- 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
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OFFICE OF THE SECRETARY OF DEFENSE
Annual Report to Congress: Military and Security Developments Involving the People's Republic of China
