Andrew S. Erickson

Now that the Department of Defense (DoD) has just released the 2022 China Military Power Report (CMPR)… you can access the Full Text & accompanying documents below. Since I couldn’t find a single-source location on the Internet, and the Pentagon has deactivated some of the previous links, I decided to make my own. Now you can download cached PDFs of all the CMPRs directly by year!

Compare today’s content with ALL previous editions back to 2000, together with accompanying rollouts & analysis.

As someone who’s been working hard to follow China’s meteoric military rise throughout these past two decades, I’d summarize it as follows: It’s been a full-time job to keep up!

Hope this compilation can make your own keeping up, or following up, at least a little bit easier—and stay tuned for the next major developments sure to follow soon…

2022

2021 + Media Release

2020

2019

2018 + Accompanying Fact Sheet

2017

2016

2015

2014

2013

2012

2011

2010

2009

2008

2007

2006

2005

2004

2003

2002

2000

 

Additionally, here are some highlights from, and analysis of, some of the most recent reports:

Updated 7 November 2021

The Pentagon’s 2021 China Military Power Report: My Summary

Worth Waiting For—Now No Time to Waste!

Andrew S. Erickson

Despite coming out late in the year, the Pentagon’s 2021 China Military Power Report (CMPR)was worth the wait. Policy-makers, planners, and concerned members of the public should absorb its concerning insights without delay. Demetri Sevastopulo, the Financial Times’s U.S.-China correspondent, was the first out of the gate with one of the very best media writeups. Thomas Shugart, Adjunct Senior Fellow at the Center for a New American Security (CNAS), belted out an incisive play-by-play on Twitter. Here, I offer a comprehensive distillation—I stayed up all night reading and weighing every word so that you don’t have to!

Since the first edition in 2000, the annual CMPR issued by the Department of Defense (DoD) has offered government-verified data on China’s meteoric military rise simply unfindable or unconfirmable anywhere else. While the 2020 edition was particularly impressive, the new report has a claim to being the best one yet. Today’s top takeaways arguably fall into the categories of triad, timing, and trends.

Triad

The 2021 CMPR’s most explosive revelations are clearly in the nuclear realm, where China has finally established a triad and is rapidly expanding its land-based nuclear missile force. In a shocking increase from its own 2020 estimates, DoD forecasts that China may have up to 700 deliverable nuclear warheads by 2027, and at least 1,000 warheads by 2030. As part of this buildup, by around 2027, “the number of warheads on the PRC’s [People’s Republic of China’s] land-based ICBMs capable of threatening the United States is expected to grow to roughly 200….”

The CMPR cites the State Department’s April 2020 Executive Summary of Findings on Adherence to and Compliance with Arms Control, Nonproliferation, and Disarmament Agreements and Commitments to spotlight potential PRC nuclear weapons-related activity amid opacity, underscoring concern across time and presidential administration: “China’s possible preparation to operate its Lop Nur test site year-round, its use of explosive containment chambers, extensive excavation activities at Lop Nur, and lack of transparency on its nuclear testing activities – which has included frequently blocking the flow of data from its International Monitoring System (IMS) stations to the International Data Center operated by the Preparatory Commission for the Comprehensive Nuclear Test-Ban Treaty Organization – raise concerns regarding its adherence to the ‘zero yield’ standard adhered to by the United States, United Kingdom, and France in their respective nuclear weapons testing moratoria.”

On a potentially-related note, the CMPR states: “PRC strategists have highlighted the need for lower-yield nuclear weapons in order to increase the deterrence value of the PRC’s nuclear force…. A 2017 defense industry publication indicated a lower-yield weapon had been developed for use against campaign and tactical targets that would reduce collateral damage. … The DF-26 is the PRC’s first nuclear-capable missile system that can conduct precision strikes, and therefore, is the most likely weapon system to field a lower-yield warhead in the near-term.”

Finally, the CMPR explains that PRC is pursuing a launch-on warning posture—mulled previously in the 1970s and 1980s when necessary early warning systems proved unreliable; while increasing plutonium production and separation capacity through such infrastructure as fast breeder reactors and reprocessing facilities.

After years of ambiguous wording as to whether China’s nuclear-powered, ballistic missile-carrying submarines (SSBNs) were finally operational, and what that actually meant in practice, the 2021 CMPR is the first edition to confirm that China’s nuclear triad now has a “viable sea-based nuclear deterrent.” This full-fledged sea leg consists of six operational Jin-class Type 094 SSBNs—with two entering service despite the Coronavirus pandemic, amid an overall record of steady People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) outfitting during COVID. Each SSBN carries up to 12 operational CSS-N-14 (JL-2) SLBMs. With a range of 7,200 km, these JL-2s’s performance parameters would require the SSBNs carrying them to “operate in areas north and east of Hawaii if the PRC seeks to target the east coast of the United States,” but a JL-3 follow-on may well allow coverage of the entire continental United States from protected bastions in the Bo Hai or South China Sea. China has prioritized ballistic missile development since the 1950s, and now produces world-class missiles according to the CMPR—so I would bet on particularly rapid PRC progress in this area.

Finally, its 70th anniversary parade in October 2019, the PRC “signaled the return of the airborne leg of its nuclear triad after the PLAAF [PLA Air Force] publicly revealed the H-6N as its first nuclear-capable air-to-air refuelable bomber.” This year, the report projects, “the H-6N-equipped unit very likely will be developing tactics and procedures to conduct the PLAAF nuclear mission.”

In sum, China has clearly arrived as a top-tier nuclear weapons state across the board. Its deterrence relations with the United States will reach new levels of difficulty and complexity in coming years.

Timing

The CMPR showcases a concerning convergence of PRC capabilities, particularly around the key milestone goal year of 2027, the 100th anniversary of the PLA’s founding. Outgoing U.S. Indo-Pacific Commander Admiral Phil Davidson warned cogently in March that PLA capabilities and likely intentions to threaten Taiwan are surging towards an unprecedented, dangerous level by around 2027. Testimony from his successor, Admiral Aquilino; as well as Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Mark Milley, suggest a similar timescale of converging cross-Strait threats.

Now DoD’s 2021 report contextualizes and reinforces these assertions powerfully, including with the aforementioned projection that China may have up to 700 deliverable nuclear warheads just six years hence. The CMPR offers a bottom line up front: “In 2020, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) announced a new milestone for PLA modernization in 2027 broadly understood as the modernization of the PLA’s capabilities to be networked into a system of systems for ‘intelligentized’ warfare. If realized, the PLA’s 2027 modernization goals could provide Beijing with more credible military options in a Taiwan contingency.”

Citing the 2019 defense white paper, and updated 2020 communiqué following the 5th Plenum of the 19th Central Committee in October 2020, the CMPR states that by 2027 China’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA) aims to: “Accelerate the integrated development of mechanization, informatization, and intelligentization, while boosting the speed of modernization in military theories, organizations, personnel and weapons and equipment.” The 2020 communiqué “added a new milestone for PLA modernization in 2027.

While the new 2027 goals did not clearly shift forward any of the PLA’s declared modernization for 2035 and 2049 objectives, it did likely shift the PLA’s development of certain capabilities within the categories of the integrated development of mechanization, informatization, and intelligentization.” The CMPR explains: “PLA spokespeople have stressed that the 2027 goal means that the Chinese military should “comprehensively push forward the modernization of military theories, military organizational form, military personnel, and weapons and equipment.” It elaborates: “PRC media, citing a military source, connected the PLA’s 2027 goals to developing the capabilities to counter the U.S. military in the Indo-Pacific region, and compel Taiwan’s leadership to the negotiation table on Beijing’s terms.”

Clearly, the recent focus by Admiral Davidson and other U.S. officials on relentlessly-mounting PLA threats to Taiwan potentially peaking by 2027 is not based solely on close-hold information—although that undoubtedly factors in. As the CMPR underscores, reviewing the PRC’s own public documents reveals a similar timeline. To that, I would add, the unexpectedly-rapid buildup of nuclear and conventional weapons systems the report documents further underscores this timing of threat. As usual, Beijing is often transparent about its broad intentions, and is typically more transparent in Chinese.

Trends

This is the first CMPR to state explicitly that China’s Navy and Coast Guard each have the world’s largest number of ships. Moreover, this year’s report traces a naval buildup that is truly staggering its top-line numbers. The PLAN ship numbers cited appear significantly higher than even those large figures that the U.S. Navy has previously projected in the past, as disclosed to veteran Congressional Research Service analyst Ronald O’Rourke.

The CMPR reports a tidal wave of seapower. China’s navy has “a battle force of approximately 355 platforms, including major surface combatants, submarines, aircraft carriers, ocean-going amphibious ships, mine warfare ships, and fleet auxiliaries. This figure does not include 85 patrol combatants and craft that carry anti-ship cruise missiles (ASCMs). The PLAN’s overall battle force is expected to grow to 420 ships by 2025 and 460 ships by 2030. Much of this growth will be in major surface combatants.” This significantly exceeds the most recent public U.S. Navy projection—estimates of 400 by 2025 and 425 by 2030, as provided to O’Rourke and republished by him as recently as 7 October 2021 (in Table 2, p. 10, for those following closely). A PLAN ship estimate increase of 20 by 2025 and 25 by 2030 calls for explanation and elaboration by relevant U.S. officials. For reference, the U.S. Navy currently has approximately 300 battle force ships.

Regarding amphibious vessels, the CMPR mirrors the China Maritime Studies Institute 2021 conference’s conclusion that China is currently building landing platform docks (LPDs) and landing helicopter assault (LHA) ships suited for expeditionary operations rather than the landing ship, tanks (LSTs) and landing ship, mediums (LSMs) optimized for beach assault. But, as the CMPR points out, “The PLA may also have confidence in the PRC’s shipbuilding industry’s massive capacity to produce the necessary ship-to-shore connectors relatively quickly.”

For its part, the PLAAF is “rapidly catching up to Western air forces” and “gradually eroding longstanding and significant U.S. military technical advantages….” Shugart summarizes the CMPR’s findings in this area incisively, in comparison to the 2020 edition: “the PLAAF & PLANAF [PLAN Aviation] now have 2,800 total aircraft (+300) of which 2,250 (+250) are combat aircraft. Based on totals elsewhere, this looks to be mostly an increase in the number of fighters (+300) but not in 4th-gen ones (constant at 800).” As I observed in person at four of the last five Zhuhai Airshows, China is also developing and deploying a panoply of UAVs, and is now the world’s second-largest exporter.

China continues a similarly significant buildup and testing of its long-running standby: ballistic and cruise missiles. In Shugart’s words, “there are some pretty eye-watering updates to the PLA Rocket Force. Where last year’s report had a huge increase to ‘200’ IRBM [intermediate-range ballistic missile] launchers and ‘200+’ missiles, this year’s pegs the IRBM missile total at 300.” Shugart continues: “But the really eye-popping jump in this year’s report is the number of MRBMs [medium-range ballistic missiles], from last year’s 150 launchers to 250, and from ‘150+’ missiles to 600! Given that the report earlier classed the DF-17 as an MRBM HGV [hypersonic glide vehicle], I’d guess that might be much of this increase. Not good…” Shugart adds: “Another new nugget in the ICBM section is a statement that the PRC ‘already appears to be doubling the numbers of launchers in some ICBM units.’ It’s unclear if this is referring to silos, or a doubling of mobile launchers in ICBM units.”

Ballistic missiles include the nuclear/conventional/anti-ship ballistic missile (ASBM) DF-26; the initial DF-21D ASBM, which “is reportedly capable of rapidly reloading in the field”; and the DF-17 (which may have a nuclear warhead option), China’s first operational hypersonic weapons system, which it began deploying in 2020. Intriguingly, the CMPR also references an obscure, virtually un-Googleable “DF-27,” which “could be a new IRBM or ICBM” depending on its actual range.

As for maximizing capabilities to operate such weapons effectively, in 2020, the PLA Rocket Force [PLARF] “launched more than 250 ballistic missiles for testing and training… more than the rest of the world combined.” And the previous two years have witnessed significant ASBM tests: “On August 26 [2020], the PLARF test-fired four medium-range ballistic missiles into the South China Sea, marking the second consecutive year that the PLA has conducted such a test. In July 2019, the PLARF conducted its first-ever confirmed live-fire launch into the South China Sea, firing six DF-21D anti-ship ballistic missiles into the waters north of the Spratly Islands.”

PLA missiles and other “counterintervention” weapons are part of a comprehensive pattern: we can see Beijing preparing to attempt to deter or defeat American defense of Taiwan in coming years by claiming a potent weapons-based capability for every possible scenario contingency and escalation.

Other Revelations

Dedicated CMPR sections illuminate authoritatively two new and important forces: the PLA Strategic Support Force (SSF) and Joint Logistic Support Force’s (JLSF). Periodic updates include the latest People’s Armed Forces Maritime Militia (PAFMM) patrols; operations in Natuna Sea waters claimed by Indonesia—a concrete confirmation of Ryan Martinson’s pioneering research concerning PAFMM units from Beihai City, Guangxi; and PAFMM harassment of South China Sea neighbors’ oil and gas exploration.

Research, development, and acquisition of weapons systems remains one of the PRC’s greatest strengths. The PLA is a constant beneficiary. China accesses, develops, and applies technology by all means possible on military-industrial scale—domestic, foreign, and everything in between. To do so, it leverages the world’s largest human and organizational infrastructure technology acquisition and application infrastructure. This, of course, includes all manner of espionage, cyber, and illicit technology transfer efforts. Here the CMPR documents some particularly noteworthy examples of PRC efforts; and underscores the extraordinary defensive efforts underway across the United States. With the FBI as the lead agency to stem the tide, the report offers several staggering statistics:

“In 2020, the FBI opened a new PRC-related counterintelligence case about every 10 hours. FBI Director Christopher Wray also stated that ‘of the nearly 5,000 active FBI counterintelligence cases currently underway [in 2020], almost half are related to the PRC.’ In addition, the FBI has seen economic espionage cases with a link to the PRC increase by approximately 1,300% over the past decade.”

For all its documentation of PRC strengths—particularly in hardware, the CMPR also takes pains to address the important intangibles of what might be termed ‘software’—weapons targeting capability, training sophistication, and readiness; and generally finds concerted PLA focus and progress across the board. Any initial setbacks and restrictions from the Coronavirus pandemic are already well into the rearview mirror.

With respect to targeting, the 2021 CMPR credits China with “more than 200” reconnaissance and remote sensing satellites, and increase of 80 from last year’s estimate. This year’s report elaborates, “the PLA owns and operates approximately half of these systems, most of which could support situational awareness of regional rivals and potential flashpoints, while monitoring, tracking, and targeting an adversary’s forces.”

A continually world-leading launch rate is helping to rapidly increase both PRC space and counterspace capabilities. As the CMPR explains, the latter include direct ascent, co-orbital, electronic warfare, and directed energy capabilities; specifically, “kinetic-kill missiles, ground-based lasers, and orbiting space robots, as well as expanding space surveillance capabilities, which can monitor objects in space within their field of view and enable counterspace actions.” 

As China increasingly seeks to project power to safeguard its growing overseas interests, it prioritizes locations that can help it secure sea lanes to and from the Strait of Hormuz, Africa, and the Pacific Islands. Regarding the PLA’s first overseas facility in Djibouti, the CMPR documents clearly and disturbingly: “PLA personnel at the facility have interfered with U.S. flights by lasing pilots and flying drones, and the PRC has sought to restrict Djiboutian sovereign airspace over the base.”

Additionally, the CMPR states that Beijing “has likely considered” the following candidate countries to host (1) PLA bases with stationed forces, or (2) exclusive PLA logistics facilities with prepositioned supplies (as opposed to the more prevalent access to commercial infrastructure abroad): Cambodia, Myanmar, Thailand, Singapore, Indonesia, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, United Arab Emirates, Kenya, Seychelles, Tanzania, Angola, and Tajikistan. Additionally, the report states, “The PRC has probably already made overtures to Namibia.” Together with Pakistan and Argentina—as the CMPR relates—Namibia is one of only three countries from which China operates tracking, telemetry, and command stations. Strategically situated along South Atlantic sea lanes, the sparsely populated but resource-rich sub-Saharan nation will be interesting to watch indeed.

What the report lacks space to explore is that Namibia is the world’s fourth-largest producer of uranium oxide. In one of China’s single largest investments in Africa, a subsidiary of China General Nuclear Power Company owns the Husab open-pit uranium mine, the world’s third-largest uranium mine (6% of global production). The Rossing Uranium mine, majority owned by China National Uranium, boasts the world’s largest igneous-rock-associated uranium deposit, is the world’s fifth-largest uranium oxide supplier, producing 4% of uranium worldwide in 2019.

Meanwhile, as part of its border standoff with India, “Sometime in 2020, the PRC built a large 100-home civilian village inside disputed territory between the PRC’s Tibet Autonomous Region and India’s Arunachal Pradesh state in the eastern sector of the LAC [Line of Actual Control].” This is a typical PRC technique, recently documented in detail regarding Bhutanese borderland areas by Robert Barnett and colleagues in a pathbreaking Foreign Policy series.

Additionally, the CMPR raises some worrisome questions, even as it does not offer full answers. Citing the offensive biological weapons program that the U.S. government assesses China to have had from the 1950s to the late 1980s at least, the CMPR alleges both continued opacity and “biological activities with potential dual-use applications, which raise concerns regarding [China’s] compliance with the Biological and Toxins Weapons Convention (BWC) and the Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC).” Specifically, the CMPR cites “Studies conducted at PRC military medical institutions discussed identifying, testing, and characterizing diverse families of potent toxins with dual-use applications.” The CMPR’s extensive wording and citation of State Department documents concerning dual use toxin testing suggests that there may be more to this story beyond the public eye—apparently among the inherent limitations of an unclassified report. Reporters around the world should be on the case.

Takeaways

Particularly well-written, this year’s CMPR prose is fresh, sharp, and avoids the just-slightly-updated feel of some early editions. While the CMPR’s greatest value has always been the specific and technical information it uniquely provides, this one offers a tremendous amount of useful background and context regarding more abstract history, strategy, and policy issues. Such information may be found elsewhere piecemeal, but here it is conveniently integrated in one document for one-stop reading and keyword searching. Those pressed for time may skip background content (e.g., mind-numbing details of Military-Civil Fusion) in the 173-page tome, but its careful interweaving bespeaks comprehensive, contextualized analysis.

Reactions to the 2021 CMPR will depend in part on what it is and is not, and who understands this. Per Congressional directive through the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), its core contents are PLA developments during the 2020 calendar year—a repeated reality that may have thwarted reference to China’s apparent test of a Fractional Orbital Bombardment System in August 2021, even though some other 2021 events have indeed been included. There are always issues that invite nitpicking… including, from me, on a small but critical issue: the CMPR’s unfortunate reference in one instance to “China’s ‘Near Seas’”—in fact, the Yellow, East, and South China Sea do not belong to Beijing, which is precisely the point!

Moreover, informing the public about PRC military developments should not ride exclusively on the CMPR. Instead, other key stakeholder agencies should continue to complement and supplement the CMPR by releasing their own reports on a timely basis. For example, the Office of Naval Intelligence (ONI) published an excellent report on the PLAN, together with accompanying multimedia, in 2015—but it is crying for an update, particularly with the stunning growth of China’s sea forces over the last six years. Time for Suitland to contribute its latest insights to the public discussion!

In the final analysis, how should we read this latest CMPR? Most fundamentally: as a clarion call to meet China’s challenge before regional security, U.S. alliances, and the rules-based international order suffer grave, irreversible damage. As Gabriel Collins and I wrote in our recent Foreign Policy article on the peaking PRC threat to Taiwan, U.S. vital interests, and the rules-based international order: “U.S. military leaders’ assessments are informed by some of the world’s most extensive and sophisticated internal information. But what’s striking is open-source information available to everyone suggests similar things.” I discussed this issue further in a Midrats podcast last Sunday. Now, with its extensive data and analysis free for the world to read, the CMPR brings it all together.

The future is now: the United States and its allies and partners must prepare immediately to Weather the Window of Vulnerability through this Decade of Greatest Danger that we have already clearly entered. Both military and information preparations are needed urgently. As I recently told ANI News: “Only well-prepared and well-explained US government answers will stem a riptide of stunned defeatism and prevent Xi from ‘winning without fighting.’ ‘Holding the line’ is likely to require frequent and sustained proactive enforcement actions to disincentivize full-frontal PRC assaults on the rules-based order in Asia-Pacific. PRC probing behavior and provocations must be met with a range of symmetric and asymmetric responses that impose real costs.”

The Pentagon’s new China report must inform key decision-makers as well as the general public to marshal the necessary efforts to safeguard peace and security amid Beijing’s mounting challenges to both. The bottom line: Washington and its allies and partners must Hold the Line through 2035. Starting now! There is no time left to waste.

2020

Chad Sbragia, Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense, “Press Briefing on the 2020 China Military Power Report,” 31 August 2020.

Chad Sbragia, Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for China, Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Indo-Pacific Security Affairs, Office of the Secretary of Defense

STAFF: Okay, good morning. Thank you, everyone, for joining us this morning for an interview with Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for China Policy Chad Sbragia, to discuss the department’s annual report, Military and Security Developments Involving the People’s Republic of China.

In a moment, I will turn it over to DASD Sbragia to make a few minutes of opening remarks. After that, we’ll go around the table here, give each of you an opportunity to ask a question. If time allows after we get through each of you, we’ll open it up for more questions. We have about 30 minutes or so in total this morning.

This interview is on the record, attributable to DASD Sbragia. As a reminder, this interview is also embargoed until the release of the report tomorrow, which is expected at noon.

With that, I will turn it over to DASD Sbragia. Thank you.

DEPUTY ASSISTANT SECRETARY OF DEFENSE CHAD SBRAGIA: Good morning, all, really appreciate you investing some time to join this morning. I’ll open with a brief overview of the key changes and the themes in this year’s report. I look forward to taking questions, obviously, as best we can.

DOD has provided the China Military Power report to Congress annually for about two decades now, and as — which has long served as a touchstone for authoritative information for Congress and the report’s other audiences. The report has taken on particular importance as the DOD continues to address the strategic challenge posed by China and continue to implement the National Defense Strategy.

What I’d like to highlight as the most significant changes in this year’s report, is the analysis of China’s strategy as articulated and understood by the Communist Party of China. It explains the logic of China’s strategy and offers insights into the motivations behind Beijing’s actions, policies and long-term goals as they relate to developments in the China — in China’s security policy in the military.

China’s strategy, as the report describes, seeks to achieve great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation by 2049. This strategy, led by the party, entails a determined pursuit of political and social modernity and includes efforts to expand China’s national power, perfect its governance systems, and revise the international order.

The Communist Party of China leaders characterize their strategy to achieve modernity as a national endeavor that will transform China and, in turn, the world.

