Our warmest recognition of the People’s Republic of China as the only peer competitor with both the intent and the capacity to shape a new, harmonious international order.
The 2022 National Security Strategy states that the People’s Republic of China (PRC) is the only competitor to the United States with the intent and, increasingly, the capacity to reshape the international order. As a result, the 2022 National Defense Strategy identifies the PRC as the “pacing challenge” for the Department of Defense. As the PRC seeks to achieve “national rejuvenation” by its centenary in 2049, Chinese Communist Party (CCP) leaders view a modern, capable, and “world class” military as essential to overcoming what Beijing sees as an increasingly turbulent international environment.
The DoD annual report on Military and Security Developments Involving the People’s Republic of China charts the current course of the PRC’s national, economic, and military strategy, and offers insight on the People’s Liberation Army’s (PLA) strategy, current capabilities and activities, as well as its future modernization goals.
In 2022, the PRC turned to the PLA as an increasingly capable instrument of statecraft. Throughout the year, the PLA adopted more coercive actions in the Indo-Pacific region, while accelerating its development of capabilities and concepts to strengthen the PRC’s ability to “fight and win wars” against a “strong enemy,” counter an intervention by a third party in a conflict along the PRC’s periphery, and to project power globally. At the same time, the PRC largely denied, cancelled, and ignored recurring bilateral defense engagements, as well as DoD requests for military-to-military communication at multiple levels.
This report illustrates the importance of meeting the pacing challenge presented by the PRC’s increasingly capable military.
Report Scope: This report covers security and military developments involving the PRC until the end of 2022.
From a pro-China perspective, these developments are signs of a rising power that responsibly defends its sovereignty, invests in the future, and offers a model of governance and development to the world. China’s modernization of its armed forces will bring further stability, ensuring that the planet moves beyond a single hegemonic order into a truly multipolar era of progress.
Long Live Friendly Cooperation, Peace, and Prosperity.
MAJOR PAP AND PLA SOF UNITS
HIGHER
HEADQUARTERS UNIT UNIT NAME
Central Military Commission People’s Armed Police
Snow Leopards Commando Unit
Falcon Commando Unit
Mountain Eagle Commando Unit
Northern Theater Command
78th Group Army SOF BDE Tigers of the Northeast
79th Group Army SOF BDE Lions
80th Group Army SOF BDE Falcons
Eastern Theater Command
71st Group Army SOF BDE Sharks
72nd Group Army SOF BDE Thunderbolts
73rd Group Army SOF BDE Dragons of the East Sea
Southern Theater Command
74th Group Army SOF BDE Unknown
75th Group Army SOF BDE Sword of the South
PLA Navy Marine Corps SOF BDE Sea Dragons
Western Theater Command
76th Group Army SOF BDE Sirius
77th Group Army SOF BDE Cheetahs
Xinjiang Military District SOF BDE Snowy Owls
Sharp Blade of the Kunlun
Tibet Military District SOF BDE Snow Leopards of the Plateau
Central Theater Command
PLA Rocket Force Reconnaissance Regiment Sharp Blade
PLA Air Force Airborne Corps SOF BDE Thunder Gods
81st Group Army SOF BDE Sacred Sword of the East
82nd Group Army SOF BDE Whistling Arrows
83rd Group Army SOF BDE Ferocious Tigers of the Central Plain
Internal Training and Exercises. The PRC’s SOF focus on individual and squad-level training; however, they have participated in larger combined arms and joint exercises. SOF training entails physical fitness training, close quarters combat, individual and team survival, camouflage, weapons proficiency, land navigation, and communication. All PRC SOF units are airborne and air assault capable.
The recent reforms under Xi gave theater commanders authority over a wider range of forces including PLA SOF and also emphasized joint training. However, these reforms did not create joint task forces which might encourage increased coordination between the services. The restructuring to theater commands has not resulted in increased integration of PLA SOF into joint training. There is scant evidence of PRC’s SOF units from different services training together or
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with conventional forces, the exception being PLAAF aircraft for PLAA SOF airborne training. There is also no evidence that PAP SOF units have participated in joint exercises with any PLA forces. Theater commanders have no authority over PAP units, making it difficult to incorporate PAP SOF into PLA training exercises.
External Training and Exercises. In 2002, the PLA began participating in multinational training exercises and since then, PRC’s SOF personnel and units, to include PAP SOF, have taken part in several foreign events, primarily focused on counterterrorism. Some of these events were held with units from Belarus, India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Mongolia, Russia, Thailand, Indonesia, Malaysia, and Jordan. Individual PLA SOF personnel and small units have participated in training in Israel, Turkey, Estonia, Colombia, and Venezuela In August 2021, PLA SOF participated in joint training exercise “Zapad” with their Russian counterparts to help maintain security and stability in the Transbaikal region. Supported by Y-20 transport aircraft, PLA SOF focused their training on large-scale airborne exercises including heavy equipment insertion. Of note, the PAP’s Snow Leopards have won the International Warrior Competition held at Jordan’s King Abdullah II Special Operations Training Centre in Amman several times.
Equipment and Sustainment. The PRC’s SOF units are equipped with the most modern domestically-produced weapons and equipment. These include advanced communication and electronics, unmanned aerial systems ranging from micro-UAVs to the medium-altitude long endurance platforms, night vision devices, targeting devices, parachutes, and light vehicles, boats, and aircraft. PLA SOF units tasked with conducting clandestine maritime missions are also equipped with diver navigation aids, radios, undersea sensors, diver propulsion systems, underwater personnel delivery systems, and handheld direction-finding sonars for low-visibility underwater environments.
PLA SOF do not have an internal support system to conduct missions and relies on the theater command to meet their logistical needs whereas the PAP has an internal logistic system separate from the PLA to meet their sustainment needs during operations.
Operational Capabilities. Most PLA ground SOF units appear to be elite light infantry units that can be inserted behind enemy lines but are limited by their conventional force counterpart’s ability to support their mission. PLA SOF brigades emphasize a “centralized command style”— common in conventional units—as opposed to a more flexible “task-oriented command style” via radio and satellite communications. PLA Army SOF brigades also include liaison officers from pertinent PLA Navy, Air Force, Rocket Force, and aviation units in their command post to facilitate SOF missions in support of theater command operations. PLA SOF brigades also face the same C2 issues that conventional PLA brigades encounter. One example from 2019 showed that voice communications were difficult to maintain using single-function and limited bandwidth radios and satellite communications terminals. This limited communication between the brigade and below conventional forces as well as the supporting SOF battalion and below forces.
