CSCMA Research & Case Studies

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  Discerning the Drivers of China’s Nuclear Force Development: Models, Indicators, and Data

  David C. Logan and Phillip C. Saunders

  For decades following its first test in 1964, China maintained a small nuclear force and a doctrine emphasizing deterrence and no-first-use of nuclear weapons. China has recently embarked on an unprecedented campaign of expansion and modernization, which is changing the size, structure, and operational posture of its nuclear forces. The growing discrepancy between China’s restrained declaratory policy and advancing nuclear capabilities raises important questions about the status and future trajectory of China’s nuclear forces, with major implications for the United States.

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  Averting Escalation and Avoiding War: Lessons from the 1995–1996 Taiwan Strait Crisis

  Kristen Gunness and Phillip C. Saunders

  This study assesses information-sharing, communication, and policy coordination between U.S. and Taiwan decisionmakers in the 1995–1996 Taiwan Strait Crisis, derives key lessons, considers the implications for a future crisis, and makes recommendations to policymakers.

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  Gray Dragons: Assessing China’s Senior Military Leadership

  Joel Wuthnow

  This report analyzes more than 300 biographies of senior Chinese military officers from 2015 and 2021 to assess the composition, demographics, and career patterns of the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) leadership.

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  System Overload: Can China’s Military Be Distracted in a War over Taiwan?

  Joel Wuthnow

  In his 2019 New Year’s Day address, Chinese Communist Party (CCP) General Secretary Xi Jinping issued a stern warning to Taiwan: “We make no promise to abandon the use of force, and retain the option of taking all necessary measures.” At the same time, he warned that force could also be used to forestall “intervention by external forces,” referring to the United States. While designed to intimidate recalcitrant Taiwan and U.S. leaders—and appeal to domestic nationalists—rather than to signal an imminent confrontation, Xi’s comments underscored the very real military threats that China’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA) poses to Taiwan. As the U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency notes, Taiwan has been the “primary driver” of PLA modernization for decades, spurring the development of short- and long-range ballistic missiles, amphibious and airborne units, and other capabilities targeted at Taiwan and intervening U.S. forces. Those threats have become more worrisome as the PLA conducts large-scale exercises and provocative bomber flights around the island. The PLA’s improved warfighting capabilities have contributed to China’s near-term cross–Taiwan Strait objective—deterring Taiwan independence. Understanding the costs that a war would impose on the island, few but the most die-hard Taiwan independence activists have supported overt moves toward de jure independence.

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  China's Other Army: The People's Armed Police in an Era of Reform

  Joel Wuthnow

  China’s premier paramilitary force—the People’s Armed Police (PAP)—is undergoing its most profound restructuring since its establishment in 1982.

  • Previously under dual civilian and military command, the PAP has been placed firmly under China’s military. As chairman of the Central Military Commission, Xi Jinping now has direct control over all of China’s primary instruments of coercive power. This represents the highest degree of centralized control over China’s paramilitary forces since the Cultural Revolution.
  • Local and provincial officials have lost the ability to unilaterally deploy PAP units in the event of civil unrest or natural disasters, but can still request support through a new coordination system.
  • The China Coast Guard, which previously reported to civilian agencies, has been placed within the PAP and is thus now part of the military command structure.
  • New PAP operational commands, known as “mobile contingents,” have been established with a diverse mix of capabilities. They will play a key role in protecting the capital and could be deployed in a Taiwan contingency, among other missions.
  • Geographic distribution of mobile PAP units remains skewed to western China, providing rapid reaction capabilities that could be used to repress dissent in Xinjiang and Tibet.

  Politically, the reforms reaffirm Chinese Communist Party (and Xi Jinping’s) control over the PAP and may reduce the scope for local abuse of power.

  • Despite earlier reforms, the PAP’s chain of command was convoluted, confusing, and decentralized. These reforms sought to ensure central party control over an organization deemed vital for ensuring the party’s security and survival.
  • Centralizing command also attempts to bolster the party’s legitimacy by reducing the ability of local officials to misapply PAP assets through corruption or overuse of force to handle local grievances.
  • A consequence of tighter control, however, could be slower responses to incidents as local officials have to submit requests through PAP channels. In some cases, officials may be reluctant to request PAP support in order to avoid negative attention from senior leaders.
  • The reforms place Xi firmly in charge of the PAP, though he will have to exercise authority through trusted agents. The success of continued PAP reforms will depend on elite consensus that centralized management of PAP deployments is desirable.

  Operationally, the reforms narrow the PAP’s responsibilities to three key areas: domestic stability, wartime support, and maritime rights protection.

  • Several law enforcement and economic functions previously under the PAP, such as border guards and gold mining, have been divested and placed within appropriate civilian ministries and localities.
  • PAP internal security forces remain focused on domestic security missions, including maintaining stability in western China, guarding government compounds, and disaster relief. PAP units would also be on the frontlines in responding to a major threat to the regime.
  • The PAP has also been encouraged to play a stronger role in supporting People’s Liberation Army (PLA) combat operations. Key roles could include guarding critical infrastructure and supply lines during wartime. Nevertheless, current PAP-PLA cooperation appears superficial and will remain so if the PAP is not better integrated into the PLA’s joint command system.
  • Incorporating the coast guard into the PAP could presage stronger integration with the navy in terms of operations, training, and equipment development, but this will require closer institutional cooperation than currently exists.
  • The PAP will continue to face capabilities gaps, especially in niche areas such as special operations forces and helicopters. Its ability to close those gaps will depend on its political effectiveness in future budget negotiations.

  PAP activities beyond China’s borders are likely to increase and could have implications for the United States and other Indo-Pacific states.

  • The PAP has emerged as a partner of choice for foreign governments in areas such as counterterrorism and peacekeeping training, in addition to its longstanding role as contributors to United Nations peacekeeping missions.
  • PAP units are also likely to deploy overseas to support counterterrorism operations. In some cases, Beijing may also rely on PAP capabilities to protect Chinese citizens and assets abroad, such as projects under the Belt and Road Initiative.
  • Closer coast guard–navy cooperation, if it emerges, would increase risks to U.S. and allied maritime operations in the South and East China seas. U.S. officials will need to determine if new agreements are needed, and feasible, to cover coast guard encounters.

  Over the long run, PAP forces may one day deploy to support Chinese combat operations; one example is a potential role in providing stability during a pacification campaign on Taiwan.

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  China's Strategic Support Force: A Force for a New Era

  John Costello and Joe McReynolds

  In late 2015, the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) initiated reforms that have brought dramatic changes to its structure, model of warfighting, and organizational culture, including the creation of a Strategic Support Force (SSF) that centralizes most PLA space, cyber, electronic, and psychological warfare capabilities. The reforms come at an inflection point as the PLA seeks to pivot from land-based territorial defense to extended power projection to protect Chinese interests in the “strategic frontiers” of space, cyberspace, and the far seas. Understanding the new strategic roles of the SSF is essential to understanding how the PLA plans to fight and win informationized wars and how it will conduct information operations.

  • The SSF combines assorted space, cyber, electronic, and psychological warfare capabilities from across the PLA services and its former General Departments.
  • In addition to expected efficiency gains from this approach, the SSF was created to build new synergies between disparate capabilities that enable specific types of strategic information operations (IO) missions expected to be decisive in future wars.
  • Despite a lack of transparency and the fact that the SSF is still in transition, a coherent picture has emerged of how the SSF’s components fit together and the strategic roles and missions they are intended to fulfill.

  The SSF reports to the Central Military Commission (CMC) and oversees two co-equal, semi-independent branches: the Space Systems Department, which leads a space force responsible for space operations, and the Network Systems Department, which leads a cyber force responsible for information operations.

  • The Space Systems Department is largely built around elements of the former General Armament Department and now controls nearly every aspect of PLA space operations, including space launch and support; telemetry, tracking, and control; information support; and space warfare. This appears to resolve previous PLA bureaucratic power struggles over responsibility for space missions.
  • The Network Systems Department is built around the former General Staff Department 3rd Department and incorporates all strategic IO units in the PLA, including those responsible for cyber warfare, electronic warfare, psychological warfare, and technical reconnaissance. This centralization addresses longstanding challenges in operational coordination between the PLA’s cyber espionage and cyber attack forces. Below the strategic level, the Network Systems Department shares operational- and tactical-level missions with units under the services and regional theater commands.
  • The PLA has thus far pursued a “bricks, not clay” approach to the creation of the SSF. Instead of building the organization from scratch, the PLA has renamed, resubordinated, or moved existing organizations and their component parts and then redefined their command relationships.

  The SSF has two primary roles: strategic information support and strategic information operations.

