RAND questions China’s combat readiness but ignores 2020 Ladakh crisis – Firstpost

The 1990s were pivotal in the way the United States (US) started viewing China. Washington was alarmed when Beijing began modernising the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) by building advanced submarines, ships, fighter jets and missiles.

Starting in 1999, the Department of Defence (DoD) began publishing an annual report called ‘Military and Security Developments Involving the People’s Republic of China’ that mentioned the PLA’s increasing capability, advancement and goals.

The DoD’s 
2024 report mentions the 2022 National Security Strategy, which states that China “is the only competitor to the United States with the intent and, increasingly, the capacity to reshape the international order”.

As China seeks to achieve “national rejuvenation” by its centenary in 2049, the Communist Party of China (CPC) seeks a modern, capable, and “world-class” military to achieve its “revisionist aims”, especially in the Indo-Pacific, the report states.

However, a 
recent report  published by the American nonprofit global policy think tank RAND Corporation claims that China is modernising the PLA only to uphold CPC rule, not fight a war, and isn’t ready for combat.

The report, titled ‘The Chinese Military’s Doubtful Combat Readiness’, states that the PLA has always “prioritised political loyalty and the enforcement” of CPC rule over combat readiness, especially since the Korean War.

RAND claims that as China’s decline accelerates—despite no signs that China is declining—the PLA’s mission of upholding CPC rule will likely gain added urgency while its mission of improving combat readiness will likely recede even further.

China has the world’s largest army and navy and biggest stockpile of ballistic missiles. However, according to the report, “recent modernisation gains have not fundamentally changed the PLA’s political orientation”.

The report concludes that China isn’t ready for a war with the US over Taiwan but ignores the 2020 Ladakh incursions.

RAND makes several flawed conclusions.

PLA’s modernisation and CPC rule

Indeed, Chinese leaders—from Mao Zedong to Xi Jinping—have ensured that the PLA maintains the CPC’s firm grip on power.

The report quotes Mao’s 1938 speech in which he said, “Power grows from the barrel of a gun” in the context of the Chinese Civil War and the Japanese invasion. “Whoever wants to seize and retain state power must have a strong army,” he had said.

RAND mentions several other events in which the PLA curbed factional strife, ended ideological disputes and suppressed mass protests: post-Korean War, the Cultural Revolution and the Tiananmen Square Massacre.

The PLA’s focus on domestic problems resulted in the humiliation by Vietnam in 1979 as the military “was plagued by an outdated doctrine, low morale, poor combat readiness, and weak leadership”.

The report rightly states that by the 1980s, Deng Xiaoping “declared that China no longer faced the prospect of a major war”.

“In sum, China’s military modernisation poses a paradox. On the one hand, China has invested vast sums to improve the PLA’s combat capabilities. On the other hand, Chinese leaders acknowledge that the country faces a relatively benign external environment and that the PLA’s top job remains to uphold CCP rule.”

However, the conclusion that the PLA is modernising only to cement the CPC’s rule by tying it to Deng’s declaration is wrong for two reasons.

First, the CPC monopolised political power when Mao founded the People’s Republic in 1949 with the PLA’s help.

Undeniably, the PLA is the CPC’s armed wing formed to protect its rule and defend its interests. However, Xi already consolidated his political power in 2018 by amending the party’s Constitution, which elevated his status to Mao’s level and removed the two-term limit on the presidency. He has thrown out rivals and promoted loyalists.

Xi is the CPC’s general secretary and the Central Military Commission’s (CMC) head, which means that the PLA also advances China’s foreign policy.

“As the PLA modernises toward its goal of producing a world-class force by 2049, the PRC has increasingly turned to the PLA as an instrument of statecraft to advance its foreign policy objectives—adopting more coercive and aggressive actions in the Indo-Pacific region,” according to the 2024 DoD report on China.

“As the PLA expands its operations regionally and globally”, the “likelihood of US” and Chinese forces “operating in close proximity increases along with the potential for increased tension”, per the DoD. The deployment of PLA warships and aircraft near disputed areas of the East and South China Seas and Taiwan is part of expanding its operations, which isn’t related to the CPC’s domestic policies.

