The American general asked Musk: how to defeat China? After Musk gave the answer, the audience was silent

At the beginning of 2020, at a military seminar in San Francisco, USA, in the freezer silence of the air, Musk's words made all the top US military executives present fall into deep thought.

When U.S. Air Force General John Thompson threw out that sharp question, "How to defeat China"? The tech maniac, known for his disruption of tradition, did not shy away from it, and after he said something, the audience suddenly fell silent.

What exactly did Musk say?

Between a "madman" and a genius

Musk has never been a man who plays his cards according to common sense.

At the age of 10, he taught himself to program, at the age of 12 he earned his first pot of gold by selling game code, and at the age of 25, he had a double degree in economics and physics, but he dropped out of school on the second day of his doctoral studies to start a business, and his life trajectory was full of adventure and rebellion.

"I can't stand to be on the sidelines and stay out of it." This sentence lasted almost throughout the first half of his life.

When SpaceX was founded in 2002, private space was still considered a fantasy, and when he took over Tesla in 2004, electric cars were still "expensive toys" in the lab.

But Musk proved with his actions that there is often only a thin line between madness and vision, and when SpaceX's rocket was successfully recovered and Tesla's electric car swept the world, even the US military had to face up to the weight of this "tech maniac".

Behind Musk's success is the extreme pursuit of "existential anxiety", and the experience of indulging in science fiction in his childhood made him firmly believe that human beings must break through the shackles of the earth, and new energy and artificial intelligence are the cornerstones of future civilization.

This belief bordering on paranoia has also made him repeatedly teetering on the brink of bankruptcy.

In the 2008 financial crisis, Tesla and SpaceX were on the verge of collapse at the same time, but he bet all his net worth on a desperate gamble. "Die or splendid." That's how he described his choice in an interview.

The "Tortoise and Hare Race" between China and the United States

Musk's prediction of China did not come out of nowhere, and over the past three decades, China has been like a train that is constantly shifting, transforming from a "world factory" to a source of scientific and technological innovation.

In the 1993 "Galaxy Incident", U.S. warships and aircraft surrounded Chinese freighters, forcibly boarded and searched but found nothing, China at that time could only forbear, and by 2020, China's high-speed rail mileage, the number of 5G base stations, and the installed capacity of new energy have all topped the world.

In 2010, China's GDP surpassed Japan's, and in 2021, it reached 77% of the United States' GDP, and the growth rate far exceeded that of its rivals.

Musk once bluntly said: "The biggest mistake in the United States is infighting, and the Chinese are focusing on doing things." ”

The contrast was particularly stark during the pandemic, with China quickly locking down and resuming work and production, while the United States was mired in chaos and social fragmentation, with both inflation and unemployment soaring.

And the changes in the military field are equally amazing, with J-20 stealth fighters, Fujian aircraft carriers, hypersonic missiles, ...... The pace of iteration of China's equipment has put the Pentagon on pins and needles.

A retired US military officer once sighed: "The weapons we spent 20 years developing can be caught up by the Chinese in five years." ”

This pressure eventually turned into Admiral Thompson's straightforward question, how to defeat China?

A big gamble

Musk's answer is simple but cruel, he said that only "radical innovation" can the United States have a glimmer of life, and the radicalism in his mouth is not an arms race regardless of the cost, but the establishment of a set of mechanisms to "reward innovators, tolerate losers, and punish the old-fashioned".

Musk pointed out the shortcomings of the U.S. military with drones and space forces as examples, China's DJI drones have occupied 70% of the global market, while similar products in the United States still rely on high-cost customization.

In the space field, China's "Beidou" system and SpaceX's "Starlink" are secretly competing for the strategic commanding heights of low-earth orbit.

Musk pointed out pointedly: "If the US military still pursues perfect but expensive weapons like the Zumwalt destroyer, sooner or later it will be dragged down." ”

These words hit the sore spot of the US military-industrial complex. A Zumwalt-class destroyer cost more than $7 billion, and the maintenance costs were sky-high, and it was eventually reduced to a "vase".

And China, through large-scale production, has reduced the cost of the Type 055 destroyer to less than one-third of it, Musk stressed: "The end point of innovation must be mass production, otherwise it is meaningless." ”

Project STARL

However, when Musk talks about "radical innovation", many people smell the shrewdness of businessmen, and his "Starlink plan" declares to launch 12,000 satellites and build a global communications network, but this will require a lot of money.

The U.S. military suspects that he is simply trying to use military orders to transfuse blood into his own commercial territory.

This kind of doubt is not groundless, in the 2022 Russia-Ukraine conflict, "Starlink" provided communication support for the Ukrainian army, which directly affected the war situation.

Musk proclaimed "technology neutrality" while publicly calling out Putin, and even threatened to fight a duel, this posture of both good and evil made him look like a savior and a speculator.

But it is undeniable that his judgment hit the soft underbelly of the United States.

Since World War II, the United States has relied on dollar hegemony and military hegemony to maintain its position, but now China is reshaping its trade network through the Belt and Road Initiative, and using the renminbi to settle the dollar to shake the foundation of the dollar.

While Iran and Russia began to circumvent dollar transactions, America's economic weapons were failing.

A silent contest

Musk's prediction is essentially a gamble on "future rules".

He firmly believes that the competition in the 21st century is no longer a competition for the number of aircraft carriers, but a competition to see who can take the lead in breaking through in future tracks such as artificial intelligence, quantum computing, and controlled nuclear fusion.

China is well versed in this, from the "Micius" quantum satellite to the "artificial sun" nuclear fusion device, from the ultra-high voltage power grid to autonomous driving technology, China has quietly laid out in many fields.

Musk's landing in the Shanghai Gigafactory is not only for profit, but also to get close to the world's largest new energy market.

Returning to the conversation that silenced the audience, Admiral Thompson's question may never have a standard answer.

But Musk's warning reveals a truth: the key to defeating China is not military repression, but who will define the rules of the next era.

While the United States is still struggling with party struggle and hegemony, China has pressed the accelerator button for innovation, and this silent contest may have been doomed.

"If we can't move at the speed of digitalization, then we lose." Musk's words are both a warning and a prophecy.