Military and Security Developments Involving the People's Republic of China/Chapter 1

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4586860Military and Security Developments Involving the People's Republic of China2023the United States Department of Defense

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Understanding the tenets of the People's Republic of China's (PRC’s) national strategy is essential to understanding the drivers of China's security and military strategy. This, in turn, offers insights on the current and future course of the People's Liberation Army's (PLA) reform and modernization in terms of its strength, technological advances, organization, and operational concepts—all of which could offer PRC leaders expanded military options to support its national goals.

CHINA'S NATIONAL STRATEGY

KEY TAKEAWAYS

The PRC's national strategy is to achieve "the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation" by 2049. The strategy is a determined pursuit of political, social, and military modernity to expand the PRC's national power, perfect its governance, and revise the international order in support of the PRC's system of governance and national interests. The PRC views the United States as deploying a whole-of-government effort meant to contain the PRC's rise, which presents obstacles to its national strategy.
The PRC characterizes its view of strategic competition in terms of a rivalry among powerful nation states as well as a clash of opposing ideological systems. PRC leaders believe that structural changes in the international system and confrontational United States are the root causes of intensifying strategic competition between the PRC and the United States.
The PRC's strategy entails deliberate and determined efforts to amass, improve, and harness the internal and external elements of national power that will place the PRC in a "leading position" in an enduring competition between systems.

The PRC's strategy aims to realize "the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation." This objective, which General Secretary Xi Jinping (also referred to as Chairman of the Central Military Commission or President of the PRC, depending on the context of his responsibilities) calls "the Chinese Dream," is a national aspiration to elevate the PRC to a position of strength, prosperity, and leadership on the world stage.

PRC leaders characterize their strategy to achieve political, social, and economic modernity—as defined by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP or Party)—as a grand national endeavor that is sweeping in scope and far-reaching in how it will transform the PRC and, in turn, the world. The Party defines national rejuvenation as a state in which the PRC is "prosperous, strong, democratic, culturally advanced, harmonious, and beautiful." The PRC's strategy entails deliberate and determined efforts to amass, improve, and harness the internal and external elements of national power that will place the PRC in a "leading position." CCP leaders frequently refer to building the PRC's "comprehensive" national power in this manner. The PRC's strategy entails a long-term planning process to attain national rejuvenation that sets objectives, priorities, and milestones across virtually every aspect of governance and policy area including economics, political affairs, the rule of law, public order, national security, diplomacy, and defense as well as social affairs, education, science and technology, culture, the environment, and other matters. CCP officials have discussed achieving the unification of PRC and Taiwan as an element of national rejuvenation.

The PRC pursues its efforts to generate greater national power from the basis of defending and advancing its sovereignty, security, and development interests. Consequently, the PRC's national ambitions and statecraft rest on the foundation of the CCP-dominated political ideology of enhancing the path, theory, system, and culture of "Socialism with Chinese Characteristics." The objective of this Party-led strategy is perhaps best stated in what the Party calls its "basic line," a single sentence in the CCP's constitution that serves as the mission of the Party and as the cornerstone for its policymaking. Last amended at the 20th Party Congress in 2022, it states:

"The basic line of the Communist Party of China in the primary stage of socialism is to lead all the people of China together in a self-reliant and pioneering effort, making economic development the central task, upholding the Four Cardinal Principles, and remaining committed to reform and opening up, so as to see China becomes a great modern socialist country that is prosperous, strong, democratic, culturally advanced, harmonious, and beautiful."

The 20th Party Congress also incorporated new developments since 2017 in "Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era," after the term was adopted into the CCP's constitution. Unanimously agreed upon by Party delegates to the 19th Party Congress, the inclusion of Xi Jinping's namesake ideology into the CCP constitution was hailed as a "guide to action for the entire Party and all the Chinese people to strive for the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation."

External Conditions. Among the external elements of the PRC's national strategy are its deliberate efforts to create a "favorable" international environment that is conducive to the PRC's rise and national rejuvenation. In the 20th Party Congress Political Work Report, the CCP expanded on its calls to prepare for an increasingly turbulent international climate and prioritized securing and safeguarding its overseas interests. The Party stressed the need for strengthening the PRC's capacity to secure its overseas interests, including improving its control over grain, energy and other resources, and key industrial and supply chains. The report also stressed the CCP's need to prevent digital penetration, sabotage, subversion, and separatism activities from external actors. With regard to national security, the CCP reported it had "enhanced" the PRC's security on all fronts and "withstood political, economic, ideological, and natural risks, challenges, and trials." However, in 2021 and into 2022, PRC leadership contended with the ongoing effects of the COVID-19 pandemic that brought challenges for the PRC's diplomatic, cultural, and economic influence abroad. PRC leadership also took diplomatic measures to manage increased global concern about PRC rhetorical and diplomatic alignment with Russia before, immediately following, and during the war on Ukraine, as well as concern for the PRC's growing assertive and coercive economic and military actions. PRC leaders continue to believe that global trends, especially perceived U.S. decline, are generally conducive to their long-term interests.

As PRC leadership views a divided China as a weak China, they argue that "full reunification"—including the resolution of the 'Taiwan question' by 2049 and solidifying the PRC's "overall jurisdiction" over Hong Kong—is one of the fundamental conditions of national rejuvenation. Beijing views as an imperative that China field a "world-class" military by 2049 that can "fight and win" and "resolutely safeguard" the country's sovereignty, security, and development interests. In support of this goal, on 26 December 2020 the National People's Congress passed revisions to the PRC's National Defense Law, which broadened the legal justification for PLA mobilization to include defense of China's "development interests." The codification of this language in PRC law is intended to add legitimacy to the use of military force to safeguard the PRC's overseas interests.

China's leaders claim national rejuvenation requires the PRC to "take an active part in leading the reform of the global governance system" as many rules and norms were established, in the PRC's view, during a time of PRC weakness and without the PRC's consultation and input. The Party views aspects of the prevailing international rules-based system as constraining the PRC's strategic ambitions and incompatible with its sovereignty, security, political preferences, and development interests. To the PRC's leaders, revisions are necessary to accommodate the PRC's development and should reflect the CCP's preferred transformation in the distribution of power to forge an external environment more favorable to the PRC's political governance system and national interests.

Key Objectives and Milestones. For decades, the PRC's leaders have framed their pursuit of modernity and power as advancing China along a specific trajectory, with the PRC’s centenary in 2049 serving as the target for achieving national rejuvenation and becoming a "great modern socialist country." From the PRC’s perspective, the PRC is a developing nation that must transition into a "fully developed and highly advanced" socialist society, and this trajectory involves the Party leadership shepherding the PRC through different stages of gradual but systematic modernization and development. The Party demarcates the stages of the PRC's strategy with milestones accompanied by objectives and priorities determined by the Party's long-term planning processes.

Reflecting on the PRC's progress at the 19th Party Congress in 2017, Xi declared that China had assumed "...a leading position in terms of economic and technological strength, defense capabilities, and comprehensive national strength" and, therefore, "crossed the threshold into a new era." Xi's declaration that the PRC had entered a "New Era" was not a change in strategic objectives, but an important signal of confidence that the PRC's progress was sufficient to tackle the next set of challenges in its development. For the PRC's strategy in the "New Era," Xi laid out a broad plan to achieve national rejuvenation with a timeline linked to two symbolically important centenary milestones reached in 2021 (the CCP's centenary) and 2049 (the PRC's centenary). To bridge the lengthy gap between the two anniversaries, Xi added interim national objectives for 2035 and laid out a broad two-stage modernization plan to reach 2049. Further demonstrating the Party’s confidence in the PRC's progress, Xi's objectives for 2035 moved up certain mid-century targets set by the Party going back to 1987.

At his centenary speech marking the 100^th anniversary of the CCP on July 1st, 2021, Xi declared that China had "realized the first centenary goal of building a moderately prosperous society in all respects." Beyond 2021, the PRC will use the "moderately prosperous society" as the basis for Xi’s "two-stage" plan to achieve national rejuvenation by the PRC's centenary in 2049. In the first stage, from 2021 to 2035, the Party aims for the PRC to "basically" meet its initial thresholds for becoming a "great modern socialist country." In this stage, the PRC will likely continue to prioritize economic development as "the central task," but rather than rapid economic growth, it will seek to address its uneven economic development and inequalities that Beijing recognized as the new "principal contradiction" in PRC society in the "New Era." By 2035, the PRC will also seek to increase its economic and technological strength to become a "global leader in innovation" and aim to "basically" complete its military modernization. The PRC will also seek to significantly strengthen its cultural "soft power" and improve its domestic rule of law and governance systems.

In the second stage from 2035 to 2049, the PRC aims to complete its development and attain national rejuvenation, realizing an international status that Xi describes as a "global leader in terms of comprehensive national strength and international influence." A renewed PRC will have attained—among the Party's many goals—its objectives to field a "world-class" military and assume a leading position within an international order revised in line with the PRC's overall foreign policy goal to establish what it refers to as a "community of common destiny (人类命运共同体)," or the PRC's preferred official English translation "community with a shared future for mankind."

Historic Continuity. Understanding the origins of the PRC's national rejuvenation is crucial to understanding how the PRC will likely shape and pursue this strategic objective. PRC leaders have consistently framed their efforts as seeking to "restore" China to a preeminent place in the world after enduring what the Party characterizes as China's "century of humiliation" beginning in the 19th century as the Qing Dynasty began to disintegrate and lasting until the founding of the PRC in 1949. Although the Party's exact articulation of this goal as "the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation" first emerged in the late 1980s, the Party has championed the cause of rebuilding China since the 1920s. Xi frequently points to the CCP's steadfastness to the cause of national rejuvenation and describes it as the Party's "original aspiration."

The Party’s narrative of national rejuvenation speaks to the deep impressions left on the PRC's political landscape over an era defined by the disintegration of China's polity, repeated violations of China's sovereignty by foreign powers, and the prolonged absence of physical and economic security for many Chinese people. For a culture with a history stretching back thousands of years—much of it spent as one of the most powerful and advanced civilizations in the world—nationalist appeals to restore China's greatness are deeply rooted. The threads of national renewal can be traced to China's reformers and nationalist revolutionary leaders in the late Qing Dynasty and emerged as a common nationalist theme in the fractured politics of China's Republican Era. This resonance is crucial to understanding why the CCP portrays the PRC's rejuvenation as a nationalist project that the Party "shoulders" for the country.

The PRC's Strategy and the CCP. The Party's leaders frame "Socialism with Chinese Characteristics" and the CCP as indispensable to the PRC overcoming its historical circumstances and attaining national rejuvenation. Xi stated in a speech to the CCP Central Committee in 2013, "Which ideological system a country implements depends on one crucial issue: can this ideology resolve the historical problems facing the country?" From the Party's perspective, its leadership and systems are uniquely able to restore the PRC's strength, prosperity, and prestige—underscored with the implicit warning that any deviation from socialism's path would result in "chaos" and China falling behind on its "historic mission." As Xi stated, "...only socialism can save China—and only Socialism with Chinese Characteristics can develop China."