  • The SSF’s strategic information support role entails centralizing technical intelligence collection and management, providing strategic intelligence support to theater commands, enabling PLA power projection, supporting strategic defense in the space and nuclear domains, and enabling joint operations.
  • The SSF’s strategic IO role involves the coordinated employment of space, cyber, and electronic warfare to “paralyze the enemy’s operational system-of-systems” and “sabotage the enemy’s war command system-of-systems” in the initial stages of conflict.
  • The SSF improves the PLA’s ability to conduct information operations by integrating multiple disciplines of information warfare into a unified force, integrating cyber espionage and offense, unifying information warfare campaign planning and force development, and unifying responsibilities for command and control of information operations.
  • The SSF also appears to have incorporated elements of the PLA’s psychological and political warfare missions, a result of a subtle yet consequential PLA-wide reorganization of China’s political warfare forces. This may portend a more operational role for psychological operations in the future.

  The PLA reforms have substantially altered the command context for many of the missions now under the SSF, redefining longstanding organizational relationships and creating new responsibilities across the PLA command bureaucracy.

  • The reforms dissolved the four general departments and created an expanded Central Military Commission, including a new Joint Staff Department (JSD) with responsibility for supervising joint operations. The CMC now oversees a dual command structure where services are responsible for force construction and five theater commands are responsible for conventional joint operations in their respective regions. The SSF and Rocket Force fall outside this bifurcated arrangement, maintaining responsibility for both their own force construction and strategic operations.
  • The PLA has created a new force-wide structure under the JSD for managing cyber and electronic warfare missions. Along with the creation of the SSF, this framework aims to institutionalize the PLA’s longstanding goal of “integrated network and electronic warfare.” The exact division of responsibilities between the JSD and SSF remains unclear, including how the PLA will integrate SSF espionage and offense-oriented cyber operations with CMC management of the PLA’s cyber defense mission.
  • The SSF has been entrusted with technical reconnaissance capabilities supporting operations, but not with intelligence capabilities supporting strategic decisionmaking. In context, this reform gives the PLA more latitude to move away from its army-dominated past and direct intelligence resources toward critical operational needs.

  The PLA reforms can be compared to U.S. reforms after the Goldwater-Nichols Department of Defense Reorganization Act of 1986, which were similarly aimed at transforming a peacetime military structure toward one more optimized for joint warfare. The SSF is partly modeled on U.S. Strategic Command (USSTRATCOM), with modifications reflecting China’s unique approach and challenges.

  • The PLA’s decision to construct the SSF as a separate service rather than a joint force construct like USSTRATCOM was ostensibly driven by lessons learned from observing foreign militaries and is intended to avoid redundancies in force development and counterproductive rivalries for funding and resources.
  • Unlike U.S. Cyber Command, the SSF’s Network Systems Department (the closest comparable organization in the PLA) is responsible for a much broader range of operations, including kinetic, cyberspace, space, electromagnetic, and psychological operations.
  • Questions remain about how the SSF will integrate its cyber espionage and attack missions, which have historically been separated. Integration will require developing new strategy and doctrine on the use of force in cyberspace without the benefit of substantive operational experience or robust real-world case studies.

  The creation of the SSF heralds a new era for China’s strategic posture, both in terms of the PLA’s preparations for fighting and winning informationized wars and its shift to projecting power farther from China’s shores.

  • The SSF embodies the evolution of Chinese military thought about information as a strategic resource in warfare, recognizing both the role it plays in empowering forces and vulnerabilities that result from reliance on information systems.
  • The SSF’s responsibility for both information support and information operations is prescient, enabling more rapid adaptation as China shifts from reliance on asymmetric capabilities as a weaker power to contending with adversaries on more symmetric terms as a near-peer competitor.
  • The consolidation of information operations under the SSF could act as a limiting factor for the development of service space, cyber, and electronic warfare capabilities necessary for tactical warfighting needs.
  • It remains an open question how the SSF will manage conflicting or overlapping responsibilities between its space and cyber forces. Force integration at lower organizational and administrative layers is challenging, and deficiencies in integration may impede the SSF’s ability to integrate its in-house space and cyber missions as well as its coordination with theater commands and other entities.
  • The SSF’s ability to execute its envisioned roles will depend in large part on the PLA’s ability to address weaknesses in its broader organizational culture, including a historical emphasis on top-down control and distrust of bottom-up decisionmaking.

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  Chinese Military Diplomacy, 2003–2016: Trends and Implications

  Kenneth Allen, Phillip C. Saunders, and John Chen

  China is placing increasing emphasis on military diplomacy to advance its foreign policy objectives and shape its security environment.

  • Military diplomacy is part of broader Chinese foreign policy efforts to create a favorable international image, develop soft power, and shape international discourse. Other objectives include shaping China’s security environment, collecting intelligence, and learning from advanced militaries.
  • The People’s Liberation Army (PLA) seeks to forward strategic and operational goals through a variety of interactions with foreign military partners, including senior-level visits, security dialogues, nontraditional security cooperation, military exercises, functional exchanges, and port calls.
  • Chinese security cooperation also includes arms sales (conducted by state-owned arms manufacturers), internal security assistance (provided by the Ministry of State Security and Ministry of Public Security), and advice on Internet censorship and control.

  Military diplomacy is subordinate to and intended to serve national foreign policy objectives, which determine the relative priority the PLA places on regions and individual countries.

  • Military diplomacy is managed in a top-down manner, with the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) Central Committee dictating broad foreign policy goals and the Central Military Commission (CMC) determining specific activities for various parts of the PLA.
  • The goal of building stronger bilateral relations with key partners means that the PLA must adapt its planned program of bilateral military activities to accommodate the preferences and constraints of its foreign partners.
  • Efforts to shape the security environment can include concealing or downplaying specific military capabilities, highlighting the contributions a stronger PLA can make to regional and global security, and displaying capabilities to deter or intimidate potential adversaries. Since 2010, shaping efforts have placed greater emphasis on displaying capabilities rather than concealing them.

  Most PLA diplomatic activity consists of senior-level meetings carried out by the Defense Minister, the Chief of General Staff (now Chief of the Joint Staff), and the Deputy Chief of General Staff (now Deputy Chief of the Joint Staff) who handles foreign affairs and intelligence.

  • Senior-level meetings accounted for 83 percent of Chinese military diplomatic activity from 2003 to 2016. China views these meetings as useful for building bilateral relations and providing high-level buy-in for a broader program of military-to-military activities.
  • The number of meetings fluctuates in conjunction with the Chinese 5-year political cycle, with visits lowest in years when the CCP changes political and military leaders at a National Party Congress (2002, 2007, 2012).
  • Since mid-2010, there has been a significant decline in overseas visits by top PLA leaders. This has been partially offset by the willingness of other countries to ignore protocol and visit China without reciprocal visits from their PLA counterparts.
  • Most Chinese military diplomacy is bilateral, but the PLA now participates in a range of multilateral meetings, conferences, exercises, and competitions.

  The PLA engages in nontraditional security cooperation with a range of partners to demonstrate that a stronger PLA can play a positive regional security role.

  • Most PLA bilateral and multilateral exercises, functional exchanges, and port calls are focused on humanitarian assistance/disaster relief and other nontraditional security activities. Some PLA assets, such as the Peace Ark hospital ship, are specifically devoted to these activities.
  • Since late 2008, the PLA Navy (PLAN) has maintained a constant presence in the Gulf of Aden to conduct counterpiracy operations. The vessels have also conducted port calls, supported the evacuation of Chinese citizens from Libya and Yemen, and assisted in the disposal of Syrian chemical weapons.
  • The PLA has participated in United Nations (UN) peacekeeping operations since 1990 and contributes more troops than any other permanent member of the UN Security Council. PLA participation has expanded from medical and engineering units to include an infantry battalion deployed to South Sudan in 2014.
  • China has created a Peacekeeping Training Center near Beijing and has pledged to provide 8,000 troops to participate in a standing UN peacekeeping force.

  The PLA has begun to participate in more combat-related exercises and competitions with Russia and Central Asian countries.

  • Since 2005, Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) Peace Mission exercises, nominally focused on counterterrorism, have included combat-related activities such as air defense, bombing, and aerial refueling. These are the only exercises where two or more PLA services conduct combined training with foreign partners.
  • China’s bilateral exercises with Russia focus heavily on combat and combat-support activities. Since 2012, the two navies have conducted a series of exercises in the East China Sea, Mediterranean Sea, and South China Sea that signal their willingness to cooperate in strategically sensitive areas.
  • The PLA Army and PLA Air Force have participated in multilateral military competitions hosted by Russia since 2014. This participation reflects growing confidence that the PLA can match international standards.
  • The PLA has pushed to engage in “traditional” security cooperation with the U.S. military, but the United States has been reluctant to conduct exercises that might improve PLA combat capabilities.

