ANALYSIS: When it comes to China, the West can no longer afford to be second best

2027, the date U.S. commanders keep mentioning

A military readiness deadline for the People’s Liberation Army, cited by U.S. Indo-Pacific commanders—not a prophecy, but a planning goal that Beijing has set for itself. Taiwan, for its part, is ramping up its own budget accordingly.

The U.S. Indo-Pacific Command repeatedly cites a 2027 readiness deadline for the People’s Liberation Army—not necessarily a planned invasion date, but a military capability goal that Beijing is said to have set for itself internally.

Taiwan has responded accordingly. The Taiwanese Ministry of National Defense’s regular budget has reached an all-time high for fiscal year 2026—nearly $30 billion, or about 2.4% of GDP for the regular military alone, and more than 3% when including the Coast Guard and veterans’ affairs.

In May 2026, the Taiwanese parliament approved a special budget of $24.8 billion over eight years, exclusively for the acquisition of U.S. weapons.

The Chinese navy maintains a near-constant presence in the Taiwan Strait and around the outlying islands. “Gray zone” incidents—cut undersea cables, coast guard incursions near Kinmen, cyber operations—have intensified to the point of becoming routine, with no one outside the region taking notice anymore.

Semiconductors: The Invisible Weapon

More than 60% of the world’s most advanced semiconductors come from a single island. This is no longer a matter of Taiwanese sovereignty—it’s a matter of whether Western industry can continue to function.

Taiwan produces more than 60% of the world’s most advanced semiconductors, an industrial concentration unprecedented in modern history.

A blockade, a seizure, or even a simple prolonged disruption of this production would not be a regional shock. It would be a shock to American and European industry, and to any production line that depends on a chip manufactured there—that is, by 2026, just about every production line, from cars to weapons systems themselves.

It is no coincidence that war simulations conducted by U.S. research centers on a scenario of a Chinese invasion of Taiwan in 2026 show just how quickly the United States would deplete its current stockpiles of weapons—certain long-range precision munitions would be exhausted in less than a week of intense conflict.

One week. That is how long it would take to brutally reveal the scale of the problem—and the tragic irony of a scenario in which the very chip needed to produce new missiles would come, in part, from the very island one is trying to defend.

Twelve Consecutive Years of Record-High Defense Budgets

A country that, since 1947, has enshrined the renunciation of war in its Constitution has just approved its twelfth consecutive record-breaking defense budget. This is no mere anecdote—it is an entire nation cautiously but genuinely reevaluating its self-image.

The Japanese cabinet has approved a defense budget of 9.04 trillion yen (approximately $58 billion) for fiscal year 2026—a 3.8% increase from the previous year and the twelfth consecutive year of record-breaking budgets.

The symbolic threshold of 2% of GDP—long treated as an untouchable political red line—has been reached even before the scheduled deadline; total defense spending now stands at around 1.9% of GDP.

Even more significant: at the ruling party’s convention in April 2026, Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi signaled that a constitutional revision was imminent, with a proposal slated for 2027—the same year as China’s deadline for preparations regarding Taiwan. The coincidence has not gone unnoticed in Tokyo.

A significant portion of Japanese society remains committed to the pacifist principles of the postwar Constitution and advocates staying as far away as possible from any military involvement. This is a real, unresolved tension—but China’s growing military activity in the region, North Korea’s missile tests, and the crisis surrounding Taiwan have, according to analysts, made this security buildup virtually inevitable.

Neither an ally nor neutral—a calculated balance

India will not choose a side based on ideology. It will choose based on calculation—and that is precisely why it matters so much in this equation, regardless of which side hopes to have it on its side.

China’s rapid military modernization—hypersonic weapons, long-range missiles, and a constantly expanding navy and air force—poses a major security challenge for India, whose military balance vis-à-vis Beijing has deteriorated significantly in recent years.

New Delhi has invested heavily in modernizing its equipment, expanding its domestic defense production, and advancing its research programs—driven by the highly publicized “Make in India” initiative. But this ambition continues to face setbacks, particularly in cutting-edge technologies.

