# Military and Security Developments Involving the People's Republic of China/Chapter 2

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KEY TAKEAWAYS
* The PLA has sought to modernize its capabilities and improve its proficiencies across all warfare domains so that, as a joint force, it can conduct the full range of land, air, and maritime as well as nuclear, space, counterspace, electronic warfare (EW), and cyberspace operations.
* The PLA's evolving capabilities and concepts continue to strengthen the PRC's ability to "fight and win wars" against a “strong enemy (强敌)" (a likely euphemism for the United States), counter an intervention by a third party in a conflict along the PRC's periphery, and project power globally.
* In 2022, the PLA continued to make progress implementing major structural reforms, fielding modern indigenous systems, building readiness, and strengthening its competency to conduct joint operations.
The PLA is the world's largest active-duty military force and comprised of approximately 2.185 million active, 1.17 million reserve, and 660,000 paramilitary personnel for a total force of 4 million. In efforts to create a leaner, more mobile force, the PLA Army (PLAA) has steadily reduced active-duty personnel in the last three decades but still outnumbers other services with roughly 1 million soldiers in 2022. The PLAN and PLA Air Force (PLAAF) have grown in size since 2015, indicating their increasing importance. By 2022, the PLAN Marine Corps expanded from two to six combined arms brigades and was supplemented with aviation and special forces units, with the intent of becoming increasingly capable of protecting China’s overseas interests. The PLA Rocket Force (PLARF), formerly the Second Artillery, manages the PRC's land-based nuclear and conventional missile units. The Strategic Support Force (SSF) centralizes the PLA's strategic space, cyberspace, electronic warfare, information, communications, and psychological warfare missions and capabilities. Lastly, the JLSF handles quartermaster, transportation, medical services, and other logistic functions to enhance PLA's joint capabilities during peace and war.
DEVELOPMENTS IN THE PLA'S MODERNIZATION AND REFORM
The PRC maintains its goal to achieve a fully modernized national defense and military force by 2035 and for the PLA to become a world-class military by 2049. The force also progresses toward its 2027 benchmark of military modernization that aligns with the 100th anniversary of the PLA's founding on August 1, 1927. The 2027 benchmark, introduced during the 14th Five Year Plan ​(2021-2025), represents the start of the new three-step development strategy that continues Xi’s approach of military reform to transform the PLA. The original three-step modernization strategy sought to achieve mechanization by 2020; modernization of military theory, organization, personnel, and equipment by 2035; and to become a world-class force by mid-century. With basic mechanization considered achieved in 2020, the 2027 goal is a short-term marker and represents a modification, not a compression in timeline, for China’s ambition to achieve complete military modernization of the PLA by 2035. The PLA centenary goal set by the CCP accelerates the integrated development of mechanization, informatization, and intelligentization and to field a combat-ready force with improved strategic capabilities to defend national sovereignty, security, and development interests by 2027.
PLA modernization in training includes realistic simulation and use of virtual reality and enhancing the military’s strategic capacity. The PLA has a minimal reliance on imports and has the ability to independently manufacture and develop equipment comparable to the most advanced U.S. and Russian equipment, accelerating their ability to modernize. The CCP continues to prioritize modernizing PLA activities in near and distant battlefields by integrating system-vssystem operations featuring information dominance, precision strikes, and joint operations.
PEOPLE’S LIBERATION ARMY ARMY (PLAA)
Key Takeaways
* The PLAA continues to modernize equipment and focus on combined arms and joint training in effort to meet the goal of becoming a world-class military.
* The PLAA demonstrated a new long-range fire capability in the PLA military response to the August 2022 U.S. CODEL visit to Taiwan.
* The PLAA continues to incorporate a twice-a-year conscript intake. The long-term effects of the policy are not clear.
The PLAA has approximately 970,000 active-duty personnel in combat units and is the primary ground fighting force in the PLA. The 2020 National Defense University’s Science of Military Strategy described the PLAA’s development as a transition from a regional defense to a global combat force.
Force Structure and Organization. The PLAA continues to replace legacy equipment with newer systems. The major force restructuring required by the 2016 and 2017 PLA reforms is complete, but many units are still in the process of upgrading equipment.
The PLAA is organized into five Theater Army Commands, the Xinjiang Military District, and the Tibet Military District. The PLAA has 13 group armies, which are comprised of multiple combined-arms brigades that serve as the PLAA's primary maneuver force. The brigades vary in size and composition. The PLAA delineates its combined-arms brigades into three types: light ​(high-mobility, mountain, air assault, and motorized), medium (wheeled armored vehicles), and heavy (tracked armored vehicles), with sizes ranging from approximately 4,500 to 5,000 personnel. Each group army controls six additional brigades responsible for operational element functions: an artillery brigade, an air defense brigade, an army aviation (or air assault) brigade, a special operations forces (SOF) brigade, an engineer and chemical defense brigade, and a sustainment brigade; however, some variations exist with at least one group army per theater separating their engineering and chemical defense brigades into separate units. Although the PLAA has standardized its group armies, it does retain a number of nonstandard divisions and brigades that exist outside of the group armies. These units are typically located in areas the CCP considers sensitive including Xinjiang, Tibet, Hong Kong, and Beijing. The PLAA also commands several border and coastal defense brigades under the Theater Army Commands and regiments under the Xinjiang and Tibet Military Districts.
Capabilities and Modernization. To meet the stated ambitions to become a world-class military, the PLAA continues systems modernization and combined arms and joint training. However, they still employ a mix of modern and legacy military equipment. The PLAA continues focusing training on fighting as combined arms formations while adapting to the twice-a-year conscript induction change.
The PLAA's 15 SOF brigades provide group army commanders with an organic unit capable of executing special operations. Typical PLAA SOF brigade missions include raids, harassment operations, target seizure and control, special reconnaissance, precision strike guidance, and rescue operations. The PLA continues to prioritize SOF for modernization with the fielding of the new QBZ-191 military service rifle and the CSK-series of vehicles. Observed SOF training in 2022 included airborne parachuting, small unit tactics and maritime operations.
PLAA Aviation and Air Assault units remained a focus of development in 2022. PLAA training events and reports in PRC media show that support to amphibious operations, multi-dimensional assaults, developing close air support tactics, and manned-unmanned teaming (MUM-T) are now a standard part of training. Training in 2022 also included numerous examples of helicopters executing nighttime flight operations, over water maneuver, and ultra-low altitude flying. PLAA Aviation works directly with ground units to enhance its ability to support air assault operations and conduct air strikes. Highlights from PLAA Aviation joint training in 2022 included army aviation helicopters continuing to train for operations with PLAN landing ships. 2022 saw the first observed evidence of PLAA helicopters being able to rearm and refuel onboard PLAN vessels along with continued progress towards maritime operations. The two PLAA Air Assault brigades continued extensive training on helicopter insertion, area security, and aerial reconnaissance. The PLAA envisions its Aviation and Air Assault units employing their three-dimensional maneuver, firepower, and assault capabilities to act as a main combat force, support a greater joint operation, or conduct non-war military operations outside China.
PLAA air defense units in 2022 concentrated on improving their tactical air defense against low and slow threats like Uncrewed Aerial Systems (UAS) and loitering munitions to meet evolving ​air defense requirements. Hybrid self-propelled air defense artillery systems (SPADA), gun air defense artillery, small focused electronic warfare systems, and Man-Portable Air Defense Systems (MANPADS) form the core of the PRC’s evolving solution to countering tactical UAS. One of the systems with high counter UAS potential being fielded to light combined arms brigades is armed with a six barreled 25mm rotary cannon, which possibly uses Programmable Timed Fuse Pre-Fragmented (PTFP) rounds, and also mounts four FN-16 MANPADS on its turret.
During 2022, the PLAA continued to emphasize the fielding and application of modern EW capabilities that are designed to maximize a unit’s combat effectiveness by detecting and degrading/disrupting adversary command and control communications as well as complicating an adversary’s use of tactical intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR) systems. Similar to the combined arms brigade’s fielding of EW capabilities, the PLAA’s air defense forces have rapidly fielded new counter-air electronic attack capabilities that will complement traditional air defense and support the PLA-wide anti-access, area-denial (A2AD) mission.
Readiness. In 2022, the PLAA continued to improve its methods and standards of training combined arms units. Training encompassed individual to collective soldier events integrating reconnaissance, infantry, artillery, armor, engineers, and signal units. In addition to continued PLAA deployments to the LAC on the Indian border, the PLAA conducted multiple “around the clock” large-scale exercises in training areas throughout the country to include joint operations in response to the U.S. and Taiwan actions in 2022.The PLAA used its new PCH191 long-range rocket artillery system during live fire events along China’s east coast as a response to the U. S. CODEL in August 2022. The new long-range MRL is capable of striking Taiwan from mainland China.
In an effort to help develop a more professional military, adjustments were made to the recruitment and promotion of PLAA enlisted personnel. The changes aimed to accelerate the integrated development of mechanization, informatization, and intelligentization. To expand the pool of educated and technically proficient personnel for conscription, the recruitment age for university graduates increased from 24 to 26. The "4+X" service policy was also implemented for the NCO Corps, creating flexibility for intermediate- and senior-level NCOs by helping avoid unwanted demobilization if an NCO fails to meet promotion criteria after their 4-year contract.
Major Ground Units
​PEOPLE’S LIBERATION ARMY NAVY (PLAN)
Key Takeaways
* The PRC has numerically the largest navy in the world with an overall battle force of over 370 ships and submarines, including more than 140 major surface combatants. The PLAN is largely composed of modern multi-mission ships and submarines.
* The PLAN commissioned its eighth RENHAI class cruiser in late 2022 and is continuing construction of the RENHAI Guided Missile Cruiser (CG), the LUYANG III MOD Guided Missile Destroyer (DDG), and the JIANGKAI II Guided Missile Frigate (FFG), as well as beginning production on a new class of frigate, the JIANGKAI III.
* In 2022, the PLAN commissioned its third YUSHEN-class Amphibious Assault Ships (LHA) and has likely begun construction on a fourth as of early 2023.
* In 2022, the PLAN launched its third aircraft carrier, CV-18 Fujian.
* In the near-term, the PLAN will have the ability to conduct long-range precision strikes against land targets from its submarine and surface combatants using land-attack cruise missiles, notably enhancing the PRC’s power projection capability.
* The PRC continues to challenge foreign military activities in its EEZ in a manner that is inconsistent with the rules of customary international law as reflected in the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea. At the same time, the PLAN conducts activities in the EEZs of other countries, including the United States, Australia, Philippines, Vietnam, and Malaysia.
The PRC has numerically the largest navy in the world with an overall battle force of over 370 ships and submarines, including over 140 major surface combatants. The PLAN is largely composed of modern multi-mission ships and submarines. The PLAN commissioned its eighth RENHAI-class cruiser in late 2022 and continued construction of the RENHAI cruiser, LUYANG III MOD destroyer and the JIANGKAI II-class frigate as well as beginning production of the JIANGKAI III-class frigate. The PLAN commissioned its second YUSHEN-class amphibious assault ship (TYPE 075 LHA) in December 2021 and the third in October 2022 with the first ship in the class achieving initial operating capability (IOC) in March 2022. Construction on a fourth YUSHEN-class LHA likely began in early 2023. In June 2022, the PLAN launched its third aircraft carrier, CV-18 Fujian.
The PRC has long challenged foreign military activities in its EEZ in a manner that is inconsistent with the rules of customary international law as reflected in the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea. However, in recent years, the PLA has begun conducting the same types of military activities inside and outside the FIC in the EEZs of other countries, including the United States. This activity highlights the PRC’s double standard in the application of its interpretation of international law. Examples include sending intelligence collection ships to collect on military ​exercises such as the RIMPAC exercise off Hawaii in 2014, 2018, and 2022, TALISMAN SABER off Australia in 2017, 2019, and 2021, and operating near Alaska in 2017 and 2021. Chinese intelligence collection ships also operated near sensitivity defense facilities off Australia’s west coast in May 2022 and near Japan in July 2022. PRC survey ships are also extremely active in the SCS and they frequently operate in the claimed EEZs of other nations in the region such as the Philippines, Vietnam, and Malaysia.
The PRC’s 2019 defense white paper described the PLAN as adjusting to changes in the strategic requirements of near seas defense and far seas protection, noting that it was “speeding up the transition of its tasks from defense on the near seas to protection missions on the far seas . . .” Towards the PRC’s goal of building a “strong and modernized navy force,” the PLAN has replaced or updated its previous generations of platforms that had limited capabilities in favor of larger, modern multi-mission combatants. Today, the PLAN is largely composed of modern multi-role platforms featuring advanced anti-ship, anti-air, and anti-submarine weapons and sensors. The PLAN is also emphasizing maritime joint operations and joint integration with the other branches of the PLA. This modernization aligns with the PRC’s growing emphasis on the maritime domain and increasing demands for the PLAN to operate at greater distances from mainland China.
The PLAN organizes, mans, trains, and equips the PLA’s naval and naval aviation forces, as well as the PLA Marine Corps (PLAMC), which is subordinate to the PLAN. The PLAN continues to implement structural reforms that began in late 2015 and early 2016. The PLA-wide reforms removed the PLAN headquarters from conducting operations, which became the purview of the PLA’s joint theater commands, and focused it on organizing, manning, training, and equipping naval forces.
Missions. The PLAN continues to develop into a global force, gradually extending its operational reach beyond East Asia into a sustained ability to operate at increasingly longer ranges, including a continuous presence in the Gulf of Aden. The PLAN’s latest surface and subsurface platforms enable combat operations beyond the reach of the PRC’s land-based defenses. In particular, the PRC’s growing force of aircraft carriers extend air defense coverage of deployed task groups beyond the range of land-based defenses, enabling operations farther from China’s shore. The PLAN’s emerging requirement for sea-based land-attack systems will also enhance the PRC’s ability to project power. Furthermore, 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 and large-deck amphibious ship operations. The PLAN’s expanding fleet of large modern amphibious warships will enable it to conduct in a wide range of expeditionary operations wherever PRC interests are threatened or in support of PRC participation in internationally sanctioned operations. The expansion of naval operations beyond China’s immediate region will also facilitate its non-war military activities and further legitimize the PRC’s growing global military posture, including at its base in Djibouti.
​The PRC is in the beginning stages of operating what the PLA calls its “multi-carrier force.” The PRC continues to learn lessons from operating its first aircraft carrier, Liaoning. Its first domestically-built aircraft carrier, CV-17 Shandong, was launched in 2017 and commissioned in December 2019. The PRC’s next generation of carriers, the new FUJIAN-class—the first of which it is currently outfitting—will have greater endurance and an electromagnetic catapult launch system making it capable of launching various types of specialized fixed-wing aircraft for missions such as airborne early warning and EW. This will increase the striking power of a potential PLAN carrier battle group when deployed to areas beyond China’s immediate periphery. CV-18 Fujian launched in June 2022 and is expected to commission in 2024.
The PLAN’s newest amphibious ships, the YUSHEN LHA and YUZHAO amphibious transport docks (LPD), are modern platforms capable of regional and global expeditionary missions in support of both wartime and non-war contingency operations either singly or as part of capable and flexible task groups composed of multiple amphibious ships and surface combatants.
The PLAN continues to build multiple new, large auxiliary ships that can support force projection operations, including large logistic ships such as the FUYU fast combat support ship (AOE) and specialized platforms for intelligence collection ships (AGI) and ocean surveillance ships (AGOS).
The PLAN’s ability to perform missions beyond the FIC is modest but growing as it gains more experience operating in distant waters and acquires larger and more advanced platforms. The PRC’s experience in extended range operations primarily comes from extended task group deployments and its ongoing counterpiracy mission in the Gulf of Aden. Other recent extended range PLAN operations include the following:
* In September 2022, a PLAN task group that included a RENHAI class cruiser operated with four Russian combatants near the Aleutian Islands and was shadowed by U.S. Coast Guard ships and aircraft.
* In December 2022 and January 2023, a PLAN task force including a LUYANG III DDG operated in the South Pacific near French Polynesia.
* In December 2022, CV-16 Liaoning with escorts including two RENHAI-class cruisers operated in the Philippine Sea near Japan’s Daito Islands in an area similar to where Liaoning deployed to in December 2021.
* In February 2023, a PLAN task group, that included YUSHEN-class LHA-31, conducted training in the SCS and Western Pacific. This was the first extended range deployment for the newly commissioned LHA.
* The PLAN sustained its counter-piracy task groups in the Gulf of Aden through 2022, a 14-year effort that is the PRC’s first enduring naval operation beyond the Indo-Pacific region. In January 2022, the 39th Naval Escort Task Force conducted a three-day escort of Chinese fishing vessels in the Gulf of Aden. Overall, according to Chinese state media, the PLAN has expanded ​ its original mission of escorting Chinese-flagged vessels and vessels from the World Food Program to escorting merchant ships from other countries as well.
Force Structure. The PLAN is the largest navy in the world with a battle force of over 370 platforms, including major surface combatants, submarines, ocean-going amphibious ships, mine warfare ships, aircraft carriers, and fleet auxiliaries. Notably, this figure does not include approximately 60 HOUBEI-class patrol combatants that carry anti-ship cruise missiles (ASCM). The PLAN’s overall battle force is expected to grow to 395 ships by 2025 and 435 ships by 2030. Much of this growth will be in major surface combatants. The PLAN’s force structure consists of three fleets with subordinate submarine flotillas, surface ship flotillas, aviation brigades, and naval bases. The PLAN’s Northern Theater Navy is subordinate to the Northern Theater Command, the Eastern Theater Navy is subordinate to the Eastern Theater Command, and the Southern Theater Navy is subordinate to the Southern Theater Command.
Submarines. The PLAN has placed a high priority on modernizing its submarine force, but its force structure continues to grow modestly as it works to mature its force, integrate new technologies, and expand its shipyards. The PLAN currently operates six nuclear-powered ballistic missile submarines (SSBN), six nuclear-powered attack submarines (SSN), and 48 diesel-powered/air-independent powered attack submarines (SS). The PLAN’s submarine force is expected to grow to 65 units by 2025 and 80 units by 2035 despite the ongoing retirement of older hulls due to an expansion of submarine construction capacity.
The PRC continues to increase its inventory of conventional submarines capable of firing advanced anti-ship cruise missiles (ASCM). Between the mid-1990s and mid-2000s, the PLAN purchased 12 Russian-built KILO-class SS units, eight of which are capable of launching ASCMs. China’s shipyards have delivered 13 SONG-class SS units (Type 039) and 21 YUAN-class diesel-electric air-independent propulsion attack submarine (SSP) (Type 039A/B). The PRC is expected to produce a total of 25 or more YUAN-class submarines by 2025. In late 2021, the PLAN retired the first two KILO-class submarines (both non-ASCM capable) purchased from Russia in the 1990s.
