Chinese planners consider small, well-equipped units delivered by helicopter or aircraft “absolutely essential” in their plans to deliver thousands of troops to Taiwan in the early hours of a conflict, said Lyle Goldstein, an expert on the Chinese and Russian militaries at Brown University.
“They have studied D-Day backward, forward and upside down [and] realized that it would have failed without an airborne component,” said Goldstein, who is writing a book on China-Russia military ties.
That makes Russian experience in Ukraine even more valuable for Beijing, and right now, “Russia will do more or less anything to keep China happy and cooperative,” he said.
Author