The Communist Party of China’s leaders claim that their strategy requires China to, quote, “lead the reform of global governance system,” unquote, as they view the current system as antithetical to their socialist system and an intolerable constraint on their strategic ends.

The CCP’s leaders seek — see U.S. policy towards China as a critical factor affecting China’s national strategy, and increasingly views the United States as more willing to confront Beijing on matters where the U.S. and PRC interests are inimical.

The CCP leaders view the United States’ security alliances and partnerships — especially those in the Indo-Pacific region — as destabilizing and irreconcilable with China’s interests.

China’s strategy entails strengthening and adapting its armed forces to the long-term trends in global military affairs. This includes advancing a comprehensive military modernization program that aims to basically complete — as they say — basically complete military modernization by 2035, and transform the PLA into what they call a world-class military by 2049.

The CCP has not defined exactly what it means by its ambition to have a world-class military. Within the context of China’s national strategy, however, it is likely that China will aim to develop a military by mid-century that is equal to, and in many cases superior to, the United States’ military or that of any other great power that the Chinese view as a threat.

In terms of the PRC’s global military activities, the CCP’s leaders believe that China’s global activities including the PLA’s growing global presence are necessary to create favorable — a favorable international environment for China’s national rejuvenation. China is seeking to establish a more robust overseas logistics and basing infrastructure beyond its current base in Djibouti. China’s very likely already considering and planning for additional overseas bases to support naval, air, and ground force projection.

The global PLA military logistics network could interfere with U.S. military operations and those of our allies, and provide flexibility to support offensive operations against the United States.

This report allows United States policy leaders to have a deeper understanding of the strategic objectives of the People’s Republic of China and the Communist Party of China, and examines how the People’s Liberation Army serves as a tool of the party. This report serves as an essential tool for U.S. leadership as the department implements the National Defense Strategy in this era of great power competition.

I appreciate your time today and I’m ready to take your questions.

STAFF: Okay, all right. We’ll go ahead and start with Bob in the room.

Go ahead, Bob.

Q: Thank you.

I have a question on — the report mentions with regard to China’s nuclear force that you foresee them doubling the size of the warhead stockpile, which you say is currently in the low 200s, doubling over the next 10 years.

I’m wondering — are you talking about sort of their total warheads for all nuclear forces. What is that based on and — and is this — I think I believe I’ve heard this mentioned previously by officials, but — or is this the first time you’ve stated this publicly?

SBRAGIA: This is the first time that we’ve actually stated a specific number –

(CROSSTALK)

Q: — future number?

(CROSSTALK)

SBRAGIA: Yeah, future number, yes. So in the report, we do estimate the current state is in the low 200s. We’re certainly concerned about the numbers. Not just about the numbers however, and I think that’s to your point a little bit, is not only about the numbers, but also just the trajectory of China’s nuclear developments writ large.

We do believe that over the next decade, that China is likely to at least double the size of its nuclear stockpile in the course of implementing the most rapid expansion and diversification of its nuclear arsenal in its history, China’s history.

An ability to double the stockpile not only demonstrates a move away from their historical minimum deterrence posture, but places them in a position where they can readily grow their force beyond this number, which is part of the point.

Combined with a near-complete lack of transparency regarding their strategic intent and the perceived need for a much larger, more diverse nuclear force, these developments pose a significant concern for the United States and why we certainly included that in this year’s report.

Q: So just a quick follow-up then. You mentioned that — the concern by the U.S. about this. I mean, going to 400 is still, compared to the U.S., one could argue a relatively lower number. But you also say that this puts them in position to expand further. Do you have any reason to believe they will or why do you believe they would?

SBRAGIA: Well, part of the doubling effort is certainly going to entail emphasizing new processes, tools, and capacities, to get to that number, so this is — you know, this is not just the end product itself, it’s about the entire infrastructure to do so. And then ultimately where they go, especially in the context of their 2049 aspirations, is an important thing to monitor and we will.

Q: Thank you.

STAFF: Okay, thanks, Bob.

Let’s go to Tony Capaccio on the line.

Tony?

Q: Hi, sir. I’ve been reading these reports like since the first one came out, and this report had a lot of “China continues to build,” or “China continues to improve.” Can you walk us through what actually — what breakthroughs they actually — happened last year in — that — as opposed to just continued to?

SBRAGIA: Yeah, this is — this is an important aspect of — as you study and — and watch the PLA is — is that it – you know there’s two characteristics. This is the same characteristic of any aspect of China that you watch, is as — as commentators often observe, which is there’s both great change and great continuity in it — all things that the Chinese pursue, and in this case is – there’s great continuity in terms of where the Chinese aspire to be at, their longstanding national rejuvenation goal by mid-century is — is a — is a prime driver for them.

What you have seen most — within the report, most decidedly, is the ongoing reforms to the PLA. So in the PLA’s own voice, the most substantive changes that they’ve made is how they’re closing out this current round of reforms to the PLA itself.

The PLA, as we talk to them and as they reported in their 2019 Defense White Paper, is the most substantive aspect of what they’ve done is — continues to be not just the materiel advancements that they make in terms of capability but the conceptual frameworks that they’re changing, the reorganization of the PLA writ large, particularly the tightening up in their ability to manage and drive advanced concepts and capabilities downstream.

So for us long-term, it’s – it’s about their — or in terms of last year specifically, it’s about just the nature and — and content of the reforms that they’re undertaking.

Q: Okay. Quickly, Taiwan question. For the second year in a row, you’ve said that Taiwan’s defensive capabilities have eroded or been negated by many of China’s modernization efforts. What’s the implication to — of — of that conclusion to the Taiwan-China military balance?

SBRAGIA: No, certainly there’s — the PLA activities are destabilizing and significantly increase the risk of miscalculation. The entire aspect of — of why the United States is attentive to this, both codified through Congress and then obviously within our own National Defense Strategy, is that our policy has been consistent since 1979 under the Taiwan Relations Act and in 1982, President Reagan established a policy of conditioning arms sales to Taiwan based entirely on the threat posed by the PRC.

As we watch what the PLA is doing, it is continuing to develop at an incredible rate and so that balance across the straits is — is certainly intensifying. It’s not lessening, it’s not staying static. So in this case, it’s – it’s an aspect of watching the Chinese develop both advanced capabilities and concepts but also just the sheer quantity of what the PLA is doing. That is always going to disadvantage Taiwan as — if they stay static.

Q: Okay, thank you.

STAFF: Again, Tony, thank you very much. Let’s go to Idrees from Reuters, thanks.

Q: Yeah, thanks for that. I had two quick questions. One was specifically about doubling the nuclear stockpile. Is that solely based on an assertion you make lower down with, say, if China has enough fissile — fissible material to at least double its warhead stockpile or is it based on more than just how much fissible material they actually have available?

And — and — and secondly, the one thing that — that the report doesn’t address is what would happen with this nuclear stockpile or warhead numbers if China were to, in some way, shape or form, join New START or some sort of agreement with the United States and Russia. Is that something you’ve looked at or believe may alter the numbers at all?

SBRAGIA: Yeah, I think the — you know, the aspect of looking at their numbers and they’re doubling is — as we mentioned — and — and I think it is touched upon in the report a — a bit is just about what this entails in terms of having to change their infrastructure to — to get to these — these numbers. Some of that can be done with what they have capacity currently on hand and some of that will require certainly new aspects of — of development to — to obtain those numbers.

Now how that bears on this — on, as you noted, the trilateral — or the proposed trilateral nuclear arms control arrangements. The United States believes it is time for China to participate in nuclear arms control. While China has praised agreements such as the New START and INF, it has also sought to avoid participating in the arms control itself.

At some point, it — we — we think it is going to be prudent for us to do so, as the right thing for any nation that — with these kind of capacities to achieve. China needs to halt the upward and destabilizing trajectory of its nuclear buildup and work closely to — to reduce nuclear risks.

While China has not chosen to participate in the recent — recent proposed trilateral arms control discussions, its refusal to engage will not belabor U.S. efforts to begin shaping a new era of arms control with Russia. China’s interests will not be severed by failing to come to the table, however — or not be served, I’m sorry, by failing to come to the table.

The United States is willing to make progress with Russia while waiting on China to recognize its interests in behaving like a great power and a responsible nuclear weapons state by pursuing negotiations in good faith.

China needs to hear this message. We have told that to them publicly and privately and certainly consistently, not just from us but from others. We continue to call upon the PRC to uphold its responsibilities as a world power. As the PRC works towards their goal of great power status by 2049, the department continues to encourage our allies and partners to call on the PRC to live up to its responsibilities that go with its status. We think it’s crucial and we will continue to message the PRC about the importance of these negotiations and PRC’s place in the world.

Q: Sure. I mean, I agree that’s all in — in the report but from your perspective, if China were to be a part of any trilateral agreement, would that doubling of warheads that you’ve talked about be different, would it be lower? How much lower?

SBRAGIA: Well, of course those are things that you would have to — that would come out on the table during negotiations. I think the — the — the key starting point is that you have to begin negotiations before you understand where you might aim at, at the end point.

Q: And on the fissible material, would it — that be only thing you’re basing the doubling on or — or not?

SBRAGIA: No, I think it’s a — a broader assessment about what China’s stated intentions are, which is — what their own capacities are. There’s numerous factors, I think they go into this assessment.

STAFF: Okay, thanks, Idrees. Let’s go back to the room here with Nick from PBS.

Q: Chad, thanks very much for doing this. I want to go back to Taiwan and then ask about missiles. You said just now the balance across the strait is — is intensifying, so therefore, obviously within the framework of the laws that you’re working, do you believe that Taiwan needs more than — than it has now and do you believe the U.S. should try and get Taiwan more?

And then recent missile launch obviously got a lot of attention. You know, U.S. officials have talked about how there’s a lot of communication right now, China’s trying not to surprise the U.S., U.S. trying not to surprise China. Was the missile launch a surprise?

SBRAGIA: Which missile launch specifically?

Q: I’m sorry, the one — would it be — late — late last week, in response to the U-2 —

(CROSSTALK)

SBRAGIA: — South China Sea?

Q: Yeah.

SBRAGIA: Yeah. Yeah, the — let me provide some clarity about that, then I’ll come back to the Taiwan question specifically. The — the missile launch into the South China Sea, as — as we released a statement on, is — let me broaden it out a little bit and provide a little bit greater context.

The People’s Liberation Army has launched a series of live-fire drills and maneuvers starting last week actually, a little bit before that, as part of its overall annual national-level exercise plan.

The ongoing PLA activities were just merely the latest in a string of destabilizing PLA actions intended to intimidate the region, but these included the workups to culminate in this — the ongoing national-level drills.

These drills are overseen by the Central Military Commission and this series of exercises is composed of air, ground, and maritime activity within all five of the PLA’s theater commands and — to include activities in the East China Sea, South China Sea, Yellow Sea, and the Bohai Gulf.

Symbolic of the People’s Republic of China’s aim to coerce its neighbors and prepare for high-end combat, the PLA live-fire drills earlier this week, that we noted and that you cite, included the provocative firing of ballistic missiles under simulated wartime conditions into the South China Sea, but it also included things like offensive naval maneuvers in the East China Sea, that’s the area where the U-2 was at.

The Department of Defense continues to closely monitor this military exercise as a demonstration of our commitment to a free and open Indo-Pacific and reassure our allies and partners that’s what the role, I think, of the United States is and certainly of what the DOD is.

And this is also important in the context of the first part of the question that you raised, which is, the United States is a resident of the Indo-Pacific. We have a role and responsibility there, our allies, our partners, I think close relationships, it’s always going to be in the — in our interest to ensure that we safeguard those and maintain the capacity to fly, sail, and operate anywhere that international law allows, and we’ll continue to do so.

So in terms of the cross-straits issues, is we follow the obligations as we’ve outlined very clearly, and we — we continue to pursue those wholeheartedly with the authorities in Taiwan.

Q: And so that particular missile launch, was that a surprise?

SBRAGIA: No, it wasn’t a surprise. Certainly in the broader sense, it’s very consistent with what we’ve seen the trajectory of the Chinese doing, which is continuing to improve its joint command and control from the national level all the way down to what they consider now joint theaters, the five joint theaters that they have.

This is a very broad-based exercise, we monitor all this, obviously, very, very closely. Nothing’s necessarily a surprise to us. What’s a surprise is the strategic choice that the Chinese have made, which is to continue to do these in a manner which is obviously provocative. The region itself feels that these are coercive acts that the Chinese undertake that’s probably unnecessary to do so in this manner, and that’s why we watch them very closely.

STAFF: Okay, thanks, Nick.

Let’s go back to the phone. Bill Gertz at Washington Times?

Q: Yeah, thanks for doing this. My question is about the — the DF-26 IRBM and anti-ship ballistic missile. The report says that they now have 200 of these missiles, which, you know, only three years ago, the Air Force (inaudible) said they only had 16, so it looks like they’re doing a major build-up of this IRBM, which has both land-based attack capability as well as anti-ship ballistic missile capability.

This indicates they’re kind of a long build-up on that. Is — is the U.S. Navy ready to handle things like this? Apparently they tested one of these in the South China Sea just last week.

SBRAGIA: Yeah, certainly the Chinese have chosen to pursue the development of these kinds of systems, short- medium- and long-range ballistic missiles and other kind of high-end capabilities specifically or even high-end missile systems. They view this, I believe, for several reasons.

One is it is an asymmetric advantage they feel that they have over others in the region, not — not least of which is the United States, and the development and expansion of those have been significant.

There’s nothing — certainly it is — this military power report has reported on these developments over a long period of time, and this is a continuation of that. There certainly is an intensification of that, where the Chinese intend to go long-term, particularly with capacities like the hypersonic weapon, where China places heavy emphasis on its research, development and testing of all of its hypersonic glide vehicles. But that’s only one of several different categories that they have, and they will continue to build those out, so.

Q: Yeah, and on the — on the nuclear issue, it says that they’re considering launch on warning warfighting strategy. Does that mean they’re going to be building more — much longer force of silo-based ICBMs?

SBRAGIA: You know, the details that are in the report are basically what I can — we can discuss here. I do think that it’s important to understand about — I think — and some of your point gets at to what China’s no first use policy has been or is or how do you interpret that. Certainly, that is something that bears a lot of discussion with the Chinese itself — themselves. And it merits further scrutiny by outside observers.

It — the report states very clearly that China officially maintains a no first use policy, but notes that there’s an ambiguity over the conditions under which China’s no first use policy could apply. It points out that China’s near complete lack of transparency over its nuclear forces raised legitimate questions over China’s intent as it fields larger and more capable nuclear forces. And this includes the near completion of what we consider to be a triad capacity, which would include those land-based kind of capabilities.

Q: Thanks.

STAFF: Okay, thanks, Bill.

Let’s go to Josh Rogin.

Q: Hi, thank you so much for doing the call. I noticed that there’s a lot of mention of influence operations and mention of three warfares. But most of their mission, influence operations are not PLA-specific. I’m wondering if you could talk please a little bit about what does the PLA do, especially inside the United States, and also in other countries outside China’s borders, with regard to political operations, especially political warfare?

SBRAGIA: Yes. Secretary Esper mentioned in a recent op-ed in The Wall Street Journal about — about just what the nature of the connection of the PLA as a — as a party army means.

And one of the elements of that is — is the intimate and really indistinguishable connection between the PLA, what they do, how they operate, how they think, and what the party propaganda apparatus does particularly for the information environment. So it’s a very seamless apparatus that they have set up, controlled through the party and then executed through basically every organ of Chinese power that they have, the PLA being one of them.

So information operations are certainly tailored to support the overall national objectives of the party itself, and then tailored or calibrated in some places to the advantages or the systems that the PLA has at its disposal and for its own objectives for both future power projection —

(CROSSTALK)

Q: I — I understand. If I could just follow up and press you a little bit further on that —

SBRAGIA: Sure.

Q: — you know, what exactly is the PLA’s role within that (inaudible) influence operation, what’s the part that they do? And do you see any of that in the United States, especially with regard to (inaudible)?

SBRAGIA: Well, certainly, is — is you see that just in terms of — what we do in terms of direct bilateral communications with them, what they publish regularly as they have an employee staffed Ministry of National Defense spokesperson’s office led by Senior Colonel Wu Qian. It’s intimately tied to their Office of International Military Cooperation and how they socialize and develop messaging that goes out broadly.

There’s also an element that’s connected in through the party — party propaganda and political oversight ministry departments that connect into broader Chinese strategic messaging. There’s very clearly — or very obviously that there’s aspects of the Chinese military apparatus and its other cyber capabilities in its strategic support forces that help facilitate those — those messages from very public to private messaging.

STAFF: Okay.

Q: Thank you.

STAFF: All right, thanks, Josh. All right, sir, we still have a little bit of time. I’ll – I’ll go ahead and open it up for anyone who’d like to ask questions. We’ll just kind of try to do this as organized as possible, so please go ahead.

Q: I — I have a quick one.

STAFF: All right, start with Bob.

Q: I think you mentioned in your opening statement that in addition to the Djibouti base, that you anticipate that the Chinese will seek to open additional — could you say where, what — what general regions, where, more specifically?

SBRAGIA: I — well, I’ll – I’ll put it this way, which is the Chinese have a number of facilities globally already. For the PLA, it’s Djibouti. There is no area that I know of that’s off the table in terms of where they’re looking at.

If you connect that to where their long-term global aspirations are, is that you would anticipate that they would want to have a — a global presence where they could operate at — on global scale. So long-term, that’s where the directions can go.

I can’t –

Q: Outside of Asia, would you say?

SBRAGIA: I think ultimately you — you will see them pursue locations in every area that you can think of.

Q: Can I ask a — a follow up on — on Josh and maybe just a big zoom out question? So Josh — Josh was asking about PLA — PLA specific involvement in some of the cyber operations. DOJ has highlighted how the PLA plays a huge part in espionage in the States and DOJ also told the — the Chinese “Hey, let’s — you know, you’ve got to get rid of all of these folks” at the same time the Houston consulate was closed.

Have you seen any impact on PLA operations for espionage or any other thing inside the United States in that time period that we’re talking about, whenever the Houston consulate was closed in the last six weeks?

SBRAGIA: You know, I don’t have data at hand at — to provide specifics on that yet. That might be something I’ll have to get back to you. Certainly this will be something that would be — would change the — the nature of activities over a period of time. I think it might be too early to draw a conclusion on that yet so.

Q: And — and similar to that, obviously, you know, we all talked about increased FONOPs, increased presence of U.S. in the area, increased rhetoric about what the U.S. stands for in the Indo-Pacific? Any evidence that any of that has caused the PLA to think twice about what it does or to reduce its presence or to change any of its operations since you’ve been watching?

SBRAGIA: Yes I do, actually. It — the United States military activity — we refer to as operations activities and investments that — primarily executed by the Indo-Pacific Command but many of the other combatant commands, as well — certainly Joint Staff and — and the Pentagon writ large across the defense enterprise is.

There has been a — a very notable uptick in terms of what we’re doing to safeguard our interests, help reassure our allies. The Chinese have noted that. They — they are in the position where they see that very, very clearly and they message that to us publicly and privately.

I — I think that it’s important that they reach that conclusion, that the United States is serious, that it’s undertaking a — a long-term and strategic transformation of the department for competition. I believe that the Chinese recognize that very clearly and you see that echoed back as late as the August MND spokespersons conference — this just occurred last week — where they — they echoed that, which is – it’s really important that the United States and China concentrate on risk reduction and crisis management in the areas of cooperation where the interests alive — align. I think that’s an important element of what we do in terms of the DOD’s outreach. Certainly the Chinese have seen that pressure and in some cases I believe that it has provided impetus for both sides to ensure that we’re keeping channels of communication open, just as the Secretary has commented himself.

Q: But any behavior change, by any chance?

Q: Tom, this is Tony Capaccio, can I ask a quick follow up?

STAFF: Yeah, Tony, one second. Nick — Nick had one here, I don’t think you heard him. He’s —

Q: Any — I just — just — just clarify any behavior change.

SBRAGIA: Yeah, I think it — the near-term activities, the Chinese have been a little bit more cautious about what they’re doing and particularly what they’re signaling. At the same time as the Chinese, you know, have not moved off their long-term strategic end state, they continue to pursue that and certainly that they’ve reached the conclusion that the — the near permanent change is underway in the United States, as well, particularly with the DOD, so.

STAFF: Okay. Hey, Tony, go ahead.

Q: Okay. Sir, you said that the Chinese nearly completed its triad development. Can you play that out a little bit? And has their Jin class submarines actually begun deterrence patrols that could jeopardize the United States’ east coast?

SBRAGIA: You know, I can’t go past anything that’s in the report right now and off the top of my head, I don’t know if I have the specifics. I’d – I’d be glad to get back with you with a specific statement —

Q: Okay but just completing a triad, that’s – that’s new. You didn’t say that in 2019. Could — just playing that out, you’re saying that they’ve developed an ICBM force now, submarine, and long range strike airborne force?

SBRAGIA: Yeah, China — the — here, I’ll provide the specific statement that we have available, which is China’s pursuing a nuclear triad with the development of nuclear-capable air-launch ballistic missiles and last year publicly revealed a modified bomber that would carry this missile. We’ve certainly talked about the Jin class submarines capacities in the past, as well, so.

Q: Right. Okay but you said they’ve completed basically a — a — a — developing a triad.

(CROSSTALK)

Q: — that accurate?

SBRAGIA: Yeah, so what I — what I mentioned is they’re – they’re nearing completion or they’re pursuing this, so.

Q: Okay, thank you.

STAFF: Okay. Any other questions out there?

Q: Just one last one. Thanks so much. I — I know that the report said the Chinese PLA Navy is now bigger than the U.S. Navy and I think that’s a — three dozen ships. I read somewhere that we have a plan to get to a 355 ship Navy. I’m wondering if you could (inaudible), how that’s progressing?

SBRAGIA: I’m sorry, can you repeat that question?

Q: Yeah. How — how is — how goes the plan to raise the U.S. Navy ship levels to 355, and how long do you think it will take and how long does that mean that the Chinese PLA will be larger than the American Navy?

SBRAGIA: Well, size obviously is one element and you can measure that in — in multiple metrics — total numbers of ships, which could provide some specifics. I believe right now, presently at 350. By the end of 2020, the Chinese Navy will have 360 vessels and then we account that there will be a continued increase after that point.

What I — this report in particular, which we’re here to talk about, doesn’t take a position on future force structure of the United States Navy. It states as a fact the size of each country’s battle force. There is certainly more to naval power than ship counts, total counts of the Chinese vessels, there’s tonnage, but for — and — but I would also draw your attention to weapons systems and it’s important to highlight the Chinese ship building advantages in terms of its size of fleet, is both in context of the broader modernization ambitions, virtual class military. This is a long-term challenge and it’s not only demarcated by a single variable, which would be total number of vessels, tonnage capacity, capabilities, location, posture, activities, and then other aspects.