Over the past 15 years, the PLAN has constructed 12 nuclear submarines—two SHANG I-class SSNs (TYPE 093), four SHANG II-class SSNs (TYPE 093A), and six JIN-class SSBNs (TYPE 094). Equipped with the CSS-N-14 (JL-2) submarine-launched ballistic missile (SLBM) (3,900NM) or the CSS-N-20 (JL-3) SLBM (5,400NM), the PLAN’s six operational JIN-class SSBNs represent the PRC’s first credible sea-based nuclear deterrent. Each JIN-class SSBN can carry up to 12 missiles. In 2019, Beijing displayed these missiles at the PRC’s 70th founding anniversary parade. The PRC’s next-generation TYPE 096 SSBN will reportedly be armed with follow-on longer range SLBM. The TYPE 096 will likely begin construction in the near future. Based on the projected 30-plus-year service life of the platforms, the PRC will operate its JIN and TYPE 096 SSBN fleets concurrently in the 2030s. This would align with Xi’s 2018 directive for the SSBN force to achieve “stronger growth.”
​The PRC launched two SHANG III (TYPE 093B)-class guided-missile nuclear attack submarines (SSGN) between May 2022 and January 2023 and could have three hulls of this class operational hulls by 2025. This new SHANG-class variant will enhance the PLAN’s anti-surface warfare capability and could provide a clandestine land-attack option if equipped with land-attack cruise missiles (LACM). The PLAN is also improving its anti-submarine warfare capabilities through the development of its surface combatants and special mission aircraft, but it continues to lack a robust deep-water anti-submarine warfare (ASW) capability.
Surface Combatants. The PLAN remains engaged in a robust shipbuilding program for surface combatants. As of late 2022, the PLAN was building an aircraft carrier, a new batch of guided-missile cruisers, guided-missile destroyers, and a new batch of guided missile frigates, including a new 054 variant designated JIANGKAI III. These assets will significantly upgrade the PLAN’s air defense, anti-ship, and anti-submarine capabilities and will be critical as the PLAN expands its operations beyond the range of the PLA’s shore-based air defense systems. By the end of 2019, the PLAN had commissioned its 30th JIANGKAI II-class FFG, reportedly completing the production run. However, in 2021 PRC media reported production had restarted with at least three additional hulls commissioned by the end of 2022 with a total possible end production run of more than 40 hulls. The PLAN augmented its littoral warfare capabilities, especially for operations in the ECS and SCS, with the high-rate production of the JIANGDAO-class Corvettes (FFLs) (TYPE 056 and TYPE 056A). The PLAN commissioned the 72nd JIANGDAO in February 2021, completing the production run. The PLAN subsequently transferred the early flight TYPE 056 variants, likely 22 ships total, to the China Coast Guard in 2021, probably due to the early models’ lack of towed-array sonar. The remaining JIANGDAOs (056A) are equipped with a towed-array sonar and are, thus, capable of contributing to ASW operations.
The PLAN has expanded its force of large surface combatants with two programs, the LUYANG III DDG and the RENHAI CG. By the end of 2022, the PRC had commissioned 25 LUYANG III DDGs—including 12 lengthened LUYANG III MOD DDGs—with additional hulls under construction. Both the standard LUYANG III and the LUYANG III MOD have a 64-cell multipurpose vertical launch system (VLS) capable of launching cruise missiles, surface to air missiles, and anti-submarine missiles, and the MOD variants will be capable of carrying the new Z-20 anti-submarine helicopter by late 2022, eight RENHAI-class CG’s were in commission in the PLAN with additional hulls under construction. The RENHAI has 112 VLS cells and can carry a large load out of weapons including ASCMs, surface-to-air missiles (SAMs), torpedoes, and anti-submarine weapons along with likely LACMs and anti-ship ballistic missiles (ASBM) when those become operational. In early 2022, the PLAN released a video of RENHAI CG test launching an anti-ship ballistic missile with a reported/estimated range of 540NM. The new ship launched anti-ship ballistic missile can possibly be launched by the LUYANG III and LUYANG III MOD DDGs.
The PLAN continues to emphasize anti-surface warfare capabilities in its force development. The PLAN’s frigates and corvettes, as well as modernized older combatants, carry variants of the YJ83/YJ-83J ASCM (135NM), while newer surface combatants such as the LUYANG II-class ​DDGs are fitted with the YJ-62 (270NM). The LUYANG III-class DDGs and the RENHAI-class CGs are fitted with a variant of the PRC’s newest ASCM, the YJ-18A (290NM). A few modernized destroyers have been retrofitted with the supersonic YJ-12A ASCM (270NM), and the next-generation frigates may also receive this missile. Eight of the PLAN’s 12 KILO-class SSs are equipped with the Russian built SS-N-27b ASCM (120NM). The PRC’s SONG-class SS, YUAN-class SSP, and SHANG-class SSN field the PLAN’s newest domestic submarine-launched ASCM, the YJ-18 which constitutes an improvement over the SS-N-27b ASCM. It is possible the PRC is developing a launcher that can fit inside a standard commercial shipping container for covert employment of the YJ-18 aboard merchant ships.
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, the PLA is investing in joint 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.
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 the developmental SHANG III SSGN. 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.
Amphibious Warfare Ships. The PRC’s investment in LHA ships signals its intent to continue to develop its expeditionary warfare capabilities. In April 2021, the PRC commissioned the first YUSHEN-class LHA (TYPE 075) followed by the commissioning of the second hull in December 2021. A third YUSHEN-class LHA was commissioned in October 2022 while the first hull achieved IOC in March 2022, and there are indications of a probable fourth hull under construction in early 2023.The YUSHEN class are highly capable large-deck amphibious ships that will provide the PLAN with an all-aspect expeditionary capability including the ability to carry a large number of landing craft, troops, armored vehicles, and helicopters. In addition, the PLAN has eight large YUZHAO-class amphibious transport docks (LPD) (TYPE 071) in service. The YUZHAO-class LPDs and YUSHEN-class LHAs provide the PLA with greater capacity, endurance, and more flexibility for long-range operations than the PLAN’s older landing ships, which it has reduced in number over the last decade with obsolete units being decommissioned. The YUSHEN and YUZHAO can each carry several of the new YUYI class air-cushion medium landing craft and/or the conventional YUBU-class utility landing craft, and a variety of helicopters, tanks, armored vehicles and PLAN marines for long-distance expeditionary deployments.
Aircraft Carriers. In December 2019, the PRC commissioned its first domestically built aircraft carrier, Shandong, which launched in 2017 and completed multiple sea trials during 2018-2019. ​Shandong was photographed at a base on Hainan Island in the Southern Theater Navy in late 2020 and should now be considered to be operational. It is a modified version of the Liaoning (Soviet KUZNETSOV-class) design and likewise uses a ski-jump takeoff method for its aircraft. China launched its third domestically built aircraft carrier, CV-18 Fujian in June 2022 and continued outfitting work early 2023. CV-18 is larger than CV-16 and CV-17 and fitted with an electromagnetic 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. CV-18 is expected to be operational by 2024, with additional carriers to follow.
Ship Based Aircraft. The PLAN operates and is developing several aircraft to operate from its carriers and combatants. In addition to the standard J-15 fighter that currently operates from PLAN carriers, there is a catapult-capable J-15 variant in development. The aircraft is currently testing from land-based steam and electromagnetic catapults. Two other J-15 variants are in development—the J-15S tandem-seat variant and the J-15D electronic warfare variant, which is equipped with wingtip electronic support measures/electronic intelligence gathering pods as well as several conformal antennas. The PRC is also developing a carrier capable variant of the fifth-generation J-31 fighter, known as the J-35, which conducted its first flight in 2021. Beyond fighter aircraft, the PRC is refining the design of a carrier-borne airborne early warning (AEW) aircraft, known as the KJ-600. A mockup of the aircraft, which appears externally similar to the E-2C/D Hawkeye, has existed for many years, and prototypes of the KJ-600 have been in flight testing since 2020. Beijing is also developing the Z-20F helicopter for the PLAN, intended for the RENHAI cruisers and LUYANG III MOD destroyers and possibly the YUSHEN LHAs. The Z-20F is similar to the U.S. Navy’s SH-60 and will provide significant improvements in ASW capabilities over the smaller Z-9 and Ka-28 helicopters the PLAN currently operates. The Z-20F will also complement the larger Z-18Fs that operate from the PLAN’s aircraft carriers.
Accompanying the manned fixed-wing and rotary aircraft will be UAVs. The PLAN have conducted sea trials on multiple surface combatants with vertical take-off and landing (VTOL) UAVs ranging in wingspan between 3.5 and 4 meters. These UAVs can include the SD-40, CSC005, S-100 CAMCOPTER, and AV-500 UAV systems. These UAVs are used for ISR purposes.
Land Based Aircraft. The PLAN is in the process of replacing its older variant H-6 bombers with the H-6J, a naval variant of the H-6K operated by the PLAAF. This new and larger advanced maritime strike bomber has six weapons pylons instead of four, advanced avionics, upgraded engines, and can employ the supersonic YJ-12 ASCM (270NM). In 2020, PLAAF H-6Ks were also photographed carrying YJ-12s, significantly increasing the number of bombers available to the PLA for long-range maritime strike missions.
The PLAN operates a diverse inventory of fixed-wing special mission aircraft for maritime patrol, airborne early warning aircraft including many of the same variants operated by the PLAAF. However, the PLAN also operates a variant of the Y-9 for anti-submarine warfare and maritime patrol. This aircraft is equipped with a magnetic anomaly detector boom, similar to that of the U.S. ​Navy’s P-3. This Y-9 ASW variant is equipped with surface-search radar mounted under the nose as well as multiple-blade antennas on the fuselage, probably for electronic surveillance. A small electro-optical (EO)/infrared turret is located just behind the nose wheel, and this variant is equipped with an internal weapons bay in front of the main landing gear.
The PRC also operates a fixed-wing medium to large size UAVs from land bases. These UAVs specialize in ISR and include EO/infrared imaging, signals intelligence (SIGINT) capabilities, and synthetic aperture radar (SAR). Many of these UAVs can be operated in satellite communications (SATCOM) mode, extending the datalink and operational ranges well past traditional line-of-sight (LOS) communications. Fixed-wing UAVs include the XIANGLONG high altitude, long endurance UAV; the BZK-005 medium altitude, long endurance UAV; and the ASN-209 medium altitude, medium endurance UAV.
Auxiliary Ships. The PLAN continues to build a large number of seagoing auxiliary and support ships, including AGIs, AGOs, fleet replenishment oilers, hospital ships, submarine salvage and rescue ships, and various other large auxiliaries for specialized missions. Additionally, the PRC’s first domestically built polar icebreaker, XUELONG 2, became operational in 2019. The ship is operated by the Polar Research Institute of the State Oceanic Administration. In October 2022, XUELONG 2 departed for the PRC’s 39th research mission to Antarctica and was followed one week later by XUELONG 1, marking the third occasion both research vessels have conducted a joint mission in Antarctica.
Current Nuclear Sea-Based Capabilities. For the PLAN and CCP, the possession of SSBNs has long been seen as an important symbol in achieving great power status. The PRC has six operational TYPE 094 JIN-class SSBNs, and these submarines are conducting at sea deterrent patrols. The PLAN’s JIN SSBNs are equipped to carry up to 12 sea launched ballistic missiles (SLBMs); JL-2 (CSS-N-14) and JL-3 (CSS-N-20) representing the PRC’s first viable sea-based nuclear deterrent. With six operational SSBNs, the PLAN has the capacity to maintain a constant at sea deterrent presence. With a range of approximately 3,900NM, a JIN equipped with the JL-2 would have to operate in the mid-Pacific Ocean in order to threaten targets in the western half of the Continental United States (as well as Hawaii and Alaska) or east of Hawaii in order to threaten targets on the East Coast of the United States. PRC sources claim the JL-3 has a range of over 5,400NM which would allow a JIN armed with this missile to target portions of CONUS from Chinese littoral waters. The PLAN’s next generation SSBN, the TYPE 096 is expected to enter service the late 2020s or early 2030s. Based on the 30-plus-year service life of the PRC’s first-generation SSNs, the PRC will operate the TYPE 094 and TYPE 096 SSBNs concurrently.
PLAN MARINE CORPS (PLANMC)
The PLANMC maintains a presence at the PRC’s first overseas military base in Djibouti that extends The PRC’s military reach and strategic influence in Africa and the Middle East. In 2020, China highlighted a PLANMC SOF unit that had joined the previously assigned PLANMC unit in Djibouti. The PLANMC’s presence in Djibouti provides the PRC with the ability to support a ​military response to contingencies affecting China’s investments and infrastructure in the region and the approximately 1 million PRC citizens in Africa and 500,000 in the Middle East, although we have not observed the PLANMC in Djibouti assist in evacuation efforts to date. The PLANMC also embarks a contingent of marines with the PLAN’s Gulf of Aden counterpiracy-focused naval escort task force that supports the PRC’s trade interests. Additionally, the PLANMC supports the PRC’s military diplomacy. For example, the PLANMC at Djibouti have trained with Thai, Pakistani, Saudi, South African, and Djiboutian forces.
The PLANMC’s roles and missions principally include defending PLA bases in mainland China, the SCS and abroad, conducting amphibious operations to seize and defend small reef and island outposts, and conducting non-war military activities (NWMA). Although the PLANMC has traditionally focused on its task to assault and defense of small islands in the SCS, more recently its focus has grown to include expeditionary operations beyond FIC. The PLANMC’s roles under NWMA support the PRC’s efforts to protect its overseas interests including resources, infrastructure, and citizens abroad.
The PLANMC emphasized artillery training throughout 2022 which included training with the PCL-181 vehicle-mounted artillery pieces at various training ranges. The training also incorporated a reconnaissance variant of the Type-05, and it concluded with a multi-brigade culminating event in southern Guangdong. The inclusion of this artillery piece greatly increases the range of their artillery compared to what the PLANMC was previously fielding. Additionally, the PLANMC increased its overall aviation capability in 2022. The PLANMC’s Z-8C helicopter inventory increased to at least 28, bolstering their air assault capability. The PLANMC aviation brigade participated in three-dimensional amphibious assault training during the year which included air assault components, amphibious assault vehicles, and a combination of Landing Craft Air Cushion (LCAC) and assault boats. This training was conducted in conjunction with a commercial roll-on/roll-off vessel as the PLANMC continues to increase their integration with civilian vessels and expanding their sealift means.
Major Naval Units
​PEOPLE’S LIBERATION ARMY AIR FORCE (PLAAF) AND PLAN AVIATION
Key Takeaways
* The PLAAF and PLAN Aviation together constitute the largest aviation force in the Indo-Pacific region.
* The PLAAF is rapidly catching up to Western air forces. The PLAAF continues to modernize with the delivery of domestically built aircraft and a wide range of UASs.
* In October 2019, the PRC signaled the return of the airborne leg of its nuclear triad after the PLAAF publicly revealed the H-6N as its first nuclear-capable air-to-air refuelable bomber.
The People’s Liberation Army Air Force (PLAAF) and PLAN Aviation together constitute the largest aviation forces in the region and the third largest in the world, with over 3,150 total aircraft (not including trainer variants or UASs) of which approximately 2,400 are combat aircraft (including fighters, strategic bombers, tactical bombers, multi-mission tactical, and attack aircraft). The PLAAF’s role is to serve as a comprehensive strategic air force capable of long-range airpower projection. The PRC’s 2019 defense white paper described the PLAAF’s missions and tasks as transitioning from territorial air defense to “offensive and defensive operations.” In 2021, General Chang Dingqiu assumed the post of PLAAF commander and continued to enact PLAAF reforms to improve the force’s ability to accomplish joint warfighting tasks. The PLAAF is rapidly catching up to Western air forces. This trend is gradually eroding longstanding and significant U.S. military technical advantages vis-à-vis the PRC in the air domain.
The CMC’s intent is to transform the PLAAF into a more effective and capable force that is proficient at conducting joint operations. The PLAAF is comprised of aviation, airborne, air defense, radar, electronic countermeasure, and communications forces. Amid the wide-ranging reorganization of the PLA, the PLAAF has reorganized into five Theater Command Air Forces, established at least six new air bases, and restructured previously subordinate regiments into brigades under the new bases by disbanding its fighter and fighter-bomber divisions.
Fighters. The PLAAF and PLAN Aviation continue to field greater numbers of fourth-generation aircraft (now more than 1,300 of 1,900 total fighters, not including trainers) and probably will become a majority fourth-generation force within the next several years. For fifth-generation fighters, the PLAAF has operationally fielded its new J-20 fifth-generation stealth fighter, and PRC social media revealed a new 2-seat variant of the J-20 in October 2021. The PLAAF is preparing upgrades for the J-20, which may include increasing the number of air-to-air missiles (AAM) the fighter can carry in its low-observable configuration, installing thrust-vectoring engine nozzles, and adding super cruise capability by installing higher-thrust indigenous WS-15 engines. Development continues on the smaller FC-31/J-31 for export or as a future naval fighter for the PLAN’s next class of aircraft carriers.
​Bombers. The PRC’s bomber force is currently composed of H-6 Badger variants, which are domestically produced versions of the Soviet Tupolev Tu-16 (Badger) bomber. Despite the relative age of its bomber force, the PLAAF has worked to maintain and enhance the operational effectiveness of these aircraft. In recent years, the PRC has fielded greater numbers of the H-6K, a modernized H-6 variant that integrates standoff weapons and features more-efficient turbofan engines for extended-range. The H-6K can carry six LACMs, giving the PLA a long-range standoff precision strike capability that can range targets in the Second Island Chain from home airfields in mainland China. PLAN Aviation has traditionally fielded the H-6G to support maritime missions. More recently, PLAN Aviation has begun operating the H-6J, a maritime strike version of the H6K 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.
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 an air-launched ballistic missile (ALBM) that may be nuclear capable. In October 2020, an H-6N was observed carrying an air-launched ballistic missile. 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. In 2020, the PLAAF operationally fielded the H-6N bomber, providing a platform for the air component of the PRC’s nascent nuclear triad. The H-6N-equipped unit very likely is developing tactics and procedures to conduct the PLAAF nuclear mission. In addition, the PLAAF is seeking to extend its power projection capability with the development of a new H20 stealth strategic bomber, with official PRC state media stating that this new stealth bomber will have a nuclear mission in addition to filling conventional roles. The PLAAF is also developing new medium- and long-range stealth bombers to strike regional and global targets. PLAAF leaders publicly announced the program in 2016; however, it may take more than a decade to develop this type of advanced bomber.
Special Mission Aircraft. In 2019, the PLAAF publicly debuted its new Y-9 communications jamming/electronic countermeasures aircraft (known as the GX-11). This aircraft is designed to disrupt an adversary’s battlespace awareness at long ranges. The PLA can conduct air-to-air refueling operations to extend the ranges of its fighter and bomber aircraft equipped with refueling probes using the H-6U, a modified tanker variant of the H-6 bomber, as well as a small number of larger IL-78 Midas. In addition, the PRC is developing a tanker variant of its Y-20 heavy-lift transport, which will enable the PLAAF to expand its tanker fleet and improve the PLAAF’s ability to operate beyond the FIC from bases in mainland China.