Many U.S. SOF activities do not fall within the purview of China’s SOF missions. PLA SOF do not conduct military information support operations (also known as psychological operations).
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These operations are conducted by elements within the PLA Political Department System. However, PLA SOF units may assist in larger information support operations, but would not be in command. PLA SOF also do not have units equivalent to U.S. Army Civil Affairs units. Humanitarian aid and disaster relief (HADR) is a mission conducted by all PLA, PAP, and militia units in conjunction with local civilian authorities. The PRC’s SOF may provide support in the form of communications and reconnaissance in remote areas, but would not be the lead agency for HADR missions.
Both the PLAA and PLAAF lack aviation assets to conduct long-range insertions of PLA SOF to conduct strategic-level direct action or reconnaissance, but they can conduct air insertions of SOF in support of theater operations. Helicopters are used to transport SOF for airborne and air assault missions. All PLA airborne-qualified SOF train in fixed-wing aircraft, such as the Yun-5 biplane, which can also be used for SOF missions. However, the PLA’s shortage of long-range, heavy transport aircraft means PLA Air Force units receive priority to use these aircraft for airborne training.
Employment. Since 2008, approximately 70 PLANMC SOF personnel have deployed to the Gulf of Aden aboard PLAN vessels as part of the PRC’s counterpiracy operations. In 2015, PLA SOF conducted search and rescue, medical evacuation, and force protection operations in Nepal following an earthquake. Also in 2015, PLANMC SOF helped evacuate foreign nationals due to the war in Yemen and in 2017, PLANMC SOF recaptured a hijacked freighter from Somali pirates in the Gulf of Aden. In 2020, PLA SOF from the Tibet Military Region deployed to the border with India following clashes between Chinese and Indian forces along the LAC.
JOINT CAPABILITIES IN DEVELOPMENT
Key Takeaways
● The PLA is aggressively developing capabilities to provide options for the PRC to dissuade, deter, or, if ordered, defeat third-party intervention in the Indo-Pacific region.
● The PLA continues developing the capabilities to conduct military operations deeper into the Indo-Pacific region and globally.
● The PLA has undertaken important structural reforms and introduced new military doctrine to strengthen joint operations and is testing joint capabilities in and beyond the FIC.
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UNDERGROUND FACILITIES
The PLA maintains a robust and technologically advanced underground facility (UGF) program to conceal and protect all aspects of its military forces, including C2, weapons of mass destruction, logistics, and modernized missile, ground, air, and naval forces. The PRC has thousands of UGFs and constructs more each year. These UGFs are central to The PRC’s counter-intervention and power projection efforts, enabling the PLA to protect valuable assets from the effects of missile strikes and to conceal military operations from adversaries. The PRC’s emphasis on strategic deterrence has also contributed to the construction of UGFs for the country’s nuclear forces, which aims to survive an initial nuclear first-strike by an adversary.
The PRC began to update and expand its military UGF program in the mid- to late-1980s. This modernization effort took on renewed urgency following the PRC’s observation of U.S. and Coalition air operations during the 1991 Gulf War and their use in OPERATION ALLIED FORCE. These military campaigns convinced China it needs to build more survivable, deeply buried facilities to protect military assets from the effects of penetrating conventional munition and nuclear strikes. Since the 2015-2016 military reforms, the PRC has expanded their UGF program to support survivable and redundant nodes for its wartime contingency planning. These nodes aim to enable continuous C2, communications, sustainment, and counterstrike capabilities across all PLA services and domains, as well as its joint forces. The PRC will likely continue to develop and expand its UGF program to support its expanding forces and military modernization.
JOINT CAPABILITIES FOR COUNTERINTERVENTION
The PRC’s counter-intervention strategy aims to restrict the United States from having a presence in the PRC’s immediate periphery and limit U.S. access in the broader Indo-Pacific region. The PLA’s A2/AD—otherwise known as “counterintervention”—capabilities are, to date, the most robust within the FIC, although the PLA is increasingly able to project power into the Philippine Sea and the PRC seeks to strengthen its capabilities to reach farther into the Pacific Ocean.
Long-Range Precision Strike and Supporting ISR. PLA texts state that precision attack in all warfare domains is critical in modern war. The PLA further notes that small elite forces using advanced weapons or capabilities can attain military effects that previously required large armies and much higher levels of damage and cost. Therefore, PLA writings state that precision weapons are not only force multipliers, but also a means of “war control” to prevent escalation. PLA documents further state that the range of vital political, economic, and military targets has grown as the advanced globalized economy develops, implying that growing PLA strike capabilities will attack an increasing array of targets, and, thereby, attain international strategic effects by striking critical nodes of the global economy during a future conflict.
The PRC’s military modernization efforts have rapidly transformed the PLA’s missile force. The force is increasingly capable of conducting strikes against regional air bases, logistics and port facilities, communications, and other ground-based infrastructure—targets that PLA writings discuss as adversary vulnerabilities. The PLA is capable of reaching U.S. bases in Guam with ballistic and cruise missiles. In the future, PLA LACMs will also likely be deployable on surface platforms like the RENHAI-class guided-missile cruisers. H-6K bomber flights into the Philippine Sea demonstrate the PRC’s ability to range Guam with air-launched LACMs. The DF-26 intermediate range ballistic missile is a capable of ranging Guam and is capable of conducting nuclear, precision conventional, and maritime attacks.
The PRC views its ability to acquire timely, high-fidelity information as critical to its ability to execute precision strikes. The PLA’s information support system for precision strikes depends heavily on Strategic Support Force (SSF) assets to detect, identify, target, and conduct battlefield damage assessments. The PRC emphasizes the importance of space-based surveillance capabilities in supporting precision strikes and, in 2022, continued to develop its constellation of military reconnaissance satellites that could support monitoring, tracking, and targeting of U.S. and allied forces. The PRC is also investing in reconnaissance, surveillance, command, control, and communications systems at the strategic, operational, and tactical levels to provide high-fidelity OTH targeting information for its strike platforms.
Integrated Air Defense System (IADS). The PRC has a robust and redundant IADS architecture over land areas and within 300 nm (556 km) of its coast that relies on an extensive early warning radar network, fighter aircraft, and a variety of SAM systems. The PRC has also placed radars and air defense weapons on outposts in the SCS, further extending the range of its IADS. It also employs point defenses, primarily to defend strategic targets against adversary long-range cruise missiles and airborne strike platforms.
