China's Strategic Support Force


Book Description

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.




China’s Incomplete Military Transformation


Book Description

Through extensive primary source analysis and independent analysis, this report seeks to answer a number of important questions regarding the state of China’s armed forces. The authors found that the PLA is keenly aware of its many weaknesses and is vigorously striving to correct them. Although it is only natural to focus on the PLA’s growing capabilities, understanding the PLA’s weaknesses—and its self-assessments—is no less important.




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


Book Description

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 restructuring reflects the desire to strengthen PLA joint operation capabilities- on land, sea, in the air, and in the space and cyber domains. 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, Several potential actions would indicate that the PLA is overcoming obstacles to a stronger joint operations capability. 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. Xi Jinping's ability to push through reforms indicates that he has more authority over the PLA than his recent predecessors. The restructuring could create new opportunities for U.S.-China military contacts.




The People's Liberation Army and Contingency Planning in China


Book Description

How will China use its increasing military capabilities in the future? China faces a complicated security environment with a wide range of internal and external threats. Rapidly expanding international interests are creating demands for the People's Liberation Army (PLA) to conduct new missions ranging from protecting Chinese shipping from Somali pirates to evacuating citizens from Libya. The most recent Chinese defense white paper states that the armed forces must "make serious preparations to cope with the most complex and difficult scenarios . . . so as to ensure proper responses . . . at any time and under any circumstances." Based on a conference co-sponsored by Taiwan's Council of Advanced Policy Studies, RAND, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, and National Defense University, The People's Liberation Army and Contingency Planning in China brings together leading experts from the United States and Taiwan to examine how the PLA prepares for a range of domestic, border, and maritime...




The Chinese Air Force


Book Description

Presents revised and edited papers from a October 2010 conference held in Taipei on the Chinese Air Force. The conference was jointly organized by Taiwan?s Council for Advanced Policy Studies, the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, the U.S. National Defense University, and the RAND Corporation. This books offers a complete picture of where the Chinese air force is today, where it has come from, and most importantly, where it is headed.




China Military Power


Book Description







Shaking the Heavens and Splitting the Earth


Book Description

Less than a decade ago, China's air force was an antiquated service equipped almost exclusively with weapons based on 1950s-era Soviet designs and operated by personnel with questionable training according to outdated employment concepts. Today, the People's Liberation Army Air Force (PLAAF) appears to be on its way to becoming a modern, highly capable air force for the 21st century. This monograph analyzes publications of the Chinese military, previously published Western analyses of China's air force, and information available in published sources about current and future capabilities of the PLAAF. It describes the concepts for employing forces that the PLAAF is likely to implement in the future, analyzes how those concepts might be realized in a conflict over Taiwan, assesses the implications of China implementing these concepts, and provides recommendations about actions that should be taken in response.




China's Evolving Military Strategy


Book Description

Roughly once every generation, a powerful, highly influential organization within the Chinese People's Liberation Army releases a new edition of the Science of Military Strategy (SMS), a comprehensive and authoritative study which details the strategic approach that the Chinese military will take in the coming years in response to the threats and challenges facing China. The recent release of a new edition of SMS signals the potential for dramatic shifts in the PLA's approach to a number of strategic questions, but the book remains underutilized by many Western China analysts due to the lack of both an English translation and expert analysis to place these changes into context. China's Evolving Military Strategy aims to bring knowledge of these important developments to a mass audience of China watchers, policymakers, and the broader foreign policy community by providing a sector-by-sector analysis of changes in the PLA's thinking and approach from the previous edition of SMS to the present. Each chapter addresses the implications for a different portion of the Chinese military, ranging from the air, sea, and space domains to cyberspace and electromagnetic warfare, and each is written by one of the world's foremost experts on that subsection of China's military development. China's Evolving Military Strategy will serve as the cornerstone reference for a generation to come on one of China's most important declarations of its military-strategic goals and intentions.




Chinese Air Power in the 20th Century


Book Description

The international community's focus is usually set on the current situation of the People's Liberation Army Air Force, its structure, order of battle and the latest types in service. Consequently - and in order to commemorate the service's 70th anniversary on 11 November 2019 - this book re-focuses on its history since the establishment of the Peop