What’s Happening?

China’s military expansion is occurring at a time when Taiwan is becoming more resistant to cross-strait reunification, and the U.S. is altering its commitment to Taiwan, suggesting an increasingly dangerous decade ahead in the Taiwan Strait.

Key Insights

• Taiwan’s democratic consolidation means any future reunification with the mainland will be exceedingly difficult.
• China’s confidence in its ability to use force might mislead it into preparing for an invasion
• Misperceptions over shifts in U.S. commitment towards Taiwan could encourage an aggrieved China to use force in the future

The Taiwan Strait is reaching a critical juncture of heightened instability. Heading into the 2020s and 2030s, the struggle for independence, status quo, or reunification will be increasingly felt as each of the key actors—Taiwan, Washington, and Beijing—begin to unravel the twenty-five years of relative stability that has endured since the 1995-6 crisis. Since then, the consolidation of Taiwan’s democracy has become the greatest challenge to China’s quest for reunification. Taiwan continues to oppose any possibility of reunification on Beijing’s terms even if its future leaders do not seek formal independence. Indeed, the public majority and leaders of the traditionally pro-China pan-Blue coalition and independence-minded pan-Green coalitions, including next year’s election candidates, have opposed Chinese President Xi Jinping’s reintroduction of the “One Country, Two Systems” framework for reunification.

Although peaceful reunification is frustrated, mainland China is becoming more powerful and impatient under Xi’s leadership. This is not to suggest that the economic problems China faces are not acute. But the People’s Liberation Army is growing more confident in its ability to match the Taiwanese and U.S. armed forces in a contest of strength. If Xi fails to deliver the prosperity promises of his “great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation,” he could very well resort to speeding up his other more revisionist ambitions of developing a world-class military and reunifying the territories lost during the “Century of Humiliation.”

Costs of Invasion

During the 1995-6 crisis, there was no doubt about the credibility of U.S. deterrent capabilities buttressing the might of the Taiwanese armed forces, which were then considered to be more advanced and powerful than the PLA. Decades later, China’s “military modernization effort has eroded or negated many of Taiwan’s historical advantages in deterring PLA aggression,” including “the PLA’s inability to project sufficient power across the Taiwan Strait, the Taiwan military’s technological superiority, and the inherent geographic advantages of island defense,” the U.S. Department of Defense noted in its 2017 report on Chinese military power. These shifts have purportedly led Xi to believe that the “tide of history”—that is, reunification with Taiwan—favors the mainland.

Assessing the cross-strait military balance generates doubts about the PLA’s capacity to subjugate Taiwan. Beijing lacks the amphibious and lift capabilities to land an invasion, and Taiwan possesses submarines and sea mines that could seriously damage any invasion fleet. Climatic conditions and the gradual build-up of Chinese forces also complicate any surprise offensive. The possibility of staging an urban, counterinsurgency warfare against a resilient Taiwanese society while simultaneously holding off U.S. forces in the Western Pacific also diminishes the success of a Chinese invasion. But with China’s continued acquisition of the relevant capabilities, these disadvantages will gradually erode in the coming decade.

Furthermore, the PLA does not need to be fully equipped to fight a war of reunification. Whether to wage war is not a decision based solely on military calculations, and having confidence in the PLA may mislead the Chinese Politburo into taking an aggressive posture. Given Beijing’s routinization of ‘island encirclement patrols’ and the creation of cross-strait military-civilian flight paths to familiarise the PLA with the terrain and conditions of airlift, an invasion may no longer require a gradual military build-up. By engineering a heightened state of military readiness, it is difficult for Taiwan to gauge when China decides to launch a surprise offensive.

