China builds massive missile force to keep US out of Taiwan fight

China has has spent decades building a land-based missile force designed to keep the United States out of a war over Taiwan, and U.S. officials say it now threatens every major airfield, port and military installation in the Western Pacific.

As Washington rushes to build its own long-range fires, analysts warn that land has become the most overlooked – and potentially decisive – part of the US-China standoff. Interviews with military experts show that the fight is determined not by tanks or troop movements, but by the range of missiles, access to bases and whether U.S. forces can survive the opening salvos of a war that could begin long before any aircraft take off.

“The People's Liberation Army Missile Force… is producing an increasing number of short-, medium- and long-range missiles,” Seth Jones of the Center for Strategic and International Studies told Fox News Digital. “They have the ability to shoot those on the first and increasingly the second island chain.”

For years, Chinese officials believed they could not match the United States' air superiority. The workaround was missile forces: a massive ground-based firepower designed to shut down U.S. bases and keep U.S. aircraft and ships out of combat.

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“They didn’t think they could achieve air superiority in direct air-to-air combat,” said Eric Heginbotham, a research fellow at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. “So you need another way to deliver missiles—and that other way is to build a lot of ground-based launchers.”

The result was the world's largest stockpile of theater missiles, backed by durable underground structures, mobile launchers, and quick fire and escape tactics designed to overwhelm U.S. defenses.

Despite China's numerical superiority, US forces still have advantages that Beijing cannot yet match, especially in the areas of targeting and survivability.

American missiles, from Tomahawks to SM-6s and future hypersonic weapons, are linked into a global surveillance network that the People's Liberation Army cannot yet replicate. American targeting relies on satellites, underwater sensors, stealth drones and shared control capabilities honed over decades of combat experience.

“The Chinese haven’t fought a war since the 1970s,” Jones said. “We see a lot of problems with their ability to conduct joint operations between different services.”

The United States, by contrast, has created multi-domain task forces in the Pacific to integrate cybersecurity, space, electronic warfare and precision fires—a level of coordination China has yet to demonstrate, analysts say.

Jones said China's defense industry also faces major headwinds.

“Most (Chinese defense enterprises) are state-owned enterprises,” he said. “We see huge inefficiencies, quality of systems… we see a lot of maintenance problems.”

However, the United States faces its own problem in the near term: its missile stockpile.

“We're still right now … running out of (long-range ammunition) in about a week or so of conflict over, say, Taiwan,” Jones said.

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Washington is trying to close the gap by rapidly expanding production of ground-based weapons. New army systems – Typhon launchers, a highly mobile artillery missile system, batteries, precision strike missiles and long-range hypersonic weapons with a range exceeding 2,500 kilometers, are designed to keep Chinese forces at risk from much greater distances.

Heginbotham said the shift is finally happening on a large scale.

“We're buying anti-ship missiles like there's no tomorrow,” he said.

If current plans continue, U.S. forces will field about 15,000 long-range anti-ship missiles by 2035, up from about 2,500 today.

China's missile strategy is built on crushing US bases in the early stages of a conflict. Meanwhile, the United States relies on a layered air defense system: Patriot batteries to protect airfields and logistics hubs, Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) interceptors to defeat high-altitude ballistic missiles and Destroyers with the Aegis system which can intercept missiles far from shore.

Heginbotham warned that the US would need to expand this defensive structure.

“We really need a lot more and more diverse missile defense systems and preferably cheaper missile defense systems,” he said.

One of Washington's greatest advantages is its ability to strike long distances from beneath the ocean. U.S. submarines can launch cruise missiles from virtually anywhere in the Western Pacific without relying on allied bases or exposing the launchers to Chinese fire, a degree of stealth that China does not yet possess.

Command integration is another area where Beijing continues to struggle. US units regularly train in multi-domain operations that integrate air, sea, cyber, space and ground fires.

Jones and Heginbotham noted that the People's Liberation Army has much less experience coordinating forces across the services and continues to struggle with doctrinal and organizational problems, including a dual commander-political commissar structure within its missile brigades.

Alliances may be the most significant difference. Japan, the Philippines, Australia and South Korea provide depth, intelligence sharing, logistics hubs and potential launch points for US forces.

China does not have a comparable network of partners, allowing it to operate in a much narrower geographic space. In missile warfare, accuracy, integration and survivability often matter more than sheer volume—and in these areas the United States continues to have significant advantages.

This competition is based on geography. Missiles matter less than the locations from which they can be launched, and China's ability to project power beyond its coastline remains sharply limited.

“They have a lot of trouble projecting power right now,” Jones said. “They don't have many bases beyond the first island chain.”

The United States faces its own version of this problem. The Army and Marine Corps' long-range fire requires permission from the host nation, turning diplomacy into a form of firepower.

“It’s absolutely important,” Heginbotham said. “You really need a regional base.”

Recent U.S. agreements with the Philippines, as well as increased cooperation with Japan and Australia, reflect a desire to locate U.S. launch sites close enough to make a difference without permanently stationing large ground forces there.

A land conflict between the US and China will not involve armored columns maneuvering across the area. The crucial question is whether missile units on both sides can fire, move and fire again before becoming a target.

China has invested heavily in survivability, dispersing its teams across underground bunkers, tunnels and hardened sites. Many can quit and move in a matter of minutes. Mobile launchers, decoys and deep storage complexes make them difficult to neutralize.

American launchers in the Pacific will face intense Chinese surveillance and long-range missile attacks. After two decades focused on counterterrorism, the Pentagon is now reinvesting in deception, mobility and secure infrastructure—capabilities critical to surviving the early stages of a missile war.

Any U.S. involvement in the Taiwan conflict would also force Washington to confront the politically charged question of whether to target missile bases on the Chinese mainland. This may lead to an escalation of the situation; avoiding this incurs operating costs.

“Yes… you can protect Taiwan without striking bases inside China,” Heginbotham said. “But you are giving away a significant advantage.”

Containment can help prevent the conflict from widening, but it also allows China to keep firing.

“The reality of conflict in the nuclear age is that almost any conflict will be limited in some way,” Heginbotham said. “The question then becomes where those boundaries are drawn: can you prevent them from spreading? What compromises are you willing to make?”

The clash between the US and China on land will not be fought by massive armies. This will be a missile war defined by geography, alliances and survivability—a competition in which political access and command integration matter as much as raw firepower.

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For the United States, the challenge is clear: build enough long-range missiles, secure the bases needed to use them, and keep the launchers under fire. For China, the question is whether its vast missile arsenal and continental depth can compensate for deficiencies in coordination, command structure and actual combat experience.

The side that can shoot, move, and maintain fire the longest will control the land holdings and can influence the outcome of the war in the Pacific.

This is the third part of a series comparing the military capabilities of the United States and China. Feel free to check out previous stories comparing sea And air possibilities.