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KEY TAKEAWAYS
- CCP leaders view the PLA's growing global presence as an essential part of the PRC's international activities to create an international environment conducive to China's national rejuvenation.
- The CCP has tasked the PLA to develop the capability to project power outside China's borders and immediate periphery to secure the PRC's growing overseas interests and advance its foreign policy goals.
The CCP continues its goal to create international conditions that are conducive to the PRC's development and compatible with its aspirations for the PRC's rejuvenation as a "great modern socialist country." CCP leaders believe that the PRC's global activities, including the PLA's growing global presence, contribute to creating a “favorable” international environment for the PRC's national rejuvenation. Of note, the PRC's perception of its international security environment is evolving in ways that Beijing views as "increasingly complex." The PRC's view of its increasingly complex security environment likely also factors into the PLA's growing global ambitions.
The CCP has tasked the PLA to develop the capability to project power outside China's borders and immediate periphery to secure the PRC's growing overseas interests and advance its foreign policy goals. The PRC is focusing on efforts to develop security relationships with key countries along its periphery. In addition to promoting BRI, the PRC is seeking new cooperative security partnerships with foreign nations, including the expansion of the PLA's global military attaché presence and access, expansion of strategic partnerships, and ensuring more reliable, cost-effective, and diverse sources of energy and other strategic resources.
The PRC probably will continue to expand the PLA's global military presence through humanitarian assistance, naval escorts and port calls, peacekeeping operations (PKO), arm sales, influence operations, and bilateral and multilateral military exercises. Through these engagements, Beijing can strengthen and expand its diplomatic relationships to advance its foreign policy goals, to include shaping the international system to align with the PRC's interests, gaining operational experience for the PLA, and attracting foreign interest in hosting PLA bases and dual-use installations abroad.
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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
