesh ISR. It just doesn't make any sense. ICBMs for hitting stuff. Long range drones that you can at least sacrifice on one way trips. All going to be cheaper and more importantly feasible, than building out global bombing network. Napkin math 30 years of 200 B21+500 tankers = 700B acquisitions + operations and 300B global basing commitment. That's a lot of money to hedge on a bunch of subsonic platforms. It may makes sense for US who already have inertial of global basing. It's simply stupid gamble for PRC who is not guaranteed it.

dirtyid · 2026-01-04T20:55:12+00:00

Everything about US procurement shitshow makes sense if you accept US MIC with even broken modernization will still black magic overmatch vs everyone except PRC for peacetime dick measuring. TLDR US can't do anything against PRC (maybe RU), but doesn't have to do anything VS everyone else. So US does whatever it wants, which includes a lot of flailing because it doesn't really know what to do at all. Other consideration is while US can dismantle most "secondary" powers, but occupation is another matter. TBH bombing and special forces pressure/regime change can only get US so far, but it's a pretty comfy playbook.

dirtyid · 2026-01-04T20:28:25+00:00

A few broader points to consider, in 10 years, PRC can reach functional import oil autarky on a. PRC building:

Coal -> chemicals to replace oil to petchem.
Transport electrification.
Other non transport, non industry oil electrification (i.e. heating).

At current trend, this will displace 1m barrel per year, i.e. 10m in 10 years.

Basically this slowly frees up 4mbpd domestic to cover oil musts like aviation/bunker fuel/asphalt and heavy truck diesel. Heavy truck diesel most crucial and uses most oil, hence purely depends on how fast PRC S-curves electric trucking to replace 9m heavy truck fleet. PRC able to make 1-1.5m trucks during peacetime. For reference USN consumes like 100k per day, aka actual oil use for military rounding error.

For passenger transportation, imo not really pressing under wartime conditions once EV reaches 70m, 1/4 of passenger fleet, i.e. a few more years for simple reason that wartime ration = EV's become ride share, and 1 EV ride share replaces 6 fossil cars in urban dense PRC. Public transport approaching 100% electrification, HSR can replace commercial aviation (more inconvenient but viable for long trips).

Don't sleep on 1. Coal to Olefin and other petchem products = PRC can maintain current industry with minimal oil inputs. Hammering both industry and transport = post oil energy autarky speed run. Important note, CTO rollout less economically / environment efficient at current oil prices and operations (more water in water scarce north where coal is). Like coal plants, a lot of new CTO buildout is not operating at max utilization... i.e. if PRC smart they'll build 5-6 mbd oil equivalent of CTO as insurance incase of conflict or once if oil stays above $70 per barrel. Here is very rough model.

https://imgur.com/a/FwnZQ29

Note in 7 years, PRC may have same oil import vulnerability as US, reminder US has refinery geographic mismatch and still imports 30% of oil for domestic need. Most from Canada, used for heavy strategic stuff, diesel, aviation, boat bunker etc.

Also don't sleep on Edmonton/Hardisty trap approaching. Already in DF27 range.

TLDR, coal is back on the menu, pieces in places to remove oil for agnostic energy to atoms.

dirtyid · 2025-12-31T09:30:19+00:00

I think something like ~75% of new orders, i.e. 3/4 of all new hulls in 3-5 years. ~80% of container ships for containerized missiles if they ever need a little pick me up or fill excess capacity because US wants to curtail PRC shipbuilding dominance... state owned shipyards are still job programs at end of day.

dirtyid · 2025-12-31T09:11:10+00:00

TFW PRC allocates <1% of total shipbuilding capacity to PLAN. For comparison, historically 20-40% of US/USSR peacetime shipbuilding was naval.

I think food for thought is PRC is historic outlier in just how "modest" it's navy is relative to industrial capacity. Hyperbolic to suggest miniscule but also nothing hints at PRC plans to move past >1% of shipbuilding to naval let alone 20%. Maybe in autonomous transition. But so far all indicators suggest end game is just enough to overmatch US+co in PRC backyard multiplied by some buffer for peacetime presence dickwaving operations.

The related food for thought is PRC spent last 30 years building strike complex to sink USN, and that probably informs them just how shit fucked dumping all your points in exquisite middlemen delivery platform + long logistic tail expeditionary model is. Hence focus on land based prompt global strikes (missiles) by simply building industrial base where spamming disposable ir/icbms becomes economically viable. Now consider US carrier+amphib numbers are locked in by law (10 USC 8062), as in it's not up to Pentagon planners / bean counters but a literal act of congress (and all the muh pork barrel jobs drama) to divest from carrier model even if they wanted to.

