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Covering Chinese chatters (discourses, narratives, policies and rhetoric) on external events and actors, military and security issues, economy and technology, and bilateral relations with India.
Guarding the Great Wall: Military at the ‘Two Sessions’
By Anushka Saxena
As many of our readers would know, China is currently convening the 2024 edition of the ‘Two Sessions’ (lianghui, 两会), the concurrent annual meetings of the National People’s Congress (NPC), China’s legislature, and its top political advisory body, the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC). This is the second such edition for the 14th NPC and CPPCC, and will go on from March 5 to March 11.
Premier Li Qiang has already presented on March 5 the much-awaited ‘Report on the Work of the Government’ (English Version borrowed with sincere gratitude from the NPC Observer website) and its main highlights revolve around proposed fiscal policy for the coming financial year, growth targets, macro policy orientation, and the overall development agenda for people’s well-being. In his newsletter, ‘Tracking People’s Daily’, Manoj Kewalramani of Takshashila has been doing a breakdown of key speeches and reports from the Two Sessions. Do read and subscribe if you wish to dive deep into the coverage of the NPC.
This week at ‘Eye on China’, I’m doing a brief breakdown of the participation of the military apparatus at the Two Sessions. And mind you, the national defence and security bit of the Government Work Report is only partially exciting this time, given a lot of repetition, and the otherwise broader focus on economic policy.
To begin with, the Work Report makes the following points vis-a-vis strengthening of national defence in the last year, and what the trajectory for this year will be:
Last year, we made new achievements and progress in national defense and military development, and our people’s armed forces fulfilled their missions and tasks with impressive results. This year, we will continue to implement Xi Jinping’s thinking on strengthening the military and the military strategy for the new era.
We will remain committed to the Party’s absolute leadership over the people’s armed forces, thoroughly implement the system of ultimate responsibility resting with the chairman of the Central Military Commission, and take critical steps to meet the centenary goal of the People’s Liberation Army.
The armed forces will strengthen all-around military training and combat readiness, make well-coordinated efforts to improve military preparedness, and devote great energy to training under combat conditions, so as to firmly safeguard China’s national sovereignty, security, and development interests.
We will modernize the military governance system, advance military development as outlined in the 14th Five-Year Plan, and speed up the implementation of major defense-related projects.
We will consolidate and enhance integration of national strategies and strategic capabilities, refine the system and layout of defense-related science, technology, and industries, raise public awareness concerning national defense, and strengthen national defense mobilization and readiness of reserve forces.
We in governments at all levels will provide strong support to the development of national defense and the armed forces and strengthen mutual support between civilian sectors and the military, so as to consolidate the unity between the military and the government and between the military and the people.
Points surrounding maintenance of the Party’s absolute leadership of the armed forces, stepping up combat preparedness work and training under combat conditions, and enhancing the unity between the military and the government and the military and the people, are similar to the ones discussed in the previous Government Work report presented by former Premier Li Keqiang at the March 2023 ‘Two Sessions’.
However, it may be interesting that in his report, Li Qiang has changed the language of the previous report from “stepping up capacity building in science, technology, and industries related to national defense,” to “refine the system and layout of defense-related science, technology, and industries.” It may not mean much, but if something is to be derived out of this change in phrasing, it could potentially be that amidst the hailstorm of military-industrial complex related impropriety scandals since last year, the Premier may be indicating a shift of focus to refining the system of equipment acquisition, and increasing regulatory interventionism. Then again, it could also be a show of confidence, marking a shift from merely building capacity, to refining the capacity built and strengthening Science & Tech innovation in defence.
Similarly, in addition to just discussing “raising public awareness concerning national defense” like the previous report, this year, Li Qiang has highlighted the need to “strengthen national defense mobilization and readiness of reserve forces.” These seem to add a sense of formality and urgency (respectively) to the otherwise now-mundane focus on combat preparedness. For example, defense mobilization is a very specific policy project with an assigned nodal agency (National Defence Mobilisation Department of the Central Military Commission; 国家国防动员委员会), and the last year has seen a ton of activity on defence mobilisation, including mass defence education, with Gansu military district leading the way. Similarly, highlighting preparedness of reserve forces signals urgency towards achieving wholesome combat preparedness – especially to match the mobilisation of reserve forces in Taiwan, and recent expansion of their mandatory conscription from four months to a year.
The Ministry of Finance, too, presented its Budgetary report on March 5. In the section on ‘General public budgetary revenue and expenditure for 2024’, the Report highlights that even though this year the government will be “acting in strict compliance with belt-tightening requirements,” the areas which the government will give priority to while spending, include national defense, the armed police, science and technology, education, national reserves, and government bond issuance and interest payments.
