The Korean Journal of Defense Analysis Vol. 31, No. 1, March 2019, 99－120 The Study of China’s Military Strategy and Satellite Development: Moving Toward “Winning the Informationized War Globally”? Yuan-Chou Jing* National Defense University, Taoyuan City, Taiwan China’s military strategy has evolved across different leaders’ eras. Even though China’s military strategic guideline always stays on the track of “active defense,” the essence has been shifting from tradition to informationization. Since satellites are able to provide space information support so as to fulfill informationization, once informationization becomes the focus of military strategy, it is supposed to bring momentum to the research and development of satellites. Therefore, satellite development can be considered as an index to check whether the military strategy is being implemented or not. China is continuously making progress in satellite development. Especially since the informationization was included in the guideline in the Hu Jintao era, satellites started to be able to conduct space information support missions. In conclusion, China is sincerely fulfilling its military strategy through consistent satellite development. On the other hand, “local war” is another focus of strategic guidelines, it implies that China considers its national interests mainly concentrated on this region so far. However, while China’s interests are expanding globally, China will need to cultivate its global dominance based on rapid satellite development to safeguard the global interest; “Winning the informationized war globally” might be the next focus. Keywords: China’s military strategy, strategic guideline, satellite, informationization, space Preface Liddell Hart defines military strategy as “the art of distributing and applying military means to fulfill the ends of policy.”1 Generally, the ends, ways and means constitute the framework of military strategy, once the ends is determined, the ways and means * E-mail: [email protected] ISSN 1016-3271 print, ISSN 1941-4641 online © 2019 Korea Institute for Defense Analyses http://www.kida.re.kr/kjda 100 Yuan-Chou Jing are used to fulfill the ends. The ends, ways and means need to work together perfectly to make military strategy successful, in other words, the implementation of military strategy can be figured out by checking if the military means exactly fulfills the ends. In the modern age, “winning information warfare” is always at the core of military strategy. There is no doubt that satellites play a critical role winning information warfare, therefore, satellite development can be considered as an index to check whether the military strategy is being implemented or not. Chairman Mao was the founding father of the People’s Republic of China (PRC), which was established in 1949. China’s military strategy in this period was largely shaped by Mao’s military theory of people’s war. He advocated “active defense” as a military strategic principle,2 and emphasized to fight “an early, large and nuclear war” under the context of a people’s war. Meanwhile, China’s space program was also developed during this period. In the second plenary session of the 8th CPC Central Committee in 1958, Mao said, “We (China) also want to develop artificial satellites.”3 After all, China’s first satellite Dongfanghong-1 (DFH-1) was sent into space with a Long March-1 on April 24, 1970, which opened China’s era of space exploration.4 The third plenary session of the 11th CPC Central Committee, which was held in 1978, is a turning point of China’s military strategy. In the session, Deng Xiaoping required that “according to the new situation of development, a series of new ideas for adapting to national defense and army building and operational guidance requirements in the new era have to be proposed.”5 Furthermore, after the Central Military Committee (CMC) enlarged session in 1985, Deng transformed the focus of the state from “prepare the war” into “peaceful development.”6 Accordingly, even though Mao’s military strategy still remains unchanged, the focus has shifted to economic development. In terms of the space program, Mao intended to demonstrate the state’s sense of glory and safeguard national security. On the contrary, Deng shifted his focus from military to civilian and business so as to cut the space budget.7 Learning from the experiences of major campaigns such as the Persian Gulf War, the Kosovo War and the U.S.