Production and deliveries of the KJ-500—the PRC’s most advanced airborne early warning and control (AEW&C) aircraft—continued at a rapid pace, joining earlier KJ-2000 Mainring and KJ200 Moth variants. These aircraft amplify PLAAF’s ability to detect, track, and target threats in varying conditions, in larger volumes, and at greater distances, It also extends the range of the PLA’s integrated air defense system (IADS) network. Furthermore, the PRC has produced at least one KJ-500 with an aerial refueling probe, which will improve the aircraft’s ability to provide persistent AEW&C coverage.
​The PRC’s aviation industry continues to advance with deliveries of its domestic Y-20 large transport aircraft and completion of the world’s largest seaplane, the AG600. These transports will supplement and eventually replace the PRC’s small fleet of strategic airlift assets, which to date, consists of a limited number of Russian-made IL-76 aircraft. These large transports are intended to support airborne C2, logistics, paradrop, aerial refueling, and strategic reconnaissance operations as well as humanitarian assistance and disaster relief (HA/DR) missions.
Unmanned Aerial Systems (UASs). The PRC continues its comprehensive UAS modernization efforts, highlighted by the routine appearance of increasingly sophisticated systems across theater and echelon levels. The last three years have seen several key milestones. These include the airshow display and operational appearance of the Xianglong jet-powered UAS, as well as the unveiling of both the supersonic WZ-8 UAS and a redesigned version of the GJ-11 stealth Unmanned Combat Air Vehicle (UCAV). The PLA also continues the maritime use of ISR UASs, featuring both the venerable BZK-005 and the newer TW-328/TB001. The PRC is also expanding the applications of large UASs by demonstrating uses including disaster communications, antisubmarine roles, firefighting, and weather modification. Advanced small UASs are increasingly appearing in both military and civilian applications, with Chinese industry remaining a key exporter of UASs and components of all sizes.
In addition to maturing their current capabilities, the PRC is also signaling its efforts in next generation capabilities. Air and trade shows are displaying growing numbers of autonomous and teaming systems, including for combat applications. In these concepts, Chinese developers are demonstrating an interest in additional growth beyond ISR and EW into both air-to-air and air-to-ground combat, with a substantial amount of development displaying efforts to produce swarming capability for operational applications.
Air and Missile Defense. The PLAAF possesses one of the largest forces of advanced long-range SAM systems in the world, composed of Russian-sourced SA-20 (S-300) battalions and domestically produced CSA-9 (HQ-9) and follow-on HQ-9b battalions. To improve its strategic long-range air defenses, in 2019 the PRC acquired the SA-21 (S-400) SAM system from Russia. The PRC is also developing its indigenous CH-AB-X-02 (HQ-19), which will likely have a ballistic missile defense (BMD) capability. The PRC is also developing kinetic-kill vehicle technology to field a mid-course interceptor, which will form the upper layer of a multi-tiered missile defense. The PLA conducted a test of a land-based mid-course interceptor on February 4th, 2021.
PLAAF AIRBORNE CORPS
The PLAAF Airborne Corps commands six airborne combined arms brigades, a SOF brigade, an operational support brigade, an aviation transport brigade, a training base, and a new training brigade. The six combined arms brigades consist of three airborne infantry, one air assault, one wheeled airborne mechanized (wheeled air droppable armored vehicles), and one tracked airborne mechanized (tracked air droppable armored vehicles).
​Each airborne combined arms brigade typically commands four combined arms battalions, an artillery battalion, a reconnaissance and pathfinder battalion, an operations support battalion, and a service support battalion, and possibly a transportation battalion.
Major Aviation Units
​PEOPLE’S LIBERATION ARMY ROCKET FORCE (PLARF)
Key Takeaways
* The PLARF is advancing its long-term modernization plans to enhance its “strategic deterrence” capabilities.
* The PRC probably completed the construction of its three new solid-propellant silo fields in 2022, which will cumulatively contain at least 300 new ICBM silos and has loaded at least some intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) into these silos.
* The PRC is developing new ICBMs that will significantly improve its nuclear-capable missile forces and will require increased nuclear warhead production, partially due to the introduction of multiple independently targetable reentry vehicle (MIRV) capabilities.
* The PRC may be exploring development of conventionally-armed intercontinental range missile systems. If developed and fielded, such capabilities would allow the PRC to threaten conventional strikes against targets in the continental United States, Hawaii, and Alaska. Conventionally-armed ICBMs would present significant risks to strategic stability.
The PLARF organizes, mans, trains, and equips the PRC’s strategic land-based nuclear and conventional missile forces and associated support forces and missile bases. The PLARF is a critical component of the PRC’s nuclear deterrence strategy and its strategy to deter and counter third-party intervention in regional conflicts. According to the PRC’s 2019 defense white paper, the PLARF is working towards “enhancing its credible and reliable capabilities of nuclear deterrence and counterattack, strengthening intermediate and long-range precision strike forces, and enhancing strategic counter-balance capability, so as to build a strong and modernized rocket force.”
The PLARF fields a variety of conventional mobile ground-launched short-, medium-, and intermediate-range ballistic missiles and ground-launched cruise missiles. The PLARF’s groundbased missile forces complement the air and sea-based precision strike capabilities of the PLAAF and PLAN. The PLARF’s conventional missile forces include the CSS-6 (DF-15) short-range ballistic missile (SRBM) (range 725-850 km), the CSS-7 (DF-11) SRBM (600 km), the CSS-11 (DF-16) SRBM (more than 700 km), land-attack and anti-ship variants of the CSS-5 (DF-21) medium-range ballistic missile (MRBM) (approximately 1,500 km), the hypersonic glide vehicle capable DF-17 MRBM, the DF-26 Intermediate-range ballistic missile (IRBM) (3,000 km4,000km), the CJ-10 (DH-10) ground-launched cruise missile (GLCM) (approximately 1,500 km), and the CJ-100 (DF-100) GLCM (approximately 2,000 km). The PLARF’s conventionally-armed CSS-5 Mod 5 (DF-21D) ASBM variant gives the PLA the capability to conduct long-range precision strikes against ships, including aircraft carriers, out to the Western Pacific from mainland China. The DF-21D has a range exceeding 1,500 km, is fitted with a maneuverable reentry vehicle (MaRV) and is reportedly capable of rapidly reloading in the field. The PLARF continues to grow its inventory of DF-26 IRBMs, which it first revealed in 2015 and fielded in 2016. The multi-role ​DF-26 is designed to rapidly swap conventional and nuclear warheads and is capable of conducting precision land-attack and anti-ship strikes in the Western Pacific, the Indian Ocean, and the SCS from mainland China. In 2020, the PRC fired anti-ship ballistic missiles against a moving target in the SCS. The PLARF is developing and testing several new variants of theater-range missiles and developing capabilities and methods to counter adversary BMD systems. The DF-17 passed several tests successfully and is deployed operationally. In 2020, a PRC-based military expert described the primary purpose of the DF-17 as striking foreign military bases and fleets in the Western Pacific. The PRC may be exploring development of conventionally-armed intercontinental range missile systems. If developed and fielded, such capabilities would allow the PRC to threaten conventional strikes against targets in the continental United States, Hawaii, and Alaska. Conventionally-armed ICBMs would present significant risks to strategic stability.
The PLARF is developing ICBMs that will significantly improve its nuclear-capable missile forces with more survivable delivery systems. The PRC has doubled and continues to grow the number of launchers at most ICBM units. The PRC’s ICBM arsenal consists of approximately 350 ICBMs, including fixed and mobile launchers capable of launching unitary and multiple reentry vehicles. The PRC’s fixed ICBMs consist of the multiple CSS-4 (DF-5)-class missiles, one of which is capable of carrying up to five (Multiple independently targetable reentry vehicle) MIRV’s and a silo-based CSS-10-class missile. The solid-fueled, road-mobile CSS-10 (DF-31)-class and CSS20 (DF-41) ICBMs complement this force. The CSS-10 Mod 2 (DF-31A), with a range in excess of 11,000 km, can reach most locations within the continental United States. The DF-41 ICBM has been operationally deployed with commentary during the 2019 parade noting that two brigades existed for the system. Additionally, sources indicate a “long-range” DF-27 ballistic missile is in development. Official PRC military writings indicate this range-class spans 5,000-8,000 km, which means the DF-27 could be a new IRBM or ICBM. The PRC probably is developing advanced nuclear delivery systems such as a strategic hypersonic glide vehicle and a fractional orbital bombardment (FOB) system.
CHINA’S ROCKET FORCE :
| System | Launchers | Missiles | Estimated Range |
| ICBM | 500 | 350 | >5,500 km |
| IRBM | 250 | 500 | 3,000-5,500 km |
| MRBM | 300 | 1,000 | 1,000-3,000 km |
| SRBM | 200 | 1,000 | 300-1,000 km |
| GLCM | 150 | 300 | >1,500 km |
Fielded Nuclear Ballistic Missiles
Fielded Conventional Strike
​STRATEGIC SUPPORT FORCE (SSF)
Key Takeaways
* The SSF is a theater command-level organization established to centralize the PLA’s strategic space, cyberspace, electronic, information, communications, and psychological warfare missions and capabilities.
* The SSF’s Network Systems Department (NSD), sometimes referred to as the Cyberspace Force (CSF; 网络空间部队) is responsible for information warfare with an integrated mission set that includes cyberspace warfare, technical reconnaissance, electronic warfare, and psychological warfare. The PLA SSF’s Space Systems Department (SSD), sometimes referred to as the Aerospace Force (ASF; 航天部队), is responsible for military space operations.
* The PRC continues to develop counterspace capabilities—including direct-ascent anti-satellite missiles, co-orbital satellites, electronic warfare, and directed-energy systems—that can contest or deny an adversary’s access to and operations in the space domain during a crisis or conflict.
* The PRC’s space enterprise continues to mature rapidly and Beijing has devoted significant resources to growing all aspects of its space program, from military space applications to civil applications such as profit-generating launches, scientific endeavors, and space exploration. SSF works with civilian organizations, such as universities and research organization, to integrate civilian support to military efforts.
The SSF was established in 2015 to centralize the PLA’s strategic space, cyberspace, electronic, and psychological warfare missions and capabilities. The SSF reports directly to the CMC and supports the entire PLA with its capabilities. The PRC’s 2019 defense white paper described the SSF’s modernization goals as “seeking to achieve big development strides in key areas and accelerate the integrated development of new-type combat forces, so as to build a strong and modernized strategic support force.”
The SSF oversees two deputy theater command-level departments: the SSD, sometimes referred to as the ASF, is responsible for military space operations, and the NSD, sometimes referred to as the CSF, responsible for information operations (IO), which includes technical reconnaissance, EW, cyberspace warfare, and psychological operations. At the headquarters level, the SSF has a four-department administrative structure that includes the Staff, Equipment, Political Work, and Logistics Departments. As a strategic organization, the SSF is directly subordinate to the CMC, but some of its subordinate units may report to the theater commands in wartime. The SSF provides information support derived from space-, cyber-, and terrestrial-based means to all PLA services and the five joint theater commands. Civilian reserve and militia units—typically comprised of personnel from the Ministry of Information and Industry Technology, Ministry of Public Security, Ministry of State Security, and academic institutions—augment SSF cyberspace operations during ​peacetime and are organized into specialized units during wartime to support network defense operations.
General Ju Qiansheng has served as SSF commander since 2021. He previously served as commander of the NSD. Lt. Gen. Shang Hong recently served as commander of the SSD, until leaving that position sometime in 2023, but a replacement has not been identified. The leader of the NSD is unknown.
Network Systems Department. The SSF NSD, also referred to as the CSF, is responsible for information warfare with a mission set that includes cyberspace warfare, technical reconnaissance, EW, and psychological warfare. By placing the SSF NSD missions under the same organizational umbrella, the PRC seeks to remedy the operational coordination challenges that hindered information sharing under the PLA’s pre-reform organizational structure. The incorporation of cyberspace and EW elements under one organization was a crucial step towards realizing the operational concept of integrated network and electronic warfare that the PLA has envisioned since the early 2000s. The NSD operates five theater–aligned technical reconnaissance bases, a number of signals intelligence bureaus, and several research institutes. The NSD provides intelligence support to the theater commands by leveraging a diverse suite of ground-based technical collection assets to provide a common operating picture to geographically dispersed operational units.
   The SSF and the “Three Warfares” Concept: The SSF NSD, or CSF, performs missions and tasks associated with the PLA’s concept of “Three Warfares,” which comprises psychological warfare, public opinion warfare, and legal warfare. This department is the only publicly known organization in the PLA that performs psychological warfare operations. See 2022 CMPR “Special Topic: PRC Views of Information and Information Dominance” for more on PLA views on information warfare, including psychological warfare.
SSF SPACE SYSTEMS DEPARTMENT
The SSD, sometimes referred to as the ASF, is responsible for nearly all PLA space operations, including space launch and support; space surveillance; space information support; space telemetry, tracking, and control; and space warfare. The PRC seeks to enhance the PLA’s command and control C2 for joint operations and establish a real-time surveillance, reconnaissance, and warning system, and it is increasing the number and capabilities of its space systems, including communications and intelligence satellites, as well as the BeiDou navigation satellite system.
The SSD operates at least eight bases, including those whose core missions are the launch, tracking, R&D, and operation of the satellites vital to the PRC’s overhead C4ISR architecture. The SSD operates tracking, telemetry, and command (TT&C) stations in multiple locations worldwide to guide space missions around the Earth as well as in cislunar and deep space. The SSD also operates Yuanwang space support ships that track satellite and ICBM launches.
​China has five launch sites, including four land-based and one sea-based. The SSD’s China Launch and Tracking Control (CLTC) operates all four fixed launch sites in China, in addition to Yuanwang space support ships (SESS), two major satellite control centers—Xian Satellite Control Center (XSCC) and the Beijing Aerospace Control Center (BACC)—and the PLA TT&C system for all Chinese satellites.
Other Space and Counterspace Organizations. The PRC’s space program comprises organizations in the military, civil, defense-industrial, and commercial sectors. The PLA historically has managed the PRC’s space program and continues to support both civilian and military interests. This includes strengthening and investing in its science and technology sector, growing international partnerships, and improving the PRC’s capabilities in space-based ISR, SATCOM, satellite navigation, human spaceflight, and robotic space exploration. Although state-owned enterprises are China’s primary space contractors, the PRC is placing greater emphasis on decentralizing and diversifying its space industry to increase competition.
The State Council’s State Administration for Science, Technology, and Industry for National Defense (SASTIND) is the primary civilian organization that coordinates and manages the PRC’s space activities, including allocating space research and development funds. It also maintains a working relationship with the PLA organization that oversees the PRC’s military acquisitions. SASTIND guides and establishes policies for state-owned entities conducting the PRC’s space activities.
The China National Space Administration (CNSA), subordinate to SASTIND, conducts China’s civilian space efforts, including human spaceflight at the Chinese space station, lunar missions, and interplanetary missions. The PRC is increasingly using CNSA efforts to bolster relationships with countries around the world, particularly with the BRI Partners, providing opportunities to cooperate on space issues.
Many space technologies can serve a civilian and military purpose and the PRC emphasizes “military-civil fusion”—a phrase used, in part, to refer to the use of dual-use technologies, policies, and organizations for military benefit. The SSF works with civilian organizations like universities and research organizations to incorporate civilian support to military efforts since there is an already high demand for aerospace talent and competition for finite human resources. China also has a growing commercial space sector that supports government objectives, including remote sensing, launch, and communication services.
International Cooperation. The PRC has extensive civil space cooperation agreements around the world and is an exporter of satellites and space technology. It has more than a hundred cooperative space-related agreements with more than three dozen countries and four international organizations. The PRC is inviting countries to participate on the Chinese space station or International Lunar Research Station, which is jointly led by China and Russia, and has sold satellite launching services and ground stations to countries around the world.
​China leads the Asia-Pacific Space Cooperation Organization (APSCO), a multilateral organization with rotating leadership whose members include Bangladesh, Iran, Mongolia, Pakistan, Peru, Thailand, and Turkey with Egypt, Indonesia, and Mexico as associate members. APSCO oversees a network of space surveillance telescopes and tasking information, and the observation data it collects is funneled through the Chinese Academy of Science's National Astronomical Observatory of China. The organization is planning to improve optical system capabilities, coverage, and redundancy as well as data sharing networks.
Major SSF Installations
JOINT LOGISTIC SUPPORT FORCE (JLSF)
​Key Takeaways
* The JLSF is concentrating its efforts on improving joint strategic and campaign-level logistic efficiencies through training and integrating civilian products and services.
* The JLSF supports multimodal transportation methods to facilitate the movement of PLA forces and equipment for training.
The PLA JLSF, established in 2016, provides integrated joint logistics support for the PLA. The JLSF commander is Lt. Gen. Wang Liyan. The JLSF is directly subordinate to the CMC and is central to China’s efforts to build a joint, efficient “combat-oriented modern logistics system,” which Beijing views as essential for modern warfare. The JLSF modernizes PLA strategic- and campaign-level logistics by overseeing theater wide supply operations, establishing and coordinating support relationships among PLA service logistics elements conducting joint logistics exercises with the PLA services, and integrating civilian logistics resources into military operations. The JLSF conducts exercises to improve the PLA’s ability to conduct joint logistics operations.
The JLSF is headquartered at Wuhan Joint Logistics Support Base. It operates five joint logistics support centers (JLSCs) aligned with each of the theater commands that are intended to streamline logistics support to the PLA. Under the JLSCs’ control are units that provide materiel support to the PLA and joint logistics support brigades (JLSBs), who focus exclusively on providing mobile logistics support during combat operations.
The JLSF provides the PLA with joint strategic- and campaign-level logistics, enabling the PLA to conduct large-scale operations. Elements of the JLSF who provide direct wartime support to the PLA fighting force are categorized as weapons and ammunition storage, warehousing, medical services, transport, fuel, engineering and construction management, reserve equipment, and procurement support. During peacetime, the JLSF has authority over the JLSCs’ operations and activities; during wartime, theater commands possibly would assume control of their designated JLSC.
The JLSF integrates civilian resources and equipment into military operations and exercises, leveraging China’s civilian products, services and transportation, to improve resupply and move military personnel and equipment more rapidly. It does so primarily through the use of military representative offices (MROs) comprised of JLSF personnel who embed with civilian transportation companies (air, rail, road, and sea) to plan and manage military transportation. MRO personnel are vital to the JLSF’s military-civilian integration efforts because they understand the technical loading procedures for various modes of transportation, can draft load plans, and provide expertise to reduce load times at points of embarkation. JLSF theater dispatch centers are the headquarters of regional MROs, coordinate PLA mobilization, and are tasked with improving the efficiency of transferring materials and forces between transportation modes.
​PLA Training to Improve Readiness. The CMC sought to improve PLA combat readiness, interoperability, and training through the 14th Five-Year Plan and reinforced these priorities through military training mobilization orders and senior leadership guidance. In 2022, Xi emphasized the need for the PLA to adopt the latest technologies in its training and to focus on integrating training with combat operations The PLA conducted multiple large-scale joint exercises and incorporated advanced weapons and equipment, such as during the exercises around Taiwan in August.