CCP leaders flatly reject the notion that the Party has abandoned its socialist ideology in recent decades with the introduction of market features into the PRC's economy or drifted towards a non-ideological form of governance. The Party asserts that the PRC remains on the path of "socialist modernization" but it seeks to advance the country gradually as a lesson painfully learned from the Mao-era catastrophes that aimed for rapid progress. Accordingly, the Party claims that to perform its decisive role in guiding the PRC's development into a "great modern socialist country," it must ensure that the country advances in line with "the Four Cardinal Principles (四项基本原则)." First stated by Deng Xiaoping and later written into the CCP Constitution, these principles mandate the Party "to keep to the path of socialism, to uphold the people’s democratic dictatorship, to uphold the leadership of the CCP, and to uphold Marxism-Leninism and Mao Zedong Thought." The Four Cardinal Principles are the basis for political and governance reforms pursued by the Party and the outer boundaries of its efforts to "reform" and "open up" the country.

Xi told Party cadres in 2014, "promoting the modernization of the national governance system and capacity is definitely not Westernization or capitalism." In addition to cultivating ideological discipline and fighting corruption within the Party, Xi has sought to advance the PRC's strategy by strengthening the Party's primacy across China's governance systems and making the Party more effective at managing China’s political, economic and social problems. Xi's emphasis on building the CCP's institutional capacity and promoting internal unity—which he views as the means for the Party to perform its strategic role—has become a prominent feature of his tenure.

Competition Between Systems. PRC leaders believe that structural changes in the international system and an increasingly confrontational United States are the root causes of intensifying strategic competition between China and the United States. The PRC's leadership has long viewed China as embroiled in a major international strategic competition with other states. Throughout the post-Mao reform era and particularly after the end of the Cold War, the Party's leaders recognized their socialist system was—and would remain over the long-term—an underlying source of tension with the West. Given the Party's ambitions to "restore" the PRC's place in the world and their assessment of the PRC's relative weakness via-a-vis rival states, CCP leaders recognized the PRC's growing strength could threaten to aggravate tensions with others without careful management. Deng Xiaoping's reputed approach to this dilemma, as attributed by other Party leaders, was for China to, "hide our capacities and bide our time, be good at maintaining a low profile; and never claim leadership." Although the PRC's leaders have consistently pursued national rejuvenation as their goal, they have demonstrated a degree of strategic adaptability to seize opportunities and manage threats to their overall strategic objectives.

Over time, the PRC has characterized China’s view of strategic competition in terms of a rivalry among powerful nation states, most importantly the United States, as well as a clash of opposing ideological systems. The PRC's leaders have indicated they view competition as entailing aspects of cooperation and conflict and that the Party would need to be adaptable, flexible, and above all patient. The PRC's leaders have also offered a view of competition based on relative levels of economic, technological, and military power. Speaking to the CCP Central Committee in 2013, Xi remarked that the Party needed to "appreciate" that "developed Western nations" would continue to possess "real, long-term advantages" over China in the economic, technological, and military domains. Xi argued that China would need to "prepare for a long period of cooperation and of conflict between these two social systems in each of these domains." Xi also alluded to the core elements of "national rejuvenation" as the PRC's approach to this competition. Xi stated, "Most importantly, we must concentrate our efforts on bettering our own affairs, continually broadening our comprehensive national power, improving the lives of our people, building a socialism that is superior to capitalism, and laying the foundation for a future where we will win the initiative and have the dominant position."

CCP Views of Geostrategic Shifts. In the past two years, General Secretary Xi has presented his thoughts on the PRC's strategic environment on numerous occasions. In 2020, CCP leaders, including Xi himself, convened several meetings on "growing risks" and, in the communique following the 5^th Plenum in October 2020, stressed that the PRC is on the brink of "changes unseen in a century," but also that China would benefit from a "profound adjustment in the international balance of power." In his CCP 100^th anniversary speech, Xi asserted that, as the world experienced "once-in-a-century changes," China had to adopt "a holistic approach to national security that balances development and security imperatives" and implement "the national rejuvenation." In his 2022 New Year’s speech, Xi stated that China needed to "remain mindful of potential risks" while maintaining "strategic focus and determination."

Since just prior to the dissolution of the Soviet Union, PRC leaders have consistently characterized China’s security environment as undergoing intense changes and viewed the international order as shifting toward a multipolar system more commensurate with the PRC’s development. The Party views a shift toward a multipolar system as consistent with its perception of global power trends. This shift is vital for the PRC to advance its strategy, perceiving U.S. power as a constraint that impedes many of the PRC's goals. The PRC's leaders have eagerly embraced narratives of the West's relative decline and the inevitability of China's rise as largely consistent with their strategy and evidence of China's progress.

The Party views core aspects of the current international system as incompatible with its vision for a revised order premised on its "community of common destiny." The PRC's leaders view U.S. security alliances and partnerships, especially those in the Indo-Pacific, as destabilizing and irreconcilable with the PRC's sovereignty, security, and development interests. Regionally, the PRC's 2019 defense white paper claims that "Asia-Pacific" countries are "increasingly aware that they are members" of the PRC's "community with a shared future for mankind" and that managing disputes through dialogue is its "preferred policy option."

Beijing has also expressed concerns over growing global instability and a mounting sense of insecurity that it views as instigated by the United States. The PRC's 2019 defense white paper criticized the United States as the "principal instigator" of global instability and driver of "international strategic competition." China's leadership views U.S. policy toward the PRC as a critical factor affecting the PRC's national objectives and increasingly views the United States as more willing to confront Beijing where U.S. and PRC interests are inimical.

Given the enduring suspicion among some in Beijing that the United States seeks to contain China, CCP leaders hold that the accrual of the PRC's comprehensive national power will set the conditions for the PRC's ability to confront or dissuade the United States and prevent containment. As China’s leaders seek to translate the PRC's growing economic and military means into influence to advance their international aspirations, they must also carefully balance the PRC's expanding interests across their priorities and resources.

THE PRC’S NATIONAL SECURITY CONCEPT & MANAGEMENT

In recent years, the PRC has articulated its view of national security as a broad concept that spans the confluence of internal and external threats to the PRC's interests. Party leaders have identified national security as encompassing traditional and non-traditional domestic and foreign threats; the intersection of external influences on internal stability; and economic, cultural, societal and environmental threats. Additionally, Beijing has taken steps to define a concept for national security; improve the CCP's ability to develop and coordinate national security policy across party, military, and state organs; and raise domestic awareness of national security concerns. These efforts seek to address longstanding concerns of China's leadership that the country’s legacy system of stove-piped party-state organizations was ill equipped to meet the growing national security challenges that the PRC faces.

National Security Concept. The CCP's "Overall National Security Concept" (总体国家安全观), first proposed by Xi in 2014, provides the framework for the PRC's national security system, the mission of the Central National Security Commission (CNSC), and the basis of the PRC's national security strategy. According to the Party, the premise of the concept is that "The people's security is the purpose of national security, political security is the root of national security, and priority in national interests is the norm of national security." China’s leaders consider people's security, political security, and national interests as mutually reinforcing aspects of national security. Party outlets describe people's security as the purpose because national security fundamentally must serve the PRC people and nation. Similarly, the Party's view of political security as the foundation of national security is described in terms of the maintenance and "ruling status" of the Party and the system of "Socialism with Chinese Characteristics." This reflects the Party's certainty that its leadership and systems are indispensable to the PRC's national rejuvenation. Party leaders assess the supremacy of national interests as the criterion or standard by which the Party expects its stewardship of the PRC's national security will be judged: its ability to "resolutely safeguard" the PRC's sovereignty, security, and development interests. The PRC's concept also views development and security as mutually supporting aspects of national security in which "security guarantees development, and development is the goal of security."

Central National Security Commission (CNSC). To improve coordination on national security matters, the CCP created the CNSC (中央国家安全委员会) in 2013. The CNSC advises the Politburo; oversees the coordination of national security issues across the government; manages crises; fights terrorism, separatism, and religious extremism; and interacts with foreign counterparts. Embracing the Party's expansive concept of national security, the CNSC's purview covers both internal and external national security matters. The CNSC's mission, codification in law, sprawling definition of national security, and powerful leadership has led the CNSC to become an important party-state organ, and exemplified by its promulgating regulations in 2021 on the "National Security Work of the CCP" and outlining who, what, and how the CCP will lead national security in the PRC.

CNSC Membership. The PRC's top three leaders lead the CNSC: Xi who serves as the CNSC Chairman; Li Qiang (Premier of the State Council); and probably Zhao Leji (Chairman of the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress). CNSC membership may include Politburo members, senior government leaders, and senior PLA leaders (including the two Vice Chairmen of the CMC). The CNSC General Office is responsible for the commission's daily work and is run by senior CCP officials serving in dual-hatted roles in other positions. As of March 2023, the Director of the CNSC General Office likely continued to be Ding Xuexiang, a longtime political aide to Xi. Ding also serves as the Director of the General Office of the Central Committee and is a member of the Politburo Standing Committee. Last October, Chen Wenqing was elevated to Secretary of the Central Politics and Law Commission at the 20th Party Congress and is unlikely to stay on at the CNSC where he has served as Deputy Director of the CNSC General Office since 2018.

National Security Strategy. By 2015, the CCP had adopted the PRC's first national security strategy outline following the CNSC’s establishment. Official media noted the strategy intends to unify efforts by various departments under the central leadership’s guidance. Since 2015, the PRC's leaders and media have indicated national security sub-strategies that cover a variety of issues including political security, homeland security, military security, economic security, cultural security, societal security, technology security, network security, nuclear safety, ecological security, resource security, and biosecurity. In November 2021, the Politburo deliberated and, soon thereafter, passed the PRC's National Security Strategy (2021-2025) (国家安全战略).

National Security Law. With the establishment of the CNSC and the Party's adoption of the national security strategy, in 2015 the National People's Congress (NPC) passed the National Security Law (国家安全法). This law encapsulated the Party's overall national security concept and swept a broad range of issues beneath a new legal framework of "national security," while strengthening the formal role of central authorities. In recent years, the NPC has also passed a series of laws intended to address more specific national security concerns including counterespionage (2014, updated in 2022), counterterrorism (2015), cybersecurity (2016), foreign non-governmental organizations in China (2016), intelligence (2017), cryptography (2019), and the coast guard (2021). While these laws address more specific national security concerns, they remain sweeping in scope and authorities.

In an effort to raise public awareness of the Party's national security concepts and emphasize national security as a civic responsibility, the 2015 National Security Law designated April 15th of each year as National Security Education Day. Indicating the reach and depth the Party desires its national security concepts to penetrate into the party-state, the 2015 National Security Law also made provincial, autonomous regions and municipalities responsible for national security work within their administrative areas. This has led to the creation of national security committees in the Party's provincial-level organizations, each headed by the province's party chief.