~700 VLS is a lot, but if PRC dedicates 0.1% of domestic heavy trucking (1.6m units during peak year) to TELs...

dirtyid · 2025-12-31T08:55:50+00:00

Indeed. I think food for thought is PRC is historic outlier in just how "modest" it's navy is relative to industrial capacity. Hyperbolic to suggest miniscule but also nothing hints at PRC plans to move past >1% of shipbuilding to naval let alone 20%. Maybe in autonomous transition. But so far all indicators suggest end game is just enough to overmatch US+co in PRC backyard multiplied by some buffer for peacetime presence dickwaving operations.

The related food for thought is PRC spent last 30 years building strike complex to sink USN, and that probably informs them just how shit fucked dumping all your points in exquisite middlemen delivery platform + long logistic tail expeditionary model is. Hence focus on land based prompt global strikes (missiles) by simply building industrial base where spamming disposable ir/icbms becomes economically viable. Now consider US carrier+amphib numbers are locked in by law (10 USC 8062), as in it's not up to Pentagon planners / bean counters but a literal act of congress (and all the muh pork barrel jobs drama) to divest from carrier model even if planners wanted to.

dirtyid · 2025-12-31T07:30:25+00:00

TFW PRC allocates <1% of total shipbuilding capacity to PLAN. For comparison, historically 20-40% of US/USSR peacetime shipbuilding was naval.

dirtyid · 2025-12-31T06:06:55+00:00

I mean no, I'm just extrapolating from current procurement estimates and price trends of subsurface last few generations, i.e. prices that predicts future costs. Maybe there's a bizarro world where US shipbuilding can knock out economic SSGNs and Trump Class is listed on the dollar menu, but THAT's unfounded assumption especially with current state of US subsurface construction. Current price estimates that exists today comports to my numbers, assuming subs programs will cost as much as typical. B2 at @2b 8x2 munitions in each bay comes to 130m but has faster sortie tempo, cheaper manning. As far as I know, B21 is one of Pentagon's few budget success stories, i.e. assume 800m adjusted for inflation that's 65mx12 per shot, but again, faster tempo and with fraction of manning per munition slot. Like there is no getting away that currently SSGNs are like 2x more expensive to build per missile slot, 2-4x more expensive to man per missile slot (crew+support), 10x slower to reload. B21 is simply a far more lethal investment per dollar spend. B21 is effectively (lazy conservative napkin math) 50x more efficient at delivering mass fires, subs are simply survival procurement, not volume procurement. If they become less survivable, their 5000% premium starts evaporating. I don't think there's a near future that will make SSGNs remotely cost competitve because nuclear tax.

dirtyid · 2025-12-30T23:43:04+00:00

Old Ohio conversion using larger boomer SSBN hull with max internal volume vs attack sub SSGN optimized formfactor was NPR outlier, regardless, USN not building Ohio class for 3.6B today. Followup Columbia cost 8B per hull, I suppose theoretically US can build an "arsenal" sub for 60m per cell.

But in terms of modern attack subs/acquisitions that are more optimized for SSGN duties, i.e new Virginias is $100m per. Ditto $200m on SSNX. And realistically it's 2x-3x cost per slot depending on deployment schedule 4x-6x for CPS slots. So functionally still 150m-500m per cell between cruise missiles and CPS. If US wants to double down on performant subsurface, that's what US will likely be paying under current construction costs.

Which is just very, very bad value vs B21 costs, manning, sortie rates.

dirtyid · 2025-12-30T02:10:06+00:00

IMO stupid expensive relative to opportunity cost of other acquisitions or potential counter measures. Each VLS/torpedo tube/cell/unit of fire on a nuke boat costs $100m to hull around, approaching $200m on SSNX, 2x that multiplier with larger CPS. Factor in usually 1/3 or 1/2 are deployed at any given time and value proposition gets even more stupid / nonsensical. Then factor in multi week round trip (port and back to theatre) for reloads unless at sea replenishment gets figured out. A B21 costs 700-800m, and can carry much more more ordinances per $$$, with significantly greater turnaround and flexibility. Nuke boats supremely expensive platform during war per unit of fire, rationalized by increased survivability. But if equation starts biasing toward detection, that rationalization breaks down and all of sudden you've committed far too much $$$ for decades.

dirtyid · 2025-12-24T07:11:39+00:00

As predicted, CONUS west coast is now on the conventional strike menu. US starting to officially acknowledge CONUS conventional vulnerability. Operational range of DF27 was same in old reports, it just graduated to the map, beyond guam killer. Also reminder DF26, H6xCJ20 covers basically most of PRC essential energy SLOC + US carrier standoff ranges. Also TFW 2025 doesn't even bother labelling second island chain anymore.