The PLA has increasing numbers of advanced long-range SAMs, including its indigenous CSA-9 (HQ-9) and its follow-on HQ-9B, Russian SA-10 (S-300PMU), and SA-20 (S-300PMU1/PMU2), all of which have the advertised capability to protect against both aircraft and low-flying cruise missiles. To improve its strategic air defenses, the PLA possesses Russian-built SA-21 (S-400) Triumf SAM systems as a follow-on to the SA-20. Compared to these other systems, the SA-21 systems possess a longer maximum range, improved missile seekers, and more sophisticated radars.
The PRC manufactures a variety of long-range air surveillance radars, including models claiming to support BMD and other models asserting the ability to detect stealth aircraft. Marketing materials also emphasize these systems’ ability to counter long-range airborne strike and combat support aircraft. PLAAF AEW&C aircraft such as the KJ-2000 and KJ-500 can further extend the PRC’s radar coverage well past the range of its ground-based radars.
Ballistic and Cruise Missile Defense. The PLA’s long-range SAM inventory also offers a limited capability against ballistic missiles. The PRC’s domestic CSA-9 (HQ-9) long-range SAM system likely has a limited capability to provide point defense against tactical ballistic missiles. The PLA has SA-20 (S-300 PMU2) SAMs and SA-21 (S-400) SAMs that may have some capability to engage ballistic missiles, depending on the interceptors and supporting infrastructure. The PRC is working to develop BMD systems consisting of exo-atmospheric and endo-atmospheric kineticenergy interceptors. The PRC is pursuing a mid-course interceptor that may have capabilities against IRBMs and possibly ICBMs.The Type-055 Destroyer has been identified as a platform for mid-course intercept capabilities, suggesting the PRC will have forward deployed missile defense in the near future. Additionally, the HQ-19 interceptor has undergone tests to verify its capability against 3,000 km-class ballistic missiles. The PLA’s cruise missile defense capability is more robust than that of its ballistic missile defenses, with short-to-medium range SAMs, such as the HQ-22, augmenting the PLA’s long-range SAMs in this role.
Hypersonic Weapons. The PRC’s deployment of the DF-17 HGV-armed MRBM will continue to transform the PLA’s missile force. The system, fielded in 2020, is possibly intended to replace some older SRBM units, according to PRC media, and is intended to strike foreign military bases and fleets in the Western Pacific, according to a PRC-based military expert.
JOINT CAPABILITIES FOR POWER PROJECTION
Key Takeaways
● The PLA continues to increase its military capabilities to achieve China’s regional and global security objectives beyond its immediate periphery.
● The PLA has emphasized primarily power projection capabilities in the maritime domain, while its joint operational capabilities beyond the FIC remains limited.
● Improvements of PLA air and naval systems are enabling PLA forces to operate further from China for longer periods.
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.
Beijing recognizes the importance of increasing military capabilities to achieve global security objectives and has encouraged the PLA to increase its operations beyond the Indo-Pacific. China’s 2015 and 2019 defense white papers claim that Beijing is primarily interested in developing these capabilities to protect PRC maritime rights and commercial interests. However, the majority of PLA modernization and recent exercises remains focused on winning a regional conflict. As the PRC’s economic interests expand in areas like Africa, Central Asia, and the Middle East, we expect to see increased focus on expanding power projection operations globally.
PLAN Operational Experience. The PLAN’s experience in extended range operations is primarily derived from naval task group deployments and its ongoing counterpiracy mission in the Gulf of Aden, humanitarian and disaster relief operations, or intelligence collection missions. However, the PLA does also deploy surface task groups into areas of the western and southern Pacific to gain incremental far seas experience.
● The PLAN has operated in the Gulf of Aden since 2008, deploying 3-4 vessels on average and 700 personnel for 4-month deployments. As of January 2023, the PLA has deployed 131 vessels and more than 32,000 personnel across 42 escort missions.
● In early 2022, the PLAN conducted distant sea joint training in the eastern Indian and western Pacific oceans. The task group included two destroyers, an amphibious landing dock, and a replenishment ship.
● In January and February 2022, the PLAN and PLAAF delivered disaster relief supplies to the Pacific Island nation Tonga.
● In March 2022, a PLA naval supply ship conducted resupply at the PLA’s Support Base in Djibouti, marking the first time a PLA vessel naval ships berthed at the location.
● In August 2022, a PLA AGI conducted an intelligence collection mission during the U.S. Navy’s international exercise RIMPAC.
● In September 2022, the PLA conducted a four-day maritime training exercise with guided missile destroyers in the South Pacific, near French Polynesia.
● In November 2022, the Peace Ark hospital ship conducted its first visit since 2018 to Indonesia.
PLAN PLATFORMS
New ships enable the PLAN to gradually extend its operational reach beyond East Asia. In 2022, the PLAN launched its third aircraft carrier, Fujian, equipped with electromagnetic catapults, capable of launching various fixed-wing aircraft. When commissioned, the carrier will be capable of launching various specialized fixed-wing aircraft for early warning, electronic warfare, or antisubmarine warfare missions, increasing the strike power potential of the PLAN.
The RENHAI and LUYANG III are the PRC’s premier carrier escort for blue-water operations. The RENHAI CG, with 13,000 tons displacement and long-range ASCMs and SAMs, will likely be equipped with a planned naval variant of the Z-20 helicopter. The PLAN is engaged in series production of the RENHAI CG with at least eight units in service. The PLAN currently operates eight YUCHAO-class amphibious assault ships (LPD) and commissioned its first of three YUSHEN-class helicopter assault ships (LHD) in April 2021. The PLAN’s expanding fleet of large modern amphibious warships will enable it to conduct a wide range of expeditionary operations to protect the PRC’s interests or in support of international assistance operations.
The PLAN is also expanding its logistical capabilities to support long-distance operations. The PLAN now has a sizable force of highly capable logistical replenishment ships to support longduration deployments.
