How China’s Thinking About The Next War

The PLA Navy (PLAN) and PLA Air Force (PLAAF) are now the world’s largest, but China’s military modernization is not only focused on equipment. The PRC appears to be  developing new strategies and doctrines.

The PLA began shifting in the 1990s from preparing to fight “local wars under modern, high-tech conditions” to “local wars under informationized conditions” to today’s “informationized local wars.” In each case, the Chinese phrase embodies both the scale of the conflict and the key methods by which it would be fought. The PRC’s assessment is that wars will be “local,” not global; as important, they would not be nuclear or total wars.

At the same time, the weapons and tactics would increasingly rely on technology, not sheer mass, for their impact. “Modern, high-tech wars” would be like the first Gulf War, which saw the first large-scale use of precision-guided munitions. Wars “under informationized conditions” would see greater use made of information and communications technologies (ICT), including space-based guidance and communications systems, enhancing older weapons and platforms. “Informationized local wars,” in turn, would see the eclipsing of those older systems, with systems employing artificial intelligence, advanced sensors, and networked capabilities becoming the new standard.

Rising Jointness

Both complementing and driving this growing PLA emphasis on ICT is the rising importance of joint operations. In the 1990s, the PLA hoped to be able to effect “coordinated joint operations (xiediao lianhe zuozhan; 卸掉联合作战).” This would involve bringing group armies, military region air forces, and fleets into the same general battlespace. By the 2000s, this had shifted to “integrated (or unified) joint operations (yitihua lianhe zuozhan; 协调联合作战).” Joint operations would now occur at lower levels, involving ground force divisions and brigades, air force divisions and naval flotillas.

As important, there was an increasing shift on emphasizing jointness as a function, not of inter-service operations, but Multi-Domain Operations. Jointness was increasingly described as a matter of operating in the land, sea, air, outer space, and electromagnetic/network domains, rather than involving land, sea, and air forces. More recent Chinese writings talk about the need to undertake “joint operations under the new circumstances (xinxingshi xia lianhe zuozhan; 新形势下联合作战).” This would seem to involve joint operations that further expand into the space and cyber domains, and also exploit advances in artificial intelligence, unmanned systems, and — possibly — include hybrid and political warfare concepts in new, non-traditional ways.

In the midst of this, the PLA apparently issued a new set of “gangyao” governing joint operations in November 2020. This new “gangyao” is entitled “The Chinese People’s Liberation Army Joint Operations Gangyao (Proposed).” (zhongguo jiefangjun lianhe zuozhan gangyao (shixing); 中国人民解放军联合作战纲要（试行）) They will, when eventually approved and accepted, mark a new iteration in the PLA’s approach to joint operations.

“Gangyao” are Chinese “programs” (their preferred translation) which are somewhat akin to field manuals, but which also have the authority of doctrine. The “gangyao” provide an authoritative approach by which PLA officers can address both army-building efforts and issues that might arise in event of conflict. None of the Chinese military “gangyao” appear in the public domain, but assessments and analyses of them can be found in Chinese military journals and articles.

The Worsening International Situation

Why is the PLA shifting its doctrine now? Partly because the world is in a period of “strategic opportunity,” meaning the likelihood of a major war, or even a local war involving China, is limited but the potential for conflict is rising. Why? The influence of “splittist” elements (i.e., Taiwan, Xinjiang), complicated by the belief that foreign powers are taking an increasingly antagonistic stance.

As important, the rise of new technologies, coupled with the massive reforms in the PLA in 2015-2016, have required the PLA to reassess what future wars will entail, and the adjust its own responses.

It is unlikely that the new Chinese gangyao will be publicly available. Given the past two quarter century of PLA reforms and modernization, however, we would expect that the new gangyao would sustain certain previous trends.

Joint operations are the responsibility of the war zone commands. A key part of the PLA reorganization was the shift from military regions to the war zone commands. These war zone commands are joint headquarters, responsible for planning and undertaking joint operations. Notably, where the military regions had always been commanded by a PLA ground forces general, with PLAN and PLAAF officers sometimes acting as deputies, the war zone commanders include PLAN and PLAAF officers. As important, they are permanent organizations, unlike the previous joint campaign command headquarters that existed alongside the military regions. They are expected to be engaged in campaign planning, conceived as joint operations, as part of their regular routine.
Joint operations are now the norm for the PLA.