FOREIGN POLICY

Key Takeaways

The PRC’s foreign policy seeks to build a “community of common destiny” that supports its strategy to realize “the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation.” The PRC’s ambition to reshape the international order derives from the objectives of its national strategy and the Party’s political and governing systems.

In 2022, the PRC employed multiple diplomatic tools in an attempt to erode U.S. and partner influence and sought to cultivate international support against intensifying U.S.-backed security partnerships such as the Quad and AUKUS.

Russia’s war on Ukraine in February 2022 represented a major, unexpected challenge for the PRC as it sought to react to the largest military conflict in Europe since the end of World War II. Beijing has increasingly sought to balance its strategic partnership with Russia while avoiding the reputational or economic costs that would result from providing non-deniable material offensive or “lethal” assistance to Russia.

Beijing probably has taken a discreet, flexible, and cautious approach to providing material support to Russia to enable the PRC to maintain plausible deniability, control material transfers, create off-ramps to renege on agreements, and maximize the PRC’s options to aid Russia.

The PRC has increasingly sought to use its growing diplomatic clout to promote a more prominent, global leadership role for Beijing in international affairs. China continued to advance a new diplomatic framework that it terms “Major Power Diplomacy with Chinese Characteristics,” based on the foreign policy direction determined by the CCP Central Committee and reaffirmed at the 20th Party Congress. This framework seeks to advance the PRC’s strategy of national rejuvenation by achieving the CCP’s two centenary goals, improving the coordination of China’s major domestic and international policies, reforming aspects of the international order, adhering to the CCP Central Committee’s direction, and defending the PRC’s major interests. At the same time, PRC leaders are increasingly aware that the PRC foreign security environment is becoming more unstable and dangerous, especially in the wake of Russia’s war of aggression in Ukraine, which could disrupt the PRC’s foreign policy objectives.

The CCP’s theory of “Socialism with Chinese Characteristics” underpins the conduct of the PRC’s foreign affairs. Since Xi assumed power at the 18th Party Congress in 2012, the CCP Central Committee has placed greater emphasis on the PRC’s foreign policy advancing “the cause of Socialism with Chinese Characteristics.” Yang Jiechi, a former top Party official for the PRC’s foreign policy, has claimed that adherence to Socialism with Chinese Characteristics is “showing extremely bright prospects” and “reached a new historical starting point.”

According to Party officials, the overall goal of the PRC’s foreign policy is to build a “community of common destiny” that seeks to shift the international system towards an architecture based on the CCP’s principles for how nations should interact. This goal is essential to how the PRC’s foreign policy supports its broader strategy to achieve national rejuvenation. From the PRC’s perspective, establishing this “community” is necessary to set the external security and economic conditions for the PRC’s national rejuvenation by “safeguarding world peace” and “promoting common development” according to the Party’s principles. The PRC recognizes it cannot achieve its goals in isolation and seeks “all countries” to adopt its diplomatic framework in order to “build a community with a shared future for mankind” and “actively control the new direction of China and the world.” Lastly, PRC officials acknowledge that aspects of the international order are inconsistent with its objectives. The PRC’s diplomatic framework seeks to remedy this by promoting changes in a more “just and reasonable direction.”

The PRC’s ambition to shape the international order derives from the objectives of its national strategy and the Party’s political and governing systems. The PRC does not frame its efforts as simply opportunistic challenges to the status quo or a significant deviation from the past. Rather, Beijing is acting upon its longstanding desire to redesign the architecture of the international order to support the PRC’s national rejuvenation, efforts that are married with growing resources and opportunities to do so. The PRC’s foreign policy seeks to revise aspects of the international order on the Party’s terms and in accordance with ideas and principles it views as essential to forging an external environment supportive of the PRC’s national rejuvenation and strategic goals.

The PRC’s foreign policy framework includes efforts to promote and accelerate the transformation in the distribution of power, revise the principles of interstate relations, and reform global governance structures. Within the context of “Major Power Diplomacy with Chinese Characteristics,” PRC officials have described how the PRC differentiates its goals and relations according to the power relationships among four categories of actors: major powers, peripheral nations, developing nations, and international organizations. Among the major powers, Beijing contends that a new framework for relations is necessary to construct a “stable and balanced development” between the powers—in essence a multipolar system. With peripheral nations, the PRC seeks to strengthen its relationships to create a more favorable environment along its maritime and land borders in accordance with the PRC’s view of justice and interests. For developing countries, the PRC emphasizes solidarity and cooperation as well as “actively” carrying out multilateral diplomatic work, to include continued “high-quality development” under its Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). This likely refers to the importance that the PRC places on attaining support from developing countries within international organizations.

Another tenet of “Major Power Diplomacy with Chinese Characteristics” is the PRC’s ambition to construct “new types” of “omnidirectional” relations and bilateral partnerships among states. The PRC desires for its concepts of mutual respect, cooperation, and mutual benefit to provide the basis for these “new types” of relations. Politburo member Yang Jiechi describes China’s “new type” relationships as strategic partnerships that follow a new path of “major power relations.” Although distinct from alliance relationships, the PRC’s notion of strategic partnerships is indicative of a relationship that meets the PRC’s criteria and is worthy of a higher level of bilateral cooperation. To improve its diplomatic support further, the PRC also seeks to create what it calls a “comprehensive global partnership network” of its strategic partners to form a global “circle of friends.” Despite its encompassing rhetoric, the PRC uses nomenclature to implicitly rank its level of “partnership.” For example, the PRC ranks Pakistan as its only “all-weather strategic partner,” Russia as its only “comprehensive strategic partner with coordination relations,” and other countries such as Brazil and various states in South and Southeast Asia holding “all-round strategic partnership relations.”

The PRC also promotes reforms to the “global governance system” as part of its diplomatic framework in order to reflect the “profound evolution” of the international order. According to Yang Jiechi, “The global governance system is at an important stage of profound evolution, and global governance has increasingly become the frontier and key issue of China’s foreign work.” To “seize opportunities” for reform, the PRC actively participates in the construction of a new global governance system based upon the Party’s principles. This may be achieved through the creation of new multinational organizations and forums to uphold the authority of the CCP and the PRC’s national sovereignty, security, and development interests. For example, the PRC promotes BRI as an “important practical platform for the concept of the community of common destiny.” BRI also serves to strengthen the PRC’s strategic partnerships, enlarge its network of strategic partners, and advance reforms to the international order to support the PRC’s strategy.

At the same time, PRC leaders probably increasingly seek to protect the PRC’s interests amid an external security environment that is becoming more unstable and dangerous. At the 20th Party Congress in October 2022, Xi proclaimed that “the CCP Central Committee coordinated the overall strategic situation of the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation and major changes in the world unseen in a century.” He added that the “CCP led the entire party, the entire military, and the people of all ethnic groups across the country to effectively deal with the severe and complex international situation and the huge risks and challenges that came one after another.” Although Xi did not mention specific challenges, Russia’s ongoing war of aggression in Ukraine, the PRC’s heightened threat perception of United States, and lingering economic and political consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic almost certainly inform the PRC’s current foreign policy aimed at maximizing the PRC’s ability to shape the international system and better protect PRC’s interests.

MILITARY AND SECURITY IMPLICATIONS OF THE 20TH NATIONAL CONGRESS OF THE CCP

General Secretary Xi presided over the 20th National Congress of the Chinese Communist Party, known as the 20th Party Congress, from October 16th–22nd, 2022. Party Congresses, convened every five years, hold important military and security implications for the PRC’s national and defense strategy. The military dimensions of the Report to 20th Party Congress focused on intensifying and accelerating the People’s Liberation Army’s modernization goals, to include deploying PLA forces on a “regular basis and in diversified ways.”

In order to achieve the PLA’s 2027 centenary goal, the 20th Party Congress set objectives to “provide new military strategic guidance, establish a strong system of strategic deterrence, increase the proportion of new-domain forces (most likely cyberspace and space) with new combat capabilities, speed up the development of unmanned, intelligence combat capabilities, and promote the development and application of the network information system.” Reappointed as Chairman of the CMC for the third time, Xi selected a six-man CMC that offers political continuity, technical expertise on nuclear and space issues, and Taiwan-centric operational experience to lead the PLA toward achieving its centenary goals.

The 20th Party Congress offered new insight on the CCP’s perception of the PRC’s external security environment. Notably, the Party Congress report did not reference a “strategic window of opportunity for development,” but rather that the PRC is facing “drastic changes in the international landscape,” and thus must be more mindful of “potential dangers and be prepared to deal with worse-case scenarios.”

The PRC employed a wide range of diplomatic tools throughout 2022 to erode U.S. influence globally and subvert U.S.-backed security partnerships such as the Quad and AUKUS, which Beijing perceives as avenues to constrain its rise. The CCP is increasingly frustrated by Washington’s perceived use of an exaggerated threat picture of China to cultivate an international coalition willing subvert the PRC’s foreign policy objectives. In response, PRC leaders and officials have increasingly sought to bolster the PRC’s relations with developing countries in Africa, Southeast Asia, and the Middle East; co-opt regional multilateral organizations such as ASEAN; and assert its status as the self-appointed de facto leader of the “Global South.” Similarly, beginning late 2022, Beijing launched a diplomatic “charm offensive” targeting European countries in an apparent effort to improve perceptions of Beijing following years of “wolf warrior” diplomacy and COVID-19 isolation. Through these engagements, Beijing aims to internationally isolate Washington and persuade countries that the United States is the sole party responsible for escalating U.S.-China tensions, primarily to deflect criticism of the PRC’s efforts to reshape the international environment to protect its interests. PRC officials have also framed AUKUS as an act of nuclear proliferation and threat to regional stability to stoke international concerns about the trilateral security partnership and press countries to limit engagement with U.S.-backed alliance.

In recent years, global public opinion of the PRC has fallen, particularly after the PRC’s response to COVID and continued coercive foreign and domestic policies. Out of 24 countries across Europe, Asia, and the Americas surveyed by the Pew Research Center in spring 2023, 15 countries registered their most negative feelings towards the PRC in 2022 or 2023. Similarly, five of the eight middle-income countries polled saw the PRC in more negative light after the pandemic. In the 2022 Pew survey, only 18 percent of global respondents trusted Xi Jinping do the right thing regarding world affairs. These reports are only the most recent in a series of surveys showing an increasingly negative perception of the PRC across the U.S., Europe, and Asia.

Russia’s War on Ukraine. The Russian war on Ukraine represented a major, unexpected challenge for Beijing as it sought to react to the largest military conflict in Europe since the end of World War II. Despite multiple warnings of Russia’s intentions towards Kyiv, Beijing was caught completely off guard by the full scope and scale of Russia’s war on Ukraine. For example, on the first day of the invasion and as Russian and Ukraine air forces battled over Kyiv, the PRC Ambassador to Ukraine publicly announced that PRC was organizing an aerial evacuation of Chinese citizens. Although the PRC eventually shifted to an overland evacuation of its citizens once the reality of the conflict became apparent to PRC officials, the PRC’s initial reaction is indicative of the PRC’s continued struggles to anticipate geopolitical risks and protect its overseas interests.