It would be naive to assume that Xi does not have the political resolve to bear the responsibility of a post-invasion war-torn economy, whose share of trade to mainland China has declined to a mere 2% of total Chinese exports. Nor should it be assumed the fear of an anti-China international coalition and the repercussions to its “peaceful rise” image will restrain Beijing from using force. Since 2016, China has been engaging in a multi-faceted pressure campaign to reinforce an alternate reality of Taiwan as a “local affair” to curtail potential foreign criticisms of its cross-strait activities. This has included not just usual diplomatic isolation, but more recently a whole-of-society approach to bring the pressure to bear on the private individuals, commercial airlines and retail businesses of other countries. To a large extent, this has worked. Even the U.S., the primary security guarantor for Taiwan, quietly removed the Taiwanese flag from two of its government websites, suggesting an implicit yielding to Chinese pressure.

Potential U.S. Gradual Retreat

In the coming decade, the costs of invasion will have likely declined, while frustration with Taiwan’s democracy and impatience regarding delays to reunification will have increased. Taiwan will then have to rely not on itself but on U.S. resolve to deter a potential Chinese invasion. Although Washington has entered a period of “strategic competition” with Beijing, growing resource strain — especially with sustained budget sequestration — will force American administrations to reassess U.S. commitment overseas. However, U.S. policymakers, having witnessed President Donald Trump’s damage to U.S. international standing, are unlikely to retreat into isolation. But subsequent occupants of the White House will be forced to weigh the country’s commitments more carefully between vital and peripheral interests.

In this regard, U.S. interest in Taiwan has remained ambiguous since the post-World War II aftermath. While Taiwan sympathizers continue to uphold Taiwan as a vital U.S. interest, the stakes pale in comparison to other more pressing U.S. interests in Asia, such as support for Japan and maintaining the rule of law in the South China Sea. But the issues of prestige and reliability as the region’s primary security guarantor, the fear of China construing U.S. retreat as a sign of weakness, and the domestic sensitivities toward Taiwan as a “beacon of democracy” could conflate Washington’s priorities to stay committed in the face of aggression. Thus, while its ability and willingness to deter China from invading Taiwan is likely to decline over time, it will not retreat without putting up resistance. To make up for resource strain, Washington will demonstrate its symbolic gestures to Taiwan to caution China about the prospect of U.S. military intervention. This included the recent passing of the Taiwan Travel Act to allow two-way senior official exchanges, stationing U.S. military personnel to the new American Institute in Taiwan for the first time since 2005, potential port visits and new arms sales. But in doing so, Beijing could misread the gestures as signs of a growing commitment to Taiwan and be provoked into threatening the U.S. not to interfere in its “local affairs.”

Misreading of Signals

The Taiwan Strait has resumed its status as a dangerous flashpoint. In arranging for a politically viable way to reduce its commitment to Taiwan, Washington could find itself unwittingly confronting an aggrieved and more confident China while trying to preserve its domestic and regional reputation as best as possible. U.S. sales of 60 F-16V fighter jets to Taiwan demonstrated this challenge: the sale was praised as symbolically important but was perceived as an act of provocation by Beijing, resulting in the PLA’s intentional crossing of the ‘median line’ in the Taiwan Strait for the first time in twenty years.

While this has not escalated into further U.S.-China confrontation, Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen’s decision to automatize the forceful expulsion of Chinese forces suggests that future transgressions of the ‘median line’ will no longer be safe from unprofessional encounters and shoot down incidents. The U.S. will then be pressured to respond with a stronger deterrent posture. But with little to no confidence-building mechanisms to manage cross-strait instability, the mutual signaling of threats between Washington and Beijing could turn into ever-more aggressive shows of force, entrapping both countries into a fourth Taiwan Strait crisis and with consequences they are not prepared to face.

The New Taiwan Strait Crisis: a Dangerous Decade Ahead was originally published on Global Security Review.

What’s Happening?

As part of a renewed pushback against Chinese influence, India announced in February that it would allocate $361 million for aid to the Maldives, a fourfold increase from 2018-19.

Key Insights

• Beijing and New Delhi are competing for influence throughout the Indian Ocean, an area which has traditionally been a part of India’s sphere of influence but has recently seen a surge of Chinese economic and military activity.
• Indian Ocean countries such as the Maldives owe a substantial debt to China; New Delhi worries that debt-trap diplomacy could lead to Chinese military bases in the region.
• India will bolster its economic and military efforts in its near abroad while continuing to call on like-minded allies to play a larger role in countering Chinese influence in the region.

