Military tension in the Taiwan Strait reached a worrying level on the weekend of 19–20 September. For several days prior, People’s Liberation Army Air Force fighters and bombers had been conducting flights through the strait and the Taiwanese Ministry of National Defence had taken the unusual step of publicising the flightpaths through social media. Then, on Saturday the 19th, Taiwanese media reported an exchange between pilots: a PLAAF pilot was challenged by the Taiwanese Air Force over crossing the median line down the middle of the Taiwan Strait and reportedly responded, ‘There is no median line.’

The position was confirmed by a Taiwanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesperson when asked by a journalist the following Monday.

The exchange occurred after weeks of PLA military exercises in the Taiwan Strait, the South China Sea and the East China Sea, beginning in early August. Around Taiwan, these exercises were conducted by the Eastern Theatre Command, the combined force structure of PLA army, navy and air force established with other theatre commands in 2016 as part of a reorganisation of China’s military command structure. The Eastern Theatre Command’s area of activity extends from China’s eastern provinces over the north of Taiwan.

These activities come at a time of generally heightened regional tension. US–China relations are increasingly strained, with recent strongly worded speeches critical of Beijing made by senior US administration figures. Both the US presidential election campaign and China’s opaque but intense domestic politics make moderation more difficult from either side on any of the wide range of issues besetting the relationship.

The US has also been signalling stronger support for Taiwan for many years, including with official statements and high-profile but calibrated visits by US administration officials. Proximate to the start of PLA military exercises in August was a visit to Taiwan by US Health and Human Services Secretary Henry Azar. Similarly, the recent military flights coincided with a visit by US Under Secretary of State for Economic Growth, Energy, and the Environment Keith Krach. The visit was for the funeral service of former president Lee Teng-hui but also came after a major concession from Taiwan on beef and pork imports that had long irritated the Office of the US Trade Representative.

Cross-strait relations have been in a dynamic of statement and counter-statement since President Xi Jinping’s speech on Taiwan on the morning of 2 January 2019 and President Tsai Ing-wen’s speech in response the same afternoon. This opens the military flights to different interpretations. They can be understood as steps in a symbolic ratcheting up of US–China hostility over Taiwan for which there is no clear mechanism of reversal, and which could continue to escalate. They can also be seen as systematic tests by the PLAAF of its capabilities and of Taiwanese military responses.

PLAAF flights over the median line have been made several times since 2019, so they can also be interpreted as a tactical normalisation of military flights by Beijing and the PLA. The aim could be to gradually move the tacit median line towards Taiwan to expand the area of activity by the air force and other services in the Taiwan Strait. Such a move would follow the pattern of similar tactics used in the South China Sea over many years.

No one interpretation excludes another, and, for its part, the government in Taipei has been typically cool in its response. Tsai was strongly critical of the exercises, framing them in terms of Beijing’s aspirations of power and Taipei’s efforts to strengthen its own international relationships, saying that, thanks to this latest round of PLA drills, ‘other countries in the region also have a better understanding of the threat posed by China’. At the same time, she declined a reported proposal from Japan to speak directly to incoming prime minister Yoshihide Suga, forgoing an opportunity to strengthen Japan–Taiwan relations, but avoiding antagonising Beijing.

The Taiwan Strait will remain a region of calculated risk and tactics from all its players, especially as the US presidential election draws nearer.

China’s rapid military modernisation has triggered an intense discussion about Australia’s defence priorities, reviving old debates about an independent ‘defence of Australia’ doctrine or a deeper alliance with the United States. Missing from that debate, however, is an understanding of the weaknesses and shortcomings of the People’s Liberation Army.

Arguably the most important of these for Australian defence planners to understand is what Chinese President Xi Jinping calls the PLA’s ‘peace disease’ (和平病). This malaise, basically a lack of combat experience, has been blamed by Chinese commentators on an inability to train under realistic conditions and goes to the heart of the Chinese Communist Party’s worries about the PLA’s capability.

The CCP is concerned that the PLA doesn’t understand the intensity of modern combat. In a recent article for the PLA’s official newspaper, the People’s Liberation Army Daily (解放军报), Chen Yongyi and Liu Yuanyuan write that ‘during times of war troops are engaged in battle with the enemy in sight’. They argue that being in proximity to the enemy helps PLA personnel become aware of both the responsibilities and challenges of the modern battlespace. While some generals might bemoan a lack of combat experience, finding a way to address the problem short of outright war would allow the PLA to further narrow the gap with the US military.

