Beijing [China], March 25 (ANI): Amidst much trumpeting of American military prowess, President Donald Trump's attack on Iran seems to have bogged down as Tehran maintains de facto control over the Strait of Hormuz. All the while, Beijing is watching how the US military is prosecuting this war, and it will doubtlessly be applying principles to its own designs on Taiwan.

On 3 March, the Chinese military's official international press account, under the handle China Military Bugle, listed five broad lessons from the Iran war: the deadliest threat is the enemy within; the costliest miscalculation is blind faith in peace; the coldest reality is the logic of superior firepower; the cruelest paradox is the illusion of victory; and the ultimate reliance is self-reliance.

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Addressing each point in greater detail, one might argue that the first is a top priority of Chairman Xi Jinping. Through a long-running campaign against corruption - which intensified in recent months - Xi has winnowed the ranks of the People's Liberation Army (PLA).

The two highest-profile members removed recently were Central Military Commission members Generals Zhang Youxia and Liu Zhenli. In fact, of the figures who were PLA generals in 2022, or who were promoted to three-star ranks since then, an astonishing 41 of 47 have been confirmed as being or likely to have been purged. Xi is adamant about cleansing the threat from within and instilling ideological purity in the PLA.

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The second China Military Bugle point seems to highlight the vanity of relying solely on diplomacy. After all, Iran was supposed to be negotiating with the USA when it was attacked. Beijing is not just talking about national security, but it is aggressively acting on it. An example is the fact that China increased its 2026 defence budget by 7%, meaning the PLA will receive RMB1.91 trillion (US$277 billion) this coming year.

The third lesson the PLA highlighted is the reality of superior firepower. Israel and the USA are illustrating their ability to act swiftly on intelligence and to overpower the enemy's defences. Indeed, China's defence budget highlighted key priorities such as advancing development of PLA mechanization, informatization and intelligentization, as well as accelerating development of advanced weaponry and equipment.

It is more difficult to discern the meaning when the China Military Bugle's refers to the cruellest paradox being the illusion of victory. It may be an allusion to the fact that military operations can achieve tactical gains, but risk long-term blowback and regional instability.

Trump, for example, has not delineated clear strategic aims for his Iran campaign, and he has already created a strategic quagmire as Iran squeezed shut the Strait of Hormuz.

China describes Taiwan as a core interest, and it is working hard to conquer this outlying island. Much has been made of the 2027 milestone that Xi set for the PLA to "ensure the achievement of the 2027 centennial military building goal". Indeed, next year represents the PLA's 100th anniversary, but many have misinterpreted this benchmark as a Taiwan invasion deadline.

The USA confirmed in its 2026 Annual Threat Assessment of the US Intelligence Community, issued on 14 March, that next year does not mark an invasion deadline. It stated: "The Intelligence Community assesses that Chinese leaders do not currently plan to execute an invasion of Taiwan in 2027, nor do they have a fixed timeline for achieving unification."

It continued, "However, China publicly insists that unification with Taiwan is required to achieve its goal of 'national rejuvenation' by 2049 - the 100th year anniversary of the founding of the People's Republic of China. Beijing almost certainly will consider a variety of factors in deciding whether and how to pursue military approaches to unification, including PLA readiness, the actions and politics of Taiwan, and whether or not the US will militarily intervene on Taiwan's behalf." The US assessed that the PLA is making steady but uneven progress on capabilities to attempt to seize Taiwan and deter or defeat the USA.

Nonetheless, Thomas Shugart, Adjunct Senior Fellow with the Defense Program at the Center for a New American Security, commented, "One thing that I do find odd in the report is this set of statements: that China's leaders don't have a fixed timeline for achieving unification, but that they publicly insist (and they do, repeatedly) that unification is required by 2049. Because 2049 sure sounds like a fixed timeline, if a little further off. And lots of stuff (like a seizure of Taiwan if they don't cooperate) has to happen before then. So, is it that China's private planning doesn't match those public statements? I'm confused."

The fifth China Military Bugle lesson highlighted the criticality of self-reliance. This has been a priority for years, and was reiterated in the recently announced 15th Five- Year Plan when it mentioned "strategic material security". This means stockpiling critical resources and key commodities has become a matter of national security.

Around 45% of China's oil comes through the Strait of Hormuz, though Beijing gets just 13.4% of its oil from Iran. For those who argued Trump's attack on Iran was a mastermind campaign to hobble China, this was quickly exposed as an error when the American president cancelled sanctions on Russia, including oil exports to China and elsewhere. China already has enormous leverage over rare earths, forcing Trump to back down on tariffs last year.

These five points are broad in nature, but China will be watching at the granular level too. The War Zone website interviewed Joseph Votel, a former commander of the US Central Command (CENTCOM), about this. "Well, I think they're paying very close attention to this. They're learning how we respond to counterfire. They're very closely following our air tactics and how we're working with the Israelis on that. They're looking at the targets we're going after, and trying to understand the scheme of fires associated with all of this."

The former CENTCOM commander continued: "They'll be watching what our readiness rates are throughout all of this, and our ability to marshal forces and how quickly we can do this. So I think they're absorbing a lot just about how we're operating."

