China Military Power 2

The New York Analysis of Policy and Government continues its presentation of the Pentagon report on China’s military power

MISSIONS AND TASKS OF CHINA’S ARMED FORCES IN THE “NEW ERA”

• With a force that totals approximately two million personnel in the regular forces, 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 range of land, air, and maritime operations as well as space, counterspace, electronic warfare (EW), and cyber 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], coerce Taiwan and rival claimants in territorial disputes, counter an intervention by a third party in a conflict along the PRC’s periphery, and project power globally.
• In 2020, the PLA continued to make progress implementing major structural reforms, fielding modern indigenous systems, building readiness, and strengthening its competency to conduct joint operations.

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Developments in the PLA’s Modernization and Reform

• In November 2020, a PRC Defense Ministry spokesperson stated that the PLA accomplished its modernization milestone to “generally achieve mechanization” in 2020 that was previously set by CCP leadership. The goal of mechanization can be broadly understood as the PLA seeking to modernize its weapons and equipment so they can be networked into “systems of systems” and utilize more advanced technologies suitable for “informatized” and “intelligentized” warfare.
• The People’s Liberation Army Army (PLAA) has approximately 975,000 activeduty personnel in combat units. Despite the COVID-19 pandemic, border clashes with India, and other significant events in 2020, the PLAA accelerated its training and fielding of equipment from the already fast pace of recent years. The PLAA also strove to increase the realism of its training and the effectiveness of Opposition Force (OPFOR) units.
• The People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) has numerically the largest navy in the world with an overall battle force of approximately 355 ships and submarines, including approximately more than 145 major surface combatants. As of 2020, the PLAN is largely composed of modern multi-role platforms. In the near-term, the PLAN will have the capability 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 global power projection capabilities. The PRC is enhancing its anti-submarine warfare (ASW) capabilities and competencies to protect the PLAN’s aircraft carriers and ballistic missile submarines.
• The People’s Liberation Army Air Force (PLAAF) and PLAN Aviation together constitute the largest aviation force in the region and the third largest in the world, with over 2,800 total aircraft (not including trainer variants or UAVs) of which approximately 2,250 are combat aircraft (including fighters, strategic bombers, tactical bombers, multi-mission tactical, and attack aircraft).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 Rocket Force (PLARF) organizes, mans, trains, and equips the PRC’s strategic land-based nuclear and conventional missile forces as well as associated support forces and missile bases. In 2020, the PLARF advanced its longterm modernization plans to enhance its “strategic deterrence” capabilities.
• ‒ The PRC is developing new intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) that will significantly improve its nuclear-capable missile forces and will require increased nuclear warhead production, partially due to the incorporation of multiple independently targetable reentry vehicle (MIRV) capabilities. The PRC has commenced building at least three solid-fueled ICBM silo fields, which will cumulatively contain hundreds of new ICBM silos.
• ‒ The PLARF continues to grow its inventory of road-mobile DF-26 intermediaterange ballistic missiles (IRBMs), which are capable of conducting both conventional and nuclear precision strikes against ground targets as well as conventional strikes against naval targets.
•  ‒ In 2020, the PLARF began to field its first operational hypersonic weapons system, the DF-17 hypersonic glide vehicle (HGV) capable medium-range ballistic missile (MRBM).
• The PLA Strategic Support Force (SSF) is a theater command-level organization established to centralize the PLA’s strategic space, cyber, electronic, information, communications, and psychological warfare missions and capabilities. The SSF oversees two deputy theater command-level departments: the Space Systems Department responsible for military space operations, and the Network Systems Department responsible for information operations (IO), which includes technical reconnaissance, EW, cyber warfare, and psychological operations.
• ‒ 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’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. The PRC is employing more sophisticated satellite operations and is probably testing dual-use technologies in space that could be applied to counterspace missions.
• Military Readiness: The CMC’s focus is on improving the PLA’s combat readiness and the guidance issued by senior leaders is increasingly evident in the PLA’s training and exercises. The PLA is training to “fight and win” through increasingly realistic combat training that uses dedicated “blue force” opponents and other elements to improve realism. Despite initial delays and cancellations in military training, exercises, research, and recruitment in the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic, impact to the overall readiness of the PLA remains minimal.

Capabilities for Counter Intervention and Power Projection

• The PLA has fielded, and is further developing, capabilities to provide options for the PRC to attempt to dissuade, deter, or, if ordered, defeat third-party intervention during a large-scale, theater campaign such as a Taiwan contingency. U.S. defense planners often refer to these collective capabilities as anti-access/area-denial (A2/AD) capabilities.
• The PLA’s A2/AD capabilities are to date the most robust within the First Island Chain, although the PRC is beginning to field significant capabilities capable of conducting operations out to the Second Island Chain and seeks to strengthen its capabilities to reach farther into the Pacific Ocean and throughout the globe.
• In addition to strike, air and missile defense, anti-surface and anti-submarine capabilities improvements, the PRC is focusing on information, cyber, and space and counterspace operations. The PLA’s focus on an integrated approach to the cyber domain using advanced technologies likely will lead to the PLA improving its ability to conduct cyber operations over the next several years.

Nuclear Capabilities

• Over the next decade, the PRC aims to modernize, diversify, and expand its nuclear forces.
•  The PRC is investing in, and expanding, the number of its land-, sea-, and air-based nuclear delivery platforms and constructing the infrastructure necessary to support this major expansion of its nuclear forces.
•  The PRC is also supporting this expansion by increasing its capacity to produce and separate plutonium by constructing fast breeder reactors and reprocessing facilities.
•  The accelerating pace of the PRC’s nuclear expansion may enable the PRC to have up to 700 deliverable nuclear warheads by 2027. The PRC likely intends to have at least 1,000 warheads by 2030, exceeding the pace and size the DoD projected in 2020.
•  The PRC has possibly already established a nascent “nuclear triad” with the development of a nuclear capable air-launched ballistic missile (ALBM) and improvement of its ground and sea-based nuclear capabilities.
•  New developments in 2020 further suggest that the PRC intends to increase the peacetime readiness of its nuclear forces by moving to a launch-on-warning (LOW) posture with an expanded silo-based force.

Chemical and Biological Research

• The PRC has engaged in biological activities with potential dual-use applications, which raise concerns regarding its compliance with the Biological and Toxins Weapons Convention (BWC) and the Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC).
•  Studies conducted at PRC military medical institutions discussed identifying, testing, and characterizing diverse families of potent toxins with dual-use applications.
•  Based on available information, 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 of pharmaceutical-based agents (PBAs) and toxins with potential dual-use applications.

Photo: China fighter plane (Chinese Defense Ministry photo)

The Report concludes tomorrow