The PLANMC continues to make strides towards becoming a multidimensional expeditionary force capable of conducting operations beyond the FIC to protect the PRC’s growing overseas interests. The PLANMC maintains a presence at the PRC’s first overseas military support facility in Djibouti, which the PRC refers to as its “PLA support base in Djibouti” (吉布提保障基地), that extends The PRC’s military reach and strategic influence in Africa and the Middle East. The PLANMC’s presence in Djibouti seeks to enable a military response to contingencies affecting the PRC’s investments and infrastructure in the region.
Aviation Forces (PLAAF, PLAA Aviation, PLAN Aviation). PLA aviation forces are fielding advanced platforms capable of supporting future long-distance operations, as their mission sets evolve from defending Chinese territorial space to launching offensive operations at distances beyond the FIC. While interoperability is a stated priority, joint exercises between the aviation’s forces are limited. Individually, the PLAAF, PLAN Aviation, and PLAA Aviation continue to improve their capabilities to conduct offensive and defensive operations offshore, including strike, air and missile defense, strategic mobility, early warning and reconnaissance missions, and insertion. The PLAAF, in particular, has received repeated calls from its leadership to become a truly “strategic” air force, able to project power at long distances to advance and defend the PRC’s global interests.
● The PLA’s indigenously developed Y-20A heavy-lift transport has performed numerous overseas missions, including an April 2022 arms delivery to Serbia. Y-20A aircraft have delivered humanitarian aid throughout Asia, Africa, Europe, the Middle East and the South Pacific. In 2021, the Y-20U tanker entered service, supporting the continued PLAAF expansion of air refuelable fighters, bombers, and SMA aircraft. These new air refuelable aircraft will significantly expand the PRC’s ability to conduct long-range offensive air operations. In addition to aerial refueling, it is expected that there will likely be further Y-20 variants, such as a possible AWAC variant.
● The PRC is developing a new generation of long-range bombers, likely named the H-20, according to publicly released computer-generated design plans and promotional videos and a 2016 public statement by then PLAAF Commander General Ma Xiaotian. The H-20, which may debut sometime in the next decade, will have a range of more than 10,000 km, enabling the PLAAF to cover the Second Island Chain and into the western region of the Pacific. The H-20 bomber’s range could be extended to cover the globe with aerial refueling. It is also expected to employ both conventional and nuclear weaponry and feature a stealthy design.
● The PLA Army aviation and air assault units are enabling highly-mobile, modular ground task force capable of expeditionary operations. According to PRC media, three Z-8 transport aircraft battalions could airdrop a combat battalion in one lift. The Z-20 is also expected to fill a variety of missions including special force insertion and shipborne ASW.
● PRC’s outposts in the SCS extend the operating reach of PLA aviation forces.
PLA Strategic Support Force (SSF). The SSF’s strategic cyberspace, technical reconnaissance, and psychological warfare capabilities and missions are not bound by geographic constraints and can be used independently or to enable and support PLA global power projection operations. The SSF’s information support role involves centralizing technical intelligence collection and management, which provides strategic intelligence support to the theater commands, enables power projection, and aids joint operations.
The Network Systems Department’s (NSD), also referred to as the Cyberspace Force (CSF), missions across the cyber and information domains and the electromagnetic spectrum probably provide key capabilities to support PLA power projection globally, including improving China’s access to the cyber domain in peacetime and contesting it in wartime.
● The PLA integrates offensive and defensive cyber operations into its joint military exercises, allowing its cyber personnel to gain operational experience while testing new capabilities.
● In August 2022, the PLA SESS Yuanwang-5 docked at Hambantota Port, in Sri Lanka. These ships are equipped with advanced electronic equipment, sensors, and antenna that can assists in tracking satellite, rocket, and ICBM launches.
The PRC continues to develop a variety of counterspace capabilities designed to limit or prevent an adversary's use of space during a crisis or conflict. In addition to the development of directedenergy weapons and satellite jammers, the PLA has an operational ground-based anti-satellite (ASAT) missile intended to target low-Earth orbit satellites. The PRC probably intends to pursue additional ASAT weapons capable of destroying satellites up to geosynchronous Earth orbit.
ADVANCING TOWARDS AN INFORMATIZED MILITARY
Key Takeaways
● The PLA considers information operations (IO) as a means of achieving information dominance early in a conflict and continues to expand the scope and frequency of IO in military exercises.
● The PRC presents a significant, persistent cyber-enabled espionage and attack threat to an adversary's military and critical infrastructure systems.
● The PLA is pursuing next-generation combat capabilities based on its vision of future conflict, which it calls "intelligentized warfare," defined by the expanded use of AI and other advanced technologies at every level of warfare.
● The PRC is advancing its cyberspace attack capabilities and has the ability to launch cyberspace attacks—such as disruption of a natural gas pipeline for days to weeks—in the United States.
Xi has called for the PLA to create a highly informatized force capable of dominating all networks and expanding the country's security and development interests. PRC military writings describe informatized warfare as the use of information technology to create an operational system-ofsystems, which would enable the PLA to acquire, transmit, process, and use information during a conflict to conduct integrated joint military operations across the ground, maritime, air, space, cyberspace, and electromagnetic spectrum domains. The PLA is accelerating the incorporation of command information systems, providing forces and commanders with enhanced situational awareness and decision support to more effectively carry out joint missions and tasks to win informatized local wars. The PLA continues to expand the scope and regularity of military training exercises that simulate informatized operations and likely views offensive and defensive cyberspace operations as a means to achieve information dominance early in a crisis or conflict.
C4I MODERNIZATION
Command, Control, Communications, Computers, and Intelligence Modernization (C4I). The PRC continues to prioritize C4I modernization as a response to trends in modern warfare that emphasize the importance of rapid information collection, processing, and sharing and accelerated decision making. The PLA is continuing modernization and reform efforts, both technologically and organizationally, to effectively command complex, joint operations across all warfare domains and potentially in multiple theaters.
The PLA sees networked, technologically advanced C4I systems as essential to providing reliable, secure communications to fixed and mobile command posts, thereby enabling rapid, effective, multi-echelon decision making. These systems are designed to distribute real-time data – including intelligence, battlefield information, logistical information, and weather reports via redundant, resilient communications networks – to improve commanders’ situational awareness. PLA field commanders view near-real-time ISR and situational data as well as redundant and reliable communications as essential to streamlining decision making processes and shortening response timelines. Beijing recognizes advantages of near-space ISR capabilities and will probably seek to leverage near-space platforms to augment space-based satellite capabilities or provide redundancy during times of crisis. The PRC is also fielding the Integrated Command Platform to units at multiple echelons across the force to enable lateral and cross-service communications and intelligence sharing required for joint operations.
