THE BEYOND Chinese Military Operations in Regional and Global Context BORDERS THE PLA Chinese Military Operations in Regional and Global Context PLA BEYOND BORDERS Edited by Joel Wuthnow, Arthur S. Ding, Phillip C. Saunders, Andrew Scobell, Andrew N.D. Yang THE PLA BEYOND BORDERS THE PLA BEYOND BORDERS Chinese Military Operations in Regional and Global Context Edited by Joel Wuthnow Arthur S. Ding Phillip C. Saunders Andrew Scobell Andrew N.D. Yang National Defense University Press Washington, D.C. 2021 Published in the United States by National Defense University Press. Portions of this book may be quoted or reprinted without permission, provided that a stan- dard source credit line is included. NDU Press would appreciate a courtesy copy of reprints or reviews. Opinions, conclusions, and recommendations expressed or implied within are solely those of the contributors and do not necessarily represent the views of the Depart- ment of Defense or any other agency of the Federal Government. Cleared for public release; distribution unlimited. Library of Congress Control Number: 2021935171 ISBN: 978-0-9968249-7-2 (paperback) National Defense University Press 300 Fifth Avenue (Building 62), Suite 212 Fort Lesley J. McNair Washington, DC 20319 NDU Press publications are sold by the U.S. Government Publishing Office. For ordering information, call (202) 512-1800 or write to the Superintendent of Docu- ments, U.S. Government Publishing Office, Washington, DC 20402. For GPO publica- tions online, access its Web site at: http://bookstore.gpo.gov. Book design by John Mitrione, U.S. Government Publishing Office Cover image: Commissioning ceremony of China’s first domestically built aircraft carrier, Shandong (Hull 17), takes place at naval base in Sanya, in Hainan Province, China, December 17, 2019 (Li Gang/Xinhua/Alamy Live News) CONTENTS Acknowledgments ..........................................................................................vii Introduction THE PLA BEYOND BORDERS Joel Wuthnow ...................................................................................................... 1 Part I: Enabling Operations: Capabilities, Infrastructure, and Organizations 1 The PLA’s Expeditionary Force: Current Capabilities and Future Trends Kristen Gunness .......................................................................................... 23 2 Crossing the Strait: Recent Trends in PLA ‘Strategic Delivery’ Capabilities Chung Chieh and Andrew N.D. Yang ........................................................ 51 3 China’s Overseas Base, Places, and Far Seas Logistics Isaac B. Kardon ............................................................................................ 73 4 PLA Command and Control of Overseas Operations Phillip C. Saunders .................................................................................... 107 5 China’s Air and Maritime ISR in Coastal Defense and Near Seas Operations Shinji Yamaguchi ...................................................................................... 127 6 The PLA Strategic Support Force: A “Joint” Force for Information Operations John Chen, Joe McReynolds, and Kieran Green ..................................... 151 vi Part II: Into Action: PLA Operational Concepts and Practice 7 Reassessing China’s Use of Military Force Andrew Scobell ......................................................................................... 183 8 Bomber Strike Packages with Chinese Characteristics Nathan Beauchamp-Mustafaga ............................................................... 199 9 PLA Operational Lessons from UN Peacekeeping Joel Wuthnow ............................................................................................ 235 10 China’s Security Assistance in Global Competition: The Case of Africa Jonah Victor ............................................................................................... 263 11 A New Type of Cross-Border Attack: The PLA’s Cyber Force Ying-Yu Lin................................................................................................. 295 12 Space and Chinese National Security: China’s Continuing Great Leap Upward Dean Cheng ............................................................................................... 311 About the Contributors ..................................................................................... 339 Index ................................................................................................................ 