The Future of the PLA

Zhou Bo

In October 2017, at the 19th National Congress of the Communist Party, Chinese President Xi Jinping unveiled an ambitious road map for the future of the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA), the largest armed force in the world. According to his report, the PLA is to become mechanized by 2020, modernized by 2035, and world-class by the mid-21st century.

By some measures, the PLA already is one of the world’s strongest militaries. Despite Western prohibitions on trading arms and military technology with China, the Chinese defence industry has been able to produce some of the world’s most sophisticated weapons systems and platforms. According to a report by the International Institute for Strategic Studies, “since 2000, China has built more submarines, destroyers, frigates and corvettes than Japan, South Korea and India combined.” China’s first domestically designed aircraft carrier took a mere five years to be built. And when finished in 2020, the restructuring of the PLA, including downsizing by 300,000 service members, will make the 2 million-strong PLA leaner but mightier. Meanwhile, the application of artificial intelligence, which China vows to lead by 2030, will speed up the development of an “intelligent military.”

How China uses its military strength matters, all the more so because it is widely expected to overtake the United States to become the largest economy within the next two decades. Yes, China still has territorial disputes with some countries, but a major power looks beyond its borders into the horizon. And a strong PLA will be more ready than ever to protect China’s overseas interests and shoulder international obligations.

One doesn’t need to see “Made in China” on the bottom of every product to know that China’s interests are already global. As the world’s largest trading nation and exporter, its overseas interests include, among other things, the safety and security of more than 1 million Chinese nationals working overseas, 140 million Chinese traveling abroad every year, some 40,000 Chinese enterprises around the globe, and overseas property and investment of $7 trillion. Needless to say, it is impossible to protect all these interests through military means, but a forward military presence is useful. For example, in February 2011, the Chinese frigate Xuzbou was sent from the Gulf of Aden into the waters off Libya to stand guard while 35,860 Chinese nationals and 2,103 foreign contract workers and citizens were evacuated as violence spread in that country.

Further, there is no better way for China to demonstrate its peaceful rise than by helping with global governance as a responsible power. Unlike in the past when Beijing talked about “establishing a fair and reasonable new international political and economic order,” which was a thinly veiled dismissal of the current order, Chinese leaders now admit that the country benefits from the existing inte