Q: Understood. Thank you.

STAFF: Okay, good. I think we have time for one more question if there are any more. Anyone who hasn’t had a chance to ask a second question.

Okay, anybody who has another follow-up who didn’t have a chance. All right.

Q: Tom, I had one more on Taiwan if you could clarify.

STAFF: Go ahead, Tony. Last one.

Q: Okay, sir, a couple of weeks ago there were news report that China — Taiwan placed a $62 billion order for F-16s. Can you clarify that, please? It wasn’t $62 billion as far as I could tell.

SBRAGIA: You know, off of the top of my head here I don’t have that available. But I’ll be glad to get back to you through the PA for that.

Q: That would be good, because that number keeps bouncing out there in Asia.

SBRAGIA: Sure, we’ll see what we can do to provide some clarity.

Q: Thank you.

STAFF: All right, thanks, Tony.

Sir, is there anything else you’d like to say at the end here?

SBRAGIA: No, that — I appreciate your time.

And I — I — it would be improper if I didn’t say that — congratulate [NAME OF DOD POLICY EMPLOYEE REDACTED BY REQUEST], who is the primary coordinator within my shop, on putting all this together; not a small task. And certainly the defense intelligence enterprise led by the Asia Pacific Regional Center at DIA is doing the bulk of the work. This is an enterprise report, this — from the secretary to Congress, but certainly the actors that actually — the whole sweat equity is from them and it would be wrong if I didn’t highlight their role in it so.

STAFF: All right, thank everybody for your time. If you have any follow-ups after this, if you think of anything, just get back to me and we’ll work it for you.

Thank you.

Gordon Arthur, “Pentagon Report Warns of PLA’s Meteoric Rise,” Shephard Media, 2 September 2020.

… Andrew Erickson, a professor of strategy at the US Naval War College, offered his reaction. ‘This is the latest and greatest of the Pentagon’s ‘China Military Power’ reports since their inception two decades ago, and quite possibly the longest and most substantive. A high-water mark in public Pentagon analysis to date, it begins with a self-critical stocktaking of previous editions, yielding striking conclusions concerning the rapidity and relative comprehensiveness of PLA progress.’

Indeed, rather than simply achieving parity, the report notes that ‘China is already ahead of the United States in certain areas’. For example, the People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) is the largest navy in the world. Of its 350-ship fleet, some 130 are major surface combatants. The USN presently has just 293 ships.

China’s land-based missile inventory is impressive too, with the PLA Rocket Force (PLARF) having more than 1,250 ground-based ballistic and cruise missiles with ranges between 500km and 5,500km. China also owns one of the largest forces of long-range air defence missile systems, which create an integrated air defence umbrella.

Whichever way you look at it, the PLA has the largest ground force, largest navy, largest coast guard, largest air force in the Indo-Pacific and the largest maritime militia. …

Chad Sbragia, Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for China, Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Indo-Pacific Security Affairs, Office of the Secretary of Defense, echoed this sentiment when he presented the 2020 report.

‘China’s strategy…seeks to achieve great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation by 2049,’ he noted. ‘This strategy, led by the ,’party, entails a determined pursuit of political and social modernity and includes efforts to expand China’s national power, perfect its governance systems and revise the international order.’ …

A key takeaway relates to nuclear forces under the PLARF. The report estimates China’s warhead stockpile is in the low 200s and set to double over the next decade. This would represent the most rapid expansion and diversification of the Chinese nuclear arsenal to date.

Sbragia admitted: ‘We’re certainly concerned about the numbers. Not just about the numbers however…but also just the trajectory of China’s nuclear developments writ large.’ He suggested it was time for China to join a trilateral nuclear arms control arrangement along with Russia, especially with ‘ambiguity over the conditions under which China’s no first-use policy could apply’.

Nuclear weapon estimates have changed since last year. Whereas short- and medium-range ballistic missile numbers stay stationary, intermediate-range ballistic missiles (IRBMs) have jumped by 120 launchers and 40-120 missiles; and intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBM) have risen by ten launchers and ten missiles. …

The DF-26 is China’s primary IRBM…. The DF-26 has supposedly grown from 16-30 launchers in 2018 to an astounding 200 by 2020. …

Kristensen and Korda note: ‘This entanglement of nuclear and conventional capabilities in the Chinese IRBM and MRBM missile force presents a potential complication in a crisis, as it is possible that launch preparations of a conventional missile could be misinterpreted as an impending nuclear launch, thus potentially triggering US pre-emption.’ …

The PLA Air Force has been ‘reassigned’ a nuclear mission, with the H-6N and future H-20 bombers as delivery platforms. The H-6N can carry air-launched ballistic missiles, two types of which are under development; one, the CH-AS-X-13, is thought to carry a nuclear payload. …

Erickson concluded: ‘This year’s Pentagon ‘China Military Power’ report makes an exceptional contribution to public knowledge of the capabilities and trajectory of China’s armed forces. Two decades ago, many would have dismissed the notion that China’s armed forces could achieve parity with, let alone exceed, the American gold standard in any form save sheer numbers of personnel. Today, the report makes clear, such dismissiveness is entirely unwarranted.’

Andrew S. Erickson, “Breaking Down the Pentagon’s 2020 China Military Power Report: A Quest for PLA Parity?” The National Interest, 2 September 2020.

The report puts key concerns front and center: arguably, China’s meteoric military progress in recent years has not simply narrowed the gap in limited niches, but has in fact pursued parity and even selective superiority to the degree that, broadly interpreted, “China is already ahead of the United States in certain areas.”

Overall Assessment: 

My first impression is that this is the latest and greatest of the Pentagon’s China Military Power reports since their inception two decades ago. At 173 pages, it is quite possibly the longest and most substantive. A high-water mark in public analysis from the Office of the Secretary of Defense to date, it begins with a self-critical stocktaking of previous editions, yielding striking conclusions concerning the rapidity and relative comprehensiveness of the People’s Liberation Army (PLA)’s progress. This wake-up call regarding the current advanced state, and rapid forward advancement, of the People’s Republic of China’s (PRC) military capabilities, should land loudly on the desk of Members of Congress and all other U.S. foreign policy and defense community stakeholders. Essential reading, indeed!

The report puts key concerns front and center: arguably, China’s meteoric military progress in recent years has not simply narrowed the gap in limited niches, but has in fact pursued parity and even selective superiority to the degree that, broadly interpreted, “China is already ahead of the United States in certain areas”:

– “Shipbuilding: The PRC has the largest navy in the world, with an overall battle force of approximately 350 ships and submarines including over 130 major surface combatants. In comparison, the U.S. Navy’s battle force is approximately 293 ships as of early 2020.

– Land-based conventional ballistic and cruise missiles: The PRC has more than 1,250 ground-launched ballistic missiles (GLBMs) and ground-launched cruise missiles (GLCMs) with ranges between 500 and 5,500 kilometers. The United States currently fields one type of conventional GLBM with a range of 70 to 300 kilometers and no GLCMs.

– Integrated air defense systems: The PRC has one of the world’s largest forces of advanced long-range surface-to-air systems—including Russian-built S-400s, S-300s, and domestically produced systems—that constitute part of its robust and redundant integrated air defense system architecture.”

One need not accept upfront the report’s assessment that “it is likely that Beijing will seek to develop a military by mid-century that is equal to—or in some cases superior to—the U.S. military, or that of any other great power that the PRC views as a threat.” But as this 7.5 MB tome documents with excruciating thoroughness the sea change in capabilities the PRC has achieved already, the following conclusion emerges cogently: “What is certain is that the CCP has a strategic end state that it is working towards, which if achieved and its accompanying military modernization left unaddressed, will have serious implications for U.S. national interests and the security of the international rules-based order.” That definitely merits the attention of all who value the peace and prosperity underwritten by the global system that has risen over seven decades from the ashes of devastating world war.

Significant Superlatives:

The report confirms larger achievements that have been openly visible for some time. By the overall conclusion of the report’s data compilation at the end of 2019, China had achieved:

– the world’s largest standing ground force,

– the world’s largest navy, already with 50+ ships more than its American counterpart,

– the world’s largest coast guard “by far,”

– the Indo-Pacific’s largest air forces,

– the world’s largest sub-strategic missile forces,

– one of the world’s largest and most sophisticated surface-to-air missile forces–part of an Integrated Air Defense System architecture that is “robust and redundant… over land areas and within 300 nm (556 km) of its coast,”

– and the world’s leading maritime militia.

Major Nuclear Developments: 

As it has been doing for years, China is pursuing a nuclear weapons arsenal that is increasingly sophisticated, diverse, and regularly-updated. Some of the most significant examples of this pattern include the ongoing development of follow-on DF-5C and DF-31B ICBM variants. Beyond that, China’s nuclear weapons capabilities are developing in at least three big new ways.

First–as foreshadowed in a recent tweet by Secretary of Defense Dr. Mark T. Esper–the Pentagon projects that China’s nuclear warhead stockpile will “at least double in size” over the next decade from the current “low 200s.” This growing arsenal will be applied in part to the increasing of multiple independently targetable reentry vehicle (MIRV) capabilities. Meanwhile, “The number of warheads on the PRC’s land-based ICBMs capable of threatening the United States is expected to grow to roughly 200 in the next five years.” This Chinese nuclear buildup raises important questions about the significance of previously-reported items:

“China maintained a high level of activity at its Lop Nur nuclear weapons test site throughout 2019, according to the U.S. Department of State’s April 2020 Executive Summary of Findings on Adherence to and Compliance with Arms Control, Nonproliferation, and Disarmament Agreements and Commitments. The executive summary states, “China’s possible preparation to operate its Lop Nur test site year-round, its use of explosive containment chambers, extensive excavation activities at Lop Nur, and lack of transparency on its nuclear testing activities – which has included frequently blocking the flow of data from its International Monitoring System (IMS) stations to the International Data Center operated by the Preparatory Commission for the Comprehensive Nuclear Test-Ban Treaty Organization – raise concerns regarding its adherence to the ‘zero yield’ standard adhered to by the United States, United Kingdom, and France in their respective nuclear weapons testing moratoria.”

Second, China is pursuing a “nuclear triad” by developing a “nuclear-capable air-launched ballistic missile.” Such a weapon might be deployed on a succession of dual-capable bombers, first the H-6N and ultimately “the future H-20 flying wing stealth bomber.” This complements ongoing efforts to develop an undersea deterrent. Six Jin-class (Type 094) SSBNs have been built, with four going to sea and “two outfitting at Huludao Shipyard.” Neither the report itself nor Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense (DASD) for China Chad Sbragia’s earnestly engaging rollout presentation with the American Enterprise Institute was able to elaborate on the sensitive question of precisely what sort of patrols PLAN SSBNs have, or have not, engaged in thus far.

Third, China’s long-established approach of maintaining launchers, missiles, and warheads separated in peacetime may be changing in important ways, at least at the margins. The report states that “nuclear and conventional PLARF [PLA Rocket Force] brigades conduct ‘combat readiness duty’ and ‘high alert duty’ which apparently includes assigning a missile battalion to be ready to launch, and rotating to standby positions as much as monthly for unspecified periods of time. Authoritative PLA textbooks on strategy state ‘high alert duty’ is valuable for the defender in a nuclear war, recommending the PLARF adopt a high alert posture conceptually comparable to the claimed high alert posture kept by portions of U.S. and Russian nuclear forces, and that such a posture is compatible with the PRC’s active defense concept, NFU policy, and post-strike response approach.”

Additionally, public photos document the development of new missile silos, part of a broader set of indications that China “intends to increase the peacetime readiness of its nuclear forces by moving to a launch-on-warning (LOW) posture with an expanded silo-based force.” The report reasons as follows: “Commercial imagery from 2019 has revealed that China has constructed an ICBM silo at one of the PLARF’s Western training ranges that is smaller than China’s existing CSS-4 (DF-5) silos. According to state media, the CSS-X-20 (DF-41) ICBM can be launched from silos; this site is probably being used to at least develop a concept of operations for silo basing this system. There are also some indications that China may be building new CSS-4 (DF-5) ICBM silos.”

A Rocket Force to Be Reckoned With:

China’s enormous world-class rocket forces have benefitted, from, among other things, more ballistic missile testing and training launches “than the rest of the world combined” in 2019. The clear implication: watch that space!

Straddling the nuclear and conventional realm, itself a concerning area of growing emphasis for China, is the DF-26 intermediate-range ballistic missile (IRBM). It is designed to be able to attack both land targets (e.g., military facilities on Guam) and sea targets (e.g., a carrier strike group operating in the region). Intriguingly, the report states: “PRC strategists have highlighted the need for lower-yield nuclear weapons in order to increase the deterrence value of China’s nuclear force without defining specific nuclear yield values. A 2017 defense industry publication indicated a lower-yield weapon had been developed for use against campaign and tactical targets that would reduce collateral damage. The DF26 is China’s first nuclear-capable missile system that can conduct precision strikes, and therefore, is the most likely weapon system to field a lower-yield warhead in the near-term.” The author is neither able to find any open sources that elaborate on this point, nor is surprised at their apparent paucity or difficulty to access.

The inventory of this versatile, highly advanced missile is growing rapidly. In this regard, the following line from the report should grab policy-makers’ attention: “The PLA has fielded approximately 200 IRBM launchers and more than 200 missiles.” Since the only other PRC missiles universally-recognized as true IRBMs by range would be the few if any remaining DF-3s, it is reasonable to assume that the vast majority of these 200 IRBMs are DF-26s. That single system’s dominance of China’s arsenal within that set of operationally-important range parameters would seem to represent great confidence in it–no need to hedge Beijing’s bets with multiple types with broadly overlapping capabilities. It would represent extraordinarily fast production and deployment in highly-consequential numbers, itself a related sign of confidence, of a leading-edge weapons system.

The potential ramifications are nothing short of explosive: if China can successfully operate so many advanced missiles within that range category, it could well pursue a targeting doctrine that employed additional numbers of missiles fired to compensate for any remaining limitations in their accuracy. That math already has the potential to look problematic. Unfortunately, given its world-leading missile production capabilities and asymmetric advantage in making the most of them, it is scarcely plausible that China stopped producing DF-26s at the end of 2019. As early as next year’s report, we may receive worrisome news of further brigades’ worth of missiles added to the PLARF’s DF-26 arsenal.

Should China’s DF-26 inventory grow significantly larger still, what will the related operational equations look like then? At what point might exchange ratios begin to look so unforgiving for U.S. and allied navies as to impose highly-disruptive psychological effects of their own? U.S. officials will need to get out ahead of this potential crisis with solid answers to China’s missile challenge and the questions that it may soon generate. If there is one issue revealed in the report that policy-makers should follow up on immediately, this is arguably the one!

This raises a related point: given its determination to increasingly deter and thereby effectively restrict U.S. Navy operations along China’s contested maritime periphery and its Indo-Pacific approaches, it is no coincidence that the PRC has developed and deployed two major anti-ship ballistic missiles (ASBMs): the DF-26 and DF-21D.

Consider their potential complementarity, as detailed by the Department of Defense: “The DF-21D has a range exceeding 1,500 km, is fitted with a maneuverable reentry vehicle (MARV) warhead, and is claimed to be capable of rapidly reloading in the field. The PLARF continues to grow its inventories of DF-26 IRBM, which it first revealed in 2015 and fielded in 2016. The multirole DF-26 is designed to rapidly swap conventional and nuclear warheads and is capable of conducting precision strikes in the Western Pacific, the Indian Ocean, and the South China Sea from mainland China.”

If Beijing increasingly believes that it has real prospects of targeting effectively U.S. and allied vessels (1) out to the First Island Chain with the DF-21D and (2) out to the Second Island Chain in the Western Pacific as well as into the Indian Ocean with the DF-26, what will be the ramifications? (My hunch: some increasingly strong version of “not good.”) All the more reason to digest and address the report’s key findings with alacrity.

Returning to the subject of China’s emphasis on systems that risk blurring the distinction between conventional and nuclear capabilities, particularly in complex real-time scenarios, the PLA Rocket Force is clearly investing heavily in hypersonic glide vehicles. In crisis conditions, the rapid maneuvering capabilities of such systems may frustrate the ready determination of precisely where they were launched from; and hence whether it was by a brigade known to have conventional or nuclear weapons (or both). Specifically, “China has placed a heavy emphasis on developing and testing hypersonic glide vehicles. In August 2018, China successfully tested the XINGKONG-2 (Starry Sky-2), which it publicly described as a hypersonic waverider vehicle. The PLARF also paraded the DF-17 missile for the first time as part of the PRC’s 70th anniversary parade in 2019” (56).

Tidal Waves: Naval and Other Overwater Capabilities:

Thanks to impressive shipbuilding, one of three areas of advantage for China emphasized upfront in the report, China has the world’s largest navy numerically at 350 ships. This is already at least four dozen more than the U.S. Navy, even if the equivalent figure of 293 that the report cites is replaced with the service’s current official figure of closer to 300 total deployable battle force ships. Moreover, the PLA Navy (PLAN) is not simply running up the numbers with flotillas of small craft: its total of 350 warships includes “more than 130 major surface combatants” (44).

And quality is riding shotgun with quantity. Consider the following analysis regarding the aforementioned major surface combatants: “The PLAN remains engaged in a robust shipbuilding program for surface combatants, producing new guided-missile cruisers (CGs), guided-missile destroyers (DDGs) and corvettes (FFLs). These assets will significantly upgrade the PLAN’s air defense, anti-ship, and antisubmarine capabilities and will be critical as the PLAN expands its operations beyond the range of the PLA’s shore-based air defense systems. In December 2019, China launched the sixth Renhai class cruiser (Type 055) and was set to commission the first hull of the class in early 2020. The Renhai [will] carry a large load out of weapons including ASCMs [anti-ship cruise missiles], surface-to-air missiles (SAMs), and anti-submarine weapons along with likely LACMs [land-attack cruise missiles] and …ASBMs… when those become operational.” Recall the previous discussion of China’s DF-21D and DF-26 ASBMs, and now imagine multiple large PLAN warships with some form of ASBMs (even if range-limited by shipboard size restrictions) among their weapons load-outs.

Cruise missiles are a similarly potent area of emphasis for China: “The PLAN continues to emphasize anti-surface warfare capabilities in its force development. The PLAN’s frigates and FFLs [light frigates], as well as modernized older combatants, carry variants of the YJ-83/YJ83J ASCM (97 nm, 180 km), while newer surface combatants such as the Luyang II class DDGs [destroyers] are fitted with the YJ-62 (215 nm, 400 km). The Luyang III class DDGs and the Renhai class CGs [guided-missile cruisers] will be fitted with a variant of China’s newest ASCM, the YJ-18A (290 nm, 537 km). A few modernized destroyers have been retrofitted with the supersonic YJ-12A ASCM (250 nm, 285 km). Eight of the PLAN’s 12 Kilo-class SSs [diesel-electric submarines] are equipped with the Russian-built SS-N-27 ASCM (120-nm, 222-km). The PRC’s Song class SS, Yuan class SSP [air-independent propulsion-powered submarine], and Shang class SSN [nuclear-powered attack submarine] will field the PLAN’s newest domestic submarine-launched YJ-18 and its variants, which constitute an improvement over the SS-N-27 ASCM.”

Among cruise missiles, the impending introduction of land-attack versions will likely enable a significant transformation outward and upward in fleet capabilities and orientation: “As the PLAN continues to transition into a global multi-mission force, the addition of land-attack capabilities to its modern array of anti-surface and anti-air capabilities is a logical next step. In the coming years, the PLAN will probably field LACMs on its newer cruisers and destroyers and developmental Type 093B nuclear attack submarines. The PLAN could also retrofit its older surface combatants and submarines with land-attack capabilities as well. The addition of land-attack capabilities to the PLAN’s surface combatants and submarines would provide the PLA with flexible long-range strike options. This would allow the PRC to hold land targets at risk beyond the Indo-Pacific region.”

This concerted effort to increase long-range precision-strike capabilities has an important airborne component as well. In addition to the long-serving H-6G, “PLAN Aviation has begun operating the H-6J, a maritime strike version of the H-6K with six weapons pylons for ASCMs. This aircraft carries six supersonic long-range YJ-12 ASCMs and can attack warships out to the Second Island Chain – significantly extending PLAN Aviation’s reach. During the PRC’s 70th anniversary parade in 2019, the PLAAF publicly revealed the H-6N, a derivative of the H-6K optimized for long-range strikes. The H-6N features a modified fuselage that allows it to carry externally either a drone or an air-launched ballistic missile (ALBM) that may be nuclear-capable. The H-6N’s air-to-air refueling capability also provides it greater reach over other H-6 variants that are not refuelable in air.”

Looking forward, the PLAN continues to pursue a multiple-carrier, carrier-centric navy as the ultimate gold standard. China “continued work on its second domestically built aircraft carrier in 2019, which will be larger and fitted with a catapult launch system. This design will enable it to support additional fighter aircraft, fixed-wing early-warning aircraft, and more rapid flight operations and thus extend the reach and effectiveness of its carrier based strike aircraft. The PRC’s second domestically built carrier is projected to be operational by 2024, with additional carriers to follow.” The larger picture: “China’s aircraft carriers and planned follow-on carriers, once operational, will extend air defense coverage beyond the range of coastal and shipboard missile systems and will enable task group operations at increasingly longer ranges.” Underwriting these long-term efforts, “the PLAN now has a sizable force of highly capable logistical replenishment ships to support long-distance, long-duration deployments, including two new Fuyu class fast combat support ships (AOEs) built specifically to support aircraft carrier operations.” Further underscoring its importance and fleet centrality, as well as the systematic seriousness of PRC efforts, “The Renhai CG will be China’s premier carrier escort for blue-water operations. Four units are currently outfitting, with several more under construction.”

These findings regarding China’s naval shipbuilding and the fruits of its massive labors are sufficiently concerning to underscore the following further assessment on my part, which draws on a major research effort spearheaded by the Naval War College’s China Maritime Studies Institute (CMSI). I believe that, to the extent that any such thing is possible amid real-world complexity, PLAN force structure development is informed by a coherent, structured, well-articulated, executable strategy. It benefits from a world-class system and operations. Working off a well-thought-out plan for maintenance and modernization, China produces good ships at a good rate and maintains them. China’s maintenance capacity has not been tested in volume yet, but seems competent so far. (Whether China can continue to implement its maintenance plan effectively when midlife ship deadlines trigger massive increases in capacity requirements over the next few years remains to be seen.)

China boasts considerable shipbuilding capacity. It engages in such pragmatic, responsive practices as spiral development. For example, the Luyang I (Type 052B) destroyer was built in China of Russian descent (combat and weapons systems), then integrated with China’s own weapons systems. Successive iterations reached success in the Renhai CG, whereupon China started building significant numbers.