  PLA military diplomacy is focused primarily on major powers such as Russia and the United States and on Asian countries on China’s periphery.

  • China’s most frequent partners are Russia (4.8 percent of all interactions), the United States (4.4 percent), Pakistan (3.9 percent), Thailand (3 percent), and Australia (2.9 percent), all of whom participate in a full range of military diplomatic activities with the PLA.
  • PLA military diplomacy places a strong emphasis on Asia, which accounts for 41 percent of all interactions. Southeast Asia (22 percent) and South Asia (9 percent) are higher priority subregions than Northeast Asia (4.8 percent) and Central Asia (5 percent).
  • PLA interactions with U.S. treaty allies in Asia have increased since the 2011 U.S. rebalance to Asia and the ascent of Xi Jinping to power in 2012. The PLA has frequent military contacts and a strategic partnership with South Korea but rarely engages the Japanese military.
  • The PLA conducts different activities with different partners, sending the most seniorlevel visits to Asia and Europe, conducting the most military exercises with Russia and SCO nations, and carrying out most of its port calls in the Middle East and Asia.
  • The volume of Chinese military diplomatic activity with a particular country generally conforms to the hierarchical priority that the Chinese foreign policy apparatus has assigned to that country.
  • China’s military interactions with countries under UN sanctions (such as North Korea and Iran before 2016) are limited and not highly publicized.

  Military diplomatic activity does not necessarily translate into influence, and many routine activities may not be significant. Activity may reflect the quality of bilateral relations rather than be a means of developing them.

  • PLA military diplomacy typically emphasizes form over substance, top-down management, tight control of political messages, protection of information about PLA capabilities, and an aversion to binding security commitments.
  • Much of China’s military diplomatic activity consists of formal exchanges of scripted talking points in meetings, occasional port calls, and simple scripted exercises focused on nontraditional security issues.
  • Most PLA interlocutors are not empowered to negotiate or share their real views, which makes it difficult to build strong personal or institutional ties with foreign counterparts.
  • Chinese military relations are also constrained by what activities their foreign counterparts are willing or able to conduct with the PLA.

  Military diplomacy can help establish communications and crisis management mechanisms with China and may also encourage Chinese adherence to international rules and norms.

  • China’s participation in the Western Pacific Naval Symposium contributed to the PLAN’s eventual acceptance of the Code for Unplanned Encounters at Sea.
  • China uses military diplomacy to build international support for its own preferred rules of behavior, including working with Russia to shape international rules for the space and cyber domains.

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  Chinese Perspectives on the Belt and Road Initiative: Strategic Rationales, Risks, and Implications

  Joel Wuthnow

  Chinese officials have downplayed the security dimensions of Xi Jinping’s signature foreign policy initiative—the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). However, Chinese strategists have extensively analyzed three major issues: strategic benefits the BRI can provide for China, key security risks and challenges, and ways to reduce those risks. This study surveys their views and comments on implications for U.S. strategy. Key findings include:

  The main strategic benefits of the BRI include bolstering regional stability, improving China’s energy security, and amassing influence in Eurasia.

  • Chinese analysts see Eurasian integration as a way to create a more stable security environment around China’s southern and western periphery by addressing the underlying sources of violence and building mutual trust. Another benefit is increasing China’s energy security by diversifying oil and natural gas supply and transport routes.
  • Several analyses describe the BRI as a way for China to simultaneously achieve two geopolitical objectives: amassing strategic influence in Eurasia’s heartland while deftly avoiding direct competition with the United States. Some sources, however, are more explicit in portraying the BRI as a response to U.S. pressure, especially that posed by the Barack Obama administration’s rebalance to Asia policy.

  Implementing BRI projects could be frustrated by domestic and regional instability, nontraditional security threats, and strategic balancing from other major powers.

  • Chinese sources—including Xi Jinping himself—portray the BRI as unfolding within a turbulent and, in some ways, deteriorating security environment.
  • Key operational challenges include regional conflict and protecting property and personnel from “radical” groups, such as Uighur separatists, the so-called Islamic State, and Pakistani militants, although Chinese sources rarely acknowledge that anti-China sentiment stemming from policies such as exclusive use of Chinese labor could be contributing to that violence.
  • Chinese observers closely follow perceptions of the BRI in states such as the United States, Japan, and India, and assume that all three will respond individually or collectively to oppose China’s ambitions, or have already done so. Lesser concerns are raised about Russia and Southeast Asian states.

  China will have to marshal military, intelligence, diplomatic, and economic tools to counter perceived threats to the BRI’s long-term viability.

  • While some Chinese sources advocate greater expeditionary naval and ground force capabilities as a means to protect overseas equities, others argue that many challenges can be reduced through private security forces and host nation support. Mitigating threats to Chinese overseas interests also requires stronger risk assessment capabilities and enhanced nontraditional security cooperation, especially in the counterterrorism arena.
  • Many Chinese writings argue that strategic competition can be avoided by co-opting other major powers, such as by including U.S. companies in key BRI projects, and by carefully avoiding encroaching in other states’ spheres of influence. Many also call for a more attractive strategic message to enlist supporters and calm detractors.

  U.S. strategy should seek to check China’s geopolitical ambitions while advancing mutually beneficial cooperation where possible.

  • The most negative outcome for the United States would be a Sinocentric Eurasian order in which Beijing locks countries into exclusive economic relationships and U.S. interests are marginalized.
  • China’s ability to pursue an exclusive regional sphere of influence hinges on variables including China’s interests in maintaining stable relations with the United States, the willingness of other major powers to check China’s aspirations, and the ability of BRI partners to avoid overreliance on China’s economic largesse.
  • U.S. strategy should aim to preserve the strategic balance in Eurasia by maintaining strong U.S.-China economic relations, encouraging alternative regional infrastructure development plans, and remaining a committed partner to states across the continent. However, this does not preclude U.S.-China cooperation in areas of shared interest, such as in the counterterrorism domain. The mix of competitive and cooperative responses to the BRI should facilitate larger U.S. strategic aims in the region and vis-à-vis China.

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  Chinese Military Reforms in the Age of Xi Jinping: Drivers, Challenges, and Implications

  Joel Wuthnow and Phillip C. Saunders

  China’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA) has embarked on its most wide-ranging and ambitious restructuring since 1949, including major changes to most of its key organizations.

  • The general departments were disbanded, new Central Military Commission (CMC) departments created, and a new ground force headquarters established.
  • Seven military regions were restructured into five theater commands aligned against regional threats. Commanders will be able to develop joint force packages from army, navy, air force, and conventional missile units within their theaters.
  • PLA service headquarters are transitioning to an exclusive focus on “organize, train, and equip” missions and will no longer have a primary role in conducting operations. However, the PLA is still figuring out how the new relationships among the CMC, services, and theaters will work in practice.

  The restructuring will also reduce the size of the PLA by 300,000 soldiers, cutting the ground forces and increasing the size of the navy and air force. The restructuring reflects the desire to strengthen PLA joint operations capabilities—on land, at sea, in the air, and in the space and cyber domains.

  • The centerpiece of the reforms is a new joint command and control structure with nodes at the CMC and theater levels that will coordinate China’s responses to regional crises and conduct preparations for wartime operations.
  • A Strategic Support Force has been established to provide command, control, communications, computers, intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance support to commanders and will oversee space, cyber, and electronic warfare activities. A Joint Logistics Support Force will provide logistics support to units within the theaters.
  • The creation of a joint command system complements other recent changes supporting joint operations—including joint training, logistics, and doctrinal development.

  The reforms could result in a more adept joint warfighting force, though the PLA will continue to face a number of key hurdles to effective joint operations.

  • If the reforms are successful, the PLA could field a joint force more capable of undertaking operations along the contingency spectrum, including high-end operations against the U.S. military, allied forces in the Western Pacific, and Taiwan.
  • Key obstacles include continued ground force dominance, interservice rivalry at a time of slowing budget growth, and lack of combat experience for most PLA personnel.
  • Several years of joint exercises and training will be needed for PLA officers and units to gain experience in operating under the new system. This could impede China’s ability to conduct major combat operations during this period.

  Several potential actions would indicate that the PLA is overcoming obstacles to a stronger joint operations capability.

  • Useful indicators of progress would include more joint assignments going to non– ground force officers, expansion and deepening of joint training, and evidence that the theater commands are exercising operational control over air, naval, and conventional rocket forces.
  • Additional reforms to the officer assignment and military education systems will be announced in 2017, and will play a critical role in cultivating the military leaders necessary to conduct effective joint operations in a restructured PLA.

  The reforms are also intended to increase Chairman Xi Jinping’s control over the PLA and to reinvigorate Chinese Communist Party (CCP) organs within the military.