Throughout 2022, the PLA sustained the frequency, scale, and duration of joint exercises. The COVID-19 pandemic likely did not significantly impact the PLA’s ability to conduct joint exercises. The PLA successfully completed at least eight bilateral and multinational exercises, conducting naval drills, maritime and aerial patrols, and humanitarian assistance and disaster relief efforts. Although the PLA has improved some combat deficiencies, the force, as a whole, probably continues to work through challenges with joint operations, command and control, and tactical and small-unit leadership.
The largest unplanned event of the year occurred in August 2022, when the PLA conducted livefire drills—including firing ballistic missiles over Taiwan—in response to the CODEL visit to Taipei in August 2022. During the visit, Taiwan’s defense ministry reported that 27 PLA aircraft entered Taiwan’s air defense identification zone, including 22 that crossed the median of the Taiwan Strait. The PLA’s centerline crossings have continued since August as the PLA maintains a heightened readiness level. Such activity reflects ongoing PLA attempts to normalize median line crossings.
INCREASING OPERABILITY WITH PLA RESERVES, PARAMILITARY & MILITIA
Key Takeaways
* Interoperability and integration between the PLA, its reserve components, and the PRC’s paramilitary forces continue to grow in scale and sophistication, including the coordination between the PLAN, the China Coast Guard (CCG), and the China Maritime Militia (CMM).
* The PRC primarily uses paramilitary maritime organizations in maritime disputes, selectively using the PLAN to provide overwatch in case of escalation.
THE PRC’S INTERNAL SECURITY FORCES
The PRC’s internal security forces consist primarily of the Ministry of Public Security (MPS), the Ministry of State Security (MSS), the People’s Armed Police (PAP), the People’s Liberation Army (PLA), and the militia. The CCP relies on these forces to address challenges ranging from protests over political, social, environmental, or economic problems, to terrorism and natural disasters. In 2022, the PRC deployed thousands of PLA, PAP, and militia personnel for disaster relief in response to multiple events such as an airplane crash, earthquakes, fires, and floods.
Ministry of Public Security (MPS). The MPS leads the PRC’s civilian national police, which serves as the front force for public order. The key mission of the MPS is domestic law enforcement and the “maintenance of social security and order” with duties including anti-rioting and anti-terrorism.
Ministry of State Security (MSS). The MSS is the PRC’s main civilian intelligence and counterintelligence service. MSS operations include but are not limited to: protect the PRC’s national security; conduct counterintelligence; combating foreign espionage; and investigate organizations or individuals inside the PRC who carry out or direct, support, or aid other people perceived to threaten national security. On April 26th, 2021, the PRC enacted a new counter-espionage law permitting the MSS authority to identify companies and organizations deemed susceptible to foreign infiltration or influence and require these institutes to implement measures to prevent foreign infiltration.
People’s Armed Police (PAP). The PAP is a paramilitary component of the PRC’s armed forces. Its primary missions include internal security, maritime security, and augmentation to the PLA during conflict. As part of a security structures reorganization in 2018, the CMC centralized control of the PAP. The same reform also subordinated the CCG to the PAP.
People’s Liberation Army (PLA). In addition to its national defense mission, the PLA has formal and informal roles in the PRC’s internal security. As the principal armed wing of the CCP, the PLA is the ultimate guarantor of the CCP’s survival and supports other internal security forces as necessary. The 2020 National Defense Law recognizes this role in assigning the PLA the mission to “consolidate the leadership of the Communist Party of China and the socialist system” in addition to external defense tasks.
Militia. The PRC’s militia is a force that can be mobilized for a variety of peace- and wartime missions and is distinct from the PLA’s Reserve Force. The militia is organized by townships, administrative villages, urban sub-districts, and enterprises and institutions, and the missions may vary widely. In wartime, militia units assist the PLA with its military operations, conduct independent security operations, and provide support and manpower replacement to the PLA. During peacetime, the militia assists in humanitarian aid and disaster relief, supports military training, and maintains internal security. The PRC’s Military Service Law requires male citizens between 18 to 35 years of age who are fit for military service, excluding those already in active service, be enrolled into the militia. The ​militia is divided into two categories. The primary militia consists of former soldiers, personnel that have received military training, and personnel selected for military training that are under the age of 28, in good health, and politically reliable. The remainder of male citizens between 18 and 35 years of age are considered ordinary militia. The primary militia may recruit female citizens when necessary and the age limits can be waived under special circumstance. Local maritime militia forces, referred to by many western analysts as the Chinese Maritime Militia, perform tasks including safeguarding maritime claims, protecting fisheries, providing logistic support, search and rescue, and surveillance and reconnaissance, often in conjunction or coordination with the PLAN and the CCG.
People’s Liberation Army Reserve Force. The People’s Liberation Army Reserve Force was founded in 1983 and professionalized throughout the 1990s and 2000s. On July 1st, 2020, the PRC amended laws, regulations, and policies to bring the Reserve Force under the command of the Central Committee of the CCP and the CMC. The previous arrangement split control of the Reserve Force between the PLA and local Party committees. Motivations for the change include improving combat capability, facilitating cooperation with active-duty units, and upholding the CCP’s absolute leadership over the military. Chinese sources often stated specifically that the reform would enhance reserve performance in Tibet and Xinjiang. Additionally, the PLA appears to have begun making a partial restructure towards using a PLAA reserve base system to continue to improve facilitation and support for active-duty units.
The PLA Reserve Force is comprised of approximately 510,000 personnel subordinate to the Army Reserve, Navy Reserve, Air Force Reserve, and Rocket Force Reserve. According to PLA documents, active-duty personnel are the backbone of the Reserve Force, but reserve-duty officers and soldiers are its foundation. 2020 National Defense University's Science of Military Strategy states the building of the reserve force is an important part of national defense construction and is the basic and strategic project to consolidate national defense. The primary mission of the reserves is to reinforce active-duty forces for national defense, with a secondary mission to aid in national disasters or maintaining social order. The Reserve Force should be prepared to effectively respond to a variety of emergencies and military threats, safeguard national sovereignty, security and development interests, and the core security of the country.
Although originally founded to support the ground forces, reforms in recent years seek to reduce PLAA reserves and increase those for the PLAN, PLAAF, and the PLARF. However, PRC writings suggest that, as of 2018, the Reserve Force was still predominately ground force-centric, with less than 10 percent of reservists serving specialized technical functions in the PLAN, PLAAF, PLARF, or PLA SSF.
Reserve officers are selected from veteran PLA officers, local officials, PAP or militia officers, and other technical personnel. Reserve soldiers are selected from eligible PLA veterans, trained grass-roots militias, and other local or military specialty personnel. Some reserve soldiers also ​failed to meet active-duty entry requirements and conduct remedial training in the reserves until they are able to join the active-duty force.
The PLA is working to improve reserve mobilization, which anecdotal evidence suggests is hindered by unclear processes. In March 2023, during the PRC’s annual “Two Sessions,” PLA deputies suggested that the PRC should study and prioritize wartime legislation, including the introduction of laws such as the mobilization of reserve forces. Chinese documents also suggest that Reserve Force equipment is old; one report in 2018 stated that more than 70 percent of air defense artillery and artillery equipment is at or beyond its maximum service life. Some of the equipment is no longer manufactured and repair requires cannibalization.
The PLA Reserve Force does not include militias, the Civil Air Defense, or myriad other groups (e.g., the People’s Armed Police or the Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps (XPCC)).
PEOPLE'S ARMED POLICE (PAP)
The PAP is a component of the PRC’s armed forces and an armed wing of the CCP with an estimated 660,000 personnel. In the 2020 National Defense University's Science of Military Strategy, the primary responsibilities of the PAP include maintaining political, institutional and regime security, handling emergency rescue, counter-terrorism, air support, maritime rights protection, administrative law enforcement, and defense operations. The PAP is organized into three main parts: the Internal Security Corps, the Mobile Corps, and the CCG. The Internal Security Corps covers each of the PRC’s provinces, provincial-level cities, and “autonomous” regions. There is not yet a reported permanent presence of the PAP in the Special Administrative Regions (SARs) of Hong Kong or Macao. The Mobile Corps is comprised of myriad PAP units placed to reinforce the Internal Security Corps and provide flexibility in responding to internal security issues. Mobile Corps units are concentrated around non-Han ethnic regions in the West and South (Xinjiang, Tibet, Sichuan, Yunnan, and Qinghai) as well as the major cities of Beijing and Shanghai. Xinjiang is a particular focus of the PAP due to alleged separatist activity, as well as its proximity to areas of unrest in Central Asia.
On July 1st, 2020, the standing committee of the PRC’s legislature, the National People’s Congress, approved a revision to the Law on the People’s Armed Police Force which officially recognized the CMC singular command of the PAP, identified the PAP as an important part of the armed forces that fall under the leadership of the CCP, as well as affirming its primary mission set of handling security emergencies, maintaining stability, conducting counter-terrorism operations, and executing maritime law enforcement and rescue. This legal amendment codified and deepened the substantial reforms of 2018, when command of the PAP was centralized under the Central Party Committee and the CMC after decades of dual-leadership under the CMC and State Council (a PRC government body); the China Coast Guard was subordinated to the PAP; and myriad auxiliary duties (e.g., protecting gold mines, firefighting, etc.) were removed from the PAP’s purview to focus its mission on PRC domestic and international security. Chinese media noted that the 2020 ​PAP reforms included an article that permitted the PAP to conduct certain operations, including counter-terrorism training, outside of the PRC.
Xi and the CCP leadership tasked the PAP with integrating themselves into the PLA’s joint operation system. The PAP is increasingly focused on internal security and joint operations with the PLA and is developing capabilities for rapid response, mobility, and counter-terrorism operations. The PAP also conducts training with foreign partners, including at least Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, and Russia. Since at least 2016, PAP forces have likely operated in Tajikistan, patrolling the tri-border region connecting Tajikistan, Afghanistan, and the PRC. In 2022, PAP forces performed rescue operations in Xining following major flooding in August and in Sichuan after a September 5th earthquake and acquired new helicopters to support in counter-terrorism and disaster relief tasks. An emphasis was also placed on PAP SOF training throughout the year, including a maritime tactical joint exercise in June with PLANMC. Additionally, a PAP officer was named as the commander of the PLA Garrison in the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, showing a PRC focus of maintaining social stability based on the new commander’s counter-terrorism experience in the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region.
CHINA COAST GUARD (CCG)
The CCG is subordinate to the PAP and is responsible for a wide range of maritime security missions, including defending the PRC’s sovereignty claims; combating smuggling, terrorism, and environmental crimes; as well as supporting international cooperation. In 2021, the Standing Committee of China’s National People’s Congress passed the Coast Guard Law which took effect on 1 February 2021. The legislation regulates the duties of the CCG, to include the use of force, and applies those duties to seas under the jurisdiction of the PRC. The law was met with concern by other regional countries that may perceive the law as an implicit threat to use force, especially as territorial disputes in the region continue.
Since the law, CCG activity has continued to prompt regional concern. In March 2022, the Philippines lodged a diplomatic protest against the PRC after a CCG vessel reportedly engaged in “close distance maneuvering” near a Filipino vessel in the disputed Scarborough Shoal. In December 2022, Japan reported that CCG vessels stayed in its territorial waters for over 72 hours, the longest continuous intrusion since 2012.
The CCG’s continued expansion and modernization makes it the largest maritime law enforcement fleet in the world. Newer CCG vessels are larger and more capable than older vessels, allowing them to operate further offshore and remain on station longer. While exact numbers are unavailable, open-source reporting and commercial imagery counts indicate the CCG has over 150 regional and oceangoing patrol vessels (more than 1,000 tons). These larger vessels include over 20 corvettes transferred from the PLAN, which were modified for CCG operations. The newer, larger CCG vessels are equipped with helicopter facilities, high-capacity water cannons, multiple interceptor boats and guns ranging from 20 to 76 millimeters. Revised estimates indicate the CCG ​operates more than 50 regional patrol combatants (more than 500 tons), which can be used for limited offshore operations, and an additional 300 coastal patrol craft (100 to 499 tons).
CHINA’S MARITIME MILITIA
China’s Maritime Militia (CMM) is a subset of the PRC’s national militia, an armed reserve force of civilians available for mobilization that is ultimately subordinate to the CMC through the National Defense Mobilization Department. Throughout China, militia units organize around towns, villages, urban sub-districts, and enterprises and vary widely in composition and mission.
CMM vessels train with and assist the People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) and the China Coast Guard (CCG) in tasks such as safeguarding maritime claims, surveillance and reconnaissance, fisheries protection, logistics support, and search and rescue. These operations traditionally take place within the FIC along China’s coast and near disputed features in the SCS such as the Second Thomas Shoal, Scarborough Reed, and Luconia Shoal. However, the presence of possible CMM vessels mixed in with Chinese fishing vessels near Indonesia’s Natuna Island outside of the “nine-dashed line” on Chinese maps indicated a possible ambition to expand CMM operations within the region. The PRC employs the CMM in gray zone operations, or “low-intensity maritime rights protection struggles,” at a level designed to frustrate effective response by the other parties involved. The PRC employs CMM vessels to advance its disputed sovereignty claims, often amassing them in disputed areas throughout the SCS and ECS. In this manner, the CMM plays a major role in coercive activities to achieve the PRC’s political goals without fighting and these operations are part of broader Chinese military theory that sees confrontational operations short of war as an effective means of accomplishing strategic objectives.
CMM units have been active for decades in incidents and combat operations throughout China’s near seas and in these incidents CMM vessels are often used to supplement CCG cutters at the forefront of the incident, giving the Chinese the capacity to outweigh and outlast rival claimants. From September 2021 to September 2022, maritime militia vessels were a constant presence near Iroquois Reef in the Spratly Islands within the Philippines EEZ. Other notable examples include standoffs with the Malaysia drill ship West Capella (2020), defense of China’s HYSY-981 drill rig in waters disputed with Vietnam (2014), occupation of Scarborough Reef (2012), and harassment of USNS Impeccable and Howard O. Lorenzen (2009 and 2014). Historically, the maritime militia also participated in China’s offshore island campaigns in the 1950s, the 1974 seizure of the Paracel Islands from South Vietnam, the occupation of Mischief Reef in the Spratly Islands in 1994.
The CMM also protects and facilitates Chinese fishing vessels operating in disputed waters. From late December 2019 to mid-January 2020, a large fleet of over 50 Chinese fishing vessels operated under the escort of multiple China Coast Guard patrol ships in Indonesian claimed waters northeast of the Natuna Islands. At least a portion of the Chinese ships in this fishing fleet were affiliated with known traditional maritime militia units, including a maritime militia unit based out of Beihai City in Guangxi province. While most traditional maritime militia units operating in the SCS ​continue to originate from townships and ports on Hainan Island, Beihai is one of a number of increasingly prominent maritime militia units based out of provinces in mainland China. These mainland based maritime militia units routinely operate in the Spratly Islands and in the southern SCS, and their operations in these areas are enabled by increased funding from the Chinese government to improve their maritime capabilities and grow their ranks of personnel.
CMM AND LAND RECLAMATION IN THE SOUTH CHINA SEA
Since at least 2014, CMM vessels have engaged in covert small scale reclamation activity and likely caused physical changes observed at multiple unoccupied features in the Spratly Islands, including Lankiam Cay, Eldad Reef, Sandy Cay, and Whitsun Reef. Beijing likely is attempting to covertly alter these features so that it can portray them as naturally formed high tide elevations capable of supporting PRC maritime claims out to the farthest extent of the nine-dash line. In contrast to the PRC large-scale reclamation program, which was overt and where the original status of occupied features is well documented, the less well-known historical record about many of the unoccupied features makes them more susceptible to PRC efforts to shape international opinion regarding the status of the features.
Through the National Defense Mobilization Department, Beijing subsidizes various local and provincial commercial organizations to operate CMM vessels to perform “official” missions on an ad hoc basis outside of their regular civilian commercial activities. CMM units employ marine industry workers, usually fishermen, as a supplement to the PLAN and the CCG. While retaining their day jobs, these mariners are organized and trained, often by the PLAN and the CCG, and can be activated on demand.
Since 2014, China has built a new Spratly backbone fleet comprising at least 235 large steel-hulled fishing vessels, many longer than 50 meters and displacing more than 500 tons. These vessels were built under central direction from the PRC government to operate in disputed areas south of 12 degrees latitude that China typically refers to as the “Spratly Waters,” including the Spratly Islands and southern SCS. Spratly backbone vessels were built for prominent CMM units in Guangdong, Guangxi, and Hainan Provinces. For vessel owners not already affiliated with CMM units, joining the militia was a precondition for receiving government funding to build new Spratly backbone boats. As with the CCG and PLAN, new facilities in the Paracel and Spratly Islands enhance the CMM’s ability to sustain operations in the SCS.
Starting in 2015, the Sansha City Maritime Militia in the Paracel Islands has been developed into a salaried full-time maritime militia force with its own command center and equipped with at least 84 purpose-built vessels armed with mast-mounted water cannons for spraying and reinforced steel hulls for ramming. Freed from their normal fishing responsibilities, Sansha City Maritime Militia personnel—many of whom are former PLAN and CCG sailors—train for peacetime and wartime ​contingencies, often with light arms, and patrol regularly around disputed South China Sea features even during fishing moratoriums.
The Tanmen Maritime Militia is another prominent CMM unit. Homeported in Tanmen township on Hainan Island, the formation was described by Xi as a “model maritime militia unit” during a visit to Tanmen harbor in 2013. During the visit, Xi encouraged Tanmen to support “island and reef development” in the SCS. Between 1989 and 1995, the Tanmen Maritime Militia, under the authority of the PLAN Southern Theater Navy (then the South Sea Fleet), was involved in the occupation and reclamation of PRC outposts in the Spratly Islands, including Subi Reef, Fiery Cross Reef, and Mischief Reef.
SPECIAL OPERATIONS FORCES
Key Takeaways
* Despite unilateral and multilateral training, all of China’s SOF units lack real-world combat experience.
* China’s SOF does not have a national-level special operations command to oversee all of China’s SOF activities.
* Despite an emphasis to conduct joint training, theater commanders have no authority over PAP units, making it difficult to incorporate PAP SOF into PLA training exercises.
* The PRC categorizes its non-traditional security threats as terrorism (domestic and international), separatism (entities looking to break away from China such Taiwan, Tibet, and the Uyghur minority population in western China), and extremism (primarily religious).
In late 2015, the PRC’s SOF were impacted by a series of reforms that aimed to “reorganize troops and rebuild new-type combat forces. New types of combat forces have been enhanced to conduct special operations, all-dimensional offense and defense, amphibious operations, far seas protection, and strategic projection, aiming to make the force composition complete, combined, multi-functional, and flexible.” In 2016, additional changes to Chinese law were made authorizing the PRC’s SOF to conduct operations outside of China’s borders.
Mission. The PRC’s SOF are tasked to conduct three primary missions; direct action, special reconnaissance, and counterterrorism. The goal of the PRC’s SOF operations are to prepare the battlefield for their conventional force counterparts by attacking critical areas, degrading enemy operational systems and capabilities, and delaying or disrupting enemy operational activities. In conventional warfare, the PRC’s SOF missions include, but are not limited to, disrupting rear echelon formations and activities, destroying or securing key targets, decapitation, and targeting for fire support. The PRC’s SOF can also conduct humanitarian aid and disaster relief (HADR) missions, noncombatant evacuation operations (NEO), and personal security assignments. While PLA SOF can conduct counterterrorism missions, PAP SOF are specifically tasked with this ​mission. The PRC categorizes its non-traditional security threats as terrorism (domestic and international), separatism (entities looking to break away from China such Taiwan, Tibet, and the Uyghur minority population in western China), and extremism (primarily religious).
* PLA Army SOF. PLAA SOF train to clear obstacles, operate behind enemy lines, land navigation, reconnaissance, targeting, blocking maneuvers, and first aid. PLAA SOF units from the Eastern Theater Command train for maritime missions by swimming, maneuvering small rubber boats, marksmanship from moving boats, and scuba diving. In a 2016 exercise, forces from a Southern Theater Command Army SOF Brigade (BDE) conducted an air assault mission off the coast then traveled 5 km to the shoreline.
* In September 2020, attack and transport helicopters from the 73rd Army Group (GA) conducted air assault training with elements from a 73rd GA SOF BDE.
* That same month, elements from a Southern Theater Command SOF BDE deployed to a new training area and conducted a command post exercise and force-on-force exercise.
* PLA Navy Marine Corps SOF. PLANMC SOF are trained to conduct ground-based special operations, as well as coastal and maritime missions, including maritime counterterrorism, HADR, NEO and visit, board, search and seizure operations. They train for more than a year learning airborne, rappelling, reconnaissance, secure communication, navigation, driving, search and seizure, demolition, and hand-to-hand combat skills. They also practice deploying rubber boats and fast-roping from helicopters into the water. In December 2020, PLANMC SOF participated in a combined arms island seizure exercise with mechanized infantry units where the SOF used mine-clearing line charges to destroy obstacles with sniper teams in overwatch.
* PLA Air Force Airborne Corps SOF. The PLAAF Airborne Corps, created in 2011, train to conduct high-altitude, high-opening and high-altitude, low-opening airborne missions for critical target seizure, combat search and rescue, and fire support coordination during extraction.
* PLA Rocket Force Reconnaissance Regiment. The PLARF Reconnaissance Regiment which is based in Qinghai, can conduct air, land, and sea missions including counter-ISR, strategic asset protection, special reconnaissance, and target acquisition.
* People’s Armed Police SOF. The PAP has three main SOF units assigned to the two mobile contingents and the Xinjiang Military District. The Mountain Eagle Commando Unit created in 2019 and based in Xinjiang is trained to conduct counterterrorism missions within the province. The other two PAP SOF units, the Snow Leopards Commando Unit and the Falcon Commando Unit, are large rapid reaction forces with mixed capabilities that can be deployed in major contingencies on a national level. These units are also trained to conduct counterterrorism missions along with hostage rescue, and include assault, reconnaissance, explosive ordnance disposal, and sniper teams. The Snow Leopards have strict selection ​ standards with a 40-50 percent of recruits failing the initial screening. The Snow Leopards’ annual “Devil Week” training simulates counterterrorism missions in multiple combat environments including desert, jungle, urban terrain, air, and sea.
Personnel. The PRC’s SOF currently has between 20,000 and 30,000 personnel. The PRC’s SOF units are comprised of experienced officers and non-commissioned officers but are also assigned new conscripts and officers that recently graduated from basic training or military academy, including the Special Operations Academy in Guangzhou. SOF conscripts are selected from volunteers suggesting they are among the most qualified that commit to a two-year term of service. After their two-year commitment, the conscripts are offered to continue service as noncommissioned officers.
Structure and Organization. Beginning in January 2016, the PLA underwent several reforms that impacted the PLA SOF. The seven military regions were reorganized into five theater commands (TC) and five of the 18 GA were deactivated. The PLA SOF were also reorganized assigning a SOF BDE to each GA along with a SOF BDE for the Xinjiang and Tibet Military Districts. These and later reforms also impacted the PLARF Reconnaissance Regiment, the PLAAF Airborne Corps SOF BDE, and the PAP SOF units. Some of these SOF units are relatively new and were created using conventional forces to expand the PLA’s SOF capability. All PLA SOF units are supported by the PLA Air Force’s 15th Airborne Corps for tactical insertion, extraction, and resupply.
Each PLA SOF BDE has between 2,000 and 3,000 personnel while a regiment has between 1,000 and 2,000 personnel. While PLA SOF units have discrete missions based on branch and location, their internal structure resembles the PLA Army brigade-battalion-company-team construct with a main, reserve, and rear command structure.
There are three SOF units within the PAP which have a total of six detachments. Three detachments are assigned to the 1st Mobile Contingent based in Beijing, two detachments are assigned to the 2nd Mobile Contingent based in Guangzhou, and one detachment falls under the Xinjiang Internal Contingent.
There is no national-level special operations command responsible for all SOF activities. PLA SOF also does not have organic or dedicated infrastructure or support and therefore must rely on conventional forces to support their missions whereas the PAP does have an internal logistic support system to support its SOF missions.
MAJOR PAP AND PLA SOF UNITS :
| HIGHER HEADQUARTERS | UNIT | UNIT NAME |
| Central Military Commission | People’s Armed Police | Snow Leopards Commando Unit |
| Central Military Commission | People’s Armed Police | Falcon Commando Unit |
| Central Military Commission | People’s Armed Police | Mountain Eagle Commando Unit |
| Northern Theater Command | 78th Group Army SOF BDE | Tigers of the Northeast |
| Northern Theater Command | 79th Group Army SOF BDE | Lions |
| Northern Theater Command | 80th Group Army SOF BDE | Falcons |
| Eastern Theater Command | 71st Group Army SOF BDE | Sharks |
| Eastern Theater Command | 72nd Group Army SOF BDE | Thunderbolts |
| Eastern Theater Command | 73rd Group Army SOF BDE | Dragons of the East Sea |
| Southern Theater Command | 74th Group Army SOF BDE | Unknown |
| Southern Theater Command | 75th Group Army SOF BDE | Sword of the South |
| Southern Theater Command | PLA Navy Marine Corps SOF BDE | Sea Dragons |
| Western Theater Command | 76th Group Army SOF BDE | Sirius |
| Western Theater Command | 77th Group Army SOF BDE | Cheetahs |
| Western Theater Command | Xinjiang Military District SOF BDE | Snowy Owls |
| Western Theater Command | Xinjiang Military District SOF BDE | Sharp Blade of the Kunlun |
| Western Theater Command | Tibet Military District SOF BDE | Snow Leopards of the Plateau |
| Central Theater Command | PLA Rocket Force Reconnaissance Regiment | Sharp Blade |
| Central Theater Command | PLA Air Force Airborne Corps SOF BDE | Thunder Gods |
| Central Theater Command | 81st Group Army SOF BDE | Sacred Sword of the East |
| Central Theater Command | 82nd Group Army SOF BDE | Whistling Arrows |
| Central Theater Command | 83rd Group Army SOF BDE | Ferocious Tigers of the Central Plain |
Internal Training and Exercises. The PRC’s SOF focus on individual and squad-level training; however, they have participated in larger combined arms and joint exercises. SOF training entails physical fitness training, close quarters combat, individual and team survival, camouflage, weapons proficiency, land navigation, and communication. All PRC SOF units are airborne and air assault capable.
The recent reforms under Xi gave theater commanders authority over a wider range of forces including PLA SOF and also emphasized joint training. However, these reforms did not create joint task forces which might encourage increased coordination between the services. The restructuring to theater commands has not resulted in increased integration of PLA SOF into joint training. There is scant evidence of PRC’s SOF units from different services training together or ​with conventional forces, the exception being PLAAF aircraft for PLAA SOF airborne training. There is also no evidence that PAP SOF units have participated in joint exercises with any PLA forces. Theater commanders have no authority over PAP units, making it difficult to incorporate PAP SOF into PLA training exercises.
External Training and Exercises. In 2002, the PLA began participating in multinational training exercises and since then, PRC’s SOF personnel and units, to include PAP SOF, have taken part in several foreign events, primarily focused on counterterrorism. Some of these events were held with units from Belarus, India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Mongolia, Russia, Thailand, Indonesia, Malaysia, and Jordan. Individual PLA SOF personnel and small units have participated in training in Israel, Turkey, Estonia, Colombia, and Venezuela In August 2021, PLA SOF participated in joint training exercise “Zapad” with their Russian counterparts to help maintain security and stability in the Transbaikal region. Supported by Y-20 transport aircraft, PLA SOF focused their training on large-scale airborne exercises including heavy equipment insertion. Of note, the PAP’s Snow Leopards have won the International Warrior Competition held at Jordan’s King Abdullah II Special Operations Training Centre in Amman several times.
Equipment and Sustainment. The PRC’s SOF units are equipped with the most modern domestically-produced weapons and equipment. These include advanced communication and electronics, unmanned aerial systems ranging from micro-UAVs to the medium-altitude long endurance platforms, night vision devices, targeting devices, parachutes, and light vehicles, boats, and aircraft. PLA SOF units tasked with conducting clandestine maritime missions are also equipped with diver navigation aids, radios, undersea sensors, diver propulsion systems, underwater personnel delivery systems, and handheld direction-finding sonars for low-visibility underwater environments.
PLA SOF do not have an internal support system to conduct missions and relies on the theater command to meet their logistical needs whereas the PAP has an internal logistic system separate from the PLA to meet their sustainment needs during operations.
Operational Capabilities. Most PLA ground SOF units appear to be elite light infantry units that can be inserted behind enemy lines but are limited by their conventional force counterpart’s ability to support their mission. PLA SOF brigades emphasize a “centralized command style”—common in conventional units—as opposed to a more flexible “task-oriented command style” via radio and satellite communications. PLA Army SOF brigades also include liaison officers from pertinent PLA Navy, Air Force, Rocket Force, and aviation units in their command post to facilitate SOF missions in support of theater command operations. PLA SOF brigades also face the same C2 issues that conventional PLA brigades encounter. One example from 2019 showed that voice communications were difficult to maintain using single-function and limited bandwidth radios and satellite communications terminals. This limited communication between the brigade and below conventional forces as well as the supporting SOF battalion and below forces.
Many U.S. SOF activities do not fall within the purview of China’s SOF missions. PLA SOF do not conduct military information support operations (also known as psychological operations). ​These operations are conducted by elements within the PLA Political Department System. However, PLA SOF units may assist in larger information support operations, but would not be in command. PLA SOF also do not have units equivalent to U.S. Army Civil Affairs units. Humanitarian aid and disaster relief (HADR) is a mission conducted by all PLA, PAP, and militia units in conjunction with local civilian authorities. The PRC’s SOF may provide support in the form of communications and reconnaissance in remote areas, but would not be the lead agency for HADR missions.
Both the PLAA and PLAAF lack aviation assets to conduct long-range insertions of PLA SOF to conduct strategic-level direct action or reconnaissance, but they can conduct air insertions of SOF in support of theater operations. Helicopters are used to transport SOF for airborne and air assault missions. All PLA airborne-qualified SOF train in fixed-wing aircraft, such as the Yun-5 biplane, which can also be used for SOF missions. However, the PLA’s shortage of long-range, heavy transport aircraft means PLA Air Force units receive priority to use these aircraft for airborne training.
Employment. Since 2008, approximately 70 PLANMC SOF personnel have deployed to the Gulf of Aden aboard PLAN vessels as part of the PRC’s counterpiracy operations. In 2015, PLA SOF conducted search and rescue, medical evacuation, and force protection operations in Nepal following an earthquake. Also in 2015, PLANMC SOF helped evacuate foreign nationals due to the war in Yemen and in 2017, PLANMC SOF recaptured a hijacked freighter from Somali pirates in the Gulf of Aden. In 2020, PLA SOF from the Tibet Military Region deployed to the border with India following clashes between Chinese and Indian forces along the LAC.
JOINT CAPABILITIES IN DEVELOPMENT
Key Takeaways
* The PLA is aggressively developing capabilities to provide options for the PRC to dissuade, deter, or, if ordered, defeat third-party intervention in the Indo-Pacific region.
* The PLA continues developing the capabilities to conduct military operations deeper into the Indo-Pacific region and globally.
* The PLA has undertaken important structural reforms and introduced new military doctrine to strengthen joint operations and is testing joint capabilities in and beyond the FIC.
UNDERGROUND FACILITIES
The PLA maintains a robust and technologically advanced underground facility (UGF) program to conceal and protect all aspects of its military forces, including C2, weapons of mass destruction, logistics, and modernized missile, ground, air, and naval forces. The PRC has thousands of UGFs and constructs more each year. These UGFs are central to The PRC’s counter-intervention and power projection efforts, enabling the PLA to protect valuable assets from the effects of missile strikes and to conceal military operations from adversaries. The PRC’s emphasis on strategic deterrence has also contributed to the construction of UGFs for the country’s nuclear forces, which aims to survive an initial nuclear first-strike by an adversary.
The PRC began to update and expand its military UGF program in the mid- to late-1980s. This modernization effort took on renewed urgency following the PRC’s observation of U.S. and Coalition air operations during the 1991 Gulf War and their use in OPERATION ALLIED FORCE. These military campaigns convinced China it needs to build more survivable, deeply buried facilities to protect military assets from the effects of penetrating conventional munition and nuclear strikes. Since the 2015-2016 military reforms, the PRC has expanded their UGF program to support survivable and redundant nodes for its wartime contingency planning. These nodes aim to enable continuous C2, communications, sustainment, and counterstrike capabilities across all PLA services and domains, as well as its joint forces. The PRC will likely continue to develop and expand its UGF program to support its expanding forces and military modernization.
JOINT CAPABILITIES FOR COUNTERINTERVENTION
The PRC’s counter-intervention strategy aims to restrict the United States from having a presence in the PRC’s immediate periphery and limit U.S. access in the broader Indo-Pacific region. The PLA’s A2/AD—otherwise known as “counterintervention”—capabilities are, to date, the most robust within the FIC, although the PLA is increasingly able to project power into the Philippine Sea and the PRC seeks to strengthen its capabilities to reach farther into the Pacific Ocean.
Long-Range Precision Strike and Supporting ISR. PLA texts state that precision attack in all warfare domains is critical in modern war. The PLA further notes that small elite forces using advanced weapons or capabilities can attain military effects that previously required large armies and much higher levels of damage and cost. Therefore, PLA writings state that precision weapons are not only force multipliers, but also a means of “war control” to prevent escalation. PLA documents further state that the range of vital political, economic, and military targets has grown as the advanced globalized economy develops, implying that growing PLA strike capabilities will attack an increasing array of targets, and, thereby, attain international strategic effects by striking critical nodes of the global economy during a future conflict.
​The PRC’s military modernization efforts have rapidly transformed the PLA’s missile force. The force is increasingly capable of conducting strikes against regional air bases, logistics and port facilities, communications, and other ground-based infrastructure—targets that PLA writings discuss as adversary vulnerabilities. The PLA is capable of reaching U.S. bases in Guam with ballistic and cruise missiles. In the future, PLA LACMs will also likely be deployable on surface platforms like the RENHAI-class guided-missile cruisers. H-6K bomber flights into the Philippine Sea demonstrate the PRC’s ability to range Guam with air-launched LACMs. The DF-26 intermediate range ballistic missile is a capable of ranging Guam and is capable of conducting nuclear, precision conventional, and maritime attacks.
The PRC views its ability to acquire timely, high-fidelity information as critical to its ability to execute precision strikes. The PLA’s information support system for precision strikes depends heavily on Strategic Support Force (SSF) assets to detect, identify, target, and conduct battlefield damage assessments. The PRC emphasizes the importance of space-based surveillance capabilities in supporting precision strikes and, in 2022, continued to develop its constellation of military reconnaissance satellites that could support monitoring, tracking, and targeting of U.S. and allied forces. The PRC is also investing in reconnaissance, surveillance, command, control, and communications systems at the strategic, operational, and tactical levels to provide high-fidelity OTH targeting information for its strike platforms.
Integrated Air Defense System (IADS). The PRC has a robust and redundant IADS architecture over land areas and within 300 nm (556 km) of its coast that relies on an extensive early warning radar network, fighter aircraft, and a variety of SAM systems. The PRC has also placed radars and air defense weapons on outposts in the SCS, further extending the range of its IADS. It also employs point defenses, primarily to defend strategic targets against adversary long-range cruise missiles and airborne strike platforms.
The PLA has increasing numbers of advanced long-range SAMs, including its indigenous CSA-9 4/(HQ-9) and its follow-on HQ-9B, Russian SA-10 (S-300PMU), and SA-20 (S-300PMU1/PMU2), all of which have the advertised capability to protect against both aircraft and low-flying cruise missiles. To improve its strategic air defenses, the PLA possesses Russian-built SA-21 (S-400) Triumf SAM systems as a follow-on to the SA-20. Compared to these other systems, the SA-21 systems possess a longer maximum range, improved missile seekers, and more sophisticated radars.
The PRC manufactures a variety of long-range air surveillance radars, including models claiming to support BMD and other models asserting the ability to detect stealth aircraft. Marketing materials also emphasize these systems’ ability to counter long-range airborne strike and combat support aircraft. PLAAF AEW&C aircraft such as the KJ-2000 and KJ-500 can further extend the PRC’s radar coverage well past the range of its ground-based radars.
Ballistic and Cruise Missile Defense. The PLA’s long-range SAM inventory also offers a limited capability against ballistic missiles. The PRC’s domestic CSA-9 (HQ-9) long-range SAM system likely has a limited capability to provide point defense against tactical ballistic missiles. The PLA ​has SA-20 (S-300 PMU2) SAMs and SA-21 (S-400) SAMs that may have some capability to engage ballistic missiles, depending on the interceptors and supporting infrastructure. The PRC is working to develop BMD systems consisting of exo-atmospheric and endo-atmospheric kinetic-energy interceptors. The PRC is pursuing a mid-course interceptor that may have capabilities against IRBMs and possibly ICBMs.The Type-055 Destroyer has been identified as a platform for mid-course intercept capabilities, suggesting the PRC will have forward deployed missile defense in the near future. Additionally, the HQ-19 interceptor has undergone tests to verify its capability against 3,000 km-class ballistic missiles. The PLA’s cruise missile defense capability is more robust than that of its ballistic missile defenses, with short-to-medium range SAMs, such as the HQ-22, augmenting the PLA’s long-range SAMs in this role.
Hypersonic Weapons. The PRC’s deployment of the DF-17 HGV-armed MRBM will continue to transform the PLA’s missile force. The system, fielded in 2020, is possibly intended to replace some older SRBM units, according to PRC media, and is intended to strike foreign military bases and fleets in the Western Pacific, according to a PRC-based military expert.
JOINT CAPABILITIES FOR POWER PROJECTION
Key Takeaways
* The PLA continues to increase its military capabilities to achieve China’s regional and global security objectives beyond its immediate periphery.
* The PLA has emphasized primarily power projection capabilities in the maritime domain, while its joint operational capabilities beyond the FIC remains limited.
* Improvements of PLA air and naval systems are enabling PLA forces to operate further from China for longer periods.
PLA ground, naval, air and rocket forces are increasingly capable of projecting power at greater distances from China. However, joint service training is still in its infancy and the PLA has demonstrated limited joint operational capabilities beyond the FIC. Instead, overseas activities are mostly conducted by single services and do not involve combat. In early 2022, the Southern Theater Command Navy conducted a joint distant sea training, where personnel from the Navy, Air Force, and Rocket Force served in the joint operations command system.
Beijing recognizes the importance of increasing military capabilities to achieve global security objectives and has encouraged the PLA to increase its operations beyond the Indo-Pacific. China’s 2015 and 2019 defense white papers claim that Beijing is primarily interested in developing these capabilities to protect PRC maritime rights and commercial interests. However, the majority of PLA modernization and recent exercises remains focused on winning a regional conflict. As the PRC’s economic interests expand in areas like Africa, Central Asia, and the Middle East, we expect to see increased focus on expanding power projection operations globally.
​PLAN Operational Experience. The PLAN’s experience in extended range operations is primarily derived from naval task group deployments and its ongoing counterpiracy mission in the Gulf of Aden, humanitarian and disaster relief operations, or intelligence collection missions. However, the PLA does also deploy surface task groups into areas of the western and southern Pacific to gain incremental far seas experience.
* The PLAN has operated in the Gulf of Aden since 2008, deploying 3-4 vessels on average and 700 personnel for 4-month deployments. As of January 2023, the PLA has deployed 131 vessels and more than 32,000 personnel across 42 escort missions.
* In early 2022, the PLAN conducted distant sea joint training in the eastern Indian and western Pacific oceans. The task group included two destroyers, an amphibious landing dock, and a replenishment ship.
* In January and February 2022, the PLAN and PLAAF delivered disaster relief supplies to the Pacific Island nation Tonga.
* In March 2022, a PLA naval supply ship conducted resupply at the PLA’s Support Base in Djibouti, marking the first time a PLA vessel naval ships berthed at the location.
* In August 2022, a PLA AGI conducted an intelligence collection mission during the U.S. Navy’s international exercise RIMPAC.
* In September 2022, the PLA conducted a four-day maritime training exercise with guided missile destroyers in the South Pacific, near French Polynesia.
* In November 2022, the Peace Ark hospital ship conducted its first visit since 2018 to Indonesia.
PLAN PLATFORMS
New ships enable the PLAN to gradually extend its operational reach beyond East Asia. In 2022, the PLAN launched its third aircraft carrier, Fujian, equipped with electromagnetic catapults, capable of launching various fixed-wing aircraft. When commissioned, the carrier will be capable of launching various specialized fixed-wing aircraft for early warning, electronic warfare, or antisubmarine warfare missions, increasing the strike power potential of the PLAN.
The RENHAI and LUYANG III are the PRC’s premier carrier escort for blue-water operations. The RENHAI CG, with 13,000 tons displacement and long-range ASCMs and SAMs, will likely be equipped with a planned naval variant of the Z-20 helicopter. The PLAN is engaged in series production of the RENHAI CG with at least eight units in service. The PLAN currently operates eight YUCHAO-class amphibious assault ships (LPD) and commissioned its first of three YUSHEN-class helicopter assault ships (LHD) in April 2021. The PLAN’s expanding fleet of large modern amphibious warships will enable it to conduct a wide range of expeditionary operations to protect the PRC’s interests or in support of international assistance operations.
​The PLAN is also expanding its logistical capabilities to support long-distance operations. The PLAN now has a sizable force of highly capable logistical replenishment ships to support long-duration deployments.
The PLANMC continues to make strides towards becoming a multidimensional expeditionary force capable of conducting operations beyond the FIC to protect the PRC’s growing overseas interests. The PLANMC maintains a presence at the PRC’s first overseas military support facility in Djibouti, which the PRC refers to as its “PLA support base in Djibouti” (吉布提保障基地), that extends The PRC’s military reach and strategic influence in Africa and the Middle East. The PLANMC’s presence in Djibouti seeks to enable a military response to contingencies affecting the PRC’s investments and infrastructure in the region.
Aviation Forces (PLAAF, PLAA Aviation, PLAN Aviation). PLA aviation forces are fielding advanced platforms capable of supporting future long-distance operations, as their mission sets evolve from defending Chinese territorial space to launching offensive operations at distances beyond the FIC. While interoperability is a stated priority, joint exercises between the aviation’s forces are limited. Individually, the PLAAF, PLAN Aviation, and PLAA Aviation continue to improve their capabilities to conduct offensive and defensive operations offshore, including strike, air and missile defense, strategic mobility, early warning and reconnaissance missions, and insertion. The PLAAF, in particular, has received repeated calls from its leadership to become a truly “strategic” air force, able to project power at long distances to advance and defend the PRC’s global interests.
* The PLA’s indigenously developed Y-20A heavy-lift transport has performed numerous overseas missions, including an April 2022 arms delivery to Serbia. Y-20A aircraft have delivered humanitarian aid throughout Asia, Africa, Europe, the Middle East and the South Pacific. In 2021, the Y-20U tanker entered service, supporting the continued PLAAF expansion of air refuelable fighters, bombers, and SMA aircraft. These new air refuelable aircraft will significantly expand the PRC’s ability to conduct long-range offensive air operations. In addition to aerial refueling, it is expected that there will likely be further Y-20 variants, such as a possible AWAC variant.
* The PRC is developing a new generation of long-range bombers, likely named the H-20, according to publicly released computer-generated design plans and promotional videos and a 2016 public statement by then PLAAF Commander General Ma Xiaotian. The H-20, which may debut sometime in the next decade, will have a range of more than 10,000 km, enabling the PLAAF to cover the Second Island Chain and into the western region of the Pacific. The H-20 bomber’s range could be extended to cover the globe with aerial refueling. It is also expected to employ both conventional and nuclear weaponry and feature a stealthy design.
* The PLA Army aviation and air assault units are enabling highly-mobile, modular ground task force capable of expeditionary operations. According to PRC media, three Z-8 transport ​ aircraft battalions could airdrop a combat battalion in one lift. The Z-20 is also expected to fill a variety of missions including special force insertion and shipborne ASW.
* PRC’s outposts in the SCS extend the operating reach of PLA aviation forces.
PLA Strategic Support Force (SSF). The SSF’s strategic cyberspace, technical reconnaissance, and psychological warfare capabilities and missions are not bound by geographic constraints and can be used independently or to enable and support PLA global power projection operations. The SSF’s information support role involves centralizing technical intelligence collection and management, which provides strategic intelligence support to the theater commands, enables power projection, and aids joint operations.
The Network Systems Department’s (NSD), also referred to as the Cyberspace Force (CSF), missions across the cyber and information domains and the electromagnetic spectrum probably provide key capabilities to support PLA power projection globally, including improving China’s access to the cyber domain in peacetime and contesting it in wartime.
* The PLA integrates offensive and defensive cyber operations into its joint military exercises, allowing its cyber personnel to gain operational experience while testing new capabilities.
* In August 2022, the PLA SESS Yuanwang-5 docked at Hambantota Port, in Sri Lanka. These ships are equipped with advanced electronic equipment, sensors, and antenna that can assists in tracking satellite, rocket, and ICBM launches.
The PRC continues to develop a variety of counterspace capabilities designed to limit or prevent an adversary's use of space during a crisis or conflict. In addition to the development of directed-energy weapons and satellite jammers, the PLA has an operational ground-based anti-satellite (ASAT) missile intended to target low-Earth orbit satellites. The PRC probably intends to pursue additional ASAT weapons capable of destroying satellites up to geosynchronous Earth orbit.
ADVANCING TOWARDS AN INFORMATIZED MILITARY
Key Takeaways
* The PLA considers information operations (IO) as a means of achieving information dominance early in a conflict and continues to expand the scope and frequency of IO in military exercises.
* The PRC presents a significant, persistent cyber-enabled espionage and attack threat to an adversary's military and critical infrastructure systems.
* The PLA is pursuing next-generation combat capabilities based on its vision of future conflict, which it calls "intelligentized warfare," defined by the expanded use of AI and other advanced technologies at every level of warfare. ​
* The PRC is advancing its cyberspace attack capabilities and has the ability to launch cyberspace attacks—such as disruption of a natural gas pipeline for days to weeks—in the United States.
Xi has called for the PLA to create a highly informatized force capable of dominating all networks and expanding the country's security and development interests. PRC military writings describe informatized warfare as the use of information technology to create an operational system-of-systems, which would enable the PLA to acquire, transmit, process, and use information during a conflict to conduct integrated joint military operations across the ground, maritime, air, space, cyberspace, and electromagnetic spectrum domains. The PLA is accelerating the incorporation of command information systems, providing forces and commanders with enhanced situational awareness and decision support to more effectively carry out joint missions and tasks to win informatized local wars. The PLA continues to expand the scope and regularity of military training exercises that simulate informatized operations and likely views offensive and defensive cyberspace operations as a means to achieve information dominance early in a crisis or conflict.
C4I MODERNIZATION
Command, Control, Communications, Computers, and Intelligence Modernization (C4I). The PRC continues to prioritize C4I modernization as a response to trends in modern warfare that emphasize the importance of rapid information collection, processing, and sharing and accelerated decision making. The PLA is continuing modernization and reform efforts, both technologically and organizationally, to effectively command complex, joint operations across all warfare domains and potentially in multiple theaters.
The PLA sees networked, technologically advanced C4I systems as essential to providing reliable, secure communications to fixed and mobile command posts, thereby enabling rapid, effective, multi-echelon decision making. These systems are designed to distribute real-time data—including intelligence, battlefield information, logistical information, and weather reports via redundant, resilient communications networks—to improve commanders’ situational awareness. PLA field commanders view near-real-time ISR and situational data as well as redundant and reliable communications as essential to streamlining decision making processes and shortening response timelines. Beijing recognizes advantages of near-space ISR capabilities and will probably seek to leverage near-space platforms to augment space-based satellite capabilities or provide redundancy during times of crisis. The PRC is also fielding the Integrated Command Platform to units at multiple echelons across the force to enable lateral and cross-service communications and intelligence sharing required for joint operations.
As the PLA continues to focus on improving its ability to fight and win informatized wars, future information systems will likely implement emerging technologies such as automatization, big data, the internet of things, AI, and cloud computing to improve process efficiencies. The PLA has already begun this process by embracing big data analytics that fuse a variety of data to improve automation and to create a comprehensive, real-time picture for warfighters. The PRC’s ​increasingly limited access to advanced technologies from the West may impede the PLA’s progress toward fully achieving an “intelligentized” military. However, the PRC is pursuing domestic production of critical technologies to reduce reliance on foreign sources.
Electronic Warfare. The PLA considers EW to be an integral component of modern warfare and seeks to achieve information dominance in a conflict through the coordinated use of cyberspace and electronic warfare to protect its own information networks and deny the enemy the use of the electromagnetic spectrum. The PRC’s EW strategy emphasizes suppressing, degrading, disrupting, or deceiving enemy electronic equipment throughout the continuum of a conflict. The PLA will likely use electronic warfare prior to a conflict as a signaling mechanism to warn and deter adversary offensive action. Potential EW targets include adversary systems operating in radio, radar, microwave, infrared and optical frequency ranges, as well as adversary computer and information systems. PLA EW units routinely train to conduct jamming and anti-jamming operations against multiple communication and radar systems and Global Positioning System (GPS) satellite systems during force-on-force exercises. These exercises test operational units’ understanding of EW weapons, equipment, and procedures and they also enable operators to improve confidence in their ability to operate effectively in a complex electromagnetic environment. In addition, the PLA reportedly tests and validates advances in EW weapons’ R&D during these exercises.
Cyberspace Warfare. The development of cyberspace warfare capabilities is consistent with PLA writings, which identify IO—comprising cyberspace, electronic, space, and psychological warfare—as integral to achieving information superiority early in a conflict as an effective means to counter a stronger foe. The PRC has publicly identified cyberspace as a critical domain for national security and declared its intent to expedite the development of its cyber forces.
The PRC poses a sophisticated, persistent cyber-enabled espionage and attack threat to military and critical infrastructure systems and presents a growing influence threat. The PRC seeks to create disruptive and destructive effects—from denial-of-service attacks to physical disruptions of critical infrastructure—to shape decision making and disrupt military operations beginning in the initial stages and throughout a conflict. The PRC can launch cyberspace attacks that, at a minimum, can cause localized, temporary disruptions to critical infrastructure within the United States, and the PRC believes these capabilities are even more effective against militarily superior adversaries that depend on information technologies. As a result, the PRC is advancing its cyberspace attack capabilities and has the ability to launch cyberspace attacks—such as disruption of a natural gas pipeline for days to weeks—in the United States.
Authoritative PLA sources call for the coordinated employment of space, cyberspace, and EW as strategic weapons to “paralyze the enemy’s operational system of systems” and “sabotage the enemy’s war command system of systems” early in a conflict. PLA writings judge other countries have effectively used cyberspace warfare and other IO in recent conflicts and argue for attacks against C2 and logistics networks to affect an adversary’s ability to make decisions and take actions in the early stages of conflict. The PLA also considers cyberspace capabilities to be a ​critical component in its overall integrated strategic deterrence posture, alongside space and nuclear deterrence. PLA studies discuss using warning or demonstration strikes—strikes against select military, political, and economic targets with clear awing effects—as part of deterrence. Accordingly, the PLA probably seeks to use its cyber-reconnaissance capabilities to collect data for intelligence and cyberspace attack purposes; to constrain an adversary’s actions by targeting network-based logistics, C2, communications, commercial activities, and civilian and defense critical infrastructure; and, to serve as a force-multiplier when coupled with kinetic attacks during armed conflict.
In addition, PLA publications emphasize the importance of cyber defense to defend the PRC’s critical infrastructure and military system-of-systems against adversary reconnaissance and attacks. The PLA likely views cyber defense as including preventative measures as well as offensive actions to deter or disrupt adversary cyberspace activity.
The PLA may further change how it organizes and commands IO, particularly as the SSF continues to develop its capabilities and further integrate into joint planning, exercises, and operations with other PLA forces. The SSF likely is generating synergies by combining national-level cyberspace reconnaissance, attack, and defense capabilities in its organization, alongside other strategic IO capabilities, and integrating into theater command planning and operations.
CYBERSPACE ACTIVITIES DIRECTED AGAINST THE U.S. DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE (DOD)
China-based intrusions continued to target computer systems around the world, including those owned by the U.S. Government, throughout 2022. These and past intrusions exploit known vulnerabilities to actively target U.S. government networks to steal intellectual property and develop access into sensitive networks. The PRC uses its cyberspace capabilities, not only to support intelligence collection against U.S. academic, economic, military, and political targets, but also to exfiltrate sensitive information from the critical defense infrastructure and research institutes to gain economic and military advantage and possibly for cyberattack preparations. The targeted information can benefit the PRC’s defense high-technology industries, support the PRC’s military modernization, provide the PRC’s leadership with insights into U.S. plans and intentions, and enable diplomatic negotiations. Moreover, targeted information could enable their cyberspace forces to build an operational picture of U.S. defense networks, military disposition, logistics, and related military capabilities that could be exploited prior to or during a crisis. The access and skillset required for these intrusions are similar to those necessary to conduct cyberspace operations in an attempt to deter, delay, disrupt, and degrade DoD operations prior to or during a conflict. Taken together, these cyber-enabled campaigns either directly or indirectly impact the United States’ ability to project, or defend against, military action.
​Intelligentized Warfare. In recent years, the PLA has increasingly emphasized intelligentization as a leading element of its modernization plans. The PRC is in the middle of its 14th Five-Year Plan, covering years 2021-2025, in which it outlined the development of intelligentized weapons as important to keep pace with modern warfare. Beijing is applying its research into AI technologies, such as machine learning and human-machine teaming, to military processes, such as decision-making to ultimately gain a cognitive advantage in future warfare.
PLA strategists have stated new technologies would enhance the PLA’s capability to process and utilize information at scale and machine speed, allowing decision-makers to plan, operate, and support cross-domain unconventional and asymmetrical fighting in the battlefield. The PLA is researching various applications for AI including support for missile guidance, target detection and identification, and autonomous systems. The PLA is exploring next-generation operational concepts for intelligentized warfare, such as attrition warfare by intelligent swarms, cross-domain mobile warfare, AI-based space confrontation, and cognitive control operations. The PLA also considers unmanned systems to be critical intelligentized technology, and is pursuing greater autonomy for unmanned aerial, surface, and underwater vehicles to enable manned and unmanned teaming, swarm attacks, optimized logistic support, and distributed ISR, among other capabilities.
SPACE AND COUNTERSPACE CAPABILITIES
Key Takeaways
* The PLA views space superiority, the ability to control the space-enabled information sphere and to deny adversaries their own space-based information gathering and communication capabilities, as critical components to conduct modern “informatized warfare.”
* The PLA continues to invest in improving its capabilities in space-based ISR, satellite communication, satellite navigation, and meteorology, as well as human spaceflight and robotic space exploration.
* The PLA continues to acquire and develop a range of counterspace capabilities and related technologies, including 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.
Space Strategy and Doctrine. The PRC officially advocates for the peaceful use of space and is pursuing agreements in the United Nations on the “non-weaponization” of space. The PRC continues to improve its counterspace weapons capabilities and has enacted military reforms to better integrate cyberspace, space, and EW into joint military operations. The PRC’s space strategy is expected to evolve over time, keeping pace with the application of new space technology. These changes probably will be reflected in published national space strategy documents, through space policy actions, and in programs enacted by political and military leadership. In September 2021, Xi stated that “space is an important strategic asset for the country that must be well managed and ​utilized and, more importantly, protected,” and called for strengthened space traffic management and international cooperation on security issues to improve effectiveness in managing crises in space.
The PLA views space superiority, the ability to control the space-enabled information sphere and to deny adversaries their own space-based information gathering and communication capabilities, as a critical component to conduct modern “informatized warfare.” The PRC’s first public mention of space and counterspace capabilities came as early as 1971, largely from academics reviewing foreign publications on ASAT technologies. However, Chinese science and technology efforts on space began to accelerate in the 1980s, most likely as a result of the U.S. space-focused Strategic Defense Initiative to defend against the former Soviet Union’s nuclear weapons. Subsequently, after observing the U.S. military’s performance during the 1991 Gulf War, Kosovo, Afghanistan, and the second Iraq War, the PLA embarked on an effort to modernize weapon systems, across all domains including space, and update its doctrine to focus on using and countering adversary information-enabled warfare.
The PRC’s perceptions of the importance of space-enabled operations to the United States and its allies has shaped integral components of PLA military planning and campaigns. In addition, space is a critical enabler of beyond-line-of-sight operations for deployed Chinese forces, and the PLA sees counterspace operations as a means to deter and counter a U.S. intervention during a regional military conflict. The PRC has claimed that “destroying or capturing satellites and other sensors” would make it difficult for the U.S. and allied militaries to use precision-guided weapons. Moreover, Chinese defense academics suggest that reconnaissance, communication, navigation, and early warning satellites could be among the targets of attacks designed to “blind and deafen the enemy.”
