DoD's 2021 China Military Power Report: How Advances in AI and Emerging Technologies Will Shape China’s Military
China is
leveraging emerging technologies such as autonomous systems, quantum,
cyber and more to challenge U.S. interests in the Indo-Pacific. The
latest DoD report on Chinese military power explains what the PLA is
doing.
![Military vehicles carrying hypersonic missiles DF-17 drive past Tiananmen Square during the military parade marking the 70th founding anniversary of People's Republic of China, on its National Day in Beijing, China October 1, 2019.]()
Military vehicles carrying hypersonic missiles DF-17 drive
past Tiananmen Square during the military parade marking the 70th
founding anniversary of People's Republic of China, on its National Day
in Beijing, China October 1, 2019.
REUTERS/Thomas Peter
Yesterday, the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) released its annual report on Chinese Military Power.
The 2021 report demonstrates the growing challenge that China poses to
U.S. interests in the Indo-Pacific and beyond. China’s growing nuclear
arsenal has received most of the media attention.
Underneath the headlines, though, is an approach whereby China seeks to
leverage emerging technologies and innovative operational concepts—for
both conventional and strategic operations—to become a leading military
through an approach described as “intelligentized” warfare. According to
the report, China “seeks to dominate technologies associated with the
Fourth Industrial Revolution” (p. 145) because it will help China become
a world-class military. Below, we outline critical aspects of China’s
military modernization efforts referenced in the report, focusing
particularly on developments related to defense innovation and emerging
technologies.
China Connects Emerging Technology Leadership to Military Capabilities
China believes that emerging technologies will shape and increase the speed
of warfare, meaning future military success will require forces that
are “mechanized, informatized, and intelligentized” (p. 89). The term
“intelligentized” describes "the PRC’s concept of future warfare based
on emerging and disruptive technologies, particularly AI” (p. 146). This
includes intelligent technologies, systems, and operational concepts
such as “attrition warfare by intelligent swarms, cross-domain mobile
warfare, AI-based space confrontation, and cognitive control
operations,” that facilitate information processing and decision-making
on the battlefield.
China is also updating its doctrine and warfighting plans to
incorporate these capabilities. China's Academy of Military Science
(AMS) has a mandate to ensure “that the PLA’s warfighting theory and
doctrine fully capitalize on disruptive technologies like AI and
autonomous systems” (p. 148). Through an emphasis on emerging technologies, China seeks to become a “global innovation superpower” (p. 145).
These intelligentized capabilities are directly related to China’s
potential pursuit of its strategic interests—namely, capturing Taiwan.
While details in the report are limited, it states: “In 2020, the
Chinese Communist Party (CCP) announced a new milestone for PLA
modernization in 2027 broadly understood as the modernization of the
PLA’s capabilities to be networked into a system of systems for
intelligentized warfare. If realized, the PLA’s 2027 modernization goals
could provide Beijing with more credible military options in a Taiwan
contingency” (p. I).
China’s Strategy for Achieving Defense Technology Leadership
China’s mechanism for achieving defense technology leadership, according to the report, remains civil-military fusion.
This is China’s attempt to link technology advances in the private
sector with its military-industrial base. Both U.S. and Chinese
officials have argued that key technologies that will shape the future
of warfare, including artificial intelligence (AI), robotics, quantum,
and biotechnology, are fundamentally dual use (or general purpose). The
private sector is driving innovation around the world. For China, the connection between the private and public sectors
will help determine future technological leadership. As the report
describes, “Under Beijing’s MCF strategy, the PLA seeks to exploit
China’s private sector achievements to further its force modernization
plans” (p. 147). The report also discusses other Chinese technology
leadership initiatives, such as foreign direct investment to acquire
technology, talent recruitment, academic collaborations for research and
development, and illicit acquisition through espionage.
China’s Priority Areas for Defense Investments in Emerging Technologies
The report highlights (p. 148) specific emerging technologies that
China is actively pursuing and illustrates their potential military
applications, as the graphic below shows:
Within the AI and advanced robotics area highlighted in the graphic,
an ongoing question is where and how militaries will use machine
learning. The report outlines Chinese investments in machine learning
for areas including tactical and strategic decision support and
AI-enabled wargaming. The report also describes continuing Chinese
investments in autonomous air, ground, and naval systems, some with
limited AI capabilities, and the use of AI for social media analysis and
propaganda. The report also lays out basic and applied research
priorities for China in the military AI space moving forward, such as
“brain-inspired software and hardware, human-machine teaming, swarming,
and decision making” (p. 146).
More broadly, the above technologies demonstrate the military and
economic areas that China is prioritizing. China’s heavy research
expenditures and its “focus on technological independence and indigenous
innovation” through policies such as Made in China 2025 and China Standards 2035, has “positioned the PRC at, or near, the lead of numerous scientific fields”—worrying many in the United States (p.146).
The report emphasizes particular advancements China made in these
domains in 2020, such as its allocation of around $85 million to AI
research; its plans to expand its “2,000 km quantum-secure communication
ground line” connecting Beijing and Shanghai to other cities, and to
create a global, satellite-enabled version by 2030; and the People’s
Liberation Army Air Force’s initial fielding of the DF-17, a hypersonic
glide vehicle (pp. 60,146). The report refers to cyber elsewhere—as a
more mature capability already better integrated into the PLA.
Potential Pitfalls in China’s Military Development
The report underscores how China is modernizing and advancing its
military, and how the current Chinese regime views defense technology
and innovation leadership as a critical pillar supporting their effort
to create world-class warfighting capabilities. Specifically, China
directly views its ability to harness and leverage emerging and
disruptive technologies like AI as decisive for its ability to achieve
strategic goals such as taking Taiwan. This report highlights that the
DoD is aware of and concerned by these initiatives, which appear to be
systematic, well-resourced, and clearly delineated. However, while the
report references these technologies, and how China plans to develop
them, it lacks specific detail on how the People’s Liberation Army will
use technological breakthroughs. Questions also remain about China’s
ability to operate these capabilities in combination, as the
simultaneous integration of emerging technologies and traditional
operations will be organizationally challenging. So while Chinese
military power continues to grow, there is uncertainty about what role
emerging technologies will play in future conflicts, and when.