One of the more substantive aspects of the Defense White Paper its progress report on reforming PLA leadership and organization to support a joint operations command system, a process that Xi announced officially in September 2015. The PLA is doing so with new capabilities and organizations for emerging domains that seek to leverage information-age innovation and thereby prepare for new ways of war. Among them, “China’s armed forces accelerate the building of their cyberspace capabilities, develop cybersecurity and defense means, and build cyber defense capabilities consistent with China’s international standing and its status as a major cyber country. They reinforce national cyber border defense, and promptly detect and counter network intrusions. They safeguard information and cybersecurity, and resolutely maintain national cyber sovereignty, information security and social stability.” All these actions are justified as defensive responses to pressing threats. On a related note, the report describes the PLA Strategic Support Force as providing information and communications assurance, information security and battlefield environmental protection, new technology testing, and other facilitating functions. This entails such complex activities as system of systems integration (体系融合) and military-civil fusion (军民融合).

Additionally, the report states, “Outer space is a critical domain in international strategic competition.” Noted space expert Michael J. Listner has shared the following analysis with the author: The 2019 Defense White Paper continues with the theme of the 2015 White Paper, which identified outer space as a commanding height. It also adds a new facet by characterizing space as a critical domain in the context of strategic competition. In doing so, it appears to respond to both the Pentagon’s 2019 China military power report and the Defense Intelligence Agency’s 2019 report on space security. In this way, this year’s paper is part policy statement and part propaganda response to the recent focus on outer space as a domain of war by the United States and the growing recognition of the strategic importance of outer space by NATO and Western nations more broadly. In doing so, the paper overtly labels the United States as the aggressor in outer space, which is a common refrain of Western non-governmental organizations focused on outer space security, and postures its outer space capabilities as a deterrent response as opposed to an active counter-space capacity.

Listner adds that the Defense White Paper applies lawfare techniques and attempts to manipulate the rule of law by promoting the PRC’s accession to the four major space law treaties and its work on international agreements—including the Treaty on Prevention of the Placement of Weapons in Outer Space and of the Threat or Use of Force against Outer Space Objects (PPWT) —to evince its stance as promoting outer space for peaceful purposes in opposition to that of the United States, NATO, and other Western alliances. As with all policy positions taken in other domains, however, Beijing’s true intentions in outer space are better gauged by its actions than its words.

The report’s greatest concentration of its ever-scarce specifics are used to characterize China’s defense budget as moderate and unreproachable given the nation’s specific circumstances: “Comparisons on three dimensions—ratio of defense expenditure to GDP, ratio to government spending, and per capita defense expenditure—prove without any doubt that China’s defense expenditure is on a relatively low level and its increase is reasonable and appropriate.” In fact, however, the data’s sourcing is underspecified and they are not publicly explained, rendering these assertions unproven. There is a fascinating, albeit unverifiable, suggestion that in 2017 41.1 % of PLA expenditures went to fund “equipment expense” versus only 30.8% to fund personnel. This is a tooth-to-tail ratio that most other militaries could only envy, and would reflect the fruits of Xi’s organizational reforms to make the PLA leaner and meaner. Among its extremely limited information concerning the hardware and force structure thus funded, the report states that the J-20 low-observable fighter aircraft and the DF-26 ballistic missile have both been “commissioned.”

Warning: Trouble Ahead

“By issuing the white paper,” OIMC asserts, “the Chinese government confronts… sensitive issues squarely and responds to international concerns actively, in a bid to dispel doubts and boost trust, and enhance international understanding and recognition of China’s national defense and military construction.” Unfortunately, there is a chasm between these highly normative assertions and their likely reception by many audiences, who will fail to meet Beijing’s increasingly impatient expectations of accord and acquiescence. The report extols China’s contributions and cooperative outlook, but Beijing’s actions often demonstrate otherwise. The latest Defense White Paper is vague in many areas, and unclear even in its specifics: most statistics regarding exercises, for example, are hard to interpret absent additional context. What the report does reflect clearly is that Xi remains large and in charge, determined to make China great again by all means necessary, guided by a grand strategy that is the grandest and most strategic of any nation’s today, and refusing to accept obstacles in his path.

Back at the Aspen Security Forum half the world away, Admiral Davidson remarked that with respect to enforcement of UN sanctions against North Korea, “Where we’re not getting help is China. …China has dozens and dozens of…Maritime Militia ships operating in the South China Sea to serve Chinese ends when they could be up helping…on a denuclearization effort of…North Korea and helping monitor these situations that are principally happening…in Chinese territorial waters, in their contiguous zone….”

Yet this is just one of many things that Beijing will not help with. Rather than allay Davidson’s concerns moving forward, China will almost certainly add to them. In key areas of its latest Defense White Paper, as well as in key domains, we are witnessing an increasingly assertive China increasingly determined to forcefully pursue its own interests on its own terms. Observers should look elsewhere for the latest insights on the specifics of PLA development, but no one should miss the ambition, assertiveness, and resolve permeating this official policy document. Real and consequential actions will follow from these sometimes vague but often forceful statements. Prepare for trouble ahead: we have been warned.

Dr. Andrew S. Erickson is a professor of strategy in the China Maritime Studies Institute and the recipient of the inaugural  Civilian Faculty Research Excellence Award at the Naval War College. He is currently a visiting scholar at Harvard University’s John King Fairbank Center for Chinese Studies. He received his Ph.D. from Princeton University and blogs at www.andrewerickson.com.

Image: Reuters.