The Maldives: Trouble in Paradise an Opportunity for India

Dispensing foreign aid is hardly the primary concern of Indian policymakers. Faced with debilitating poverty levels, the South Asian nation still receives aid from a number of countries such as the UK and the US. Yet the announcement of a new foreign aid component for the 2019-2020 budget has triggered the interest of Indian foreign policy pundits because of one notable outlier. Compared to 2018-2019, aid to the Maldives has seen a 460% increase, with $361 million being allocated to the island nation. The budget boost follows New Delhi’s declaration in December 2018 that it would provide $1.4 billion in financial assistance to Malé, after a meeting between Maldives President Ibrahim Mohamed Solih and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

Recent political upheaval in the Maldives provides the backdrop for these decisions. The newly elected Solih defeated pro-China authoritarian leader Abdulla Yameen in a surprise election result in October 2018. Solih’s victory was clearly a welcome relief for politicians in New Delhi who described the victory as a ‘triumph of democratic forces’.

During Yameen’s five-year rule, the Maldives strengthened ties with China, solidifying a free trade deal and welcoming considerable investment while sidelining Indian concerns over the relationship. Yet the spending spree was no free lunch. The Maldives accumulated between $1.5 billion and $3 billion in debt to Chinese lenders due to an infrastructure construction boom. Solih is now actively trying to reduce this debt. India’s financial assistance will go a long way towards alleviating Malé’s financial distress. It also represents New Delhi’s intention to forge closer ties with neighboring countries and signals a broader pivot back to the Indian Ocean.

The Red Dragon in the Indian Ocean

Rather than being India’s canary in the coal mine, the Maldives represents just one aspect of China’s increasing presence across the Indian Ocean. Through its flagship Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) – which India vehemently opposes – Beijing has sought to strengthen its economic and diplomatic relations with Indian Ocean nations. China sees this as a ‘win-win’ opportunity for all parties involved to enhance development and connectivity and denies any form of nefarious motive behind the sprawling scheme. Yet India doesn’t see the BRI as wholeheartedly benign. Instead, New Delhi believes that Beijing is putting some countries in significant debt stress to gain leverage for the ultimate purpose of pursuing its own strategic aims, a concept known as  ‘debt-trap diplomacy’.

Perhaps the best-known example of Chinese debt-trap diplomacy is in Sri Lanka. Colombo built Hambantota port on the southern coast using Chinese loans that it ultimately couldn’t repay, resulting in a debt-equity swap that left the port under the control of state-owned enterprise China Merchants Group on a 99-year lease. The fear for Indian policymakers is that this port will eventually be used as a military facility for Chinese naval vessels, as part of a scheme to ultimately establish a ‘String of Pearls’ – a series of Chinese military bases across the Indian Ocean – that would threaten India’s lines of communication and ability to project force in the event of a military crisis.

China’s opening of a military base in Djibouti in 2017, its operation of the Gwadar Port in Pakistan, and its increased naval presence throughout the Indian Ocean to protect sea lines of communication and enhance anti-piracy efforts are perceived by India to be a threatening combination. Coupled with reports that the Maldives, Sri Lanka, and Pakistan are all facing high BRI-related debt distress, India is extremely concerned that these countries could become beholden to China’s will in the future.

Battles for Influence, Calls for Allies

Perceptions of China have soured in the Maldives since Solih came to power. The cheap loan binge by former president Yameen has come to an end and the hangover is starting to set in. Solih has already pledged to pull out of the free trade deal with China, claiming that deal was ‘very one-sided’.

The competition for influence is unlikely to be confined to the Maldives, with Sri Lanka on the radar for both nations. Rival bailout bids have been tabled for the debt-stressed country: the Reserve Bank of India agreed to a $400 million currency swap arrangement with the Central Bank of Sri Lanka in January 2019, while the Bank of China allegedly offered a $300 million loan. In this respect, Sri Lanka presumably welcomes competition from the bigger powers if it results in a better outcome for debt reduction, and will more than likely hedge between the two nations rather than simply picking sides.