  • The reforms emphasize Xi’s role in making all major decisions, reversing the delegation of authority to the two vice chairmen under Hu Jintao. However, Xi will still have to rely on trusted agents within the PLA to supply military advice and execute decisions.
  • The restructuring strengthens supervision of the military by giving auditing, discipline inspection, and military legal mechanisms more independence and having them report directly to the CMC.
  • Xi is also trying to increase ideological control by emphasizing the importance of political work and the military’s “absolute obedience” to the Party.

  Xi Jinping’s ability to push through the reforms indicates that he has more authority over the PLA than his recent predecessors.

  • Xi has been able to wield sticks and carrots to break the logjam of institutional and personal interests that stymied previous reform efforts.
  • The ultimate effectiveness of efforts to strengthen CCP control will depend on Xi’s ability to devote sufficient attention to supervising the military and on the loyalty of the officers who will implement the control mechanisms.
  • If Xi’s leadership falters or if a slowing Chinese economy can no longer provide resources for military modernization, PLA leaders may grow dissatisfied with Xi’s efforts to strengthen CCP control over military affairs and to emphasize political ideology.

  The restructuring could create new opportunities for U.S.-China military contacts.

  • The PLA now has closer counterpart positions for some senior U.S. billets, such as Chief of Staff of the Army. This could provide an opportunity for more productive exchanges.
  • The creation of a new joint command system and the role of the theater commanders in directing operations will require adjustments to existing confidence-building and communications measures to ensure that U.S. and Chinese forces can communicate effectively during a crisis.

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  Red China's "Capitalist Bomb": Inside the Chinese Neutron Bomb Program

  Jonathan Ray

  This paper examines why China developed an enhanced radiation weapon (ERW) but did not deploy it. ERWs, better known as “neutron bombs,” are specialized nuclear weapons with reduced blast effects and enhanced radiation, making them ideal tactical and antipersonnel weapons. Declassified U.S. intelligence and Chinese press reports indicate the People’s Republic of China (PRC) was interested in an ERW in 1977 and successfully tested a device on September 29, 1988. To date, however, these sources provide no evidence of deployment. This study exploits primary source documents to reconstruct the ERW program’s history, assesses drivers behind decisions throughout the program, and considers broader implications for PRC decisionmaking on weapons development. This case study suggests a model of a “technology reserve” in which China develops a weapons technology to match the capabilities of another state but defers deployment. This paper presents an analytic framework for examining how the technology reserve model might apply to China’s decisionmaking on ballistic missile defense (BMD), antisatellite (ASAT), and hypersonic glide vehicle (HGV) systems.

  The framework considers five variables as potential drivers of China’s ERW decisionmaking. Specifically, it assesses the strategic environment of the PRC, the strategic value and normative value of the ERW, as well as the resource demands and technical feasibility of the ERW program. The framework also considers coalition politics of the ERW program as an intervening variable that influenced each of the above variables throughout the program’s history. The ERW program’s history comprised three phases:

  1. 1977–1980: Decision and Initial Research. In 1977, Chinese media followed the controversy over the U.S. decision to develop and deploy an ERW in Europe. Soviet media denounced the ERW and grew concerned at China’s silence on the controversy. After General Zhang Aiping [张爱萍] signaled the PRC’s interest in the ERW in the People’s Daily, scientists involved in the ERW program (herein referred as the weaponeers) began initial research and development (R&D). Some weaponeers argued against developing the ERW, worrying that it was unnecessary and would disrupt higher priority work on warhead miniaturization. Ultimately, they acquiesced to orders and combined the ERW and warhead miniaturization research to master common principles of the two systems.

  2. 1980–1984: Research and Development. In 1980, General Zhang told a member of a visiting U.S. delegation that China needed the ERW as a hedge against the Soviets. The weapon fit into China’s military strategic guideline of “active defense” to defend against a Soviet armored thrust and invasion. By then, the weaponeers were dividing the ERW problem into constituent parts, or “principles,” and solving them individually. From 1982 to 1984, China conducted five tests related to the ERW and warhead miniaturization. On December 19, 1984, the weaponeers conducted a successful “principles breakthrough” test. One weaponeer metaphorically described the successful test by saying that “the second generation of light boats has passed the bridge.”

  3. 1985–1988: Pause and Reevaluation. In 1985, China halted nuclear testing for 30 months. The pause coincided with a Soviet moratorium on testing and a leadership reshuffle that neutralized ERW proponent General Zhang. In 1986, the weaponeers warned PRC leaders that the United States and Soviet Union could conclude a nuclear test ban treaty, and they proposed accelerated testing to complete warhead designs. The Central Committee approved the report and provided funding. On September 29, 1988, China successfully tested an ERW design and added it to what one weaponeer called the “technology reserve.”

  No variable individually explains the ERW program’s decisions and outcomes. A tense strategic environment and the ERW’s high strategic value against Soviet armored divisions correlate with the program’s R&D but do not explain the fi al test in a more relaxed strategic environment. Similarly, the ERW’s normative value was initially high as a technological achievement, but a taboo against the weapon was fi mly in place before the fi al test. Resource demands and technological feasibility were challenges at the program’s beginning, and even after the weaponeers combined ERW and miniaturization research to conserve resources, the program still stalled in 1985. The 1988 fi al ERW design test for China’s “technology reserve” reflects both a hedge against changes in China’s strategic environment and the culmination of research. The evidence is incomplete, but it indicates that an ERW coalition led by General Zhang Aiping championed the program from 1977 to 1984 but fell apart before the ERW’s completion.

  This analytic framework and “technology reserve” model of matching a capability but deferring deployment help frame analyses of the PRC’s decisionmaking for its BMD, ASAT, and HGV programs. A cursory analysis indicates arms control possibilities for BMD, continued development of ASAT capabilities, and multiple possible outcomes for HGV development.

  Key themes and lessons from the ERW case study include the following:

  • Strong leaders versus institutional capacity. Coalitions with strong leaders such as Deng Xiaoping and Zhang Aiping drove the ERW program in a time of weak institutions. Today, China’s weapons development processes are more institutionalized but are still susceptible to factional politics.
  • Technology parity as an ideological imperative. Matching other states’ military technologies is an extension of Chinese techno-nationalism into weapons development decisions.
  • Importance of potential adversaries’ reactions. Soviet alarm over the ERW as a disruptive capability made the weapon more attractive to Chinese leaders. U.S. reactions to contemporary PRC weapons systems should be calm.
  • Need to update Chinese open-source research techniques. This research benefited from studies on Chinese open-source research techniques, but such literature is dated. Newer sources such as social media, blogs, chat rooms, and updated databases highlight the need for more current discussions.

• 

  China Moves Out: Stepping Stones Toward a New Maritime Strategy

  Christopher H. Sharman

  Over the last decade, the People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) has increased the frequency, duration, complexity, and distance from the mainland of its operations. Not only does China maintain a permanent counterpiracy escort flotilla in the Indian Ocean, it also now routinely conducts naval exercises and operations beyond the first island chain throughout the year. This normalization of PLAN operations in the Western Pacific and beyond is an important step toward an emerging new maritime strategy that will incorporate far seas defense.

  Far seas defense involves extending PLAN combat capabilities into waters farther from China. The concept is consistent with stated PLAN goals and training requirements, but it is not formally incorporated into China’s current maritime strategy. Chinese President Hu Jintao’s 2004 New Historic Missions charter provided the PLAN with the strategic direction to develop concepts, experience, and tactics germane to establishing far seas defense capabilities. PLAN deployments to and exercises in the near seas since 2004 have been evolutionary steps toward implementing a near seas active defense strategy, but regular deployments deeper into the Western Pacific have also helped the PLAN build the ability to operate in the far seas and begin to operationalize the concept of far seas defense.

  This monograph begins by examining the geography, history, and strategic focus of near seas active defense, China’s current maritime strategy. It illustrates how the New Historic Missions expanded PLAN mission requirements from traditional near seas operating areas to operations in the far seas. The paper provides a strategic framework for a new maritime defense strategy that would incorporate far seas capabilities. It then examines the evolution of PLAN operations and exercises since 2004. The monograph concludes by identifying several factors that, if observed, would indicate PLAN incorporation of far seas defense as part of an emerging new maritime strategy.

  PLAN deployments to the Western Pacific since 2004 demonstrate a deliberate and methodical approach to normalization, from single fleet and single-dimensional (surface ship against surface ship) scripted exercises in the Western Pacific to multifleet coordinated unscripted training involving submarines, surface ships, unmanned aerial vehicles, and fixedwing aircraft. There has also been a gradual increase from a few ships conducting deployments to as many as 12 ships and submarines deploying simultaneously. The monograph summarizes these changes as well as PLAN trends in signaling and in the steady expansion of chokepoints used by PLAN ships to access the near seas. It also highlights the growing complexity of information over time.

