Dilrook Kannangara

Contrary to popular views, China is set to lose a war against USA and its proxies. Despite having the largest arsenal of weapons of war, they are untested in battlefield making them fail in a real war as China has not engaged in any serious war. This is one main reason why USA, UK, France, Russia, Israel constantly engage in war. War gives them an opportunity to learn from it, refine their weapons and tactics. China has not had that opportunity.

The least China can do is to send their weapons to Ukraine to face off against the best weapons NATO has. China must supply its weapons to Russia to be used in Ukraine so that their actual performance (not just lab performance) can be assessed, their weaknesses can be identified and rectified, their strengths can be identified and enhanced and duplicated, the optimum command and control structures in their use can be learnt and their complementarity with other weapons systems can be gauged. None of these benefits come to China without actually sending their weapons to fight against Ukraine. The amount of circumstantial evidence China can gather from desktop research is next to nothing.

If China plays the role of a cowardly ostrich in the Ukraine war fearing US sanctions and revenge, then China is a weak third world army with no chance of defending against Taiwan, USA or any other who regularly challenges China’s territorial claims. And Ukraine will be the last opportunity China gets to test their weapons from a safe distance from harm before it will be dragged into a US-led war close to home.