India will increasingly call on like-minded allies to play a larger role in countering Chinese presence in the Indian Ocean. The French naval destroyer FNS Cassardrecently docked into a military port in Mumbai after India and France solidified a Joint Strategic Vision deal to increase co-operation between the two countries. Australian Foreign Minister Marise Payne also reminded audiences at the Raisina Dialogue – a multilateral geopolitical conference held in New Delhi – that Australia remained committed to securing the Indian Ocean through close collaboration with joint naval exercises and support for regional institutions.

Expect this kind of diplomatic signaling to continue and strengthen in the future, with the possibility of a revival in more military exercises within the ‘Quad’ group, a security cooperation arrangement between the US, Japan, Australia, and India. Extra funding may also be dedicated to promoting and implementing the Asia-Africa Growth Corridor, a sea corridor promoting development across the Indian Ocean and into Africa that India has developed with Japan to rival BRI.

On the flip side, China will double down somewhere that India can’t compete: Pakistan. The $62 billion China Pakistan-Economic Corridor (CPEC), with the Gwadar port as the flagship project, has come under increased scrutiny due to concerns among the new Pakistani leadership about the country’s debt levels. As other countries across the Indian Ocean begin to doubt the viability of some BRI projects, China can’t afford for its close strategic relationship with Pakistan to sour. Expect Beijing to continue pouring investments into the country. The addition of Saudi Arabia and the UAE to participate in CPEC allows China to diversify its risks whilst also strengthening its relationships with the Middle Eastern countries. More partners could join that align with China’s strategic goals, with Iran pointing out that it too had ambitions to take part.

India’s renewed influence in the Maldives shows that foreign policymakers in New Delhi are aware that for the country to remain a significant force in the Indian Ocean, they need to focus on a few key objectives. These include maintaining close ties to nearby countries by offering incentives and assistance, calling on powerful allies to support its efforts across the Indian Ocean, and also displaying independent expressions of force projection. The ensuing competition with China over influence in the Indian Ocean will likely only intensify over the coming months and years.

New Delhi’s Foreign Policy in the Indian Ocean was originally published on Global Security Review.

What’s Happening?

The U.S. is engaging in an adverse competition with China that, absent a negotiated understanding, will become increasingly difficult to manage and may spill out of control.

Key Insights

• U.S. perceptions of and approach towards China are turning hostile with an ideological undertone that may fuel misperception and miscalculation.
• Beijing is not yet ready to confront Washington in the same way that the U.S. is now beginning to view its relationship with China.
• A cold war between China and the U.S. today will be far more difficult to manage than the contest between the U.S. and the USSR.

A New Normal

In recent years, several bodies and prominent individuals in Washington have instigated a series of measures that have shifted U.S. perception and strategic posture toward China. They included the release of National Security Strategy (NSS) and National Defense Strategy (NDS), Secretary of Defense James Mattis’s remarks at the Shangri-La Dialogue, the White House’s China technology report, President Donald Trump’s trade war with China, the National Defense Authorisation Act 2019 (NDAA) and most recently Vice President Mike Pence’s speech at the Hudson Institute.

The aforementioned reports and speeches share an outlook that U.S.-China relations are turning increasingly competitive at a time when Beijing has been accused of committing more and more actions perceived as fundamentally incompatible with Washington’s interests and values. Pence’s speech, in particular, summarised China’s “whole-of-government approach” by pointing out its malign activities.

In the U.S.:

• Influence operations
• Cyber-operations
• Technological espionage
• Intellectual property theft
• Investment in critical national assets
• Predatory economics

In the region:

• Eroding U.S. military advantages and its alliance system
• Committing aggressive acts in the South China Sea

In China:

• “A sharp U-turn toward control and oppression.”
• The “Great Firewall of China”
• The “Orwellian system” of “social credit system.”
• Religious crackdown
• Suppression in secessionist regions

Pence’s speech is not surprising given the gradual change in American attitudes toward China. But by invoking the failures of past administrations to integrate China into the U.S.-led international order, he reflected a new normal for the U.S.: it will no longer “be intimidated” by China and “will not stand down.” Furthermore, Pence’s speech was given in the context of the NDAA, which received bipartisan support in Congress, meaning that the turn is not a short-lived phenomenon and is likely to last beyond Trump’s presidential term.