  The PLAN is likely to gradually increase the frequency of combat readiness patrol deployments to the far seas over the next 5 to 7 years. An uptick is likely in mixed-platform PLAN surface action groups rehearsing a myriad of combat warfare disciplines, such as exercising antisubmarine, antiair, and antisurface warfare during deployments to the far seas. These combat readiness patrols may include deployments along various strategic sea lines of communication in the Pacific, chokepoints in the Indian Ocean, and perhaps even to the Northern Pacific to support China’s Arctic interests.

  Operationalization of far seas defense will consist of regular deployment of surface action groups that provide maximum flexibility to address ever-changing mission objectives. PLAN ships deploying to the far seas will possess robust communications capabilities and will be linked through relatively rapid information flow across and up the chain of command. PLAN near seas operations over the last decade have included political signaling, suggesting the PLAN will be used for this mission in the far seas as well.

  Indications that the PLAN is aggressively looking to operationalize far seas defense missions would include observation of Jiangdao light frigates assuming greater responsibility for missions traditionally assigned to larger PLAN combatants within the first island chain, construction of icebreakers, enhanced intelligence support to deployed ships, active reporting on distant sea operations in the official Chinese press, a gradual increase in the frequency of deployments, and enhanced PLAN logistics support capabilities.

• 

  “Not an Idea We Have to Shun”: Chinese Overseas Basing Requirements in the 21st Century

  Christopher D. Yung, Ross Rustici, Scott Devary, and Jenny Lin

  China’s expanding international economic interests are likely to generate increasing demands for its navy, the People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN), to operate out of area to protect Chinese citizens, investments, and sea lines of communication. The frequency, intensity, type, and location of such operations will determine the associated logistics support requirements, with distance from China, size and duration, and combat intensity being especially important drivers.

  How will the PLAN employ overseas bases and facilities to support these expanding operational requirements? The assessment in this study is based on Chinese writings, comments by Chinese military officers and analysts, observations of PLAN operational patterns, analysis of the overseas military logistics models other countries have employed, and interviews with military logisticians. China’s rapidly expanding international interests are likely to produce a parallel expansion of PLAN operations, which would make the current PLAN tactic, exclusive reliance on commercial port access, untenable due to cost and capacity factors. This would certainly be true if China contemplated engaging in higher intensity combat operations.

  This study considers six logistics models that might support expanded PLAN overseas operations: the Pit Stop Model, Lean Colonial Model, Dual Use Logistics Facility, String of Pearls Model, Warehouse Model, and Model USA. Each model is analyzed in terms of its ability to support likely future naval missions to advance China’s expanding overseas economic, political, and security interests and in light of longstanding Chinese foreign policy principles. This analysis concludes that the Dual Use Logistics Facility and String of Pearls models most closely align with China’s foreign policy principles and expanding global interests.

  To assess which alternative China is likely to pursue, the study reviews current PLAN operational patterns in its Gulf of Aden counterpiracy operations1 to assess whether the PLAN is currently pursuing one model over the other and to provide clues about Chinese motives and potential future trajectories. To ensure that this study does not suffer from faulty assumptions, it also explicitly examines the strategic logic that Western analysts associate with the String of Pearls Model in light of the naval forces and logistics infrastructure that would be necessary to support PLAN major combat operations in the Indian Ocean. Both the contrasting inductive and deductive analytic approaches support the conclusion that China appears to be planning for a relatively modest set of missions to support its overseas interests, not building a covert logistics infrastructure to fight the United States or India in the Indian Ocean.

  Key findings:

  • There is little physical evidence that China is constructing bases in the Indian Ocean to conduct major combat operations, to encircle India, or to dominate South Asia.
  • China’s current operational patterns of behavior do not support the String of Pearls thesis. PLAN ships use different commercial ports for replenishment and liberty, and the ports and forces involved could not conduct major combat operations.
  • China is unlikely to construct military facilities in the Indian Ocean to support major combat operations there. Bases in South Asia would be vulnerable to air and missile attack, the PLAN would require a much larger force structure to support this strategy, and the distances between home ports in China and PLAN ships stationed at the String of Pearls network of facilities along its sea lines of communication would make it difficult to defend Chinese home waters and simultaneously conduct major combat operations in the Indian Ocean.
  • The Dual Use Logistics Facility Model’s mixture of access to overseas commercial facilities and a limited number of military bases most closely aligns with China’s future naval mission requirements and will likely characterize its future arrangements.
  • Pakistan’s status as a trusted strategic partner whose interests are closely aligned with China’s makes the country the most likely location for an overseas Chinese military base; the port at Karachi would be better able to satisfy PLAN requirements than the new port at Gwadar.
  • The most efficient means of supporting more robust People’s Liberation Army (PLA) out of area military operations would be a limited network of facilities that distribute functional responsibilities geographically (for example, one facility handling air logistics support, one facility storing ordnance, another providing supplies for replenishment ships).
  • A future overseas Chinese military base probably would be characterized by a light footprint, with 100 to 500 military personnel conducting supply and logistics functions. Such a facility would likely support both civilian and military operations, with Chinese forces operating in a restrictive political and legal environment that might not include permission to conduct combat operations.
  • Naval bases are much more likely than ground bases, but China might also seek to establish bases that could store ordnance, repair and maintain equipment, and provide medical/mortuary services to support future PLA ground force operations against terrorists and other nontraditional security threats in overseas areas such as Africa.
  • A more active PLA overseas presence would provide opportunities as well as challenges for U.S.-China relations. Chinese operations in support of regional stability and to address nontraditional security threats would not necessarily conflict with U.S. interests and may provide new opportunities for bilateral and multilateral cooperation with China.
  • Long-term access to overseas military facilities would increase China’s strategic gravity and significantly advance China’s political interests in the region where the facilities are located. To the extent that U.S. and Chinese regional and global interests are not aligned, the United States would need to continue to use its own military presence and diplomatic efforts to solidify its regional interests.
  • A significantly expanded Chinese military presence in the Indian Ocean would complicate U.S. relations with China and with the countries of the region, compel U.S. naval and military forces to operate in closer proximity with PLA forces, and increase competitive dynamics in U.S.-China and China-Indian relations.
  • Finally, if some of the countries of the Indian Ocean region and elsewhere agree to host PLA forces over the long term, their decision will imply a shift in their relations with the United States, which may ultimately need to rethink how it engages and interacts with these countries.

• 

  China’s Forbearance Has Limits: Chinese Threat and Retaliation Signaling and Its Implications for a Sino-American Military Confrontation

  Paul H.B. Godwin and Alice L. Miller

  Since its founding in 1949, the People’s Republic of China (PRC) has employed military force in defense of China’s security and territorial integrity. In many such instances, Beijing implemented a calculus of threat and retaliation signals intended first to deter an adversary from taking actions contrary to Chinese interests by threatening the use of military force and, if deterrence failed, to explain and justify Beijing’s resort to military force.

  This deterrence calculus was applied in each of the major instances in which Beijing has resorted to military force—in Korea in 1950, in the Sino-Indian border dispute in 1961–1962, in the Sino-Soviet border dispute in 1968–1969, and in China’s attack on northern Vietnam in 1979. It was also applied in instances in which Beijing’s effort at deterrence apparently succeeded and China ultimately stopped short of using military force. Examples include China’s responses to the intensifying American combat effort in Vietnam in 1965–1968 and to the 1991 debates in Taipei about delimiting the Republic of China’s sovereignty claims.

  Beijing implements this deterrence calculus by a carefully calibrated hierarchy of official protests, authoritative press comment, and leadership statements. If the crisis persists and Beijing perceives its interests are not satisfactorily taken into account, its statements escalate in level and may include at first implicit and thereafter increasingly explicit warnings that it may use military force to achieve its goals. This approach has been employed consistently despite the sweeping changes in the PRC’s place in the international order, the proliferation of foreign policy instruments at its disposal, the more complex crisis decisionmaking process and domestic political environment, and the dramatic evolution in the Chinese media over the decades.

  Significant improvements in China’s military capabilities, particularly in the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) naval and air arms, have enhanced Beijing’s ability to press its territorial claims in the South and East China Seas. Chinese actions, often in response to challenges by other claimants, have raised regional tensions. Moreover, Beijing has at times hardened its objections to U.S. military exercises, aerial surveillance, and intelligence collection in China’s exclusive economic zone and in international airspace off its coasts. Aggressive maneuvers by Chinese military aircraft, fishing vessels, and civilian agency ships have led to serious incidents, including a collision between a PLA Navy (PLAN) fighter and a U.S. Navy reconnaissance aircraft that led to the death of the PLAN pilot.