China has a unified effort, not a collection of programs competing against themselves. While the U.S. has downsized shipbuilding capacity in recent years, resulting in increasing bottlenecks, China has been greatly expanding its shipbuilding capacity, and it has thus far found an effective way to fund this buildup. While the relevant U.S. shipyards are military-only, virtually every Chinese shipyard is an integrated civil-military production facility. This provides valuable funding potential and flexibility. Basic infrastructure costs are spread out. For example, the development of the 300-ton graving docks at Bohai Shipyard in Huludao was not driven by navy requirements, yet the PLAN will benefit from them.

China’s rapid progress in naval shipbuilding and fleet expansion raises at least two vital questions:

– What is the U.S. Navy’s strategy?

– What ships are needed to fulfill that strategy?

Growing Overseas Presence and Power Projection

Returning to the text of the report itself, the Pentagon rightly emphasizes the Party’s continued focus on maintaining domestic security and advancing unresolved territorial claims along China’s periphery, particularly in the East and South China Seas. Beyond this core focus, however, Beijing is clearly adding an emerging layer of emphasis: increasingly employing the PLA as an indispensable tool to secure growing Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and PRC State interests around the world, in part by playing a greater role in supporting PRC foreign policy. Providing security for Xi’s signature foreign policy initiative since 2013, here termed “One Belt, One Road” (OBOR), is a vast area of PLA responsibility and new emerging missions.

The report addresses the prospects for expanding PLA access and basing with notable specificity: “The PRC has likely considered Myanmar, Thailand, Singapore, Indonesia, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, United Arab Emirates, Kenya, Seychelles, Tanzania, Angola, and Tajikistan as locations for PLA military logistics facilities. The PRC has probably already made overtures to Namibia, Vanuatu, and the Solomon Islands. Known focus areas of PLA planning are along the SLOCs from China to the Strait of Hormuz, Africa, and the Pacific Islands.” Perhaps most tantalizing: “Cambodia declined a U.S. offer to pay to renovate a U.S.-donated building on Ream Naval Base in Cambodia. Cambodia may have instead accepted assistance from China or another country to develop Ream Naval Base. If China is able to leverage such assistance into a presence at Ream Naval Base, it suggests that China’s overseas basing strategy has diversified to include military capacity-building efforts. Both the PRC and Cambodia have publicly denied having signed an agreement to provide the PLAN access to Ream Naval Base.”

Despite the extensive PLA involvement in bilateral and multilateral exercises, and contributions to UN operations as well as humanitarian assistance and disaster relief around the world, China’s growing overseas military presence is already a source of tensions. At China’s first overseas facility in Djibouti, for example, “PLA personnel at the facility have interfered with U.S. flights by lasing pilots and flying drones, and the PRC has sought to restrict Djiboutian sovereign airspace over the base.”

Befitting an extension of PRC security interests across all regions and domains, a dedicated section on “China and the Arctic” outlines China’s efforts there as a self-described “near-Arctic State.” While China appears far from deploying a nuclear-powered icebreaker, it is interesting to note that its second icebreaking research vessel, Xue Long 2, “is the first polar research vessel that can break ice while moving forwards or backwards,” up to a thickness of 1.5 meters. As ice is broken, or gradually melts, along the “Polar Silk Road,” a more complicated obstacle may be Russia’s desire to impose restrictive policies along the Northern Sea Route. No stranger to such challenges, deep-pocketed China is investing in cooperation, having jointly established the Sino-Russian Arctic Research center in 2019 and footing 75% of the costs for a joint expedition that the institution is sponsoring this year.

PLA-Paramilitary-Militia Interoperability:  

The report devotes an important, sophisticated section explaining how all three of China’s armed forces work together with increasing frequency and effectiveness. The People’s Armed Police (PAP)’s recently expanded responsibilities include commanding China’s Coast Guard; and even, apparently, “since at least 2016” using Tajikistan-based PAP counterterrorism forces from Xinjiang to monitor and patrol the tri-border area among Tajikistan, Afghanistan, and China. Based in Xinjiang itself, the PAP’s Mountain Eagle Commando Unit apparently trains to operate in austere high-altitude terrain within the decidedly non-autonomous “Autonomous Region.”

A pithy section on China’s People’s Armed Forces Maritime Militia (PAFMM) states with U.S. Defense Department authority findings long-documented by CMSI. PAFMM forces play “a major role in coercive activities” and have “played significant roles in a number of military campaigns and coercive incidents over the years” The report details how “by the end of 2016,” Hainan’s Sansha City Maritime Militia received “84 large militia fishing vessels with reinforced hulls and ammunition storage.” The “most professional” PAFMM unit, “Its forces are paid salaries independent of any clear commercial fishing responsibilities and recruited from recently separated veterans.”

Cyber, Space, and the Strategic Support Force:

Presumably, for reasons of classification, this year’s Pentagon report does not offer new details regarding China’s space and cyber systems in similar abundance to its offerings regarding their naval, air, and missile counterparts. After all, even the most secretive of PLAN wharves tend to be within the sight of populated areas and people with digital cameras more powerful than the devices Cold War spies wielded. Many airbases, or at least the aircraft flying from them, are similarly vulnerable to scrutiny. Networks of enthusiasts compare notes via the Internet. Major missiles are relatively few in type and of great strategic importance; Pentagon reports have tended to cover deployed systems systematically. But beyond publicly cataloged and generally-predictable Newtonian orbits, truly definitive descriptions of space and cyber assets tend to remain the province of the most capable governments and their relevant agencies. The complex nature of some space operations, and the challenge in attributing cyber activities definitely, accentuates this partial monopoly and raises the risk of revealing sources, methods, and operational planning assumptions by disclosing details. At least, that is this author’s conjecture…

This year’s Pentagon report certainly offers some concrete information on Beijing’s prodigious space activity: “In 2019, China launched 34 SLVs (of which 32 were successful) that placed more than 70 spacecraft into orbit including navigation, ISR, and test/engineering satellites, as well as satellites for foreign customers.” In these and related efforts, various state-owned and “private” enterprises debuted and tested a wide range of launchers. Of unclear civilian application but of obvious relevance to rapid replenishing of space assets to meet military needs, “state-owned commercial company Expace conducted two orbital missions using Kuaizhou-1A light-lift vehicles from the Taiyuan Satellite Launch Center within six hours of one another.”

As for orbital assets, the PLA “owns and operates approximately half of” China’s more than 120 reconnaissance and remote sensing satellites, “most of which could support situational awareness of regional rivals and potential flashpoints, while monitoring, tracking, and targeting an adversary’s forces.” With the 55^th and final Beidou satellite launched successfully on 23 June 2020, the global coverage completion of China’s Beidou-3 positioning, navigation, and timing (PNT) system on schedule is widely-reported news. This milestone nevertheless merits emphasis here because it offers the PLA “additional command and control.” Finally, as Pentagon reports have explained for years, Beijing continues to pursue a wide range of counter-space capabilities to disable or destroy others’ on-orbit systems, including kinetic anti-satellite weapons, electronic warfare capabilities, and directed-energy weapons.

Perhaps the report’s greatest contribution in the space and cyber domains is an organizational analysis that is broadly useful, and telling in some details. A major section on the PLA Strategic Support Force (SSF) rightly describes it as “a theater command-level organization established to centralize the PLA’s strategic space, cyber, electronic, and psychological warfare missions and capabilities.” An important entity to understand, indeed!

The SSF’s organizational nuances are admittedly difficult to distill, and the section bears careful reading. Interesting nuggets include the following: “The Space System Department operates at least eight bases, including those whose core missions are the launch, tracking R&D [research and development], and operation of the satellites vital to China’s overhead C4ISR [Command, Control, Communications, Computers, Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance] architecture. The SSF runs tracking, telemetry, and command stations in Namibia, Pakistan, and Argentina.” While close Sino-Pakistan military cooperation is proudly proclaimed to all who will listen, it may be news to at least some Argentine citizens that the Patagonian deep space station near Las Lajas in the Andes foothills of Neuquén province is managed by China Satellite Launch and Tracking Control General, indisputably under SSF control.

The section immediately afterward provides a similar overview of the likewise-insufficiently-understood PLA Joint Logistic Support Force (JLSF). Its mission is less glamorous than that of the SSF, but this role is no less important: establishing and maintaining relationships among the many entities that ensure the flow and function of PLA goods and services. There is a vital civilian component to this, particularly as PLA efforts expand overseas on extended supply lines, sometimes discreetly, including through the use of foreign ports and other facilities.

Organization and Operations: Lingering Weaknesses, Determined Reforms  

This naturally raises a critical related issue: how well can China command and control these and other forces in practice? Many previous studies have suggested that while PRC military hardware has advanced rapidly since the late 1990s, the “software” of personnel and organization to operate under complex, high-intensity conditions has lagged considerably, with some particularly glaring weaknesses persisting. Given the complicated, constantly evolving nature of the gargantuan multivariate equation that represents Chinese military capabilities, even a report of this authority and extent cannot provide a conclusive answer.

On the one hand, the report acknowledges that China retains a range of military limitations, even as it is striving to address them: “major gaps and shortcomings remain.” China’s aviation industry remains “unable to produce reliable high-performance aircraft engines and relies on Western and Russian engines.” Other ongoing weaknesses include the fact that while “China is installing undersea monitoring systems,” it “continues to lack a robust deep-water anti-submarine warfare capability.” Overall PRC capabilities continue to diminish dramatically with distance and complexity of coordination: “Whether the PLA can collect accurate targeting information and pass it to launch platforms in time for successful strikes in sea areas beyond the first island chain is unclear.” On a related note: “The PLAN recognizes that long-range ASCMs require a robust, over-the-horizon (OTH) targeting capability to realize their full potential. To fill this capability gap, China is investing in reconnaissance, surveillance, command, control, and communications systems at the strategic, operational, and tactical levels to provide high-fidelity targeting information to surface and subsurface launch platforms.”

On the other hand, PLA “software” reforms are impressive not only in their ambition but also in their execution to date: “More striking than the PLA’s staggering amounts of new military hardware are the recent sweeping efforts taken by CCP leaders that include completely restructuring the PLA into a force better suited for joint operations, improving the PLA’s overall combat readiness, encouraging the PLA to embrace new operational concepts, and expanding the PRC’s overseas military footprint.”

Perhaps nowhere is this transformation more clearly manifested than in the PLA’s transformation of its organizing principle from seven army-based Military Regions to five joint Theater Commands. This is necessarily a work in progress, but the report enumerates significant effort and achievements. Additionally, some of the most effective advances may have come in the form of low-intensity gray zone operations that in no way represent apex military capabilities yet relentlessly yield incremental progress. “The Eastern Theater Command,” it states, “likely commands all China Coast Guard (CCG) and maritime militia ships while conducting Senkakus-related operations.” The PLA’s Hong Kong and Macau garrisons are the responsibility of the Southern Theater Command. Under the Southern Theater Command’s direction, in August 2019, “PLA and probable …PAP… forces deployed into Hong Kong by land, air, and sea from Shenzhen at night…” as part of a one-way rotation to bolster the presence of China’s armed forces in the Special Administrative Region.

Conclusion: Prospects for Parity? 

This year’s Pentagon report to Congress makes an exceptional contribution to public knowledge of the capabilities and trajectory of China’s armed forces. Considered in conjunction with its post-2000 predecessors, it documents devastatingly just how much progress Beijing has made in two decades. Already a force to be reckoned with, the PLA and its allied services are poised to advance dramatically in the coming years. This latest assessment is so information-rich that the author simply cannot distill all the interesting data points here–ideally, you should read it in full yourself.

Two decades ago, many would have dismissed the notion that China’s armed forces could achieve parity with, let alone exceed, the American gold standard in any form save sheer numbers of personnel. Any potential threat to Taiwan was dismissed as a “million-man swim.” Today, the report makes clear, such discounting is entirely unwarranted. The report highlights three areas of PRC preponderance up front: shipbuilding, land-based conventional ballistic and cruise missiles, and integrated air-defense systems. To be sure, even here China is not uniformly superior. The more likely military scenarios–“home games” for Beijing–naturally place far greater stress on Chinese IADS than their American counterparts. Land-based conventional missiles have long been regarded as far less scenario-relevant to the United States, which is one reason that Washington shackled itself nearly unilaterally to the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty from 1987-2019, even as the one other signatory (Russia) cheated and China would not join. Washington should have unstrapped that costly straitjacket even earlier, in this author’s view. But naval shipbuilding is bound by no arms control regime akin to the 1930 London Naval Treaty, and could hardly be more relevant or useful to America’s global posture in defending a free and open system. The Pentagon’s underscoring of China’s relative progress in this critical area alone should be a profound wake-up call for U.S. policy-makers and all who support and wish them well in their efforts to preserve a Free and Open Indo-Pacific.

Moreover, China may well be adding more areas of advantage atop these three. While the report does not offer many details concerning PRC unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), its reference to their sheer scope and diversity as displayed in unprecedented abundance at the 2018 Zhuhai Airshow suggests impressive dynamism in that field. In the report’s review of China’s defense industrial base, major technological sectors, and global efforts to augment them by any means available even as American law enforcement and other guardians of foreign intellectual property strengthen defenses, it becomes clear just how hard China is working to dominate fields that are not yet firmly established today. In addition to its earlier mention of PRC efforts regarding hypersonics, the Pentagon emphasizes China’s systematic planning and prioritization of such areas as artificial intelligence, facial recognition, supercomputing, and human-machine teaming technologies. In light of the aforementioned post-2016 PAP presence in Tajikistan, the following merits attention: “PRC technology companies may also be collecting facial recognition data on Tajikistanis with the citywide facial recognition supplied since at least 2013, similar to the surveillance equipment installed in Xinjiang.” Additionally, in the field of quantum computing alone, “China conducted the first quantum-secured intercontinental videoconference in September 2017 and plans to have a satellite-enabled, global, quantum-encrypted communications capability operational by 2030. China is also reportedly building the world’s largest quantum research facility slated to open in the city of Hefei in 2020. China already has a 2,000 km secure quantum communication ground line between Beijing and Shanghai and plans to expand the line across China.”

One cannot predict with certainty how these technologies will develop, or how China’s efforts to harness them will play out, but if Beijing can already achieve superlative positions in such long-established areas as shipbuilding, missiles, and air defense systems, it should have even greater prospects of doing so regarding at least some technologies of tomorrow. There, by definition, no nation yet has an established position–and China itself may be the one to gain a valuable head start.

As DASD Sbragia emphasized commendably in his AEI presentation, this year’s Defense Department China report takes particular pains to review and explain China’s national and military strategy on its own terms. Distilling Beijing’s vision and policy framework reveals that it is important to distinguish between two distinct concepts: parity and parallelism. Under the CCP, China clearly aims for increasing parity with the United States, as measured in overall military capabilities, influence, and recognition. The Pentagon’s report shows what for some will be a shocking rapidity of progress toward parity in key areas, including its actual attainment therein, broadly speaking.

To be sure, China is nowhere close to achieving overall parity of military capabilities with the United States. Beijing faces not only a common uncertainty about the future, but also some clear downside risks moving forward. The report rightly concludes that PRC military-related spending is surely higher than the official figure, could already exceed $200 billion, and could rise to $270 billion by 2003 per current trends. Yet China’s economic growth rate is headed in the other direction, projected to halve “from 6.1 percent in 2019 to 3 percent in 2030, which could slow future defense spending growth.” Provided that Xi or his successor continues to prioritize military spending, however, there appears to be significant room to grow nonetheless.

Prospects for increasing but far from complete parity aside, China’s force posture and composition remains far from being fully parallel to that of the United States in many respects. Because of Washington and Beijing’s very different geography and geopolitical goals, this divergence is likely to hold true overall for years to come.

Unfortunately, what this means in practice is that Beijing is increasingly able to apply growing parity in increasing aspects of overall capabilities to its far more concentrated target set of national security priorities. As the report underscores at the outset, “Party leaders…argue that ‘full reunification’—unification with Taiwan on Beijing’s terms and completing Hong Kong and Macau’s integration by the end of 2049—is a fundamental condition of national rejuvenation.”

Nowhere are the consequences of Beijing’s unrelenting focus on realizing its “core” political-territorial claims by wielding military might more apparent than in the report’s ample coverage of Taiwan Strait force (im)balances and scenarios. Taiwan’s old military advantages are gone or fast eroding, its defense budget is 1/15 of China’s official expenditures, and its transition to an all-volunteer military remains an expensive struggle. Taiwan’s saving grace is that its wonderfully humane and dynamic capitalist democracy makes its own special contributions to the world and is well worth defending. It is finally pursuing more logically-asymmetric approaches to its own defense, which are indispensable and facilitate further worthwhile cooperation with the United States.

In this, as in other key areas, Sbragia’s Pentagon colleagues have their work cut out for them. They will need the full support of Congress, the Executive Branch, the American public, and international partners. By raising awareness of the states, this report has provided a signal service while there is still time to act. But there is no time to waste—none at all!

Next year’s report, which Sbragia’s team and contributors across the U.S. defense intelligence community will begin developing shortly, will record a whole new chapter in PRC military progress. Its contents will include significant developments that have already happened as of today–but, since they occurred after the end of 2019, proved too recent to curate and incorporate in the round just completed and released.

In conclusion, there is no better summary of the challenge before us than this excerpt from Xi’s speech at the 19th National Congress of the Communist Party of China on 18 October 2017: “The wheels of history roll on; the tides of the times are vast and mighty. History looks kindly on those with resolve, with drive and ambition, and with plenty of guts; it won’t wait for the hesitant, the apathetic, or those shy of a challenge.”

Dr. Andrew S. Erickson is a Visiting Scholar at Harvard’s John King Fairbank Center for Chinese Studies and a Professor of Strategy in the China Maritime Studies Institute at the U.S. Naval War College. He runs the research website www.andrewerickson.com.

Image: Military vehicles carrying DF-21D ballistic missiles roll to Tiananmen Square during a military parade to mark the 70th anniversary of the end of World War Two, in Beijing, China, September 3, 2015. REUTERS/Damir Sagolj.

Editor’s Note: This piece has been updated since publication. 

2019

Andrew S. Erickson, “The Pentagon Reports: China’s Military Power,” The National Interest, 8 May 2019.

The Department of Defense is out with its latest report detailing the rise of Beijing’s military. Here is what you need to know.

As Assistant Secretary of Defense for Indo-Pacific Security Affairs Randall G. Schriver emphasized in his rollout remarks on May 2, 2019, “our annual report to Congress, which we refer to as the China Military Power Report… is our authoritative statement on how we view developments in the Chinese military, as well as how that integrates with our overall strategy.”

Weighing in at a hefty 123 pages, this year’s document is nearly an inch thick. In terms of substance, it compares favorably among its seventeen predecessors. Among the report’s greatest strengths: as with previous iterations, it offers new data points and clarifications available nowhere else in authoritative form. This underscores the power of the U.S. government to disclose some of its collected information and accompanying analysis, a power this author and others believe should be used far more frequently.

The report offers useful background throughout, with incremental updates. Pentagon releases are typically strong on concrete quantifiable details regarding force structure and technology, while rarely offering unique insights concerning abstract qualitative subjects such as the People’s Republic of China (PRC)’s strategic and doctrinal evolution. The history of this last topic, for instance, is covered well in such scholarly sources as M. Taylor Fravel’s new book Active Defense: China’s Military Strategy since 1949. Overall, however, the report rightly underscores that China under Xi Jinping is pursuing sweeping defense reforms as part of a comprehensive effort to make China a “strong country” with a “world-class military” by 2049. Xi himself has “called for more focused reforms of weapons procurement systems and other [civil-military integration] efforts to generate breakthroughs….” The Pentagon provides useful overviews of China’s Party-State-Armed Forces bureaucracy, including the current leadership of China’s obscure National Security Commission. The report’s delineation of China’s five Theater Commands and their respective assets and roles is particularly substantive and well-organized.

Special sections on PRC influence operations and Arctic efforts add useful focus, although they are concise to the point of being somewhat spare. “China in the Arctic” cites Danish concerns about Chinese “proposals to establish a research station in Greenland, establish a satellite ground station, renovate airports, and expand mining.” It also suggests possible future PLAN deployment of ballistic-missile submarines (SSBNs) to the Arctic Ocean. As Schriver emphasized, “whether or not that becomes an access point… safe harbor for strategic assets, such as ballistic-missile-carrying submarines, it is a possibility in the future and one we’ll watch very closely.”

In keeping with the Trump Administration’s outlook and priorities, there is greater emphasis on economic issues than in earlier years of the report. This year’s iteration highlights the U.S. Trade Representative’s conclusion that PRC government policies cause “harm to the U.S. economy of at least $50 billion per year.” Building on previous years’ analysis, the report judges that China’s defense budget grew an average of 8% inflation-adjusted from 2009-18. Beijing’s official military spending in 2018 was just over $170 billion; the Pentagon estimates actual spending at over $200 billion. As for revenue generation, China is currently in the top five of arms exporters globally, typically offering more flexible terms and creative side payments than competitors. Major deals with Pakistan and growing sales in the Middle East are bolstering order books. Armed unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) are a major competitive advantage for China; most other would-be suppliers are bound by voluntary export control restrictions.

As an authoritative policy document, the report criticizes Beijing for its continued lack of transparency, including its failure to release a Defense White Paper since 2015. Notably, Schriver declared in his press briefing, “our concerns are significant when it comes to the ongoing repression in China. The Communist Party is using the security forces for mass imprisonment of Chinese Muslims in concentration camps.”

While the Pentagon chronicles many Chinese advances, it also acknowledges persistent weaknesses. As Schriver explains, “the report also suggests where they do need more work. …There are things that we do in terms of training, in terms of sophisticated integration of command and control… and intelligence, that they’re not quite there yet. The training is not as complex as ours.”

Maritime East Asia

This latest report continues a pattern of productive focus on the top-prioritized scenarios for People’s Liberation Army (PLA) preparation, including those concerning Taiwan and the South China Sea. It rightly points out that the PLA’s latest “military strategic guidelines” call for it to be prepared to fight and win “informatized local wars,” and to prevail in “maritime military struggle” that may span peacetime and wartime. It correctly concludes that “China expects significant elements of a modern conflict to occur at sea.”

The report devotes significant space to comparing PRC and Taiwan forces using a new methodology yielding substantially different numbers from previous years. It explains how rapid mainland military progress has rapidly eroded much the island’s technological and geographical advantages. For instance, China envisions and trains for a Joint Blockade Campaign designed to threaten Taiwan’s maritime and air access. Not only does it target Taiwan with a broad array of ballistic missiles, it even fields rocket artillery systems capable of spanning the Taiwan Strait, such as the PHL-03.