Subsequently, it proposes a 1.66554 trillion yuan (US$ 234.5 billion) budget for national defence, up 7.2% (exactly like last year). The Report also clarifies that in FY 2023-24, 100% of the allotted national defence budget (1.553678 trillion yuan) was spent, while the expenditure on public (internal) security, a part of which also falls under the mandate of the PLA, was 107.5% of the budgeted figure (224.558 billion yuan).
Additionally, both the Vice-Chairmen of the CMC, Zhang Youxia and He Weidong, made speeches on their outlook for the armed forces in 2024 at a group meeting of the delegation of the PLA and the Armed Police Force at the NPC. Of what was said, some was very generic and oft-repeated. Key points of note include:
He Weidong emphasised that is necessary to “deepen political training, persistently rectify discipline and fight corruption, resolutely rectify formalism and bureaucracy… and continue the fine tradition of the People’s Liberation Army being pure and honorable.”
He further highlighted the need for a “focus on advancing the implementation of the 14th Five-Year Plan for military construction, organically combining the consolidation and expansion of traditional combat capabilities with the innovative development of new-type combat capabilities, achieve a breakthrough in combat capability quality, and promote the high-quality development of the military.”
Zhang Youxia maintained that “it is necessary to comprehensively implement the system of the Chairman of the Military Commission being in charge, strengthen organizational functions, implement democratic centralism, deepen political training in a practical manner, and implement the requirements of comprehensive and strict party governance.”
Further, he highlighted that “it is necessary to intensify military training and preparation for war, deepen strategic planning, solve training problems, strengthen the overall coordination of major task training and construction, accelerate the construction and application of the network information system, and enhance the strategic capabilities to defend national sovereignty, security, and development interests.” He mentioned that to achieve the same, there is a need to integrate important resources of military and civilian forces (civil-military fusion).
Finally, just today (March 7), Xi Jinping made a speech at the plenary meeting of the PLA and the PAP at the 14th NPC. But before he did that, he engaged with handpicked representatives from the Army, Navy, Strategic Support Force, Academy of Military Sciences, and the Southern Theater Command. Their remarks to Xi revolved around advancing maritime situational awareness capabilities, enhancing cyber defence capabilities, promoting the application of artificial intelligence, strengthening the coordinated management and utilisation of outer space resources, promoting the standardisation of emerging field standards, and innovating the construction and utilisation of unmanned combat forces.
Xi then made his remarks, and some things of note are as follows:
He first explained the significance of “coordinating military preparations at sea, the maintenance of maritime rights and interests, and the development of the maritime economy to enhance maritime strategic capabilities.”
Additionally, he called for the “optimization of the space layout and the advancement of the country's space system construction.” He stressed the need to build a network space defense system to enhance the nation’s capability to maintain network security and to strengthen the comprehensive implementation of major projects in intelligent science and technology. This necessarily means integrating networked capabilities vis-a-vis cyber, satellites/ space, and AI into combat preparedness. He also called for “self-reliance” in defence tech innovation, given the tech-related “containment” China faces at the hands of the US and the West.
Finally, in addition to strengthening ideological learning in the armed forces, Xi concluded by arguing that there is a need to “accelerate the supply of new combat capabilities… [by] deepening of reforms in the defense science and technology industry, optimizing the layout of defense science and technology industry, and establishing an agile response and rapid transformation mechanism for advanced technologies.” This, he argued, involves building an innovation chain, industrial chain, and value chain that are compatible with the development of emerging fields, and to me, essentially means bringing together academic innovation, industrial development and military planning and use together.
From what was said at the NPC vis-a-vis the armed forces so far, it is clear that the increased budget this year will focus on defence tech innovation and use of new technologies in war preparedness and training. Regardless to say, in 2024, there is also going to be increased control of the CMC Chairs over the PLA’s preparedness work, both administratively and ideologically.
Guarding the Great Wall: China Studies Carrier-Based UAVs
By Anushka Saxena
In October 2023, the Turkish Bayraktar TB-03 drone conducted its maiden flight, and subsequently, its developer, Baykar Technologies, has announced that the UAV will go into mass production starting this year. Additionally, the drone is scheduled to commence flight tests from Türkiye’s largest warship, the TCG Anadolu, in 2025. The UAV has been made carrier/warship-capable due to its foldable wings, which allow it to take-off and land on short runways on amphibious assault ships and aircraft carriers. This has piqued the interest of Chinese military observers such as Huang Wuxing (黄武星) and Li Xuefeng (李学峰), who, in a March 1 commentary for the PLA Daily, have discussed ways to unlock the potential of carrier-based drones.
