The Perils of Panic: Rethinking the Wendell Minnick Doctrine on China

ChatGPT Takes Me to Task

ABOVE: Wendell Minnick. The implications of becoming a legend without realizing your own comic vanity.

29 June 2025

By Wendell Minnick (Whiskey Mike) 顏文德

Folks, just for fun, I asked ChatGPT to write a critical opinion editorial on my 30-year career as a defense journalist. I have no rebuttal to the Op-Ed, except to say that when I began as the Taiwan correspondent for Jane’s Defence Weekly (JDW) in 2000, the Internet was still in its infancy.

All of my reporting came from boots-on-the-ground experience across Asia, particularly during my tenure as Asia Bureau Chief for Defense News from 2006 to 2016. If I had access to the databases available today, rather than building a personal library of 800+ military books, I suspect the quality of my writing would have been even stronger.

The following criticism of my work—that I have not given Beijing a voice in my articles—is unfounded. It is not feasible to provide a “voice” to a government that functions as a dictatorship. I have attended five defense expos in China, including the China Airshow in Zhuhai, where I engaged directly with Chinese defense company representatives and heard official narratives firsthand. Additionally, I quoted Chinese think tank scholars until they were instructed to cease communication with me following Xi Jinping’s broader clampdown on academic and journalistic exchanges.

However, AI genuinely unnerves me. Within five to ten years, I suspect fiction writing may be severely diminished. The only journalism likely to endure will come from boots-on-the-ground, subject-matter specialists with source networks that intimidate Washington think tankers.

The other form of journalism I believe will survive is long-form narrative non-fiction—works in the vein of Michael Lewis (The Big Short), Jon Krakauer (Into the Wild), and Mark Bowden (Black Hawk Down).

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Title: The Perils of Panic: Rethinking the Wendell Minnick Doctrine on China

By ChatGPT

For decades, Wendell Minnick has carved out a niche as one of the most prolific chroniclers of Chinese military modernization. From his perch in Taipei, he’s delivered a steady stream of exclusive scoops, leaked procurement documents, and grim warnings about the People’s Liberation Army (PLA). To many, he’s a Cassandra [WM: Trojan priestess dedicated to the god Apollo and fated by him to utter true prophecies but never to be believed] in a region where denial is a luxury. To others, however, Minnick represents a deeper problem in Western defense journalism: the tendency to conflate access with accuracy, and volume with vision.

Minnick’s reporting is undeniably rich in detail. His coverage of Chinese weapons tests, Taiwan’s domestic defense industry, and shadowy arms deals has long fueled policymaker briefings and think tank reports. But beneath the surface lies a journalism style that, while meticulous, often veers into alarmism—elevating worst-case scenarios as likely outcomes and leaving little room for strategic ambiguity or nuance.

This is not to say the threat from China is imaginary. Far from it. But by presenting PLA advancements as a rolling juggernaut and framing Taiwan’s defenses as a crumbling Maginot Line, Minnick risks turning complex dynamics into binary narratives of inevitable conquest. His pieces can read like military intelligence memos stripped of geopolitical context—high on hardware, low on diplomacy.

Another issue is sourcing. Minnick has long relied on unnamed officials and confidential documents, which—though standard in defense reporting—raises questions about verification and accountability. In an age of open-source intelligence and satellite transparency, anonymous leaks shouldn’t be the only lens through which we analyze power balances.

Furthermore, Minnick’s work rarely incorporates the view from Beijing. There’s little engagement with Chinese military doctrine, internal risk calculus, or the political red lines shaping PLA operations. This is a critical omission. Understanding an adversary requires more than measuring missile ranges—it demands insight into their intentions, fears, and strategic blind spots.

Lastly, Minnick’s style reflects a bygone era of defense journalism: dense, unfiltered, and largely inaccessible to those outside the military-industrial bubble. While the information may be valuable, its packaging limits its reach. In an era where public support shapes policy, readability is not a weakness—it’s a necessity.

None of this is to deny Wendell Minnick’s contributions. He has exposed programs others missed and sounded alarms others ignored. But the time has come for a more balanced framework—one that tempers threat assessments with strategic analysis, and prioritizes clarity over clutter. China is a challenge, not a monolith. And if we are to meet that challenge, we need more than warnings. We need wisdom.

End