Excerpted & Expanded Source Material
COVID-19 mitigation measures and multiple outbreaks throughout 2022 probably did not significantly impact PLA combat readiness, judging from the PLA’s December 2022 skirmishes with Indian forces near Tawang along the LAC and other deployments. While some non-combat programs like the PLA’s annual spring recruitment program were delayed, the PLA’s mitigation efforts probably were successful in limiting COVID-19 outbreaks within China’s military.
The PRC has stated its defense policy aims to safeguard its national sovereignty, security, and development interests. CCP leaders view these interests as foundational to their national strategy. The modernization of the armed forces is an indispensable element of the Party’s national strategy to modernize the country. At the Fifth Plenum in October 2020, the CCP declared the PRC’s ambitions for becoming a rich country are closely integrated with its ambitions to develop a powerful military. The PRC’s defense policy and military strategy primarily orients the PLA toward “safeguarding” its perceived “sovereignty and security” interests in the region while countering the United States. At the same time, CCP leaders increasingly cast the armed forces as a practical instrument to defend the PRC’s expanding global interests and to advance its foreign policy goals within the framework of “Great Power Diplomacy with Chinese Characteristics.”
Xi’s work report to the 20th Party Congress in October 2022 said that the People’s Liberation Army must move quicker with troop training and new strategies to reach its target of becoming a world-class military. The PRC’s military strategy is based on “active defense,” a concept that adopts the principles of strategic defense in combination with offensive action at the operational and tactical levels. To adapt the PRC’s armed forces to long-term trends in global military affairs and meet the country’s evolving national security needs, PRC leaders stress the imperative of meeting key military transformation targets set for 2027 and 2035. These milestones seek to align the PLA’s transformation with the PRC’s overall national modernization so that by the end of 2049, the PRC will field a “world-class” military.
Strategic Assessment
A key driver of the PRC’s defense policy is how the CCP leaders perceive the relative threats and opportunities facing the country’s comprehensive national development. During Chairman Xi’s CCP centenary speech, he called for the full implementation of the Party’s idea of strengthening the army in the new era. The last defense white paper, China’s National Defense in the New Era, published in 2019, reaffirmed that China’s armed forces are aligned with and contribute to the strategies of the CCP, stating that ongoing military reforms “ensure absolute leadership of the CCP over the military.” According to the paper, Beijing views the international environment as undergoing “profound changes unseen in a century.” The CCP concludes that “international strategic competition is on the rise” and expresses deep concerns at what it sees as growing sources of instability in the near-term. Beijing offers no introspection on its role in stirring geopolitical tensions through its economic practices, military activities and modernization, excessive maritime territorial claims, assertive diplomacy, or efforts to revise aspects of global governance. Rather, the PRC describes the international system as being “…undermined by growing hegemonism, power politics, unilateralism and constant regional conflicts and wars.” Similarly, the PRC contends that global military competition is intensifying and that “major countries” are adjusting their security and military strategies, reorganizing their militaries, and are developing new types of combat forces to “seize the strategic commanding heights in military competition.”
Defense Policy
The PRC’s stated defense policy is to “resolutely safeguard” its sovereignty, security, and development interests, according to its 2019 defense white paper, which provides continuity with past statements by PRC senior leaders and other official documents. Xi’s work report to the 20th Party Congress reiterated this policy, saying that fast modernization of the PLA’s organization, personnel, and military technology standards, under the absolute leadership of the party, would be key not only to defending China’s sovereignty but also its security and developmental interests. In practice, the PRC’s military power is increasingly a central feature of the CCP’s regional and global ambitions. The 2019 defense white paper also identifies the PRC’s national defense aims that support these interests, in likely order of importance:
- to deter and resist aggression;
- to safeguard national political security, the people’s security, and social stability;
- to oppose and contain “Taiwan independence;”
- to crack down on proponents of separatist movements such as “Tibet independence” and the creation of “East Turkistan;”
- to safeguard national sovereignty, unity, territorial integrity, and security;
- to safeguard the PRC’s maritime rights and interests;
- to safeguard the PRC’s security interests in outer space, the electromagnetic spectrum, and cyberspace;
- to safeguard the PRC’s overseas interests; and
- to support the sustainable development of the country.
