75 years of PLA development - Report

From the birth of the Navy and Air Force, to the formation of a new structural arrangement of the Armed Forces “4+4; major military reforms in the Xi era

1949 was a pivotal year for the development of the Armed Forces of the People's Liberation Army (PLA)

On April 23, 1949, in Baima Temple, Taizhou, Jiangsu Province, the East China Military Region Navy was established, recognized 40 years later as the anniversary of the founding of Navy, while on November 11, 1949, in Beijing, the PLA Air Force Directorate was established.

The year 2024, 75 years later, is also an important landmark.

On April 19 this year, the inaugural meeting of the Information Support Force (ISF) of the People's Liberation Army (PLA) was held at the Bayi Building in Beijing. A spokesman for the Ministry of National Defense said the PLA has generally formed a new Armed Forces structure composed of the army, navy, air force and missile force under the guidance and command of the Central Military Commission, in addition to the military space force, cyberspace force, information support force and joint services support force.

The three military honor guards represent the army, navy and air force, and are visual symbols of the construction of the military services. Source: Xinhua News Agency

Over the past 75 years, the People's Army has gone through a long journey, from the traditional army, navy and air force to the new “4+4” Armed Forces structure, experiencing an arduous process of exploration and reform, and embarking on the trajectory of informationization and intelligent leapfrog development.

The Great Military Reforms in the Xi Era

Over the past decade, Xi Jinping has led and reformed a vast national security decision-making and implementation apparatus. The boundaries of this system are ambiguous because the concept of “national security” under Xi has expanded from traditional issues such as territorial defense and internal stability to other areas of governance, including food safety, epidemic control, cybersecurity, and public finance.

High-level decision-making systems and organizational changes that directly affect the key coercive instruments of power are:

• the National Security Commission system;

• the People’s Armed Police;

• the Public Security Organs;

• the People’s Liberation Army (PLA).

According to scholars, this evolution of the national security architecture was designed for three reasons: 1) to centralize the authority of key coercive instruments in the person of Xi Jinping; 2) contribute to a process of transferring authority from the state to Party organs; 3) increase China's capacity to prevent, plan for and respond to domestic and international crises.

What is the PLA?

The PLA (People’s Liberation Army) is the main military arm of the CCP and, as a party army, does not directly serve the state. The military’s highest decision-making body, the Central Military Commission (CMC), is technically a department of the CCP Central Committee. The chairman of the CMC is a civilian, usually serving simultaneously as the general secretary of the CCP and the president of the PRC. President Xi Jinping’s appointment as general secretary of the Party and chairman of the CMC in 2012 and his election as president of China in the spring of 2013 marked the first time all three top positions had been transferred to a single person. As the party army, the PLA is a political actor and participates in the country’s institutional and governance systems. As the ultimate guarantor of the CCP, its activities include formal and informal internal security missions, as well as national defense. Its officers are almost all Party members.

Internal Security Forces

The internal security forces are mainly made up of the Ministry of Public Security (MPS), the Ministry of State Security (MSS), the People's Armed Police (PAP), the PLA, and the Militia. The Party relies on these forces to deal with challenges ranging from protests over political, social, environmental, or economic problems to terrorism and natural disasters.

The MPS leads the National Civilian Police, which serves as the front-line law enforcement force, while the MSS is the primary civilian intelligence and counterintelligence service.

The PAP is a paramilitary component of the armed forces and an armed wing of the CCP, consisting of a contingent ranging from 500,000 to 1 million personnel, while The Militia is a reserve armed force composed of civilians, available for mobilization, distinct from the PLA reserve forces.

Towards a modern, computerized and global army

In remarks before the 19th CPC National Congress in October 2017, Xi Jinping pledged to transform the PLA into a “world-class” force by the mid-21st century. He added that the military would become a fully mechanized force with a significant increase in “strategic capabilities” by 2020 and a “basically modern” military by 2035. His ambitious goal is to complete a transformation of the PLA and the People’s Armed Police into a “world-class force by 2049, the 100th anniversary of the founding of the PRC.”

