Highlights from DoD's 2021 report on China's military power

The link is here, officially titled “Military and Security Developments Involving the People’s Republic of China.”

In 2020, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) announced a new milestone for PLA modernization in 2027 broadly understood as the modernization of the PLA’s capabilities to be networked into a system of systems for intelligentized warfare.
The PRC has a 2,000 km quantum-secure communication ground line between Beijing and Shanghai and plans to expand the line across China. The PRC also plans to have a satellite-enabled, global quantum-encrypted communications capability operational by 2030.

If China’s been hitting its goals or even accelerating them in shipbuilding, missiles, and space, then DoD should be worried about their goal to reach something like the DoD’s vision for JADC2 by 2027. That’s not far off — it will be the last year of the FYDP in the President’s Budget dropping in a few months.

Quantum is another interesting area. Secure comms dominance is a huge informational advantage as Bletchley Park proved in WWII, though perhaps in the reverse way.

Without testing my layman’s knowledge of physics, quantum communication allows the recipient to know whether or not a message has been intercepted/tampered with. In particular, with quantum key distribution you can securely send keys for encrypting normal messages. Those keys, however, could in any case be hacked by a quantum computer, which is a different application. A quantum computer can basically process a vast amount of data quickly — like instantaneously finding a person’s name in the yellow pages or a password to a computer system. Then there would be a post-quantum cryptography to handle that. The race ensues.

Security is the necessary counterpart to JADC2 networking. Zero-trust is today’s version of security, blockchain will be tomorrow’s, and quantum computers may be right after that.

And here’s some overarching force structure observations for each military service:

The People’s Liberation Army Army (PLAA) has approximately 975,000 active duty personnel in combat units… . The PLAA also strove to increase the realism of its training and the effectiveness of Opposition Force (OPFOR) units.
The People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) has numerically the largest navy in the world with an overall battle force of approximately 355 ships and submarines, including approximately more than 145 major surface combatants. As of 2020, the PLAN is largely composed of modern multi-role platforms. In the near-term, the PLAN will have the capability to conduct long-range precision strikes.
The People’s Liberation Army Air Force (PLAAF) and PLAN Aviation together constitute the largest aviation force in the region and the third largest in the world, with over 2,800 total aircraft (not including trainer variants or UAVs) of which approximately 2,250 are combat aircraft (including fighters, strategic bombers, tactical bombers, multi-mission tactical, and attack aircraft). In October 2019, the PRC signaled the return of the airborne leg of its nuclear triad after the PLAAF publicly revealed the H-6N as its first nuclear-capable air-to-air refuelable bomber.
The People’s Liberation Army Rocket Force (PLARF)… is developing new intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) that will significantly improve its nuclear-capable missile forces… The PLARF continues to grow its inventory of road-mobile DF-26 intermediate range ballistic missiles (IRBMs)… In 2020, the PLARF began to field its first operational hypersonic weapons system, the DF-17 hypersonic glide vehicle (HGV) capable medium-range ballistic missile (MRBM).
- The accelerating pace of the PRC’s nuclear expansion may enable the PRC to have up to 700 deliverable nuclear warheads by 2027. The PRC likely intends to have at least 1,000 warheads by 2030, exceeding the pace and size the DoD projected in 2020.
The PLA Strategic Support Force (SSF) is a theater command-level organization established to centralize the PLA’s strategic space, cyber, electronic, information, communications, and psychological warfare missions and capabilities.
In 2021, the PRC announced its annual military budget would increase by 6.8 percent, continuing more than 20 years of annual defense spending increases and sustaining its position as the second-largest military spender in the world. The PRC’s published military budget omits several major categories of expenditures and its actual military related spending is higher than what it states in its official budget.