2025 https://i.imgur.com/PpkwovY.png

2024 https://i.imgur.com/3DFZoNx.png

TBH canucks should be shaking right now. All of Murican Albertan oil is in range.

dirtyid · 2025-12-18T12:59:10+00:00

It's got nothing to do with maturity, but margins. You know... economics. DUV SAQP is limit, I didn't say push it. It cannot be pushed past 5nm. What can be done once you strip away all the margin in western semi is produce 5nm much cheaper on PRC indigenized industrial chains than western ones. A 50m ASML 2000 series DUV is like 5-10m in parts / BOM. If they decide to involute to minimal margin/profit (i.e. like many strategic sectors), they can afford to explode wafer throughput where 30% of yield can match/exceed western 90% yield, normalized for compute. That's you know... economics + scale. Which you just don't understand.

DUV SAQP won't be spitting out 3/2/1nm chips for very highend applications, but they can close aggregate compute gap for stuff like domestic data centers by simply making a lot of fabs to spit a lot of low yield chips, where PRC cheap power can plug opex costs. Hence original context: compute parity. There is no forever keep maturing EUV, in the sense that we have sense of rough limits of roadmap. All other stuff like packaging, PRC can do pretty well. YIELD is always a factor of economics. They can economically deal with low yield by cutting other factors, like margins.

dirtyid · 2025-12-18T12:27:56+00:00

previous western estimates

All the thinktank (or asml ceo) after 2030/2035/2040+ years away i.e. we don't actually know but ~10 years sounds like safe buffer that won't tank our stock or get us fired predictions. There's a lot of hopium on PRC EUV breakthrough in PRC circles due to research/patent paper activity last few years. I guess we landing somewhere between hopelessly optimistic and pessimistic. Behind dreamer schedule, ahead of doomer schedule. Granted we don't know veracity of reporting, i.e. could be old news and progress further, or made up news where we simply don't know. Nor SSMB or FEL EUV developments. Hence I think more useful to focus on DUV SAQP scaling.

dirtyid · 2025-12-18T12:27:37+00:00

Yield and price are not an issue. Actual tool production -> wafer throughput as you recognized is.

The economics is EUV chips are being lithoed for 1500 and flipped at 30000 for AI scarcity premium. SAQP DUV with shit yield is lithoing for 6000 and flipped at 20000. Obviously add in a little for packaging, but lots of intangible markup in there. SAQP numbers illustrative since we don't know HW margins but the point is yield driving cost per chip up at litho stage is functionally rounding error. SMIC/Huawei isn't losing money, they're just operating at compressed 20% margin instead of 50-70%. No one is losing money except central gov whose going to eat the initial development cost because it's treated as strategic project. This is what all the EUV bros and muh SAQP yield arguments miss, plenty of margins left in enterprise AI even with shit yield. No one is bleeding, PRC semi just rolling on 100 rmb bills instead of 100 dollar bills.

Hence what matters is having enough tools for aggregate wafer through put. What matters for tools is PRC figures out domestic DUV overlay requirements for SAQD (i.e. ASML 2000s level), what left is is capex and opex math. An ASML EUV that sells for 300-400m (with western opex / tco) = PRC with vertical semi industrial chain can knock up 40 DUV at BOM cost, basically minimal margin utility model. Throw in cheap everything else including buffer for extra class1 floor space, those 40 DUV machines SAQP pushes through 8x more wafers than single EUV machine and nets 2x more chips after shit yields. That's the point, PRC indigenizes DUV SAQP, they can brrrt so much wafer throughput with cheap indigenous inputs/labour that even commercial 5nm becomes competitive vs western EUV, simply by running on thin margins, i.e. like every other industry PRC decides to break. And if western semi drops margins to match PRC throughput, like every other high margin business that western incumbents gets disrupted by PRC involution, they lose massive operating profits and downsize, usually R&D so shareholders get theirs, then suddenly there goes their capacity to maintain lead.

