Royal Navy of the 21st century?

Beijing is massively arming itself, particularly in the maritime sector. The return of Asian naval power is challenging the West - once again.

China also has the potential to overtake the USA militarily. Photo: US Navy

It's over. It's over. Taiwan can no longer be defended. At least not militarily. China is too strong. Now also for the United States. This is how one could summarise the Pentagon's conclusion. The US Department of Defence has already simulated the defence against a Chinese invasion of Taiwan eighteen times. Eighteen times the simulation ended in defeat for the Americans.
How could it come to this? Is the mighty US Navy with its large aircraft carrier battle groups no longer able to control the Taiwan Strait? This strait, only 180 kilometres wide, between the Chinese mainland and the small Taiwanese island state? Isn't the USA the most powerful military force in the world? At least the latter is still true - but only globally and no longer regionally. Russia has already demonstrated this with its wars in Georgia, Ukraine and Syria. China could be tempted to demonstrate this with Taiwan.
Beijing has successively created the conditions for this. Asia's most powerful military machine has been systematically built up. Every year it grows by the size of the entire British armed forces. Its budget has increased twelvefold since 1999. It now exceeds Japan's defence budget by a factor of six and India's by a factor of four. And China has the resources not only to become economically stronger than the USA, but also militarily - not least due to the potential to finance higher expenditure in future than the world's leading military power to date.