Second, RAND claims that since external threats to China decreased in the 1980s, Deng’s “focus on national development was made possible, in large part, by his assessment of a relatively benign security environment”, and subsequent leaders Jiang Zemin, Hu Jintao and Xi followed the policy.

“Yet since the 1980s, China has seen the emergence of a paradox: China no longer faced major threats but still built a powerful, modern military,” the report states.

RAND misses the important point of the evolving Chinese military doctrine.

Deng’s doctrine of “local war” predicted the unlikeliness of major wars or nuclear attacks. In 1985, he ordered the PLA to prepare to conduct “Local War Under Modern Conditions”, which resulted in the first major reduction of troops and emphasis on speed, mobility and lethality.

In 1993, Jiang introduced the doctrine of winning “Local Wars Under Modern, High-Tech Conditions” after observing the Gulf War, where the US used networked precision strikes to overwhelm the Iraqi military.

The PLA was instructed to adopt the doctrine of “three attacks, three defences—attacking enemy with stealth, cruise missiles and helicopters while defending against precision strikes, electronic warfare and reconnaissance”—with a war with the US over Taiwan in mind.

Jiang continued to reduce the PLA’s size. In 1999, he changed the PLA doctrine to “Local War Under Modern Informatised Conditions”, a synergy between land, air, sea, space and electromagnetic domains.

In 2005, Hu instructed the military to master “system-of-systems operations”, which “focuses on joint units with integrated command networks enabling key node strikes against the combat networks and systems of an advanced adversary”, according to an earlier RAND report. The PLA was ordered to develop C4ISR: Command, Control, Communications, Computers (C4) Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance (ISR).

Under Xi, the doctrine was revised to direct the PLA to win “Informatised Local Wars” in an “information-based systems-of-systems” war.

China focused on cyber and space warfare and joint military operation; developing “long-range, precise, smart, stealthy and unmanned weapons”; and prioritising local and informationisation wars as “in the foreseeable future, a world war is unlikely”.

Xi reduced the number of troops by 300,000 to two million and established the cyber, space and electronic warfare service branch, PLA Strategic Support Force, which he disbanded last year.

In 2016, the number of PLA Theatre Commands was reduced from seven to five to “elevate its capabilities for precise, multi-dimensional, trans-theatre, multi-functional and sustainable operations”.

China’s 
2013 Defence White Paper highlights the PLA’s aim of broadening its vision of “national security strategy and military strategy” to win “local wars under the conditions of informationisation”.

“China’s armed forces firmly base their military preparedness on winning local wars under the conditions of informationisation, make overall and coordinated plans to promote military preparedness in all strategic directions, intensify the joint employment of different services and arms, and enhance warfighting capabilities based on information systems.”

Under the doctrine, the PLA would strike first, not after the enemy invaded its border(s).

PLA combat readiness vis-à-vis India, Taiwan

RAND states, “China has continued to shy away from combat operations.”

Though all militaries train and hold exercises, few fight like the US military does, per the report. “Paradoxically, rapid military modernisation gains coincided with clear evidence that the PLA remained unprepared for war” and focused on upholding the CPC’s rule.

The report quotes the DoD’s 2010 report on China, which stated that PLA commanders had “little or no training for or experience operating in a joint environment”.

Even the DoD’s 2024 report states that all Chinese special forces units “lack real-world combat experience”.

RAND’s PLA combat readiness conclusion is wrong for three reasons.

First, the DoD 2024 also report mentions how the PLA provides  “commanders with enhanced situational awareness and decision support to more effectively carry out joint missions and tasks to win informatised local wars (China’s military doctrine since Deng’s era).

According to PLA, informatised warfare uses information technology to create an operational system of systems, enabling it to “acquire, transmit, process, and use information during a conflict to conduct integrated joint military operations across the ground, maritime, air, space, cyberspace and electromagnetic spectrum domains”.

China continues to increase the scope and regularity of military training exercises that simulate informatised operations. The PLA’s offensive and defensive cyberspace operations aim to achieve information dominance early in a crisis or conflict.

