Could China Now Defeat the United States in a Battle Over the South China Sea or Taiwan?

by Joel Wuthnow, Phillip C. Saunders, Dennis J. Blasko, James Holmes 

August 25, 2016 

Crew members stand guard on the deck of Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) Navy ship Zheng He as it docks at the Myanmar International Terminals Thilawa (MITT) port on the outskirts of Yangon, May 23, 2014. Two PLA Navy ships, Zheng He and Wei Fang, arrived that day for a five-day friendship visit to Myanmar.

Chinese Communist Party Secretary Xi Jinping kicked off the latest round of People’s Liberation Army (PLA) reforms at a September 3, 2015 military parade. Aside from reducing the PLA’s size by 300,000 personnel, the reforms eliminated the corruption-prone general departments, adjusted the command structure to focus more on joint operations, and consolidated the theater command system. The reforms, likened by some analysts to the sweeping U.S. military changes that resulted from the 1986 Goldwater-Nichols Act, could result in a leaner, more combat-effective PLA. This could create new operational challenges for the U.S. military in the Western Pacific, limiting U.S. ability to intervene in a crisis related to the self-governing island of Taiwan or elsewhere in the region. Do these reforms improve the PLA’s chances of defeating the U.S. military in a battle over Taiwan or the South China Sea?

The current round of Chinese military reforms could result in a People’s Liberation Army (PLA) that is more operationally effective across a range of potential contingencies, including those involving Taiwan or the South China Sea. There are a number of reasons why this might be the case: 

The PLA’s composition will shift from a heavy focus on ground forces to a more balanced mix of army, navy, air force, and missile units. The navy and air force are expected to grow in numbers and budget share even as the army shrinks. This will improve the PLA’s ability to conduct operations on and over water. 

The new Strategic Support Force could improve the PLA’s ability to integrate space, cyber, and electronic warfare capabilities into its combat operations, allowing it to target enemy forces and to disrupt adversary sensors and networks. 

The PLA will have a more modern command and control system in which forces from all the services are more tightly integrated. This could improve its ability to conduct complex joint operations, such as an island landing campaign. PLA training and exercises will also focus more intensively on conducting joint campaigns. 

Taken together, these improvements could pose new challenges for U.S. intervention in a conflict related to Taiwan or the South China Sea. U.S. forces would have to contend with a larger, better equipped PLA navy and air force, increasing threats in the space and cyber domains, and a Chinese military that is able to work more cohesively to deny the United States access to China’s maritime periphery. These challenges are amplified by ongoing PLA hardware advances in areas such as anti-ship ballistic missiles and advanced sensors, which already pose concerns for U.S. forces in the region.

Nevertheless, the PLA will face several obstacles in fully implementing the reforms. One problem is inter-service rivalry. In an era of slowing economic growth, services will naturally compete for budget share and hold onto unique advantages, which could limit cooperation. A second challenge concerns ground force influence within the PLA. Despite the reforms, the army will be the largest service by far, and most of the PLA’s senior leadership will remain career army officers. This could inhibit the development of a joint mentality in which all service perspectives are represented. A third problem is the lack of combat experience. The PLA hasn’t fought a major war for over 35 years, which means that its organizations, systems, and doctrine haven’t been tested under the “fog of war.”

Another reason for skepticism is that the U.S. military is attempting to stay ahead of the curve by investing in new technologies and developing new operational concepts designed to assure access to contested regions, such as maritime Asia. Greater use of undersea warfare, distributed basing of forces, and other means will help to “offset” China’s growing advantages. If successful, U.S. forces will retain an ability to win in a Taiwan or South China Sea scenario. 

As the latest phase in a long-term modernization process, the structural reforms of the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) are intended to improve its warfighting capabilities against the United States or other potential adversaries that threaten China’s sovereignty or territorial claims. The ongoing reform will help develop a “modern maritime military force structure commensurate with [China’s] national security and development interests,” according to a Chinese military white paper released in May, 2015. But these changes require abandoning the “traditional mentality that land outweighs sea,” a fundamental shift in mindset and doctrine that will likely take decades to achieve in a military that the Army has long dominated. This batch of reforms will proceed through 2020, but they will not be the last as the PLA strives to complete military modernization by the 100th anniversary of the People’s Republic of China in 2049.