As Russia’s war of aggression in Ukraine has continued, Beijing has increasingly sought to balance its strategic partnership with Russia while avoiding the reputational or economic costs that would result from providing undeniable offensive material or “lethal” assistance to Russia. PRC leaders and officials have parroted Russian narratives blaming the U.S. and NATO for causing the conflict. Beijing has also refrained from directly criticizing or condemning Russia for using military force to infringe on Ukraine’s sovereignty despite Russia’s actions in Ukraine violating the PRC’s Five Principles of Peaceful Coexistence. Of note, Beijing has also become a willing buyer of Russian energy exports to buoy Russia’s sanctioned-battered economy and has ensured Russia’s continued diplomatic participation in multilateral organizations. At the same time, Beijing probably has taken a discreet, flexible, and cautious approach to providing material support to Russia to enable the PRC to maintain plausible deniability, control material transfers, create off-ramps to renege on agreements, and maximize the PRC’s options to aid Russia. It remains to be seen whether/when Russia becomes more of a liability than an asset in the Chinese calculus.

To date, Chinese officials have publicly denied providing any lethal assistance to Russia. However, as Beijing deliberates the scale and scope of materiel commitments, it probably will seek to balance its strategic partnership with Russia while avoiding reputational or economic costs that could result from its assistance. Russian customs data revealed that Chinese companies, including state-owned enterprises under the purview of Beijing, have sold civilian, dual-use, and some minor military items to Russian military end users, such as small arms, spare parts, navigation equipment, and protective gear.
China’s expansive and unregulated commercial drone market has allowed Russian defense forces to routinely acquire small drones and dual-use unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) to support their war in Ukraine. Between March 2022 and 2023, Chinese firms exported more than $12 million worth of drones and drone components to Russia. Chinese-origin drones have been employed by Russian forces for targeting, surveillance, and strike missions in Ukraine. In August 2023, Beijing announced it would implement its first controls on the civilian and dual-use drone market, as well as the sale of civilian-use counter-UAV systems, in response to international speculation over Chinese drones’ use in Russia’s war of aggression in Ukraine.

PRC leaders and officials have sought to deflect international criticism over Sino-Russian relations and protect its international reputation by using high-level diplomatic engagements and messaging emphasizing the PRC’s “neutral” role in the conflict. These efforts include Chinese officials meeting with Ukrainian officials, announcing token humanitarian assistance, and calling for peace talks without developing a specific, detailed plan to resolve the conflict. Similarly, the PRC’s ambiguous public messaging about the potential use of nuclear weapons probably is also intended to portray China as a responsible and peaceful great power. In November 2022, during German Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s visit to Beijing, Xi said that nuclear weapons must not be used, nuclear wars should not be fought, and the international community should come together to prevent a nuclear conflict in Eurasia. Xi’s repetition of the PRC’s stated stance on nuclear weapons as well as his unwillingness to specifically condemn Russian nuclear threats, suggest that Xi probably was focused on protecting China’s reputation rather than applying strong pressure to prevent Russia from using a nuclear weapon in Ukraine.

Global Initiatives. Adding to this standard framework for talking points on Russia’s war of aggression in Ukraine and other foreign policy issues, in April 2022, Xi announced the Global Security Initiative (GSI) at the Bo’ao Forum. Echoing the previous year’s rollout of the Global Development Initiative (GDI), Beijing has promoted GSI extensively and attempted to insert GSI language into multilateral forums and documents. At the CCP’s 20th Party Congress in October, Xi further promoted GSI and GDI, emphasizing that realizing the “great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation” required equal prioritization of both security and development. As of the end of 2022, however, Chinese officials had yet to clearly define how GSI would actually advance the vague security goals it espouses, such as safeguarding “comprehensive” security and protecting territorial integrity. International receptivity to GDI and GSI has been mixed so far; GDI’s links to BRI has made the initiative more attractive to developing countries, while GSI’s vagueness and implicit criticisms of the United States have made more countries hesitant to sign on to it.

PRC EFFORTS TO PROMOTE GSI ABROAD

PRC state-run media outlets publish multiple articles daily aimed at promoting the GSI abroad, including in English, Spanish, French, Russian, and other languages. These reports frequently quote local voices as well as current and former PRC and non-PRC government officials expressing support for GSI. Additionally, PRC diplomats publish “signed articles,” promoting GSI in local newspapers all around the world. While some foreign-language PRC media reports and “signed articles” are tailored to local audiences, most reports emphasize four key themes: (1) GSI promotes world peace and shared prosperity; (2) the West’s security framework is based on a hegemonic, Cold-War mindset that leads to crises; (3) The “International Community” supports GSI, especially in Africa, the Middle East, Latin America, parts of Asia; and (4) GSI represents “true multilateralism.” Although these reports state that GSI “seeks concrete actions and tangible results” they do not articulate a framework, mechanisms, list of “signatories,” or other specifics about how and what GSI would do.

Military Diplomacy. The PRC’s willingness to engage in military diplomacy with other countries varies considerably based on its perception of a country’s adherence to the PRC’s diplomatic framework. For example, the PRC’s “comprehensive strategic partnership of coordination” with Russia entails a relatively high degree of military cooperation. Sino-Russian military cooperation occurs in practical forms through exchanges of training, equipment, technology, high-level visits, and other coordination mechanisms. For other strategic partnership countries, the PRC seeks to leverage those relationships to reinforce the PRC’s systemic preferences and maintain stability in Beijing’s favor. For countries with whom the PRC has not established strategic partnerships, such as the United States, the PRC shapes its military cooperation along more minimalist principles of conflict avoidance that emphasize “non-conflict” and “mutual respect.” From the PRC’s perspective, these curtailed relationships at least serve its foreign policy objective by ensuring stable relations with major powers.

Although the COVID-19 pandemic continued to constrain PRC’s military diplomacy in 2022, the PLA increased its external, in-person high-level military visits compared to 2021 and maintained close contact with the military leadership of neighboring countries. The PLA also relied on high-level virtual bilateral meetings and multilateral engagements to supplement cancelled engagements and maintain contacts with foreign militaries.

PRC Policy Towards the Pacific Islands. Since 2015, the PRC probably has viewed economic, political, and policing engagement with the Pacific Island Countries (PICs) as an opportunity to expand the PRC’s regional influence, press countries to switch diplomatic recognition to Beijing, deepen security cooperation, and advance the PRC’s responsible great power narrative. Of note, in late May and early June 2022, then PRC Foreign Minister Wang Yi traveled to seven PICs, including Fiji and the Solomon Islands, and sought to promote the expansion of Sino-PICs relations. During his visits, Wang emphasized that the PRC would continue to pursue a “four pronged adherence’ towards relations with the PICs that linked the PRC’s efforts to improve relations with PICS with foreign policy principals.

Wang’s visit came on the heels of the April 2022 announcement that the PRC and the Solomon Islands had signed a security cooperation agreement. According to a draft copy of the China-Solomon Islands Security Agreement, China would be permitted to send armed policy and military personnel to the Solomon Islands to help maintain order, though Honiara denied this would lead to a PRC military base. Beijing probably seeks to use security agreements with the PICs to justify the expansion of PLA security activities in the region.

PRC Relationship with Iranian Proxies. The PRC almost certainly does not have extensive relations with Iranian proxies such as Hezbollah in Lebanon, the Houthis in Yemen, or Iranian-backed militia groups in Iraq. PRC officials, including the PRC’s Special Envoy to Syria, have publicly met with Hezbollah officials to discuss the Syrian civil war, but such engagements almost certainly are perfunctory and focused on advancing the PRC’s responsible great power narrative rather than the PRC seeking to expand ties with these groups. PRC officials probably calculate that expanding relations with Iranian proxies, especially Iranian-backed militia groups in Iraq, would alienate regional governments and disrupt the PRC’s regional objectives such as promoting the expansion of BRI projects in the Middle East.

The PRC has also maintained diplomatic, economic, and some security ties with the Assad Regime Syria.Since 2016, the PRC’s special envoy to Syria has focused the PRC’s efforts on political support to the Assad regime, facilitating a political resolution to the civil war, humanitarian assistance, reconstruction, and counterterrorism. In 2022, the PRC reached an agreement with Syria to join the BRI, demonstrating the PRC’s efforts to promoted economic relations with Syria.

CHINA’S TERRITORIAL DISPUTES IN CONTEXT

The PRC’s use of force in territorial disputes has varied widely since 1949. Some disputes led to war, as in border conflicts with India in 1962 and Vietnam in 1979. China’s contested border with the Soviet Union during the 1960s raised the possibility of nuclear war. In recent cases involving land border disputes, China has sometimes been willing to compromise with and even offer concessions to its neighbors. Since 1998, China has settled 11 land-based territorial disputes with six of its neighbors. However, within the last decade China has employed a more coercive approach to deal with several disputes over maritime features, ownership of potentially rich offshore oil and gas deposits, and border areas.

Tensions with India along the Line of Actual Control (LAC) sparked a standoff between Chinese and Indian forces in mid-May 2020, which persisted into the winter. The standoff escalated on 15 June 2020 after a skirmish ensued in the Galwan Valley between Indian Army and PLA forces that ended with 20 Indian soldiers and four PRC soldiers dead. In late 2022, Chinese and Indian forces engaged in an unarmed clash near Tawang along the Eastern Sector of the LAC separating Tibet and the Indian state of Arunachal Pradesh. This was the first such clash since the 2020 Galwan skirmish, although local commanders quickly diffused the clash and the overall standoff did not substantively escalate.

Select Chinese Territorial Claims

The PRC and Japan have overlapping claims to both the continental shelf and the exclusive economic zones (EEZs) in the East China Sea (ECS). The ECS contains natural gas and oil, although hydrocarbon reserves are difficult to estimate. Japan maintains that an equidistant line from each country involved should separate the EEZs, while China claims an extended continental shelf beyond the equidistant line to the Okinawa Trench. The PRC continues to assert sovereignty over the Japan-administered Senkaku Islands and reiterate the importance of abiding by the fourpoint consensus signed in 2014, which states both sides will acknowledge divergent positions over the ECS dispute but also prevent escalation through dialogue, consultation, and crisis management mechanisms. Japan remains concerned with the persistent deployment of PRC coast guard ships and fishing vessels in disputed ECS waters and contests the PRC’s claim of sovereignty.

The South China Sea (SCS) plays an important role in security considerations across East Asia because Northeast Asia relies heavily on the flow of oil and commerce through SCS shipping lanes, including more than 80 percent of the crude oil to Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan. China claims sovereignty over the Spratly and Paracel Islands and other land features within its ambiguous self-proclaimed “nine-dash line” claims disputed in whole or part by Brunei, the Philippines, Malaysia, and Vietnam. Taiwan, which occupies Itu Aba Island in the Spratly Islands, makes the same territorial assertions as the PRC. The PRC continued to employ the PLA Navy (PLAN), China Coast Guard, and maritime militia to patrol the region throughout 2022. In response to China’s continued assertive actions, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines and Vietnam have publicly rejected the PRC’s nine-dash line claims and invoked international law in support of their maritime sovereign rights.

