Colloquium Brief

Strategic Studies Institute, 

U.S. Army War College

 National Bureau of Asian Research

EXPLORING THE “RIGHT SIZE” FOR CHINA’S MILITARY:

PLA MISSIONS, FUNCTIONS, AND ORGANIZATION

Compiled by

Justin B. Liang and Sarah K. Snyder

The National Bureau of Asian Research

Key Points:

•	 Sustained and large increases in China’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA) defense budget are likely

in coming years as increasing national-level demands for new PLA missions require increasing

capability.

•	 “Surprise” PLA modernization programs—such as the 2004 Yuan-class submarine development—will

likely continue to emerge, particularly in those cases where service programs have not yet caught up to

national requirements.

•	 As modernization continues and systems become more complex, the human dimensions of the PLA—

education, training, personnel management—become more critical.

On October 6, 2006, more than 60 leading experts on China’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA) convened at 

Carlisle Barracks, Pennsylvania, for a two-day discussion of the drivers of PLA force modernization. The 2006 

PLA Conference was co-sponsored by National Bureau of Asian Research and the Strategic Studies Institute of 

the U.S. Army War College. Entitled “Exploring the ‘Right Size’ for China’s Military: PLA Missions, Functions, 

and Organization,” the conference explored continuities and discontinuities in the forces driving PLA force 

modernization, assessed how current modernization efforts are linked to national requirements, and examined 

what such development reveals about China’s national defense strategies.

Current trends in Chinese defense spending—a decade and a half of double-digit growth, and a 15 percent 

expenditure increase from 2005-06—suggest a major effort to modernize PLA military capabilities. This dramatic 

force modernization has the attention of both regional and international communities. Is there a systematic plan 

to this bold buildup that implements a national strategy? What is the appropriate “size” for China’s military, in 

terms of manpower and capabilities, given the missions the PLA has been handed, and what are the implications 

for the Asia-Pacific region and the United States?
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Participants approached these questions by looking 

at the current needs, wants, and haves of the PLA on 

a service-by-service basis. By debating the rationale 

for stated needs, an understanding of current efforts 

becomes clearer—and a more lucid picture of the 

“right size” for the PLA emerges. What does this final 

collage, layering rhetoric on reality, tell us about the 

transparency of the PLA? Is there consistency between 

PLA doctrine development and force structure 

modernization?

Sizing It All Up: PLA “Haves” Versus 

“Wants” and “Needs.”

The PLA’s four arms—Army, Air Force, Navy, 

and strategic systems—in recent years have matured, 

but their “wish lists” and rationales for modernization 

differ. Army modernization appears to fit within the 

framework of a force preparing for a range of missions. 

These include preparation for potential conflict over 

Taiwan (with deterring Taiwan’s moves toward 

secession as a first priority); stability on the Korean 

peninsula; border defense; and, most importantly, 

potential conflict with the United States over the abovementioned interests.

As the ground forces still constitute two-thirds 

of the PLA, the modernization of conventional land 

capabilities presents both major challenges and 

opportunities. Ground forces comprise 35 maneuver 

divisions and 45 maneuver brigades and have a wide 

range of missions—spread over a vast territory from the 

western border with India to central Asia and beyond. 

Managing the disparate missions and types of ground 

forces has resulted in a “hybrid” mix, blending old and 

new capabilities, unit organizations, and equipment. 

The bureaucratic domestic competition over scarce 

defense resources likely has prevented the systematic 

analysis of an uneven modernization effort among the 

ground forces in China’s seven military regions. One 

trend that has captured analysts’ attention is the PLA’s 

acquisition and deployment of newer helicopters, 

including Russian Mi-17s, that allow the PLA to 

project presence more easily and rapidly.

Training—increasingly conducted through evermore sophisticated simulators—emphasizes amphibious operations, border defense, disaster relief, and 

perhaps the beginnings of PLA-style close-air support. 

Again, these activities seem to implement a long-term 

strategy concerned foremost with regional security and 

with contingencies arising from U.S. interests in the 

region.

A human element, however, may widen the gap 

between the Army’s wants and needs. Party loyalty, 

institutionalized both through the political officer 

system and the party committee system, is critical 

to successful operations. With the current trends in 

personnel downsizing, the increasing incidence of 

corruption, and the subsequent low morale among 

troops, human resource development—in quality as 

well as quantity—becomes crucial. The lack of a cadre 

of capable noncommissioned officers compounds the 

Army’s challenge.

The PLA Air Force (PLAAF) possesses a different 

set of haves, wants, and needs. With the potential threat 

of high-tech air forces around China’s periphery—from 

the United States, Russia, Japan, and India—as well as 

the challenge of winning a possible air campaign against 

Taiwan, the PLAAF has shifted its focus to prepare 

for offensive missions, including the advancement of 

strike capabilities, from fighters to strategic bombers. 

Like the Army, it currently possesses a mix of older 

equipment and modern systems. Meanwhile, PLAAF 

officers are better represented in the senior ranks of 

PLA leadership.