The Quadrilateral Security Dialogue—the Quad, comprising the United States, Japan, and Australia—has become an increasingly important component of India’s Indo-Pacific strategy, which focuses on maritime security, intelligence sharing, and military interoperability.

But let’s be honest: India will always prioritize its own internal balance of power, and its future relations with the Quad are unlikely to become fully militarized. New Delhi is playing its own game—neither a Western pawn nor a Chinese satellite. This is a factor that the West too often underestimates by viewing the world in terms of just two blocs.

700 billion versus 336 billion

Two doctrines of war are already clashing, even before a single shot is fired: on one side, artificial intelligence operating in a coordinated swarm; on the other, a doctrine that insists on keeping a human in charge of every critical decision. The outcome of this race could matter more than all the aircraft carriers combined.

The United States is projected to have invested more than $700 billion in artificial intelligence by 2026, while China—the world’s second-largest spender in this field—is projected to have spent approximately $336 billion that same year.

The 2026 U.S. budget includes, for the first time, a separate budget line item dedicated to artificial intelligence and autonomous systems—$13.4 billion for aerial drones, ground robotics, and maritime autonomy. A group dedicated to autonomous warfare has itself received a request for $54.6 billion.

Beijing prioritizes scale and swarming—systems like Atlas and robotic “wolf packs” on land exemplify integrated artificial intelligence for coordinated attacks. China’s doctrine of “intelligentized warfare” infuses AI into command, targeting, and logistics, relying on civil-military fusion to accelerate production.

The U.S. doctrine, on the other hand, emphasizes human judgment: machines handle routine tasks, but a human remains responsible for critical decisions. This is not a technical detail—it is a civilizational choice about what war is permitted to become, and it is precisely this distinction that should matter most to us in this race.

Africa, Rare Earths, and Patience as a Strategy

China doesn’t need to win a debate. It needs to remain the sole player at the table in sixteen, thirty, or fifty years. This is a form of diplomacy measured not in election cycles, but in generations.

While the West debates its values on social media, China is building infrastructure. It has been Africa’s top trading partner for sixteen consecutive years, with trade volume nearing $300 billion.

An agreement reached with the European Union on rare earths is reshaping part of global trade—a reminder that China controls an overwhelming share of the strategic materials on which the West’s own energy transition depends.

This is not geopolitical charity. It is a long-term investment in the dependence of others—China’s dependence on no one, and others’ dependence on China. Every port financed, every line of credit granted to a country the West has neglected, is a piece placed on a chessboard that Beijing has been playing on for longer than we’ve been paying attention.

46% of the global chemical industry, in a single set of hands

While the West built its prosperity on globalization, it allowed a structural dependency to take root in Asia—one it is now discovering to its cost—in the very munitions it would need to produce in the event of a protracted conflict.

The ammunition shortfall remains NATO’s weakest link—a fragmented, underutilized industrial base that has still not fully caught up with the demands of a prolonged war of attrition.

In a strategic blindness that became apparent in 2026, the Western defense industrial base allowed for a massive consolidation of its supply chain in Asia—and particularly in China, which today controls approximately 46% of global chemical sales and supplies more than 70% of the cotton fibers used by European ammunition manufacturers.

Let’s be frank: Europe has nonetheless increased its shell production capacity fivefold—almost eightfold—since 2022, aiming for 2.4 million units per year by 2026. This is real progress. Yet it is still not enough to keep pace with China.

It wasn’t for nothing

3.5% for defense alone, 1.5% for infrastructure and the industrial base—5% in total, a figure no one dared mention five years ago, and which the entire NATO alliance ultimately agreed to.

At the 2025 summit in The Hague, NATO member countries committed to investing 5% of their GDP annually in defense by 2035—a dramatic increase from the former 2% threshold, which had been in place for years but was not met by several members.

The figure is divided into two parts: 3.5% for military equipment and weapons, and 1.5% for military infrastructure, cybersecurity, and strengthening the defense industrial base.