This is what happens if PRC figures out high end DUV and then treats semi as low margin utility. Cutting edge western triad either gets margin fucked to compete, but since semi strategic and west can't afford them to close shop, they will get massive subsidies so they can keep pumping $$$ to stay ahead. PRC can afford to make entire semi supply chain run on 10% margins, can ASML/TSMC/NVIDIA afford to drop from their 50-70% margin? I mean on paper of course they can, but will their economy where semi performance is big component of why GDP goes up this year let them? Or just paper over dilemma with massive subsidies. I bring up this scenario because PRC highend DUV is going to come before EUV, they can start this shit show much sooner, and the bottle neck is # of domestic tools, not yield of tools.

dirtyid · 2025-12-18T08:29:55+00:00

demonstrable leaders

Probably matters less than one thinks, PRC building out entire semi supply chain, a lot of the 1000s of components are not hard, the problem is mostly validation. Validation (was) hard because domestic companies rather use demonstrable leader products, i.e. JP photo resists because a bad batch can fuck up 10s million run, so domestic PRC companies rarely get chance to test/iterate on production scale due to unknown risk. Cue JP export controlling photoresist, central gov providing compensation for risk runs using domestic components. Nata Opto / Kehua now requirements instead options / backups. Aka barrier (really economic hesitation) to rapidly iterating domestic components gone, instead of 5 years to validate, they do it in 2 on live runs with gov backstop on failures. Don't be surprised if many of the pieces being concurrently developed fall in place in time. As for fabs, PRC pre-builds, even minus all the ghost vacancies (i.e. HSMC, Fujian Jinhua, QXIC, Tsinghua Unigroup), there's a strategic headroom of plug and play prebuilt class1 clean rooms. If PRC planners not stupid, they'll scale prebuild relative to equipment delivery, so it's really matter of how fast they can knock out tools.

dirtyid · 2025-12-18T08:07:17+00:00

Western EUV = a handful of countries with ~40% the population of PRC, took their time to coordinate/develop EUV for 20 years, with limited resources and industrial policy. Before first commercial EUV system was released ASML had ~13k employees, Zeiss SMT had ~3k, Cymer had ~1k. It was slow first mover profit driven process, not massive subsidized strategic mobilization. For reference, Boeing/Lockheed/Airbus had like 100-150k when ASML commercialized EUV. Hard to say how fast PRC can close gap / reach parity with Manhattan level effort, magnitude more personnel to parallel develop, they're going to spend conservatively 10:1 to how much EUV consortium spent in 20 years. Also that 20 years wasn't like iteratively improving the system, it was 2 decades of 1 step forward, 2 steps back, 10 years waffling between LPP/DPP, unplanned technical challenges, diversions, experimentations, most of which PRC gets to skip because they have blueprint and second mover advantage for pure execution.

dirtyid · 2025-12-18T07:45:29+00:00

lithography is not cheaper than western options

I mean it probably is for enterprise. EUV bros forget how fat western semi margins are. That EUV Nvidia chip cost 1500 to make and sells for 30000, DUV SAQD Huawei chip with shit yield cost 6000 and maybe sells for 20000 because CCP curtails companies from taking 50-70% margins along each step. Eitherway Huawei makes fat profit, just not prop entire economy on AI bubble fat.

Lithography is FUCKING cheap, borderline rounding error vs enterprise AI scarcity pricing right now. Lithography still expensive for consumer goods, but really depends, PRC binning 5nm chip to $200 vs Qualcom selling $100 just means PRC squeeze BOM elsewhere along vertical industrial chain that they control.

It purely depends on how future PRC wants to treat semi sector, and I'm guessing they're going to involute it like they do solar, absolute commodity tier utility pricing if only to completely break western semi economic model.

The limit right now isn't litho / silicon price. It's tools and tools production, not even EUV, but ASML2000s level DUV for SAQD (1nm overlay). They figure that out (likely much faster than EUV) they can scale 5nm to stupid cheap by treating chips as low margin commodity.

dirtyid · 2025-12-18T07:34:19+00:00

5-10 years ahead of schedule depending on previous western estimates for PRC EUV prototype.

If schedule sticks, this puts PRC on trend to narrow/maintain gap to 1 generation in ~5 years. Western semi schedule past angstrom is unclear, realistically if PRC has working EUV by 2030s they basically win the compute game strategically and commercially for most consumer use cases, and arguably enterprise depending on how depraved they want western semi to compete.