The PRC has long challenged foreign military activities in its claimed exclusive economic zone (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 First Island Chain (FIC) in the EEZs of other countries, including the United States. This activity highlights China’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 Rim of the Pacific (RIMPAC) exercise off Hawaii in 2014 and 2018, TALISMAN SABER off Australia in 2017, 2019, and 2021, and operating near Alaska in 2017 and 2021. PRC survey ships are also extremely active in the SCS and frequently operate in the claimed EEZs of other nations in the region such as the Philippines, Vietnam, and Malaysia.

ECONOMIC POLICY

Key Takeaways

At the end of 2022, China abruptly reversed its zero-COVID-19 policy. The decision to implement China’s reopening took most by surprise and was probably triggered by countrywide protests against the PRC’s zero-COVID-19 policies, economic pressures, and fiscal difficulties for local governments.
The 20th Party Congress emphasized the importance of quality growth rather than the speed of growth. General Secretary Xi also highlighted common prosperity, more equitable access to basic public services, a better multi-tiered social security system, and cultural and green developments as a few of China’s economic initiatives.
The PRC’s ongoing military modernization objectives are commensurate with and part of China’s broader national development aspirations. China’s economic, political, social, and security development efforts are mutually reinforcing and support China’s strategy of national rejuvenation.
China’s tools of economic statecraft include inducements such as infrastructure investments under BRI; industrial and technology policies such as Made in China 2025 that seek foreign technology transfers in exchange for market access; protectionist policies and legal barriers for foreign firms to compete in China’s domestic market; selective observance of trade commitments; and economic coercion against other states.

The PRC’s military modernization objectives are commensurate with and part of China’s broader national development aspirations and work in coordination with China’s economic policies and systems. PRC’s leaders directly link the pace and scale of the PLA’s modernization with the country’s overall development. The PRC’s economic, political, social, and military development efforts are mutually reinforcing and support its strategy of national rejuvenation. The Party gives priority to China’s economic development as the “central task” and frames its economic system as the means of advancing the nation’s overall political and social modernity. In particular, China’s economic targets abroad focus intensely on advancing what the Party calls the country’s “productive forces” (e.g., industry, technology, infrastructure, and human capital) which it views as the means to achieve the country’s political and social modernity—including building a “world-class” military. The party-state’s relentless efforts to grow China’s national industrial and technological base has significant implications for China’s military modernization, as well as for China’s global economic partners.

CCP leaders have cast China’s partial adoption of market features–which were implemented as part of its “reform and opening up” that began in the late 1970s, and subsequently led to an economic transformation–as evidence that their strategy to modernize China has been succeeding rather than viewing the market feature adoption as a repudiation of the Party’s fundamental economic ideals. Party leaders since Deng Xiaoping have consistently rationalized China’s market-oriented economic reforms as a necessary regression from socialism needed to account properly for China’s historical circumstances, which left it significantly underdeveloped. According to the Party, contemporary China remains at the beginning stage or the “primary stage of socialism” with a long process of socialist modernization ahead.

Basic Economic System. The Party conceives of China’s economy as constituting the “basic economic system” in which public ownership is dominant and state, collective, and private forms of ownership develop side by side. The basic economic system comprises China’s public ownership economy and the multi-ownership economy.

Economic Development Goals. Despite slowing economic growth just prior to and during the COVID-19 outbreak, China will continue to pursue the economic policy objectives determined by the CCP Central Committee and set forth in the 14th Five-Year Plan (FYP). China’s economic goals are (1) furthering supply-side structural reform, (2) making China a country of innovators, (3) pursuing a rural vitalization strategy, (4) implementing the coordinated regional development strategy, (5) accelerating efforts to improve the socialist market economy, and (6) making new ground in pursuing “opening up on all fronts.” The PRC is currently executing the 14th FYP that will cover 2021-2025. The priorities and goals in the FYPs not only apply to the government and the public ownership economy, but also serve as implicit guidance from the Party to the multi-ownership economy.

Economic Conditions. Prior to COVID-19, China’s economic growth had slowed because of demographic challenges, declining returns from state-led infrastructure investment, and slowing urbanization. China’s efforts in early 2020 to contain the COVID-19 outbreak with government lockdowns and strict control measures exacerbated this slowdown in China’s economy. In March 2022, China announced an annual growth target of around 5.5 percent, but fell well short and only achieved 3 percent growth for 2022, the second lowest growth on record since 1976.

Multiple challenges affected China’s economy in 2022, including a COVID-19 resurgence in the fall, a weak property sector due to a correction in the housing market, high youth unemployment, and sluggish consumption recovery. China abruptly reversed its zero-COVID-19 policy at the end of 2022, a decision probably based on CCP leader’s recognition that the lock downs were failing to prevent infections and concerns about the fluffing economy and country-wide protests against the policy in early December. China is also facing adverse demographics, slowing external demand amid global inflationary pressures, and a debt problem. Although global supply chain relocation has been discussed for years, multinational corporations may be thinking more seriously about supply chain diversification after facing serious disruptions during China’s zero-COVID-19 policy.

China’s government is also concerned about economic risks associated with prolonged housing market corrections and may be more inclined to deliver funding support for developers and further easing measures on the demand side (e.g., lower down payments required and the removal of home purchase restrictions). China’s property market may have reached a trough in 2022 and could improve in 2023.

Economic Policies and Practices. The 20th Party Congress unveiled a new economic leadership team to advance Xi’s goal of rejuvenation of the Chinese nation on all fronts. Economic growth is a necessary condition for China to realize this goal, with more emphasis on quality and inclusive growth, as well as security requirements. The Party Congress vowed to grow China’s per capita GDP to be on par with that of a mid-level developed country, which it defined as income of $20,000 per capita. This would imply average growth of approximately 3.5 percent during 2022 to 2035. Xi’s new economic team has broad technocratic qualifications. Of note, Xi elevated Vice Premier Zhang Guoqing to be in charge of science, technology, and industry. Zhang has a doctorate in economics, which suggests a national security-oriented economic focus in Xi’s third term to supports his stated goal of national strength through increasing economic strength and scientific technological capabilities.

The PRC’s introduction of market economy features within the “basic economic system” without a full transition to free and open markets has resulted in laws, regulations, and policies that generally disadvantage foreign firms vis- à-vis their Chinese counterparts in terms of tradable goods, services sectors, market access, and foreign direct investment. Examples of China’s economic policies and trade practices include its support to domestic industries at the expense of foreign counterparts, commercial joint venture requirements, technology transfer requirements, subsidies to lower the cost of inputs, sustaining excess capacity in multiple industries, sector-specific limits on foreign direct investment, including partnership requirements and other barriers to investment, discriminatory cybersecurity and data transfer rules, insufficient intellectual property rights enforcement, inadequate transparency, and lack of market access—particularly in the information and communications technology (ICT), agriculture, and service sectors. Market access remains difficult for some foreign firms because China restricts certain inbound investment, resulting in persistent underperformance in other countries’ services exports, particularly in the banking, insurance, Internet-related, professional, and retail services sectors.

A large portion of China’s economic output results from government and policy-directed investments rather than market-based forces. China pursues state-directed investment overseas and encourages mergers and acquisitions. Along with heavy investments in infrastructure and commodities to support its strategic firms, increase economic engagement, and improve economic security, China is investing in technologies that will be foundational for future innovations with both commercial and military applications.

The PRC seeks and obtains foreign technology through the following means: foreign direct investment, overseas acquisitions, legal technology imports, the establishment of foreign research and development (R&D) centers, joint ventures, research and academic partnerships, talent recruitment, industrial, and cyberspace espionage and theft. Investors may be concerned about intensified pressure of technology restrictions on China, which has forced the Chinese government to double down on its efforts to promote innovation and self-sufficiency in key technologies.

Recent legal proceedings highlight numerous cases of China’s efforts to obtain technology and knowledge through theft of trade secrets and economic espionage. In April 2022, a jury in United States federal court sentenced a PRC national to 29 months in prison for conspiring to commit economic espionage. The PRC national had worked as an imaging scientist for a Monsanto subsidiary and was found to have stolen proprietary algorithms, which he brought to the Chinese Academy of Sciences Institute of Soil Science. In November 2021, a federal jury convicted a PRC intelligence officer of attempting to steal industry-leading aviation trade secrets. Court documents show that the PRC officer attempted to steal technology related to GE Aviation’s exclusive composite aircraft engine fan to benefit the PRC state.

The PRC’s recent economic policies have promoted innovation focused on strengthening domestic industry, while placing additional restrictions on foreign firms. Recognizing that some of its initiatives such as Military Civil Fusion (MCF), “Made in China 2025,” and BRI have sparked concerns about China’s intentions, PRC leaders have adopted lower profile rhetoric when promoting these initiatives without altering their fundamental strategic goals.

Made in China 2025: First announced by the PRC in May 2015, the “Made in China 2025” plan seeks to increase China’s domestic innovation by setting higher targets for domestic manufacturing in strategic industries such as robotics, power equipment, and next-generation information technology by 2020 and 2025. This plan seeks to strengthen China’s domestic enterprises through awarding subsidies and other incentives while increasing pressure on foreign firms to transfer technology to have market access in China. “Made in China 2025” came under criticism from advanced countries for unfairly favoring China’s domestic enterprises at the expense of foreign participants in China’s markets. Increasingly aware and sensitive to these concerns, by June 2018, China began avoiding references to “Made in China 2025” in major policy papers. The PRC government ordered its media outlets to downplay use of the term in June 2018. Key events that PRC leaders use to set strategic directives have also avoided references to “Made in China,” including the 2019 Central Economic Work Conference and the NPC. Despite the adjustments in its narrative, China has largely continued implementing the policies behind “Made in China 2025.”
Dual Circulation: In 2020, Xi articulated the economic policy of dual circulation, which aims for a largely self-sufficient China that could innovate, manufacture, and consume within its own economy, while still drawing on the international economy through exports, critical supply chains, and limited imports of capital. Dual circulation seeks to enable the internal markets and external markets to reinforce each other, with a focus on establishing the domestic market as the primary driver of economic growth.