Beijing seeks to achieve its national objectives through the use of all elements of comprehensive national power—of which military is but one—without going to war. The intention of military modernization is first to deter threats to China’s sovereignty and territorial integrity, and to contribute to attaining the ruling Chinese Communist Party and government’s national strategic objectives; i.e. to “win without fighting.” Strategic deterrence is based on the development of a credible fighting force, the will to use that force, and an exchange of messages between the deterring side and those to be deterred in a psychological tug-of-war. If China is compelled to engage in a major use of military force, its national strategy will have failed—whether it wins or loses the battle.

Despite increased defense budgets and the influx of new equipment over the past two decades, the senior PLA leadership understands that time and training are even more important to prepare the force for future challenges. When speaking to foreigners, the senior PLA leadership has framed the force’s capabilities as lagging behind those of modern militaries by 20-30 years. That timeframe may understate progress made in some fields like missiles, cyber, and electronic warfare but overstate capabilities in joint and combined arms operations. Among themselves, the men tasked with leading operational units are frank about PLA capabilities. They use formulations like the “Two Inabilities” (两个能力不够), “our military’s ability to fight a modern war is not sufficient, the ability of cadres at all levels to command modern war is insufficient,” and the “Five Cannots” (五个不会): “some commanders cannot judge the situation, cannot understand intentions of higher authorities, cannot make operational decisions, cannot deploy troops, and cannot deal with unexpected situations.” Current reforms aim to overcome these deficiencies.

PLA doctrine emphasizes “prudence in fighting the first battle” and “fighting no battle you are not sure of winning.” The senior uniformed leadership understands the difficulties in building the PLA’s deterrence and warfighting capabilities. China’s civilian leaders and events beyond the control of the PLA may, however, not allow them the time to prepare as much as they would prefer. If directed, the PLA will nonetheless obey orders to defend China’s sovereignty. Success is never guaranteed. 

Thursday, August 25, 2016 - 2:45pm

Will restructuring the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) as a joint force boost China’s chances of defeating the U.S. military off Taiwan or in the South China Sea? Probably. Eventually. Insofar as there exist eternal principles of warfare, attaining unity of command and effort counts among them. But by reforming itself to make the army, navy, air force, and fellow branches work together, the PLA is undertaking a massive project that promises uncertain gains.

Look at the American experience with remaking military institutions. Washingtoncreated the Department of Defense in the late 1940s with the same basic aims Beijing is pursuing today. The institution—particularly the Joint Chiefs of Staff—was still finding its footing when the Korean War broke out in 1950. Its immaturity let General Douglas MacArthur run amok in an effort to forcibly reunify the Korean Peninsula. China intervened on the peninsula and MacArthur publicly challenged civil authority—all due, in part, to incomplete transformation of U.S. fighting forces.

Congress saw fit to reform the armed forces once again in the 1980s, enacting “Goldwater-Nichols” legislation in an effort to perfect what the 1940s restructuring left imperfect. But problems lingered even then. Consequently, there’s ample talk among lawmakers about revisiting Goldwater-Nichols.

Now, China’s authoritarian leadership doesn’t have to worry about the myriad clashing interests that typify democratic legislatures and shape military institutions. But even if Beijing transmutes the PLA into a joint force twice as fast as Washington did, the process threatens to consume several decades.

But there’s a more basic reason than congressional and bureaucratic politics why disharmony of effort persists among armies, navies, and air forces—namely that soldiers, mariners, and airmen see warfare in fundamentally different terms. Admiral J. C. Wylie, an illustrious predecessor of mine here on the Naval War College faculty,proclaimed in effect that where a warrior stands on tactical, operational, and strategic questions depends on the medium where he operates.

Think about it. Groundpounders operate mainly on land, so they think in terms of terrain. Their core assumption is that decisive ground combat represents the key to controlling territory and defeating foes. Seafarers roam that featureless plain that is the sea. They assume command of sea lanes crisscrossing that plain is the goal of military operations. Aviators soar over embattled land and sea, largely exempt from geography. They assume warplanes’ capacity to destroy from aloft confers control of events below.

It verges on impossible, says Wylie, to fully reconcile arguments deriving from outlooks that disparate. Fierce interservice feuding results in many instances. It tends to drive debates among army, naval, and air commanders and their political masters tend toward the lowest common denominator—that is, toward whatever partisans of terrestrial, oceanic, and aerial warfare can manage to agree upon.

Can PLA and Chinese Communist Party leaders tame the impulse to interservice partisanship? Doubtful. If they do, it will constitute a wonder for the ages. If not, a long, slow, bureaucratic grind awaits Beijing—along with a joint force that may underperform its potential.