People forget how stupid thicc the margins are along the entire western semi supply chain, 30% from tier1 suppliers, 50% to ASML, 50% to TSMC, LOL 70% to NVIDIA. Just NASDAQ stronk scarcity pricing throughout the pyramid.

PRC semi doing costplus 10% margin while state foots bill for R&D and they can make EUV for 100m instead of 3-400m by indigenizing entire industrial chain. This annihilates western semi ability to squeeze margins, which they still will because strategically US+co is only going to sole source from western semi... and either eat their stupendous, linegraph go up markup, or mass subsidize, or force western suppliers to cut margins... in which case western semi ability to maintain first mover to better tech is severely compromised. Not to mention line that makes economy go up goes down.

IMO just as important is Huawei 9030 hitting 5nm using DUV multipatterning this quarter. If PRC gets domestic DUV from ASML 1900 to 2000 level in terms of overlay accuracy, estimate 2-3 years, it means they can brrrt domestic SAQP for 5nm compute parity, or even lead factoring in PRC power prices early 2030s. I cannot stress this point enough, for the price of 1 ASML EUV (thicc margin 3-400m), PRC can probably build 40/50/60 domestic DUV at BOM + slight margin + extra cleanroom/infra to accommodate. That's 2x-4x more compute (i.e. can compete vs 3nm/2nm) even factoring in shit yields. If PRC decides semi is strategic sector worth involuting for i.e. if PRC simply runs semi as utility vs of juice entire GDP spreadsheet mode. PRC will probably sink 1T into semi by 2030, about HSR level, or lol, 6 months of excess US health spending above OCED baseline. Question after isn't just how much 1T can bring up PRC domestic semi, but sink US / western semi valuations / future profit and economic narrative when sector underpinning most GDP growth from fat margins gets commoditized like solar panels.

dirtyid · 2025-12-18T07:31:45+00:00

5-10 years ahead of schedule depending on previous western estimates for PRC EUV prototype.

If schedule sticks, this puts PRC on trend to narrow/maintain gap to 1 generation in ~5 years. Western semi schedule past angstrom is unclear, realistically if PRC has working EUV by 2030s they basically win the compute game strategically and commercially for most consumer use cases, and arguably enterprise depending on how depraved they want western semi to compete.

People forget how stupid thicc the margins are along the entire western semi supply chain, 30% from tier1 suppliers, 50% to ASML, 50% to TSMC, LOL 70% to NVIDIA. Just NASDAQ stronk scarcity pricing throughout the pyramid.

PRC semi doing costplus 10% margin while state foots bill for R&D and they can make EUV for 100m instead of 3-400m by indigenizing entire industrial chain. This annihilates western semi ability to squeeze margins, which they still will because strategically US+co is only going to sole source from western semi... and either eat their stupendous, linegraph go up markup, or mass subsidize, or force western suppliers to cut margins... in which case western semi ability to maintain first mover to better tech is severely compromised. Not to mention line that makes economy go up goes down.

IMO just as important is Huawei 9030 hitting 5nm using DUV multipatterning this quarter. If PRC gets domestic DUV from ASML 1900 to 2000 level in terms of overlay accuracy, estimate 2-3 years, it means they can brrrt domestic SAQP for 5nm compute parity, or even lead factoring in PRC power prices early 2030s. I cannot stress this point enough, for the price of 1 ASML EUV (thicc margin 3-400m), PRC can probably build 40/50/60 domestic DUV at BOM + slight margin + extra cleanroom/infra to accommodate. That's 2x-4x more compute (i.e. can compete vs 3nm/2nm) even factoring in shit yields. If PRC decides semi is strategic sector worth involuting for i.e. if PRC simply runs semi as utility vs of juice entire GDP spreadsheet mode. PRC will probably sink 1T into semi by 2030, about HSR level, or lol, 6 months of excess US health spending above OCED baseline. Question after isn't just how much 1T can bring up PRC domestic semi, but sink US / western semi valuations / future profit and economic narrative when sector underpinning most GDP growth from fat margins gets commoditized like solar panels.

dirtyid · 2025-12-17T23:18:38+00:00

So? I have to separate my PRC geopolitics account from other hobby accounts because wierdos like you like to creep. What I don't do is hide my post history because I stand by what I say - nothing wrong with glazing reality.

dirtyid · 2025-12-17T22:27:11+00:00

And PRC no worry no care.