According to the latest declassified information, it appears that:

• the PLA is the world's largest standing ground force, with approximately

915,000 active-duty personnel in combat units;

• the People's Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) is the

world's largest navy, with approximately 350 surface ships and submarines, including 3 aircraft carriers (the latest launched in June 2022);

• the People's Liberation Army Air Force (PLAAF) and PLAN Aviation

together constitute the largest air force in the Indo-Pacific and the third largest in the world, with over 2,500 total aircraft (excluding trainer variants and UAVs), of which approximately 2,000 are combat aircraft (fighters, strategic bombers, tactical bombers, multi-mission tactical aircraft, and attack aircraft). The PLAAF has the role of a comprehensive strategic air force capable of projecting long-range air power;

• the PLA Rocket Force (PLARF) organizes, trains, and equips

the conventional and nuclear ground-based strategic missile forces, support forces, and associated missile bases. The PLARF is a critical component of China’s nuclear deterrence strategy to deter and counter third-party intervention in regional conflicts. Formerly known as the PLA Second Artillery Force, it has been elevated to special forces status along with the PLAA, PLAN, and PLAAF;

• the PLA Strategic Support Force (SSF), established in 2016, is a command structure to centralize the PLA’s strategic space, cyber, electronic, and psychological warfare missions and capabilities. The SSF reports directly to the CMC and supports the entire PLA with its capabilities. The creation of the SSF highlights the understanding of information as a strategic resource in modern warfare. The SSF’s Network Systems Department is responsible for cyber warfare, technical reconnaissance, electronic warfare, and psychological warfare. On April 19, 2024, however, the strategic support force was “eliminated” and three independent forces were created: the military aerospace force, the cyberspace force and the information support force.

• the PLA Joint Logistic Support Force (JLSF) provides integrated joint logistics support. Established in 2016, it forms the ‘backbone’ of the Army’s logistics system. The JLSF has five subordinate Joint Logistics Service Centers (JLSCs) aligned with the five area-of-responsibility commands that streamline PLA logistics support.

Evolution and escalation of war patterns and modes of warfare

According to expert Wang Ruoyu, “One of the four military branches of the People's Liberation Army (PLA), the Joint Logistics and Security Force (JLG), is accelerating its integration into the joint warfare system in accordance with the requirements of joint warfare, joint training and joint security. Therefore, the development of joint security forces is not focused on building offensive combat functions, but on training and strengthening integrated security capabilities.”

"From the viewpoint of the major armies of the world, military types and branches are never static, but change in response to the times and in accordance with events. The primary factor that determines the existence and abolition of military services, their growth and development, and their shrinkage and merger, and their independent operation and affiliation with other ministries is the change in the pattern of war and the style of combat, which is also a decisive factor," he said.

"Taking the development and growth of the People's Air Force (PAF) as an example, the outbreak of the Korean War in 1950 and the ensuing anti-U.S.-Aid for Korea (AUSA) campaign could not be overstated in terms of its impact on the nascent PAF. At the beginning of the war, the People's Air Force had only seven flight schools and one combat unit that had just been established, and its actual combat capability differed greatly from that of the U.S. Army. However, we quickly introduced a large amount of Soviet equipment and started the world's first large-scale jet war, in which the young air force pilots grew up rapidly in the battlefield. After several years of “building up while fighting” and “training and growing up in the war”, by the time the Armistice Agreement was signed, the People's Air Force had already established 28 divisions and 70 regiments, with more than 3,000 airplanes of various types, and had become a very powerful and deterrent air force among the air forces of all countries in the world. It has become an air force with great combat power and deterrence among the air forces of all countries in the world. The People's Air Force would not have been able to develop and grow at such a high speed without the advancement of science and technology and the refinement of war."

For example, the explosion of pagers, walkie-talkies and other communication equipment that occurred in Lebanon some time ago is a brand new style of cyberspace warfare combat.

Remote control of the network can produce large-scale explosions with more severe panic effects. Some experts believe that this incident is a typical case of integrating the principles of cyber and physical warfare into current world conflicts, which will open a new phase of cyber warfare.

The future of cyberspace warfare is already here. The cyberspace force, one of the four main branches of the People's Army, has an extremely important role to play in building China's cyber border defense, detecting and repelling cyber intrusions in a timely manner, and defending the country's cyber sovereignty and information security.

The second factor driving the adjustment of the institution of the military services is the extensive military competition taking place around the world, says Wang Ruoyu.

Military competition among the great powers focuses on contention for strategic areas and emerging fields, and those who are able to take the lead can have an overwhelming advantage over their competitors. During the struggle for supremacy between the United States and the Soviet Union, the “Star Wars program” is an example.

Currently, competition in the space field is particularly complex and fierce. In 2015, Russia established the Air Force, which is responsible for surveillance of space targets, elimination of threats from space and many other functions. In 2019, under the strong push of then-U.S. President Donald Trump, the U.S. military established the Pacific Air Forces (U.S. Space Force), which became the sixth U.S. military service and the first new military service since the establishment of the U.S. Air Force in 1947.

The PLA military space force, which made its first public appearance this year, has undoubtedly attracted media attention. In response, China's Defense Ministry spokesman said that space security is a strategic guarantee for national construction and social development. Promoting the construction of a military space force is of great importance to improve the ability to access space safely and use it openly, to increase the effectiveness of space crisis management and global governance, and to make better use of space for peaceful purposes.