  The question for U.S. policymakers is whether improving military capabilities will lead Beijing to substitute sudden or surprise attack for the politically calibrated deterrence signaling it has employed prior to its past use of force. This study assesses the problem in four ways. It first reviews China’s use of force since 1949 to determine the motivations driving Beijing’s employment of military coercion. Second, it assesses China’s crisis decisionmaking process and crisis management. Third, it assesses the prospects for China’s more aggressive use of military coercion in Asia’s emerging security environment. Finally, Beijing’s signaling of China’s intent to employ military coercion is assessed in detail using a series of crisis case studies covering the years 1961–2004.

  Although China’s military capabilities are continuing to improve and its standing and involvement in the world have changed quite dramatically, this study concludes that the traditional calculus of threat and retaliation statements remains a central tool in Beijing’s array of foreign policy and security instruments for responding to and managing tensions and disputes.

  The historical instances where China has used military power can be divided into those cases when Beijing has employed significant military force and those cases when lesser military coercion has been employed. As one would anticipate, the forces employed reflect the immediacy of the perceived threat, the importance of the interest being threatened, and the capabilities of the opposing military forces.

  Deterrence signaling has been more systematically and directly applied when Beijing has perceived a major military threat or strategic trend placing a high value interest in jeopardy. This includes all four of the Taiwan cases examined (in 1991, 1995–1996, 1999, and 2003–2004).

  China’s recognition of the power asymmetry between itself and the United States partially explains why none of the post–Korean War crises involving the United States evolved into direct military conflict. Chinese and American scholars agree that one characteristic of Sino- American crises is China’s consistent policy of seeking to avoid a military confrontation with the United States even as it employed or threatened the use of military force.

  This record does not, however, necessarily transfer to a potential Taiwan crisis. Here, some Chinese hold the view that whereas Taiwan involves a core interest for China, it is only of marginal strategic interest to the United States. Consequently, China should not be fearful of employing military force to deter Taiwan’s de jure independence because the United States could well decide that a war with China over Taiwan is simply too costly given the island’s low strategic value to the United States.

  This view of the asymmetric importance of Taiwan to China and the United States reflects a broader Chinese perspective on past Sino-American crises. From a Chinese perspective, Sino-American crises did not occur in locales where core U.S. security interests were at stake. Whether in Korea, China’s offshore islands, Vietnam, or Taiwan, China’s interests were under greater threat because the locales were on or near China’s national boundaries. More over, in crises over the offshore islands and Taiwan, China’s territorial integrity and national sovereignty were at stake. These perceived asymmetries of interest contribute to China’s view that U.S. policies and strategies are similar to those conducted by imperialist and hegemonic powers in the past.

  This same perspective of asymmetric interests applies to China’s maritime territorial claims in the South and East China Seas. Whereas Beijing recognizes a U.S. interest in freedom of navigation, any U.S. involvement in how these territorial disputes should be settled is unacceptable because the disputes do not involve U.S. strategic interests. For Beijing, these territorial disputes are sovereignty issues extending back to the 19th century when Japanese and Western imperialists began their violations of China’s sovereignty. In China’s view, they are not a matter where the United States has any legitimate interest.

  Despite its commitment to the restoration of its own sovereignty over islands in the South and East China Seas, Beijing is reluctant to employ direct military coercion when its claims are challenged. These disputes do not constitute a direct threat to Chinese security, and the political, economic, and security consequences of a military confrontation between China and its neighbors, including those with mutual defense treaties with the United States, are evident. Beijing’s resolve to avoid a military confrontation is particularly manifest with regard to the United States. Given the potentially grave consequences, if China does consider using military force, Beijing is almost certain to employ the same deterrence calculus it has maintained since the founding of the People’s Republic. It would do so to minimize the possibility that it will have to use the military force on which the deterrence calculus ultimately rests and to reduce the costs if force is used.

  China’s application of the deterrence calculus in a future crisis would likely have the following characteristics:

  • Systematic integration of political and diplomatic action with military preparations as the signaling escalates through higher levels of authority. Such preparations are often, if not always, overt and integrated into the political and diplomatic messages designed to deter the adversary from the course of action Beijing finds threatening.
  • Stating why China is justified in using military force should this prove necessary. The message targets both domestic and international audiences. In essence, Beijing declares that it confronts a serious threat to its security and interests that if not terminated will require the use of military force.
  • Asserting that the use of military force is not Beijing’s preferred resolution to the threat it faces, but one that will be forced upon it should the adversary not heed the deterrence warnings sent. In short, Beijing’s signaling strategy seeks to grant China the moral high ground in the emerging confrontation. Such an argument supports China’s self-identification as a uniquely peaceful country that employs military force only in defense and when provoked by adversaries threatening its security or sovereignty. Presumably, Beijing believes that asserting the moral high ground in a confrontation can ease international response to any military action China might take and thereby reduce the political costs of employing military force.
  • Emphasizing that China’s forbearance and restraint should not be viewed as weakness and that China is prepared to employ military force should that be necessary.

• 

  Managing Sino-U.S. Air and Naval Interactions: Cold War Lessons and New Avenues of Approach

  Mark E. Redden and Phillip C. Saunders

  The United States and China have a complex, multifaceted, and ambiguous relationship where substantial areas of cooperation coexist with ongoing strategic tensions and suspicions. One manifestation involves disputes and incidents when U.S. and Chinese military forces interact within China’s Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ). Three high-profile incidents over the last decade have involved aggressive maneuvers by Chinese military and/or paramilitary forces operating in close proximity to deter U.S. surveillance and military survey platforms from conducting their missions. Why do these incidents continue to occur despite mechanisms designed to prevent such dangerous encounters? Could new or different procedures or policies help avoid future incidents?

  The problem in the U.S.-China case lies not with inadequate rules (for maritime operations) or history of practice (for air operations), but rather in the motivations that sometimes drive the Chinese to selective noncompliance with their provisions. China regards military surveillance and survey operations in its EEZ as hostile, threatening, illegal, and inappropriate. China’s harassment of U.S. naval vessels and aircraft conducting surveillance and survey operations is intended to produce a change in U.S. behavior by raising the costs and risks of these operations.

  The U.S. military has confronted this problem before. U.S. doctrine and operational practice in conducting and responding to surveillance operations derives primarily from Cold War interactions with the Soviet military. The two countries were eventually able to develop a mutually beneficial protocol, known as the Incidents at Sea Agreement (INCSEA), for managing air and naval interactions, thereby reducing the potential for an incident to occur or escalate. Given the success of INCSEA and tactical parallels between U.S.-Soviet and U.S.-China interactions, the factors that led the Soviet Union to seek an agreement provide a useful prism for evaluating the current situation.

  Three primary factors motivated the U.S.-Soviet agreement: concern over the escalation potential of future incidents, a growing parallelism in the nature and scope of surveillance operations, and a burgeoning period of détente. These factors do not presently exist in the U.S.- China relationship to the degree necessary to induce mutual restraint in maritime and air interactions within China’s EEZ. This situation may change over the next 10 to 15 years as Chinese global economic interests expand and naval modernization produces a more capable and active Chinese navy, but waiting for change is not an attractive solution given continuing operational risks and the potential for an incident to badly damage bilateral relations.

  If U.S. policymakers seek a faster change in Chinese behavior, they need to understand the underlying Chinese policy calculus, how it may change over time, and potential means of influencing that calculus. Based on Chinese policy objectives, official statements, patterns of behavior, and logical inferences, we identify seven decisionmaking variables:

  1. Sovereignty/security concerns: These reflect China’s historical concerns about sovereignty and the economic importance of defending China’s coastal provinces.
  2. Intelligence/counter-intelligence: China needs to gather strategic and tactical intelligence and also seeks to limit intelligence collection by potential adversaries.
  3. Geostrategic considerations: China has concerns about the U.S. role in Asia, needs a stable external environment that supports development, desires to shape international rules and norms, and seeks to project a positive international image.
  4. Chinese domestic context: Aggressive efforts by Chinese naval and maritime forces to defend sovereignty bolster their relative importance and justify increased resources. However, the Chinese navy also seeks to show that it can protect China’s interests and safeguard China’s economic development, missions that require cooperation with foreign militaries.
  5. Global commons access: Assured access to the global economy for resources and to reach markets is essential for continued Chinese economic growth and development.
  6. Escalation control: China shares an interest in preventing interactions with U.S. military assets from escalating into a broader conflict, but Chinese leaders and officers tend to regard the risk of such escalation as limited and manageable.
  7. Relations with the United States: A constructive relationship with the United States is important for China’s continued economic development and ability to achieve its national objectives, but Chinese leaders downplay the likelihood of a military incident causing irreparable damage to bilateral relations.

