China ‘still a long way off’ closing software gap in military technology

The People’s Liberation Army (PLA) has the biggest gains to make in software in its drive to close the technology gap and match the world’s leading armed forces, military analysts said after China released it latest defence white paper.

In its report “China’s National Defence in the New Era”, released on Wednesday, the Chinese government said the PLA had yet to complete the basic task of “mechanisation” while armed forces elsewhere were applying more sophisticated, information-based technology.

“War is evolving towards informationised warfare, and intelligent warfare is on the horizon,” the report said.

“China’s military security is confronting risks from ... a growing technological generation gap. Greater efforts have to be invested in military modernisation to meet national security demands. The PLA still lags far behind the world’s leading militaries.”

Naval expert Li Jie said the PLA was only a decade or so into a major modernisation of its military equipment and there was still a great distance to overcome.

“There are so many examples of this, like [China’s] aircraft carriers, which are at least two generations behind the US carriers, and strategic nuclear submarines, and strategic bombers,” Li said.

Hong Kong-based military commentator Song Zhongping said there was also a gulf in military experience.

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“China has just worked out how to run and maintain one carrier. The US Navy has operated aircraft carriers for many decades and is still optimising and improving their best practices,” Song said. “China has built many warships recently but is still short of high-seas combat experience and support strength.”

The observers said the clearest gap was in communication, with modern warfare fought and won through the coordination of various forces.

“The PLA is catching up in the hardware shortages but the biggest problem is in software, which involves human expertise,” Song said. “Combat theory is also an area where China [has much to learn from] the leading countries.”

Li added that the white paper highlighted the PLA’s plans in coming years to develop long-range precision, stealthy weaponry and equipment, and especially apply intelligent technologies.

He also said the PLA was ahead of other countries in areas such as hypersonic weapons, electromagnetic rail guns, laser weapons and short and medium-range ballistic missiles.

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The white paper said the PLA had to keep up with military applications of cutting-edge technology such as artificial intelligence, quantum information, big data, cloud computing and the Internet of Things.

But Adam Ni, a China specialist at Macquarie University in Sydney, said China had the lead in some of the technologies.

“The fact that the white paper is mentioning the gap is really an admission of a sense of paranoia,” Ni said.