Key changes in defense policy for the “New Era” include efforts to improve coordination across the party-state to leverage all organs of national power in a unified approach to support the CCP’s ambitions of a global military capability. Unlike previous defense white papers, China’s National Defense in the New Era explicitly stressed the PRC’s armed forces’ alignment and support to the Party’s broader societal and foreign policy objectives. For example, the white paper states that the PRC’s armed forces must be ready to “provide strong strategic support for the realization of the Chinese Dream of national rejuvenation, and to make new and greater contributions to the building of a shared future for mankind.” Also notable is the explicit alignment between the PRC’s defense and foreign policies, particularly in the armed forces’ role in protecting the PRC’s overseas interests and furthering the CCP’s concept of “strategic partnerships” with other countries.
Military Strategic Guidelines (军事战略方针)
The Chairman of the CMC issues military strategic guidelines to the PLA that provide the foundation of the PRC’s military strategy. The military strategic guidelines set the general principles and concepts for the use of force in support of the CCP’s strategic objectives, provide guidance on the threats and conditions the armed forces should be prepared to face, and set priorities for planning, modernization, force structure, and readiness. The CCP leadership issues new military strategic guidelines, or adjusts existing guidelines, whenever they perceive it necessary to shift the PLA’s priorities based on the Party’s perceptions of China’s security environment or changes in the character of warfare.
Since 2019, trends indicate the PRC has reviewed and adjusted its military strategic guidelines. In early 2019, PRC state media indicated that Beijing held senior-level meetings to “establish the military strategy of the ‘New Era.’” The PRC’s 2019 defense white paper states that the PLA is implementing guidelines for the “New Era” that “…actively adapt to the new landscape of strategic competition, the new demands of national security, and new developments in modern warfare…” PRC official media in the latter half of 2019 echoed these themes and described the guidelines as constituting a notable change. The PRC’s defense white paper may reflect changes in the guidelines given its emphasis on the intensification of global military competition, the increase in the pace of technological change, and the military modernization themes introduced by General Secretary Xi at the 19th Party Congress. Documents released following the Fifth Plenum of the 19th Central Committee in October 2020 hailed progress in the “comprehensive and in-depth” implementation of the “New Era military strategic guidelines.”
These developments are notable because the CCP leadership has issued new military strategic guidelines or adjusted its guidelines only a few times since the end of the Cold War. In 1993, the CMC under Jiang Zemin directed the PLA to prepare to win “local wars” under “high-tech conditions” after observing U.S. military operations in the Gulf War. In 2004, the CMC under Hu Jintao ordered the military to focus on winning “local wars under informationized conditions.” In 2014, the CMC placed greater focus on conflicts in the maritime domain and fighting “informatized local wars.”
Military Strategy — Active Defense
The PRC’s military strategy is based on what it describes as “active defense,” a concept that adopts the principles of strategic defense in combination with offensive action at the operational and tactical levels. Active defense is neither a purely defensive strategy nor limited to territorial defense. Active defense encompasses offensive and preemptive aspects. It can apply to the PRC acting externally to defend its interests. Active defense is rooted in the principle of avoiding initiating armed conflict but responding forcefully if challenged. The PRC’s 2019 defense white paper reaffirmed active defense as the basis for its military strategy. Minister of National Defense General Wei Fenghe reiterated this principle of active defense in his speech at the Ninth Beijing Xiangshan Forum in 2019, stating that the PRC “will not attack unless we are attacked, but will surely counterattack if attacked.”
First adopted by the CCP in the 1930s, active defense has served as the basis for the PRC’s military strategy since its founding in 1949. Although the PRC has adjusted and tailored the specifics of active defense over time based on changes in strategic circumstances, its general principles have remained consistent. Contemporary PRC writings describe the tenets of active defense as:
- Adhere to a position of self-defense and stay with striking back. This describes the basic principle for the use of military force under active defense. The PRC’s 2019 defense white paper describes this principle as, “We will not attack unless we are attacked, but we will surely counterattack if attacked.” Active defense may entail defensive counterattacks in response to an attack or preemptively striking an adversary that the PRC judges is preparing to attack.
- Combine strategic defense with operational and tactical offense. This aspect offers two approaches to warfare influenced by Mao Zedong’s notion of using defense and offense in turns. First, active defense may involve offensive campaigns, operations, and tactical actions in support of the strategic defense. These may occur rapidly and along “external lines.” Second, it uses strategic defense to weaken the enemy and set the conditions to transition into strategic offense in order to secure victory. Strategic defense is not equivalent to deterrence but includes deterrence. Strategic defense also includes actions taken after deterrence has failed, such as conducting conventional strikes against an adversary.
