China Military Power: Modernizing a Force to Fight and Win - 2019 DIA Report on Strategy, Plans, Intentions, Organization and Capability, and Enabling Infrastructure and Industrial Base

This superb, up-to-date, and comprehensive analysis of China's military by America's Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA), released in January 2019, has been professionally converted for accurate flowing-text e-book format reproduction.

The Defense Intelligence Agency—indeed the broader U.S. Intelligence Community—is continually asked, "What do we need to know about China?" What is China’s vision of the world and its role in it? What are Beijing’s strategic intentions and what are the implications for Washington? How are the PLA’s roles and missions changing as it becomes a more capable military force? Since Mao Zedong’s Communist Revolution in October 1949 brought the Chinese Communist Party to power, China has struggled to identify and align itself with its desired place in the world. Early factional struggles for control of party leadership, decades of negotiations to define territorial boundaries, and continued claims to territories not yet recovered have at times seemed at odds with the self-described nature of the Chinese as peace-loving and oriented only toward their own defense. Chinese leaders historically have been willing to use military force against threats to their regime, whether foreign or domestic, at times preemptively. Lack of significant involvement in military operations during the last several decades has led to a sense of insecurity within the PLA as it seeks to modernize into a great power military.

Still, the United States has at times found itself in direct conflict with China or Chinese forces. China supported two major conflicts in Asia after the Second World War, introducing Chinese volunteer forces in Korea and providing direct Chinese air and air defense support to Hanoi in Vietnam. In addition, China fought border skirmishes with the Soviet Union, India, and a unified Vietnam. In all three cases, military action was an integral part of Chinese diplomatic negotiations. Since then, China has concluded negotiations for most of its land borders (India and Bhutan being the outliers) but remains in contention with Japan, the Philippines, Brunei, Indonesia, Malaysia, and Vietnam over maritime borders, which may in part explain motivation for the PLA Navy’s impressive growth and the new emphasis on maritime law enforcement capabilities.

1. Introduction / Historical Overview * 2. 1978–Present: China’s Military Rise * 3. National Military Overview * 4. Threat Perceptions * 5. National Security Strategy * 6. The PLA’s Role in National Security * 7. Military Leadership * 8. Stability Issues * 9. External Defense Relations * 10. Defense Budget * 11. Military Doctrine and Strategy * 12. Perceptions of Modern Conflict * 13. National Military Command and Control * 14. Core Elements of Command and Control Reform * 15. Modernizing Joint Command and Control * 16. Regional and Global Operations * 17. Core Chinese Military Capabilities * 18. Power Projection and Expeditionary Operations * 19. Nuclear Forces and Weapons * 20. Biological and Chemical Warfare * 21. Space/Counterspace * 22. Satellites * 23. Counterspace * 24. Human Spaceflight and Space-Exploration Probes * 25. Space Launch * 26. Cyberspace * 27. Denial and Deception * 28. Logistics and Defense-Industrial Modernization * 29. Logistics * 30. Defense-Industrial Base * 31. Underground Facilities * 32. Missions Other Than War * 33. Outlook: Developing a Robust Force * 34. APPENDIX A: PLA Army * 35. APPENDIX B: PLA Navy * 36. APPENDIX C: PLA Air Force * 37. APPENDIX D: PLA Rocket Force * 38. APPENDIX E: PLA Strategic Support Force * 39. APPENDIX F: Chinese Intelligence Services * 40. APPENDIX G: Military Resources, Infrastructure, and Logistics * 41. APPENDIX H: Defense Industry * 42. APPENDIX I: Arms Sales * 43. APPENDIX J: Glossary of Acronyms