The Russian-Ukrainian conflict, in turn, is both a battleground for the firepower of military forces, but also a place where a variety of new weapons and technologies are being tested.

Cognitive warfare, in turn, is new, with all kinds of falsifications and disinformation being generated.

In order to catch the trend of intelligent unmanned vehicles development, the PLA's information support force, for example, has been particularly strengthened.

This is a newly created strategic force. It is the key support for coordinating the construction and application of the network information system. It has an important position and great responsibility in promoting the high-quality development of the PLA. The construction of this new force, the military expert says, "will help accelerate the modernization of national defense and the military, and effectively fulfill the missions and tasks of the people's army in the new era."

The Development Trend of Service Integration in the PLA

The most direct reflection of the development trend of service integration is the emergence of combined brigades and combined battalions in the PLA. With the deepening of Xi's army reform, the combined force has become the main fighting force, and new types of combined battalions (such as heavy, light, air assault, mountain, and amphibious) are modularly integrated into the army's combat system.

The development of China's air force has also undergone enormous changes. Shortly after the founding of the agency, the first aviation unit, the 4th Air Force Mixed Brigade, was established in June 1950. The first airborne unit, the 1st Marine Air Brigade, was established in July, the first transport aviation regiment - -The high-altitude transport group was established, and the construction of various branches of the People's Air Force began to take shape. After more than 70 years of development, the Air Force now includes aviation, air defense, ground-based air defense, radar, electronic countermeasures, information and communications and other weapons. It can carry out strategic warning, air strikes, air defense and anti-missile defense. information countermeasures, airborne operations and strategic deliveries pending combat missions.

Although the Armed Police Forces are not part of the armed forces, their nature and composition have many similarities with them. Starting from January 1, 2018, the Armed Police Forces have been placed under the centralized and unified leadership of the Party Central Committee and the Central Military Commission.

A major change in this round of reforms has been the establishment of the Armed Police and Coast Guard Corps, which combines the relevant powers of multiple local departments and has maritime law enforcement powers (such as claiming rights to the Diaoyu Islands, Scarborough Shoal, Ren'ai Reef, Xianbin Reef and other places).

In 1966, the construction of the People's Liberation Army's rocket force was put on the agenda. In naming this unit, Premier Zhou Enlai, after repeated consideration, said: "It is better to call it the Second Artillery Force. It is different from the US Strategic Air Force and the Soviet Strategic Rocket Force. It is similar to the Rocket Force and also different from the Soviet Strategic Rocket Force. "It is conducive to confidentiality." Thus, outside the Army Artillery Headquarters, the "Second Artillery" was established. On July 1 of that year, the Second Artillery Leadership Organization was established.

In the subsequent decades of development, the Second Artillery Corps has continued to develop and strengthen, and its strategic deterrence capabilities have improved. On December 31, 2015, the Rocket Force became an independent strategic service. It is the core force of China's strategic deterrence.

On September 25, the news that "the Rocket Force has launched an intercontinental ballistic missile into the Pacific" went around the world.

In 1980, in addition to the launch of intercontinental missiles in the pre-determined waters of the South Pacific Ocean, the naval convoy also successfully carried out the launch test measurements, rescue and recovery of Dongfeng 5 ICBMs. The launch fiu accompanied by a formation of 18 ships, becoming the largest oceanic military operation carried out by the Chinese Navy since the establishment of the new China.

Today, 44 years later, China's navy has transitioned to the oceans, the spacecraft measurement and control network has been extended from national to global territory, and the Missile Force has become a strategic support for China's global strategic posture.

In the past, after equipping missiles, our Rocket Force also had to conduct annual launch training and tests. In live launches, the missiles were usually fired at high trajectories toward the Northwest Range in order to prevent leakage of information. These missile test launches are not publicly announced, although there is a flight ban notice in advance. And this time we conducted a missile launch into the relevant waters of the Pacific Ocean, undoubtedly demonstrating to the world the performance and strength of China's intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs).

For China's strategic nuclear forces, this is a public demonstration of China's strategic nuclear deterrent to the world. As the only country in the world that has pledged not to be the first to use nuclear weapons and not to use nuclear weapons against non-nuclear countries, China has always been very cautious in the use of its strategic nuclear forces.

Nowadays, as China's nuclear force is growing stronger, the rocket force's display to the world is also extremely necessary. As some arms control experts have said, the test-firing of this strategic missile is undoubtedly conducive to the stabilization of the situation in the neighbourhood and sends a very clear signal to the countries concerned.

The reform of the Chinese armed forces and armaments, therefore, continues and its current “4+4” structural structure certainly cannot be considered definitive.