The Structure of the Chinese Armed Forces

A blog post on a potential Taiwan invasion from Geoffrey Clark:

The HAAC 2024 in October was great; lots of good analysts and analysis, presentations, and ideas for future work and collaboration. I’ll post the links to the two presentations that I gave here:

Data for Air Combat Modeling in Network Centric Warfare

A Naval Power Index: The United States vs Three Competitors

On November 13 and 27 2024, the HAAC community had meetings on the topic of Taiwan, regarding the sealift and airlift capabilities of the People’s Republic of China (PRC). At these meetings, there were some differences of opinion about who much force the Chinese can place ashore, and also support. I’ll review some information that I’ve been assembling on this topic in this blog post.

Rather than using “PRC”, it might seem more natural to use People’s Liberation Army (PLA), by which they really mean “military”, since the Navy, Air Force, Rocket Force etc. all fall under this banner. This is insufficient, however, since there are several other organizations, and categories of equipment that need to be considered to cover all categories of lift capability that are available to the Chinese nation. We hear the U.S. government use terms like “whole of government”, but in reality, it also includes elements of the private sector as well. This is analogous to the U.S. structures, like the Merchant Marine, and the Civil Reserve Air Fleet (CRAF).

The Swiss Institute on Global Affairs has a good structure chart of the Chinese Military, even if it is a bit dated from 2021. The China Power Project from CSIS also has a good chart from 2022. The most recent change detected is the new “Information Support Force”, which seems like an Information Technology (IT) unit than anything else.

The Chinese Military’s New Information Support Force

CNA, Annette Lee and James Bellacqua | Friday, August 2, 2024

This image above is taken from Chinese Amphibious Warfare: Prospects for a Cross-Strait Invasion. From this analysis, the following forces and elements should be considered at a minimum:

1. PLA Navy (PLAN) – many amphibious vessels, including a growing fleet of large Amphibious General Assault Ships (LHA), Amphibious Transport, Dock (LPD) among many other smaller ships and craft.
2. PLA Navy Marine Corps (PLANMC) – amphibious troops subordinate to the Navy.
3. PLA Army (PLAA) – the ground forces maintain their own troops trained and tasked with amphibious operations. They have their own separate fleet of landing ships.
4. China Coast Guard (CCG) – the world’s largest coast guard force.
5. Maritime Militia – the so-called “Third Sea Force”.
6. PLA Air Force (PLAAF) – Airborne Brigades and Transport aircraft to drop them.
7. Special Forces (SOF) – These troops are part of other organizations – PLAN, PLAAF, PLAA, and People’s Armed Police (PAP), are trained and capable for helicopter borne operations, as well as several non-traditional transport means.
8. PLA Joint Logistics Support Force (PLAJLSF) –

“With modernization reforms in 2016 by Xi [Jinping], the CMC [Central Military Commission] established Logistics Support department, and a new branch known as Joint Logistic Support Force, responsible for integrating C4ISR (command, control, communications, computers, intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance) system, providing the foundation for a joint logistics support network.” – blog post by Bok Lee (see sources below)

9. Civilian Ships intended to transport PLA/PLAN troops – significant news on the requirements to equip Roll-on / Roll-off (RO/RO) ferries with strengthened stern ramps (and other modifications) for compatibility with military amphibious equipment.

Indeed, the pace at which Chinese shipyards are producing new civilian RO/RO vessels has increased significantly. From a China Power Project Report “China Accelerates Construction of ‘Ro-Ro’ Vessels, with Potential Military Implications” from 2023 October,

CSC Jinling Shipyard (招商局金陵船舶（南京）有限公司) far outpaces other ro-ro builders. Nestled along the Yangtze River near Nanjing, Jinling Shipyard specializes in producing ro-ros. It built at least 27 of them between 2015 and 2022, and it is currently poised to deliver as many as 56 from 2023 to 2026.

This cooperation between civilian ferry operators, shipyards and the PLA is not new, and not isolated. This is part of the Military-Civil Fusion strategy, which is well described below.

“Military-Civil Fusion (MCF), this term seems like a counterpart to the American term civil-military integration (CMI), but in reality it is far deeper and more complex. Whereas, according to the U.S. Congressional Office of Technology Assessment, America’s CMI is “cooperation between government and commercial facilities in research and development (R&D), manufacturing, and/or maintenance operations”, China’s Military-Civil Fusion strategy is a state-led, state-directed program and plan to leverage all levers of state and commercial power to strengthen and support the armed wing of the Communist Party of China, the People’s Liberation Army (PLA).” – from CASI’s China’s Military-Civil Fusion Strategy (see sources below).