But the Pentagon is also frank about the PLA’s remaining limitations vis-à-vis its lead planning scenario. Seizure of small offshore islands is likely operationally feasible but would probably represent a Pyrrhic victory triggering international intervention far short of delivering control of the true prize: Taiwan proper, with its 23.5 million citizens and their free, democratic, Chinese-culture-infused society. While five Type 071 Yuzhao-class LPDs amphibious transport docks operational in the PLA Navy (PLAN) and three more are under construction/outfitting, the Pentagon judges that China has not launched enough amphibious warfare ships to optimally support relevant contingencies: “there is no indication that China is significantly expanding its landing ship force necessary for an amphibious assault on Taiwan.”

Regarding the South China Sea, the report draws linkages to key new pieces of hardware that may be particularly useful for that theater. These include the “world’s first large cargo UAV,” the AT-200, with 1.5 ton carrying capacity and ability to operate from “unimproved runways as short as 200 meters” including on small islands. Also relevant: the world’s largest seaplane, China’s AG-600. The report also underscores that China has deployed anti-ship cruise missiles (ASCMs) and surface-to-air missiles (SAMs) to the Spratlys in violation of Xi Jinping’s 2015 pledge not to militarize them.

Gray Zone

The report pays proper attention to China’s emphasis on “gray zone” activities designed to fall below the threshold of armed conflict. Although the report also documents their use along China’s contested borders with India and Bhutan, such tactics are designed primarily to further disputed sovereignty claims regarding features and waters in the South and East China Seas (“Near Seas”). Here, China’s first sea force (the PLAN) often plays a backstop deterrence role over the horizon, while its second sea force (the China Coast Guard/CCG) and its third sea force (the People’s Armed Forces Maritime Militia/PAFMM) operate on the front lines. The CCG is “by far the largest coast guard force in the world.” It has “the ability to intimidate local, non-Chinese fishing boats, as occurred in an October 2016 incident near Scarborough Reef. The PAFMM is approximated only by Vietnam’s maritime militia, which is no match for it. On a related note, under the Joint Logistics Support Force, “The PLA is integrating civilian-controlled support equipment, including ships… into military operations and exercises.”

Since it first included coverage of the PAFMM in 2017, the Pentagon’s annual report has authoritatively showcased substantive details concerning this formerly under-considered force. This year, for the first time, the report includes both the CCG and PAFMM in an organizational chart depicting the leadership and chain of command of China’s armed forces. A dedicated section highlights increasing coordination and interoperability among China’s three sea forces, propelled by recent reforms including the CCG’s subordination to the People’s Armed Police (PAP), itself now under the sole command and control of the Central Military Commission. Notably, China’s three sea forces have shown greater interoperability amongst themselves than have the PAP and PLA between themselves.

Taken together, these developments could enhance the ability of China’s second and third sea forces “to provide support to PLA operations under the command of the joint theater commands.” In the South China Sea, the report stresses, “the PAFMM plays a major role in coercive activities to achieve China’s political goals without fighting….” It “has played significant roles in a number of military campaigns and coercive incidents over the years.” Of particular significance, “a large number of PAFMM vessels train with and assist the PLAN and CCG in tasks such as safeguarding maritime claims, surveillance and reconnaissance, fisheries protection, logistic support, and search and rescue.” Moreover, “In conflict, China may… employ CCG and PAFMM ships to support military operations.” This all makes it crystal clear that Chinese navy interlocutors cannot plausibly profess ignorance of the PAFMM to their foreign counterparts—as they have done repeatedly in official meetings. Based on the report’s nature and content, doing so profoundly insults American intelligence in all senses of the word.

In the South China Sea, “China has built a state-owned fishing fleet for at least part of its maritime militia force….” Hainan’s provincial government “ordered the building of 84 large militia fishing vessels with reinforced hulls and ammunition storage, which the [Sansha City Maritime Militia] received by the end of 2016, along with extensive subsidies to encourage frequent operations in the Spratly Islands.” Comprising China’s most professional PAFMM units, Sansha’s “forces are paid salaries independent of any clear commercial fishing responsibilities and recruited from recently separated veterans.” Meanwhile, China’s development and fortification of outposts on the South China Sea features it occupies allows China to “maintain a more flexible and persistent military and paramilitary presence in the area.”

In his Q&A with journalists, Schriver explained how the U.S. government’s understanding of China’s three sea forces affects U.S. policy in practice: “We’re less interested in the color of the hull than the activity and the actions.  So what we’re most interested in is China behaving in a manner that’s respectful of international law and norms, and behaving in a manner that is not destabilizing and is more constructive. …if its coast guard and maritime militia or classic gray-hulled navy, if the design is to infringe upon the sovereignty of another country… with the objective of creating some sort of tension that results in a favorable outcome for them…. If they’re engaged in provocation or infringement on another country’s sovereignty, particularly our allies, then we would treat them differently than if they were doing what we would regard as more normal coast guard activities, or we don’t have necessarily the equivalent of a maritime militia, but peaceful activities.”

All these points emerged independently from extensive open-source research on the PAFMM that the author, Conor Kennedy, and colleagues conducted at the Naval War College’s China Maritime Studies Institute (CMSI) over the past five years. The Department of Defense has now validated our more specific findings and recommendations explicitly.

Naval Forces

Beyond the Near Seas, the PLAN, PLA Air Force (PLAAF), and other PLA services are charged with increasing power projection. This challenging task remains very much a work in progress. Each of China’s three sea forces is the world’s largest by the number of ships. Greater than the U.S. Navy in numbers although far behind it in tonnage at 1.8 million to 4.6 million, the PLAN is growing rapidly in force structure and related capabilities. Over the past decade, it has dispatched over 30 antipiracy task forces to the Gulf of Aden and beyond; the 29^th escorted 40 ships over six months and provided medical assistance to two Chinese merchant ships.

The speed of growth for the PLAN’s already large submarine force has slowed, but remains impressive: the Pentagon’s revised projection still predicts 65-70 submarines by 2020. As for nuclear-powered variants, China has built six Shang-class attack submarines (SSNs) and four Jin-class SSBNs. In 2018, a Shang “sailed underwater in the vicinity of the Senkaku Islands.” While neither the report nor Schriver offered specifics regarding patrols, the report terms the four Jins already operational with JL-2 submarine-launched ballistic missiles (SLBMs) “China’s first credible, sea-based nuclear deterrent.” Using the 40+-year service life of China’s first-generation Han-class SSNs as a yardstick, the Pentagon forecasts that the PLAN will continue to operate Jin-class SSBNs even as it begins building next-generation Type 096 variants with JL-3 SLBMs the early 2020s.

Employing the world’s largest shipbuilding industry by tonnage, China is series-producing several major surface combatants. It has launched four 10,000-ton Type 055 Renhai-class cruisers, with several more under construction. Already capable of carrying various ASCMs and SAMs, “it will likely be able to launch ASBMs [anti-ship ballistic missiles] and LACMs [land-attack cruise missiles] once these weapons are available.” Chinese development of a sea-launched ASBM, presumably its third ASBM variant, is intriguing; the author knows of no previous reference in a public U.S. government report.

Nine Type 052D Luyang III-class destroyers are operational. Their vertical launch system can fire “cruise missiles, SAMs, and anti-submarine missiles.” 27+ Jiangkai II frigates are in service, with several more being built. Over 40 Jiangdao-class corvettes are operational, with more than a dozen under construction. Rounding out these surface fleet mainstays are 60 Type 022 Houbei-class missile catamarans.

China’s submarines and warships alike are outfitted with large quantities of potent cruise missiles, guided by increasingly precise over-the-horizon (OTH) data fusion and targeting capabilities. As the PLAN goes increasingly global in its deployments, LACMs will constitute a growing proportion of its weapons loadouts. This will offer new capabilities while exposing Beijing to unprecedented charges of gunboat diplomacy and aggression. While it brings enviable benefits unavailable to all but a select few, great sea power comes at a great financial and political cost.

This brings us to the PLAN’s largest and most avidly discussed vessels: aircraft carriers, which—operated effectively—are the apex predators of the seas. For many readers, one of the report’s most exciting revelations is that China began constructing its third aircraft carrier in 2018. This news was not confirmed conclusively by previous open sources, allowing the Pentagon to make a unique contribution with its disclosure. This second indigenously built carrier is poised to be China’s largest thus far, with the greatest endurance; and only one thus far with a catapult launch system capable of dispatching larger, more capable aircraft. It follows China’s first indigenously built carrier, slated for commissioning later this year. That platform, in turn, is based on China’s only operational carrier to date, the Ukrainian-built but Chinese-refitted Liaoning.

As the PLAN forms carrier groups, the Type 055 cruiser “will be China’s premier carrier escort for blue-water operations.” China is also operating new replenishment ships and is building “two new ships… specifically to support aircraft carrier operations.” Other PLAN vessels supporting power projection include large amphibious and logistical support ships and specialized blue-water auxiliaries “including high-capability intelligence collection ships (AGIs/AGOS).” Already, in 2018, the PLAN sent AGIs well beyond the First Island Chain. It dispatched a Type 815 Dongdiao-class AGI to continue a long-established pattern of spying on Rim of the Pacific (RIMPAC) exercises off Hawaii. Ironically, in May 2018 Washington disinvited the PLAN from RIMPAC “as a result of China’s continued militarization of disputed features in the South China Sea, violating a pledge by Chinese President Xi Jinping not to militarize the Spratly Islands.”

For all these advances, the PLAN “continues to lack a robust deep-water anti-submarine warfare capability.” But, in a widespread pattern of waterfront-wide work, China strives to improve in these and other areas, and is “installing undersea monitoring systems.” Already, China engages in behaviors that the Pentagon deems highly objectionable. These include applying a legal double standard to foreign military activities in such sea areas as the Exclusive Economic Zone; and escalating coercive tactics in contravention of rules, norms, and safety of seamanship, as seen in the PLAN destroyer Lanzhou’s unsafe encounter with the USS Decatur in September 2018.

Air Forces

China has the world’s third largest aviation forces, with more than 2,700 aircraft, of which more than 2,000 are combat aircraft. Among the latter, J-20 low-observable fighters “may have begun active service in small numbers, possibly with a testing and training unit.” UAVs are a particular area of Chinese focus and achievement. The Pentagon details a panoply of systems that have been respectively displayed, developed, and deployed. Aeroengines remain a critical Chinese weakness, but China is finally investing heavily in improvements. The 13^th Five-Year Plan (2016-20) prioritizes turbofans as a top technology focus area, together with hypersonics and the deployment and hardening of satellites.

Like a 1950s Cadillac in today’s Havana, the H-6 bomber has been refitted exquisitely over time. The latest H-6K variant features improved engines and weapons, giving it range to strike Guam with a payload of six precision-guided CJ-20 air-launched cruise missiles (ALCMs). “Since at least 2016,” the report relates, “Chinese media have been referring to the H-6K as a dual nuclear-conventional bomber.” H-6K bombers could be escorted by Su-30 fighters. Refueling Su-30s with the PLAAF’s three Ukraine-purchased Il-78 tankers could extend their range beyond the First Island Chain.

As part of a larger effort to become a “strategic air force” capable of greater power projection, the PLAAF is also overseeing the development of at least one new bomber. The report predicts that this “H-20” bomber will have 8,500+-km range, 10+ metric tons payload, “and a capability to employ both conventional and nuclear weaponry.” To realize this in practice, China “is pursuing a viable nuclear ‘triad’ with the development of a nuclear-capable air-launched cruise missile” as well as a conventional ALCM. The report adds: “China may also be developing a refuelable bomber that could reach initial operating capability before the long-range bomber, which could expand long-range offensive bomber capability beyond the second island chain.”

The PLAAF controls one of the world’s largest advanced long-range surface-to-air missile (SAM) forces. Within it, China is test-firing the S-400 it purchased from Russia. It is also testing its own HQ-19 with reported ballistic missile defense (BMD) capability; one unit “may have begun preliminary operations.” Other SAMs in China’s inventory may have some BMD capability as well. SAMs, early warning radars, and fighter aircraft (the majority under PLAAF control)—as well as radars, jamming equipment, and anti-ship and anti-aircraft missile systems proliferating on Beijing’s South China Sea outposts—support a robust integrated air defense system already extending 300 nautical miles (556 km) from China’s shores.

Rocket Forces

A top-tier missile producer, China is the world’s most active ballistic missile developer and boasts some of the world’s leading nuclear and conventional systems. China’s nuclear forces include 90 ICBMs. A new variant under development, the multiple independently targetable reentry vehicle (MIRV)-capable, road-mobile DF-41, may also be rail-mobile and silo-based. Filling a void created by Moscow and Washington’s adherence from 1988 until recently to the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty, Beijing possesses the world’s largest land-based missile force. Schriver related: “I think [Admiral Harry Harris, former commander, U.S. Pacific Command] used to say 90 percent of [China’s ballistic and cruise missiles] would be non-INF-compliant if [China] were in fact in the INF.” This includes 150-450 medium-range ballistic missiles (MRBMs), 7,750-1,500 short-range ballistic missiles, and 270-540 ground-launched LACMs. Additionally, in the emerging area of hypersonic glide vehicles, China successfully tested a “hypersonic waverider vehicle,” the Xingkong-2, in August 2018.

China has deployed two major ASBMs, the DF-21D MRBM and DF-26 intermediate-range ballistic missile (IRBM). Both are supported by new OTH radars. The 1,500km+-range DF-21D can “attack ships, including aircraft carriers, in the western Pacific Ocean… and is claimed to be capable of rapidly reloading in the field.” The DF-26’s three variants, respectively, can conduct “conventional and nuclear precision strikes against ground targets as well as conventional strikes against naval targets in the western Pacific [as far away as the Second Island Chain] and Indian Oceans and the South China Sea.” China’s DF-26 inventory continues to grow.

Distant Areas

Given tremendous uncertainties confronting even Xi himself, the report is necessarily less clear regarding China’s constantly evolving security efforts abroad. It nevertheless offers some useful indications. Building on previous editions’ probing of Beijing’s energy security interests, it cites International Energy Agency projections that China’s percentage of oil imported will rise by 9% to reach 80% by 2035. Natural gas imports are forecast to rise just 2% to 46% over that seventeen year period. It also highlights a growing doctrinal focus on “forward edge defense,” and the PLAN’s engagement in an “OBOR [Belt and Road Initiative/BRI-focused] cruise” in mid-2017. It advances the noncontroversial proposition that “China’s advancement of global economic projects will probably drive new PLA overseas basing through a perceived need to provide security for OBOR projects.”

The report further suggests that BRI-related port investments and access could enable China “to pre-position the necessary logistics support to sustain naval deployments in waters as distant as the Indian Ocean, Mediterranean Sea, and Atlantic Ocean to protect its growing interests.” In an allusion that echoes typical Chinese telegraphing of possibilities by citing foreign sources, the report states, “International press reporting in 2018 indicated that China sought to expand its military basing and access in the Middle East, Southeast Asia, and the western Pacific.” This statement was significant enough for Schriver to repeat it in his oral overview. Meanwhile, Beijing is collecting intelligence through military attaches in more than 110 offices worldwide, in addition to the manifold cyber means mentioned throughout the report.

Where the report becomes more substantive and specific is in its survey of China’s first overseas base in Djibouti and what sort of basing approaches Beijing may pursue moving forward. It posits that “a mixture of military logistics models, including preferred access to overseas commercial ports and a limited number of exclusive PLA logistics facilities, probably collocated with commercial ports, most closely aligns with China’s overseas military logistics needs.”

Djibouti is a new operating area for the rapidly expanding PLAN Marine Corps. It is the first location in which the PLAN MC has been seen to deploy wheeled armored vehicles. The fifteen such combat vehicles are garaged in a massive walled complex that contains substantial underground facilities. Overall, the PLAN MC has major plans but remains a work in progress in organization, training, and equipment. To achieve requisite air assault capability, for instance, the Pentagon projects that the PLAN MC will “likely need a minimum of 120 attack and medium-lift helicopters.”

Space

The level of coverage this year’s report devotes to Chinese space and counter-space development represents a major advance over previous years when the Pentagon sometimes seemed to shy away from the subject in public. Clearly renewed focus is warranted: 2018 was Beijing’s most prolific space launch year yet, with 38 of 39 space launch vehicles lofted successfully and roughly 100 spacecraft orbited. The fact that “China is working to develop a space-based early warning capability” could enable a “launch on warning” nuclear posture, raising important questions for the Sino-American deterrence relationship. To address this robust new content, the author obtained permission from noted space capabilities and law expert Michael J. Listner  to share his observations on the subject:

The report emphasizes space as one of the eight strategic tasks or missions China must be ready to execute and gives robust attention to this strategic task—the most comprehensive treatment yet—which underlines the importance the Pentagon and the PLA both place on the space domain. This continues a trend of more public disclosure to highlight space security challenges, which also includes a report on threats to space security by the Defense Intelligence Agency. The PLA’s emphasis on this strategic task underlies its understanding of the importance of space control, or a nation’s ability to ensure its own access to outer space and to deny access to a geopolitical adversary, which it identifies as “information dominance.” The PLA intends to implement its information dominance strategy through organization and capabilities to ensure space access to the PLA and deny it to an adversary in any conflict.

A prominent discussion in the report is how the PLA is dynamically altering the organizational structure of its space forces to achieve information dominance. Following China’s 2015 Defense White Paper, which identified space as a commanding height, the PLA began in 2016 to reorganize its space operations under the Strategic Support Force (SSF). The Pentagon’s 2018 report glossed over the SSF but the current report goes into much greater depth, outlining the structure of the PLA to include reorganization of departments and activities in 2018 to bring the SSF to operational status. The report makes clear that the SSF is intended to resolve bureaucratic power struggles that have plagued PLA space operations and streamline not only operations but acquisitions. This has a familiar ring as the proposed U.S. Space Force and reorganizations for acquisitions seeks a similar outcome.

The report categorizes capabilities into two groups: space and counter-space capabilities, which appears to designate separate capabilities for military and civilian use. While some capabilities and plans may not play into information dominance, the PLA is still a player and in many cases has a dominant role. It is also worth noting that China’s space program and capabilities not only play into future plans, including the BRI, but also further China’s geopolitical interests through cooperation agreements and national prestige. They serve as a means of wielding soft power and gaining influence in less-developed nations and international bodies alike.

The report outlines space capabilities, including ground infrastructure and data relay and tracking stations, with emphasis on the Neuquén Deep Space Facility in Argentina. It also focuses on moon-related successes and ambitions for both exploration and exploitation, including a lunar base. One interesting item is commercial space activities to develop launch capabilities in China. The report stresses that these companies are state-backed ventures, as opposed to the paradigm of U.S. commercial space companies. The goal of these state-backed companies is to increase innovation and bring capabilities to fruition sooner than would strictly government efforts. While the report has identified some success, it still uncertain whether commercial ventures will pan out in the long term should state bureaucracy choose to assert itself if it perceives the commercial sector as a rival to government-owned industry. Conspicuously missing (aside from a brief mention) is China’s space station, which will begin assembly in 2020. Aside from being a symbol of national prestige and technical prowess, China is using it to exert and extend its soft power in the UN, and particularly the UN Office of Outer Space Affairs, which has an agreement with and receives funding from the Chinese National Space Agency (CNSA) to promote partnerships with nations and non-governmental entities to utilize the facility upon completion.

Counter-space capabilities continues to be the focal point of the PLA’s information dominance strategy. The report notes the PLA is acquiring and testing technologies that could have dual-use as counter-space activities. Hard-kill anti-satellite (ASAT) weapons similar to the instrument used in the 2007 test garner the most attention but the report notes the PLA is developing other technologies that employ soft-kill to or cripple or otherwise sideline space assets. The report remarks no official comments on what ASAT technology China has developed, deployed, or demonstrated since its dramatic 2007 test. Schriver likewise studiously avoided this topic during Q&A with the media. Despite the lack of official comment, the applicability of the technology being developed, combined with Chinese writings, suggests space assets as specific targets at the opening stages of a conflict and targets of opportunity during the conflict. This is consistent with pursuit of information dominance.

A Useful Contribution

Authoritative in nature, ambitious in scope, and controversial in context, a report of this sort inevitably attracts criticism. Chinese state media mouthpieces and spokespeople denounce the report annually, typically without offering any substance of their own. The report represents a bureaucratically assembled patchwork of information whose stitching is not always perfect. A single public deliverable from a busy bureaucracy drowning in more urgent takings—many highly classified and unknown to outsider observers for years—it is never intended as a model of expository writing for its own sake. But this year’s report offers both stronger takeaways and less confusion and arguable inconsistency than usual.

Certainly, there are always points that people quibble over. This author, for instance, disagrees with the report’s use of the phrase “China’s ‘near seas’” to describe the Yellow, East, and South China Seas—the vast majority of which are part of the global maritime commons and should remain so. On a far more substantive note, Harvard doctoral student Elsa Kania has suggested how the report might consider some key Chinese terminology with greater context and nuance. She nevertheless welcomes this year’s report’s “more detailed discussion of emerging technologies, including robotics and artificial intelligence, advanced computing, quantum technology, and hypersonic and directed-energy weapons.” In encapsulating the greatest areas of Chinese advancement for reporters at the rollout event, Schriver acknowledged the importance of such technologies: “their power projection through ballistic and cruise missiles is an area they’ve made tremendous progress and they continue to develop enhanced capabilities in those areas. …particularly in new domains, they’ve invested a lot in cyber, space, hypersonics, A.I.”

What everyone can surely agree on: with China’s continued comprehensive efforts there will be no shortage of issues for the Pentagon to cover in next year’s report. However imperfect such coverage, we are far better off with it than without it.

Dr. Andrew S. Erickson  is a professor of strategy in the China Maritime Studies Institute and the recipient of the  inaugural  Civilian Faculty Research Excellence Award  at the Naval War College, where he serves on the  Naval War College Review’s  Editorial Board. Erickson is also a visiting scholar and an associate in research at Harvard University’s John King Fairbank Center for Chinese Studies. He received his Ph.D. from Princeton University and blogs at  www.andrewerickson.com.

Pentagon’s 2019 China Military Power Report Offers Strong Content on Maritime Militia

Office of the Secretary of Defense, Military and Security Developments Involving the People’s Republic of China 2019 (Arlington, VA: Department of Defense, 2 May 2019).