  U.S. policymakers have several broad avenues of approach to alter the Chinese policy calculus and thereby influence Chinese behavior:

  1. Intelligence/counter-intelligence approaches: These approaches link China’s own ability to gather intelligence with its tolerance of U.S. intelligence-collection activities. Options include creating direct parallels between U.S. operations in China’s EEZ and Chinese operations in Japan’s EEZ; linking Chinese tolerance of U.S. surveillance operations in its EEZ with U.S. tolerance of select Chinese intelligence-collection activities in other areas or using other means; and linking the frequency of U.S. surveillance operations to Chinese concessions or cooperation in other areas.
  2. Maritime cooperation/coercion: These approaches play on the distinction between contentious U.S.-Chinese interactions within China’s EEZ and more cooperative interactions in distant waters. Cooperative options include highlighting the value of agreed operational norms and expanding U.S.-China maritime cooperation, including via surveillance cooperation in support of counterpiracy operations; coercive options include responding to Chinese harassment with “tit for tat” actions against Chinese navy ships or commercial shipping outside China’s EEZ.
  3. Geostrategic and bilateral considerations: These approaches play on Chinese geostrategic interests in maintaining a stable regional environment and a U.S.-China relationship conducive to economic and social development. Options include a more structured, consistent, and sustained U.S. strategic communication plan that highlights international norms of airmanship and seamanship; drawing parallels between the rights of military units to conduct operations in EEZs under the freedom of navigation principle and the more general issue of commercial access to the global commons; and challenging the Chinese assumption that military incidents inside China’s EEZ are unlikely to escalate into broader conflict or seriously threaten bilateral relations.

  Given the importance that China places on sovereignty, no single option is likely to be sufficient. A mixed approach, particularly one that influences more Chinese decisionmakers, may maximize the probability of success. Cooperative approaches require time for benefits to accrue and for normative arguments to be heard and heeded. Some potential coercive approaches require violating preferred U.S. norms of freedom of navigation and U.S. military standard practice of safe airmanship and seamanship to generate the leverage necessary to alter Chinese behavior. This risks shifting international norms in undesired directions and would create greater tension and friction in military-military relations and bilateral relations generally.

  This study does not attempt to weigh the intelligence value of U.S. operations in China’s EEZ against their negative impact on U.S.-China relations or the costs of the coercive options identified above. U.S. policymakers will need to carefully consider whether the status quo is tolerable, the costs and risks of various approaches, and what mix of policies might move China in desired directions at an acceptable cost.

• 

  Buy, Build, or Steal: China’s Quest for Advanced Military Aviation Technologies

  Phillip C. Saunders and Joshua K. Wiseman

  Although China continues to lag approximately two decades behind the world’s most sophisticated air forces in terms of its ability to develop and produce fighter aircraft and other complex aerospace systems, it has moved over time from absolute reliance on other countries for military aviation technology to a position where a more diverse array of strategies can be pursued. Steps taken in the late 1990s to reform China’s military aviation sector demonstrated an understanding of the problems inherent in high-technology acquisition, and an effort to move forward. However, a decade later it remains unclear how effective these reforms have been. Where are the People’s Liberation Army Air Force (PLAAF) and China’s military aviation industry headed? What obstacles must be overcome for China to join the exclusive ranks of those nations possessing sophisticated air forces and aviation industries capable of producing world-class aircraft?

  This study identifies potential aviation technology development and procurement strategies, presents a general model of the options available to developing countries, and applies that model to explain Chinese procurement and aviation technology acquisition efforts over the last 60 years. The model articulates three main technology procurement avenues: purchase (buy), indigenous development (build), and espionage (steal), and three subavenues: reverse engineering (combining buy/steal and build), coproduction (combining buy and build), and codevelopment (combining buy and build, with an emphasis on build). It examines the costs, benefits, and tradeoffs inherent in each approach. Four variables influence decisions about the mix of strategies: (1) a country’s overall level of economic development, in particular the state of its technical/industrial base; (2) the technological capacity of a country’s military aviation sector; (3) the willingness of foreign countries to sell advanced military aircraft, key components, armaments, and related production technology; and (4) the country’s bargaining power vis-àvis potential suppliers.

  In applying the model, we divide the evolution of China’s military aviation industry into five periods based on China’s changing access to foreign suppliers of military aircraft and aviation technology. Soviet assistance (1950–1960) provided the foundation for China’s military aviation industry, which cut its teeth coproducing Soviet fighter, bomber, and transport aircraft. Given Western embargoes, Moscow offered the only viable path to advanced aviation technology and provided assistance on favorable terms to support its communist ally. The second period (1960–1977) is marked by the Sino-Soviet split, which eliminated Chinese access to cutting-edge aviation hardware. China continued to produce and make modest refinements to 1950s vintage Soviet aircraft designs, using reverse engineering to fill in gaps where technical information was lacking. In the third period (1977–1989), China gained some access to Western aviation components and technologies and sought to apply them to a variant of the J–8 (a twin engine fighter based on a modified MiG–21 design) and the JH–7 (a fighter-bomber with a British engine). The fourth period (1989–2004) is marked by Western bans on arms sales to China in the wake of Tiananmen, Sino-Soviet rapprochement (leading to sales of advanced Russian fighters and coproduction arrangements), and a brief but important window of access to Israeli technologies. Covert access to advanced Western fighters and espionage (in both traditional forms and via computer network operations) also began to make more contributions.

  In the fifth period (2004–present), China has enjoyed increased access to foreign commercial aviation technologies and has benefited from a “spin-off, spin-on” dynamic in gaining commercial access to dual-use technologies and applying them for military purposes. However, China’s legitimate access to advanced military-specific technologies has been reduced as Western sources of supply remained closed and Russia has become more reluctant to provide advanced aviation technology due to China’s reverse engineering of the Su-27, fear of future competition for export markets, and concerns about China’s long-term strategic direction.

  China has used coproduction, selected purchases of advanced aircraft, reverse engineering, and foreign design assistance to build a capable military aviation industry with a significant indigenous design and production capacity. The Chinese military aviation industry can now produce two fourth-generation fighters roughly equal to those in advanced air forces: the J–10 (indigenously developed with Israeli assistance) and the J–11B (based on coproduction and reverse engineering of the Su-27). Both aircraft still rely on imported Russian turbofan engines. Test flights of the new J–20 stealth fighter prototype demonstrate Chinese ambitions to build fifth-generation fighters, but the extent to which the J–20 will match the performance of state-of-the-art Russian and Western fighters is unclear. Significant technical hurdles in engine design, avionics, and systems integration are likely to delay operational deployment of the J–20 until about 2020. This would be about 15 years after the F–22 entered U.S. Air Force service, supporting an overall assessment that the Chinese military aviation industry remains 15–20 years behind.

  Producing state-of-the-art fighters requires an aviation industry to master a range of highly advanced, military-specific technologies. The historical development of China’s military aviation industry reflects an ongoing tension between the desire for self-reliance in defense and the need for access to advanced foreign technologies. China’s legitimate access to cutting-edge Western military technologies will likely remain curtailed and Russian reluctance to supply advanced military technologies will likely grow. These assumptions support two important conclusions. First, the Chinese military aviation industry will have to rely primarily on indigenous development of advanced “single-use” military aviation technologies in the future. The Chinese government is pursuing a range of “indigenous innovation” and technology development programs, but mastering advanced technologies becomes more difficult and expensive as a country moves closer to the technology frontier. This leads to a second, related conclusion: China will likely rely more heavily on espionage to acquire those critical military aviation technologies it cannot acquire legitimately from foreign suppliers or develop on its own.

• 

  Assessing Chinese Military Transparency

  Michael Kiselycznyk and Phillip C. Saunders

  The United States and other countries in the Asia-Pacific region have expressed concerns about China’s expanding military capabilities and called on Beijing to increase transparency on military issues. Chinese officials and military officers argue that Chinese transparency has increased over time and that weaker countries should not be expected to meet U.S. standards of transparency. Lack of an objective method for assessing military transparency has made it difficult to assess these Chinese claims and has inhibited productive dialogues about transparency.

  This paper presents a methodology for assessing military transparency that aims to confront the question of China’s military transparency from a comparative perspective. Drawing upon research done by Korean defense expert Dr. Choi Kang as part of a Council for Security Cooperation in the Asia-Pacific working group, it focuses on defense white papers as a readily available and comparable source of official defense information. The paper develops an objective methodology for comparing the relative transparency of defense white papers by employing standardized definitions and a four-tiered set of criteria to evaluate transparency across 19 categories. This approach can be used to evaluate changes in transparency over time and to compare China’s transparency with that of other Asia-Pacific countries.