Legal Framework. In recent years, the PRC has implemented new laws placing further restrictions on foreign firms while creating or strengthening the legal framework for the Party’s national security concepts and, in some cases, furthering its MCF Development Strategy (discussed in the next section):

National Defense Law: Adopted in March 1997, the law provides legal justification to mobilize the military and civilian resources in defense of a broad range of national interests.
National Security Law: Adopted in July 2015, the law limits foreign access to provide a broad framework for safeguarding the PRC’s security interests. It calls for review and monitoring of foreign participation in the ICT market in China on national security grounds.
Counterterrorism Law: Adopted in December 2015, among its provisions, the law requires telecommunications operators and Internet service providers to provide information, decryption, and other technical support to public and state security organizations “conducting prevention and investigation of terrorist activities.”
National Defense Transportation Law: Coming into effect in 2016, the National Defense Transportation Law advances the PRC MCF development strategy by laying the groundwork for the PLA Navy to mobilize civilian maritime transportation resources and facilities to support power projection missions.
Cyber Security Law: The law, which went into effect in June 2017, promotes development of indigenous technologies and restricts sales of foreign ICT in China. The law also requires foreign companies to submit ICT for government-administered national security reviews, store data in China, and seek government approval before transferring data outside of China.
Intelligence Law: Adopted in June 2017, the law allows authorities to monitor and investigate foreign and domestic individuals and organizations to protect national security. Specifically, it allows authorities to use or seize vehicles, communication devices, and buildings to support intelligence collection efforts.
Cryptography Law: Adopted in October 2019 and coming into effect in 2020, this law requires entities working on cryptography to have management systems in place to ensure sufficient security for their encryption. Although the law encourages development of commercial encryption technology, its use cannot harm national security or the public good. It provides for the State Cryptography Administration and its local agencies to have complete access to cryptography systems and the data protected by those systems.
Foreign Investment Law: In March 2019, the PRC’s NPC adopted a new Foreign Investment law with the stated objective of improving the business environment for foreign investors and leveling the playing field between foreign businesses and Chinese private firms and stateowned enterprises (SOEs). The law passed in just three months, which reflects an unusually fast turnaround in China where the same level of legislation usually takes years. PRC officials have indicated that swift passage of the law was to facilitate U.S.-China trade talks, and the law appears to respond to a number of issues raised by the U.S. Trade Representative’s Section 301 report that highlighted unfair Chinese trade practices related to intellectual property, technology transfer, and innovation. Despite the law’s stated objective, its wording is vague and the most substantial provisions are not new.
Anti-Foreign Sanctions Law: Adopted at the 29th meeting of the Standing Committee of the 13th National People’s Congress on June 10th, 2021, the law was enacted to “safeguard national sovereignty, security, and development interests, and to protect the legitimate rights and interests of Chinese citizens and organizations.” According to PRC media sources, the law is intended to “counter, fight, and oppose” unilateral sanctions on the PRC imposed by foreign countries. The law was likely adopted in response to sanctions on PRC officials in connection with serious human rights abuse in Xinjiang.
Data Security Law: This law went into effect on September 1st 2021, and subjects almost all data-related activities to government oversight, as PRC officials grew concerned about the transfer of potentially sensitive data overseas. Companies in the PRC have become more reluctant to share data, as authorities are ambiguous as to what is considered sensitive information, increasing difficulties for international firms trying to do business in the PRC. In early November 2021, local providers of ship tracking data stopped sharing details of ship locations, citing the data security law.
Personal Information Protection Law: Effective November 1st, 2021 and adopted by the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress, the law is purposed to protect the rights and interests on personal information, regulate personal information processing activities, and promote reasonable use of personal information. PRC media sources note that activities such as “collection, application, processing, and trading of personal information will be strictly monitored” with infringements punishable according to the law. The law exemplifies a more complete system of regulation in tandem with the PRC’s existing Cybersecurity Law and Data Security Law.
Counter-espionage law: On April 26th, 2021, the PRC adopted a counter-espionage law permitting the Ministry of State Security (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. In July 2023, the PRC adopted an amended counter-espionage with a broader scope. The amended law expanded the definition of espionage from covering state secrets and intelligence to any documents, data, materials, or items related to national security, without defining these terms.

CHINA’S BELT AND ROAD INITIATIVE (BRI)

Key Takeaways

The PRC uses BRI to support its strategy of national rejuvenation by seeking to expand global transportation and trade linkages to support its development and deepen its economic integration with nations along its periphery and beyond.
In 2022, BRI projects saw mixed economic outcomes, experiencing both growth and decline. However, overall spending on BRI projects remained consistent with the previous year and Beijing continued to prioritize public health, digital infrastructure, and green energy opportunities.
Overseas development and security interests under BRI will drive the PRC towards expanding its overseas security relationships and presence to protect those interests.

First announced in 2013, the PRC’s BRI initiative is the signature foreign and economic policy advanced by Xi that rebranded and further expanded China’s global outreach. Beijing uses BRI to support its strategy of national rejuvenation by seeking to expand global transportation and trade links to support its development and deepen its economic integration with nations along its periphery and beyond. The PRC implements BRI by financing, constructing, and developing transportation infrastructure, natural gas pipelines, hydropower projects, digital connectivity, and technology and industrial parks worldwide. As of 2022, at least 147 countries had signed BRI cooperation documents, up from 146 in 2021, 138 in 2020, and 125 in 2019.

In support of its national strategy, Beijing leverages BRI to strengthen its territorial integrity, energy security, and international influence. The PRC aims to improve stability and diminish threats, for example, by investing in projects along its western and southern periphery. Similarly, through BRI projects associated with pipelines and port construction in Pakistan, it seeks to become less reliant on transporting energy resources through strategic choke points, such as the Strait of Malacca. It also attempts to exploit the relationships it builds through BRI to pursue additional economic cooperation with participating countries.

Since 2022, two distinct trends have developed relative to BRI. First, the share of PRC financial investment relative to construction increased to its highest levels, with investments almost doubling. Beijing experienced strong growth in their East Asian and the Middle Eastern investments but a decline in their Sub-Saharan Africa efforts. Conversely, spiraling construction costs over the past three years have resulted in $78 billion in bad loans which needed to be written off or renegotiated in 2022. Second, Beijing began to replace previous BRI rhetoric with language highlighting cooperation and partnership, which likely is designed to make BRI more appealing to foreign partners. The official name of “Belt and Road Initiative” was removed from the English version of many of Xi’s speeches in 2022 and replaced with phrases such as “Belt and Road cooperation.” After launching the GDI in September 2021, Xi mentioned Belt and Road Cooperation eight times while referring to GDI more than 16 times.

China has continued to prioritize public health, digital infrastructure, and green energy opportunities through its “Health Silk Road (健康丝绸之路)” (HSR), “Digital Silk Road (数字丝绸之路)” (DSR), and “Green Silk Road (绿色丝绸之路)” (GSR), respectively. Improving each of these “roads” offers Beijing benefits beyond economic integration.

HSR is the PRC’s World Health Organization-supported initiative for providing medical assistance through BRI transportation networks. In the future, it may help the PRC expand the international market share of PRC medical products, strengthen its bid for a role as a global public health leader, and identify the need for—and justify—new BRI projects.

GSR aims to support low-carbon infrastructure, energy, and finance projects; this initiative aligns with the PRC’s own goal of achieving carbon neutrality before 2060 and presents Beijing as a responsible party in working toward the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development Goals established by the United Nations General Assembly.

DSR is one of the primary ways Beijing seeks to facilitate transfer of PRC technology to partner countries, which the PRC leverages to propagate its own technology standards as it seeks to set global standards for next-generation technology. Announced in 2015 as a digital subset of BRI, the PRC’s Digital Silk Road initiative, seeks to build a PRC-centric digital infrastructure, export industrial overcapacity, facilitate expansion of the PRC’s technology corporations, and access large repositories of data. As of 2016, 16 countries had signed memorandums of understanding with Beijing to participate in the DSR. The PRC hopes the DSR will increase international e-commerce by reducing cross-border trade barriers and establishing regional logistics centers by promoting e-commerce through digital free trade zones. Another goal of the DSR is to reduce PRC dependence on foreign tech leaders by providing markets for Chinese goods, thereby creating production opportunities for PRC tech firms. The PRC is investing in digital infrastructure abroad, including next-generation cellular networks—such as fifth-generation (5G) networks—fiber optic cables, undersea cables, and data centers. The initiative also includes developing advanced technologies including satellite navigation systems, artificial intelligence (AI), and quantum computing for domestic use and export. International opponents of China’s DSR fear that Beijing will encourage recipient countries to use this technology as a tool of repression modeled on China’s authoritarian-style government. Likewise, host country political elites would probably risk their sovereignty by becoming vulnerable to espionage and political blackmail.

Since BRI’s inception, its long-term viability has faced challenges from international concerns over corruption, debt sustainability, and environmental effects, coupled with suspicion of the PRC’s motives and the risk inherent in operating in politically unstable areas. China has applied military, intelligence, diplomatic, and economic tools to counter perceived threats, but the party-state leaders lack the expertise to assess comprehensive risks in most participating countries.

As the PRC’s overseas development and security interests expanded under BRI, the CCP has signaled that its overseas security footprint will increase accordingly to protect those interests, which Beijing recognizes may provoke pushback from other states. Some of BRI’s planned or active economic corridors transit regions prone to violence, separatism, armed conflict, and instability, putting BRI-related projects and PRC citizens working overseas at risk. In 2022, for example, five PRC citizens were injured when ISIS-K terrorists attacked a hotel in Kabul where Chinese nationals were known to stay.

China has therefore sought to extend its ability to safeguard its overseas interests, including BRI, by developing closer regional and bilateral counterterrorism cooperation and supporting hostnation security forces through military aid, including military equipment donations. In an October 2022 speech to the National Party Congress, Xi spoke of the need to become more adept at deploying the PLA to protect China’s national security interests. Xi also said, “We will better coordinate strategies and plans, align policies and systems, and share resources and production factors between the military and civilian sectors.”

The PRC has adopted new security legislation establishing a legal basis to violate people’s data privacy and includes the aforementioned National Intelligence and Cybersecurity Laws of the People’s Republic of China. Under the auspices of national security, the PRC and its security services have the authority to compel any private Chinese company to turn over all data collected by their systems, if desired. GSR aims to support low-carbon infrastructure, energy, and finance projects—an initiative that aligns with the PRC’s own goal of achieving carbon neutrality before 2060 and presents Beijing as a responsible party in working toward the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development Goals established by the United Nations General Assembly.

The PRC has applied military, intelligence, diplomatic, and economic tools to counter perceived threats, but the party-state leaders lack the expertise to assess comprehensive risks in most participating countries. As the PRC’s overseas development and security interests expand under BRI, the CCP has signaled that its overseas security footprint will expand accordingly to protect those interests, which Beijing recognizes may provoke pushback from other states. Some of BRI’s planned or active economic corridors transit regions prone to violence, separatism, armed conflict, and instability, putting BRI-related projects and PRC citizens working overseas at risk. In 2022, for example, five PRC nationals were injured when ISIS-K terrorists attacked a hotel in Kabul where Chinese nationals were known to stay.

MILITARY-CIVIL FUSION (MCF) DEVELOPMENT STRATEGY

Key Takeaways

The PRC pursues its MCF (军民融合) Development Strategy to “fuse” its security and development strategies into its Integrated National Strategic System and Capabilities in support of China’s national rejuvenation goals.

The PRC’s MCF strategy includes objectives to develop and acquire advanced dual-use technology for military purposes and deepen reform of the national defense science and technology industries and serves a broader purpose to strengthen all the PRC’s instruments of national power.