The PLA Rocket Force (PLARF) is at heightened readiness even during peacetime. The PLARF “probably has an orderly, pre-planned series of combat readiness level” that can change its nuclear missile force’s status from “peacetime to full combat readiness to respond to possible contingencies”.

In September 2023, China launched two Dong Feng-31 ICBMs in quick succession from training silos in Western China. “This launch probably validated the PLARF’s ability to rapidly launch multiple missiles, a key part of an early warning counterstrike capability.”

The 2013 Defence White Paper reveals the PLA’s military strategy. “China will never seek hegemony or behave in a hegemonic manner nor engage in military expansion.”

Contrary to what happened in eastern Ladakh in 2020, when the PLA Ground Force (PLAGF) attacked Indian troops, China asserts, “We will not attack unless we are attacked but we will surely counterattack if attacked.”

Such a policy gives the impression that the PLA isn’t ready for combat.

However, the paper emphasises the “employment of armed forces in peacetime” and effectively conducting military operations other than war (MOOTW). Combat readiness means “preparations and alert activities of the armed forces for undertaking operational tasks and MOOTW”.

China maintains constant combat readiness to counter security threats. To maintain regular combat readiness, the PLA improves infrastructure, does scenario-oriented drills, and “earnestly organises alert duties, border, coastal and air defence patrols and guard duties. It keeps itself prepared for undertaking operational tasks and MOOTW at all times”.

Combat readiness is maintained from the lowest to the highest level of alertness: Level III, Level II and Level I.

According to the document, the military widely practices in training such operational concepts “in conditions of informationisation as information dominance, confrontation between different systems, precision strike, fusion, integration and jointness”.

Training, especially attention to confrontational command training, live independent force-on-force training and training in complex battlefield environments, is organised based on actual combat needs, formations and procedures.

The 
2015 Defence White Paper  also mentions the PLA’s combat readiness and how it maintains a posture of high alertness by conscientiously organising border, coastal and air defence patrols and guard duties.

The 
2019 Defence White Paper also highlights the importance of PLA’s combat readiness. The CMC and the Theatre Commands (TCs) perform combat readiness duties strictly and conduct regular inspections and drills to ensure combat readiness at all times.

“China’s armed forces put military training in an important position and take combat effectiveness as the sole and fundamental criterion.”

Second, Chinese belligerence along the LAC and more than 1,500 transgressions aren’t part of retaining the CPC’s rule but a part of its territorial ambitions that show the PLA is combat-ready.

China’s Western Theatre Command is the biggest with the Tibet Military Command coming under the PLA’s jurisdiction. In May 2016, the 
Global Times said, “The Tibet Military Command bears great responsibility to prepare for possible conflicts between China and India.”

One year later, the Doklam stand-off occurred. The Theatre Command’s first chief General Zhao Zongqi, who masterminded the operation, was also the architect of the 2020 eastern Ladakh incursions.

While RAND views the PLA’s military drills as not a sign of combat readiness, China’s eastern Ladakh operation also started as a military drill in Tibet in areas bordering India with the deployment of armoured vehicles, helicopters, heavy artillery and anti-aircraft missiles in January 2020.

Around 200,000 PLA combat-ready troops were stationed in the Tibet Autonomous Region (TAR). By mid-April, the PLA had blocked Indian patrolling at five points: Galwan River valley, Pangong Tso’s north bank, Gogra-Hot Springs, Depsang Plains and Demchok’s Charding Nala.

By May 5, the situation had become graver. Using its typical rulebook of attack camouflaged as defence, China accused India of crossing and trying to “unilaterally change the status quo” despite trying to block Indian patrol on Pangong’s Finger 8 and the Kugrang River valley beyond Gogra.

Chinese designs were exposed in the June Galwan clash following a massive counter-deployment by the Army.

“Chinese incursions across the western and central zones of India’s disputed boundary are not independent, random incidents that happen by mistake, but are part of a strategically planned, coordinated effort to gain permanent control of disputed border areas,” a 
study titled ‘Rising tension in the Himalayas: A geospatial analysis of Chinese border incursions into India’, claimed.

