China’s Military Just Got a BRUTAL Wake-Up Call From Iran… Xi Didn’t Expect This

It's full on panic stations in China. President Xi Jinping has just watched the military that he has spent decades building get the most brutal wake up call imaginable. Xi never expected this. When the US started bombing Iran, he thought China was safe. But what Xi has seen terrifies him, because it tells the Chinese president one very important thing. China isn't ready. It isn't ready for the military might that the US has just proven it can bring to bear,

which will terrify Xi, as analysts believe he'll be ready to launch his invasion of Taiwan in 2027. But China also isn't ready for the geopolitical storm that it would face if it ever went to war with the US. We'll be covering the geopolitical aspect later in the video, but on the military side of things, the US has shown us several things during its short war with Iran that will have Xi shaking in his boots. First up, the US has proven that it can blind the eyes of an entire nation ahead of its

attacks. That's what it did in Iran, as intelligence analyst and cyber security expert Ryan McBeth reveals in a video posted to YouTube. The US was able to coordinate air, space, and cyber actions designed to disrupt sensor networks as well as command and control, leaving Iran with a reduced capability to see and coordinate and respond, Macbeth says.

Indeed, the first few hours of the joint US and Israeli strikes in Iran were characterized not by the bombs and missiles dropping, but by a coordinated effort to shut down Iran's systems, thus improving the chances of the US finding its targets without Iran being able to do anything about it. Lawfare Media says these cyber operations were key to the early elimination of Iran's Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, as they allowed

the US and Israel to determine when Khamenei would be meeting with key senior officials, providing the perfect timing for strikes. Other cyber and intelligence operations ensured that the US had shut down a huge portion of Iran's air defence network before it sent its bombers and fighter jets into the arena. By the time Iran was even able to think about a response, thousands of targets had been destroyed and Iran was already on the back foot. We'll be coming back to the scale of America's attack in a minute,

but in shutting down Iran's eyes and ears, the US showed China exactly what it would do in the event of a war between the two nations. This doesn't only matter for the power and scale of the US strikes, it's also a problem for responses. If you're a crew on an anti-ship missile team and nobody's on the other end of the phone telling you to fire and where to fire, you're not going to fire, Macbeth says. And that's the point of what the US did in Iran that Xi has to take very seriously. You can build one of the strongest arsenals of missiles, as China is believed to have done. On the Intercontinental Ballistic Missile Front alone, Newsweek says that China has 550 launchers

and about 400 missiles, but none of that matters when command and control have been shut down so effectively that the operators at these sites, and China's many other launch sites, can't communicate with military leadership. This is bad news for Xi in a fight with the US. It's even worse for Xi when you bring Taiwan, which is Xi's most likely target, into the mix. As Macbeth explains, China's plan for Taiwan is less about landing soldiers on the beaches, though it will try to do that. The plan is to bombard Taiwan with missiles and for that, command and control have to be working properly. The US proved in Iran that it can shut down all of that before it even launches

an attack and that is a brutal wake-up call for Xi. Now we mentioned targets a moment ago. That brings us to the second issue that Xi faces after what the US has done in Iran, pure shock and awe. With Iran's eyes and ears shut down, the US overwhelmed Iran's entire military infrastructure. The US showed that it can scale up day one to strikes so massive that they hit around a thousand targets right off the bat. After about a week of the conflict, Breaking Defense

is reporting that the US has conducted more than 3,000 strikes against Iran, hitting 43 of its ships in the process. Beyond the command and control centres we have already mentioned, the US has hit Iranian drone and missile manufacturing and launch sites, to the point where according to some sources, Iran's drone launches are now down 83% and its ballistic missile attacks are down 90% compared to the first attempts that Iran made to respond. This sheer scale is a message to anybody who may cross the US in the future. The US strikes on a scale that nobody thought possible.

Instead of a hurricane followed by a tidal wave like an Operation Desert Storm, we give the adversary a thousand tornadoes on the first night, is how Macbeth categorises it. He's right. The US has demonstrated its ability to coordinate its jets and bombers with its space, cyber, and naval divisions, which showcases the sort of combat-tested capabilities that China simply doesn't have. Xi may think that China could do

something similar, but China's enormous military hasn't been tested at any point during the modern era. The US has proven what it can do in Iran. And that means Xi knows that the US could do it all again to China if he's foolish enough to launch an invasion of Taiwan that gets the US involved. There's a lot more, as we'll be covering as we move through the video. Next on the list is America's long-range stealth capabilities. Though the US is now taking a sledgehammer approach to shattering Iran using its old non-stealth bombers, the initial hours of the war saw the US deploy its B-2 Spirit stealth bombers. Those bombers

conducted surgical strikes right under the collective nose of Iran's air defences, which is impressive enough. However, it's the sheer range of this stealth assault that will have grabbed Xi's attention. America's B-52 bombers completed 37-hour round-trip flights from the continental US to Iran to carry out precision strikes against several of Iran's facilities during the initial hours of the campaign. They were kept in the skies due to the US having a large

fleet of aerial refuelling tankers. Think about what this means to Xi. He now knows that US pilots are trained to such a high level that they can fly for about a day and a half with no stops, still carry out their strikes perfectly, and then get back home. There is no China is out of range that comes into the equation here. If the US decides to bomb China, as it might in the event of an invasion of Taiwan, there's nothing that China can do about the B-2s outside of hoping that its air defences, which have already been mitigated by the US strategy of shutting down China's eyes and ears, could do something about them.

