America let its military-industrial might wither. China's is booming.

Adapting to the dual challenge of China's military and its economy has been a focus of U.S. administrations for years. America is losing ground.
Modern warfare is a contest of industrial might, as Russia's invasion of Ukraine has shown. Both sides are burning through arsenals of artillery shells, rockets and military vehicles. Automated factories now spit out drones day and night. Even an old-fashioned howitzer requires precision manufacturing.
The U.S. won World War II in part by producing more of everything—from bullets to food—than its enemies. One California shipyard in 1942 assembled a supply ship in less than five days. America is no longer capable of that kind of manufacturing feat.
Today, the country that can make the most of almost everything is China. Its products run the gamut from basic chemicals to advanced machinery. With tensions rising between the U.S. and China, the two countries' industrial capacity is coming into focus as a key battleground in any conflict.
China's economic growth has allowed it to build a military that rivals the U.S. A single Chinese shipbuilder last year produced more commercial ships by tonnage than the entire U.S. shipbuilding industry has made since World War II, according to the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a Washington think tank. The scale of China's commercial shipbuilding subsidizes its production of naval vessels and, in a war, capacity could be shifted from freighters to warships.
Since 2000, China has built more than twice as many naval vessels as the U.S., according to defense intelligence company Janes.
China's air force and navy are closing the gap with the U.S., though many American platforms are considered more advanced than their Chinese counterparts.
Naval firepower offers a prime example. China's ability to launch cruise missiles and other rockets at sea is closing a big combat gap with the U.S.
Many of China's manufacturers aren't in the military sector but could easily be repurposed to arms-making or support in a war.
China not only has more factories, it is also modernizing them faster, with technologies such as 5G private networks for automation. That means it can more quickly and efficiently link manufacturing equipment to designers and users, updating products at speeds that traditional manufacturing can't achieve. In Ukraine, constant feedback from front-line troops to drone makers has allowed the country to make rapid advances in robotic aircraft.
That also means China can more easily accelerate production. The country has far more industrial robots too, supplementing its enormous labor advantage.
Wars aren't just about military equipment. Every plane, ship and tank needs fuel, spare parts and ammunition. Their crews need food, water and medical care. Those support functions entail vast logistics networks, most of which rely on ships and China has more of the vessels needed to sustain troops.
Even if the U.S. is able to expand its fleet of commercial cargo ships, it lacks sailors to staff them. By some estimates, the U.S. now has fewer than 10,000 commercial sailors—though the number is uncertain because the government stopped tracking them years ago. China has almost 200 times as many merchant mariners.
China also has more of the raw materials needed for modern warfare. The country's control of the world's rare earth mines and processing plants—needed to build missiles, planes, and submarines—would allow it to more easily replenish losses in an extended conflict. Chinese companies have largely brushed off U.S. attempts to loosen their grip on the world's critical minerals.
If the U.S. faced a major conflict, it would need to reorient industries and workers, as it did in the two world wars of the 20th century. China's workforce is already in position, with an army of manufacturing workers that dwarfs other nations.
Write to Jon Emont at jonathan.emont@wsj.com, Daniel Michaels at Dan.Michaels@wsj.com, Ming Li at ming.li@wsj.com and Jason French at jason.french@wsj.com

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