EDWARDS AIR FORCE BASE, Calif. -- The rapid modernization of the People’s Liberation Army under Chairman Xi Jinping served as context for a risk management-themed briefing by Brig. Gen. Doug Wickert, 412th Test Wing commander, during Monday’s Back-in-the-Saddle Day.
During the in-person and virtual brief from the base theater, Wickert said years of persistent
Chinese Communist Party cyber espionage, to include malware inside U.S. critical infrastructure such as electrical, water and transportation systems, has left America and its allies vulnerable. “There are now at least a dozen telecom companies that have acknowledged being infected,” he said, leaving the U.S. susceptible to surveillance of senior government officials and associated government networks.
“The CCP now knows who my government phone has talked to for at least the last four years, and they’re still there and we can’t get them out,” he said. “That’s uncertainty. That’s risk. And it makes for a very, very dangerous world right now.”
Wickert said the pace of modernization that the PLA is going through is also “unprecedented and far outpacing” similar efforts by the United States.
On Dec. 26, the PLA revealed two new combat aircraft to commemorate the birthday of Chinese Communist Party founder Mao Zedong. In relation to U.S. assets stationed west of the international dateline, by 2027 the PLA is expected to have numerical superiority of approximately 12 to one in modern fighter aircraft (including five to three in fifth-generation aircraft) and three to one in maritime patrol aircraft. The PLA’s 225 manned bombers are uncontested in the region. On the sea, the PLA enjoys an advantage of three to one in aircraft carriers and amphibious assault ships, more than six to one in modern submarines (including two advanced subs) and nine to one in modern multi-warfare combatant vessels.
In mid-December the PLA navy surrounded Taiwan in an unannounced exercise, the world’s largest naval demonstration since the end of World War II. The exercise was three times larger in number of ships than last June’s vaunted Rim of the Pacific exercise involving 40 U.S. and allied surface ships.
“We are the smallest and oldest that we have ever been,” Wickert said. “The PLA is the largest and most modern that it has even been. That is risk. That is uncertainty.”
During December’s exercise the PLA skirted Taiwan’s territorial waters, conducted mock ariel attacks on shipping and formed a two-deep naval blockade to restrict sea and air approaches from the west.
In other preparations for conflict, the PLA has carved into the sands of the Gobi Desert an airfield replicating the runways, taxiways and parking ramps of Taiwan’s Taichung International Airport. 300 miles further west is a flat full-scale profile of a U.S. Navy Gerald R. Ford-class aircraft carrier. It lays among other U.S. ship profiles and near mock U.S. destroyers that weave evasively through the desert on rails.
“Do you think we know what they’re doing, what they’re planning?” Wickert said. “Based on what you know now, can you update your assessment of the risk to the world and how important our mission is?
“And that’s why what we are doing here at Edwards Air Force Base is so very important, because we are developing and modernizing and doing those things that will change Chairman Xi’s calculus …. We cannot afford to have to take a step backward because we have a mishap. Our mission is too important.”
Pointing to a projection of the B-21 Raider, he said, “This is one of the many, many things that you are working on right here that will change Chairman Xi’s calculus about our readiness.” With an initial order of 100 aircraft and more expected after that, the nation’s newest stealth bomber will be the backbone of Global Strike Command’s bomber fleet, and incrementally replace the B-1 Lancer and B-2 Spirit.
Wickert’s messaged mirrored a
popular crowd moment from his
November 2024 Town Hall in which he stared directly into the broadcast camera and said, “…I hope Chairman Xi … he’s got people that translate, and so I want him to know that the men and women of Edwards Air Force Base are doing their war-time mission right now. They are accelerating Test. They are delivering integrated capability to the warfighter.”
And then gesturing over his shoulder to a similar image of the Raider, he said, “Today is not the day to start World War III, because we have this.”