Does China have a similar capability? It has the H-20, possibly. That's a stealth bomber designed to rival the best that the US has, but Aerospace Global News reports that the bomber dropped off the radar, figuratively speaking, in 2025, and it will be at least a few years before it can pose any sort of threat to the US. And even if it was available today, we come back to the point we made earlier. The US just proved what its stealth bombers can do in Iran. Chinese capability is mostly theoretical right now, so Xi has to deal with the fact that he knows that the US has long-range stealth, but he isn't truly certain that he can say

that China can match the US in that department. And somehow it gets even worse for Xi. So far we've covered how the US has proven itself time and time again on the military front. It can hit thousands of targets in a matter of days, deploy long range stealth, and shatter the eyes and ears of an opponent. However, there's a far more existential threat that is presented to Xi by what the US has done in Iran, and it's something that we briefly mentioned earlier, Ali Khamenei is dead. That changes everything about how Xi has to approach any war that could potentially prompt US involvement. And

by the way, there's a lot more where this came from, so if you're getting value from the military show, make sure you are subscribed to the channel. What the US has shown Xi in Iran is that it will target a country's senior leadership from the moment that a conflict arises. Macbeth explains, stating, "...the initial wave was synchronized with an Israeli strike at Iran's supreme leader. The takeaway here is that US intelligence decides if it wants to help an ally find something that's extremely well protected. It can, at least sometimes."

So that raises some interesting questions for Xi. Can China protect its senior leadership? Iran couldn't, and we know that Iran had a huge network of underground bunkers designed for that very purpose. China may have something similar, but it knows that the US and Israel can hit them anyway. All it takes is for the US to learn about one meeting, one moment of exposure, and then it's done. Xi would be out of the picture, and he knows it. But it gets even worse for China's president. The US and Israel have shown that they're

not stopping at the top of the food chain. Political and military leaders all across Iran have been eliminated in vast airstrikes targeted at the country, which means Xi can't even rely on others to continue his work if the US comes calling with missiles and bombs. As Sky News reports, Israel claims that about 40 of Iran's top military commanders were taken out of the picture during the initial wave of strikes with the US. Right now, Iran has already selected a new supreme leader. After a brief period in which

a three-person interim council assumed the duties of leadership, the Assembly of Experts moved quickly to appoint Moitaba Khamenei, the son of the late Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. But that just means the Assembly of Experts now has a big jar of paint and a brush ready to paint a target onto somebody else's back. If Xi went down to similar strikes, would anybody in China even want the job while the US is on the attack? What Xi is seeing in Iran is a coordinated effect to decapitate an entire country's regime, and it's working. For Xi, the timing couldn't be worse, because he has been chopping away

at the top of China's military structure for some time now. On March 3rd, the BBC reported that China had removed three experienced military generals, Gao Jin, Liu Lei, and Han Weiguo from a top political advisory board. Just three days before that, on February 27th, the BBC also reported that China had removed 19 officials, including nine who served in the People's Liberation Army, as Xi looked to consolidate yet more power. After what's happened in Iran, Xi might be looking at these

moves as major mistakes. Experienced officials have been removed, likely to be replaced by toadies who'll do exactly what Xi tells them. That's fine for Xi while he's alive and in power, but what happens when he's gone due to the US sending a bomb right into one of his bunkers? China's entire military and political structure collapses, just as we're seeing in Iran. Still, China has something going for it. Like Iran, China has a missile-based strategy that it can use to fend off the US, and there's no denying that China is stronger in this department than Iran, as it's been building massive missile stockpiles in preparation for its

Taiwan invasion, as well as to defend itself against attacks. You mentioned China's ballistic missile stockpiles earlier. Iran has massive stockpiles of its own, with some in Israel believing the country was on course to amass 8,000 ballistic missiles by 2027, prior to the US and Israeli strikes. Taking out command and control centers has drastically reduced Iran's ability to launch, but it hasn't eliminated that ability entirely.

Xi will be relying on that fact to prop up his own missile-based strategy. However, China will also need to defend its launch sites, as the US has shown a propensity for striking Iran's sites. For Xi's ambition of invading Taiwan this is a very bad thing. That means those Chinese ballistic missile sites will need surface-to-air protection, Macbeth explains, adding. That means fewer units can be deployed to Taiwan to actually

cover the invasion. It also means that these ballistic missile units are a lot less mobile. China will get painted into a corner, just like Iran was on the surface to air missile from. It needs to keep moving its launchers because every missile strike attempted gives off a massive signature that can be used to target the launchers soon after. The problem this presents for China is that its launchers spend more time on the move than they actually do firing, which means Xi's missile capacity is degraded without the US even necessarily having to fire shots. Fear of the response would mean that China's past plans of overwhelming an

enemy with missile attacks would have to be shelved in favor of less frequent strikes and a whole lot of movement. Plus, China offers up a lot of targets to the US. Beyond the 550 intercontinental ballistic missile launchers that we mentioned, Business Insider reports the Pentagon believes that China has 300 medium-range ballistic missile launchers. Add 150 launchers for ground-launched cruise missiles, 250 launchers for short-range ballistic missiles, and 300 for intermediate-range ballistic missiles, and you get a total of 1,550 ballistic missile launchers.

