Released on 16 January, the above over-100-page Report stresses that over recent years, China's military modernization has advanced by leaps and bounds, creating “a robust, lethal force with capabilities spanning the air, maritime, space and information domains which will enable China to impose its will in the region". Click here

Examples include China's first independently developed aircraft carrier in 2019, the Hong-20 nuclear-capable bomber, new cyber warfare capabilities and professionalized armed forces.

There are some areas where China threatens to surpass America — "and may have already done so", according to the Report. The first is with hypersonic weaponry — delivery vehicles capable of going Mach 5 or faster, singling out hypersonic glide vehicles with ballistic missiles. Additionally, China has probably made progress on kinetic energy weapons, including the anti-satellite missile system tested in July 2014.

More broadly, China remains a leader in precision-strike capabilities, especially with medium- and intermediate-range ballistic missiles — while the U.S. and Russia were barred from developing such systems under the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty, which President Trump recently vows to pull out of against Russia.

The DIA concluded that Chinese military modernization was not undertaken with a major global war in mind, but rather in preparation for further challenges to its regional efforts, potentially leading to a local war, particularly over Taiwan, which remains an overarching national interest.