- aircraft battalions could airdrop a combat battalion in one lift. The Z-20 is also expected to fill a variety of missions including special force insertion and shipborne ASW.
- PRC’s outposts in the SCS extend the operating reach of PLA aviation forces.
PLA Strategic Support Force (SSF). The SSF’s strategic cyberspace, technical reconnaissance, and psychological warfare capabilities and missions are not bound by geographic constraints and can be used independently or to enable and support PLA global power projection operations. The SSF’s information support role involves centralizing technical intelligence collection and management, which provides strategic intelligence support to the theater commands, enables power projection, and aids joint operations.
The Network Systems Department’s (NSD), also referred to as the Cyberspace Force (CSF), missions across the cyber and information domains and the electromagnetic spectrum probably provide key capabilities to support PLA power projection globally, including improving China’s access to the cyber domain in peacetime and contesting it in wartime.
- The PLA integrates offensive and defensive cyber operations into its joint military exercises, allowing its cyber personnel to gain operational experience while testing new capabilities.
- In August 2022, the PLA SESS Yuanwang-5 docked at Hambantota Port, in Sri Lanka. These ships are equipped with advanced electronic equipment, sensors, and antenna that can assists in tracking satellite, rocket, and ICBM launches.
The PRC continues to develop a variety of counterspace capabilities designed to limit or prevent an adversary's use of space during a crisis or conflict. In addition to the development of directed-energy weapons and satellite jammers, the PLA has an operational ground-based anti-satellite (ASAT) missile intended to target low-Earth orbit satellites. The PRC probably intends to pursue additional ASAT weapons capable of destroying satellites up to geosynchronous Earth orbit.
ADVANCING TOWARDS AN INFORMATIZED MILITARY
Key Takeaways
- The PLA considers information operations (IO) as a means of achieving information dominance early in a conflict and continues to expand the scope and frequency of IO in military exercises.
- The PRC presents a significant, persistent cyber-enabled espionage and attack threat to an adversary's military and critical infrastructure systems.
- The PLA is pursuing next-generation combat capabilities based on its vision of future conflict, which it calls "intelligentized warfare," defined by the expanded use of AI and other advanced technologies at every level of warfare.
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OFFICE OF THE SECRETARY OF DEFENSE
Annual Report to Congress: Military and Security Developments Involving the People's Republic of China