Space and Counterspace Capabilities. The PRC’s space enterprise continues to mature rapidly and Beijing has devoted significant economic and political resources to growing all aspects of its space program, from military space applications to civil applications such as profit-generating launches, scientific endeavors, and space exploration. The PRC’s space enterprise includes the SSF and also encompasses other military, government, and civilian organizations, including state-owned enterprises, academic institutions, and commercial entities. The PLA has historically managed the PRC’s space program and the SSF Space Systems Department is responsible for nearly all PLA space operations. The PRC continues to strengthen its military space capabilities despite its public stance against the weaponization of space. The PLA continues to invest in improving its capabilities in space-based ISR, satellite communication, satellite navigation, and meteorology, as well as human spaceflight and robotic space exploration. The PRC has built an expansive ground support infrastructure to support its growing on-orbit fleet and related functions including spacecraft and space launch vehicle (SLV) manufacture, launch, C2, and data downlink. Additionally, the PRC continues to develop counterspace capabilities—including direct ascent, coorbital, electronic warfare, and directed energy capabilities—that can contest or deny an adversary’s access to and operations in the space domain during a crisis or conflict.
​The PRC has devoted considerable economic and technological resources to growing all aspects of its space program, improving military space applications, developing human spaceflight, and conducting lunar and Martian exploration missions. In 2022, the PRC conducted over 60 successful space launches, which is a three-fold increase compared to five years ago. One of these launches was a technology testing mission of a reusable spaceplane, which was in orbit from August 2022 until May 2023. These 2022 launches carried over 180 satellites into orbit, which is a five-fold increase in satellites deployed compared to five years ago. Last year, the PRC completed construction of the three-module Chinese space station. Furthermore, the PRC has launched a robotic lander and rover to the far side of the Moon; a lander and sample return mission to the Moon; and an orbiter, lander, and rover in one mission to Mars. The PRC has launched multiple ASAT missiles that are able to destroy satellites and developed mobile jammers to deny SATCOM and GPS.
The PRC’s goal is to become a broad-based, fully capable space power. Its rapidly growing space program—second only to the United States in the number of operational satellites—is a source of national pride and part of Xi’s “China Dream” to establish a powerful and prosperous China. The space program, managed by the PLA, supports both civilian and military interests, including strengthening its science and technology sector, growing international relationships, and modernizing the military. The PRC seeks to rapidly achieve these goals through advances in the research and development of space systems and space-related technology.
The PLA continues to acquire and develop a range of counterspace capabilities and related technologies, including 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. In concert with its marked improvements in satellite navigation, launch capabilities, and space object surveillance and identification, the PRC is developing electronic warfare capabilities such as satellite jammers; offensive cyberspace capabilities; and directed-energy weapons. Moreover, the PRC has demonstrated sophisticated, potentially damaging on-orbit behavior with space-based technologies. The PRC has an operational ground-based anti-satellite (ASAT) missile intended to target low-Earth orbit satellites, and China probably intends to pursue additional ASAT weapons capable of destroying satellites up to geosynchronous Earth orbit. The PRC is employing more sophisticated satellite operations and is probably testing dual-use technologies in space that could be applied to counterspace missions.
ISR Satellite Capabilities. The PRC employs a robust space-based ISR capability designed to enhance its worldwide situational awareness. Used for military and civilian remote sensing and mapping, terrestrial and maritime surveillance, and intelligence collection, China’s ISR satellites are capable of providing electro-optical and synthetic aperture radar (SAR) imagery as well as electronic and signals intelligence data. The PRC also exports its satellite technology globally, including its domestically developed remote-sensing satellites.
​As of March 2022, China’s ISR satellite fleet contained more than 290 systems—a quantity second only to the United States, and nearly doubling China's in-orbit systems since 2018. The PLA owns and operates about half of the world’s ISR systems, most of which could support monitoring, tracking, and targeting of U.S. and allied forces worldwide, especially throughout the Indo-Pacific region. These satellites also allow the PLA to monitor potential regional flashpoints, including the Korean Peninsula, Taiwan, Indian Ocean, and the SCS. In early 2023, the United States announced sanctions against Chinese companies Spacety and China HEAD Aerospace for providing imagery of Ukraine to Russian private military company Wagner during the conflict.
Recent improvements to the PRC’s space-based ISR capabilities emphasize the development, procurement, and use of increasingly capable satellites with digital camera technology as well as space-based radar for all-weather, 24-hour coverage. These improvements increase China’s monitoring capabilities—including observation of U.S. aircraft carriers, expeditionary strike groups, and deployed air wings. Space capabilities will enhance potential PLA military operations farther from the Chinese coast. These capabilities are being augmented with electronic reconnaissance satellites that monitor radar and radio transmissions.
Satellite Communications. The PRC owns and operates more than 60 communications satellites, at least four of which are dedicated to military use. The PRC produces its military-dedicated satellites domestically. Its civilian communications satellites incorporate off-the-shelf commercially manufactured components. The PRC is fielding advanced communications satellites capable of transmitting large amounts of data. Existing and future data relay satellites and other beyond-line-of-sight communications systems could convey critical targeting data to Chinese military operation centers.
In addition, China is making progress on its ambitious plans to propel itself to the forefront of the global SATCOM industry. China is continuing to test next-generation capabilities like its Quantum Experimentation at Space Scale (QUESS) space-based quantum-enabled communications satellite, which could supply the means to field highly secure communications systems. In 2016, the PRC launched the world's first quantum communications satellite (Micius) into low Earth orbit, and in July 2022, the PRC launched an additional experimental quantum satellite Testing satellite-based quantum entanglement represents a major milestone in building a practical, global, ultrasecure quantum network, but the widespread deployment and adoption of this technology still faces hurdles.
The PRC also intends to provide SATCOM support to users worldwide and plans to develop at least seven new SATCOM constellations in low earth orbit (LEO), most notably one from state-owned enterprise China SatNet. These constellations are still in the early stages of development and may begin to launch in the next year.
Position, Navigation, and Timing (PNT) Capabilities. The PRC’s satellite navigation system, known as BeiDou, is an independently constructed, developed, and exclusively China-operated PNT service. It reached initial operating capability in 2018 and was finalized with its last launch in 2020. The PRC’s priorities for BeiDou are to support national security and economic and ​social development by adopting Chinese PNT into precise agriculture, monitoring of vehicles and ships, and aiding with civilian-focused services across more than 100 countries in Africa, Asia, and Europe. BeiDou provides all-time, all-weather, and high-accuracy PNT services to users domestically, in the Asia-Pacific region, as well as globally and consists of 49 operational satellites. The PRC’s military uses BeiDou’s high-accuracy PNT services to enable force movements and precision guided munitions delivery.
BeiDou has a worldwide positional accuracy standard of 10 meters; accuracy in the Asia-Pacific region is within 5 meters. In addition to providing PNT, the BeiDou constellation offers unique capabilities, including text messaging and user tracking through its Regional Short Message Communication service to enable mass communications among BeiDou users. The system also provides additional military C2 capabilities for the PLA.
The PRC intends to use its BeiDou constellation to offer additional services and incentives to countries taking part in its BRI emphasizing building strong economic ties to other countries to align partner nations with the PRC’s interests. In 2021, China predicted Beidou products and services will be worth $156 billion by 2025, and potentially export BeiDou products to more than 100 million users in 120 countries.
Human Spaceflight and Space Exploration Efforts. Following uncrewed missions that began in 1999, China became the third country to achieve independent human spaceflight when it successfully orbited the crewed Shenzhou-5 spacecraft in 2003. In 2011, China then launched its first space station, Tiangong-1, and in 2016, it launched its second space station, Tiangong-2. In 2020, China conducted its first orbital test of the New-Generation Manned Spaceship, which is expected to replace the Shenzhou series of crewed spacecraft. In 2022, China successfully launched the Mengtian Chinese Space Station laboratory module into orbit, completing the three-module Chinese space station.
China has also taken on a greater role in deep space exploration and space science and has made notable accomplishments during the past several years. The PRC has demonstrated its interest in working with Russia and the European Space Agency (ESA) to conduct deep-space exploration. China was the third country to place a robotic rover on the Moon and was the first to land a rover on the lunar far side in 2019, which is communicating through the Queqiao relay satellite that China launched the year before to a stable orbit around an Earth-Moon Lagrange point. In May 2021, the PRC landed the Zhurong rover on Mars, the first Chinese rover to operate on Mars. This rover has provided China with valuable scientific data of the Martian surface and underground.
Space Launch Capabilities. The PRC is improving its space launch capabilities to ensure it has an independent, reliable means to access space and to compete in the international space launch market. The PRC continues to improve manufacturing efficiencies and launch capabilities overall, supporting continued human spaceflight and deep-space exploration missions—including to the Moon and Mars. New modular SLVs that allow the PRC to tailor an SLV to the specific configuration required for each customer are beginning to go into operation, leading to increased launch vehicle reliability and overall cost savings for launch campaigns. The PRC is also in the ​early stages of developing a super heavy-lift SLV similar to the U.S. Saturn V or the newer U.S. Space Launch System to support proposed crewed lunar and Mars exploration missions.
In addition to land-based launches, in 2019, the PRC demonstrated the ability to launch a Long March-11 (LM-11) SLV from a sea-based platform. Since 2021, the PRC has been expanding its sea launch infrastructure near Haiyang to expand the frequency of sea launch missions. This capability, if staged correctly, would allow the PRC to launch nearer to the equator than its land-based launch sites, increase the rocket’s carrying capacity, and potentially lower launch costs.
The PRC has developed quick-response SLVs to increase its attractiveness as a commercial small satellite launch provider and to rapidly reconstitute LEO space capabilities, which could support PRC military operations during a conflict or civilian response to disasters. Compared with medium- and heavy-lift SLVs, these quick-response SLVs are able to expedite launch campaigns because they are transportable via road or rail and can be stored launch-ready with solid fuel for longer periods than liquid-fueled SLVs. Because their size is limited, quick-response SLVs such as the Kuaizhou-1 (KZ-1), LM-6, and LM-11 are only able to launch relatively small payloads of up to approximately 2 metric tons into LEO.
The expansion of non-state-owned PRC launch vehicle and satellite operation companies in China’s domestic market since 2015 suggests that China is successfully advancing military-civil fusion efforts. Military-civil fusion blurs the lines between these entities and obfuscates the end users of acquired foreign technology and expertise.
Space Situational Awareness. The PRC has a robust network of space surveillance sensors capable of searching, tracking, and characterizing satellites in all Earth orbits. This network includes a variety of telescopes, radars, and other sensors that allow the PRC to support its missions including intelligence collection, counterspace targeting, ballistic missile early warning (BMEW), spaceflight safety, satellite anomaly resolution, and space debris monitoring.
Electronic Warfare Counterspace Capabilities. The PLA considers EW capabilities to be critical assets for modern warfare, and its doctrine emphasizes using EW to suppress or deceive enemy equipment. The PLA routinely incorporates in its exercises jamming and anti-jamming techniques that probably are intended to deny multiple types of space-based communications, radar systems, and GPS navigation support to military movement and precision-guided munitions employment. The PRC probably is developing jammers dedicated to targeting SAR, including aboard military reconnaissance platforms. Interfering with SAR satellites very likely protects terrestrial assets by denying imagery and targeting in any potential conflict involving the United States or its allies. In addition, China probably is developing jammers to target SATCOM over a range of frequency bands, including military-protected extremely high frequency communications.
Directed Energy Weapons (DEW). During the past two decades, PRC defense research has proposed the development of several reversible and nonreversible counterspace DEWs for reversible dazzling of electro-optical sensors and even potentially destroying satellite components. The PRC has multiple ground-based laser weapons of varying power levels to disrupt, degrade, or ​damage satellites that include a current limited capability to employ laser systems against satellite sensors. By the mid- to late-2020s, the PRC may field higher power systems that extend the threat to the structures of non-optical satellites.
ASAT Missile Threats. In 2007, the PRC destroyed one of its defunct weather satellites more than 800 kilometers above the Earth with an ASAT missile. The effect of this destructive test generated more than 3,000 pieces of trackable space debris, of which more than 2,700 remain in orbit and most will continue orbiting the Earth for decades. The PLA’s operational ground-based ASAT missile system is intended to target LEO satellites. The PRC’s military units have continued training with ASAT missiles.
The PRC plans to pursue additional ASAT weapons that are able to destroy satellites up to GEO. In 2013, the PRC launched an object into space on a ballistic trajectory with a peak orbital radius above 30,000 kilometers, near GEO altitudes. No new satellites were released from the object, and the launch profile was inconsistent with traditional SLVs, ballistic missiles, or sounding rocket launches for scientific research, suggesting a basic capability could exist to use ASAT technology against satellites in geostationary orbit (GEO).
Orbital Threats. The PRC is developing other sophisticated space-based capabilities, such as satellite inspection and repair. At least some of these capabilities could also function as a weapon. The PRC has launched multiple satellites to conduct scientific experiments on space maintenance technologies and is conducting research on space debris cleanup. The Shijian-17 was the PRC’s first satellite with a robotic arm, technology that could be used in a future system for grappling adversary satellites. In October 2021, the PRC launched another satellite with a robotic arm, the Shijian-21, into GEO, and, in January 2022, it moved a derelict BeiDou navigation satellite to a high graveyard orbit above GEO.
Since at least 2006, the PRC has investigated aerospace engineering aspects associated with space-based kinetic weapons—generally a class of weapon used to attack ground, sea, or air targets from orbit. Space-based kinetic weapons research included methods of reentry, separation of payload, delivery vehicles, and transfer orbits for targeting purposes. In July 2021, the PRC conducted the first fractional orbital launch of an ICBM with a hypersonic glide vehicle from China. This demonstrated the greatest distance flown (~40,000 kilometers) and longest flight time (~100+ minutes) of any Chinese land attack weapons system to date.
NUCLEAR CAPABILITIES
Key Takeaways
* Over the next decade, the PRC will continue to rapidly modernize, diversify, and expand its nuclear forces. Compared to the PLA’s nuclear modernization efforts a decade ago, current efforts dwarf previous attempts in both scale and complexity. ​
* The PRC is expanding the number of its land-, sea-, and air-based nuclear delivery platforms while investing in and constructing the infrastructure necessary to support further expansion of its nuclear forces.
* In 2022, Beijing continued its rapid nuclear expansion, and DoD estimates China’s stockpile had more than 500 operational nuclear warheads as of May 2023.
* DoD estimates that the PRC will have have over 1,000 operational nuclear warheads by 2030, much of which will be deployed at higher readiness levels and will continue growing its force to 2035 in line with its goal of ensuring PLA modernization is “basically complete” that year, which serves as an important milestone on the road to Xi’s goal of a “world class” military by 2049.
* The PRC probably will use its new fast breeder reactors and reprocessing facilities to produce plutonium for its nuclear weapons program, despite publicly maintaining these technologies are intended for peaceful purposes.
* The PRC probably completed the construction of its three new solid-propellant silo fields in 2022, which consists of at least 300 new ICBM silos, and has loaded at least some ICBMs into these silos. These silo fields are capable of fielding both DF-31 and DF-41 class ICBMs. This project and the expansion of China’s liquid-propellant silo force is meant to increase the peacetime readiness of its nuclear force by moving to a launch-on-warning (LOW) posture.
* The PRC is updating its capability to deliver multi-megaton warheads by fielding the new DF5C silo based, liquid-fueled ICBM. The PRC is fielding the longer-range JL-3 SLBMs on its current JIN-class SSBN, rendering them capable of ranging the continental United States from PRC littoral waters, and continues to produce additional JIN-class SSBNs.
China: ICBM Silo Externally Completed - Hami Silo Fields
Strategy. The PRC's approach to using nuclear force is based on PLA "deterrence" of an enemy first strike and "counterstrike" when deterrence fails, threatening retaliation against an adversary's military capability, population, and economy. The PRC's nuclear weapons policy prioritizes the maintenance of a nuclear force able to survive a first strike and respond with sufficient strength to conduct multiple rounds of counterstrike, deterring an adversary with the threat of unacceptable damage to its military capability, population, and economy. The PLA probably selects its nuclear strike targets to achieve conflict de-escalation and return to a conventional conflict with a remaining force sufficient to deter its adversary. PLA planners would probably avoid a protracted series of nuclear exchanges against a superior adversary, and state that the scale and intensity of retaliatory force needs to be carefully controlled. The buildup of the PLA's nuclear arsenal may change the PRC's nuclear strategy in the future, while the PLA insists its nuclear policy remains clear and consistent.
* The PRC's current approach to nuclear force includes a declaratory "no first use" (NFU) policy, stating it will never use nuclear weapons first at any time under any circumstances. This includes unconditionally not to use or threaten to use nuclear weapons against any non-nuclear-weapon state or in nuclear-weapon-free zones. Despite this policy, China's nuclear strategy ​ probably includes consideration of a nuclear strike in response to a nonnuclear attack threatening the viability of China’s nuclear forces or C2, or that approximates the strategic effects of a nuclear strike. Beijing probably would also consider nuclear use to restore deterrence if a conventional military defeat in Taiwan gravely threatened CCP regime survival.
The PRC’s commingling of some of its conventional and nuclear missile forces during peacetime and ambiguities in its NFU conditions could complicate deterrence and escalation management during a conflict. If a comingled PRC missile launch is not readily identifiable as a conventional missile or nuclear missile, it may not be clear what the PRC launched until it detonates. Furthermore, potential adversary attacks against China’s conventional missile force-associated C2 centers could inadvertently degrade China’s nuclear C2 and generate nuclear use-or-lose the pressure to use weapons before they are targeted. Once a conflict has begun, China’s dispersal of mobile missile systems to hide sites could further complicate the task of distinguishing between nuclear and conventional forces and, thus, increase the potential for inadvertent attacks on the nuclear forces. PRC leadership calculus for responding to conventional attacks on nuclear forces remains a key unknown.
Readiness. The PLA Rocket Force uses a set of operational procedures to keep part of its force at heightened readiness during peacetime, according to PLA documents and media reporting. PLARF brigades conduct “combat readiness duty” and “high alert duty” which includes assigning a missile battalion to be ready to rapidly launch. Further, a new generation of silo-based ICBMs are beginning to enter the force and they will probably be operating under China’s developing “Early Warning Counterstrike” (预警反击) posture (the PLA term for launch on warning), enabling a rapid responsive nuclear strike. This readiness posture allows the Rocket Force to maintain a portion of its units on a heightened state of readiness while leaving the other portion in peacetime status with separated launchers, missiles, and warheads.
The PLA also probably has an orderly, pre-planned series of “combat readiness level” steps that govern the increases in the readiness of its forces from peacetime to wartime combat operations. This process probably allows the PLA to transition most, perhaps all, of its nuclear missile force from its current peacetime status to full combat readiness in order to respond to possible contingencies.
Land-Based Platforms. The PRC’s land-based nuclear force primarily consists of ICBMs with different basing modes complimented by theater-range road-mobile systems. The PRC has approximately 350 ICBMs in its arsenal, all of which can reach CONUS.