Three factors are affecting the Air Force’s “needs 

versus wants” debate. First, the PLAAF must decide 

whether to downsize to a smaller, more lethal force—

while building force multipliers like airborne early 

warning (AEW) and aerial refueling—or, alternatively, 

to maintain large numbers of less capable but cheaper 

systems. A second question relates to how the 

PLAAF reconciles its internal and external needs, 

as technology requirements are complicated by the 

agenda of the domestic defense industry to advance its 

own capabilities. Finally, the PLAAF must agree on 

a division of labor within the PLAN Air Force, more 

thoughtfully delegating personnel for defense missions 

and defining who gets priority on new acquisitions. 

These trade-offs have implications for the PLAAF 

modernization efforts, creating the possibility of interforce tension and exacerbating issues of technology 

compatibility, communication, and even training.

Meanwhile, the PLA Navy (PLAN) is developing 

in areas where threats and interests coincide. Among 

these drivers are, once again, deterring Taiwan’s move 

toward independence and protecting the sea lines of 
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communication—long-term challenges that require 

significant force modernization. While China’s military 

strategy historically has been land-based, the PLAN 

now seems to be assuming a defensive posture, not 

unlike the Cold War Soviet model of maintaining sea 

control to the “first island chain,” or about 200 miles 

out. The PLAN may be moving toward a strategy of 

sea denial, developing maneuverable medium-range 

ballistic missiles to bulwark the “second island chain” 

about 1,000 miles out.

The importance of amphibious warfare to China’s 

emerging sea control/sea denial strategy is paramount, 

to be sure, but doubts still linger about the PLAN’s 

ability to employ its new weapons under real conditions. 

If asymmetries in technology affect operations, the 

PLAN may have more problems than it bargained for. 

Nevertheless, the pace of modernization indicates that 

naval modernization remains a very high priority for 

the PLA.

Drivers of strategic systems are consistent with 

China’s broader long-term security interests; they involve issues of prestige and coercive/deterrent capabilities. Of late, for example, the PLA has been developing a more articulate version of the second artillery 

nuclear doctrine. It asserts that the role of nuclear 

weapons is deterrence-oriented, designed to mitigate 

costs incurred from employing conventional warfare. 

In terms of Command, Control, Communications, 

Computers, Intelligence, Surveillance, and 

Reconnaissance (C4ISR), the PLA may only be 2 to 

5 years from reaching the level of networking that 

U.S. forces possess today. Indeed, the information war 

already has begun, and sophisticated acts of spying and 

espionage occur daily in cyberspace.

China makes little effort to veil its desire to develop 

systems capable of challenging those of the United 

States, the “gold standard” against which warfare capabilities currently are measured. Official pronouncements 

and literature suggest Beijing is exploring ways 

to apply ancient Chinese military doctrine to the 

information age in five domains: land, maritime, air, 

space, and cyberspace. To this effect, there seems to 

be consistency between strategic systems doctrine 

development and force structure modernization—that 

is, a reasonable degree of transparency between what 

the PLA has, what it wants, and why.

Conclusion.

The most pressing threats to China’s security are 

domestic, including the challenges of separatism, 

particularly with Taiwan; increasing protests over 

corruption; and nontraditional and transnational threats 

such as terrorism, pandemics, and narcotics. While 

pressing, however, none of these in its own right drives 

PLA modernization. Similarly, in terms of external 

threats, neither territorial disputes—a long-standing 

historical concern of China’s—nor an unfavorable 

regional environment seem to dictate certain 

modernization efforts. Rather, successful diplomatic 

implementation of a “good neighbor” policy of active 

engagement appears to be bearing fruits for China and 

its regional objectives. China seems poised to develop 

a network of friendly, economically interdependent 

neighbor states aligned in ways favorable to Beijing.

Most importantly, then, China worries that it has no 

ability to provide its own security of the international 

sea lines of communication, through which flow the 

maritime commerce fueling the engines of China’s 

meteoric economic growth (including ever-increasing 

amounts of energy products). Here, the United States 

has the greatest potential to damage China. China’s 

response has been to develop the bilateral relationships 

that defray this potential threat while amassing 

considerable naval capabilities of its own.

Ultimately, the current security landscape offers an 

ideal juncture for China and its military. With a relatively 

benign threat environment, the PLA can pursue military 

modernization largely unconstrained, orienting itself 

towards potential and long-term threats—especially the 

United States. Yet, modernization efforts and rationale 

vary among the PLA’s different arms, and by layering 

“needs” over “haves”—and scrutinizing the doctrines 

supporting them—a picture of discrepancies emerges. 

As the PLA grapples with the human elements of force 

modernization, steep learning curves in technological 

advances, and an increasingly wary international 

community, it will be pressured in the coming years to 

align its “walk” with its “talk.”
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The views expressed in this brief are those of the authors 

and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position 

of the Department of the Army, the Department of 

Defense, or the U.S. Government. This colloquium brief 

is cleared for public release; distribution is unlimited.

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