Maj Gen PK Mallick, VSM (Retd)
ISF will integrate PLA’s joint operation system, carry out Information support operations precisely and effectively, and facilitate military operations in various directions and fieldsOn 19 April 2024, Chinese President Xi Jinping, also General Secretary of the Communist Party of China’s (CPC) Central Committee and Chairman of the Central Military Commission (CMC), attended a ceremony in Beijing to launch the Information Support Force (ISF), a new wing of the People’s Liberation Army. He said it will be a strategic branch and a key pillar in coordinating the construction and application of the PLA network information system. ISF is a revised version of the Strategic Support Force (SSF). Xi said that establishing ISF is a major decision the CPC and CMC made in light of the overall need to build a strong military.
Xi Jinping said, “This is of profound and far-reaching significance to the modernization of national defence and the armed forces and to the military’s fulfilment of its missions and tasks in the new era. The Information Support Force is a brand-new strategic branch of the PLA and a key pillar of the integrated development and use of the network information system. It plays an important role and bears great responsibility in promoting the PLA’s high-quality development and the ability to fight and win in modern warfare”.
ISF will integrate PLA’s joint operation system, carry out Information support operations precisely and effectively, and facilitate military operations in various directions and fields.
Xi emphasised accelerating innovation and development, adhering to the fundamental traction of combat needs, strengthening system planning, promoting joint construction and sharing, enhancing scientific and technological innovation and building a network information system that meets the requirements of modern warfare.
Xi Jinping stressed that the new force must use information assets to support combat operations. It must maintain information flow, integrate information resources, protect information security and integrate deeply into the military’s joint operation system. He said it must form a network information system with Chinese characteristics that can support modern combat operations.
Wu Qian, Spokesperson for China’s Ministry of National Defence, stated, “The information support force is a new, strategic branch of the military and a key pillar in coordinating the construction and application of the network information system. It will play a crucial role in advancing the Chinese military’s high-quality development and competitiveness in modern warfare. With the latest reform, the PLA now has a new system of services and arms under the leadership and command of the Central Military Commission. There are four services: the Army, the Navy, the Air Force and the Rocket Force, and four arms, including the Aerospace Force, the Cyberspace Force, the Information Support Force and the Joint Logistic Support Force. As circumstances and tasks evolve, we will continue to refine the modern military force structure with Chinese characteristics.”
The president ordered that the new force must be absolutely loyal to the Party. The Information Support Force must resolutely follow the Party’s command, ensuring absolute loyalty, purity and reliability.
Chairman XI Jinping awarded a military flag to ISF. Lt Gen Bi Yi, the deputy commander of SSF, will command the newly formed ISF.
Brief Background of Reorganisation of PLA and introduction of Strategic Support Force.
Since Xi Jin Ping assumed power in 2012, he has taken a keen interest in reorganising and modernising the People’s Liberation Army (PLA), revamped the military, and reduced its size to around two million by retrenching three lakh troops and officers, besides overhauling the command structures of the PLA and creating a missile force called the Rocket Force.
Xi’s last major PLA restructuring in 2015 moved key functions such as logistics, training and mobilisation directly under the command of the CMC, which he chairs.
Combining cyber, information and space forces under the Strategic Support Force. (SSF) was viewed as an attempt to create similar direct control. The creation of SSF in 2015 was the major reorganisation of PLA.
The reorganisation was needed because it was felt that before the reforms, the rapid development of the technical proficiencies of Chinese cyber, space and Electronic Warfare (EW) forces stood in glaring contrast with the PLA’s stagnant operational structure. There was a growing realisation that the PLA’s structure and organisation, not its technological capabilities, had become the primary roadblock facing PLA modernisation efforts. Vital organisations responsible for space, cyber and electronic warfare missions were silo-based, where operational necessity demanded greater integration of these forces.
PLA took this opportunity to realign its growing space, cyber, psychological and electronic warfare capabilities into a unified force (SSF).
China’s Military Organisations After Reforms of 2015
What was the necessity of another major reorganisation after nine years?
Organisational Issues.
Cyber. It was not clear how the PLA will integrate the SSF’s cyber operations, which is mostly focused on espionage and offence, with the PLA’s cyber defence mission. The responsibility for PLA network protection remains with the Information Support Base under the Joint Staff Department’s Information and Communications Bureau.
Is the SSF responsible for the cyber defence of private, civilian and critical infrastructure networks? It is unclear where the SSF would get the resources in terms of the personnel or capabilities to fulfil this role. The SSF would need to create this capability from scratch.
The coordination between the SSF cyber defence and protection mission and the Ministry of Public Security and Cyberspace Administration of China, both charged with maintaining the security and defence of China’s critical information infrastructure, is not clear. China would face challenges in explaining roles and responsibilities and establishing necessary legal, procedural, and technical means of operational coordination and incident response to protect critical infrastructure security. This would require a lot of maturity and foresight as civilian and military authorities’ requirements are sometimes contradictory or overlapping.
