America’s defense establishment has watched threats from Beijing rapidly grow in multiple areas, including recent hypersonic missile tests, an expanding nuclear arsenal, strides in space and cyber and seemingly daily threats to Taiwan.

“We’re witnessing one of the largest shifts in global geo-strategic power the world has witnessed,” Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Gen. Mark Milley said Wednesday when speaking about China’s recent military advances…

“Today [China] has capabilities in space and cyber, land, sea, air, undersea, and they are clearly challenging us regionally. … So we have a case here of a country that is becoming extraordinarily powerful, that wants to revise the international order to their advantage. That’s going to be a real challenge over the coming years. In the next 10, 20 years. That’s going to be really significant for the United States.”

That view was reflected in the Pentagon’s latest report on China’s military power, released Wednesday, that details a country that is aggressively building its nuclear stockpile, developing new missile capabilities and bolstering its armed forces, even in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic.