China builds another Combined-Arms Mechanized Infantry Brigade

via China Defense Blog

ZBL09, ZSL10 and ZTL11 have arrived - so this is becoming another 8x8 Light Combined-Arms Mechanized Infantry Brigade.
HQ-7B's have arrived, most likely 1 company of 3 launchers, as part of the AD battalion

They go on to state in the very brief article that it will belong to the 20th Group Army Central Command.

On a side note.  We have enough information from China Defense and other open source blogs on the Chinese military to build a pretty good order of battle.  It might be something worth doing on a lazy Sunday.

Having said that the focus for me turns to the type of units that the Chinese are building.  I admit that their focus is entirely within their region but I fully expected to see the paratroops and Marine Corps expand.

We aren't seeing that.

I don't know if this is Asian practicality or stubbornness but they're continuing to modernize their conventional forces.  They live in the region but they're not pumping out units built to fight in Mega Cities, not pushing for more amphibious vehicles (although they are working on landing craft...what the modern day Marine Corps call "surface connectors"...what an idiotic rebranding!) but simply developing forces to kill us in a standup fight.

Why is that interesting?

Because they sought to match us when it comes to stealth aircraft.  They're building aircraft carriers to match us.  They have anti-ship ballistic missiles to defeat our capital ships.

But on the ground?

They're not looking to develop anything fancy.  They're just gonna come at us head on with nothing more fancy than vehicles that mirror our own, and maybe might be a little less powerful.

That should worry us all.

Why?

Because that indicates on a man for man level they believe that they're better than us.  That was once Marine Corps thinking.  We could use old vehicles/equipment but individually we were better than the enemy.  More capable, and able to make up for material differences with the quality of our personnel.

In every other domain the Chinese are looking to either match or exceed our capabilities.  When it comes to ground combat they're happy with where they're at.