China Military Power: Modernizing a Force to Fight and Win

In 2017, the Defense Intelligence Agency began to produce a series of unclassified Defense Intelligence overviews of major foreign military challenges we face.

Should you be engaged in the assessment of world military powers? This work about the Chinese Military may be of considerable interest to you. The U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency’s China Military Power succinctly demonstrates the importance of this work that assesses the impact on the world’s military balance when the nation with the world’s largest population becomes a military with the objective of "Modernizing a Force to Fight and Win".

The Chinese Army of today is rapidly becoming a force to be reckoned with as a global military super power. The People’s Liberation Army (PLA) by name, began to come into its own during 1978 during China’s then leader Deng Xiaoping’s fourth modernization, slowly at first being underfunded, then as China’s economic base has grown into a global force, second only to the U.S., the emphasis turned from a defensive to a much more offensive agenda.

The National Military Overview segment found on page seven provides a quick summary of the combat ready-force it has become today:

• Services: Army, Navy, Air Force, Rocket Force, Strategic Support Force.
• Personnel: Approximately 2 million in regular forces.
• Recruit base: Conscription, some volunteer.
• Equipment profile: Primarily domestic systems heavily influenced by technology derived from other countries; modern weaponry in each service; some advanced weaponry.
• Core strength: Long-range precision strike, information warfare, nuclear retaliatory capability.
• Developing strengths: Maritime power projection, special operations.
• Key vulnerabilities: Logistics, rigid command structure, joint warfare.

The title is also complete with extensive photography, maps and graphs to provide a complete picture of the force it has become in 2019.