Nevertheless, to assuage Xi’s fears about the PLA’s lack of appreciation of the intensity of modern conflict, the CCP has emphasised the need to improve the quality of the PLA’s training. At the start of this year, the PLA Daily ran a front-page editorial urging personnel to ‘firmly grasp realistic combat exercises’ in order to meet Xi’s goal of a more lethal military that can match a high-end adversary.

However, despite the focus on improving the quality of military training, issues in performance and readiness linger in the PLA. Chen Dianhong from the PLA Daily reported recently that the 75th Group Army was suffering acutely from a lack of preparedness for combat. ‘The quality and amount of equipment are unsatisfactory and insufficient for daily training’, the brigade leader noted. It’s not clear that the CCP is entirely convinced that the 75th, or other corps for that matter, can meet Xi’s lofty targets for modernisation.

The symptoms of poor performance and readiness might manifest themselves in large training exercises, but they begin in basic training. Writing in the PLA Daily, He Junlin and Sun Yanbao argue that ‘only through improved basic training can the full potential of [the PLA’s] weapons be realised, comprehensively raising combat effectiveness’. Their comment demonstrates that the CCP is concerned about a mismatch between the quality of the PLA’s armaments and the quality of the personnel deploying them. To resolve this issue, the CCP expects the PLA to improve the basic training of new recruits.

Better training alone is unlikely to cure the PLA’s peace disease. Timothy Heath from the RAND Corporation notes that even ‘combat experience does not automatically translate into military advantage’; militaries must go further and internalise the lessons from combat operations and training exercises. Dennis J. Blasko has shown that the PLA does have a record of providing self-assessments of training performance, which may institutionalise good practice in preparation for modern conflict. Though some of these measures might be accurate, the PLA also suffers from inaccurate assessments of its own performance during basic training and combat exercises.

These inaccurate self-assessments are another symptom of the PLA’s problem. Xu Tao recently penned an article in the PLA Daily warning personnel against providing ‘critical praise’ (批评式表扬) in order ‘not to lose face’ during performance appraisals. This indicates that some soldiers may be pointing out weaknesses that don’t exist, while exaggerating strengths. Although the short-term effects of ‘critical praise’ might be restricted to false performance appraisals, the PLA’s long-term force development could be harmed by officers prioritising exercises that personnel find easy over exercises that they find difficult.

This gets to the pathogeny of what Xi calls the ‘peace disease’. Without recent experience in combat operations, military personnel could become unable to recognise weaknesses in performance relevant to modern warfare. Should these weaknesses be allowed to metastasise, the PLA’s force development for vital missions could be harmed over time. The attention Xi has paid to the PLA’s lack of experience  suggests that it’s a worry for the CCP. Whether or not Xi has found the right cure remains unclear.

For Australian defence planners, the CCP’s concerns about the PLA demonstrate that China is still coming to terms with its military modernisation. Significant improvements have undoubtedly been made in the quantity and quality of weapons platforms that can be deployed by the PLA, especially in the air and maritime battlespaces. But without major improvements in the quality and training of personnel, the PLA’s ability to prosecute the increasingly ambitious aims of the CCP is likely to be constrained.

The Pentagon’s 2018 annual report on China’s military power puts into sharp relief the speed and scale of China’s ambitious military modernisation drive. According to the report, the People’s Liberation Army is undergoing the ‘most comprehensive restructuring of forces in its history’ with rapidly improving capabilities that could ‘degrade core US operational and technological advantages’.

This sombre assessment comes in the context of intensifying strategic competition between the US and China, and increasing anxiety about Chinese power around the world.

China’s expanding strategic ambitions and regional and global influence are setting the direction of the PLA’s sweeping modernisation and reform effort. According to the report:

[A]s China’s global footprint and international interests have grown, its military modernization program has become more focused on investments and infrastructure to support a range of missions beyond China’s periphery, including power projection, sea lane security, counterpiracy, peacekeeping, humanitarian assistance/disaster relief (HA/DR), and noncombatant evacuation operations.

To fulfil its evolving and broadening mission, the PLA has abandoned its ‘historically land-centric mentality’ and shifted its priorities towards developing air, naval, missile and information forces.