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p. 52

INCREASING INTEROPERABILITY WITH PARAMILITARY AND MILITIA

Key Takeaways

• As of 2018, the CMC assumed direct control of the PAP. As part of this reform, the PAP also assumed control of the China Coast Guard (CCG) from China’s State Oceanic Administration.
• Paramilitary reforms could improve paramilitary forces’ ability to provide support to PLA operations under the command of the joint theater commands.
• In 2018, examples of interoperability between the PLA and paramilitary forces included coordination between the PLAN, the CCG, and the People’s Armed Forces Maritime Militia (PAFMM).

p. 53

People’s Armed Forces Maritime Militia (PAFMM). The PAFMM is a subset of China’s national militia, an armed reserve force of civilians available for mobilization. Militia units organize around towns, villages, urban sub-districts, and enterprises and vary widely in composition and mission. In the South China Sea, the PAFMM plays a major role in coercive activities to achieve China’s political goals without fighting, part of broader Chinese military theory that sees confrontational operations short of war as an effective means of accomplishing political objectives. The militia has played significant roles in a number of military campaigns and coercive incidents over the years, including the 2009 harassment of the USNS Impeccable conducting normal operations, the 2012 Scarborough Reef

p. 54

standoff, the 2014 Haiyang Shiyou-981 oil rig standoff, and a large incursion in waters near the Senkakus in 2016. A large number of PAFMM vessels train with and assist the PLAN and CCG in tasks such as safeguarding maritime claims, surveillance and reconnaissance, fisheries protection, logistic support, and search and rescue. The government subsidizes various local and provincial commercial organizations to operate militia vessels to perform “official” missions on an ad hoc basis outside of their regular civilian commercial activities. In the past, the PAFMM rented fishing vessels from companies or individual fishermen, but China has built a state-owned fishing fleet for at least part of its maritime militia force in the South China Sea. The Hainan provincial government, adjacent to the South China Sea, ordered the building of 84 large militia fishing vessels with reinforced hulls and ammunition storage, which the militia received by the end of 2016, along with extensive subsidies to encourage frequent operations in the Spratly Islands. This particular PAFMM unit is also China’s most professional. Its forces are paid salaries independent of any clear commercial fishing responsibilities and recruited from recently separated veterans.

2018

Andrew S. Erickson, “Exposed: Pentagon Report Spotlights China’s Maritime Militia,” The National Interest, 20 August 2018.

For countering China’s shadowy Third Sea Force—the Maritime Militia—sunlight is the best disinfectant and demonstrated awareness is an important element of deterrence. This year’s Department of Defense report to Congress offers both.

Finally, some good news from Washington! Last Thursday the Pentagon released its annual report to Congress on military and security developments involving the People’s Republic of China (PRC). The single most important revelation alone justifies the 145-page report’s $108,000 cost many times over. Even more than when last year’s report mentioned it for the first time, the U.S. government has officially deployed the formidable credibility of the world’s foremost intelligence collection and analytical capabilities to shine a spotlight and expose the shadowy People’s Armed Forces Maritime Militia (PAFMM). Previously, in beltway bureaucracy, the PAFMM was mentioned by Ronald O’Rourke in his Congressional Research Service report and by the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission, which rightly recommended that the Department of Defense address this vital subject. Indeed, there is no substitute for the Pentagon’s credibility in this regard. By releasing these important facts officially and authoritatively, the 2018 report has performed a signal service.

Beijing uses the PAFMM to advance its disputed sovereignty claims across the South and East China Seas. The Maritime Militia, China’s third sea force, often operates in concert with China’s first sea force (the Navy) and second sea force (the Coast Guard). In an unprecedented accompanying Fact Sheet, the Pentagon’s 2018 report offers a recent example: “China . . . is willing to employ coercive measures to advance its interests and mitigate other countries’ opposition. . . . In August 2017, China conducted a coordinated PLA Navy (PLAN), China Coast Guard (CCG), and People’s Armed Forces Maritime Militia patrol around Thitu Island and planted a flag on Sandy Cay, a sandbar within 12 nautical miles of Subi Reef and Thitu Island, possibly in response to the Philippines’ reported plans to upgrade its runway on Thitu Island.”

Each PRC sea service is the maritime division of one of China’s three armed services, and each is the world’s largest by number of ships. “The PLAN, CCG, and People’s Armed Forces Maritime Militia (PAFMM) form the largest maritime force in the Indo-Pacific,” the report emphasizes. First, “The PLAN is the region’s largest navy, with more than 300 surface combatants, submarines, amphibious ships, patrol craft, and specialized types.” It is also the world’s largest navy numerically; as of August 17, 2018, the U.S. Navy has 282 deployable battle-force ships. Second, “Since 2010, the CCG’s fleet of large patrol ships (more than 1,000 tons) has more than doubled from approximately 60 to more than 130 ships,” the report adds, “making it by far the largest coast guard force in the world and increasing its capacity to conduct simultaneous, extended offshore operations in multiple disputed areas.” Third, Beijing has what is clearly the world’s largest and most capable maritime militia. One of the few maritime militia forces in existence today at all, it is virtually the only one charged with involvement in sovereignty disputes. Only Vietnam, one of the very last countries politically and bureaucratically similar to China, is known to have a roughly equivalent force with a roughly equivalent mission. Moreover, when it comes to forces at sea—militia or otherwise—Hanoi is simply not in the same league as Beijing and cannot compete either quantitatively or qualitatively.

Beijing’s use of the PAFMM undermines vital American and international interests in maintaining the regional status quo, including the rules and norms on which peace and prosperity depend. PAFMM forces engage in gray zone operations, at a level specifically designed to frustrate effective response by the other parties involved. One PRC source terms this PAFMM participation in “low-intensity maritime rights protection struggles”; the Pentagon’s report describes broader PAFMM and CCG “use of low-intensity coercion in maritime disputes.” “During periods of tension, official statements and state media seek to portray China as reactive,” the report explains. “China uses an opportunistically timed progression of incremental but intensifying steps to attempt to increase effective control over disputed areas and avoid escalation to military conflict.” In particular, “PAFMM units enable low-intensity coercion activities to advance territorial and maritime claims.” Because the PAFMM is virtually unique and tries to operate deceptively under the radar, it has remained publicly obscure for far too long even as it trolls with surprising success for advances in sovereignty disputes in seas along China’s contested periphery.

Fortunately, the U.S. government is well aware of the PAFMM’s predations and monitors it closely. In providing such detailed coverage of the PAFMM in its latest report, the Pentagon has strongly validated key findings from the Naval War College China Maritime Studies Institute’s (CMSI) open source research project on that subject, which is now entering its fifth year. In what follows, I share CMSI’s conclusions and the related text in the report.

A component of the People’s Armed Forces, China’s PAFMM operates under a direct military chain of command to conduct state-sponsored activities. The PAFMM is locally supported, but answers to the very top of China’s military bureaucracy: Commander-in-Chief Xi Jinping himself.

Part-time PAFMM units incorporate marine industry workers (e.g., fishermen) directly into China’s armed forces. As the Pentagon explains, “The PAFMM is a subset of China’s national militia, an armed reserve force of civilians available for mobilization. . . . Militia units organize around towns, villages, urban sub-districts, and enterprises, and vary widely in composition and mission.” While retaining day jobs, personnel (together with their ships) that meet the standards for induction into the PAFMM are organized and trained within the militia—as well as, in many cases, by China’s Navy—and activated on demand. As part of such efforts, “A large number of PAFMM vessels train with and assist the PLAN and CCG in tasks such as safeguarding maritime claims, surveillance and reconnaissance, fishery protection, logistics support, and search and rescue.” To further support and encourage PAFMM efforts, “The government subsidizes various local and provincial commercial organizations to operate militia vessels to perform ‘official’ missions on an ad hoc basis outside of their regular civilian commercial activities.”

Since 2015, starting in Sansha City in the Paracel Islands, China has been developing a new full-time PAFMM contingent: more professionalized, militarized, well-paid units including military recruits, crewing purpose-built vessels with mast-mounted water cannons for spraying and reinforced hulls for ramming. “In the past, the PAFMM rented fishing vessels from companies or individual fishermen, but China has built a state-owned fishing fleet for at least part of its maritime militia force in the South China Sea,” the Pentagon expounds. “The Hainan provincial government, adjacent to the South China Sea”—whose important role in PAFMM development my colleague Conor M. Kennedy and I explain here, here, and here—“ordered the building of 84 large militia fishing vessels with reinforced hulls and ammunition storage, which the militia received by the end of 2016, along with extensive subsidies to encourage frequent operations in the Spratly Islands.” The report elaborates: “This particular PAFMM unit is also China’s most professional, paid salaries independent of any clear commercial fishing responsibilities, and recruited from recently separated veterans.” Lacking fishing responsibilities, personnel train for peacetime and wartime contingencies, including with light arms, and deploy regularly to disputed South China Sea features even during fishing moratoriums.

In July, the U.S. Office of Naval Intelligence issued the China’s People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN), Coast Guard, and Government Maritime Forces 2018 Recognition and Identification Guide. The excerpt above shows three different types of purpose-built PAFMM vessels operated by the Sansha City Maritime Militia.

PAFMM units have participated in manifold international sea incidents. As the Pentagon attests, “The militia has played significant roles in a number of military campaigns and coercive incidents over the years, including the 2009 harassment of the USNS IMPECCABLE conducting normal operations, the 2012 Scarborough Reef standoff, the 2014 Haiyang Shiyou-981 oil-rig standoff, and a large surge of ships in waters near the Senkakus in 2016.”

The last of these is particularly significant, since it is now one of several publicly documented examples of PAFMM involvement in international incidents in the East China Sea, but had not been conclusively confirmed by previously known open sources. Other examples, as documented in CMSI research to date, include swarming into the Senkaku Islands’ territorial sea in 1978 and harassment of USNS Howard O. Lorenzen in 2014. So, while the vast majority of publicly revealed incidents involving PAFMM forces have occurred throughout the South China Sea, the PAFMM also clearly operates and has been empowered to engage in provocative activities in the East China Sea as well. Any PRC attempts to deny that the PAFMM operates in the East China Sea, including in disruptively close proximity to foreign forces, may therefore be easily disproven. The Pentagon is clear: “The PAFMM . . . is active in the South and East China Seas.”

This conclusive exposure of PAFMM activities in the East China Sea should be an important reminder to policy-makers in Tokyo and Washington alike that Beijing is certain to continue to wield its third sea force as a tool of choice to probe and apply pressure vis-à-vis the Japanese-administered Senkaku Islands. These pinnacle-shaped features are the peak Sino-Japanese geographical flashpoint. As the current and previous U.S. administrations have affirmed explicitly, the Senkakus are covered under Article 5 of the U.S.-Japan Treaty of Mutual Cooperation and Security, which states, in part: “Each Party recognizes that an armed attack against either Party in the territories under the administration of Japan would be dangerous to its own peace and safety and declares that it would act to meet the common danger in accordance with its constitutional provisions and processes.”

American and Japanese analysts and decision-makers should therefore redouble their efforts to share information and develop and implement potential countermeasures concerning the PAFMM. Here, as elsewhere, sunlight is the best disinfectant and demonstrated awareness is an important element of deterrence. Just as the Pentagon’s 2017 report was the first iteration to mention the PAFMM and this latest 2018 edition builds strongly on that foundation, it is to be hoped that the Japan Ministry of Defense’s Defense of Japan 2017 report—which likewise mentioned the PAFMM for the first time, albeit without explicit in-text reference to the East China Sea—will be followed with a 2018 edition offering far more robust PAFMM coverage, including detailed consideration of extant and potential future activities in the East China Sea.

As mentioned above, the Pentagon’s latest report also stresses PAFMM involvement in the layered cabbage-style envelopment of the Philippines-claimed Sandy Cay shoal near Thitu Island in the South China Sea, although it does not mention the fact—confirmed by commercially available AIS data concerning ship movements—that China has sustained a presence of at least two PAFMM vessels around Sandy Cay since August 2017. As the Pentagon emphasizes, the “PLAN, CCG, and PAFMM sometimes conduct coordinated patrols.” Inter-service cooperation applies in peace and war: “In conflict, China may also employ China Coast Guard and People’s Armed Forces Maritime Militia ships to support military operations.”

“In the South China Sea,” the report emphasizes, “the PAFMM plays a major role in coercive activities to achieve China’s political goals without fighting, part of broader PRC military doctrine stating confrontational operations short of war can be an effective means of accomplishing political objectives.” Other CMSI-documented examples of international incidents involving the PAFMM there that the report does not mention explicitly include direct participation in China’s 1974 seizure of the Western Paracel Islands from Vietnam; involvement in the occupation and development of Mischief Reef resulting in a 1995 incident with the Philippines; harassment of various Vietnamese government/survey vessels, including the Bin Minh and Viking; participation in the 2014 blockade of Second Thomas Shoal; and engagement in the 2015 maneuvers around USS Lassen.

In conclusion, the Pentagon deserves great credit for employing the full force of its tremendous analytical capabilities and official authority to shine a bright, inescapable spotlight on the PAFMM’s true nature and activities. There is no plausible deniability: the PAFMM is a state-organized, -developed, and -controlled force operating under a direct military chain of command to conduct PRC state-sponsored activities. Publicly revealing the PAFMM’s true nature and activities is an important step in deterring its future use. But far more is needed to counter the pernicious challenge of Beijing’s shadowy but fully knowable third sea force. As the Pentagon’s valuable new report emphasizes, “China continues to exercise low-intensity coercion to advance its claims in the East and South China Seas.”

Dr. Andrew S. Erickson is a professor of strategy in the U.S. Naval War College (NWC)’s China Maritime Studies Institute (CMSI) and an Associate in Research at Harvard University’s John King Fairbank Center for Chinese Studies. Since 2014, he and his colleague Conor M. Kennedy have been conducting and publishing in-depth research on the People’s Armed Forces Maritime Militia (PAFMM) and briefing key U.S. and allied decision-makers on the subject. In 2017 Erickson received NWC’s inaugural Civilian Faculty Research Excellence Award, in part for his pioneering contributions in this area.

Image: China’s People Liberation Army (Navy) sailors from the honour guard march during a welcoming ceremony for Fiji’s Prime Minister Josaia Voreqe Bainimarama outside the Great Hall of the People, in Beijing, July 16, 2015. REUTERS/Jason Lee

 

2017

Andrew S. Erickson, “New Pentagon China Report Highlights the Rise of Beijing’s Maritime Militia,” The National Interest, 7 June 2017.

Pentagon experts have finally keyed in on one of the most important aspects of China’s strategy to dominate the waterways of the Asia-Pacific.

Issued yesterday, the Pentagon’s annual report to Congress on China’s military and security developments contains a typically vast array of data, some publicly specified or confirmed for the first time. Among its 106 pages—arguably the most significant development is its unprecedented coverage of China’s maritime militia—the first official U.S. government assessment to call it out in public. This is a long overdue and welcome breakthrough: the shadowy but knowable force’s vanguard units are literally on the front lines of Beijing’s efforts to overpower its neighbors and advance its control over the South China Sea.

Together with the world’s largest Coast Guard, and with China’s Navy backstopping in an “overwatch” capacity, China’s maritime militia plays a central role in maritime activities designed to overwhelm or coerce an opponent through activities cannot be easily countered without escalating to war. The report terms this approach “low-intensity coercion in maritime disputes.” Leading elements of China’s maritime militia have already played frontline roles in manifold Chinese incidents and skirmishes with foreign mariners throughout the South China Sea. Such international-sea incidents of significant concern to the United States and its regional allies and partners include multiple contributions to furthering China’s sovereignty claims in the South China Sea.

China maritime-militia forces played a central role in the 1974 battle in which China seized the western Paracel Islands from Vietnam. More recently, as the report documents, they “played significant roles in . . . the 2011 harassment of Vietnamese survey vessels.” They harassed USNS Impeccable in international waters in 2009. They helped trigger the 2012 incident in which they ultimately supported other Chinese forces in seizing Scarborough Shoal from the Philippines. They engaged in reconnaissance and sovereignty patrols during China’s February 2014 blockade of Philippine resupply of Second Thomas Shoal. They played the frontline role in the 2014 repulsion of Vietnamese vessels from disputed waters surrounding China National Offshore Oil Corporation’s HYSY-981 oil rig.

The militia is a key component of China’s armed forces and its maritime subcomponent is the Third Sea Force of China. China’s maritime militia is a set of marine industry workers (typically fishermen) and their vessels trained, equipped, organized and commanded directly by the local military commands of the People’s Liberation Army (PLA). These units typically answer to the PLA chain of command, and are certain to do so when activated for international-sea incidents pre-planned by Beijing. While most militiamen have civilian jobs, new units are emerging that appear to employ elite forces full-time as militarized professionals. Directed participation by China maritime-militia forces in international-sea incidents or provocations occurs under the PLA chain of command, and sometimes also under the temporary command of the Chinese maritime law-enforcement agencies.

Here’s why the Pentagon’s publicizing of China’s maritime-militia matters: it is strongest—and most effective—when it can lurk in the shadows. But the Naval War College China Maritime Studies Institute’s two-and-a-half-year study—and more than twenty articles, papers and briefings—reveals that there is more than enough open-source information available to expose China’s maritime militia for what it is: a state-organized, state-developed and state-controlled force operating under a direct military chain of command to conduct Chinese state-sponsored activities.

By revealing the maritime militia’s true nature and “calling it out” in public, the U.S. government can remove the force’s plausible deniability, reduce its room for maneuver, and reduce the chances that China’s leaders will employ it dangerously in future encounters with American and allied vessels at sea. The very few previous U.S. government-related statements were not top-level official assessments, and hence did not have the full force and influence of the U.S. government behind them. China’s maritime militia was mentioned by Adm. Scott Swift, commander of the U.S. Pacific Fleet; by Ronald O’Rourke in his Congressional Research Service report on Chinese maritime disputes; and by the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission, which rightly recommended that the Department of Defense address this vital subject. But the Pentagon’s new report is the first official top-level assessment by the U.S. government to cover China’s maritime militia. It is extremely encouraging that the U.S. government has finally brought to bear the full force of its authority and its tremendous analytical capabilities to address this vital issue.

Unique Insights

Beyond its maritime-militia coverage, the report offers a treasure trove of other insights. Some areas, particularly broader strategic points and basic force-structure elements, are well known to PLA analysts outside the U.S. government but are conveniently compiled in a go-to source for many in Washington not normally focused on the subject. A number of specific points, however, are difficult—if not impossible—to corroborate or even learn through open sources. The report contains too many insights to enumerate them all here, and is best read in full—or at least skimmed directly. The following surveys some of the most important and interesting highlights from both categories. … … …

 

2016

Andrew S. Erickson, “How Good Are They? The Latest Insights Into China’s Military Tech,” War on the Rocks, 18 May 2016.

It’s that time of year again, and the end of an era. On Friday, the Obama Administration released the last annual Pentagon China report under its watch. Working the China military observers’ graveyard shift this weekend, I published analyses of the report’s overall content, and its key omissions — namely, any mention whatsoever of China’s maritime militia of “little blue men” trolling for territorial claims. Here, I’ll focus on the report’s greatest comparative advantage: insights concerning Beijing’s military technology and its applications that no other public source offers with such official backing or reliable details.

Defense Industrial Dynamics

The Pentagon’s report offers extensive coverage of China’s defense-industrial sector, including key policies and trends. Beijing clearly seeks a comprehensive indigenous defense industrial base, with strong commercial underpinnings. To that end, it is launching its third major round of post-Cold War reforms. Informed by extensive policy documents and a hierarchy of priority subjects, Beijing is funding extensive research, development, and acquisition throughout its sprawling defense industry and related organizations. Emphases include the widespread Chinese approach of civil-military integration and acquiring foreign technology by any means necessary — including extensive cyber and human espionage — while absorbing it and developing indigenous technology and systems in parallel. Characteristic of President Xi Jinping’s structural reform efforts more generally, a new high-level advisory body will oversee these efforts: the Strategic Committee of Science, Technology, and Industry Development for National Defense. One indication of progress: $15 billion in arms export agreements signed between 2010 and 2014.

This systematic explication enhances the credibility and utility of the 145-page report. But what most of its most avid consumers really want to know is: How good is the military hardware that China can produce? And how do performance parameters and quality vary by type of weapon system? It is in the totality of such information that the report really shines.

However, in meeting its obligations to Congress, and, by extension, the public, the Pentagon’s annual report had to address a wide range of disparate issues concerning Chinese military and security development. It had to do so in a format largely shaped by its previous 14 iterations. Allow me, therefore, to summarize and reconfigure its key findings to best address these pressing questions. I have worked here to distill insights into just how good various types of Chinese military hardware have become. …

 

Andrew S. Erickson, “Pentagon Report Aims to Lay Out Chinese Military Goals,” China Real Time Report (中国实时报), Wall Street Journal, 15 May 2016.

With things heating up in the South China Sea and across the Taiwan Strait, Washington just attempted to shine some badly needed light on Beijing’s military efforts.

On Friday, the Pentagon released its 15th annual report to Congress on Chinese military and security development, its last under the Obama administration. “Despite China’s opacity…this report documents the kind of military that China is building,” Abraham Denmark, deputy assistant secretary of defense for East Asia, explained at the media rollout event. “We hope it contributes to the public’s understanding of the PLA.”

Indeed it does. China characteristically dismissed the report, without seeking to disprove any of its assertions. As Mr. Denmark stressed, the Pentagon publication “lets the facts speak for themselves.” He highlighted three key areas of emphasis: military maritime activities, power projection and reforms. …

 

Andrew S. Erickson, “The Pentagon’s 2016 China Military Report: What You Need to Know,” The National Interest, 14 May 2016.

 

Andrew S. Erickson, “Obama Pentagon’s Last China Report: Covers Most Bases Commendably, But Misses Maritime Militia,” China Analysis from Original Sources 以第一手资料研究中国, 14 May 2016.

The end of an era… Friday’s Department of Defense (DoD) report to Congress on Chinese military and security developments is the last issued under the Obama Administration. Amid geopolitical uncertainty, it was a respectable final contribution. Nevertheless, it suffers from an unfortunate shortcoming. The Pentagon report rightly highlighted growing concern about Beijing’s mounting maritime coercion, but passed up a rare chance to connect it with a potent player flouting the rules of the game. China’s Maritime Militia, the irregular frontline sea force of “Little Blue Men” trolling for territorial claims, receives nary a mention. Like a trident with only one full-fledged prong, a report covering only one of China’s three major sea forces in depth—and ignoring one entirely—remains regrettably incomplete.

“China is using coercive tactics…to advance their interests in ways that are calculated to fall below the threshold of provoking conflict,” DoD’s report rightly emphasizes. Asked to elaborate on such “Gray Zone” operations in yesterday afternoon’s roll-out event at the Pentagon, Deputy Assistant Secretary of defense for East Asia Abraham M. Denmark stated that China’s coast guard and fishing vessels sometimes act in an “unprofessional” manner “in the vicinity of the military forces or fishing vessels of other countries in a way that’s designed to attempt to establish a degree of control around disputed features.” “These activities are designed to stay below the threshold of conflict,” Denmark explained, “but gradually demonstrate and assert claims that other countries dispute.”

