“I would say that the Replicator initiative is actually kind of replicating some of what China has been doing for the last 10 years,” he said.

Unveiling the initiative on Monday, Kathleen Hicks, the deputy defence secretary, said the systems would be fielded in the next two years and were aimed at deterring aggression from Beijing. They would also be “attritable” – referring to attrition warfare that aims to wear down the enemy while maintaining combat power, even when sustaining losses.

“Replicator is meant to help us overcome [China’s] biggest advantage, which is mass,” she told a conference in Washington hosted by the National Defence Industrial Association. “More ships. More missiles. More people.”

She said the goal was to keep China believing that the cost of attacking was too great to overcome – be it in 2027, 2035 or 2049.

Beijing has set a target of 2027 – the People’s Liberation Army’s centenary – for the military to be able to provide “strategic support” for the “great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation”.

Beijing sees Taiwan as a breakaway province to be united with the mainland, by force if necessary. Most countries, including the US, do not recognise Taiwan as an independent state, but many oppose any attempt by Beijing to take the island by force.

The ruling Communist Party also wants the military modernised by 2035, and by 2049 – the centenary of the People’s Republic – the goal is for the PLA to be a “world class” military.

“[Mainland] China has a number of advantages when it comes to Taiwan and in the Indo-Pacific,” he said. “It’s able to deploy vast complexes, vast manufacturing with massive commercial support. And the second advantage is proximity. [Mainland] China is right next door to Taiwan. China is right next door to the South China Sea.”

The PLA is already using drones for its near-daily flights around the self-ruled island. Since the start of this year, drones have made at least 108 flights near Taiwan on reconnaissance missions, according to data from the Taiwanese defence ministry.

Hicks did not mention Taiwan, but said Replicator would help to overcome China’s anti-access and area denial abilities to block an aiding force from entering a theatre of war. Beijing has sent its Shandong aircraft carrier and drones off Taiwan’s east coast, which military analysts said would be a move to stop American forces from Guam and Japan helping the Taiwanese military in the event of an attack by Beijing.

Timothy Heath, a senior international defence research analyst at the Rand Corporation, a US-based think tank, said the United States was likely to build fleets of unmanned aircraft and self-guided munitions under Replicator.

“The idea is to have large numbers of relatively inexpensive single-use killing devices that can flood the battlespace and inflict large casualties on a Chinese manned force,” he said.

The US at present relies on crewed planes and ships operating from vulnerable bases that China knows the location of, according to Heath.

Attritable drones are more mobile, so they can be launched from a jungle or forest instead of from a runway. Even when they are found, the PLA would be forced to use costly ballistic missiles to shoot down the cheaply produced drones, adding to the US’ cost advantage.

Heath said China was already developing uncrewed vehicles and “loitering munition”, or suicide drones, and was seeking to use big data and artificial intelligence in its military operations.

“In some ways, US and Chinese are operating reactive to the same kind of technological trends and developing similar – although they’ll be used quite differently – technologies for automating parts of the force.”

China’s embassy in Washington did not respond to requests for comment.