As a part of that effort, the PLA Army was downsized and reorganised from 18 group armies into 13 renamed group armies. The core operational land force unit was changed from division to brigade to improve flexibility and combat effectiveness.

The PLA Navy, the largest in the world (with more than 300 ships), continues to modernise rapidly. Of particular interest is China’s aim to triple the manpower of the PLA Navy Marine Corps from two brigades and 10,000 troops to seven brigades and 30,000 troops by 2020. This underscores the PLA’s growing amphibious and expeditionary warfare capabilities.

The PLA Air Force is ‘closing the gap with the US Air Force across a spectrum of capabilities, gradually eroding longstanding US technical advantages’. For example, in overwater bomber operations, the PLA Air Force is assessed to be ‘gaining experience in critical maritime regions and likely training for strikes against US and allied targets’.

In addition to naval and air power, the report also highlights the rising profile of the PLA Strategic Support Force, which is responsible for military operations in space, cyberspace and the information domain. Information operations will increase in importance as the PLA works to become a global force in the decades ahead.

Beyond shifting the focus away from land forces, the PLA is actively enhancing its joint operations capabilities. For PLA strategists, this capacity is a force multiplier that sits at the core of combat effectiveness in modern warfare.

In the pursuit of genuine joint operations capabilities, the PLA headquarters have been completely restructured to lay the groundwork for an effective joint command system (as well as to strengthen the supreme Central Military Commission’s control over the entire PLA).

The report identifies three key elements to this restructuring. First, the PLA has replaced the previous seven military regions with five joint theatre commands. PLA exercises and training, including large-scale multi-service exercises, aim to improve the effectiveness of the theatre commands’ joint command capabilities. Moreover, the appointment of the first navy and air force theatre commanders in the southern and central theatres, respectively, signals a strong commitment to joint capabilities.

Second, to facilitate joint force management, an army headquarters was established and the missile branch was elevated to a service co-equal with the army, navy and air force. This is significant because before the current round of reforms, the army headquarters was synonymous with the general staff, which created barriers for shifting away from the PLA’s traditional land-centric mentality.

Third, the PLA has created the Strategic Support Force and the Joint Logistics Support Force to provide centralised and coordinated strategic information and logistical support to PLA operations.

Despite significant reform, the report identifies critical challenges for the PLA’s power projection and joint operations capabilities. Indeed, the PLA’s ‘doctrine, institutional structures and procedures, infrastructure, and platforms to project, support, and sustain forces abroad’ remain relatively underdeveloped.

In addition, to capitalise on joint reforms and realise its joint aspirations, the PLA will need to update and integrate significant numbers of weapon and communication systems.

What does all this mean for the region?

The first and most significant implication of the report’s assessment is that the rapidly modernising PLA will increasingly be capable of projecting power abroad. In the years ahead, we should expect a PLA with an expanded regional and global presence, including in Africa, Southeast Asia, and the Indian and Pacific oceans. China’s opening of its first military base in Djibouti underscores this trend and foreshadows further investment in overseas military bases and infrastructure.

Growing military power will also allow Beijing to better secure its territorial claims in the South and East China seas, and deter Taiwan from moving closer to de jure independence. Beijing’s assertive (and sometimes coercive) postures with respect to the South China Sea and Taiwan highlight its willingness to use, or threaten to use, its growing hard power in advancing China’s core strategic interests.

The report’s findings also underscore the rising cost of US and allied interventions in Asia against China, including in contingencies involving the South China Sea, Taiwan and the Korean peninsula. Specifically, the PLA’s modernising conventional missile and space-based platforms will pose significant challenges to the effectiveness and survivability of US and allied forces and assets in the event of conflict.

And China’s growing integrated deterrence capabilities across multiple domains will increasingly challenge the credibility of US extended deterrence guarantees to its allies in the region.

Overall, the report’s assessment of China’s rapid military modernisation and reform suggest the continuation and possible acceleration of a shift in relative military power towards China. We should pay close attention to the PLA’s expanding regional and international reach as it evolves towards a global force.

In considering Paul Dibb’s analysis on the Chinese PLA, I’d recommend anyone interested in the state of China’s military start by reading Roger Cliff’s China’s Military Power: Assessing Current and Future Capabilities. Cliff argues that ‘…by 2020, the quality of China’s military doctrine, equipment, personnel and training will likely be approaching, to varying degrees, those of the US and other Western militaries.’

