Despite years of warnings and attempts at decoupling, the US defense industrial base remains dependent on China. A new report from data analytics firm Govini paints a grim picture of the US defense sector Which raises the question of whether the US can truly contend with China, or is it stuck in its rival’s supply chain?The report shows that Chinese companies supply nearly one in ten critical components for major US defense programs, including missile defense, nuclear systems and space technology.
This highlights how deeply Beijing’s industries are intertwined with US military supply chains. China’s active role in the US defense sector can be gauged from the fact that according to Govini’s National Security Score released this week, In 2024, Chinese companies will account for 9.3 percent of primary contractors for US defense programs in nine critical sectors. All of these are tier-1 suppliers. These sectors include aviation, maritime, command and control systems, nuclear, missile defense, and space.
Apart from this, the missile defense sector to protect the US from attacks had the highest reliance on China, with 11.1 percent of Tier-1 suppliers being Chinese. Even for the nuclear sector, the US relied the most on Chinese suppliers at 7.8 percent. “If China declares war and says war starts today, the US is not ready for it yet,” Govini CEO Tara Dougherty was quoted as saying by the South China Morning Post. He said, “It cannot be said with certainty whether eliminating China from the supply chain is the right goal or not.”