What was perhaps the most enlightening aspect of this survey of research was a paper written by Lyle Goldstein, former professor at the U.S. Naval War College, and also a contributor to CMSI (see sources below). In his paper “The hard school of amphibious warfare: examining the lessons of the 20th century’s major amphibious campaigns for contemporary Chinese strategy”, Goldstein details the research done by the PLA Academy of Military Science, which is tasked with the study of military history and developing military doctrine. From Gallipoli to Normandy, Crete, Norway, the Japanese in the Pacific War to the Inchon landings, as well as the aborted “Operation Sea Lion”, this paper lists the many amphibious and airborne campaigns they have studied, and the points that they have noted as significant. 

“WW2, and Normandy in particular, provide Chinese strategists with ample inspiration, ranging from the Mulberries to airborne operations. Yet, the fact that Chinese military researchers have gone well beyond Normandy to explore the contours of Dieppe, the Norway campaign, Crete, as well as Guadalcanal and Tarawa, illustrates 12 L. GOLDSTEIN the comprehensive scope of the Chinese endeavor to learn from foreign military experience. The impressively objective account of the Inchon landing demonstrates that Chinese strategists are quite able to put ideology aside in the interest of grasping the fundamentals of well executed amphibious warfare.”

The abstract of this paper is below.

Increasing tensions across the Taiwan Strait have prompted many strategists to debate the nature of China’s amphibious warfare capabilities. While it is often noted that Beijing’s armed forces lack major, recent experience in that domain, this research reveals that Chinese strategists have undertaken intensive and systematic investigation of foreign experiences, including with respect to the most classic cases, such as the Normandy invasion. This study represents a first attempt to survey such Chinese strategic writings, in an effort to better understand the lessons that Chinese strategists take from these foreign campaigns. Themes that emerge from this Chinese literature include an emphasis on undersea warfare capabilities as a critical enabler for amphibious invasion, but an even greater prominence for air supremacy. The most persistent theme in this Chinese literature surrounds intelligence preparation, deception and, above all, surprise. Such findings have important policy implications for Asian security.

This paper also lists some actual experience by the PLA in amphibious operations, specifically the Jinmen and Yijiangshan battles. “The former turned out to be a disastrous bloodbath for the PLA, but the later amphibious landing proved remarkably successful, featuring massive firepower, excellent mutual support among the air, land and sea elements, timely coordination, and even meteorological innovation.”

One case from the 20^th century that was not mentioned as having been studied is Operation Dynamo, the evacuation of the British Expeditionary Force (BEF) from Dunkirk in May and June of 1940. While this was a hastily organized evacuation with an ad-hoc and patriotic appeal to the British ship-owning population, a similar planning effort under the banner of “Military-Civilian Fusion”, as noted above, could find that the actual sealift capabilities employed to be more of an uncomfortable surprise.

These are some of the excellent scholarly works available that I would consider authoritative on this topic:

• China Maritime Studies Institute (CMSI) – part of the U.S. Naval War College, publishing excellent works from 2006.
• Chinese Amphibious Warfare: Prospects for a Cross-Strait Invasion – an excellent, thorough analysis by Andrew S. Erickson,Conor M. Kennedy, and Ryan D. Martinson, and just published on November 7^th.
• Crossing the Strait: China Prepares for War with Taiwan – a thorough analysis published by the National Defense University in 2022.
• Modern Chinese Maritime Forces (MCMF) 2024-Oct-1 edition – excellent, thorough coverage of PLAN, PLAA landing forces, CCG, Maritime Militia.
• PLA Ground Forces Quick Reference Guide – by the U.S. Army Training and Doctrine Command (TRADOC)
• The People’s Liberation Army’s Joint Logistics Support Force – blog post by Bok Lee “A Continual Learner”, 2022-01-23.
• China’s Military-Civil Fusion Strategy by China Aerospace Studies Institute (CASI) 2020-06-15.
• The Boiling Moat: Urgent Steps to Defend Taiwan – Edited by Matt Pottinger, published 2024-07-01, this considers steps Taiwan and the U.S. can do to better prepare for and deter any amphibious assault.

Thanks for reading and for your comments!