China Military Power Report 2023

Maneuver Warfare with Chinese Characteristics

Last week, the Department of Defense released its annual report on China’s military power. Below are a few highlights that I saw, but also check out some other takeaways at Breaking Beijing.

Firstly, this is a broad report on military power when the PLA is fundamentally a maritime problem. Outside of a few amphibious brigades designed solely for Taiwan and increasingly air assault forces (see below), the PLA Ground Forces can’t go anywhere. They definitely cannot be sustained outside of China’s near abroad; the PLA lacks the logistics infrastructure and know-how for that. Neither can the PLA Air Force. They’re not designed for operations outside of China’s periphery. The PLAN and increasingly the PLANMC, however, are designed for power projection. Which is why Taiwan is increasingly at risk. The PRC has never in its history had the seapower to make themselves a real problem for the United States. Now it does and it just so happens to be at a time we’ve completely abdicated our own seapower. I won’t repeat the numbers reflecting this as they’re in the report, but rather just note that the Department of Defense is still mistaking this strategic competition for something it’s not.

You can even see this maritime nature of China’s strategy in the development of their aviation forces as they’re increasingly designed to support amphibious warfare.

“PLAA Aviation and Air Assault units remained a focus of development in 2022. PLAA training events and reports in PRC media show that support to amphibious operations, multi-dimensional assaults, developing close air support tactics, and manned-unmanned teaming (MUM-T) are now a standard part of training. Training in 2022 also included numerous examples of helicopters executing nighttime flight operations, over water maneuver, and ultra-low altitude flying. PLAA Aviation works directly with ground units to enhance its ability to support air assault operations and conduct air strikes. Highlights from PLAA Aviation joint training in 2022 included army aviation helicopters continuing to train for operations with PLAN landing ships. 2022 saw the first observed evidence of PLAA helicopters being able to rearm and refuel onboard PLAN vessels along with continued progress towards maritime operations. The two PLAA Air Assault brigades continued extensive training on helicopter insertion, area security, and aerial reconnaissance. The PLAA envisions its Aviation and Air Assault units employing their three-dimensional maneuver, firepower, and assault capabilities to act as a main combat force, support a greater joint operation, or conduct non-war military operations outside China.” (49)

Of note, PLA air assault units are PLA Army-proper (Ground Forces) troops, while their airborne units fall under the PLA Air Force. There isn’t a lot about PLAAF Airborne in this report, so here’s one on their role in a Taiwan scenario. The PLAAF as a whole is also getting ready to support more power projection, including in maritime environments.

“The PRC’s aviation industry continues to advance with deliveries of its domestic Y-20 large transport aircraft and completion of the world’s largest seaplane, the AG600. These transports will supplement and eventually replace the PRC’s small fleet of strategic airlift assets, which to date, consists of a limited number of Russian-made IL-76 aircraft. These large transports are intended to support airborne C2, logistics, paradrop, aerial refueling, and strategic reconnaissance operations as well as humanitarian assistance and disaster relief (HA/DR) missions.” (64)

The main effort of a Taiwan campaign continues to be the amphibious assault brigades of the PLA Ground Forces. The PLANMC, by contrast, is more focused on replicating the USMC’s crisis response and forward presence roles. It is and will be capable of smaller scale amphibious operations, but the PLA can leave the large-scale assaults to the Army since they can actually do them.

“Amphibious Warfare Ships. The PRC’s investment in LHA ships signals its intent to continue to develop its expeditionary warfare capabilities. In April 2021, the PRC commissioned the first YUSHEN-class LHA (TYPE 075) followed by the commissioning of the second hull in December 2021. A third YUSHEN-class LHA was commissioned in October 2022 while the first hull achieved IOC in March 2022, and there are indications of a probable fourth hull under construction in early 2023.The YUSHEN class are highly capable large-deck amphibious ships that will provide the PLAN with an all-aspect expeditionary capability including the ability to carry a large number of landing craft, troops, armored vehicles, and helicopters. In addition, the PLAN has eight large YUZHAO-class amphibious transport docks (LPD) (TYPE 071) in service. The YUZHAO-class LPDs and YUSHEN-class LHAs provide the PLA with greater capacity, endurance, and more flexibility for long-range operations than the PLAN’s older landing ships, which it has reduced in number over the last decade with obsolete units being decommissioned. The YUSHEN and YUZHAO can each carry several of the new YUYI class air-cushion medium landing craft and/or the conventional YUBU-class utility landing craft, and a variety of helicopters, tanks, armored vehicles and PLAN marines for long-distance expeditionary deployments.” (57)

“The PLANMC’s roles and missions principally include defending PLA bases in mainland China, the SCS and abroad, conducting amphibious operations to seize and defend small reef and island outposts, and conducting non-war military activities (NWMA). Although the PLANMC has traditionally focused on its task to assault and defense of small islands in the SCS, more recently its focus has grown to include expeditionary operations beyond FIC. The PLANMC’s roles under NWMA support the PRC’s efforts to protect its overseas interests including resources, infrastructure, and citizens abroad.” (60)

The one real weakness that the PLA still has is its lack of joint experience which will be key for the Joint Island Landing Campaign to take Taiwan. This is why we shouldn’t be too worried about waking up one day to an ongoing invasion of Taiwan: they are going to do a lot of joint exercising before they feel ready and that will be obvious.