  We use this methodology to evaluate changes in transparency in China’s six defense white papers (from 1998 through 2008) and to compare its 2008 white paper with 13 other recent Asia-Pacific defense white papers. We find that there has been a gradual but modest increase in the transparency of China’s defense white papers over time. China’s degree of transparency is roughly comparable to that of most Southeast Asian countries and to India, but significantly less than Asia-Pacific democracies such as Japan and South Korea. We argue that China’s growing economic and military power makes major countries such as Japan, South Korea, India, and Australia a more appropriate basis of comparison.

  Despite some limitations in the methodology (most notably omitting information published in other government documents when assessing transparency), we believe that it provides a reasonably objective and comparable way to evaluate relative military transparency. Although a full assessment would require considering a country’s unique context and using all available information, the methodology employed in this study provides a useful starting point to compare how different countries within the Asia-Pacific region approach military transparency. We argue that this methodology could be used as the basis for broader comparative studies of transparency and as a way to support regional dialogues about military transparency.

• 

  Civil-Military Relations in China: Assessing the PLA’s Role in Elite Politics

  Michael Kiselycznyk and Phillip C. Saunders

  This study reviews the last 20 years of academic literature on the role of the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) in Chinese elite politics. It examines the PLA’s willingness to support the continued rule of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and to obey directives from top party leaders, the PLA’s influence on the selection of China’s top civilian leaders, and the PLA’s ability to shape the domestic political environment. Over the last two decades the discussion of these three issues has largely been shaped by five trends identified in the literature: increasing PLA professionalism, bifurcation of civil and military elites, a reduced PLA role in political institutions, reduced emphasis on political work within the PLA, and increased military budgets. Together, these trends are largely responsible for the markedly reduced role of the PLA in Chinese elite politics.

  The theoretical models of Chinese civil-military relations that exist within the literature during the period divide into three distinctive categories. “Traditional models” including the Factional, Symbiosis, Professionalism, and Party Control models, dominate the literature from 1989 to 1995. Scholars worked to integrate information becoming available as the PRC opened to the world into these already existing models of Chinese civil-military relations. However, evolving political dynamics within the PRC following Tiananmen marginalized the utility of the models. From 1995 to 1997 many scholars argued that these traditional models should not be considered mutually exclusive but complementary. This concept of a “combination model” was short lived as it became increasingly apparent that even a combination of traditional models had little predictive or even explanatory power in light of rapidly changing political dynamics. Two new models, the Conditional Compliance and State Control models, emerged in the period of 1997–2003. Both incorporated elements of the traditional models while attempting to address the implications of new political and military dynamics in the PRC.

  Examining the predictions of these models against four case studies involving major developments in civil-military relations, we found that although each model had some descriptive and explanatory power, none possessed strong predictive ability. The traditional models help explain the PLA’s reaction to intensified Party control following Tiananmen, but none was able to predict how Chinese civil-military relations evolved subsequently. Civil-military models offered their most specific (and ultimately least accurate) predictions regarding the leadership succession from Deng Xiaoping to Jiang Zemin. Most models predicted a strong role for the PLA in the succession that did not materialize. This was the period when traditional civil-military models began to run up against the reality of changing political dynamics within the PRC. When the PLA was forced to withdraw from most commercial activities in the mid-1990s, the models predicted a far slower, more contentious, and less complete divestiture than ultimately occurred. Most analysts correctly predicted that the PLA would have only limited involvement in the leadership transition from Jiang Zemin to Hu Jintao following the 16th Party Congress in 2002, but subsequent explanations for why the transition went smoothly emphasize different factors. The models did agree in their emphasis on the importance of greater political institutionalization in reducing PLA influence and highlighted the implicit role and future potential importance of the PLA in elite politics, especially if divisions among the civilian leadership produce a political crisis in the future.

  Based on this assessment, we conclude that existing models serve a useful role in identifying key variables for analysis in the study of Chinese civil-military relations. However, most of the literature has been descriptive and interpretive rather than predictive. The widespread practice of using elements of multiple models to analyze civil-military relations makes it difficult to assess the validity of individual models or to generate falsifiable predictions, thus limiting the predictive ability of current models. Although China is a much more open society today, lack of reliable information continues to make the study of civil-military relations in China difficult, forcing analysts to rely on indirect evidence and dubious sources to speculate about the military’s influence on elite politics and about the relationships between top civilian and military leaders.

  Since 2003 the literature on Chinese civil-military relations has successfully exploited new sources of information to offer useful analysis of the PLA’s relationship with the Chinese economy and society at large.Yet there has been a notable lack of effort to develop, employ, or test new theoretical models that could help produce a new unified theory of Chinese civil-military relations. Future work may find fertile ground in exploring the nature of official and unofficial interactions between the PRC’s bifurcated civilian and military elite, comparing how broader trends in China’s civilian government are implemented in the PLA, or conducting a more genuinely comparative analysis with the experiences of other one-party states, transitioning democracies, or other Asian states.

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  China’s Out of Area Naval Operations: Case Studies, Trajectories, Obstacles, and Potential Solutions

  Christopher D. Yung, Ross Rustici, Isaac Kardon, and Joshua Wiseman

  This study seeks to understand the future direction of the People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) with regard to out of area deployments and power projection. The assessment is based on the history of past PLAN out of area deployments and an analysis of out of area operations of other military forces. Both short- and long-term lenses are employed to understand the scope and direction of China’s defense planning and strategic decisions.

  The study’s assessment of the PLAN’s short-term (1- to 5-year) trajectory is based on:

  • operational patterns of behavior observed in China’s out of area deployments
  • analysis of information about the PLAN’s current and recent difficulties during these deployments
  • the solutions China has applied to address these difficulties
  • an assessment of the extent to which the PLAN, PLA leadership, and the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) leadership as a whole are likely to pursue other potential solutions within a 1- to 5-year timeframe.

  We apply the same categories to our analysis of case studies of other nations’ historical out of area deployments to draw out possibilities for the PLAN’s long-term (10-year) trajectory. Examination of the history of China’s out of area operations indicates that the Chinese have been operating out of area since the mid-1970s, they tend to “overprepare” for each out of area deployment, and they conduct deployments not only for operational reasons, but also for carefully calculated political benefits.

  The study identifies five categories of challenges that confront all navies operating at long distances from home ports: distance, duration, capacity, complexity of coordination, and hostility of environment. The recent PLAN Gulf of Aden deployment illustrated some of these difficulties. In the absence of a nearby facility or military base, that task force had difficulty maintaining its ships; the ships had difficulty maintaining supplies of fresh vegetables, fruits, and potable water; and personnel did not have access to comprehensive medical care.

  From the case studies, we derived specific lessons about how other militaries met the five challenges in conducting out of area operations listed above and assessed whether the Chinese leadership is likely to follow their example. We identified five groups of options:

  • access to a facility or base for maintenance, repair, and other logistical support
  • self-protection (for example, carrier support, out of area antisubmarine warfare [ASW], or antisurface warfare)
  • use of mobile supply depots and floating bases
  • intra–task force lift assets (helicopters, lighterage, and landing craft)
  • satellite communications.

  The operational and strategic implications of our findings are as follows:

  • The PLAN still has some ways to go before it can operate effectively out of area. At present, it can effectively replenish at sea, conduct intra–task force resupply, perform long-distance navigation, conduct formation-keeping with competent seamanship, and operate in all weather conditions. The PLAN cannot currently conduct a full-scale joint forcible entry operation, maintain maritime superiority out of area, conduct multicarrier or carrier strike group operations, or provide comprehensive protection against threats to an out of area task force (antiaircraft warfare, ASW, and antisurface warfare).
  • The PLAN appears to be expanding its out of area operations incrementally. This will allow the United States, its allies, and other countries time to work out (with each other and with the Chinese) how to respond to opportunities for greater cooperation and potential challenges posed by a more capable PLAN.
  • China has an even longer way to go before it can be considered a global military power. In particular, it has no network of facilities and bases to maintain and repair its ships. The possession or absence of such a network may ultimately be the best indication of China’s future intentions. If China lacks such a support network, it will have great difficulty engaging in major combat operations (MCOs) far from its shores.
  • Experience gained through out of area operations will help make the PLAN somewhat more effective (in areas such as navigation and seamanship) in some of its other operations. However, most of the tasks performed and lessons gained from out of area operations are not directly transferrable to either a Taiwan contingency or a notional out of area MCO. This implies that time spent on conducting nontraditional out of area deployments for a PLAN unit is time away from combat training for a Taiwan contingency or preparing for MCOs out of area.
  • A more capable and active PLAN will present new challenges for U.S. policy. On the one hand, the United States wants China to “become a responsible stake holder” in support of international security objectives, which implies a need for greater naval capability to operate out of area. On the other hand, improved PLAN operational capabilities potentially pose a greater military threat to the United States and its allies, especially Asia. The United States has to reassure its allies that it will remain present in the region as a hedge even as Chinese military capabilities improve.