CHINA WATCHSix Takeaways from the Pentagon’s Report on China’s Military
Despite ongoing and high-profile corruption issues, China’s military continues to rapidly modernize. China has made significant strides toward building a highly modern and capable military that can threaten the United States and its allies and partners.
On Wednesday, December 18, the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) released a 182-page report on China’s military. The China Military Power Report, as it is colloquially known, was mandated by Congress in 2000 and has been issued every year since, providing the best unclassified resource on the state of the People’s Liberation Army (PLA). Analysts of the PLA and China more broadly eagerly await its release, comparing passages and tables against previous versions to see how China’s military is evolving.
This year’s report revised upwards the estimate of China’s defense budget, the second-largest in the world (behind the United States), to one-and-a-half to two times its public defense budget ($330 billion to $450 billion). While the report included a special section on corruption in the PLA, it would be a mistake to focus on this issue at the expense of the significant strides China is clearly making toward building a highly modern and capable military that can threaten the United States and its allies and partners. Indeed, the fact that China’s leader Xi Jinping continues to aggressively root out corruption in the PLA over a decade into his tenure demonstrates his determination to have a military that can provide him with credible options to achieve his political objectives, above all unification with Taiwan.
Here are six takeaways from this year’s report:
First, China’s rapid expansion and modernization of its nuclear force continues, in an attempt to provide Beijing with greater control of escalation dynamics in a potential war with the United States. DoD estimates that China has over 600 operational nuclear warheads, up from 500 last year, and still estimates that China will have over 1,000 nuclear warheads by 2030 and will continue to expand its nuclear force beyond that. In addition to the expansion of its nuclear arsenal, China is also improving every element of its triad. China completed construction of three new missile fields with 320 silos for intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) and is developing new, more survivable ICBMs. In addition, its ballistic missile submarines conduct at sea deterrent patrols armed with missiles that can reach the continental United States, its nuclear-capable bombers continue to be deployed, and it is reportedly considering a rail-mobile launch option.