“PLA ground, naval, air and rocket forces are increasingly capable of projecting power at greater distances from China. However, joint service training is still in its infancy and the PLA has demonstrated limited joint operational capabilities beyond the FIC. Instead, overseas activities are mostly conducted by single services and do not involve combat. In early 2022, the Southern Theater Command Navy conducted a joint distant sea training, where personnel from the Navy, Air Force, and Rocket Force served in the joint operations command system.” (90)

However, these reports are still just basically reports of orders of battle and tables of organization. They generally tell you nothing about morale, training, professionalism, etc. They almost never, ever talk about staffs or how they are organized and trained. This was a huge blindspot when it came to assessing the Russian Army prior to the full-scale invasion of Ukraine. But the war has revealed how poorly trained and professionalized Russian soldiers are and how small and incapable were their staffs. It’s the people that make all the units and equipment work together, and we have that same blindspot about everyone, not just Russia.

Fortunately, I think we’ve realized we have this blindspot. While we don’t seem to be able to do our own assessment just yet, this report includes a PLA self-assessment that covers these topics.

“The PLA highlights some self-assessed shortcomings publicly, likely to guide and accelerate force-wide modernization efforts. The PLA routinely use set slogans or phrases to describe these self-assessments to exhort the force to carry out specific campaigns. These evaluations also likely represent genuine anxieties among PRC leaders about the PLA’s readiness and ability to conduct joint operations if tested under real combat conditions.

● Leadership and Command. The PLA has regularly identified concerns about the quality and ability of its commanders and officers. Numerous PLA slogans have addressed this issue most pointedly expressing concern that its forces will be unable to seize the operational initiative at the level necessary for modern warfare, with previous annual training mobilization orders explicitly referencing the “Five Incapables” and “Two Inabilities.”

● Lack of Combat Experience. The PLA’s self-assessments often express insecurities about the fact that the military has not fought a war since 1979, with common references to the “peace disease” or “peacetime practices”. For the PLA, the “peace disease” presents itself as both a lack readiness within the force and a lackadaisical attitude towards training and preparing for potential conflict.

● Exercise and Training Realism. For decades, the PLA has identified poor and unrealistic training as a key problem for military modernization. The PLA has focused on both “formalism” and “bureaucratism” as the leading causes of substandard training. This means that training is stilted and formal rather than being appropriate for dynamic and unpredictable real-world conditions.

● Professional Military Education. The PLA has identified a lack of officers with knowledge of joint combat operations and is working to implement a true joint culture throughout the force. To rectify the gap in military education on joint warfighting, theater command headquarters have attempted to set up educational programs at headquarters to build joint proficiency. Additionally, the PRC’s NDU launched the PLA’s first training course for officers to receive joint post qualifications upon graduation.

● Fighting and winning modern wars. The PLA has utilized the slogan the “Two Big Gaps” to underline enduring concerns about its true capability for warfighting despite the long modernization effort. It also is an acknowledgement that the PLA feels itself to be behind the world’s most capable militaries and that they have not yet achieved that standard.” (177-178)

Lastly, a bit on the PLA’s core operational concept, Multi-Domain Precision Warfare.

“Core Operational Concept. In 2021, the PLA began discussing a new “core operational concept,” called “Multi-Domain Precision Warfare (多域精确战)” (MDPW). MDPW is intended to leverage a C4ISR network that incorporates advances in big data and artificial intelligence, what the PLA calls the “network information system-of-systems,” to rapidly identify key vulnerabilities in the U.S. operational system and then combine joint forces across domains to launch precision strikes against those vulnerabilities. MDPW is meant to sit atop an “operational conceptual system-of-systems,” suggesting the PLA will develop additional subordinate operational concepts and use simulations, war games, and exercises to test, evaluate, and improve these future-oriented operational concepts. The timing of MDPW’s appearance vis-à-vis China’s updated doctrine and military strategic guidelines suggests that MDPW serves as a connection between them, likely amplifying themes and guidance in both while focusing on the contours of what the PLA must be able to do to win future wars. (41)

I for one do not consider this a “new” concept. It’s newly named, but it is built on their systems destruction warfare concept, which has been around a while. The idea of a staff designed to “sit atop” a chain of command and focus on joint fires is already a component of their systems confrontation warfare doctrine. It’s a sophisticated and well-developed idea, aptly fit for the PLA’s situation. It’s also been in development a lot longer than the American multi-domain operations. This is not them playing catch-up or copying our concepts, the renaming is just them following the “multi-domain” fad with an idea that they have been working on for a long time. I did a deep dive on PLA operational concepts in the Marine Corps Gazette, available for free here (pdf): Reconnaissance Strike Tactics and Maneuver Warfare III.