Very bad.
Their most advanced stealth aircraft are warping, cracking and rusting, despite not having been in service for very long time.
Warships are poorly maintained and rust everywhere：
Sailors are poorly trained and unable to operate ships safely and correctly, often colliding with civilian ships, threatening waterway safety.
They lack real modern warfare testing, yet boast “combat experience” of bombing third world shepherds and farmers.
Military project management is a pure mess, with almost all projects experiencing delays and cost overruns
Corruption hidden but cannot be punished, prices of defense procurements were incredible, $90,000 was only to buy a bag of screws.
Yes, it’s that bad.
Lack of combat experience and up-to-date weapons are the 2 most obvious disadvantages of PLA comparing to the west.
While USAF is moving from 3rd gen fighters such as F16, F15 to 4th gen such as F22 and F35, PLAAF is still struggling replacing all of its 2nd gen grandpas:
I am not even trolling. There are huge amount of 2nd gen airplanes in PLAAF. The ones in above screenshot are J7s, which are essentially MiG-21 which was firstly in service in 1958, over 60 years old. In 2017, it was estimated that there are still more than 300 J7 in service.
This is H6, the only long range bomber PLAAF has now. It’s origin Tu-16 was firstly in service in 1955. It’s longest flight range is 7000KM, which means not being able to reach anywhere beyond 3500KM.
Comparing to B52, which has 16000KM of max range, H6 is too backward.
China has a target which is to fully mechanize PLAA in 2020, which means the mechanization rate of PLAA is not still not 100%.
Above pic is from an article in 2016 explaining why PLAA is not fully mechanized. Blue bars are US army, red ones are China, green ones are Russia.
US army has significantly more infantry combat vehicle, armored vehicles, and all kinds of helicopters.
China only wins in towed cannon and rocket vehicle.
PLAN has been greatly developed in the past decade, now it has 1 carrier in service, another one almost done, and 1 in the yard being built.
It also has the best destroyer yet, the type 055.
In terms of tonnage. PLAN is the second largest navel force in the world.
Although China already has J20, but since China has no needs nor intentions to invade other nations, it’s not the first priority.
PLAN is getting the most resources because China needs to protect its overseas interest. But still, comparing to the overwhelming USN, PLAN is still a baby.