- Taking the operational initiative. This aspect emphasizes the effective use of offensives at the operational and tactical levels, avoiding enemy strengths, and concentrating on building asymmetric advantages against enemy weaknesses to “change what is inferior into what is superior.”
- Strive for the best possibilities. This calls for thorough peacetime military preparations and planning based on fighting the most challenging threat under the most complicated circumstances “in order to get the best results.” This aspect stresses the importance of setting conditions in advance and suggests it is preferable to be prepared and not fight, than to fight unprepared.
- The dialectical unity of restraining war and winning war. This tenet seeks to resolve the dilemma that using too little force may protract a war instead of stopping it while the unconstrained use of force may worsen a war and make it harder to stop. Calling for the “effective restraint of warfare,” this tenet seeks to avoid war first through sufficient military preparations and powerful conventional and strategic forces that act in concert with political and diplomatic efforts to “subdue the enemy’s troops without fighting.” If war is unavoidable, however, this aspect calls for restraining war by taking the “opening move” and “using war to stop war.”
- Soldiers and the people are the source of victory. This integrates the concept of active defense with the concept of “people’s war.” People’s war comprises subordinate military strategies, “guerrilla war” and “protracted war,” that Mao saw as a means to harness the capacity of China’s populace as a source of political legitimacy and mobilization to generate military power. Contemporary PRC writings link “people’s war” to national mobilization and participation in wartime as a whole-of-nation concept of warfare.
Military Missions and Tasks. The CMC directs the PLA to be ready and able to perform specific missions and tasks to support the Party’s strategy and defend the PRC’s sovereignty, security, and development interests. The PLA’s missions and tasks in the “New Era” include safeguarding China’s territorial sovereignty and maritime rights and interests, maintaining combat readiness, conducting military training under real combat conditions, safeguarding China’s nuclear weapons and its interests in the space and cyberspace domains, countering terrorism and maintaining stability, protecting the PRC’s overseas interests, and participating in emergency response and disaster relief.
Modernization Objectives and Targets. In his speech at the 20th Party Congress, Xi detailed PLA goals of enhancing party loyalty in the military, while simultaneously strengthening the military through reform, science and technology, personnel training, mechanization, informatization, and modernized military strategies.
In 2020, the PLA added a new milestone for modernization in 2027, to accelerate the integrated development of mechanization, informatization, and intelligentization of the PRC’s armed forces, which if realized could give the PLA capabilities to be a more credible military tool for the CCP’s Taiwan unification efforts. The PLA’s 2027 modernization goal aligns with the 100th anniversary of the PLA’s founding. During his October 2022 speech at the opening ceremony of the 20th Party Congress, Xi said that China intends to complete the plan to modernize the PLA by 2027. In a March 2021 speech, Xi detailed that the 2027 modernization goal is the first step in a broader modernization effort. PLA writings note the “three-step” modernization plan connects “near-, medium-, and long-term goals in 2027, 2035, and 2049” respectively.
The PRC’s goals for modernizing its armed forces in the “New Era” are as follows:
- By 2027: “Accelerate the integrated development of mechanization, informatization, and intelligentization,” while boosting the speed of modernization in military theories, organizations, personnel, and weapons and equipment.
- By 2035: “To comprehensively advance the modernization of military theory, organizational structure, military personnel, and weaponry and equipment in step with the modernization of the country and basically complete the modernization of national defense and the military…”
- By 2049: “To fully transform the people’s armed forces into world-class forces.”
The 5th Plenum communique holds that the 2027 goal means that the Chinese military should comprehensively push forward the modernization of military theories, military organizational form, military personnel, and weapons and equipment. PRC media, citing a military source, connected the PLA’s 2027 goals to developing the capabilities to counter the U.S. military in the Indo-Pacific region, and compel Taiwan’s leadership to the negotiation table on the PRC’s terms.
Military Ambitions. The CCP has not defined what it means by its ambition to have a “world-class” military by the end of 2049. Within the context of China’s national strategy, however, it is likely that the PRC will seek to develop a military by mid-century that is equal to—or, in some cases, superior to—the U.S. military, and that of any other great power that Beijing views as a threat to its sovereignty, security, and development interests. Given the far-reaching ambitions the CCP has for a rejuvenated China, it is unlikely that the Party would aim for an end state in which the PRC would remain in a position of military inferiority vis-à-vis the United States or any other potential rival. However, this does not mean that the PRC will aim for the PLA to mirror the U.S. military in terms of capacity, capability, or readiness. The PRC will likely seek to develop its “world-class” military in a manner that it believes best suits the needs of its armed forces to defend and advance the country’s interests and how the PLA—guided by the Party— adapts to the changing character of warfare.
