Military Civil Fusion and Information Warfare - 2021 Department of Defense (DoD) Report on China's Military
Issue 7, 15 Nov 2021
Note: This week's newsletter solely focuses on the report released by the US Department of Defence (DoD), especially the role of PLASSF in PLA and People's Republic of China's (PRC) military modernization goals. The full DoD report includes various aspects of PLA like nuclear capabilities and capabilities of other services like PLAGF and PLAN. This newsletter does not focus on those aspects of the Report. I have given links to some comprehensive summaries of the full report in the Additional Reading section.
2021 Department of Defense (DoD) Annual Report to Congress: Military and Security Developments Involving the People’s Republic of China
PLA Strategic Support Force (PLASSF) (中国人民解放军战略支援部队) is the Theatre Command level force involved in the using emerging and advanced technologies in warfare. PLASSF is responsible for the core operations based on the concept of "Three Warfares." Namely,
Psychological Warfare
Public opinion Warfare
Legal Warfare
The PLASSF is also a key force to enable and support PLA global power projection operations.
At one point the report mentions "PLA writings judge other countries have effectively used cyberwarfare and other IO in recent conflicts and argue attacks against C2 and logistics networks to affect an adversary’s ability to make decisions and take actions in the early stages of conflict."
The "other countries" mostly mean US and Israel. The articles in PLA Daily regularly refer to the cyber operations by US and Israel as evidence of existing cyber warfare capabilities.
Some key points from the report related to activities of PLA:
China launched 39 space Launch Vehicles in 2020.
35 successful; 4 unsuccessful
Placed more than 70 spacecraft in orbit for
Navigation
Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance (ISR)
Communications
Test/engineering satellites
Satellites for foreign customers
Other key developments
Inaugural Launch of Reusable PRC Space Plane
Worldwide Satellite Navigation Constellation Complete
Solidifying Gains in Space Launch
Launched Second GEO Imager
China continues to acquire a range of counter-space capabilities and technologies. These include:
Kinetic-kill missiles
Ground-based lasers
Orbiting space robots
Expanding space surveillance capabilities.
PRC’s reconnaissance and remote sensing fleet consisted of more than 200 satellites (as of Dec 2020)
Can collect data for civil, military, and commercial operators
PRC is developing electronic warfare capabilities. It includes:
Satellite jammers
Offensive cyber capabilities
Directed-energy weapons
PRC has demonstrated sophisticated, potentially damaging on-orbit behavior with space-based technologies. Refer to the table below:
PLA Capabilities Under Development
Military Capabilities for Anti-Access/Area Denial (A2/AD) within the Second Island Chain
The report highlights that PRC's A2/AD capabilities are most robust in the first island chain. Beijing is improving both conventional and asymmetric warfare capabilities in this region.
Conventional: Strike, air, and missile defense, anti-surface, and anti-submarine capabilities improvements
Other: Information, cyber, and space and counter space operations.
AI and Big data - focus on an integrated approach to cyber defense.
Information Operations (IO)
The DoD report notes IO operations from PRC's point of view as "any activity that could affect the adversary’s and China’s own ability to use and share information."
PRC considers IO operations as a critical enabler in modern warfare.
Space/counter-space operations as a key enabler of PLA campaigns aimed at countering third-party intervention.
The PLA believes itself vulnerable to cyber-attacks and is working to accelerate improvements to its cyber defense capabilities.
PRC considers its cyber capabilities and cyber personnel as lagging behind the United States in some areas, it is working to improve training and bolster domestic innovation to overcome these perceived shortfalls and advance cyber operations.
Advancing Towards an Informatized Military
The report notes the PLA's definition of informatized warfare as, "the use of information technology to create an operational system-of-systems, which would enable the PLA to acquire, transmit, process, and use information during a conflict to conduct joint military operations across the ground, maritime, air, space, cyberspace, and electromagnetic spectrum domains."
Informatized warfare
Command, Control, Communications, Computers, and Intelligence Modernization (C4I)
For complex and joint operations across all warfare domains.
Such systems are designed to distribute data.
Advanced C4I systems are deemed essential to providing reliable, secure communications to fixed and mobile command posts. Therefore, important for rapid, effective, multi-echelon decision-making.
Integrated Command Platforms: To enable communications required for joint operations.
Electronic Warfare
Emphasizes suppressing, degrading, disrupting, or deceiving enemy electronic equipment throughout the continuum of a conflict while protecting its ability to use the cyber and electromagnetic spectrum.
Signaling mechanism: PLA is likely to use electronic warfare early in a conflict as a signaling mechanism to warn and deter adversary offensive action.
Cyberwarfare
PRC has publicly identified cyberspace as a critical domain.
Using cyberwarfare to create disruptive and destructive effects.