China has been conducting major training and sophisticated multi-dimensional military exercises involving the PLAGF and PLAAF in TAR for the last several years and even after the Ladakh crisis.

China also conducted integrated, joint and comprehensive drills on the Qinghia-Tibet plateau involving the Central Theatre Command, PLAGF, PLARF, armoured vehicles, Type 15 lightweight tanks and anti-tank HJ-10 missile systems, attack helicopters and an airborne brigade after the Galwan crisis.

In September 2021, Xi changed the Western Theatre Commander for the fourth time with the appointment of General Wang Haijiang, one of the very few top Generals with combat experience and a Vietnam War veteran. The decision shows that Xi wants Commanders with combat experience.

In January this year, the Xinjiang Military Command, part of the Western Theatre Command, conducted a drill in a high-altitude plateau area bordering the LAC.

The drill involved robot dogs, all-terrain vehicles, drones and exoskeletons to enhance the PLA’s logistic support capabilities and high-altitude combat readiness.

https://x.com/globaltimesnews/status/1878613537138069795

The RAND report also misses the PLA’s focus on asymmetric warfare. The Xinjiang drills showed that China would use asymmetric tactics in a war with India or the US to compensate for its lack of combat experience after 1979.

Despite the disengagement in Depsang and Demchok in eastern Ladakh, about 1.2 lakh PLA soldiers, tanks, howitzers, surface-to-air missiles and other heavy weapons are deployed in the Ladakh, Uttarakhand, Himachal, Sikkim and Arunachal sectors.

Third, RAND states that the logic that Beijing will use military force to unify Taiwan with the mainland “underpins much of the US defence community’s approach to China”.

However, “Chinese leaders have shown no interest in starting a war and the PLA has made little to no preparation for a war over Taiwan”, the report claims.

“Political leaders who believe war to be imminent or desirable will demand that the military be combat-ready,” RAND states.” It contradicts US intelligence, which believes that Xi has instructed the PLA to be ready for a 
full-scale invasion of Taiwan by 2027.

Per RAND, the PLA “seems to have made virtually no planning or preparation for such a war”. “China’s military has not even published a study on how it might occupy and control Taiwan.”

The PLA is too smart to publish the strategy and tactics in a war with Taiwan that will probably involve the US but is set to counter an American attack in the region.

The PLAAF’s violation of Taiwan’s Air Defence Identification Zone has tripled starting in September 2020—from 972 in 2021 to 3,119 in 2023. Chinese jets flew into the Zone 255 times in January 2025 with 200-plus monthly incursions since May 2024.

In September 2024, PLAN deployed all three aircraft carriers, Liaoning, Shandong and Fujian for the first time near Japan and Taiwan.

In a war with the US, the PLA will use its space and airborne surveillance and reconnaissance, the gigantic arsenal of precision-guided long-range missiles, submarines, militarised man-made islands in the South China Sea, PLAF and PLAN to attack the American bases of Guam and Diego Garcia, ports and aircraft carriers in the region.

Another “eye-opening” 
Pentagon war game based on 2030 showed in 2020 that the US would not be able to defend Taiwan from a Chinese invasion and suffer “capital losses” with the PLA targeting Guam.

China’s DF-26 IRBM, dubbed the ‘Guam Killer’, can hit the US base from the mainland. Besides, the PLAAF’s H-6K bomber can target Guam with its Changjian-20 cruise missiles.

Moreover, US aircraft carriers in the region would be vulnerable to Chinese missiles like the DF-21D (‘Carrier killer’ MRBM) and DF-26B.

Last December, the PLAN released a video of an anti-ship ballistic missile hitting a mock-up of a US aircraft carrier in the Taklamakan desert training ground during an exercise.

https://x.com/IndoPac_Info/status/1871549353762214003

In the same month, the PLA’s electronic warfare unit released a list of 
kill targets—radars, sensors and communication systems—for a synchronised attack against US aircraft carriers. The main targets were the Aegis Combat System and E-2C Hawkeye early warning aircraft.

The writer is a freelance journalist with more than two decades of experience and comments primarily on foreign affairs. Views expressed in the above piece are personal and solely those of the writer. They do not necessarily reflect Firstpost’s views.