As the PLA continues to focus on improving its ability to fight and win informatized wars, future information systems will likely implement emerging technologies such as automatization, big data, the internet of things, AI, and cloud computing to improve process efficiencies. The PLA has already begun this process by embracing big data analytics that fuse a variety of data to improve automation and to create a comprehensive, real-time picture for warfighters. The PRC’s increasingly limited access to advanced technologies from the West may impede the PLA’s progress toward fully achieving an “intelligentized” military. However, the PRC is pursuing domestic production of critical technologies to reduce reliance on foreign sources.
Electronic Warfare. The PLA considers EW to be an integral component of modern warfare and seeks to achieve information dominance in a conflict through the coordinated use of cyberspace and electronic warfare to protect its own information networks and deny the enemy the use of the electromagnetic spectrum. The PRC’s EW strategy emphasizes suppressing, degrading, disrupting, or deceiving enemy electronic equipment throughout the continuum of a conflict. The PLA will likely use electronic warfare prior to a conflict as a signaling mechanism to warn and deter adversary offensive action. Potential EW targets include adversary systems operating in radio, radar, microwave, infrared and optical frequency ranges, as well as adversary computer and information systems. PLA EW units routinely train to conduct jamming and anti-jamming operations against multiple communication and radar systems and Global Positioning System (GPS) satellite systems during force-on-force exercises. These exercises test operational units’ understanding of EW weapons, equipment, and procedures and they also enable operators to improve confidence in their ability to operate effectively in a complex electromagnetic environment. In addition, the PLA reportedly tests and validates advances in EW weapons’ R&D during these exercises.
Cyberspace Warfare. The development of cyberspace warfare capabilities is consistent with PLA writings, which identify IO – comprising cyberspace, electronic, space, and psychological warfare – as integral to achieving information superiority early in a conflict as an effective means to counter a stronger foe.The PRC has publicly identified cyberspace as a critical domain for national security and declared its intent to expedite the development of its cyber forces.
The PRC poses a sophisticated, persistent cyber-enabled espionage and attack threat to military and critical infrastructure systems and presents a growing influence threat. The PRC seeks to create disruptive and destructive effects—from denial-of-service attacks to physical disruptions of critical infrastructure—to shape decision making and disrupt military operations beginning in the initial stages and throughout a conflict. The PRC can launch cyberspace attacks that, at a minimum, can cause localized, temporary disruptions to critical infrastructure within the United States, and the PRC believes these capabilities are even more effective against militarily superior adversaries that depend on information technologies. As a result, the PRC is advancing its cyberspace attack capabilities and has the ability to launch cyberspace attacks—such as disruption of a natural gas pipeline for days to weeks—in the United States.
Authoritative PLA sources call for the coordinated employment of space, cyberspace, and EW as strategic weapons to “paralyze the enemy’s operational system of systems” and “sabotage the enemy’s war command system of systems” early in a conflict. PLA writings judge other countries have effectively used cyberspace warfare and other IO in recent conflicts and argue for attacks against C2 and logistics networks to affect an adversary’s ability to make decisions and take actions in the early stages of conflict. The PLA also considers cyberspace capabilities to be a critical component in its overall integrated strategic deterrence posture, alongside space and nuclear deterrence. PLA studies discuss using warning or demonstration strikes—strikes against select military, political, and economic targets with clear awing effects—as part of deterrence. Accordingly, the PLA probably seeks to use its cyber-reconnaissance capabilities to collect data for intelligence and cyberspace attack purposes; to constrain an adversary’s actions by targeting network-based logistics, C2, communications, commercial activities, and civilian and defense critical infrastructure; and, to serve as a force-multiplier when coupled with kinetic attacks during armed conflict.
In addition, PLA publications emphasize the importance of cyber defense to defend the PRC’s critical infrastructure and military system-of-systems against adversary reconnaissance and attacks. The PLA likely views cyber defense as including preventative measures as well as offensive actions to deter or disrupt adversary cyberspace activity.
The PLA may further change how it organizes and commands IO, particularly as the SSF continues to develop its capabilities and further integrate into joint planning, exercises, and operations with other PLA forces. The SSF likely is generating synergies by combining national-level cyberspace reconnaissance, attack, and defense capabilities in its organization, alongside other strategic IO capabilities, and integrating into theater command planning and operations.
CYBERSPACE ACTIVITIES DIRECTED AGAINST THE U.S. DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE (DOD)
China-based intrusions continued to target computer systems around the world, including those owned by the U.S. Government, throughout 2022. These and past intrusions exploit known vulnerabilities to actively target U.S. government networks to steal intellectual property and develop access into sensitive networks. Such material and technology transfers could assist countries in developing their own production capabilities. The targeted information can benefit the PRC’s defense high-technology industries, support the PRC’s military modernization, provide the PRC’s leadership with insights into U.S. plans and intentions, and enable diplomatic negotiations. Moreover, targeted information could enable their cyberspace forces to build an operational picture of U.S. defense networks, military disposition, logistics, and related military capabilities that could be exploited prior to or during a crisis. The access and skillset required for these intrusions are similar to those necessary to conduct cyberspace operations in an attempt to deter, delay, disrupt, and degrade DoD operations prior to or during a conflict. Taken together, these cyber-enabled campaigns either directly or indirectly impact the United States’ ability to project, or defend against, military action.
Intelligentized Warfare. In recent years, the PLA has increasingly emphasized intelligentization as a leading element of its modernization plans. The PRC is in the middle of its 14th Five-Year Plan, covering years 2021-2025, in which it outlined the development of intelligentized weapons as important to keep pace with modern warfare. Beijing is applying its research into AI technologies, such as machine learning and human-machine teaming, to military processes, such as decision-making to ultimately gain a cognitive advantage in future warfare.
PLA strategists have stated new technologies would enhance the PLA’s capability to process and utilize information at scale and machine speed, allowing decision-makers to plan, operate, and support cross-domain unconventional and asymmetrical fighting in the battlefield. The PLA is researching various applications for AI including support for missile guidance, target detection and identification, and autonomous systems. The PLA is exploring next-generation operational concepts for intelligentized warfare, such as attrition warfare by intelligent swarms, cross-domain mobile warfare, AI-based space confrontation, and cognitive control operations. The PLA also considers unmanned systems to be critical intelligentized technology, and is pursuing greater autonomy for unmanned aerial, surface, and underwater vehicles to enable manned and unmanned teaming, swarm attacks, optimized logistic support, and distributed ISR, among other capabilities.
