In recent years, China has revealed a new side of itself to the world. Today, the People’s Republic of China (PRC) is not just an economic powerhouse; it has entered the international security arena, and it is there to stay.
Under President Xi Jinping’s leadership, China aims to have fully-modernised armed forces by 2035, and a fully-fledged top-tier military by 2050 that is capable of fighting and winning wars. The force’s humble beginnings in 1927 as a group of ill-trained foot soldiers has been quite dramatically left behind.
Beginning in 2012 (the start of his first five-year term in office), President Xi Jinping has embarked on a top-down approach to reaching the 2050 goal, recognising that “it takes first-class military talent, theory and science and technology to build the PLA into a world-leading military.” China’s defence industry underwent reforms to combat inefficiency, which included the listing of certain research institutes on the stock market, as well as amalgamating existing defence companies (in effect returning to the previous structure based on monopolies), enabling them to compete with foreign defence industry giants.
In 2017, regional innovation centres were created to drive advanced research and development, particularly in missile, naval and aviation technology. Civil-military integration (whereby commercial and military technological and industrial bases are joined up) accelerated in 2015, and in 2017 gained renewed impetus with the formation of the Commission for Integrated Civilian-Military Development. Also last year China further opened the country’s defence sector to enterprises by declassifying more than 3,000 defence patents for the first time. Beijing has also opened bidding for equipment procurement agreements and set up The Military Science Research and Steering Committee as its version of the US’ Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) that develops emerging technologies for the military.
All of these plans are, undoubtedly, expensive. However, defence spending continued to grow by 7.1 per cent between 2016 and 2017—taking the total to US $150bn annually.
The recent reforms may not show results straightaway, or even for a few years. But there should be no doubt that the PLA today is no longer far behind the west when it comes to certain areas of defence technology. Indeed, the aforementioned reforms are meant to drive forward China’s current defence innovation, not kick-start it. China has made notable progress in arming its fighter aircraft with increasingly advanced missiles, including its first stealthy combat aircraft, the J-20, that is now nearing entry into service. The west’s superiority in the air is under growing threat.
China may also be the frontrunner now in the race towards developing hypersonic glide vehicles, though the US Navy in November 2017 announced the test fire of its own hypersonic vehicle from the Pacific Range Facility in Hawaii. Additionally, it is an increasing exporter of heavy and armed drones, primarily filling the market gap where the west does not or will not export such technology, such as to countries in the Middle East and Central Asia.
China’s naval power is growing, with the introduction of the PLA Navy’s Type-055 cruiser and continued progress towards building its first wholly-indigenous aircraft carrier. The first of the new Type-093A Shang II-class nuclear-powered attack submarines has recently begun operating and China is advancing its nuclear-armed ballistic-missile submarine fleet. The fact that the total tonnage of new warships and auxiliaries launched by China in the last four years alone is significantly greater than the total tonnage of the French navy should leave little doubt about China’s growing ambition to exert its control over regional, and perhaps international, waters.
“Chinese defence spending grew by 7.1 per cent between 2016 and 2017”China is also gaining ground in the cyber, space, electronic warfare and quantum computing fields, and in fact increasingly leads in them. The PLA’s Strategic Support Force (SSF) is entirely dedicated to its military space, cyber and electronic warfare capabilities. China has nascent though tried-and-tested anti-satellite missiles able to destroy enemy communications, and has indicated it is interested in developing new launch vehicles to supplement a new series of rockets.
The heavy focus on aviation, naval, space and cyber capabilities is an indication of where China both seeks to close the technological gap with countries in the region and the west, and that it identifies the sea, air and cyberspace domains as the most likely arenas of future conflict.
Despite these advances and the amassing of ships, aircraft, missiles and satellites, it would still be premature to suppose that global Chinese military superiority is inevitable. Challenges remain. Firstly, though the drive for innovation requires a healthy defence budget and economy, a slowed-down Chinese economy will present a constraint if domestic innovation does not become more cost-effective and competitive. Though no longer solely dependent on foreign military technology transfer, China still relies on higher-end technologies such as aircraft engines from abroad.
Furthermore, ships and aircraft are useless if they cannot be operated. The PLA has not experienced combat since the late 1970s, and it remains to be seen to what extent joint-exercises, peacekeeping operations and deployments to the South China Sea and beyond or the Chinese military base in Djibouti will help prepare PLA troops. Though Xi has introduced a new training manual focussing on combat and joint-operations, as well as new policy to increase professionalisation of PLA forces, little is yet known about either.
Lastly, Chinese presumption of global military dominance also presupposes that western innovation flatlines or stagnates. With actors such as US PACOM commander Admiral Harry Harris increasingly warning of a rising and increasingly capable China that “can soon challenge the US across all domains,” this is not at all guaranteed. And yet, regardless of these hurdles, with strong political leadership in China’s Central Military Commission (also Chaired by Xi) that is intent on reaching the 2050 goal, China is well on its way to turning its former Red Army infantry into a modern and global fighting force.
