Mick Ryan
There’s probably no foreign leader who is paying more, is looking more intently about Putin’s experience in Ukraine over the last 11 and a half months than Xi Jinping. I think he was surprised and unsettled, to some extent, by the very poor performance of the Russian military, of many Russian sophisticated weapon systems as well, and trying to draw the lessons from that about his own military modernisation and on specific issues like Taiwan. CIA Director Burns, 2 February 2023, J. Raymond “Jit” Trainor Award Ceremony, Georgetown University.
Just as Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine provided China with a real time laboratory on the political and military lessons of modern war, so too the current U.S.-Israeli war against Iran is providing Beijing with real-time insights into how American power is exercised. This includes the military domain, how U.S. alliances function under stress, and how the information environment shapes perceptions of conflict. For President Xi Jinping, who has talked constantly about China’s unfinished business in Taiwan, the lessons are crucial.
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