Washington won’t be footing the bill alone this time. Some countries, notably Spain, were still struggling to meet the former 2% threshold—while the Czech Republic, Hungary, Slovenia, and the United Kingdom are slowly moving toward the new target.

We have to admit it: Trump didn’t invent the Chinese threat. He forced Europe to stop pretending it didn’t exist. That’s an important distinction, even for those who don’t like him—and I don’t particularly like him.

Criticizing the West from a Western Platform

Millions of people denounce the West’s failings every day on Western social media platforms, protected by Western laws, without ever risking a call from the police at three in the morning. Try doing the same thing in Beijing, Tehran, or Moscow, and see what becomes of your freedom of speech.

This is not an argument for silencing criticism—the West’s self-criticism is one of its strengths, not one of its weaknesses. It is an argument for naming it accurately.

There is no country where “Marg bar Âmrikâ”—death to America—has not only been tolerated but ritually chanted during Friday prayers since the 1979 Islamic Revolution, and where one can then openly criticize one’s own regime on social media without consequence. The Iranian authorities themselves sometimes present this slogan as targeting U.S. policy rather than the American people—the distinction exists, and it deserves to be noted. But the freedom to voice it publicly exists only on one side of that line.

This, precisely, is where the difference lies between the two camps that are taking shape: not perfection on one side versus absolute evil on the other, but the ability—or lack thereof—to correct oneself publicly without losing one’s freedom in the process.

Not an abstract question

Being number two in this century would be unlike anything Western history has ever seen. Not a one-off military defeat—but a complete redefinition of the rules of the game, written by someone else.

A West that loses the technological and industrial race to China is not merely losing market share. It is losing the power to set the standards—commercial, digital, and possibly military—under which future generations will live.

This is not a political-fiction scenario. It is the trajectory outlined by the combined effects of China’s pace of military acquisition, Western industrial dependence, the 2027 readiness deadline repeatedly cited by U.S. commanders themselves, and the race for military artificial intelligence that is already redefining the rules of combat.

And yet, a significant portion of the Western public debate continues to treat the issue as secondary, far behind the controversies of the day.

The Economy Before the Military, or Both at the Same Time

A tank without locally produced steel is nothing but a promise. A defense promise based on a supply chain controlled elsewhere is not defense—it is dependence disguised as sovereignty.

The 5% of GDP committed by NATO will be worthless if the raw materials to produce it continue to come from China. Rebuilding an industrial base—chemicals, rare earths, semiconductors—is a prerequisite, not an option, for the promised money to translate into actual capability.

That means decades of investment, not election cycles. It means accepting short-term costs for long-term resilience—the exact opposite of what Western politics usually rewards.

This is where Trump’s demand—as poorly phrased and unpopular as its tone may be—hits on something real: we can no longer afford to treat defense as a secondary budget line item while the other side has treated it as an absolute national priority for the past thirteen years.

Why This Text Is Not a Plea

I am not trying to convince anyone to wear a uniform or to hate a country. I am trying to document a trajectory before it becomes irreversible—and to do so without lying about my own side.

It must be stated one last time, clearly: nothing in this text advocates for the destruction of civilians, nor for unlimited escalation. What has historically been the West’s true strength is not its capacity to destroy—it is its capacity, imperfect but real, to wage war while seeking to limit the price paid by those who did not choose it.

This distinction is not a minor moral detail. It is what separates a civilization worthy of defense from one that is not.

No one knows exactly when the window will close. What we do know is that it’s already narrower than it was ten years ago, and that it’s shrinking at a rate five to six times faster than ours.

China doesn’t need to win a war to win this century. It needs the West to continue believing that it has time.

The 5% approved in The Hague, the 2.4 million shells targeted by Europe, the 30 billion Taiwanese committed this year, Japan’s twelfth consecutive record budget, the 700 billion U.S. dollars invested in military artificial intelligence—these are the first signs that part of the West and its allies have stopped believing that time is on their side. The question that remains is whether the rest will follow in time.

By Maxime Marquette, columnist