How the USA will deal with the Strait of Hormuz chokepoint is of particular relevance to the PLA, for China would need to cross the hurdle of the Taiwan Strait in any invasion of its democratic neighbour.

Another concern is the US moving troops and assets from the Indo-Pacific region to support operations against Iran. For example, the 31st Marine Expeditionary Unit, normally forward deployed to Okinawa, was dispatched to the Gulf region. Votel assessed, "I think they're paying attention to what this is doing to our readiness in other areas, frankly. We continue to move resources out of the Asia-Pacific, and they certainly are taking note of that."

There was alarm when the PLA dramatically decreased aircraft incursions into Taiwan's air defence identification zone and across the Taiwan Strait median line.

Total sorties in February were less than half of February 2025 levels, and there were even eleven days with no sorties whatsoever. Some saw it as China doing something sinister or preparing for an attack.

However, K. Tristan Tang, a Nonresident Fellow at the National Bureau of Asian Research, offered this viewpoint. "The decline in aircraft sorties likely reflects the PLA's ongoing efforts to explore and refine a new model of joint training." Further, Tang said the trend did not begin in February, as signs had already appeared in the second half of 2025, as air and naval activity around Taiwan gradually declined.

Tang added, "Some observers suggest that the PLA's combat readiness may have been significantly affected by recent purges. However, the pattern of joint combat readiness patrols does not support that explanation. Between January 1 and March 11, the PLA conducted seven joint combat readiness patrols in 2026, compared with nine in 2025 and seven in 2024."

He insisted, "If the PLA's combat readiness had been seriously degraded, we'd expect both the frequency and scale of these patrols to be smaller than in previous years. Taken together, the available evidence suggests that ongoing military training reform -particularly the transition toward joint training - may be the more plausible explanation for the recent decline in aircraft sorties around Taiwan."

Charles Lyon Jones, Research Fellow at the Lowy Institute, also highlighted, "For China, the US-led campaign may prove a valuable lesson in how to disrupt continuity of government and the military chain-of-command during an invasion of Taiwan. But it may yet become a cautionary tale of what can go wrong after a successful decapitation strike."

China intends to incorporate decapitation strikes against civilian leadership and the military chain of command into its strategy against Taiwan. The PLA even built a replica of Taipei's presidential zone. Yet, despite the Israel-US decapitation strike against Iran, Lyon Jones pointed out, "Assassinating a democratically elected leader and installing a Beijing proxy may not coerce Taiwanese into submission, but steel their resolve to fight the new occupiers."

He said, "If the US and Israel cannot succeed in changing the Iranian regime and gaining the support of the Iranian people, he will have little prospect of doing so in Taiwan."

But what if the PLA manages to land on Taiwan? One lesson is that high-tech air campaigns are deceptively easy, but that ground campaigns are bloody, even against an overmatched opponent. That will be alarming to the PLA, and is already witnessed in Trump's reluctance to commit ground troops to Iran.

Another detail China will be watching is the US expenditure of munitions. David Axe, writing for the Australian Strategic Policy Institute, stated, "The so-far lopsided conflict offers important lessons for the Asia-Pacific. It has revealed just how many munitions it takes to attack and defend during a back-and-forth bombardment."

Axe identified defensive weaponry as the issue. "Swatting down the majority of the roughly 800 ballistic missiles Iran has fired at bases and cities across the region, US and allied forces have expended perhaps 2,000 very expensive missile interceptors that US industry builds at rates far too low to immediately replenish inventories." THAAD and SM-3 interceptors, designed to target ballistic missiles, are in short supply.

Axe commented: "For China, a much bigger missile power than Iran ever was, that's an opportunity. THAAD and SM-3 interceptors are the best, and in some cases only, defences against the best Chinese ballistic missiles. Before 28 February, US forces had too few of their best interceptors to defeat a determined Chinese attack. Now they have even fewer, and it will be years before there's any prospect of that meaningfully changing, given that a THAAD missile ordered today will be delivered around 2030."

Axe believes the PLA has a window of 3-4 years when the missile gap between China's offensive missiles and American defensive ones will be widest. "That may be the best time for Beijing to strike," he warned. Axe concluded: "No, the US and its allies need interceptors if they hope to win a major war in the Pacific. Thanks to the war on Iran, they simply won't have enough interceptors for years to come. Victory in the east is less assured than ever."

If the USA can eliminate the Iranian regime once and for all, perhaps it could completely pivot to the Asian region. However, the US is likely to fail in this objective, leaving a running sore in the Middle East for years to come.

As Sam Roggeveen of the Lowy Institute remarked, "The worst case will be highly advantageous for Beijing. The US may have triggered a cycle of escalation that provokes Tehran to use thousands of cheap drones or even ground forces against one of its near neighbours; it may bring an even more repressive and extremist government to power that races to nuclear-weapons capability; or it may provoke a civil war and create a failed state. All these scenarios entangle the US further in the Middle East. And in the process, it will have expended precious stocks of munitions that will weaken its deterrent against China." (ANI)

(The above story is verified and authored by ANI staff, ANI is South Asia's leading multimedia news agency with over 100 bureaus in India, South Asia and across the globe. ANI brings the latest news on Politics and Current Affairs in India & around the World, Sports, Health, Fitness, Entertainment, & News. The views appearing in the above post do not reflect the opinions of LatestLY)