1st Edition
Modernising the People’s Liberation Army Aspiring to be a Global Military Power
This volume examines the progress made by the Chinese military (the People’s Liberation Army, PLA) as it strives to meet its commander-in-chief’s directive to transform itself into a more capable fighting force.
The book tracks the reforms undertaken by the PLA in meeting its commander-in-chief’s grand objectives set at the 2015 Central Military Commission Reform Work Meeting: for China’s armed forces to transform themselves into a more professional and modern military. Focusing on those changes since late 2016 at corps level and below, the first and second sections of the volume document the subsequent force structure and operational changes to the PLA’s four conventional services, and two newly established PLA branches: the Strategic Support Force and Joint Logistic Support Force. To that end, the contributors examine the reforms promulgated by the Chinese high command and measure them against observable developments in the PLA’s power-projection capabilities. In view of how the instrumentalization of military power is writ large in Beijing’s strategic calculus and in regional hotspot issues, the final part of the book also provides pathbreaking insights into two critical but not so well-understood phenomena: the now regular PLA aerial activities in the Taiwan Strait and the PLA Navy’s submarine operations in the South China Sea.
This book will be of much interest to students of East Asian security, Chinese politics, and military and strategic studies in general.
1. Introduction: Modernizing the People’s Liberation Army: Aspiring to be a Global Military Power
James Char
2. The PLA Army after “Below the Neck” Reforms: Contributing to China’s Joint Warfighting, Deterrence and MOOTW Posture
Dennis J. Blasko
3. Counter-intervention in an Age of Naval Reform
Ryan D. Martinson
4. Ongoing Organizational Reforms of the People’s Liberation Army Air Force
Kenneth W. Allen, Brendan S. Mulvaney and James Char
5. Organization and Structural Reforms of the PLA Rocket Force
Matthew Bruzzese
6. The PLA Strategic Support Force: Innovating for Future Warfare
Elsa B. Kania
7. Joint Logistics Support Force and China’s Military Logistics in an Era of Reform: Organizations, Operations, and Challenges
Joel Wuthnow
8. PLA Flight Activities in Taiwan’s Air Defense Identification Zone
Kenneth W. Allen, Gerald C. Brown and Thomas J. Shattuck
9. Beijing’s “Swiss Army Knife’ in the South China Sea
Collin Koh Swee Lean
Biography
James Char is Research Fellow with the China Programme at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies (RSIS) at Nanyang Technological University (NTU) in Singapore.
“The year 2027 – the 100th anniversary of the founding of the PLA – promises (or threatens) to be a major inflection point for China’s military. As the PLA grapples with modern “intelligentized warfare,” this concept pervades the transformation of the entire Chinese armed forces. The wide array of experts assembled in this volume provide a sober assessment of the future development of all branches of the PLA.”
Richard A. Bitzinger (1956–2023), Adjunct Senior Fellow, S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies, Singapore
“The expertise of the various authors takes the reader on a journey through the PLA that not only covers platforms and systems, but also organization, doctrine, and, in some cases, personnel affairs. Moreover, chapters on Taiwan and the South China Sea illustrate how Beijing is currently employing its new and improved PLA in current real-world operations. An excellent contribution to the field of PLA studies.”
David M. Finkelstein, Vice President for China & Indo-Pacific Security Affairs, Center for Naval Analyses
“The PLA remains a closed book to many outside China. The way the PLA specialists in this edited volume have deciphered its comprehensive and complicated reforms launched by Xi Jinping in 2015 is most impressive. This remarkable book is a must-read for anyone interested in understanding China’s military transformation and ongoing preparations for an increasingly more intensified global military confrontation.”
You Ji, Professor, Xi’an Jiaotong–Liverpool University