Similarly, joint operations are now the norm for the PLA. As the PLA has wrestled with the definition of jointness, and then how to implement it, it has often treated joint operations as a special case of military activity. Very clearly, there have been debates within the PLA about the relative importance of individual service operations versus joint, interservice operations. It is likely that the new gangyao will codify a growing sense that jointness is now the norm, and individual service operations are only a component element. The new gangyao may even codify the idea that without jointness, there is no victory. “No battle will not be joint, without jointness, there can be no victory. (wuzhan bulian, wulian busheng; 无战不联, 无联不胜).”

Joint operations will likely occur at an even lower level. As noted earlier, the evolution of Chinese joint operations has been towards incorporating it at ever more tactical levels. With the reorganization of the PLA towards brigade-centered forces, rather than divisions, it is quite possible that Chinese joint operations will be focused at the brigade level for ground forces, and equivalent levels for the PLAAF and PLAN. As important, given the emphasis on multi-domain joint operations, it is likely that there will be more incorporation of space, cyber, and electronic warfare elements into Chinese joint operations.

As the PLA has observed other people’s conflicts, it has concluded that modern technologies are fundamentally changing how those wars are fought. The growing importance of stealth, the increasing capability of artificial intelligence and machine learning, and the proliferation of unmanned systems all make future warfighting qualitatively different from the past.

Incorporate Lessons of the Past

On the last day of 2015, the Chinese leadership announced a massive overhaul of the PLA, marking the most extensive changes in its organization since its founding. The Central Military Commission, which oversees the entire military, was expanded, with many of the key General Departments reorganized. The seven military regions became five war zones, and they shifted from being peacetime organizations to warfighting command structures. Finally, the PLA added several services, including the PLA Strategic Support Force (PLASSF) which is responsible for China’s space, electronic warfare, and network warfare forces—in a very real sense, China’s information warfare force.

Half a decade later, the PLA is modifying its doctrine to incorporate lessons learned from these major changes. The new doctrine likely also takes into account the accelerating efforts to complete a major part of the overall Chinese modernization effort. As laid out in the 14th Five Year Plan (2021-2025), the PLA hopes to becoming “fully mechanized and fully informationized” by 2027, the one hundredth anniversary of the founding of the PLA. While the concerns about mechanization and informationization are mostly about the PLA’s equipment, upgrading its doctrine is a parallel necessity so the new equipment can be fully exploited.

Implications
The PLA long ago stopped focusing solely on quantity. While maintaining one of the largest militaries in the world, the PLA has steadily modernized its forces. The average age of its platforms has dropped, and while its forces have shrunk due to repeated personnel cuts, the remaining forces are being equipped with ever more modern platforms. Moreover, the PLA not only fields modern weapons, but is increasingly deploying sophisticated support systems, whether UAVs, electronic sensors, or transports. Logistics and other aspects of combat support and combat service support are being modernized, alongside combat elements.

The development of new doctrine, coupled with the new organizational structure, however, means that the PLA is not simply injecting new equipment into its force. Force modernization, for the PLA, includes modernizing how the PLA thinks about future warfare, how it will exploit this new equipment. The PLA is not simply overlaying this new equipment atop its old structures (and mindset), but is instead actively integrating equipment, doctrine, and organization, alongside training and recruitment, to truly transform the PLA for the 2020s.

For the nations of the western Pacific, this means that the Chinese will be posing a military challenge that will parallel the political and economic aspects. Where analysts once dismissed the Chinese threat to Taiwan as “the million man swim,” they must now realize that the PLA is practicing a multi-domain approach to warfare that will exploit the range of modern capabilities to the fullest extent.

What should worry China’s neighbors and competitors is that the Chinese strategic assessment is so pessimistic. A PRC that sees the global situation as fraying is one that is likely to conclude that conflict is not only more likely, but may be inevitable. China’s military thinkers are clearly intent on providing the civilian leadership with the necessary tools, should they turn to the PLA and ask for a military solution.