Although prevailing weaknesses in organisational structure, logistics and organizational culture will limit the effectiveness of PLA weapons and platforms, ‘defeating China in these scenarios [Taiwan and South China Sea] could nonetheless be difficult and costly for the United States’ primarily as a result of the geographic advantages that China enjoys, as well as specific systems capabilities.’

Finally, he suggests, ‘the 2020s are likely to be a time of power transition in East Asia, from a region in which the United States has had the capability to defend its allies against virtually any form of aggression, to one where China has the capability to, at a minimum, contest control of the seas and airspace and where an attempt to oppose a Chinese use of force will be dangerous and costly for any country, including the United States.’

Cliff’s conclusion is also echoed in a recent RAND report, ‘The US China Military Scorecard,’ which argues that China is catching up to the US, is becoming more assertive and confident, and has geography on its side. The report notes that ‘China [has been able] to narrow the military gap in almost every area and move ahead in some’ and that the ‘overall capability trend lines are moving against the United States.’ The report also highlights the speed of change in China’s military: it’s pushing forward in key capability areas and its modernisation is occurring more rapidly than that of the US. China is leapfrogging, whilst the US is plodding.

These two accounts suggest worrying trends and highlight that an analysis of the PLA which is based on superficial glimpses of selected areas of capability misses the bigger picture. The speed of China’s military modernisation, its sustained investment in terms of double-digit spending levels, and the types of capabilities it is acquiring highlight China’s strategic objective of eroding America’s military–technological advantage so that Beijing may resolve territorial disputes and ensure the success of the China Dream.

Even though China does face real domestic challenges, so does the US in the form of growing national debt and destructive political partisanship in Washington that together reduces its ability to sustain defence spending in coming years to offset Chinese capability growth. That’s occurring as security risks in Europe and the Middle East multiply to impose greater burdens on shrinking forces. The end result is reduced US readiness and overall effectiveness at a critical time later this decade.

Paul’s dismissal of PLA capabilities seems to lack operational context and overlook PLA capabilities now in service. A key emerging issue is the survivability of naval surface forces in the face of PLA A2AD capabilities. Here PLA ability to wage information warfare against vital US C4ISR networks through counter-space operations with ASATs, integrated network-electronic warfare (INEW), and cyber warfare need to be considered more deeply as winning the information battle against China is vital to countering their A2AD capabilities. The RAND report notes that Chinese offensive counter-space capability, for example, is growing faster than the US defensive counter-space options. There may be technological silver bullets to mitigate such developments but they must first be funded through to operational status, and then proven to work in battle.

While Paul is certainly correct to suggest that the US isn’t ‘sitting on its hands’ as its ‘Third Offset’ strategy clearly demonstrates, this argument can also be reversed. China has flown hypersonic glide vehicles, is deploying counter-stealth radars, and has the world’s largest unmanned air vehicle capability.

China is catching up in anti-submarine warfare, with the deployment of fixed acoustic arrays and Jingdao class ASW corvettes, as well as new maritime patrol aircraft. In air defence, China will likely acquire the S-400 SAM which is effective against stealth aircraft, and long-range air combat capabilities epitomised by the J-20 can exploit the US reliance on forward-deployed AEW&C and airborne refuelling aircraft to further reduce US ability to project airpower.

In terms of submarine quieting, nuclear submarines are always going to be noisier than conventional boats. China deploys both the Yuan and Kilo 636 conventional submarines which are very quiet and difficult to detect in acoustically challenging waters in the South China Sea. The RAND report notes that ‘China’s newer submarines are becoming quieter and better armed, and there is every reason to believe that their capability to find and attack US surface ships has vastly improved [since 1996].’  It is the ability of these boats to fire long-range supersonic anti-ship cruise missiles (ASCMs), such as the new 290nm range YJ-18, that according to Andrew Erickson allow China to ‘out-stick’ the US in long-range anti-surface warfare. This submarine-ASCM combination is quite deadly.

Paul Dibb is correct to caution against seeing the PLA as ten feet tall, but it would be equally unwise to dismiss China as inconsequential in military-technological terms. China is rapidly catching up, and what matters is where the PLA goes from here, and how Beijing uses its growing military power across Asia.