The PRC’s MCF development strategy encompasses six interrelated efforts: (1) fusing China’s defense industrial base to its civilian technology and industrial base, (2) integrating and leveraging science and technology innovations across military and civilian sectors, (3) cultivating talent and blending military and civilian expertise and knowledge, (4) building military requirements into civilian infrastructure and leveraging civilian construction for military purposes, (5) leveraging civilian service and logistics capabilities for military purposes, and (6) expanding and deepening China’s national defense mobilization system to include all relevant aspects of its society and economy for use in competition and war.

Since early 2022, the Party appears to have been deemphasizing the term MCF in public, in favor of “integrated national strategic systems and capabilities.” Xi’s work report to the 20th Party Congress in October 2022 omitted any mention of MCF, only calling for “consolidating and enhancing integrated national security strategies and capabilities,” and then addressing many of the components traditionally associated with MCF.

The PRC pursues its MCF strategy as a nationwide endeavor that seeks to meld its economic and social development strategies with its security strategies to build an integrated national strategic system and capabilities in support of China’s national rejuvenation goals. The Party’s leaders view MCF as a critical element of their strategy for the PRC to become a “great modern socialist country” which includes becoming a world leader in science and technology (S&T) and developing a “world-class” military.

Although the PRC’s MCF strategy includes objectives to develop and acquire advanced dual-use technology for military purposes and deepen reform of the national defense S&T industries, its broader purpose is to strengthen all of the PRC’s instruments of national power by melding aspects of its economic, military, and social governance. MCF strives to establish an infrastructure that connects the military and civilian sectors in a way that serves as a catalyst for innovation and economic development, yields an effective unity of effort in advancing dual-use technologies, especially those suited for “intelligentized” warfare, and facilitates effective industrial mobilization during wartime.

Development and Significance. The Party has explored the concept of leveraging or integrating the combined contributions of the military and civilian sectors since the PRC’s founding. The current MCF concept initially took root in the early 2000s as the Party sought methods to enhance the PRC’s overall development. This led Party leaders to call for improving “military-civilian integration” that echoed the collaboration between the defense and civilian sectors that China observed in the United States and other developed countries. Implementation of these efforts stalled due to a lack of centralized government control and the organizational barriers that exist across the party-state. Coinciding with the 11th FYP (2006-2010), the PRC began replacing “military-civilian integration” with “military-civilian fusion.” In 2007, Party officials publicly noted the change from “integration” to “fusion” was not merely cosmetic but broadened the scope to include all available economic resources in the promotion of the defense industry.

Since that time, MCF’s ambitions have grown in scope and scale as the Party has come to view it as a means to bridge the PRC’s economic and social development with its security development in support of the PRC’s national strategy to renew China. As such, the Party has continued to elevate MCF’s importance. In 2015, the CCP Central Committee elevated the MCF Development Strategy to a national-level strategy to serve as a bridge between the PRC’s national development strategy and its national security strategy, later also adding building “integrated national strategic systems and capabilities” (一体化的国家战略体系和能力), both of which support the PRC’s goal of national rejuvenation.

Since early 2022, the Party appears to have been deemphasizing the term MCF in public, in favor of “integrated national strategic systems and capabilities.” This term appears to have originated in June 2017 when Xi addressed the first meeting of the Central Committee’s Central Commission for Military-Civil Fusion Development and charged them with gradually building up “China’s integrated national strategic systems and capabilities.” Xi used “integrated national strategic systems and capabilities” in conjunction with “military-civilian fusion” in his 2017 speech to the 19th Party Congress, suggesting that completion of major projects, achievements in defense research, and improved MCF would contribute to building the PRC’s overarching integrated national strategic systems and capabilities. In December 2017, three PLA National Defense University (NDU) scholars published a study expanding on that concept, asserting that MCF was part of a near-term goal to establish basic “deep development patterns.” The NDU academics maintained that once that was accomplished, the PRC could move on to its ultimate goal of building “integrated national strategic systems and capabilities.” Notably, the language in the study closely mirrored that of national policies, making it possible that the authors played a significant role in helping draft the strategy. Their interpretation of Xi’s speech was supported by numerous other writings that came out following the 19th Party Congress in 2017.

Xi’s work report to the 20th Party Congress in October 2022 omitted any mention of MCF, only calling for “consolidating and enhancing integrated national security strategies and capabilities,” and then addressing many of the components traditionally associated with MCF. This same formulation was used in March 2023 by Xi and CMC Vice Chairman Zhang Youxia in their separate addresses to PLA and People’s Armed Police delegates to the 14th National People’s Congress. Provincial party officials responsible for MCF were already publicly using the phrase “integrated national strategic systems and capabilities” and avoiding the term MCF in the months leading up to the 20th Party Congress. It is not clear whether Party leadership believes that China has met all the conditions to move beyond MCF. However, an article published in the PLA Daily in December 2022 stated that the process of enhancing integrated national strategic systems and capabilities will “quicken the pace of national defense and armed forces building” and “greatly enhance the strategic confrontation capability of the national system.”

Management and Implementation. The overall management and implementation of the MCF Development Strategy involves the most powerful organs in the party-state: the Politburo, the State Council (notably the National Development and Reform Commission), and the CMC. In addition to signifying its importance, the CCP Central Committee’s elevation of the MCF Development Strategy to a national-level strategy also was intended to overcome obstacles to implementation across the party-state.

This elevation led to the establishment of the Central Commission for Military Civilian Fusion Development (中央军民融合发展委员会) (CCMCFD) in 2017, chaired by General Secretary Xi Jinping, Premier Li Qiang, several other members of the Politburo Standing Committee, two State Councilors, both CMC Vice Chairmen, 12 Ministry-level leaders, and others. The stated objective of the CCMCFD is to build the PRC’s “national strategic system and capabilities.” This commission works to improve the “top-level design” of MCF and overcome impediments to implementation. The elevation of the MCF Development Strategy and the creation of the CCMCFD signals the importance that Party leaders place on MCF and the scope and scale of the strategy’s ambitions.

The PRC pursues MCF through six interrelated efforts. Each effort overlaps with the others and has both domestic and international components. The Party seeks to implement the MCF Development Strategy across every level of the PRC from the highest national-level organs down to provinces and townships and creates top-down financing and regulatory mechanisms that incentivize civilian and military stakeholders—such as local governments, academia, research institutions, private investors, and military organizations—to combine efforts on dual-use technologies. The PRC refers to these six aspects as “systems,” which may also be understood as mutually supporting lines of effort or components. The six systems in the MCF Development Strategy are as follows:

The Advanced Defense Science, Technology, and Industrial System. This system focuses on fusing the PRC’s defense industrial base and its civilian technology and industrial base. This includes expanding the private sector’s participation in the PRC’s defense industrial base and supply chains as well as improving the efficiency, capacity, and flexibility of defense and civilian industrial and manufacturing processes. This broader participation seeks to transfer mature technologies both ways across military and civilian sectors, with the goal to produce outsized benefits for both. This also aims to increase the competitiveness within the PRC’s defense industrial base in which one or two defense SOEs dominate an entire sector. This MCF system also seeks to advance the PRC’s self-reliance in manufacturing key industrial technologies, equipment, and materials to reduce its dependence on imports, including those with dual-uses. The PRC’s MCF-influenced industrial and technology endeavors include Made in China 2025, which sets targets for the PRC to achieve greater self-sufficiency in key industrial areas such as aerospace, communications, and transportation.

The Military-Civil Coordinated Technology Innovation System. This MCF system seeks to maximize the full benefits and potential of the country’s S&T development. Consistent with the CCP leadership’s view that high technology and innovation are critical to strengthening China’s comprehensive national power, this system develops and integrates advanced technologies across civilian and military entities, projects, and initiatives—with benefits flowing in both directions. This includes using cutting-edge civilian technology for military applications or to more broadly advance military S&T as well as using military advancements to push civilian economic development. Although related to the Advanced Defense Science, Technology, and Industrial System, this system largely focuses on fusing innovations and advances in basic and applied research. Specific efforts in this MCF system include strengthening and promoting civilian and military R&D in advanced dual-use technologies and cross-pollinating military and civilian basic research. Additional efforts include promoting the sharing of scientific resources, expanding the institutions involved in defense research, and fostering greater collaboration across defense and civilian research communities. This system also seeks to foster “new-type” research institutions with mixed funding sources and lean management structures that are more dynamic, efficient, and effective than the PRC’s wholly state-owned research bodies. Examples of MCF-influenced dual-use S&T endeavors include the PRC’s Innovation Driven Development Strategy and Artificial Intelligence National Project.

The Fundamental Domain Resource Sharing System. This system includes building military requirements into the construction of civilian infrastructure from the ground up as well as leveraging China’s civilian construction and logistics capacities and capabilities for military purposes. This includes factoring military requirements and dual-use purposes into building civilian private and public transportation infrastructure such as airports, port facilities, railways, roads, and communications networks. This also extends to infrastructure projects in dual-use domains such as space and undersea as well as mobile communications networks and topographical and meteorological systems. Another element seeks to set common military and civilian standards to make infrastructure easier to use in emergencies and wartime. This aspect of MCF has arguably the greatest reach into the PRC’s local governance systems as military requirements inform infrastructure construction at the province, county, and township levels. The influence of this aspect of MCF is visible in the PRC’s major land reclamations and military construction activities in the SCS, which brought together numerous government entities, the PLA, law enforcement, construction companies, and commercial entities. It may also have important implications for the PRC’s overseas infrastructure projects and investments under BRI as the PRC seeks to establish a more robust overseas logistics and basing infrastructure to allow the PLA to project and sustain military power.

The Military Personnel (Talent) Cultivation System. This MCF system seeks to blend and cultivate military and civilian S&T expertise through education programs, personnel exchanges, and knowledge sharing. The purpose of this effort is to improve the utilization of experts able to participate in S&T projects irrespective of whether they are military or civilian (or even foreign) experts and allow expertise to flow more freely across sectors. This aspect of MCF also seeks to reform the PRC’s talent cultivation system, which encompasses hundreds of talent recruitment plans, in order to improve China’s human capital, build a highly skilled workforce, and recruit foreign experts to provide access to know-how, expertise, and foreign technology. It takes into account all levels of education from the Party’s nationwide “patriotic education” programs for children to the matriculation of post-doctorate researchers within China and at institutions abroad. Many of the PRC’s named talents programs are likely influenced by MCF planning, as are reforms in its military academies, national universities, and research institutes.

The Socialized Support and Sustainment System for the PLA. This system entails two major efforts that seeks to shift the PLA away from its inefficient self-contained logistics and sustainment systems and towards modern streamlined logistics and support services. First, it seeks to harness civilian public sector and private sector resources to improve the PLA’s basic services and support functions—ranging from food, housing, and healthcare services. The concept is to gain efficiencies in costs and personnel by outsourcing non-military services previously performed by the PLA while also improving the quality of life for military personnel. Second, it seeks to further the construction of a modern military logistics system that is able to support and sustain the PLA in joint operations and for overseas operations. This system seeks to fuse the PLA Joint Logistic Support Force’s (JLSF’s) efforts to integrate the military’s joint logistics functions with the PRC’s advanced civilian logistics, infrastructure, and delivery service companies and networks. These arrangements seek to provide the PLA with modern transportation and distribution, warehousing, information sharing, and other types of support in peacetime and wartime. This fusion also seeks to provide the PLA with a logistics system that is more efficient, higher capacity, higher quality, and global in reach.

