Beijing, March 25: Amid much trumpet about American military prowess, President Donald Trump’s campaign against Iran has stalled as Tehran maintains de facto control of the Strait of Hormuz. Beijing is watching US military operations closely and is drawing lessons for its own planning regarding Taiwan.
On March 3, the Chinese military’s international press account, China Military Bugle, listed five broad lessons from the Iran war: the deadliest threat is the enemy within; the costliest miscalculation is blind faith in peace; the coldest reality is the logic of superior firepower; the cruelest paradox is the illusion of victory; and the ultimate reliance is self-reliance.
The “enemy within” reflects Xi Jinping’s priority of rooting out corruption and enforcing ideological purity in the People’s Liberation Army (PLA). Recent purges have dramatically reduced the ranks of senior officers: among generals from 2022 or promoted since, an estimated 41 of 47 have been confirmed or likely purged. Xi aims to eliminate internal threats and ensure loyalty.
“Blind faith in peace” underscores China’s skepticism about relying only on diplomacy. Beijing has combined rhetoric with action: China’s 2026 defense budget rose 7% to RMB1.91 trillion (US$277 billion). The PLA’s priorities emphasize mechanization, informatization, intelligentization, and development of advanced weaponry.
The “logic of superior firepower” is illustrated by Israeli and US strikes showing rapid, intelligence-driven operations to overwhelm defenses. China’s defense priorities reflect this reality. The “illusion of victory” warns that tactical gains can produce long-term blowback and instability; the Trump campaign in Iran, with unclear strategic aims, offers an example as Iran tightened control over the Strait of Hormuz.
China treats Taiwan as a core interest and is intensifying preparations to bring it under Beijing’s control. Much attention has focused on 2027, a PLA milestone Xi linked to military-building goals ahead of the PLA’s 100th anniversary. But the US 2026 Annual Threat Assessment (issued March 14) judged that Chinese leaders do not currently plan to invade Taiwan in 2027 and have no fixed timeline for unification. The assessment noted Beijing insists unification is required by 2049, and that China will consider PLA readiness, Taiwan’s actions and politics, and possible US intervention when deciding whether and how to use force.
Observers have questioned apparent contradictions between China’s public deadlines and private planning. Thomas Shugart of CNAS noted the tension between Beijing’s repeated public insistence on 2049 and apparent lack of a fixed private timeline.
The Bugle’s final lesson—self-reliance—reflects China’s long-standing emphasis on strategic material security, including stockpiling critical resources. Around 45% of China’s oil transits the Strait of Hormuz, though only 13.4% comes from Iran. Moves such as the US lifting some sanctions on Russian oil, and China’s leverage over rare earths, have affected energy and economic dynamics.
China is not just absorbing strategic lessons at a broad level; it is studying operational details. Former CENTCOM commander Joseph Votel told The War Zone that China is tracking US counterfire responses, air tactics, target selection, and readiness and force-mobilization speed. How the US manages the Strait of Hormuz is directly relevant to Taiwan, where crossing contested waters would be essential in any PLA operation.
US redeployments from the Indo-Pacific to the Gulf—such as the 31st Marine Expeditionary Unit being sent from Okinawa to the Gulf—are being noted in Beijing as indicators of US force distribution and readiness impacts. Votel said China will observe what such shifts do to US readiness elsewhere.
PLA activity near Taiwan has also shifted. Aircraft sorties into Taiwan’s Air Defense Identification Zone and across the median line fell sharply: February sorties were less than half of February 2025 levels, with eleven days having no sorties. Some viewed this as preparatory or ominous. K. Tristan Tang of the National Bureau of Asian Research argues the decline likely reflects a reform in training toward joint operations rather than evidence of degraded readiness from purges. Between January 1 and March 11, the PLA conducted seven joint combat readiness patrols in 2026—comparable to previous years—suggesting training reform, not collapse, is the plausible cause.
China studies both the potential and limits of tactics like decapitation strikes. Charles Lyon Jones of the Lowy Institute noted China may learn from US-Israeli efforts to disrupt enemy command and government continuity, but warned that assassinating leaders and installing proxies can backfire—hardening resistance rather than securing compliance. The PLA has built a replica of Taipei’s presidential zone to practice such strikes, yet success in Iran warns that regime decapitation may not bring the desired political outcome.
Ground operations pose another sobering lesson. High-tech air campaigns can be swift, but ground campaigns are bloody even against weaker opponents. Trump’s reluctance to commit ground forces to Iran highlights the political and human costs of occupying territory—an important consideration for the PLA when contemplating a Taiwan invasion.
A crucial material lesson involves munitions and missile defenses. David Axe at the Australian Strategic Policy Institute points out the high rate of expenditure on interceptors and munitions in the Iran campaign. US and allied forces may have fired perhaps 2,000 expensive missile interceptors to defeat about 800 ballistic missiles Iran launched. THAAD and SM-3 interceptors—key defenses against advanced ballistic missiles—are in short supply and take years to replace. Axe argues this creates a 3–4 year window in which the gap between China’s offensive missile capabilities and US defensive interceptors will be widest—a tempting period for Beijing to consider action, as rebuilding interceptor inventories could take years.
If the US fails to decisively eliminate the Iranian regime, it may remain bogged down in the Middle East for years, entangling resources and degrading deterrent capacities elsewhere. Sam Roggeveen of the Lowy Institute warned the worst-case scenarios—escalation, proxy attacks, an extremist turn in Tehran, or civil war—would further entangle the US and deplete munitions that otherwise might deter China. That outcome could be advantageous to Beijing.
China will continue to watch both strategic lessons and tactical details from the Iran campaign—internal security and loyalty, the limits of diplomacy, the value of firepower, the risks of assuming victory, and the necessity of self-reliance—while assessing operational practices, readiness, and materiel constraints relevant to any action against Taiwan. (ANI)
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