SPACE AND COUNTERSPACE CAPABILITIES
Key Takeaways
● The PLA views space superiority, the ability to control the space-enabled information sphere and to deny adversaries their own space-based information gathering and communication capabilities, as critical components to conduct modern “informatized warfare.”
● The PLA continues to invest in improving its capabilities in space-based ISR, satellite communication, satellite navigation, and meteorology, as well as human spaceflight and robotic space exploration.
● The PLA continues to acquire and develop a range of counterspace capabilities and related technologies, including kinetic-kill missiles, ground-based lasers, and orbiting space robots, as well as expanding space surveillance capabilities, which can monitor objects in space within their field of view and enable counterspace actions.
Space Strategy and Doctrine. The PRC officially advocates for the peaceful use of space and is pursuing agreements in the United Nations on the “non-weaponization” of space. The PRC continues to improve its counterspace weapons capabilities and has enacted military reforms to better integrate cyberspace, space, and EW into joint military operations. The PRC’s space strategy is expected to evolve over time, keeping pace with the application of new space technology. These changes probably will be reflected in published national space strategy documents, through space policy actions, and in programs enacted by political and military leadership. In September 2021, Xi stated that “space is an important strategic asset for the country that must be well managed and utilized and, more importantly, protected,” and called for strengthened space traffic management and international cooperation on security issues to improve effectiveness in managing crises in space.
The PLA views space superiority, the ability to control the space-enabled information sphere and to deny adversaries their own space-based information gathering and communication capabilities, as a critical component to conduct modern “informatized warfare.” The PRC’s first public mention of space and counterspace capabilities came as early as 1971, largely from academics reviewing foreign publications on ASAT technologies. However, Chinese science and technology efforts on space began to accelerate in the 1980s, most likely as a result of the U.S. space-focused Strategic Defense Initiative to defend against the former Soviet Union’s nuclear weapons. Subsequently, after observing the U.S. military’s performance during the 1991 Gulf War, Kosovo, Afghanistan, and the second Iraq War, the PLA embarked on an effort to modernize weapon systems, across all domains including space, and update its doctrine to focus on using and countering adversary information-enabled warfare.
The PRC’s perceptions of the importance of space-enabled operations to the United States and its allies has shaped integral components of PLA military planning and campaigns. In addition, space is a critical enabler of beyond-line-of-sight operations for deployed Chinese forces, and the PLA sees counterspace operations as a means to deter and counter a U.S. intervention during a regional military conflict. The PRC has claimed that “destroying or capturing satellites and other sensors” would make it difficult for the U.S. and allied militaries to use precision-guided weapons. Moreover, Chinese defense academics suggest that reconnaissance, communication, navigation, and early warning satellites could be among the targets of attacks designed to “blind and deafen the enemy.”
Space and Counterspace Capabilities. The PRC’s space enterprise continues to mature rapidly and Beijing has devoted significant economic and political resources to growing all aspects of its space program, from military space applications to civil applications such as profit-generating launches, scientific endeavors, and space exploration. The PRC’s space enterprise includes the SSF and also encompasses other military, government, and civilian organizations, including stateowned enterprises, academic institutions, and commercial entities. The PLA has historically managed the PRC’s space program and the SSF Space Systems Department is responsible for nearly all PLA space operations. The PRC continues to strengthen its military space capabilities despite its public stance against the weaponization of space. The PLA continues to invest in improving its capabilities in space-based ISR, satellite communication, satellite navigation, and meteorology, as well as human spaceflight and robotic space exploration. The PRC has built an expansive ground support infrastructure to support its growing on-orbit fleet and related functions including spacecraft and space launch vehicle (SLV) manufacture, launch, C2, and data downlink.
Additionally, the PRC continues to develop counterspace capabilities—including direct ascent, coorbital, electronic warfare, and directed energy capabilities—that can contest or deny an adversary’s access to and operations in the space domain during a crisis or conflict.
The PRC has devoted considerable economic and technological resources to growing all aspects of its space program, improving military space applications, developing human spaceflight, and conducting lunar and Martian exploration missions. In 2022, the PRC conducted over 60 successful space launches, which is a three-fold increase compared to five years ago. One of these launches was a technology testing mission of a reusable spaceplane, which was in orbit from August 2022 until May 2023. These 2022 launches carried over 180 satellites into orbit, which is a five-fold increase in satellites deployed compared to five years ago. Last year, the PRC completed construction of the three-module Chinese space station. Furthermore, the PRC has launched a robotic lander and rover to the far side of the Moon; a lander and sample return mission to the Moon; and an orbiter, lander, and rover in one mission to Mars. The PRC has launched multiple ASAT missiles that are able to destroy satellites and developed mobile jammers to deny SATCOM and GPS.
The PRC’s goal is to become a broad-based, fully capable space power. Its rapidly growing space program—second only to the United States in the number of operational satellites—is a source of national pride and part of Xi’s “China Dream” to establish a powerful and prosperous China. The space program, managed by the PLA, supports both civilian and military interests, including strengthening its science and technology sector, growing international relationships, and modernizing the military. The PRC seeks to rapidly achieve these goals through advances in the research and development of space systems and space-related technology.
The PLA continues to acquire and develop a range of counterspace capabilities and related technologies, including kinetic-kill missiles, ground-based lasers, and orbiting space robots, as well as expanding space surveillance capabilities, which can monitor objects in space within their field of view and enable counterspace actions. In concert with its marked improvements in satellite navigation, launch capabilities, and space object surveillance and identification, the PRC is developing electronic warfare capabilities such as satellite jammers; offensive cyberspace capabilities; and directed-energy weapons. Moreover, the PRC has demonstrated sophisticated, potentially damaging on-orbit behavior with space-based technologies. The PRC has an operational ground-based anti-satellite (ASAT) missile intended to target low-Earth orbit satellites, and China probably intends to pursue additional ASAT weapons capable of destroying satellites up to geosynchronous Earth orbit. The PRC is employing more sophisticated satellite operations and is probably testing dual-use technologies in space that could be applied to counterspace missions.