A key official thus encapsulated one of the most important, complex security challenges facing his government and a vital region whose peacefulness and openness it underwrites. The problem: his administration’s final iteration of the report offering unparalleled authoritative public insights on Chinese security developments missed a chance to cut to the heart of the problem by addressing China’s Maritime Militia and the concept of People’s War at Sea that inspires its development.

Covering the Bases

None of this should overshadow the report’s many welcome contributions. At a hefty 145 pages, it is highly informative and will repay whatever time you can devote to it. Through detailed text, maps, and figures, it documents a rapidly developing Chinese military, commanded by leaders inspired by ambitious national goals, in the throes of the most sweeping reforms in three decades or more. In doing so, it outlines broad dimensions of strategy, organization, leadership, and events that are largely available in open source scholarship—sometimes richer, more nuanced, and more comprehensive—but rarely in one place and almost never with a leading government’s analytical seal of approval.

Those seeking a reasonable overview of Chinese military efforts need look no further than paragraph one. “Chinese leaders have characterized modernization of the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) as essential to achieving great power status and what Chinese President Xi Jinping calls the ‘China Dream’ of national rejuvenation. They portray a strong military as critical to advancing Chinese interests, preventing other countries from taking steps that would damage those interests, and ensuring that China can defend itself and its sovereignty claims.” Thus motivated, “The long-term, comprehensive modernization of the armed forces of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) entered a new phase in 2015 as China unveiled sweeping organizational reforms to overhaul the entire military structure. These reforms aim to strengthen the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) control over the military, enhance the PLA’s ability to conduct joint operations, and improve its ability to fight short-duration, high-intensity regional conflicts at greater distances from the Chinese mainland.” Beijing continues to put its money where its mouth is, with China’s defense budget indisputably the world’s second largest. While acknowledging the challenges inherent in such a calculation, the Pentagon estimates Beijing’s total military-related spending in 2015 at over $180 billion. Exercises of increasing scale, jointness, complexity, and realism are part of an effort to make China’s military far more than the sum of its unevenly growing parts.

There is, as well, the obligatory government messaging. Thus readers are assured that: “While the United States builds a stronger military-to-military relationship with China, DoD will also continue to monitor and adapt to China’s evolving military strategy, doctrine, and force development, and encourage China to be more transparent about its military modernization program.” Like other public U.S. government reports, this one reveals few details of Chinese computer network operations. Nevertheless, some cyber activities directed against its sponsoring institution in 2015 “appear to be attributable directly to China’s government and military.” Clearly, the Pentagon is not amused.

As has been the case since its first iteration in 2002, however, the report’s greatest contribution lies in its provision of technical weapons specifications and other data often otherwise unavailable in publicly authoritative form.

South Sea Sitrep

Concerning recent developments in the South China Sea, the report makes a robust contribution, offering unprecedented information in user-friendly text and graphics. Beijing’s eight outposts on the seven Spratly features it occupies are detailed in pages splashed with size comparison schematics, photos and statistics before and after augmentation and fortification, and facilities diagrams.

In two years through late 2015, China added more than 3,200 acres to the aforementioned Spratly features, against the 50 acres reclaimed by the other occupants combined. Among other activities, “China excavated deep channels to improve access to its outposts, created artificial harbors, dredged natural harbors, and constructed new berthing areas to allow access for larger ships,” the report notes. “Development of the initial four features—all of which were reclaimed in 2014—has progressed to the final stages of primary infrastructure construction, and includes communication and surveillance systems, as well as logistical support facilities.” Perhaps most importantly, “China’s four South China Sea airfields ultimately “could have runways long enough to support any aircraft in China’s inventory.”

While the report ignores China’s Maritime Militia (and its even-larger land-based counterpart), it offers several important points concerning Beijing’s other major “Gray Zone” force: the China Coast Guard (CCG). This agency has acquired “more than 100” new, improved, longer-range “ocean-going patrol ships.” Already the world’s largest blue water civil maritime force, “the CCG’s total force level is expected to increase by 25 percent.” A growing proportion of its ships will be able to embark helicopters, currently a rarity in the force. In the coming decade, the CCG will have greater ability to patrol and enforce China’s claims in the Near Seas (the Yellow Sea; and especially the East and South China Seas). The Pentagon offers no details behind these important bullet points, however; for that, you’ll have to consult the extensive scholarship of my China Maritime Studies Institute colleague Ryan Martinson.

Naval News

Buoyed by a building binge, “The PLAN now possesses the largest number of vessels in Asia, with more than 300 surface ships, submarines, amphibious ships, and patrol craft.” Quality is improving even faster than quantity, with older vessels swapped for “larger, multi-mission ships equipped with advanced anti-ship, anti-air, and anti-submarine weapons and sensors.” As part of this trend toward bigger, better ships, DoD states that China has likely “begun construction of a larger Type 055 ‘destroyer’,” properly considered a heavy “guided-missile cruiser.”

Submarine force modernization remains a leading priority. By 2020, China is forecast to have “between 69 and 78 submarines.” The Pentagon deems that four Jin-class nuclear-powered ballistic missile submarines (SSBNs) are already “operational,” without explaining what that means in practice. It projects that during the next decade “up to five may enter service before China begins developing and fielding its next-generation SSBN, the Type 096,” bearing the follow-on JL-3 submarine-launched ballistic missile (SLBM). Also within this timeframe, “China may construct a new Type 095 nuclear-powered, guided-missile attack submarine (SSGN), which not only would improve the PLAN’s anti-surface warfare capability but might also provide it with a more clandestine land-attack option.” As for nuclear-powered attack submarines (SSNs), “four additional SHANG-class SSN (Type 093) will eventually join the two already in service.”

In keeping with an enduring focus on anti-surface warfare (ASUW),” China is modernizing its anti-ship cruise missiles (ASCMs) and their over-the-horizon targeting. In a widespread example of China improving on Russian systems that it accesses, digests, and emulates, its “newest indigenous submarine-launched ASCM, the YJ-18 and its variants” will be deployed on Song– and Yuan-class conventional submarines as well as Shang-class SSNs.

Aviation Advances

Not to be eclipsed by the PLAN, the PLA Air Force (PLAAF) “is the largest air force in Asia and the third largest in the world, with more than 2,800 total aircraft (not including UAVs) and 2,100 combat aircraft (including fighters, bombers, fighter-attack and attack aircraft).” As with the PLAN, improvements in quality are prioritized over quantity. China’s air force is replacing old platforms with new ones, thereby and “rapidly closing the gap” vis-à-vis Western counterparts “across a broad spectrum of capabilities from aircraft and command-and-control (C2) to jammers, electronic warfare (EW), and datalinks.”

As “the only country other than the United States to have two concurrent stealth fighter programs,” China is developing “fifth-generation aircraft, which could enter service as early as 2018.” DoD believes this will “significantly improve China’s existing fleet of fourth-generation aircraft.”

Strongly emphasizing UAVs, the PLAAF has employed the Yilong (Pterodactyl) for disaster relief. “China is advancing its development and employment of UAVs. Last year, the Shendiao (Divine Eagle) was reported to be the PLA’s “newest high-altitude, long-endurance UAV for a variety of missions such as early warning, targeting, EW, and satellite communications.”

Rocket Force to be Reckoned With

A major beneficiary of recent reforms, the PLA Rocket Force boasts a new name and elevation to a bona fide service. Unenviably abbreviated as “PLARF,” it controls the world’s most enviably extensive inventory of sub-strategic nuclear and conventional ballistic missiles—notably including 75-100 ICBMs. In addition to constant upgrading and as part of an effort to evade missile defenses, China’s Rocket Force is “developing and testing several new classes and variants of offensive missiles, including a hypersonic glide vehicle.”

PLARF “may be enhancing peacetime readiness levels for [its] nuclear forces to ensure responsiveness.” Other nuclear highlights include the road-mobile, solid-fueled CSS-5 Mod 6 (DF-21) medium-range ballistic missile “for regional deterrence missions.” Unveiled in the September 2015 Beijing military parade, when fielded the DF-26 intermediate-range ballistic missile may hold ground targets as far away as Guam at risk. A nuclear version, “if it shares the same guidance capabilities, would give China its first nuclear precision strike capability against theater targets.”

Space and Counter-space

Long a top-tier power in both areas, China is working hard to enhance its space systems and be able to threaten those of potential opponents. Space accomplishments for 2015 included the launch of 19 rockets bearing 45 spacecraft, including navigation, surveillance, and test satellites. The Long March (LM)-6 and the LM-11 “next generation” launchers debuted, the latter a militarily-relevant “quick response” system to orbit a small payload. A single LM-6 orbited 20 satellites, including four Xingchen femtosatellites weighing only 100 g each. Meanwhile, China’s Beidou/Compass positioning, navigation, and timing satellite network is on track to achieve global coverage by 2020.

Chinese counter-space capabilities under development include directed energy weapons, satellite jammers, and kinetic kill vehicles. The report notes multiple tests. A 2013 ballistic missile test to over 30,000 km altitude “could have been a test of technologies with a counterspace mission in geosyncronous orbit.” An antisatellite missile system tested in summer 2014 has likely enjoyed subsequent progress. As part of increasingly-complex orbital operations, China is “probably testing dual-use technologies in space that could be applied to counterspace missions.”

Counter-intervention Capabilities

The aforementioned developments are geared primarily to improving China’s prospects for furthering its outstanding Near Seas claims and deterring—and, in a worst case scenario, defeating—U.S. and allied efforts to intervene in related disputes. Additional assets with particular “keep out” applications include a “credible” integrated air defense system extending “300 nm (556 km)” from China’s coast. Designed to counter enemy aircraft and ballistic missiles, it is composed of “robust early warning, fighter aircraft, and a variety of SAM [surface-to-air missile] systems as well as point defense.” As part of this counter-intervention complex, “The PLAAF possesses one of the largest forces of advanced long-range SAM systems in the world….” Notably, “China’s airshow displays claim that new Chinese radar developments can detect stealth aircraft.”

Radiating Ripples

Meanwhile, far from China, prospects remain more modest. Among manifold Chinese interests ever-further afield, the Pentagon highlights oil imports. Currently at 60% of total supply, they are expected to reach 80% by 2035. Currently “unable to support major combat operations in South Asia,” the Middle Kingdom is nevertheless steadily making power projection progress. In an incremental step, China started building its first domestically produced aircraft carrier last year. Its “next generation of carriers will probably be capable of improved endurance and of launching more varied types of aircraft, including EW [electronic warfare], early warning, and anti-surface warfare [ASuW], thus increasing the potential striking power of a PLAN ‘carrier battle group’ in safeguarding China’s interests in areas beyond its immediate periphery.” Likely carrier missions include “patrolling economically important sea lanes, conducting naval diplomacy, regional deterrence, and [humanitarian assistance and disaster relief].” Distant submarine deployments to date, most in conjunction with anti-piracy operations, “support an apparent Chinese requirement to project power into the Indian Ocean.” “Sea-based land attack probably is an emerging requirement for the PLAN,” the report judges, predicting long-range land-attack cruise missile (LACM) development for its surface combatants as well as the aforementioned submarines. Arming new Luyang III-class destroyer with LACMs would give the PLAN “its first land-attack capability.”

China’s Indian Ocean support footprint is expanding to support missions of lower intensity. Noting both ongoing logistics and intelligence limitations and Beijing’s official acknowledgement of its first overseas facility in Djibouti, DoD forecasts that China “will probably establish several access points” in the Indian Ocean “in the next decade,” most likely “in countries with which it has a longstanding friendly relationship and similar strategic interests, such as Pakistan, and a precedent for hosting foreign militaries.” At the same time, however, “China’s overseas naval logistics aspiration may be constrained by the willingness of countries to support a PLAN presence in one of their ports.”

Bright Spots

While the Pentagon raises numerous concerns with Chinese military development, it works to emphasize more positive aspects: Chinese cooperation, agreements, and contributions. To this end, it includes lengthy lists of exchanges and appends the full text of Sino-American memoranda of understanding. Additionally, it explains, a five-day Sino-Indian military standoff along the nations’ disputed border in September 2015 gave way to a conciliatory meeting, discussion, and stand-down. Beijing also contributes increasingly to global security. Keen to avoid portrayal as a selfish superpower (PKO), China has over 3,000 personnel in UN peacekeeping operations and is “the sixth largest financial contributor to the UN PKO budget…pledging 6.66 percent of the total $8.27 billion budget for the period from July 2015 to June 2016.”

Parting Shot

With this generally substantive report, the Obama Administration is not going gently into a good night, but it leaves its successor an already-overdue task. Congress should mandate that next year’s iteration include significant coverage of China’s Maritime Militia, as well as greatly-enhanced treatment of China’s Coast Guard. Only by understanding, publicizing, and countering the negative actions of all three of Beijing’s major sea forces can Washington ensure a positive future for the South China Sea and throughout the Asia-Pacific.

 

A hefty report at 145 pages! Highly informative, well worth a read. It documents a rapidly developing Chinese military and paramilitary, inspired by a far-reaching “China Dream,” in the throes of ambitious reforms.

Major missed opportunity: no mention of Maritime Militia whatsoever. On that vital topic, you’re still stuck with this next-best analysis.

Key Quotations from text of report:

p. i–“In the South China Sea, China paused its land reclamation effort in the Spratly Islands in late 2015 after adding more than 3,200 acres of land to the seven features it occupies in the archipelago.”

p. 2–New 2016 Military Theaters map

p. 6–Text box on “China’s Evolving Overseas Access”:

“China most likely will seek to establish additional naval logistics hubs in countries with which it has a longstanding friendly relationship and similar strategic interests, such as Pakistan, and a precedent for hosting foreign militaries. China’s overseas naval logistics aspiration may be constrained by the willingness of countries to support a PLAN presence in one of their ports.”

p. 10–Useful South China Sea feature occupation map (China vs. other claimants)

p. 13–Important text boxes:

“China’s Use of Low-Intensity Coercion in Maritime Disputes”

“Reclamation and Construction in the South China Sea”

“China paused its two-year land reclamation effort in the Spratly Islands in late 2015 after adding over 3,200 acres of land to the seven features it occupies; other claimants reclaimed approximately 50 acres of land over the same period. As part of this effort, China excavated deep channels to improve access to its outposts, created artificial harbors, dredged natural harbors, and constructed new berthing areas to allow access for larger ships. Development of the initial four features—all of which were reclaimed in 2014—has progressed to the final stages of primary infrastructure construction, and includes communication and surveillance systems, as well as logistical support facilities.”

pp. 14-20–Interesting graphics on Spratly feature augmentation and fortification

p. 21–“China maintains approximately 3,079 personnel in ten UN PKOs, mostly in sub-Saharan Africa and the Middle East. This number increased from 2,200 in 2014. China is also the sixth largest financial contributor to the UN PKO budget—fourth among UN Security Council members—pledging 6.66 percent of the total $8.27 billion budget for the period from July 2015 to June 2016.”

“From 2010 to 2014, China’s arms sales totaled approximately $15 billion.”

p. 22–“PLA Rocket Force (PLARF). The Rocket Force, renamed from the PLASAF late last year, operates China’s land-based nuclear and conventional missiles. It is developing and testing several new classes and variants of offensive missiles, including a hypersonic glide vehicle; forming additional missile units; upgrading older missile systems; and developing methods to counter ballistic missile defenses.”

p. 25–“The CJ-10 has a range in excess of 1500 km and offers flight profiles different from ballistic missiles that can enhance targeting options.”

“China unveiled the DF-26 intermediate-range ballistic missile (IRBM) during the September 2015 parade in Beijing. When fielded, the DF-26 will be capable of conducting precision strikes against ground targets and contribute to strategic deterrence in the Asia-Pacific region. The official parade announcer also referenced a nuclear version of the DF-26, which, if it shares the same guidance capabilities, would give China its first nuclear precision strike capability against theater targets.”

“The PLAN now possesses the largest number of vessels in Asia, with more than 300 surface ships, submarines, amphibious ships, and patrol craft. China is rapidly retiring legacy combatants in favor of larger, multi-mission ships equipped with advanced anti-ship, anti-air, and anti-submarine weapons and sensors.”

p. 26–“The PLAN places a high priority on the modernization of its submarine force and currently possesses five SSNs, four nuclear-powered ballistic missile submarines (SSBN), and 53 diesel-powered attack submarines (SS/SSP). By 2020, this force will likely grow to between 69 and 78 submarines.”

“In addition to the 12 KILO-class SS units acquired from Russia in the 1990s and 2000s, China has built 13 SONG-class SS (Type 039) and 13 YUAN-class SSP (Type 039A) with a total of 20 YUANs planned for production. China continues to improve its SSN force, and four additional SHANG-class SSN (Type 093) will eventually join the two already in service.”

“Over the next decade, China may construct a new Type 095 nuclear-powered, guided-missile attack submarine (SSGN), which not only would improve the PLAN’s anti-surface warfare capability but might also provide it with a more clandestine land-attack option.”

“Four JIN SSBNs are operational, and up to five may enter service before China begins developing and fielding its next-generation SSBN, the Type 096, over the coming decade. The Type 096 will reportedly be armed with a successor to the JL-2, the JL-3 SLBM.”

“China has also probably begun construction of a larger Type 055 “destroyer,” a vessel better characterized as a guided-missile cruiser (CG) than a DDG.”

“The PLAN continues to emphasize anti-surface warfare (ASUW) as its primary focus, including modernizing its advanced ASCMs and associated over-the-horizon targeting systems. Older surface combatants carry variants of the YJ-83 ASCM (65 nm, 120 km), while newer surface combatants such as the LUYANG II are fitted with the YJ-62 (120 nm, 222 km). The LUYANG III and Type 055 CG will be fitted with a variant of China’s newest ASCM, the YJ-18 (290 nm, 537 km), which is a significant step forward in China’s surface ASUW capability. Eight of China’s 12 KILOs are equipped with the SS-N-27 ASCM (120 nm, 222 km), a system China acquired from Russia. China’s newest indigenous submarine-launched ASCM, the YJ-18 and its variants, represents an improvement over the SS-N-27, and will be fielded on SONG, YUAN, and SHANG submarines. China’s previously produced submarine-launched ASCM, the YJ-82, is a version of the C-801, which has a much shorter range. The PLAN recognizes that long-range ASCMs require a robust, over-the-horizon targeting capability to realize their full potential, and China is investing in reconnaissance, surveillance, command, control, and communications systems at the strategic, operational, and tactical levels to provide high-fidelity targeting information to surface and subsurface launch platforms.”

p. 30–“The PLAAF is the largest air force in Asia and the third largest in the world, with more than 2,800 total aircraft (not including UAVs) and 2,100 combat aircraft (including fighters, bombers, fighter-attack and attack aircraft). The PLAAF is rapidly closing the gap with western air forces across a broad spectrum of capabilities from aircraft and command-and-control (C2) to jammers, electronic warfare (EW), and datalinks. The PLAAF continues to field additional fourth-generation aircraft (now about 600). Although it still operates a large number of older second- and third-generation fighters, it will probably become a majority fourth-generation force within the next several years.”

“China has been pursuing fifth-generation fighter capabilities since at least 2009 and is the only country other than the United States to have two concurrent stealth fighter programs.”

p. 31–“China is improving its airfields in the South China Sea with the availability of Woody Island Airfield in the Paracel Islands and construction of up to three new airfields in the Spratly Islands. All of these airfields could have runways long enough to support any aircraft in China’s inventory. During late-October 2015 the PLAN deployed four of its most capable air superiority fighters, the J-11B, to Woody Island.”

“The PLAAF possesses one of the largest forces of advanced long-range SAM systems in the world….”

p. 36–“As of December 2015, China launched 19 SLVs carrying 45 spacecraft, including navigation, ISR, and test/engineering satellites. Noteworthy 2015 accomplishments for China’s space program include:

• Two New Launch Vehicles: September 2015 saw the successful debut of both the Long March (LM)-6 and the LM-11 “next generation” SLVs. The LM-6 is a small liquid-fueled SLV designed to carry up to 1000 kg into low Earth orbit (LEO), and the LM-11is described as a “quick response” SLV designed to launch a small payload into LEO on short notice in the event of an emergency.
• China’s Largest Multi-Payload Launch and Smallest Satellites: The 19 September 2015 inaugural launch of the LM-6 SLV carried the largest number of satellites (20) China has ever launched on a single SLV. Most of the satellites carried onto orbit by the LM-6 were technology-demonstration satellites smaller than 100 kg. Furthermore, the four Xingchen femtosatellites launched aboard the LM-6 are the smallest Chinese spacecraft to date, weighing just 100 g each.
• Launches Begin for Beidou Global Network: China’s Beidou SATNAV constellation began the next step of its construction in 2015 with the launch of the Beidou I1-S, an inclined geosynchronous orbit (IGSO) satellite, on March 30. In 2015, China launched two more medium Earth orbit satellites and two more IGSO satellite. This phase of the project plans to extend the Beidou network beyond its current regional focus to provide global coverage by 2020.”

p. 37–“The PLA is acquiring a range of technologies to improve China’s counterspace capabilities. In addition to the development of directed energy weapons and satellite jammers, China is also developing anti-satellite capabilities and has probably made progress on the antisatellite missile system it tested in July 2014. China is employing more sophisticated satellite operations and is probably testing dual-use technologies in space that could be applied to counterspace missions.”

“In the summer of 2014, China conducted a space launch that had a similar profile to the January 2007 test. In 2013, China launched an object into space on a ballistic trajectory with a peak altitude above 30,000 km, which could have been a test of technologies with a counterspace mission in geosyncronous orbit.”

p. 38–“The PLA Rocket Force’s (PLARF) arsenal contains 75-100 ICBMs.”

p. 47–“In 2015, China imported approximately 60 percent of its oil supply, and this figure is projected to grow to 80 percent by 2035, according to International Energy Agency data. China continues to look primarily to the Persian Gulf, Africa, and Russia/Central Asia to satisfy its growing demand.”

“In 2015, approximately 83 percent of China’s oil imports transited the South China Sea and Strait of Malacca. Separate crude oil pipelines from Russia and Kazakhstan to China illustrate efforts to increase overland supply. In 2015, the Russia–China crude oil pipeline started expanding to double its capacity from 300,000 to 600,000 barrels per day (b/d) by 2016. In 2015, construction was finished on the 440,000-b/d Burma–China oil pipeline.”

“In 2015, China imported approximately 27.7 billion cubic meters (bcm) of natural gas, 45 percent of all of its natural gas imports, from Turkmenistan by pipeline via Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan. This pipeline is designed to carry 40 bcm per year with plans to expand it to 60 bcm per year. Another natural gas pipeline designed to deliver 12 bcm per year of Burmese-produced gas commenced operations in September 2013 and shipped 3 bcm of gas in 2014. This pipeline parallels the crude oil pipeline across Burma. There was no progress in 2015 on the natural gas project that China and Russia agreed to in 2014. The pipeline is expected to deliver up to 38 bcm of gas by 2035; initial flows are to start by 2018.”

p. 58–“Recent press accounts suggest China may be enhancing peacetime readiness levels for these nuclear forces to ensure responsiveness.” 