The National Defense Mobilization System. This MCF system binds the other systems as it seeks to mobilize the PRC’s military, economic, and social resources to defend or advance China’s sovereignty, security and development interests. The Party views China’s growing strength as only useful to the extent that the party-state can mobilize it. China characterizes mobilization as the ability to precisely use the instrument, capability, or resource needed, when needed, for the duration needed. Within the PLA, 2015-16 reforms elevated defense mobilization to a department called the National Defense Mobilization Department (NDMD), which reports directly to the CMC. The NDMD plays an important role in this system by organizing and overseeing the PLA’s reserve forces, militia, and provincial military districts and below. This system also seeks to integrate the state emergency management system into the national defense mobilization system in order to achieve a coordinated military-civilian response during a crisis. Consistent with the Party’s view of international competition, many MCF mobilization initiatives not only seek to reform how the PRC mobilizes for war and responds to emergencies, but how the economy and society can be leveraged to support the PRC’s strategic needs for international competition.

MCF Linkages. Each MCF system entails linkages between dozens of organizations and government entities, including:

Ministry-level organizations from the State Council: Examples include the National Development and Reform Commission, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, Ministry of Education, and key state entities such as the State Administration of Science and Technology in National Defense and others.

Lead military organs subordinate to the Central Military Commission: CMC Strategic Planning Office, Joint Political, Logistics, and Equipment Development Departments, as well as operational units and the regional military structure at the Military District and Sub-District levels; military universities and academies such as National Defense University, Academy of Military Science, National University of Defense Technology, and service institutions.

State-sponsored educational institutions, research centers, and key laboratories: Prominent examples include the “Seven Sons of National Defense” (Harbin Institute of Technology, Nanjing University of Science and Technology, Northwestern Polytechnical Institute, Beijing Institute of Technology, Harbin Engineering University, Beihang University, Nanjing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics), as well as certain PLA-affiliated laboratories of Tsinghua University, Beijing University, and Shanghai Jiaotong University, North University of China, and others.

Defense industry: The ten major defense SOEs continue to fill their traditional roles providing weapons and equipment to the military services. Many defense SOEs consist of dozens of subsidiaries, sub-contractors, and subordinate research institutes.

Other SOEs and quasi-private companies: High profile examples include PRC high-tech corporations and important SOEs like COSCO, China National Offshore Oil Company, and major construction companies that have roles in BRI projects as well as helping the PRC build out occupied terrain features in the SCS.

Private companies: MCF efforts also seek to increase the proportion of private companies that contribute to military projects and procurements. These enterprises include technology companies that specialize in unmanned systems, robotics, artificial intelligence, cybersecurity, and big data.

Multi-stakeholder partnerships: In practice, many MCF efforts involve partnerships between central, provincial, or city government entities with military district departments, PLA departments, academia, research entities, and companies. A majority of provincial and local governments have announced MCF industrial plans, and more than 35 national-level MCF industrial zones have been established across China. MCF-linked investments funds created by central and local governments and private investors total in the tens of billions of dollars.

DEFENSE POLICY AND MILITARY STRATEGY

Key Takeaways

In 2022, the PRC’s stated defense policy aims remained oriented toward safeguarding its sovereignty, security, and development interests, while emphasizing a greater global role for itself. The PRC’s military strategy remains based on the concept of “active defense (积极防御).”
PRC leaders stress the imperative of strengthening the PLA into a “world-class” military by the end of 2049 as an essential element of its strategy to rejuvenate the PRC into a “great modern socialist country.” In response to perceived personnel deficiencies within the PLA, Xi approved and issued a new series of regulations in July 2022 on the management of PLA soldiers seeking to improve recruiting, training, promotions, benefits, and demobilization efforts for non-commissioned officers (NCOs).
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 secured his third term as the general secretary of China’s Communist Party at the Party Congress in October 2022 and his appointment of loyalists to top positions in the CMC probably will enable Xi to expand upon military modernization and operational goals during his next 5-year term. 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. During his October 2022 speech at the opening ceremony of the 20th Party Congress, Xi stated that China intends to complete the plan to modernize the PLA by 2027.
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. The PLA’s official newspaper continued to emphasize the importance developing MDPW in 2022, citing “several informatized local wars” as evidence for the need for MDPW capabilities.
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 to 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 20^th 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 19^th Party Congress. Documents released following the Fifth Plenum of the 19^th 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 on 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.

Although China’s leaders view building military strength as a strategic imperative, they also place important caveats on these objectives. For example, Chairman Xi’s direction to the PLA to “basically complete” modernization by 2035 should also occur “in step with the modernization of the country.” These qualifications serve several purposes that highlight the interlocking nature of the Party’s strategic planning. First, as the PRC’s interests continue to expand, the Party expects the PLA to keep pace with the country’s evolving interests and be ready and able to defend its progress. Second, linking the PLA’s transformation to the country’s transformation allows Party leaders to signal the scope and scale of the internal changes they expect the PLA to implement, particularly given its historic resistance to reforms that challenge its risk-adverse organizational culture or threaten vested bureaucratic interests. Finally, these qualifications provide flexibility to the Party’s leaders to calibrate military resources and defense objectives based on the conditions of the country’s overall development. This offers PRC leaders the ability to adapt to changing economic or international conditions and ensure military investments support—rather than compromise—the strategy.

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. For the PRC to aim lower or otherwise willingly accept a permanent condition of military inferiority would seem anathema to the fundamental purpose of becoming a “great modern socialist country.” 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 shortcoming 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.

CHINA’S MILITARY LEADERSHIP

As the military’s highest decision-making body, the CMC is technically also a department of the CCP Central Committee. The CMC Chairman is a civilian, usually serving concurrently as the General Secretary of the CCP and President of the PRC. CMC members are appointed at Party Congresses every five years. In the fall of 2022 at the 20th Party Congress, General Zhang Youxia ascended to the first Vice Chairman position, joined by General He Weidong as the second Vice Chairman. Other CMC members include General Li Shangfu, General Liu Zhenli, and returning members Admiral Miao Hua and General Zhang Shengmin. In 2022, the CMC consisted of two vice chairs, the Minister of National Defense, the chiefs of the Joint Staff and Political Work Departments, and the head of the Discipline Inspection Commission.

Chairman Xi Jinping concurrently serves as the CCP General Secretary, CMC Chairman, and President of the PRC. Xi was first appointed as Party General Secretary and CMC Chairman in 2012 and as President in the spring of 2013. Xi was reappointed to all of his positions for an unprecedented third term at 2022’s 20th Party Congress and the 2023 National People’s Congress. In 2016, Xi was announced as the commander-in-chief of the CMC’s Joint Operations Command Center (JOCC) and was named “core” leader of the CCP Central Committee. Prior to becoming CMC Chairman, Xi served as the CMC’s only civilian Vice Chairman under Hu Jintao. Xi’s father was an important military figure during China’s communist revolution and was a Politburo member in the 1980s. Xi also served as an aide to a defense minister early in his career and had regular interactions with the PLA as a provincial Party official.

Vice Chairman General Zhang Youxia is China’s top uniformed official and former junior vice chairman. Zhang was first appointed to the CMC in 2012 as the head of the General Armaments Department—now the Equipment Development Department (EDD)—where he oversaw the PLA’s manned space program, as well as MCF and military modernization efforts. Zhang gained rare experience as a combat commander during China’s brief war with Vietnam in 1979. Zhang formerly commanded the Shenyang Military Region, which shares a border with North Korea and Russia. Zhang is one of the PLA’s “princelings.” His father, a well-known military figure in China, served with Xi’s father at the close of Chinese Civil War in 1949. Zhang, at age 72 in 2022, was expected to retire due to previously followed age norms within the PLA. However, Zhang’s retention on the CMC for a third term probably reflects Xi’s desire to keep a close and experienced ally as his top military advisor.

Vice Chairman General He Weidong is China’s second-most senior officer and a former commander of the PLA’s Eastern Theater. His ascent to a vice chairman position absent prior CMC membership is unusual and probably a testament to his extensive operational experience focused on Taiwan. Before his selection as vice chairman, He served a brief stint in the CMC JOCC where he played a key role in planning live-fire drills in the Taiwan Strait as part of the PLA response to the then-U.S. House Speaker Pelosi’s August 2022 visit to Taipei. He may have close ties to Xi due to their overlapping service in Fujian and Zhejiang provinces in the late 1990s and early 2000s.

Minister of National Defense General Li Shangfu was appointed to the CMC at the 20th Party Congress in October 2022, and as the Minister of National Defense at the NPC in March 2023. Li is the PLA’s third-most senior officer and manages its relationship with state bureaucracies and foreign militaries. Unlike the U.S. Secretary of Defense, he is not part of the chain of command and his primary policy influence is derived from membership on the CMC and State Council, where he serves as a direct liaison for civil-military integration, defense mobilization, and budgeting. Li previously headed the EDD where he managed the PLA’s weapons development and acquisition efforts and China’s manned space program. In 2018, Li was sanctioned by the United States for his role as EDD director overseeing the purchase of Russian fighter jets and surface-to-air missile systems.

Joint Staff Department Chief General Liu Zhenli oversees PLA joint operations, a narrowing of the wider responsibilities held by the former General Staff Department prior to reforms initiated in 2015. Liu is one of few remaining active-duty PLA officers with combat experience and is recognized as a combat hero for his service in China’s border war with Vietnam. Like his predecessor Li Zuocheng, Liu rose through the ranks of the PLA Army HQ, assuming command of the service in 2021. Beginning in 2015 as Army chief of staff, Liu guided the service through a major period of reform which saw the ground force downgraded to an equal standing with the other branches. Liu, at age 58 in 2022, is the youngest CMC member and is eligible to remain on the CMC for at least an additional term.

Political Work Department Director Admiral Miao Hua oversees the PLA’s political work, including propaganda, organization, and education. Miao is a former Army officer who switched services to the Navy in December 2014 when he became political commissar of the PLAN. Miao may have ties to Xi from his time serving in the 31st Group Army in Fujian Province, when his career overlapped with Xi’s. Miao participated as the PLAN political commissar during the Navy’s BRIcruise conducted in mid-2017. Miao Hua, at age 66 in 2022, remained on the CMC in his current position following the 20th Party Congress.

Secretary of the Discipline Inspection Commission General Zhang Shengmin oversees the highest-level organization responsible for investigating military violations of Party discipline, including corrupt practices. Zhang is also a deputy secretary and third-ranking member on the standing committee of the Party’s Discipline Inspection Commission. Zhang’s reappointment reflects the Party’s continued commitment to the anticorruption campaign within the military. Zhang, at age 65 in 2022, remained on the CMC in his current position following the 20th Party Congress.

China's Military Leadership Organizational Chart