ISR Satellite Capabilities. The PRC employs a robust space-based ISR capability designed to enhance its worldwide situational awareness. Used for military and civilian remote sensing and mapping, terrestrial and maritime surveillance, and intelligence collection, China’s ISR satellites are capable of providing electro-optical and synthetic aperture radar (SAR) imagery as well as electronic and signals intelligence data. The PRC also exports its satellite technology globally, including its domestically developed remote-sensing satellites.
As of March 2022, China’s ISR satellite fleet contained more than 290 systems—a quantity second only to the United States, and nearly doubling China's in-orbit systems since 2018. The PLA owns and operates about half of the world’s ISR systems, most of which could support monitoring, tracking, and targeting of U.S. and allied forces worldwide, especially throughout the Indo-Pacific region. These satellites also allow the PLA to monitor potential regional flashpoints, including the Korean Peninsula, Taiwan, Indian Ocean, and the SCS. In early 2023, the United States announced sanctions against Chinese companies Spacety and China HEAD Aerospace for providing imagery of Ukraine to Russian private military company Wagner during the conflict.
Recent improvements to the PRC’s space-based ISR capabilities emphasize the development, procurement, and use of increasingly capable satellites with digital camera technology as well as space-based radar for all-weather, 24-hour coverage. These improvements increase China’s monitoring capabilities—including observation of U.S. aircraft carriers, expeditionary strike groups, and deployed air wings. Space capabilities will enhance potential PLA military operations farther from the Chinese coast. These capabilities are being augmented with electronic reconnaissance satellites that monitor radar and radio transmissions.
Satellite Communications. The PRC owns and operates more than 60 communications satellites, at least four of which are dedicated to military use. The PRC produces its military-dedicated satellites domestically. Its civilian communications satellites incorporate off-the-shelf commercially manufactured components. The PRC is fielding advanced communications satellites capable of transmitting large amounts of data. Existing and future data relay satellites and other beyond-line-of-sight communications systems could convey critical targeting data to Chinese military operation centers.
In addition, China is making progress on its ambitious plans to propel itself to the forefront of the global SATCOM industry. China is continuing to test next-generation capabilities like its Quantum Experimentation at Space Scale (QUESS) space-based quantum-enabled communications satellite, which could supply the means to field highly secure communications systems. In 2016, the PRC launched the world's first quantum communications satellite (Micius) into low Earth orbit, and in July 2022, the PRC launched an additional experimental quantum satellite Testing satellite-based quantum entanglement represents a major milestone in building a practical, global, ultrasecure quantum network, but the widespread deployment and adoption of this technology still faces hurdles.
The PRC also intends to provide SATCOM support to users worldwide and plans to develop at least seven new SATCOM constellations in low earth orbit (LEO), most notably one from stateowned enterprise China SatNet. These constellations are still in the early stages of development and may begin to launch in the next year.
Position, Navigation, and Timing (PNT) Capabilities. The PRC’s satellite navigation system, known as BeiDou, is an independently constructed, developed, and exclusively China-operated PNT service. It reached initial operating capability in 2018 and was finalized with its last launch in 2020. The PRC’s priorities for BeiDou are to support national security and economic and social development by adopting Chinese PNT into precise agriculture, monitoring of vehicles and ships, and aiding with civilian-focused services across more than 100 countries in Africa, Asia, and Europe. BeiDou provides all-time, all-weather, and high-accuracy PNT services to users domestically, in the Asia-Pacific region, as well as globally and consists of 49 operational satellites. The PRC’s military uses BeiDou’s high-accuracy PNT services to enable force movements and precision guided munitions delivery.
BeiDou has a worldwide positional accuracy standard of 10 meters; accuracy in the Asia-Pacific region is within 5 meters. In addition to providing PNT, the BeiDou constellation offers unique capabilities, including text messaging and user tracking through its Regional Short Message Communication service to enable mass communications among BeiDou users. The system also provides additional military C2 capabilities for the PLA.
The PRC intends to use its BeiDou constellation to offer additional services and incentives to countries taking part in its BRI emphasizing building strong economic ties to other countries to align partner nations with the PRC’s interests. In 2021, China predicted Beidou products and services will be worth $156 billion by 2025, and potentially export BeiDou products to more than 100 million users in 120 countries.
Human Spaceflight and Space Exploration Efforts. Following uncrewed missions that began in 1999, China became the third country to achieve independent human spaceflight when it successfully orbited the crewed Shenzhou-5 spacecraft in 2003. In 2011, China then launched its first space station, Tiangong-1, and in 2016, it launched its second space station, Tiangong-2. In 2020, China conducted its first orbital test of the New-Generation Manned Spaceship, which is expected to replace the Shenzhou series of crewed spacecraft. In 2022, China successfully launched the Mengtian Chinese Space Station laboratory module into orbit, completing the threemodule Chinese space station.
China has also taken on a greater role in deep space exploration and space science and has made notable accomplishments during the past several years. The PRC has demonstrated its interest in working with Russia and the European Space Agency (ESA) to conduct deep-space exploration. China was the third country to place a robotic rover on the Moon and was the first to land a rover on the lunar far side in 2019, which is communicating through the Queqiao relay satellite that China launched the year before to a stable orbit around an Earth-Moon Lagrange point. In May 2021, the PRC landed the Zhurong rover on Mars, the first Chinese rover to operate on Mars. This rover has provided China with valuable scientific data of the Martian surface and underground.
Space Launch Capabilities. The PRC is improving its space launch capabilities to ensure it has an independent, reliable means to access space and to compete in the international space launch market. The PRC continues to improve manufacturing efficiencies and launch capabilities overall, supporting continued human spaceflight and deep-space exploration missions—including to the Moon and Mars. New modular SLVs that allow the PRC to tailor an SLV to the specific configuration required for each customer are beginning to go into operation, leading to increased launch vehicle reliability and overall cost savings for launch campaigns. The PRC is also in the early stages of developing a super heavy-lift SLV similar to the U.S. Saturn V or the newer U.S. Space Launch System to support proposed crewed lunar and Mars exploration missions.
In addition to land-based launches, in 2019, the PRC demonstrated the ability to launch a Long March-11 (LM-11) SLV from a sea-based platform. Since 2021, the PRC has been expanding its sea launch infrastructure near Haiyang to expand the frequency of sea launch missions. This capability, if staged correctly, would allow the PRC to launch nearer to the equator than its landbased launch sites, increase the rocket’s carrying capacity, and potentially lower launch costs.