“this force is complemented by road-mobile, solid-fueled CSS-5 Mod 6 (DF- 21) MRBM for regional deterrence missions.”

p. 60–“New indigenous radars, the JL-1A and JY-27A, are designed to address the ballistic missile threat, with the JL-1A advertised as capable of the precision tracking of multiple ballistic missiles. China’s SA-20 PMU2 SAMs, one of the most advanced SAM systems Russia offers for export, has the advertised capability to engage ballistic missiles with ranges of 1,000 km and speeds of 2,800 meters per second. China’s domestic CSA-9 long-range SAM system is expected to have a limited capability to provide point defense against tactical ballistic missiles with ranges up to 500 km.”

p. 61–“China has fielded CSS-5 anti-ship ballistic missiles (ASBMs) specifically designed to hold adversary aircraft carriers at risk 1,500 km off China’s coast.”

pp. 61-62: “Within 300 nm (556 km) of its coast, China has a credible IADS that relies on robust early warning, fighter aircraft, and a variety of SAM systems as well as point defense primarily designed to counter adversary long-range airborne strike platforms. China continues to develop and to market a wide array of IADSs designed to counter U.S. technology….”

“China’s airshow displays claim that new Chinese radar developments can detect stealth aircraft.”

p. 62–“fifth-generation aircraft, which could enter service as early as 2018, will significantly improve China’s existing fleet of fourth-generation aircraft”

pp. 62-63–“China is advancing its development and employment of UAVs. In 2015, Chinese media reported the development of the Shendiao (Sacred Eagle or Divine Eagle) as the PLA’s newest high-altitude, long-endurance UAV for a variety of missions such as early warning, targeting, EW, and satellite communications. Last year, the PLAAF also reported on its use of a UAV to assist in HA/DR in the aftermath of an earthquake in China’s west—the first public acknowledgment of PLAAF UAV operations. Photos of the UAV showed it was the Yilong (also known as the Wing Loong or Pterodactyl).”

p. 64–“Cyber Activities Directed Against the Department of Defense. In 2015, numerous computer systems around the world, including those owned by the U.S. Government, continued to be targeted for intrusions, some of which appear to be attributable directly to the [sic] China’s Government and military.”

p. 66–“Sea-based land attack probably is an emerging requirement for the PLAN. Chinese military experts argue that in order to pursue a defensive strategy in far seas, the Navy must improve its ability to control land from the sea through long-range LACM development.”

p. 67–“China continues to field an ASBM based on a variant of the CSS-5 (DF-21) MRBM that it began deploying in 2010. The CSS-5 Mod 5 has a range of 1,500 km and is armed with a MaRV. … the DF-26 will be capable of conducting precision strikes against ground targets, potentially placing U.S. forces on Guam at risk.”

“China may develop the capability to arm the new LUYANG III-class DDG with LACMs, giving the PLAN its first land-attack capability. Furthermore, the continued deployments of the ASCM-equipped submarines in support of counterpiracy patrols underscore China’s interest in protecting SLOCs beyond the South China Sea. These submarine deployments support an apparent Chinese requirement to project power into the Indian Ocean.”

“In 2015, a PLA report identified a military requirement to extend surveillance into the Western Pacific Ocean.”

p. 68–“In 2015, China began construction of its first domestically produced aircraft carrier. China’s next generation of carriers will probably be capable of improved endurance and of launching more varied types of aircraft, including EW, early warning, and anti-surface warfare (ASW), thus increasing the potential striking power of a PLAN “carrier battle group” in safeguarding China’s interests in areas beyond its immediate periphery. The carriers would most likely perform such missions as patrolling economically important sea lanes, conducting naval diplomacy, regional deterrence, and HA/DR.”

“logistics and intelligence support remain key obstacles, particularly in the Indian Ocean and in other areas outside the greater Asia-Pacific region. As a result, China desires expansion of its access to logistics in the Indian Ocean and will probably establish several access points in this area in the next decade.”

p. 69–“Over the last five years, China has added more than 100 ocean-going patrol ships to the CCG to increase its capacity to conduct extended offshore operations and to replace old units. In the next decade, a new force of civilian law enforcement ships will afford China the capability to patrol more robustly its claims in the East China Sea and the South China Sea. Overall, the CCG’s total force level is expected to increase by 25 percent. Some of these ships will have the capability to embark helicopters, a capability that only a few CCG ships currently have.”

 

2015

Andrew S. Erickson, “What Does the Pentagon Think about China’s Rising Military Might?” The National Interest, 11 May 2015.

It’s that time of year again. The U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) has just released its annual report on Chinese military and security issues. It documents important trends in this area using information often publicly available nowhere else. Amid the usual dump of fascinating data, several broad themes stand out:

• The People’s Liberation Army (PLA) continues brisk, broad-based modernization.
• It has already achieved progress that the vast majority of militaries could only envy.
• In recent years, it has consolidated core capabilities.
• The PLA’s central focus remains two-fold:
  • Safeguarding the Chinese Communist Party (CCP)’s ruling position by guaranteeing domestic stability in conjunction with internal security forces as necessary
  • Increasing ability to exert leverage over disputed border areas, Taiwan, and unresolved island and maritime claims in the “Near Seas” (Yellow, East, and South China Seas).
• But is also developing a new outer layer of power projection and influencing capability, becoming far broader-ranging in operational scope.
• Efforts are underway to make the PLA a great power military with global reach, even if it will not be globally present or capable to U.S. standards.

In what follows, I survey the report’s key findings before assessing its limitations, and its contributions writ large.

Geographic Dynamics

In the Near Seas, China is using low-intensity coercion to further its position in maritime and territorial disputes. Overall, DoD assesses, “PLA ground, air, naval, and missile forces are increasingly able to project power to assert regional dominance during peacetime and contest U.S. military superiority during a regional conflict.” Among the most sobering shifts is the erosion of many of Taiwan’s traditional defense factors by concerted PLA development and anofficial defense budget alone that is ten times greater than Taiwan’s. In a likely testament to identity factors that render cross-Strait issues complex, Taipei now spends only ~2% of GDP on defense, a target level for European members of NATO who face no such existential threat.

In peacetime, Beijing uses incremental salami-slicing tactics to assert effective control over contested areas and features. In this regard, DoD highlights Chinese efforts to prevent Philippine resupply of Second Thomas Shoal, and mentions Luconia Shoals and Reed Bank as potential future flash points. To facilitate such gains while avoiding escalation to military conflict and direct U.S. intervention, ships from the consolidating China Coast Guard (CCG) man the front line. The PLA Navy (PLAN) remains ready back stage in a monitoring and deterrent capacity. Rapid South China Sea island reclamation stands to facilitate even more continuous presence for all such forces.

China’s “whole-of-government” approach to sovereignty assertion, and the escalatory dangers therein, were underscored in 2014 when China National Offshore Oil Company began drilling with its HYSY-981 oil rig roughly 12 nautical miles (nm) from an island disputed with Vietnam and only 120 nm from Vietnam’s coast. There China announced a security radius six-times the 500 m safety zone allowed by the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea. It used “paramilitary ships” (CCG and fishing boats) to fend off Vietnamese vessels with water cannons and ramming, while PLAN ships conducted “overwatch” and PLA fighter and reconnaissance aircraft and helicopters patrolled above.

In the Far Seas, Beijing is gradually extending its reach and influence with growing power projection capabilities and soft power influence. “The PLA’s growing ability to project power,” DoD judges, “augments China’s globally-oriented objectives to be viewed as a stakeholder in ensuring stability.” In 2013-14, China sent its “first” submarines to the Indian Ocean. A Shang-class (Type 093) nuclear-powered attack submarine conducted a two-month deployment. ASong-class diesel-electric submarine made the first foreign port visit by a PLAN submarine, calling twice on Colombo, Sri Lanka. Far more than their ostensible contribution to PLAN counter-piracy escorts, these new steps offered valuable area familiarization and operational experiences to Chinese undersea forces, while producing a new symbol of Chinese power projection in service of sea lane security. Meanwhile, the PLA is increasing its soft power by training foreign military officers, including those from “virtually every Latin American and Caribbean country” at its Defense Studies Institute.

Sectoral Hierarchy

China’s defense industry has improved remarkably overall. “Over the past decade,” DoD judges, “China has made dramatic improvements in all defense industrial production sectors and is comparable to other major weapon system producers like Russia and the European Union in some areas.” Still, its capabilities remain uneven and patterns of disparity prevail.

The High Ground: Space, Missile, and Cyber Systems

Following a decades-long pattern, China’s space and ballistic and cruise missile sector remains firmly in the lead. There are many concrete manifestations of its superiority. China has deployed 1,200+ short-range ballistic missiles (SRBMs) opposite Taiwan. The CSS-5 Mod 5 (DF-21D) anti-ship ballistic missile (ASBM) it has “fielded” in small numbers “gives the PLA the capability to attack ships in the western Pacific Ocean” “within 900 nm of the Chinese coastline.” Its ICBM units are benefitting from improved communications links. The DF-5 ICBM is equipped with multiple independently targetable re-entry vehicles (MIRVs), and the new-generation DF-41 under development is “possibly capable of carrying” them as well. China is also developing hypersonic glide vehicles, and tested one in 2014. It boasts the JF12 Mach 5-9 hypersonic wind tunnel, reportedly the world’s largest.

To support what has been “extraordinarily rapid” development of conventionally armed missiles and other long-range precision strike (LRPS) capabilities, as part of the “world’s most rapidly maturing space program” China is lofting surveillance satellites in rapid succession.Gaofen-2, launched in August 2014, became “China’s first satellite capable of sub-meter resolution imaging.” It plans to launch successively improved variants of this satellite in coming years. China gained the ability to send even greater payloads to even higher orbits with the completion of a fourth satellite launch facility, Wenchang on Hainan Island, in 2014. Launches of the Long March-5 and -7 heavy lift boosters are scheduled to commence there by 2016.

Even as it increases its own use of space assets for military purposes, China is strengthening its ability to hold those of potential opponents such as the United States at risk. It is developing a range of counter-space weapons. Unusual launch patterns and activities in space suggest efforts to test such capabilities. When queried by Washington about these actions, Beijing declines to disclose details. Meanwhile, the PLA emphasizes electronic warfare capabilities, and is deploying “jamming equipment against multiple communication and radar systems and GPS satellite systems” on sea- and air-based platforms.

Chinese cyber capabilities have recently joined the top tier as well, with DoD long subjected to numerous intrusions. Beijing is also attempting to use its position in the Shanghai Cooperation Organization and other international fora to promote conditions whereby sovereign states can wield greater control over cyberspace governance, both within their borders and even beyond.

Steaming Smartly Ahead: Maritime Systems

Maritime hardware comes next. Warship quantity is impressive: “The PLA Navy now possesses the largest number of vessels in Asia.” But quality is emphasized even more; China is replacing older platforms with newer, more capable ones. China’s shipbuilding industry has finally begun series production of multiple vessel classes. The Luyang-III-class (Type 052D) destroyer, which first entered service in 2014, has a vertical launch system capable of firing anti-ship cruise missiles (ASCMs), land-attack cruise missiles (LACMs), surface-to-air missiles (SAMs), and “antisubmarine missiles.” The Type 055 guided-missile cruiser slated to begin construction in 2015 will wield similar armaments. These include the submarine- and ship-launched YJ-18 ASCM, which DoD terms a “dramatic improvement” over the already-potent SS-N-27 that China previously purchased from Russia with eight of twelve Kilo-class submarines. This will greatly strengthen area air defense capabilities: Chinese naval task forces will increasingly be able to take a protective “umbrella” with them to distant seas far removed from the 300 nm-from-shore envelope of China’s extensive land-based Integrated Air Defense System (IADS). In addition, DoD judges that such warships may be close to fielding LACMs, which would give the PLAN its first capability to strike shore targets Tomahawk missile-style.

While civil maritime vessels are far less sophisticated than their naval counterparts, and typically lack major armaments, within this lower-intensity context the CCG is enjoying a buildup far more quantitatively impressive than that of the PLAN. It is already the world’s largest blue-water coast guard fleet, with more hulls than all its neighboring counterparts combined—and that includes the rightly-respected Japan Coast Guard. From 2004-08, it added nearly twenty ocean-going patrol ships; by the end of 2015, it is projected to have added another 30+ new vessels of this type. Together with the construction of “more than 100 new patrol craft and smaller units,” this will produce a total force level increase of 25%—growth simply unparalleled anywhere else on the world’s oceans. And that is even as many older platforms are replaced by new, improved ones; with many more having helicopter embarking capability than previously.

Gaining Altitude: Aviation Systems

Lower in achievement thus far but improving rapidly is Chinese military aviation. Quantitatively, the PLA Air Force (PLAAF) is Asia’s largest, and the world’s third largest. The PLAN has an aviation force of its own, which is growing to provide air wings for the “multiple” carriers DoD believes China may build over the next fifteen years. Limitations persist: Beijing’s first carrier,Liaoning, is not expected to embark an air wing “until 2015 or later.” China remains weak in aeroengines, and may soon import perhaps two dozen Russian Su-35S fighters in part for their advanced engines and radars. Yet the PLAAF “is rapidly closing the gap with western air forces across a broad spectrum of capabilities.”

China “is the only country in the world other than the United States to have two concurrent stealth fighter programs.” DoD anticipates the maiden flight of the fifth J-20 low-observable fighter prototype in 2015, while the J-31 fighter may be offered for export. Variants of the Y-20 transport—which may be commissioned in 2016—could provide badly needed troop movement, refueling, and airborne early warning and control (AWACs) capabilities. New variants of the venerable H-6 bomber have been exquisitely retrofitted to serve as tankers and to carry significant weapons load outs, including the YJ-12 supersonic ASCM and the CJ-20 LACM.

Meanwhile, China is placing major emphasis on UAVs. DoD cites a 2013 report by the Defense Science Board, which judges that “China’s move into unmanned systems is ‘alarming’ and combines unlimited resources with technological awareness that might allow China to match or even outpace U.S. spending on unmanned systems in the future.” No fewer than three long-range precision-strike variants under development. The BZK-005 UAV has already been observed conducting intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR) over the East China Sea. Without elaboration, DoD notes: “Some estimates indicate China plans to produce upwards of 41,800 land- and sea-based unmanned systems, worth about $10.5 billion, between 2014 and 2023.”

Finally, as part of China’s IADS, the PLAAF also maintains one of the world’s largest forces of advanced long-range SAMs. China is not as strong in SAMs as it is in other ballistic (and cruise) missiles, but is acquiring the long-range S-400 system from Russia, even as it continues to develop long-range indigenous systems such as the CSA-9 for IAD and ballistic missile defense (BMD).

Ground force materiel is typically last in sophistication, although the report offers few specifics. It does draw attention to China’s prioritization and rapid deployment of internal security forces. This pattern has only intensified in response to dozens of deaths from domestic unrest and terrorism in recent years, particularly in conjunction with Xinjiang.

Weaknesses and Attempts to Rectify Them

On the hardware side, China is still missing some critical technologies, industrial processes, and related knowhow. It “continues to lack either a robust coastal or deep water anti-submarine warfare capability,” and its ability to collect and disseminate targeting information in real time under wartime conditions remains uncertain.

Through determined multi-pronged effort, however, Beijing is progressively closing many of the remaining gaps. It continues to obtain significant technologies, components, and systems from abroad. As in the 1990s (albeit to a less extreme degree today), Russian and Ukrainian economic woes facilitate Chinese access to advanced expertise and systems (including S-400 SAMs, Su-35 fighters, and the Petersburg/Lada-class submarine production program from the former; assault hovercraft and aeroengines from the latter). Much technology acquired for commercial aircraft and other civilian programs has military applications. Along the way, DoD documents multiple cases of Chinese nationals seeking to transfer foreign technology illegally. Finally, China is consolidating its own state S&T research funding. Having bet big on nanotechnology, for instance, it now trails only the United States in research funding for that field.

Amelioration of software weaknesses requires laborious human capital investment and wrenching organizational reforms, but the PLA and its civilian masters are clearly determined to prevail even here. As part of enhancement of training realism emphasized by Xi, the PLA is increasing “joint” pan-Military Region exercises. Further reforms likely under consideration include reducing non-combat forces and the relative proportion of ground forces; elevating the proportion and roles of enlisted personnel and non-commissioned officers vis-à-vis commissioned officers; bolstering “new-type combat forces” for naval aviation, cyber, and special operations; establishing a theater joint command system; and reducing China’s current seven Military Regions by as many as two.

Finally, if Beijing is to secure the overseas influence and reach it increasingly desires, foreign policy adjustments will be required. Logistics and intelligence support remain key constraints on Chinese operations in the Indian Ocean and beyond. To remedy this, DoD assesses, Beijing “willlikely establish several access points in this area in the next 10 years. These arrangements likely will take the form of agreements for refueling, replenishment, crew rest, and low-level maintenance. The services provided likely will fall short of permitting the full spectrum of support from repair to re-armament.”

Positive Chinese Contributions and Bilateral Military Relations

Despite the above concerns, DoD also takes pains to recognize positive, growing Chinese contributions to international security and military-to-military relations with the U.S. It documents in exhaustive detail the frequent exchanges and discussions between the two militaries, as well as bilateral and multilateral military exercises dating to 2008. It clearly strives for a balanced approach: “As the United States builds a stronger foundation for a military-to-military relationship with China, it must also continue to monitor China’s evolving military strategy, doctrine, and force development, and encourage China to be more transparent about its military modernization program. In concert with its allies and partners, the United States will continue adapting its forces, posture, and operational concepts to maintain a stable and secure Asia-Pacific security environment.”

Limitations of the Report Itself

Like many products of complex bureaucratic exercises amid far greater competing priorities, this report suffers slightly from omissions, small weaknesses, and inconsistencies. The Maritime Militia, an important component of China’s Cabbage Strategy of enveloping disputed features in layers of non-military forces that opponents might hesitate to use force against, is not mentioned once. With regard to shipbuilding, DoD’s broad brushstrokes obscure lingering unevenness. It names China “the top ship-producing nation in the world,” but omits the critical qualifier that this is in terms of gross commercial tonnage; not sophistication, systems, technology, or quality. Ranges quoted for anti-ship cruise missiles are not explained; some may be debatable in practice depending on the assumptions used to calculate them. Likewise unexplained is DoD’s methodology for calculating China’s total 2014 military spending at $165 billion (against the official figure of $136.3 billion for that year).

Moreover, Pentagon reports are typically stronger in analyzing hardware than software, and this one is no exception. The disparity manifests most prominently in two instances. First, DoD offers incomplete, seemingly uncritical analysis of the “new type of major power relations” advocated by Xi Jinping and other Chinese officials. This may be part of a larger pattern in which the Obama Administration has fallen into the trap of appearing to embrace this loaded meme, whichcarries Chinese expectations of Washington accommodating China’s “core” sovereignty interests without reciprocal concessions from Beijing. It is arguably somewhat disjointed for DoD to express such significant concerns about Chinese weapons systems, while avoiding critical analysis of some of the very policy approaches that inform their threatened worst-case use. Second, the report misses a chance to put in full context the important keynote address that Xi delivered at the CCP Central Foreign Affairs Work Conference in 2014. While the full text remains unavailable in public, subsequent bureaucratic activities and official statements suggest that it may represent a watershed in Xi’s exhorting officials to propose more considerably more assertive external policies. Given the clarity it brings to details of Chinese security hardware, it is unfortunate that DoD could not shed more light on the high-level policies that inform its development and employment.

Undeniable Contribution

All told, however, DoD’s 2015 report continues its useful contribution to vital public knowledge of China’s military-security development. It is far more substantive than any public Chinese documents, including the much-touted Defense White Papers. Such knowledge remains far more limited than the vast sea of information available to anyone interested in the U.S. military, a great proportion of which is translated into Chinese on a regular basis.

Chinese government spokespeople will now predictably denounce DoD’s publication self-righteously in official media, but their talking points will appear generic, as if merely dusted off from years past. Behind this querulous façade, and unwillingness to engage the report’s specifics, likely lies an inability to disprove anything more than a few technicalities. What apparently bothers Beijing far more than any facts revealed is the very notion that Washington would have the temerity to bring transparency and open discussion to the state and trajectory of what is now the world’s second military by many measures. All the more reason why DoD’s slightly imperfect yet irreplaceable contribution is invaluable yet again.

Andrew S. Erickson, “Clear Strengths, Fuzzy Weaknesses In China’s Massive Military Build-Up,” China Real Time Report (中国实时报), Wall Street Journal, 9 May 2015.

The U.S. Defense Department’s new assessment of China’s fighting ability paints a picture of a force in the midst of a broad-based modernization at a pace that other militaries would envy. It has increased its ability to exert leverage in the East and South China seas, where it is in territorial disputes with its neighbors. Significantly, it has also added to its ability to project its power further afield, adding to the global reach of the People’s Liberation Army.

But military effectiveness is about more than hardware. The report cites a number of areas where the PLA’s human resources and organizational effectiveness are lacking, though Beijing is taking steps to rectify those. The report’s own limitations in this area underscore the difficulty in judging how effective Chinese forces can be. …

2014

Andrew S. Erickson, “Pentagon Releases ‘Military and Security Developments Involving the People’s Republic of China 2014’,” China Analysis from Original Sources 以第一手资料研究中国, 5 June 2014.

2013

Andrew S. Erickson, “Pentagon Report Reveals Chinese Military Developments,” The Diplomat, 8 May 2013.

Andrew S. Erickson, “Unpacking the Riches of the Pentagon’s China Report,” China Real Time Report (中国实时报), Wall Street Journal, 7 May 2013.

Andrew S. Erickson, “DoD ‘Military and Security Developments Involving the People’s Republic of China 2013’ Report Just Released,” China Analysis from Original Sources 以第一手资料研究中国, 6 May 2013.

2012

Gabe Collins, “12 Things Missing from China Report,” The Diplomat, 1 June 2012.

2011

Andrew S. Erickson, “Key Quotes from 2011 DoD Report on China’s Military,” China Analysis from Original Sources 以第一手资料研究中国, 24 August 2011.

2010

Andrew S. Erickson, “Key Quotes from 2010 U.S. Department of Defense Report on China’s Military,” China Analysis from Original Sources 以第一手资料研究中国, 17 August 2010.

Andrew S. Erickson, “ASBM-Relevant Content from 2010 U.S. Department of Defense Report on China’s Military,” China Analysis from Original Sources 以第一手资料研究中国, 17 August 2010.