Preliminary

The ink on the negotiating table has not dried up, but the U.S. has struck the dual aircraft carrier fleet to the doorstep of China!

On the one hand, it is the intention of cooperation between words, but on the other hand, it is the military deterrence of bayonets. This naked contradictory gesture is a desperate move of the United States trying to use military muscles to forcibly save face after the economic card failed.

In the face of naked deterrence, how will China show its sword? Is it to back down, or to break the bluff with a tougher stance?

The lost fleet.

On the one hand, China and the United States have just drawn up a fragile framework for tense economic and trade relations in Madrid, Spain, and are planning a new round of consultations. On the other hand, with the latest developments reported on October 17, the U.S. steel fleet has already been pressed to the doorstep of home.

This contradictory attitude of holding a letter of intent for cooperation in one hand and holding a weapon in the other hand is not so much a display of strength as it is more like a fleet that has lost its way in the changing times, blankly implementing outdated navigation instructions.

Rather than being regarded as a precise operation to put pressure on China, this fanfare military mobilization is a concentrated outbreak of the serious disconnect between political signals, military deterrence and economic reality when the United States faces a brand-new pattern.

This is not just the simple movement of a few warships, but also the relentless monotony of the dramatic decline in the effectiveness of traditional instruments of hegemony in the context of the new era.

Negotiating table for aircraft carriers.

The United States still seems to be immersed in the old dream of the Cold War, trying to use artillery diplomacy, such an ancient code, to add some illusory codes to themselves at the negotiating table, but they seem to forget that the times have long been different, such political symbols have already experienced severe inflation and great dissuasion in the face of China.

Rather than showing strategic confidence, this action exposed the deep anxiety after the failure of the economic card.

The anxiety is not empty, and Trump is still screaming to impose tariffs of up to 100% on Chinese goods, but he himself acknowledges that such extreme measures are unsustainable and tries to push responsibility to China.

More importantly, this economic card itself is crumbling in the United States. The Supreme Court of the United States will rule on the legality of tariffs on November 5th, and business giants such as the American Chamber of Commerce and Wal-Mart are lining up in front of the White House, warning that this crazy move will only detonate domestic inflation.

It is against this background that economic means are stretched that military muscle scholars seem so impatient, but they are full of contradictions and confusion. Look, on one side, the aircraft carriers "Nimitz" and "Washington" are lining up from the south to the north, and four B-1B bombers also traveled a long distance from the mainland to fly to Japan, putting on a posture that the rain is about to come.

On the other hand, the communication channels between the two armies have not been cut, and only recently in April the two sides held maritime military security consultations in Shanghai, and in May the defense ministers of the two countries also met in Singapore.

This one-handed atmosphere of tension, with one-handed dialogue window, greatly weakens the seriousness of military deterrence, making the whole operation look more like a political performance to reassure the Asia-Pacific allies, rather than a real determination to stand out.

When the Chinese Ministry of Commerce made it clear that the United States cannot seek cooperation while suppressing China companies, it actually pointed out the hypocritical nature of this performance. China's confidence in negotiations has never been based on the arrival of several warships from the other party, but is based on equality and sincerity.

When the counter-measure capabilities in rare earths, shipping and other fields have been put on the table, the posture of the US aircraft carrier can no longer incite the balance of power.

Dongfeng Express delivers bullseye

The Liberation Army has been operating hard for years, and the aircraft carrier battle group that once symbolized absolute hegemony at sea, today's role is silently changing.

It is no longer the relentless core of deterrence, but more and more like a high-value trap that is limited in action and very easily locked in, and the U.S. Navy’s own actions silently prove this.

Although the U.S. fleet is huge this time, it has always cruised cautiously outside China's 12-nautical-mile territorial waters. This deliberate distance-keeping presence just proves their deep fear of the People's Liberation Army's powerful firepower network.

The shore-based missiles "Dongfeng-21D" and "Dongfeng-26", which are known as aircraft carrier killers by the outside world, as well as the "YJ-15" and "YJ-20" carried by Type 055 and 052D destroyers. The giant net woven by anti-ship missiles has already made this sea area a forbidden area for aircraft carriers to act recklessly.