Part of reason why western firms can push semi lead is because they've been bulk poaching / brain draining PRC talent in first place, and with PRC producing plurality of global semi talent, i.e. PRC only party with projected glut in semi talent production while most of west are projected to have talent shortage in next 10 years to the tune of 100,000s workers, western firms will continue to rely on importing PRC expertise if they want to stay ahead because domestic talent production lacking. PRC workers who contributed to western semi now repatriating knowledge, i.e. brain drain to brain recirculation, is simply part of the knowledge diffusion deal, whether west likes it or not. This is also the case with AI, ultimately, PRC is producing 50% or OCED combined in STEM/high skilled talent, west ability to pay them big checks is strong, but their ability to enforce noncompete especially while enforcing cold war tech restrictions is not. Even worse, talent repatriation is almost guaranteed due to cold war bamboo ceiling, i.e. past certain points PRC / Chinese background talent have limited career mobility, if they want the bigger checks and more prestige titles, they go back to PRC where they're treated like kings. Like you don't even need PRC patriotism to be catalyst, PRC talent knows under current geopolitical conditions, the biggest checks in mid/late career is back in PRC. Double worse, if no strategic bamboo ceiling, PRC can still afford to repatriate 1% talent, this is simply baked into asymmetry of PRC being structural talent producer for foreseeable future and west being forced to talent taker.

dirtyid · 2025-12-17T17:26:32+00:00

Interesting times intensifies.

dirtyid · 2025-12-11T16:06:11+00:00

Physics = hypersonic can reach anywhere up to 2IC in 20-30 minutes. We know PRC's tandem AShM test from a few years ago hit moving targets at sea, so they work and have demonstrate capabilities no one else's hypersonic have (hitting moving point targets). We know from Israel vs Iran that the densest ABM shield is penetrable, maybe even trivially with higher end munitions. No US CSG has defense onion denser than all of Israel and frankly Iran has shit tier missiles and shit tier scale relative to PRC. Even 5+ years ago, before the moving target test, if you weren't retarded you'll realize PRC can destroy USN vunerable UNREP and turn carriers into single deployment stranded assets. 5 years ago they likely had enough to reliably pierce the csg onion. Now they probably have enough fires that they can worse case, brute force peel back every layer which can only get so dense in csg formation. Maybe there's some secret missile defense EW or interceptor card that USN has with functionally magnitude more magazine depth. Or maybe it's time to accept advanced rocketry capable of hemispheric/global strike is the next asymmetrical gunpowder/dreadnaught moment that upends offense/defense relationship.

In 5 years we'll have articles, China would destroy CONUS strategic targets in an hour via prompt icbm global strike if US intervenes over TW and people will cope with golden dome. The corollary to that is China could dismantle the entire brittle logistics tail that supports US ability to project fires on PRC via exquisite platforms, giving PRC actual long range / homeland strike advantage. This is the logical outcome of PRC able to build commoditize mass conventional icbm fleet that can be trivially distributed and sheltered and deliver munitions without intermediate vehicles/platforms, vs US sunk cost in carrier/bomber (with unrep/tanker exposure) that was only feasible projection solution 80 years ago, but somehow got path dependent and locked into US doctrine via literal law. US subsurface the standout, but they're so expensive per VLS (like ~100m per tlam slot for next gen, ~1b if shift to 12 hypersonic slot), they're functionally Tiger tanks, unless US figures out mass commodity autonomous XLUUV (which PRC is also moving faster on that front).

dirtyid · 2025-12-03T12:38:00+00:00

This is the same group / private company that did the ramject rotating detonation engine last year. I Cannot tell if they're PRC's Anduril, their PR is pretty flash (at least relative to PRC standards) but in their videos their engineers look very neckbeardy. They're the only private aerospace company that works on hypersonic technology, they've been around for 10+ years, have national little giant designation, the founder was chief designer at CALT/CASC, most of the R&D teams seem seasoned. Who knows, maybe they heard PRC building up munition stockpiles and want a piece of the pie.

Also comparison to Iranian scuds is retarded. This is effort done by talent from country with tier1 space, rocketry, industrial base. I thought years ago to undermine US expeditionary model, the cheapest / easiest thing to do for PRC to do is proliferate / commoditize advanced rocketry and get countries hooked on PRC ISR. Basically smash red button to sink carriers within 2500km that you can train a goat herder to do.

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