The PRC has developed quick-response SLVs to increase its attractiveness as a commercial small satellite launch provider and to rapidly reconstitute LEO space capabilities, which could support PRC military operations during a conflict or civilian response to disasters. Compared with medium- and heavy-lift SLVs, these quick-response SLVs are able to expedite launch campaigns because they are transportable via road or rail and can be stored launch-ready with solid fuel for longer periods than liquid-fueled SLVs. Because their size is limited, quick-response SLVs such as the Kuaizhou-1 (KZ-1), LM-6, and LM-11 are only able to launch relatively small payloads of up to approximately 2 metric tons into LEO.
The expansion of non-state-owned PRC launch vehicle and satellite operation companies in China’s domestic market since 2015 suggests that China is successfully advancing military-civil fusion efforts. Military-civil fusion blurs the lines between these entities and obfuscates the end users of acquired foreign technology and expertise.
Space Situational Awareness. The PRC has a robust network of space surveillance sensors capable of searching, tracking, and characterizing satellites in all Earth orbits. This network includes a variety of telescopes, radars, and other sensors that allow the PRC to support its missions including intelligence collection, counterspace targeting, ballistic missile early warning (BMEW), spaceflight safety, satellite anomaly resolution, and space debris monitoring.
Electronic Warfare Counterspace Capabilities. The PLA considers EW capabilities to be critical assets for modern warfare, and its doctrine emphasizes using EW to suppress or deceive enemy equipment. The PLA routinely incorporates in its exercises jamming and anti-jamming techniques that probably are intended to deny multiple types of space-based communications, radar systems, and GPS navigation support to military movement and precision-guided munitions employment. The PRC probably is developing jammers dedicated to targeting SAR, including aboard military reconnaissance platforms. Interfering with SAR satellites very likely protects terrestrial assets by denying imagery and targeting in any potential conflict involving the United States or its allies. In addition, China probably is developing jammers to target SATCOM over a range of frequency bands, including military-protected extremely high frequency communications.
Directed Energy Weapons (DEW). During the past two decades, PRC defense research has proposed the development of several reversible and nonreversible counterspace DEWs for reversible dazzling of electro-optical sensors and even potentially destroying satellite components. The PRC has multiple ground-based laser weapons of varying power levels to disrupt, degrade, or damage satellites that include a current limited capability to employ laser systems against satellite sensors. By the mid- to late-2020s, the PRC may field higher power systems that extend the threat to the structures of non-optical satellites.
ASAT Missile Threats. In 2007, the PRC destroyed one of its defunct weather satellites more than 800 kilometers above the Earth with an ASAT missile. The effect of this destructive test generated more than 3,000 pieces of trackable space debris, of which more than 2,700 remain in orbit and most will continue orbiting the Earth for decades. The PLA’s operational ground-based ASAT missile system is intended to target LEO satellites. The PRC’s military units have continued training with ASAT missiles.
The PRC plans to pursue additional ASAT weapons that are able to destroy satellites up to GEO. In 2013, the PRC launched an object into space on a ballistic trajectory with a peak orbital radius above 30,000 kilometers, near GEO altitudes. No new satellites were released from the object, and the launch profile was inconsistent with traditional SLVs, ballistic missiles, or sounding rocket launches for scientific research, suggesting a basic capability could exist to use ASAT technology against satellites in geostationary orbit (GEO).
Orbital Threats. The PRC is developing other sophisticated space-based capabilities, such as satellite inspection and repair. At least some of these capabilities could also function as a weapon. The PRC has launched multiple satellites to conduct scientific experiments on space maintenance technologies and is conducting research on space debris cleanup. The Shijian-17 was the PRC’s first satellite with a robotic arm, technology that could be used in a future system for grappling adversary satellites. In October 2021, the PRC launched another satellite with a robotic arm, the Shijian-21, into GEO, and, in January 2022, it moved a derelict BeiDou navigation satellite to a high graveyard orbit above GEO.
Since at least 2006, the PRC has investigated aerospace engineering aspects associated with spacebased kinetic weapons—generally a class of weapon used to attack ground, sea, or air targets from orbit. Space-based kinetic weapons research included methods of reentry, separation of payload, delivery vehicles, and transfer orbits for targeting purposes. In July 2021, the PRC conducted the first fractional orbital launch of an ICBM with a hypersonic glide vehicle from China. This demonstrated the greatest distance flown (~40,000 kilometers) and longest flight time (~100+ minutes) of any Chinese land attack weapons system to date.
NUCLEAR CAPABILITIES
Key Takeaways
● Over the next decade, the PRC will continue to rapidly modernize, diversify, and expand its nuclear forces. Compared to the PLA’s nuclear modernization efforts a decade ago, current efforts dwarf previous attempts in both scale and complexity.
● The PRC is expanding the number of its land-, sea-, and air-based nuclear delivery platforms while investing in and constructing the infrastructure necessary to support further expansion of its nuclear forces.
● In 2022, Beijing continued its rapid nuclear expansion, and DoD estimates China’s stockpile had more than 500 operational nuclear warheads as of May 2023.
● DoD estimates that the PRC will have have over 1,000 operational nuclear warheads by 2030, much of which will be deployed at higher readiness levels and will continue growing its force to 2035 in line with its goal of ensuring PLA modernization is “basically complete” that year, which serves as an important milestone on the road to Xi’s goal of a “world class” military by 2049.
● The PRC probably will use its new fast breeder reactors and reprocessing facilities to produce plutonium for its nuclear weapons program, despite publicly maintaining these technologies are intended for peaceful purposes.
● The PRC probably completed the construction of its three new solid-propellant silo fields in 2022, which consists of at least 300 new ICBM silos, and has loaded at least some ICBMs into these silos. These silo fields are capable of fielding both DF-31 and DF-41 class ICBMs. This project and the expansion of China’s liquid-propellant silo force is meant to increase the peacetime readiness of its nuclear force by moving to a launch-on-warning (LOW) posture.
● The PRC is updating its capability to deliver multi-megaton warheads by fielding the new DF5C silo based, liquid-fueled ICBM. The PRC is fielding the longer-range JL-3 SLBMs on its current JIN-class SSBN, rendering them capable of ranging the continental United States from PRC littoral waters, and continues to produce additional JIN-class SSBNs.
[Note: Additional sections from the DoD report regarding nuclear posture, testing, and more continue in the same manner.]