Way of War. The PLA increasingly views warfare as a confrontation between opposing operational systems, rather than a war of annihilation between opposing mechanized military forces. Following this logic, PLA writings refer to systems destruction warfare (体系破击战) as the next way of war, transforming from mechanized warfare to an informatized and intelligentized style warfare. Although not a new PLA approach, systems destruction warfare likely continues to be the principal theory guiding its way of war.
In November 2020, the CMC announced that it had issued the “Chinese People's Liberation Army Joint Operations Outline (Trial).” The Outline establishes a system for the PLA’s joint operations and focuses on clarifying basic issues regarding the organization and implementation of joint operations, command rights and responsibilities, and the principles, requirements, and procedures for joint operations, combat support, national defense mobilization, and political work. According to PLA writings, the Outline describes how the future combat style of the PLA will be integrated joint operations under the unified command of a joint operations command system. PLA writers emphasized that winning future wars would require a high degree of joint integration of various combat forces and combat elements from across the PLA services and other arms and across all domains, with jointness deepened at the operational and tactical levels. PLA writings highlight the multi-domain component of integrated joint operations and the need to coordinate the development of “mechanization, informatization, and intelligentization integration.” The PLA’s “operational regulations” were last updated in 1999 and PLA leaders and PLA-affiliated academics have pointed to the lack of updated doctrine, which is out of step with the 2015-era structural command and organizational reforms, and an obstacle to advancing the next steps in building a unified joint PLA.
Since the CMC issued the Outline, the PLA has launched a force-wide effort to study and implement it, including through joint operations undertaken during exercises. The PLA is working to turn the Outline’s vision of joint operations into reality by breaking down institutional barriers and standardizing command systems in practice. Along the way, the PLA seeks to identify shortcomings, develop solutions, and facilitate the adoption of modern operational concepts.
Core Operational Concept. In 2021, the PLA began discussing a new “core operational concept,” called “Multi-Domain Precision Warfare (多域精确战)” (MDPW). MDPW is intended to leverage a C4ISR network that incorporates advances in big data and artificial intelligence, what the PLA calls the “network information system-of-systems,” to rapidly identify key vulnerabilities in the U.S. operational system and then combine joint forces across domains to launch precision strikes against those vulnerabilities. MDPW is meant to sit atop an “operational conceptual system-of-systems,” suggesting the PLA will develop additional subordinate operational concepts and use simulations, war games, and exercises to test, evaluate, and improve these future-oriented operational concepts. The timing of MDPW’s appearance vis-à-vis China’s updated doctrine and military strategic guidelines suggests that MDPW serves as a connection between them, likely amplifying themes and guidance in both while focusing on the contours of what the PLA must be able to do to win future wars.
Joint Firepower Strike. PLA writings have long emphasized the importance of joint firepower strikes as a component of large-scale operations. Joint firepower strikes include multiple services combining to utilize their firepower capabilities to create substantial effect and have been explicitly tied to a Taiwan invasion in PLA writings. During the August 2022 Congressional Delegation (CODEL) visit to Taiwan, the PLA Rocket Force fired multiple ballistic missiles into impact zones in waters around Taiwan; this included at least four missiles that overflew Taiwan, which was unprecedented. The military drills afforded the PLA an opportunity to train simulated joint firepower strike operations.
Readiness. Alongside modernizing the PLA’s capabilities and organizational reform, PRC’s leaders have identified enhancing the combat readiness of the armed forces as an important element in developing the PRC’s military strength. In recent years, Xi and senior military leaders have continued to emphasize the need to build the PLA’s combat readiness so it can “fight and win wars.” This emphasis has not only entailed the PLA conducting more training but making its training more rigorous and realistic as well as addressing issues in the PLA’s training and education systems relating to conducting complex joint operations and adapting to other aspects of modern warfare. It probably has also led to a standardization of a combat readiness system across the PLA to enable the PRC to quickly transition to a wartime footing.
