Thread by @tshugart3

Ok, here we go: a few thoughts on the 2021 China Military Power report, which was released today (finally!).

I'll focus on updates that I thought were interesting/consequential - areas that were new or differed from last year's report. defense.gov/News/Releases/…

First, a topic that many folks know is near/dear to my heart: the PLA Navy's growing force structure. In the key takeaways: an overall force of 355 ships/subs (+5 from 2020) & 145 major surface combatants (+15!). The estimated in-service date for the Type 003 is now 2024 (+1 yr).

There's an added takeaway statement, discussed elsewhere later in more detail, that the PRC is enhancing its ASW forces to protect its aircraft carriers and SSBNs.

Bottom line: the PLAN has not traditionally been very good at ASW, but they've recognized this & are working on it.

In a significant update, the report now predicts a PLA Navy battle force of 420 ships by 2025 and 460 ships by 2030. The most recent ONI prediction that I know of, provided to CRS in 2020, estimated 400 by 2025 & 425 by 2030 (which seemed like a lot then!).

The current admin.'s first shipbuilding plan (fy22) didn't include figures for future years (not uncommon), the last one that did (Dec. 20) indicated a USN force of 315 in 2025, 356 in 2030. (Many observers considered even this plan un-executable under planned funding levels.)

Under aviation, the report says the PLAAF & PLANAF now have 2,800 total aircraft (+300) of which 2,250 (+250) are combat aircraft. Based on totals elsewhere, this looks to be mostly an increase in the number of fighters (+300) but not in 4th-gen ones (constant at 800). 🤷‍♂️

In the section describing the H-6N bomber, the report now adds that the variant is "operationally fielded" versus in development, and that the unit will be working on TTPs to execute a PLAAF nuclear mission. (Helllllo, triad...)

Under the PLA Rocket Force summary, we now have yet another confirmation that the PLARF fired ASBMs at a moving target, and also that the DF-17 HGV-capable MRBM is now deployed operationally.

One thing that certainly got my attention is that there is apparently a new DF-27 "long-range" ballistic missile, either an IRBM or ICBM. This is the first I've heard of this weapon! 👀

Another new nugget in the ICBM section is a statement that the PRC "already appears to be doubling the numbers of launchers in some ICBM units." It's unclear if this is referring to silos, or a doubling of mobile launchers in ICBM units. 🤔

In the section on space capabilities, the report says the PRC's recon & remote sensing satellite fleet consists of "more than 200", +80 from 2020. 👀

This would seem to support the PLARF's need for long-range targeting data for its missiles, without which they'd be useless.

As for folks wondering if someday we'd see PLAN naval task forces operating near our own naval bases, wonder no more: in 2020 a "naval task group" conducted a 41-day mission near Hawaii.

I'd note that I don't recall any protest of this by the U.S. at the time...

...so as for @HuXijin_GT's question as to whether the U.S. would uphold the same standards of freedom of navigation when Chinese warships operated near Hawaii - well, I'd say there you have it.

As for the details of the breathtaking expansion of China's nuclear capabilities, those have been discussed in great detail elsewhere by @james_acton32 @nukestrat @ProfTalmadge @NarangVipin @nukestrat and others, so I won't spend much time on the topic. But in summary...

One detail I did note was that in the section on sea-based nuclear platforms, there is a new statement about the likelihood of pro-SSBN "bastion" operations in the SCS and/or Bohai Gulf once the JL-3 missile allows PLAN SSBNs to strike CONUS from there.

I talked about this a while back based on open-source indications that I'd seen, so I'm not too surprised to see it:

One new thing is that there's a whole new section on Chem-Bio research. This isn't something I've thought about a lot with the PLA, as I just wasn't aware of much recent interest in it. Will need to start keeping an eye on this I guess...

In the section that discusses the PLA's amphibious capacity, after stating that the it doesn't appear to have enough LSTs & landing craft to support a direct beach assault, there's an entirely new passage discussing that China may have other ways of making it happen.

If you follow me at all, you know this is a topic that I'm interested in, and I'm glad to see recognition of this possibility: warontherocks.com/2021/08/mind-t…

DoD: "The PLA may also have confidence in the PRC’s shipbuilding industry’s massive capacity to produce the necessary ship-to-shore connectors relatively quickly."

Me, in testimony to the Senate earlier this year. (Glad to see we're all on the same page now...😁)

The section of the report that discusses U.S.-Taiwan policy is a bit more forceful than in the past, adding the Six Assurances (to Taiwan) to the list of documents which guide the U.S. one-China policy. It adds explicitly that Taiwan is a leading democracy & critical partner. 👍

It also adds an explicit statement that the U.S. maintains the capacity to resist any resort to force or coercion of the people of Taiwan (this wasn't there in last year's such section).

In the section discussing China's global military ambitions, the report states China's National Defense Law tasks the PLA with defending "overseas development interests", tying the PLA to the PRC's global economic activity & encouraging the development of overseas capability.

As I said in a recent @LowyInstitute report, growing Chinese overseas economic interests & investments drive a self-reinforcing cycle of increased Chinese perceptions of insecurity, as well as the resulting appetite for the military means to address it.

lowyinstitute.org/publications/a…

On the topic of Chinese overseas basing, we have confirmation that the pier under construction in Djibouti should be large enough to accommodate the PLAN's aircraft carriers and other ships, and also that PLA personnel have been lasing U.S. pilots flying nearby.

Here was my photoshop effort from a while back showing what a PLAN carrier at that pier might look like:

One new & eye-opening statement on the PRC's spying activities supporting their military modernization (a real problem given our relatively open society): apparently the FBI opened a new PRC-related counter-intel case in 2020 **about every 10 hours**. 👀

In the appendix with numbers for the Taiwan Strait military balance, there are some pretty eye-watering updates to the PLA Rocket Force. Where last year's report had a huge increase to "200" IRBM launchers and "200+" missiles, this year's pegs the IRBM missile total at 300.

That may not seem like a huge deal, but we should remember that just a couple of years ago most folks thought there were just a few dozen Chinese IRBMs. This is what I had to say last year on that jump to 200 launchers:

But the really eye-popping jump in this year's report is the number of MRBMs, from last year's 150 launchers to 250, and from "150+" missiles to 600! Given that the report earlier classed the DF-17 as an MRBM HGV, I'd guess that might be much of this increase. Not good...

Back in 2017, a colleague of mine and I projected that China could launch a devastating first strike on U.S. bases in Asia if they had an inventory that included, among other missile types, 60 MRBMs (we'd seen estimates China had 200-300 at that time). cnas.org/publications/r…

In particular, if many of these are DF-17 HGVs that should have even better ability to penetrate US/allied BMD than the older DF-21s that we modeled, this is bad news indeed.

We also estimated that 430 GLCMs would be required, but these could be made up by ballistic missiles.

Well, that's all I have for now.

A few surprises, a number of confirmations of things suspected, and in general a picture of continuing rapid growth of Chinese military capability in essentially all domains - and especially now in the nuclear domain.

In summary...