The Commentary first highlights the history of deployment of UAVs on carriers. Examples it refers to include France’s VSR700 carrier-based drone, which achieved take-off and landing on a civilian ship with a helicopter deck, the Mohave Drone that was tested last year by the UK on its HMS Prince of Wales aircraft carrier, the American MQ-25A "Stingray" aerial unmanned refuelling aircraft as well as the MQ-9B carrier-based drone (unveiled in May 2022), and the naval version of Russia’s Hunter drone, which has the potential to be deployed aboard its 23900 universal amphibious assault ship. The idea behind this history is to demonstrate that the focal point of the progress in carrier-based drones is to go from limited range, slow speed, and short endurance drones, which will be unable to navigate the tumultuous naval combat environment, to drones with longer range, higher altitude, and larger payloads.
The levels of endurance, speed, and range, however, are not the only challenges to realising the full potential of sea drones in the Chinese conception. There are three broad additional categories of challenges. The first is difficulty in take-off and landing. Due to the limited deck space aboard carriers, as well as the existence of electromagnetic interference amidst complex on-board systems, larger carrier-based drones continue to face difficulty in take-off and landing. This is despite the existence of various options such as rocket-assisted takeoff, catapult launch, parachute recovery, net capture, and skyhook retrieval, which are better suited to smaller drones.
The second is that larger autonomous vehicles naturally add more to the efforts of ship-based operators, especially since no carrier-based drone has yet achieved complete intelligentisation or autonomy. The continued requirement of human intervention in remote-controlling carrier-based UAVs, in addition to the fact that the same operators will also be responsible for managing manned aircraft, causes some inefficiency in naval operations.
And thirdly, the complex maritime environment leads to high temperatures, humidity, mold, and salt spray. This creates a trade-off between the need to use heavier corrosion resistant materials on carrier-based UAVs and maintaining steady quantity of payload and on-board systems.
Naturally, the authors of the Commentary suggest a three-fold answer –
Advancing electromagnetic catapult and arresting gear technology to exploit their adjustable power, precise force control, and short usage intervals in order to enable rapid and precise take-off and recovery;
Making improvements in “intelligent command and control technology” (智能化指控技术); and
Implementing an advanced storage technology and modular payloads for efficiency of weight management on-board carrier-based drones.
No Soldier Left Behind
In tandem with its own understanding, China has already made some efforts to not be left behind in progressing towards larger and more efficient carriers and carrier-based drones
While explaining the current development trend in military technologies, especially naval, the 2020 ‘Science of Military Strategy’ Document of the PLA Academy of Military Sciences argues that “There will be more and more unmanned platforms participating in maritime operations. One is the carrier-based drone. Shipborne UAVs have the advantages of high performance, miniaturisation, stealth, and strong attack capabilities.” Further, it states that “The use of carrier-based UAVs will bring revolutionary changes to surface warship operations, including aircraft carriers, and prompt changes in aircraft carrier flight deck operation procedures, carrier-based aircraft take-off and landing methods, and carrier-based aircraft structure.”
Accordingly, in January 2023, China delivered ‘Zhu Hai Yun’ , the world’s first unmanned system scientific research ship with an autonomous navigation system and remote-control functions.
Developed by the Southern Marine Science and Engineering Guangdong Laboratory (Zhuhai), along with the Huangpu-Wenchong Shipyard based in Guangdong province, the 88.5-meter-long ship is a landmark design, with an aluminium hull, a 2,100 ton-displacement and a top speed of 18 knots.
It has the capability to autonomously navigate the waters, conduct intelligent path planning, create a topographic map of its environment, and deploy UUVs or USVs based onboard into the surrounding waters to conduct surveillance and marine research. Hence, its primary function would be to act as a mothership for swarms of drones, both aerial and underwater.
This marks a step further in the integration of AI within the entire unmanned ecosystem. At the same time, it must be acknowledged that the vessel is not entirely uncrewed, and requires humans on-board to conduct energy management and joystick-operated dynamic positioning system.
Latest from the Indo-Pacific Studies Team:
Perspectives Unleashed
In this Opinion for MoneyControl, IPSP-Takshashila Research Analyst Amit Kumar, along with High-Tech Geopolitics Research Analyst Satya Sahu, argues that ‘India gains semiconductor momentum but the policy mix can be even better’.
In another Opinion for MoneyControl, IPSP-Takshashila Research Analyst Anushka Saxena discusses ‘Thinking through a Taiwan conflict – How can countries like India respond?’.
In this Commentary for The Diplomat, IPSP-Takshashila Research Analyst Rakshith Shetty discusses ‘China’s Shuttle Diplomacy With Ukraine and Russia: All Symbol, No Substance’.
Finally, in this blog for ‘The Interpreter’ by the Lowy Institute, IPSP-Takshashila Research Analyst Bharat Sharma talks about ‘What binds the Quad’.