Along with the CCP leadership’s focus on improving the PLA’s combat readiness, in recent years PLA media outlets have noted shortcomings in the military’s training and education systems that reportedly left some commanders—particularly at the operational level— inadequately prepared for modern warfare. In response to perceived personnel deficiencies within the PLA, Xi approved and issued a new series of regulations in July 2022 regarding the management of PLA soldiers seeking to improve recruiting, training, promotions, benefits, and demobilization efforts for NCOs. In recent years, PLA media outlets have identified the need for the military to address the “Five Incapables” problem: that some commanders cannot (1) judge situations, (2) understand higher authorities’ intentions, (3) make operational decisions, (4) deploy forces, and (5) manage unexpected situations. Although PLA writings do not specify how widespread the “Five Incapables” are, PLA media outlets have consistently raised them. One outside expert has noted this may indicate the PLA lacks confidence in its proficiency to execute its own operational concepts. Additionally, senior Party and PLA leaders are keenly aware that the military has not experienced combat in decades nor fought with its current suite of capabilities and organizational structures. PLA leaders and state media frequently call on the force to remedy the “peacetime disease” that manifests in the form of what it characterizes as lax training attitudes and practices that are viewed as hindering combat readiness.
COVID-19 mitigation measures and multiple outbreaks throughout 2022 probably did not significantly undermine PLA combat readiness, judging from the PLA’s December 2022 skirmishes with Indian forces near Tawang along the LAC, and other deployments.Although some non-combat programs like the PLA’s annual spring recruitment program were delayed, the PLA’s mitigation efforts probably were successful in limiting COVID-19 outbreaks within China’s military.
Anti-Corruption Campaign. Anticorruption investigations in the PLA are a component of a Party-wide effort that General Secretary Xi strengthened and accelerated shortly after taking office. The stated goal of these campaigns is to safeguard the legitimacy of the CCP, root out corruption, improve governance, and centralize Xi and the Party’s authority. Military discipline inspectors led by the CMC Discipline Inspection Commission have targeted individual power networks and occupational specialties historically prone to corruption, such as officers connected to disgraced former CMC Vice Chairmen Xu Caihou and Guo Boxiong, and former Chief of Joint Staff General Fang Fenghui. In 2022, General Secretary Xi delivered a speech to the CCP Central Commission for Discipline Inspection in which he stated that although serious potential dangers of corruption within the Party and the military have been rooted out, the fight against corruption is still raging in the PRC. In mid-2023, PRC media announced that PLA Rocket Force leadership was being replaced and the PLA launched an inquiry into corruption linked to the procurement of military equipment, indicating that the PLA’s anti-corruption campaign remains incomplete. Emblematic of Xi’s sustained focus on anti-corruption efforts in 2022, PRC authorities continued frequent arrests of high-ranking officials and business elites for allegations of taking bribes and abusing power, especially in the financial sector. In November 2022 alone, PRC authorities arrested the Vice Governor of the People’s Bank of China and former CEO of a major PRC telecommunications firm as a result of investigations by CCP anti-corruption bodies.
Effects of COVID-19 on PLA Modernization and Reform Goals. In 2022, the COVID-19 pandemic likely had little effect on the PLA’s modernization and reform goals. At the 20th Party Congress in October, Xi continued to emphasize promoting the modernization of China’s national defense and armed forces. A few months later, in his annual new year's address, Xi highlighted military and strategic achievements from 2022 including the PLA’s 95th anniversary, the launching of the PLAN’s third aircraft carrier, and the completion of China's space station. In 2022, the PLA continued to play a role in COVID-19 response activity, such as mobilizing approximately 2,000 medical personnel to Shanghai during an outbreak in April. The PRC’s recent Government Work Report referenced PLA activities through the last year, including COVID-19 response that boosted China’s national defense mobilization capability.
Party-Army Relations. The PLA is the principal armed wing of the CCP and, as a Party-army, does not directly serve the state but rather is under the direct control of the Party. The CCP CMC, currently chaired by Xi, is the highest military decision-making body in the PRC. As a Party-army, the PLA is a political actor. As a constituency within the Party, it participates in the PRC’s political and governance systems. As the ultimate guarantor of the Party’s rule and the PRC’s government system, the PLA’s missions include formal and informal domestic security missions in addition to its national defense missions. Since becoming CMC Chairman, Xi has implemented multiple reforms which reduced PLA autonomy and greatly strengthened Party control over the military. Party leaders and official statements continue to emphasize the principles of the Party’s absolute control over the PLA and the PLA’s loyalty to the Party.