345 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS his volume is the most recent product of a longstanding annual con- ference series on the People’s Liberation Army jointly sponsored by Tthe U.S. National Defense University (NDU), the RAND Corpora- tion, and Taiwan’s Council of Advanced Policy Studies (CAPS). The editors are grateful to the leaders of their institutions for their continued support, including NDU presidents Vice Admiral Frederick J. Roegge and Lieutenant General Michael T. Plehn, NDU Institute for National Strategic Studies direc- tor Laura Junor and acting director Denise Natali, RAND president Michael Rich, and CAPS secretary-general Andrew Yang. It takes hard work by many people to make these conferences and this publication possible. We would like to acknowledge, in particular, Mark Cozad and Derek Grossman from RAND, and Yi-Su Yang and Polly Shen from CAPS. At NDU, Catherine Reese went to heroic lengths to get service con- tracts and travel approved and honoria paid. Most chapters in this volume were originally presented at the 2019 con- ference, which was held in Taipei. For helpful feedback during and after the conference, the editors thank the participants and discussants, including Cor- tez Cooper, Arthur Ding, T.X. Hammes, Scott Harold, Alexander Huang, Taiho Kim, Ma Chengkun, Bonny Lin, and Mark Stokes. Chapter 6, by Nathan Beau- champ-Mustafaga, was presented at the 2018 conference in Washington, DC, and benefited from feedback from Lonnie Henley and Jackie Newmeyer Deal. NDU Press, which has published several previous books from this confer- ence series, once again worked tirelessly to bring this volume across the finish vii viii Acknowledgments line. Special thanks go to director William T. Eliason, executive editor Jeffrey D. Smotherman, and senior editor John J. Church. Lisa Yambrick, an independent contractor, copyedited the text. Susan Carroll did the first round of proofread- ing and indexed the book. At GPO Creative Services, John Mitrione designed the book. William Eliason and Joanna Seich worked with Cameron Morse and others at the OSD Security Review Office to obtain clearance for publication. The editors thank the following individuals for assistance with proof- reading: Samantha Arnett, Alex Barker, Josh Baughman, Paul J. David-Albert, Jerry Epstein, T.X. Hammes, Jackie Kerr, Eric Kingsepp, Thomas F. Lynch III, Lieutenant Colonel Patrick McClintock, USAF, Amy Nelson, Austine Rawllins, Shane Smith, Brett Swaney, and Cynthia Watson. INTRODUCTION THE PLA BEYOND BORDERS By Joel Wuthnow he past decade has witnessed a series of “firsts” in China’s demon- strated ability to deploy military units of various sizes and types far Tfrom its own borders. In September 2012, the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) Navy commissioned its first aircraft carrier, the Liaoning, a ship that made its maiden voyage into the Western Pacific in December 2016.1 In September 2013, a PLA naval aviation H-6 bomber flew past the First Island Chain for the first time, while the air force began sending its H-6K variant on overwater training missions in March 2015, including some that circum- navigated Taiwan.2 The Chinese ground forces, which had been contributing noncombat troops to United Nations (UN) peacekeeping missions since the late 1980s, deployed their first infantry battalion to a UN mission, in South Sudan, in February 2015.3 On August 1, 2017—the PLA’s 90th anniversary— China opened its first overseas military base, in Djibouti, manned by a mech- anized marine company.4 In December 2019, the navy commissioned its first domestically built carrier, the Shandong.5 These examples represent only a few milestones in the increasing range and pace of Chinese overseas military operations. For most of its existence, the PLA was primarily responsible for internal stability and border defense 1 2 Wuthnow missions, with units rarely venturing far beyond the mainland. In the 1980s, many of the PLA’s domestic security functions were transferred to paramili- tary and law enforcement forces, allowing it to focus more on external mis- sions. Since the 1990s, China’s expanding global economic interests, growing reliance on overseas supply routes to fuel its domestic growth, ratcheting up of territorial disputes in the South and East China seas, and desire to extend its security frontier outward to delay or defeat U.S. intervention in a regional crisis gave rise to a more ambitious vision of how the PLA should be used abroad to support the interests of the nation and those of the Chinese Com- munist Party. These changes also stimulated the development of more capa- ble power projection platforms. The operational imperative to more regularly operate overseas was enshrined in Hu Jintao’s 2004 “new historic missions” and has persisted in China’s military strategy in Xi Jinping’s era.6 China’s increasing pattern of military activities abroad raises a number of questions: What goals are the Chinese Communist Party, the PLA, and different bureaucracies within the PLA pursuing in these operations? What explanations best