That amounts to a lot of targets for the US to hit. For China, having so many launchers does mean that it would be able to keep up a missile-focused strategy longer than Iran. However, that strategy would be degraded constantly as the US has shown that it prefers to strike the archer rather than the arrows. In other words, and we said the same about command and control centres, missiles don't mean much when you don't have launchers you need to send them flying. Add everything that we've covered up to now and you get a whole lot of military challenges that now stare Xi in the face as he watches what the US is doing in Iran. China's

president knows that making any moves that lead to US involvement would lead to his country facing the same shock and awe type of strategy, and though China is in a much better position to absorb the brunt of this strategy than Iran, there's another element that will have Xi shaking in his boots. Iran has shown Xi that the US taking the power-based approach to building global geopolitical influence has worked. In response to the US strikes on its territory, Iran has been attacking US bases and military-adjacent targets in the Gulf region. On March 8th,

CNBC noted that Bahrain, Kuwait, the United Arab Emirates and several other states that Iran classifies as allies of the US, have been attacked with drones and missiles. This is a miscalculation by Iran. It's attempting to bully these states as its entire military infrastructure crumbles, and the approach could end up solidifying US allegiances in the Gulf region rather than ruining them. Iran is turning itself into a geopolitical martyr because it's trying to hurt the US by attacking other countries. Xi knows that China would find itself in a very similar position if it went to war with

the US, as Macbeth explains. Within a few days of this conflict, more allies are starting to realize that Iran is an existential threat to the Middle East, and China should take notice of that, Macbeth says. He points out that the US military has bases in South Korea and Japan, along with rotational bases in Australia and the Philippines. Xi would have to strike these bases in an attempt to weaken the US attack should war ever come.

But all that achieves is bringing those four nations into the fight, giving China an even bigger problem to deal with. Imagine that all of this happens as a result of Xi following through on his plan to invade Taiwan. What should be an invasion of a small island nation would lead to China fighting Taiwan and the US. And in attempting to battle back against the US, China invites more powerful nations into the war, all of which will oppose it.

As for allies, Russia is thousands of miles away and may well remember that China hasn't directly supported it in its Ukraine invasion. Iran is already being turned into a non-factor, and China's approach of building geopolitical influence through investment isn't going to be enough to convince small countries to get involved in such a massive fight. What we see here are two divergent geopolitical strategies at play. The US is focused on might, as seen by the hundreds of military bases it's built around

the world.

According to Al Jazeera, the US has around 750 bases spread across 80 countries. China, on the other hand, has one publicly acknowledged military base outside of its own territory, which is in Djibouti, and serves more as a logistics base than anything else. China has instead focused on plowing billions of dollars into helping smaller nations develop, which is fine as a very long-term plan, but it's not going to do much for China in 2027 if it does choose to invade Taiwan and the US gets involved. What China has left itself with is a situation where it gets pinned into

its own territory by a country that has bases in many major nations that surround China, and just like we see with Iran, those bases would be a target for China, which only stirs up geopolitical tensions more, resulting in a war that spirals well out of Xi's control. Perhaps the diplomat puts it best, as it stated on March 7th, Having tracked China's regional partnerships over the last decade, we have found that Beijing's influence consistently peaks at signing ceremonies and fades when security risks arise. Beijing has built a Middle East strategy centered on influence without military presence,

the outlet reports. We're seeing that right now in Iran, as China isn't rushing to do much of anything to help what is supposed to be one of its more powerful allies. What message does that send to the many countries that are much smaller than Iran, militarily speaking, about what China would do for them if they got drawn into a war with the US? It doesn't send a great message, and it means that China's money-based strategy of influence pales in comparison to what the US offers its allies. Security and power are everything in a wartime scenario. China offers neither to its many partners and allies, and Xi

knows it. What's happening in Iran has proven it. China's inaction speaks louder than any of the money that it distributes. Sooner or later, Macbeth says, China will be forced to strike a non-aligned nation in a war with the US, just as Iran has been. And when that happens, Xi will wake up to the fact that the US has allies that will fight. As for China, not so much.

With nobody on his side outside of his own country, Xi is watching Iran and seeing the ghost of wartime future if he picks a fight with the US. An invasion of Taiwan would amount to just that, and the wake-up call that Iran has delivered to China over little more than a week may just force Xi to completely reconsider everything that he's been planning for years. Xi knows that the US has a strategy that works. He also knows

that the US has a plan to crush China, as we reveal in our video. Check it out if you want to learn more, and if you enjoyed this video, make sure you're subscribed to the Military Show, as we dissect war scenarios like this one every single week. subscribed to the Military Show, as we dissect war scenarios like this one every single week. And thank you as always for watching.