Strategic Competition Turning Adversarial

While ‘strategic competition’ has become the Trump administration’s preferred label to frame Washington’s relations with Beijing, the U.S. has been sending signals that it views the relationship as increasingly adversarial and zero-sum. For example, the NDS acknowledges China’s quest for “Indo-Pacific regional hegemony in the near-term and displacement of the United States to achieve global preeminence in the future.”

The U.S. has sought to prevent this and is preparing forces not only to deter but to win a war against China. Such reaction and response have called into question whether Beijing is merely a ‘competitor’ or is, in fact, emerging as a threat that warrants a more aggressive response. As Anthony H. Cordesman from the CSIS warns, “it is becoming steadily harder to distinguish between efforts designed to limit or contain the other state and those that might lead to actual conflict.”

More dangerously, the ‘strategic competition’ label is feeding an ideological narrative that divides Americans and Chinese into ‘us’ and ‘them.’ Robert Keohane and Jeff Kogan, for example, advocate that Washington “nurture a uniquely American social identity and a national narrative [t]hat will require othering authoritarian and illiberal countries.” The NSS and NDS have, in line, developed an image of China as a “revisionist power” bent on shaping “a world consistent with their authoritarian model” and “antithetical to U.S. values and interests.”

However, ideological narratives have the tendency to facilitate simple-minded worldviews and reduce the foreign ‘other’ to stereotypes, which fuels misperception and unnecessary distrust, and are instrumental to opportunist leaders especially during critical junctures of domestic political transition. Pence’s speech was partly fuelled by suspicion rather than facts; his accusation that China is “influencing the [U.S.] midterms [elections]” was contradicted by the Department of Homeland Security and has led to speculation that he was shoring up domestic support to fuel his neoconservative agenda.

An Emerging Cold War?

The adversarial undertone in U.S.-China relations has generated speculation of an emerging ‘cold war’ (see here and here). However, a ‘cold war’ will first require both parties to develop opposing perceptions of each other and Beijing seemingly remains ambiguous as to how it views itself and its relations with Washington. For now, China is caught between simultaneously pursuing peaceful development and its ambitions of territorial reunification and great-power respect. The former requires maintaining a conducive environment for prosperity, including peaceful relations with the U.S. and its neighbors. But the latter requires acting tough on issues where sovereignty and autonomy are challenged, leading to more assertive and aggressive conduct in international affairs.

During the 19th Party Congress, Chinese President Xi Jinping sought to address these two agendas—but only as separate issues. He has yet to affirm which one is accorded greater priority. Without addressing the contradiction between peace and assertiveness, it is difficult to see how China can formally clarify its perception of the U.S. as either a strategic partner or an ideological threat; the U.S. has both contributed immensely to China’s rise and engaged in actions hostile to Beijing’s aspirations. Professor Chen Dingding posits that there are currently three dominant views in Beijing regarding Washington’s future China policy: containment, competition, and cooperation. The question is how far China will tolerate U.S. policies suggestive of a containment strategy before it pushes back with “calls for active Chinese measures to counterbalance possible U.S. aggressive actions in a possible all-out conflict.”

Moreover, any talk of a ‘cold war’ is unlikely to manifest in the same manner as that between the U.S. and the USSR, which was contested globally through the policies of containment and comprehensive economic decoupling. The world is not currently moving towards bipolar global blocs with close-to-no economic interaction; both China and the U.S. are far too connected to each other and to the global economy. While they currently engage in a trade war, the U.S. is (outwardly) seeking to revise the rules of the game rather than abandon the policy of engagement.

