Chinese military must move faster to become world-class fighting force, Xi Jinping tells party congress

The People’s Liberation Army must move quicker with troop training and new strategies to reach its target of becoming a world-class military, Chinese President Xi Jinping said in opening the 20th Communist Party congress.

Fast modernisation of the PLA’s organisation, personnel and military technology standards, under the absolute leadership of the party, would be key not only to defending China’s sovereignty but also its security and developmental interests, Xi said delivering his latest work report to the congress.

“The use of military power needs to be normalised and used in diverse ways,” he said in the report published on Sunday.

“We need to be able to stage military operations readily, create a secure environment, deter and control risks and conflicts, and win regional wars.”

The focus on “regional wars” stands in contrast to both Xi’s last party congress report in 2017 and his historical resolution last year, when he also said the PLA must win wars under his watch, but without qualifying their scale.

The just-published work report portrays the PLA as providing strategic support for his ideological goal of the rejuvenation of the Chinese nation, which includes reunifying Taiwan with the Chinese mainland.

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Xi, however, did not refer to regional wars as he addressed the 2,340 party cadres gathered in Beijing’s Great Hall of the People on Sunday.

He said Beijing would try its best to bring Taiwan back into the fold by peaceful means, but would not renounce the option of using force if need be. Beijing views Taiwan as a breakaway province to be brought under its control, and most countries do not recognise the self-ruled island as an independent country.

Beijing is also embroiled in territorial disputes with multiple neighbours over competing claims in the South China Sea.

Its “nine-dash line” laying claim to most of the resource-rich and busy stretch of water was ruled unlawful by the Permanent Court of Arbitration at The Hague in 2016, but Beijing has refused to recognise the decision.

Risks to national security – from traditional concerns such as territorial integrity to non-traditional ones such as supply chain resilience and technological self-sufficiency – are recurrent themes in the report that sets goals for party rule over the next five years and spells out the rationale behind the leadership’s policies.

Li Nan, a visiting senior research fellow at the National University of Singapore’s East Asian Institute, said the return of “regional war” after the phrase’s absence in recent major official documents, including the 2019 white paper on national defence, was a good sign that the Chinese military would be focused on smaller-scale warfare.

“All the other previous white papers talked about ‘regional war’. That [2019] white paper dropped the phrase, so that was very disturbing,” he said.

“It showed that Xi Jinping might not be very interested in a localised war and wanted to expand the PLA’s capability beyond fighting a limited, local war.”

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Li noted that the report mentioned promotion of security ahead of combat and deterrence, which also indicated that the PLA would only resort to wars once Beijing failed to create what it deemed to be a secure situation and adequate deterrence.

“It shows that the PLA will have the initiative: it has the agency and it’s in control. It can shape the security posture, which is basically based on the premise that the PLA is in control,” he said.

Yue Gang, a former PLA colonel, said winning regional wars was a realistic goal for the Chinese military.

“Local wars are the likeliest scenario the PLA will face, and winning them is a requirement,” he said.

Mentions of the PLA’s ability to win regional wars can be traced as far back as a December 2012 speech by Xi, during a visit to the former Guangzhou military region soon after he became party general secretary and chairman of the powerful Central Military Commission.

He said at the time that troops must win regional conflicts under the conditions of information warfare – meaning the increased use of intelligence, data and electronic resources in military strategy.

Ten years on, Xi in his latest report to the congress has made sure military modernisation continues, so that the PLA will produce new military strategies and rely more on cutting-edge technologies, such as autonomous vehicles and networked information systems, in both training and actual combat.

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The military must also focus more on combat capabilities in “new areas”, Xi said in an apparent reference to space warfare, and a “powerful strategic deterrence system” that Li said pointed to nuclear deterrence.

Xi also said the PLA must improve joint combat and command capabilities and strengthen its surveillance, early warning, battlefield support and logistical systems.

The PLA has been tasked by Xi with becoming a top fighting force globally by mid-century, close to the centenary of the founding of the People’s Republic of China.

Yue said that in light of Xi’s global security initiative proposed in April, the PLA was likely to continue to focus on overseas operations, including UN peacekeeping missions.

The initiative received a mention in his party congress report, but Xi has provided few details on the plan that aims to promote China’s view of global security and stability.