PLA views cyber operations as a low-cost deterrent
To demonstrate capabilities and resolve to an adversary
Appears to be integrating offensive and defensive cyber operations into its joint military exercises.
The PLA considers cyber capabilities a critical component in its overall integrated strategic deterrence posture, alongside space and nuclear deterrence.
Warning and demonstration strike as a part of deterrence.
Intelligentized Warfare
Using AI and other advanced technologies, such as cloud computing and big data analytics.
The concept incorporated in 14th Five Year Plan
New technologies to increase speed and tempo of future warfare
Reducing battlefield uncertainty and providing a decision-making advantage
Next-generation operational concepts for intelligentized warfare
Attrition warfare by intelligent swarms
Cross-domain mobile warfare
AI-based space confrontation
Cognitive control operations
Unmanned systems: PLA deems unmanned systems as critical in intelligentized technologies
Unmanned aerial, surface, and underwater vehicles to enable manned and unmanned hybrid formations
Swarm attacks, optimized logistic support, and disaggregated ISR, among other capabilities
Science and Technology for military
PRC is pursuing Science and Technology goals to support military modernization. It's the drive to innovate in strategic industries and become a global leader in tech industries is motivated by military modernization goals. The report mentions that PRC’s pursuit of an innovation-driven economic model "directly supports" its goal of building a “modern and specialized military" which is capable of "fighting and winning wars in the information age." For this, PLA has also reorganized its key military think tank - the Academy of Military Science (AMS). AMS is a leader in Military science research programs. According to the report PRC also actively conducts espionage to support military modernization.
Activities that support PRC's military modernization
Foreign Direct Investment (FDI)
Talent Recruitment
R&D and Academic collaboration
In the last few decades, PRC has become a leader in
Artificial Intelligence (AI)
Quantum communication,
High-performance computing
5G mobile networks
Biotechnology
Advanced materials and manufacturing
High-speed railways
Electric vehicles
Several aspects of the digital ecosystem - big data analytics and cloud computing.
Till 2025, the major policy document guiding development in science and technology will be the 14th Five-Year Plan. PRC will continue to focus on technologies associated with the fourth industrial revolution. References to Made IN China 2025 (MIC 2025) have been muted, but the report suggests that MIC 2025 is still being implemented at the national, provincial, and local levels.
I had written an article for the Institute of Chinese Studies (ICS) last year arguing something similar that the MIC 2025 plan is not dead and it will be implemented even after the international backlash, although without being explicitly referred to as MIC205. That is because the goal of developing 10 core technologies is too important for China to abandon. Read my full article here.
Military-Civil Fusion (MCF) (军民融合)
PRC is also leveraging the capabilities of the private sector under the MCF. Apart from the 15 National AI Champions, the 2017 National Intelligence Law requires PRC companies to assist in the PRC’s national intelligence work, wherever they operate. The report also names two 2 leading quantum communication start-ups in PRC which have been leading the quantum communication ecosystem in China. One of them, Quantum CTek had an IPO in June 2020.
Hefei-based Quantum Ctek was listed in Shanghai's STAR Market last year and became the first quantum information technology company to be listed on STAR Market. STAR Market is also known as Shanghai Stock Exchange STAR Market was launched in 2019 to provide a platform to the tech companies in China. It is modeled on America's Nasdaq.
MCF combines PRC's economic, social, and security development strategies to build an integrated national strategic system. The goal of MCF is to develop and acquire advanced dual-use technology for military purposes. The concept took root in China in the 2000s. Earlier it was called "military-civilian integration", but later the term "military-civil fusion" was adopted. According to the DoD report, this change in terminology was not cosmetic but indicated efforts to engage all economic resources towards the development of the defense industry.
Military Civil Fusion (MCF) - Six interrelated efforts
Fusing China’s defense industrial base and its civilian technology and industrial base
Integrating and leveraging science and technology innovations across military and civilian sectors
Cultivating talent and blending military and civilian expertise and knowledge
Building military requirements into civilian infrastructure and leveraging civilian construction for military purposes
Leveraging civilian service and logistics capabilities for military purposes
Expanding and deepening China’s national defense mobilization system to include all relevant aspects of its society and economy for use in competition and war
Potential military applications of some emerging technologies (as highlighted in DoD report)
The trends noted in the report regarding capabilities and prospects of psychological and informatized warfare are not surprising. As evident from articles I have covered in last few issues of China Tech Dispatch, the academics and researchers of PLA continue to write about the importance of emerging tech in military and warfare, indicating importance of these technologies for PLA.
Additional Reading
DoD's 2021 China Military Power Report: How Advances in AI and Emerging Technologies Will Shape China’s Military, Council on Foreign Relations (CFR)
The Pentagon’s 2021 China Military Power Report: My Summary, Andrew S. Erickson
Understanding DoD China Military Power Report, Suyash Desai, The Takshashila Institution