It is difficult to assume that China will simply collapse under the weight of U.S. containment as the USSR did in 1991—its relative economic strength vis-a-vis the U.S. is already greater than that of the Soviet Union at its peak. Furthermore, as Graham Allison notes, “if the U.S. leads [in containing China], who will follow”? U.S. allies and partners have significant interests in maintaining strong relations with both powers—usually in the form of economic ties with China and security commitments with the U.S.—and do not want to make a choice between the two.

Instability in the New Era

However, U.S.-China relations proceed, they are unlikely to remain as stable as the U.S.-USSR bipolar era, which had over time developed a series of tacit and formal signaling and normative arrangements that worked towards ameliorating what could have had been a series of escalatory outbreaks. Today, the structures of the international system are substantially different. The multipolar dynamic, with its uneven distribution of power and influence, creates a greater risk of miscalculation. Rapid technological changes (advanced conventional weapons, cyberwarfare and artificial intelligence) will also make competition increasingly difficult to manage as the global rules and norms fail to keep pace.

Both the U.S. and China will need to manage their differences lest the rivalry transforms into a downward spiral of confrontation. However, the outlook is foreboding. If President Trump withdraws from the Intermediate Nuclear Forces Treaty amidst accusations of unfair Chinese and Russian practices, he will set a precedent that could undermine the future stability of global arms control and plunge the world into another arms race.

Cold War? Towards an Era of Adverse U.S.-China Competition was originally published on Global Security Review.

What’s Happening?

The PLA hierarchy is being overhauled to elevate officers more receptive to Beijing’s desires to build a modern military force.

Key Insights

• President Xi’s sweeping reforms aim to develop a more centralized military force that has stronger joint operational capabilities.
• If successful, the reforms could complicate Taiwanese moves towards independence and the ability of the U.S. to operate close to China.
• New capabilities may lead to increased assertiveness in the South China Sea and on the Indian border, but China will not seek to provoke conflict.

One of the key transitions expected from the 19th Congress of the Chinese Community Party (CCP), which commences on October 18, is that of the extensive overhauling of the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) leadership. In the lead up to the Congress multiple generals on the Central Military Commission (CMC)—the eleven-member top military governing body—have been dropped under suspicion of corruption. President Xi Jinping’s anti-graft crackdown has been ongoing for several years. However, the escalation of investigations into PLA leadership so close to the Congress reflects Beijing’s recognition of the need to spring clean the military’s senior hierarchy and organizational structure to support its desire for a more assertive stance on the world stage.

Centralization, Centralization, Centralization

President Xi laid out the reform’s driving factors in a speech at the beginning of August: “To achieve the dream of the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation, we must quicken the pace of building the people’s army into a world-class army… To build a strong army, we must unswervingly adhere to the party’s absolute leadership over the army”. This requires centralization of two forms: in leadership and in organizational structure.

The sacked generals have been replaced by officials whose careers have for long periods been aligned with Xi, signaling the president’s desire to surround himself with those who subscribe to his vision. This is not surprising. Xi’s military reform program is vast and unprecedented; he needs people in top positions who he can rely on to push his desired changes through the inevitable resistance in the military bureaucracy.

The creation of the Strategic Support Force (SSF) in December 2015 is a sign of the sort of bureaucratic centralization that will continue to accompany the centralization of PLA leadership under the auspices of the reform program. The SSF subsumed the former Third Department of the People’s Liberation Army’s General Staff Department (3PLA), the former Fourth Department (4PLA), and elements of the PLA General Political Department. This gave it a sweeping mandate encompassing all of the PLA’s cyber espionage, ISR (intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance) systems, information operations, propaganda, and psychological warfare.

The salient feature of the SSF is its creation directly under CMC command, giving Xi’s inner circle close control over its operations. This represents recognition among CCP senior leadership of the limitations inherent in the military bureaucracy that has for so long stifled progress.