The change in the balance of power has fundamentally weakened the psychological advantage of the US aircraft carrier. We can see that the United States 'deployment seems a little difficult. The "Washington" was drawn from a busy Middle East mission and returned to the West Pacific as planned. On the way, he also rested in Yokosuka Port in Japan.

The Nimitz, as a regular visitor to the Indo-Pacific region, has long been tired of flight, when the troops are inadequate, and even the bipartisan attack ship "Tripoli" has been drawn to serve as a lightning aircraft carrier.

Looking back at the Chinese Navy is another steady expansion scene, "Fujian" has successfully completed the sea test, is about to be officially listed, and a breakthrough in the landing technology of shipping aircraft, marking that China will truly enter the era of three aircraft carriers.

Although the existing Liaoning and Shandong ships may not be as large as the Nimitz in the size of the carrier, the upgrading of the entire operational system is all-round, and this dynamic evolution of the contrast of forces cannot be covered by any temporary concentration of troops.

The deterrent aura of the aircraft carrier has already been punctured in the confrontation between real swords and guns. The PLA J-15 fighter plane carried live ammunition and confronted the US F-18 fighter plane at a very close distance of 20 to 30 meters over the Western Pacific. The case of finally successfully forcing the US aircraft carrier to retreat is still the best illustration.

It is a vivid illustration of the determination and ability of frontline troops on China's doorstep to make any behemoth think twice.

The Logistics Crisis of Paper Tiger

This seemingly overwhelming marine and air force cluster is the rust of the U.S. defense industry base, high mobilization costs, tense maintenance cycles and increasingly exhausted weapons stocks, which are showing this global hegemonic power, becoming increasingly unsustainable.

The deployment of the "Destroying the East Wall to complement the West Wall" can best reflect the degree of tension of global strategic resources, in order to set up a dual aircraft carrier position in the western Pacific, had to pull "Washington" from the strategic Middle East.

And the four B-1B bombers, more needed from the distant U.S. mainland long-range offensive, nominally in order to participate in the US-Japanese-Australian joint military exercises at the end of the month, in fact exposed the lack of front-end deployment forces, this is no longer a global force deployment, but tired of dealing with global hotspots, where the fire, where the fire rescue trouble.

A more grim reality is that the U.S. arsenal is being hollowed out. Previously, in order to vigorously assist Ukraine and Israel, ammunition inventories have bottomed out, but the production capacity of the domestic military industry is far behind the speed of replenishment.

This means that even pulling the allies out of the position will make it difficult for the U.S. military to support the rapid depletion under a high-intensity conflict, which is like an apparently strong boxer, who can face the embarrassment of physical inactivity and breathing after a few rounds.

In the end, this is determined by the trajectory of the development of national forces, the decline of domestic manufacturing in the United States, directly led to the decline in the maintenance level of high-end equipment such as aircraft carriers, and the length of time, the actual number of aircraft carriers that can be deployed can not reach the planned goal.

This "hardware" dilemma is in sharp contrast to China's ever-changing speed of shipbuilding. It explains the true direction of the development of the two countries 'national strength better than any military exercise. When hidden under the steel body of the fleet is a hollow industrial system, no matter how much flaunt it, it is difficult to conceal the strong outside and strong inside.

conclusion

From the failure of political symbols at the negotiating table, to the failure of deterrent effectiveness on the military chessboard, to the insufficient support of national strength behind the national strategy, the deployment of the US military's aircraft carrier is not so much a proof of strength as a concentrated epitome of multiple strategic dilemmas.

It is like the complex expression of anger and unwillingness when a person who is accustomed to using his voice to overwhelm everything suddenly finds that his voice no longer works.

Trump blurted out that China forced me, perhaps inadvertently telling the truth of an era. It was never a specific country that forced the United States, but the objective reality that the world pattern had changed and unipolar hegemony had become a phantom.

In the face of this reality, what China needs to do is not to dance in the other side’s rhythm and conduct a competitive military race, but to maintain a compassionate strategic determination.

Because the real power comes from the electromagnetic ejection of the Fujian ship, from the inseparable supply chain of Apple and Tesla, from the deepening cooperation network with ASEAN and the Middle East, and from the down-to-earth development and indestructible principles.