–Iraq War, China was shocked by the wide gap between China and the U.S. Army on information warfare capabilities, such as C4ISR (Command, Control, Communications, Computers, Intelligence, Surveillance, Reconnaissance),8 long-range precision strikes, and joint force integration. C4ISR plays a crucial role in informationized warfare, while the space information system consisting of various types of satellites, such as remote sensing, communication, navigation and positioning, can support or enhance the function of C4ISR. In short, satellites can be considered as the center of gravity of C4ISR. In this case, China’s desire for achieving the goal of winning wars under informationized circumstances should be satisfied by leveraging satellites to improve C4ISR and joint operation capabilities. China has regularly issued its defense white paper China’s National Defense since 1998. China’s National Defense in 2000, issued in the Jiang Zemin era, indicated the work to modernize PLA’s weapon and equipment would focus on the realization of informationization.9 Consequently, informationization became the focus of China’s military strategy, as it was supposed to bring momentum to the research and The Study of China’s Military Strategy and Satellite Development 101 development of satellites. China’s first space white paper China’s Space Activities in 2000 said that China had not launched 47 various types of artificial satellites until October 2000. The launch success rate reached 90 percent, which was as good as that of the United States and Europe.10 This outcome shows that along with the shift in focus of military strategy to informationization, those efforts to improve satellites aim to realize informationization is ongoing too. Once again, in China’s National Defense in 2004, issued in the Hu Jintao era, the strategic guideline was further substantiated, and the basic point for making preparation for military struggle (PMS) was modified to winning local wars under conditions of informationization,11 which shows that informationization was included in the guideline. In the Xi Jinping era, the defense white paper China’s Military Strategy (2015) said that China regarded space capabilities as a power of critical security domains, and considered “space as the international strategic competition, outer space has become a commanding height in international strategic competition.”12 In other words, China views space as playing a critical role in the struggle of gaining and maintaining information dominance,13 which is supposed to further move satellite development forward. Thus, first of all, since the strategic guideline issued by a Chinese leader was seen as the characteristic of military strategy in that period, this paper tries to display the evolution of China’s military strategy since Mao to Xi by way of linking those guidelines. Secondly, the technical level of satellites is seen as a decisive factor for winning the informationized war, so this paper tries to analyze the trend and focus of space development to check if the demand of the military strategy guideline was met. Finally, it explores the possible influence on China’s military strategy under the assumption that space capabilities will continue to develop. The Evolution of China’s Military Strategy The term strategy has numerous definitions in the military,14 and the complexity of the definition sometimes makes it difficult to complete a comparative analysis on an equal footing and maintain coherence in the discourse as well, so the definition of strategy has to be defined at the beginning. In order to achieve the coherence of the definition of strategy, this paper only adopted the one that was defined in The Science of Military Strategy, which was published by the National Defense University of China in 2015, to explore the evolution of China’s military strategy. The Science of Military Strategy proposed the principle and content of strategy, saying that making a strategic judgment, which is based on the national security situation, is the initial phase of strategy. Drawing up a strategic plan based on a strategic judgment should come next, and lastly, carrying out the strategic plan should follow after. In other words, the strategic judgment is to build up the strategic goal to manifest into “what should be done” according to the perception of the strategic environment of the decision-maker himself. Secondly, the decision-maker issues the strategic guideline based on the strategic judgment to manifest into “how to do it.” Finally, the decision- 102 Yuan-Chou Jing maker proposes a strategic means to show “what will be used to do it.” The three steps constitute a comprehensive and complete military thinking logic.15 Accordingly, the strategy is basically composed of “strategic goal, strategic guideline, strategic means.”16 The basic concept of this paper is to study the relationship between strategic guideline and strategic means in China’s military strategy under the context of informationization. Chairman Mao’s Era (1945–1976) Mao’s military thinking has been the core of the military strategy of the Chinese Communist Party (CPC) since before China was established in 1949. In “Problems of Strategy in China’s Revolutionary War” (December 1936), Selected Works of Mao, he introduced the term “active defense” as the military guideline, which uses “lure the enemy troops in deep” as the strategic means to wipe out the enemy’s effective strength.17 In the 1960s, the lessons learned from the Sino Soviet split and the Vietnam War pushed China to make an enormous adjustment to its strategic judgment.