PLA units responsible for operations planning have little experience in anticipating and balancing between the two cyber offensive and defensive operations missions. The PLA has not developed a doctrine for the use of force in cyberspace under which consistent judgments can be made in a crisis.
The PLA will have to decide critical issues about peacetime and wartime targeting, escalation in situations where the peacetime and wartime divide is blurred, battlespace prepositioning and the viability and wisdom of utilising cyber operations to achieve specific strategic military objectives.
Command and Control. SSF is under the direct command of the CMC rather than being commanded by theatre commands. The SSF will act as a service. It is not clear if the CMC will also treat it as an operational entity or how the CMC will operationalise forces that are under its administrative purview.
Theatre commands will not have operational authority over strategic-level cyber units, electronic warfare units or space assets. These capabilities will be commanded directly by the CMC. This contradicts the logic that services focus on force construction rather than operations and warfare.
New theatre commands and subordinate service elements will likely have their own cyber or network-electronic operations capabilities. This raises the following questions:
The effectiveness of China’s SSF in overcoming the PLA’s organisational and technical weaknesses and successfully integrating China’s war-fighting capabilities to fulfil joint operations requirements on the modern battlefield especially beyond China’s near-seas, remains to be seen.
It is unclear what the SSF’s precise responsibilities are for kinetic counter-space capabilities like anti-satellite weapons (ASAT), directed energy weapons, and lasers, and how it will coordinate with the PLA Rocket Force.
The progress of China’s next-generation dual-use innovations like quantum computing, cyber-warfare, space-based ISR, directed energy devises, AI etc.
Whispers in the corridor. The modernisation and reorganisation drive of the PLA has not been without problems. Leaders in China want to strengthen the military in the lead-up to 2027 when the PLA becomes 100 years old.
It is believed that shooting down of the Chinese surveillance balloon by the U.S., corruption investigations into Generals and a failure to achieve synergies across the different divisions within the SSF may have convinced Xi Jin Ping that the existing structure is not yielding the results anticipated. In 2023, top officials from the military’s rocket force reportedly became embroiled in a corruption crackdown
The military leadership has been experimenting with smaller reorganisations recently, suggesting that the 2015 reforms were incomplete. The relative success of the functions which were moved under the CMC has convinced the political leadership that they will have the control they want. CMC was focused on cutting out layers of command and enabling top leaders to speak directly to tactical forces in wartime if needed.
The report to the 20th National Congress of the Communist Party of China in October 2022 stressed the need for the coordinated construction and utilisation of the network information system.
Lt Gen Bi Yi, a veteran army general and the Deputy Commander of SSF, was appointed commander of the new Information Support Force. Li Wei has been named as its political commissar. The latter position wields power equally with the commander as the Communist party seeks to enforce absolute loyalty and ideological correctness in the force, which belongs to the party rather than the state.
The whereabouts of Lt Gen Ju Gansheng, Commander of the SSF, are unknown. He was rumoured to be involved in military procurement fraud.
Major Changes. The leadership and structures of the PLA Space Force and the PLA Cyberspace Force have been rearranged accordingly. The CMC has cancelled the SSF designation and re-launched it as the ISF. The CMC directly leads the Information Support Force. The new branch of ISF has replaced the Strategic Support Force.
With the latest overhaul, the PLA now has four services: the Army, the Navy, the Air Force and the Rocket Force, and several sub-branches, including the Space Force, the Cyberspace Force, the Information Support Force and the Joint Logistic Support Force.
PLASSF has been split into three parts: Space System Department graduates as Aerospace Force, Network System Department graduates as Cyberspace Force and Base 311 and other elements elevated as Information Support Force.
With the dissolution of the PLA Strategic Support Force (PLASSF) and the elevation of three previous departments / sub-branches of the PLASSF into PLA service branch status, essentially increased the service branches of the PLA from five to eight. The newly reorganised / introduced branches are as follows:
Four Major Military Branches:
People’s Liberation Army Ground Force (PLAGF)
People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN)
People’s Liberation Army Air Force (PLAAF)
People’s Liberation Army Rocket Force (PLARF)
Four Independent Arms Branches directly subordinate to the PLA CMC:
People’s Liberation Army Aerospace Force (PLASF)
People’s Liberation Army Cyberspace Force (PLACF)
People’s Liberation Army Information Support Force (PLAISF)
People’s Liberation Army Joint Logistics Support Force (PLAJLSF)
CMC believes that establishing the Information Support Force will undoubtedly enhance the joint combat capability and all-domain operational capability of the Chinese military based on the network information system. It will help achieve the centennial goals of the PLA’s founding and accelerate the PLA’s transformation into a world-class military force.
The leadership and structures of the PLA Space Force and the PLA Cyberspace Force have been rearranged.
Further developments of People’s Liberation Army Aerospace Force (PLASF) and People’s Liberation Army Cyberspace Force (PLACF) would be observed keenly.
Not much details are available on this latest reorganisation. There are a lot of gaps in the initial information given. Over time, further details on this new structure will emerge.
The author is an Indian Army Veteran
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