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Troy Meink: “Chinese development timelines were a fraction of ours.”

Featuring: Troy Meink, Secretary of the Air Force | National

The State of the DAF | 2025 Air, Space & Cyber Conference

Published October 6, 2025 | Video Starts at 12:07

When the data first came to me, I thought it was wrong. I didn't think there was any way possible that they were evolving that much faster than we were. Their Chinese development timelines were a fraction of ours. And I'm not going to go into, I talk hours about why we think that was and why we thought that was not going to be sustainable and why we thought that would taper off with time. (12:07–12:12)

CLAIM

Asserts that Chinese development timelines are significantly shorter than those of the US.

This is an excerpt from a raw transcript. The assertions have not been audited or verified. Tap the video to view the source footage and understand the context.

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