From a Green to Purple Military

The increasingly hybrid and non-traditional nature of war and the expanded scope of missions required to respond to modern security threats have exposed PLA shortcomings in contemporary military affairs. The PLA’s long-standing embodiment of a ‘green’ military—one overwhelmingly oriented toward the conduct of large-scale ground combat—means it lacks the ability to operate as a nimble joint force (a ‘purple’ military) capable of meeting contemporary security challenges. As a result, the PLA’s operational capabilities still lag behind the modern militaries of most major powers.

Ever since assuming the CMC leadership in 2012, Xi has unfolded successive stages of military reform to rectify this shortcoming in joint operational capability. In addition to the SSF’s launch, Xi reorganized the previous seven military commands into five as part of wider moves to make the organizational structure leaner and more agile. Additionally, a joint command-and-control system was established. This replaced the previous system whereby each service branch would report to their respective headquarters during peacetime, with an ad hoc headquarters being set up during a crisis.

A further obstacle to an advanced joint operational capability was the below-par quality of PLA officers and leaders. When Deng Xiaoping cut funding to the military in order to focus on China’s colossal economic recovery beginning in 1978, the implicit bargain was that the PLA could devise ways to profit from their services in order to stay afloat. This led to a culture of systemic and institutionalized corruption on a scale so severe that many PLA officials openly admit that China’s ability to wage war is entirely insufficient. Increasing PLA professionalism so that warfighting, rather than profit-making, is the priority has been a key concern of Xi’s reforms; the necessity being that the right personnel must be in place to implement the modernization initiatives.

Improved PLA Deterrence?

The sweeping reform process is geared toward enhancing PLA deterrence capabilities, primarily to prevent further moves by Taiwan towards independence and to dissuade U.S. reconnaissance missions close to China’s coastline as well as U.S. freedom of navigation operations in the Western Pacific. If the centralization initiatives and moves toward improving the PLA’s joint operational capability are successful, then the potency and range of Chinese military power will be closer to meeting these deterrence objectives.

Beijing is highly unlikely to test any newfound military acumen by provoking combat against an adversary. However, a newfound deterrence capability will likely see China become increasingly assertive in its peripheral regions. The expansion of Chinese sovereignty claims in the South China Sea seems the most likely arena in which this will unfold. Here, the PLA Navy and the various PRC civil-military bodies have been successful—and will likely continue to be—in incrementally furthering Chinese territorial designs without triggering military hostility from rival claimants and the U.S. This relatively free run is in contrast to Taiwan and the Senkaku Islands which are more tightly enmeshed in U.S security guarantees, making assertiveness of any degree from China more fraught. Considering that the PLA remains deployed in close proximity to Doklam—a border area dispute ostensibly resolved with India in August—it seems that this region will also continue to be a key theatre in which the PLA will look to test itself.

When considering the scale the reforms, the PLA is undergoing; the human element must be kept in the equation. While the PRC military establishment is unlikely to seek conflict if a volatile situation does arise then the newly anointed vanguard of youthful PLA officials may be keen to prove their worth. The potential then arises for miscalculation. Considering the PLA’s relative failure in the recent Doklam dispute, if the issue were to flare up again further down the track, then PLA leadership may again fail to calibrate goals with capabilities.

As PLA leaders themselves admit, there is still some way to go before the reforms will bear significant fruit; overhauling the leadership style and operational mindset is a generational process. Nonetheless, if the expected leadership reforms at the upcoming Party Congress are implemented and the broader PLA streamlining reforms continue, then the PRC will be on its way to building the military required for Beijing’s broader strategic vision.

The PRC has definitively abandoned Deng Xiaoping’s famous ‘hide your strength, bide your time’ foreign relations paradigm for Xi’s ‘China dream,’ and Beijing is pushing to restore Chinese pride on the world stage. It now needs a military able to support an assertive foreign policy. The recent military stand-off with India in Doklam exposed PLA shortcomings in being the agile, capable and modern force needed to support PRC assertiveness. As such, expect to see efforts to address these vulnerabilities continue with vigor going forward. If the reforms are executed successfully, then a newfound deterrence capability will change the character of contested areas like the South China Sea.

The PLA in Transition: In Pursuit of the ‘China Dream’ was originally published on Global Security Review.