​Silo-Based Systems. The PRC's silo-based ICBMs consist of multiple CSS-4 (DF-5 class) liquid-fueled ICBMs and more recently a CSS-10 (DF-31class) solid-propelled ICBM, which China probably began to load at its new silo fields. The PRC is updating its capability to deliver multi-megaton warheads by fielding the new DF-5C silo-based, liquid-fueled ICBM. The PRC is building more silos for DF-5 class ICBMs; increasing the number of brigades while simultaneously increasing the number of launchers per brigade – though there is no indication this project will approach the size or numbers of the solid propellant missile silos. The PLA probably is also developing an upgrade to its existing MIRVed DF-5 liquid-fueled ICBMs.
China: Military garrisons constructed at newly build ICBM Silo Fields – Guazhou ICBM Silo Field Missile Garrison
Road-Mobile Systems. China's road-mobile ICBMs consist of the solid-fueled CSS-10 (DF-31 class) and CSS-20 (DF-41) ICBMs. The CSS-20 has improved range and accuracy over legacy solid-fueled ICBMS and is armed with no more than three warheads per missile. The PRC is establishing additional nuclear units and increasing the number of launchers in mobile ICBM units. This strategic arsenal is complemented by road-mobile and DF-26 IRBMs capable of ranging targets in the Indo-Pacific region.
​Sea-Based Platforms. The PRC probably fielded the extended-range CSS-N-20 (JL-3) SLBM on China's JIN-class SSBN, giving the PRC the ability to target the continental United States from littoral waters and allowing the PLAN to consider bastion operations to enhance the survivability of its sea-based deterrent. The SCS and Bohai Gulf are probably the PRC's preferred options for employing this concept. The PRC also continued to construct additional JIN class SSBNs. It is unclear whether continued JIN-class SSBN production is the result of delays in the development of the PRC's next-generation Type 096 SSBN or is an effort to accelerate its sea-based nuclear capability as Xi has directed. The Type 096 SSBN is probably intended to field MIRVed SLBMs and will likely begin construction in the early 2020s. Based on the 30-plus-year service life of the PRC's first generation SSNs, the PRC will operate its JIN and Type 096 SSBN fleets concurrently. The PRC probably continued to conduct near-continuous at-sea deterrence patrols with its six operational JIN-class SSBNs, which are equipped to carry up to 12 CSS-N-14 (JL-2) or CSS-N20 (JL-3) SLBMs.
China: PLA Navy Constructs Additional Submarine Piers – Yalong Naval Base
Air Platforms. The PLAAF has operationally fielded the H-6N bomber, providing a platform for the air component of the PRC's nascent nuclear triad. The H-6N, compared to other H-6 bombers, adds an air-to-air refueling probe, as well as its recessed fuselage modifications that would allow for external carriage of a nuclear-capable ALBM. The ALBM carried by the H-6N appears to be armed with a maneuvering reentry vehicle, indicating the ALBM, along with the DF-26 IRBM, is ​likely capable of conducting nuclear precision strikes against targets in the Indo-Pacific theater. The PRC is probably also developing a strategic stealth bomber, according to PRC state media.
Future Developments. Over the next decade, the PRC probably will continue to pursue selective qualitative parity with an increasing scope of U.S. and Russian capabilities. The PLA seeks a diverse nuclear force, comprised of systems ranging from low-yield precision strike missiles to ICBMs with multi-megaton yields. Developing robust nuclear strike options is likely intended to provide deterrence predominantly against a “strong enemy,” as well as ensure China can inflict unacceptable damage with both proportionate and overwhelming retaliatory capabilities, and thus denying an adversary victory if a war escalates to the nuclear domain.
The PRC is establishing new nuclear materials production and reprocessing facilities very likely to support its nuclear force expansion. Although these efforts are consistent with the PRC’s goals to increase nuclear energy generation and to close its nuclear fuel cycle, Beijing likely also considers this dual-use infrastructure as crucial to supporting its military goals, judging from Chinese nuclear industry reporting and think tank publications. Despite the PRC’s public support for a Fissile Material Cutoff Treaty (FMCT), it is likely that Beijing intends to use this infrastructure to produce nuclear warhead materials for its military in the near term. For example, the PRC’s efforts to impede progress at the Conference on Disarmament (CD) run contrary to its stated commitments of a FMCT.
* Plutonium Production. The PRC is constructing, with Russian assistance including in the form of highly enriched uranium (HEU) supply, two CFR-600 sodium-cooled fast breeder nuclear reactors at Xiapu, each capable of producing enough plutonium for dozens of nuclear warheads annually from blankets (referring to uranium placed around the fuel core for the purpose of breeding plutonium) surrounding the core, according to think tank estimates and informed by Chinese state media and nuclear industry reporting. The PRC originally planned to use Russian-sourced mixed-oxide (MOX is a blend of uranium and plutonium) fuel for these reactors but changed the order to highly enriched uranium (HEU) fuel through 2030, according to nuclear industry reporting. By using HEU fuel, China has the potential to generate additional weapons-grade plutonium. Chinese officials claim the CFR-600 reactors are intended to help the PRC achieve its civilian nuclear power and carbon neutrality objectives, but the PRC has described the CFR-600s as a “national defense investment project” subject to military nuclear facility regulations. By December 2022, Russia delivered the first three batches of HEU nuclear fuel assemblies, to China for the first core loading and the first refueling of the CFR600. In early 2023, think-tank reporting indicates the quantity of HEU transferred from Russia to China for its CFR-600 reactors is more than the entire amount of HEU removed worldwide under U.S. and International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) auspices in the last three decades. In March 2023, the PRC and Russia signed an agreement that includes commitments for continued cooperation on fast reactor and reprocessing technology development, extending this relationship for “the decades ahead.” ​
* Plutonium Extraction. China could extract the WGPu at its 50 ton/year reprocessing plant at Jiuquan (Plant 404) or at one of the two 200 ton/year reprocessing plants under construction at the CNNC Gansu Nuclear Technology Industrial Park in Jinta, Gansu Province, the first of which is expected to be operational by 2025. China has reduced transparency in its nuclear program as its capabilities are increasing and has not reported its stockpile of separated plutonium to the IAEA since 2017, according to a Western think tank. China has, thus far, refused international calls to apply IAEA safeguards, under a Voluntary Offer Agreement on its civilian reactors.
* Uranium and Tritium. In the past several years, China’s organization traditionally associated with military uranium enrichment has expanded production capacity and likely will continue to do so. China is also working to expand and diversify its capability to produce tritium by methods such as using tritium production targets in reactors and extraction from tritiated heavy water, according to Chinese nuclear industry reporting.
Nuclear Testing. In recent years, the PRC expanded its nuclear warhead research, development, testing, and production capacity to support the size and pace of its nuclear stockpile expansion. The PRC’s possible preparation to operate its Lop Nur nuclear test site year-round and lack of transparency on its nuclear testing activities have raised concerns regarding its adherence to the U.S. “zero yield” standard adhered to by the United States, the United Kingdom, and France in their respective nuclear weapons testing moratoria.
EVOLVING NUCLEAR POSTURE
Though it is often thought that the PRC maintains a “minimum deterrent,” the PRC’s evolving nuclear posture is more consistent with its own definition of “limited deterrent.” Rocket Force documents describe these terms as follows:
* “Minimum Deterrence” is achieving nuclear deterrence with only a small quantity of nuclear weapons to strike enemy urban targets.
* “Maximum Deterrence” is seeking overwhelming disarming strikes to minimize one’s own losses and maintain strategic freedom of action; employing overwhelming qualitative and quantitative superiority, a multi-function offensive system capable of hitting hard targets and a comprehensive defense system.
* “Limited Deterrence” is the wide space between minimum and maximum deterrence.
The PRC perceived national security requirements will grow as it transitions from a “large country” to a “powerful country” and its minimum number of military forces—to include nuclear—needed to defend those greater interests is also likely to grow. In 2022, the PRC rejected requests by the United States to discuss strategic stability or strategic risk reduction, and other impacts of the PRC’s rapid nuclear build up.
​Stockpile Size. In 2020, the DoD estimated China’s operational nuclear warhead stockpile was in the low-200s and expected to at least double by 2030. However, Beijing has accelerated its nuclear expansion, and DoD estimates China’s stockpile had more than 500 operational nuclear warheads as of May 2023. By 2030, DoD estimates that the PRC will have over 1,000 operational nuclear warheads, most of which will be fielded on systems capable of ranging the CONUS. Beijing has not declared an end goal nor acknowledged the scale of its expansion, has resisted calls in multilateral fora for increased transparency, and has declined to engage in substantive arms control discussions. We continue to assess the PRC is constructing the infrastructure necessary to support this force expansion, including increasing its capacity to produce and separate plutonium by constructing fast breeder reactors and reprocessing facilities. Though this is consistent with the PRC goal of closing the nuclear fuel cycle, the PRC likely intends to use some of this infrastructure to produce plutonium for its expanding nuclear weapons program.
The PRC’s long-term nuclear requirements—and the relationship between the PRC’s nuclear requirements and its national strategy and goal to field a “world-class” military by mid-century—remain unclear from public sources. Hawkish PRC state media outlets have asserted that the PRC needs 1,000 warheads, while retired PLA officers have suggested that the PRC should possesses a “mutually assured destruction” capability. While neither of those claims are official, China’s arming of hundreds of silos over the next decade, continued rapid growth in its road-mobile force and air and sea legs indicates that beyond 2030, China will probably have over 1,000 operational nuclear warheads, much of which will be deployed at higher readiness levels, and will continue growing its force to 2035 in line with previous estimates. These changes to the numbers, capability, and readiness of the PRC’s nuclear forces in the coming years are likely to outpace potential developments by the nuclear forces of any competitor.
Regardless of the ultimate number of nuclear weapons it makes, the PRC will probably continue to claim it is, like other nuclear powers, adhering to the minimum of nuclear weapons needed to protect its security interests.
Hypersonics and Fractional Orbital Bombardment. The PRC probably is developing advanced nuclear delivery systems such as a strategic hypersonic glide vehicle and a FOB system in part due to long-term concerns about United States missile defense capabilities as well as to attain qualitative parity with future worldwide missile capabilities. On July 27th, 2021, the PRC conducted a test of an ICBM-range hypersonic glide vehicle that travelled 40,000 kilometers. The test likely demonstrated the PRC’s technical ability to field a FOB system. The PRC does not appear to have tested a FOB system in 2022.
Lower-Yield Nuclear Weapons. The PRC probably seeks lower yield nuclear warhead capabilities to provide proportional response options that its high-yield warheads cannot deliver. PRC strategists have highlighted the need for lower-yield nuclear weapons in order to increase the deterrence value of the PRC’s nuclear force, though they have not defined 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. By late 2018, ​PRC concerns began to emerge that the United States would use low-yield weapons against its Taiwan invasion fleet, with related commentary in official media calling for proportionate response capabilities. 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.
PRC military writings in 2021 noted that the introduction of new precise small-yield nuclear weapons could possibly allow for the controlled use of nuclear weapons, in the warzone, for warning and deterrence. Additional PRC military writings as of 2017 noted that while strategic nuclear weapons remain the foundation of deterrence, tactical nuclear weapons with high hit precision and smaller yield would be effective in lowering the cost of war. Such discussions provide the doctrinal basis for limited nuclear employment on the battlefield, suggesting PRC nuclear thinkers could be reconsidering their long-standing view that nuclear war is uncontrollable.
Launch on Warning (LOW). The PLA is implementing a LOW posture, called “early warning counterstrike” (预警反击), where warning of a missile strike leads to a counterstrike before an enemy first strike can detonate. PLA writings suggest multiple manned C2 organs are involved in this process, warned by space and ground based sensors, and that this posture is broadly similar to the U.S. and Russian LOW posture. The PRC probably seeks to keep at least a portion of its force, especially its new silo-based units, on a LOW posture, and since 2017, the PLARF has conducted exercises involving early warning of a nuclear strike and LOW responses.
The PRC’s considerations to attain a LOW posture date back to even the 1970s and 1980s, when the PRC considered using existing land-based ballistic missile early warning radar to support a LOW posture for its silo-based CSS-4 ICBMs, but apparently this early warning system was unreliable. In recent years, the PRC has been able to make advances in early warning needed to support a LOW posture. The PRC has several ground-based large phase array radars—similar in appearance to U.S. PAVE PAWS radars—that could support a missile early warning role. There has likely been progress made in space-based early warning as well. In 2013, foreign media sources claimed to be in possession of PLA documents indicating expedited plans to field three geostationary satellites capable of detecting ballistic missile launches. Then, in 2015, the PRC’s defense white paper identified “improved strategic early warning” as specific nuclear force modernization goals with the PRC’s 13th Five-Year Plan (2016-2020) reported including requirements to place early warning satellites in space. As of 2022, the PRC likely has at least three early warning satellites in orbit. In 2019, President Putin of Russia stated that Russia is aiding the PRC in developing a ballistic missile early warning system.
Despite these developments, the PRC has called upon other states to abandon similar launch-on-warning postures to enhance strategic stability while declining to engage in substantive dialogue on risk reduction. The PRC seems to believe a LOW posture is consistent with its no first use policy, given that it involves a retaliatory strike that takes place after warning of an inbound first attack from an adversary. At the same time, PRC military writings note that command and control systems – which would include early warning systems—can be a source of accidental nuclear war. ​The PRC has refused to join the Hague Code of Conduct or participate in other confidence-building measures designed to reduce the risk of accidental nuclear war. However, the PRC does have a bilateral missile and carrier rocket launch notification agreement with Russia called the Russian-Chinese inter-governmental agreement signed in 2009, which was extended for 10 years in 2021—though little additional information regarding the implementation of the notification agreement is known.
China: Solid Propellant ICBM Silo Fields and Associated Training Site Locations
China: Yumen Silo Field Launch Sites
CHEMICAL AND BIOLOGICAL RESEARCH
Key Takeaways
* The PRC's chemical and biotechnology infrastructures are sufficient to research, develop, and produce some chemical and biological agents or toxins on a large scale.
* The PRC likely possesses capabilities relevant to chemical and biological warfare that pose a threat to U.S., Allied, and partner forces, military operations, and civilian populations.
* The PRC continues to engage in biological activities with dual-use applications, which raise concerns regarding its compliance with the Biological Weapons Convention (BWC). This includes studies at PRC military medical institutions on potent toxins with dual-use applications.
* The United States cannot certify that the PRC has met its obligations under the Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC) due to concerns regarding the PRC's research on pharmaceutical-based agents (PBAs) and toxins with potential dual-use applications. ​The PRC continues to engage in biological activities with dual-use applications, which raise concerns regarding its compliance with the BWC. In addition, the United States does not have sufficient information to determine whether China eliminated its assessed historical biological warfare (BW) program, which the United States assesses that the PRC possessed from the 1950s to at least the late 1980s. The PRC acceded to the BWC in 1984 and regularly submits to confidence-building measures (CBM) under the BWC; however, the PRC’s CBM reporting has never acknowledged its past offensive program. As part of its historical BW program, the PRC had reported weaponized ricin, botulinum toxins, and the causative agents of anthrax, cholera, plague, and tularemia.
Based on available information, the United States cannot certify that the PRC has met its obligations under the CWC due to concerns regarding the PRC’s research of PBAs and toxins with potential dual-use applications. The PRC has declared that it once operated a small chemical weapons program for offensive purposes; however, Beijing has consistently maintained that the program was dismantled and all agents and munitions were used before China ratified the CWC in 1997. Beijing also has declared two historical chemical warfare production facilities that were probably capable of producing mustard gas, phosgene, and lewisite.
Scientists at a PRC military institute have expressed interest in military applications of PBAs, including synthesis, characterization, and testing of PBAs with potential dual-use applications. In addition, available information on studies conducted at PRC military medical institutions indicates that researchers identify, test, and characterize diverse families of potent toxins with dual-use applications.
The PRC’s chemical and biotechnology infrastructures are sufficient to research, develop, and produce some chemical and biological agents or toxins on a large scale. The PRC probably has the technical expertise to weaponize CBW agents, and China’s robust armaments industry and numerous conventional weapon systems, including missiles, rockets, and artillery, probably could be adapted to deliver CBW agents. China also has the technical expertise, military units, and equipment necessary to detect CBW agents and to defend against a CBW attack.
Entities and individuals in the PRC continue to supply countries of concern with technologies, components, and raw materials applicable to weapons of mass destruction and missile programs. Such material and technology transfers could assist countries in developing their own production capabilities.
CHINA: HIGH-ALTITUDE BALLOON DEVELOPMENT
Military and commercial entities in the PRC have been researching and developing high-altitude systems—including high altitude balloons—since at least the mid-2000s. PRC-based research institutions and companies have developed and tested high-altitude balloons as early as 2015, including payloads to support imaging, data relay, and communications capabilities. While some of this research may support civilian applications such as weather monitoring, many of these high-altitude systems are very likely intended to support PLA requirements. Chinese military publications have demonstrated interest in integrating “near-space” platforms as another layer in the PLA’s broader reconnaissance “system-of-systems,” and have highlighted the use of high-altitude systems to support various tracking and targeting missions. The high-altitude balloon shot down on February 4th, 2023, was developed as part of this broader military-linked aerial surveillance program.
CHINA: JANUARY 28TH TO FEBRUARY 4TH, 2023 HIGH-ALTITUDE BALLOON INTRUSION
On January 28th, 2023, the U.S. Department of Defense detected a high-altitude balloon (HAB) approaching U.S. airspace off the west coast of Alaska. According to a timeline reconstruction published in the New York Times that made use of commercial imagery, the balloon launched from Hainan Island in China on approximately January 15th. It traveled across the Pacific over the course of 13 days, before passing over Alaska’s Aleutian Islands and then over the Alaskan mainland. The United States and Canada tracked the balloon as it crossed into Canadian airspace, where prevailing high-altitude winds blew it south, and it re-entered U.S. airspace over Idaho on January 31st. The Department of Defense tracked and monitored the balloon as it made its way across the United States and confirmed via handheld imagery from the pilot of a U-2 high-altitude surveillance aircraft that the balloon was indeed equipped with intelligence collection capabilities.
As stated by CDR NORAD & USNORTHCOM, the United States took precautions to minimize the amount and sensitivity of any intelligence the balloon could collect as it transited the United States. President Biden later confirmed and on June 29, DoD spokesmen reiterated that the balloon did not collect. On February 4th, U.S. fighters shot down the balloon off the coast of Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, where U.S. Coast Guard, Navy, and agents of the FBI conducted salvage and recovery operations.
For its part, China initially expressed “regret” that its airship entered North American airspace, but claimed that it was a purely civilian airship used for meteorological research, and that prevailing winds had blown off course. In slightly over a week, China’s tone changed, accusing the U.S. of flying surveillance balloons over China 10 times during 2022 (which the National Security Council denied), and claiming that the U.S. and NATO were attempting to “smear and accuse China,” likely reflecting a decision by China’s top leadership to respond by manufacturing a counter-narrative.