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CMSI Studies in China Maritime Development China Maritime Studies Institute

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Study No. 8, Chinese Amphibious Warfare: Prospects for a Cross-

Strait Invasion
Andrew S. Erickson

Conor M. Kennedy

Ryan D. Martinson

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 CHINESE
AMPHIBIOUS
WARFARE
Prospects for a Cross-Strait Invasion

edited by
Andrew S. Erickson, Conor M. Kennedy,
and Ryan D. Martinson
Cover design and book layout after
U.S. Naval Institute Press
Chinese Amphibious Warfare
Studies in Chinese Maritime Development
Andrew S. Erickson, Series Editor

Powered by the world’s second-largest economy and defense budget, China

is going to sea on a scale and with a sophistication that no continental pow-
er ever before has sustained in the modern era. Its three sea forces are all
leaders in their own right: the world’s largest navy, coast guard, and mar-
itime militia, by number of ships. They are supplied by the world’s largest
shipyard infrastructure, which has achieved the largest, fastest postwar
production-capacity expansion. On the civilian side, Chinese sea power
is supplemented by the world’s largest fishing fleet, including in number
of fishers; aquaculture and pisciculture industries; merchant marine; and
marine sector overall. It has a large, nationally flagged tanker fleet and
expansive global port-infrastructure networks.
Paramount leader Xi Jinping is guiding China’s transformation into a
“great maritime power.” At a minimum, today’s Middle Kingdom is al-
ready a hybrid land-sea power. Amid European decline and American fis-
cal and strategic challenges, this historic transformation has the potential
to end six centuries of largely Western dominance of the world’s oceans.
The U.S. Navy and nation must understand this momentous sea change to
inform strategy and policy properly. Worryingly, Beijing has the world’s
most numerous and extensive disputed island/feature claims, with the
largest number of other parties. Of these, no flash point looms larger than
Taiwan.
Since the Chinese Maritime Studies Institute was established in 2006, it
has been conducting research and holding conferences covering the broad
waterfront of Chinese oceanic efforts to advise USN leadership and to sup-
port the Naval War College in its core missions of helping to define the
future Navy and to support the Navy during an era of great-power compe-
tition. The Studies in Chinese Maritime Development series assembles the
resulting proceedings into edited volumes focusing on specific topics of
importance, to elucidate further both China’s progress and its challenges at
sea.

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Chinese Amphibious
Warfare
Prospects for a Cross-Strait Invasion

Edited by Andrew S. Erickson, Conor M. Kennedy,

and Ryan D. Martinson

Naval War College Press

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Published 2024
Printed in the United States of America

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Contents

List of Maps, Tables, Figures, and Exhibits xi

Foreword: Invading Taiwan xv
Chinese Amphibious Warfare across the Strait
Lt. Gen. Charles W. Hooper, USA (Ret.)
Acknowledgments xix
Introduction: Taking Taiwan by Force? 1
Chinese Amphibious Warfare in the New Era
Andrew S. Erickson, Conor M. Kennedy,
and Ryan D. Martinson

Part I. DOCTRINAL FOUNDATIONS OF CHINESE AMPHIBIOUS

WARFARE
1. Shi Lang’s Amphibious Conquest of Taiwan in 1683 15
Grant F. Rhode
2. What Did the PLA Learn from Its Jinmen, Hainan, 29
and Yijiangshan Landing Campaigns?
Xiaobing Li
3. The Six Pillars of PLA Amphibious Doctrine 45
Christopher Yung and Zoe Haver
VIII C H I N E S E A M P H I B I O U S WA R FA R E

Part II. THE JOINT AMPHIBIOUS FORCE

4. The PLAGF Amphibious Force: Missions, 65
Organization, Capabilities, and Training
Dennis J. Blasko
5. The New Chinese Marine Corps: A “Strategic Dagger” 85
in a Cross-Strait Invasion
Conor M. Kennedy
6. Civilian Shipping and Maritime Militia: The Logistics 115
Backbone of a Taiwan Invasion
Lonnie D. Henley
7. The PLA Navy’s Amphibious Fleet: Modernizing 133
for Missions Near and Far
Jennifer Rice

Part III. ENABLERS OF AMPHIBIOUS WARFARE

8. The PLA Airborne Corps in a Joint Island Landing 153
Campaign
Cristina Garafola
9. The PLA Ground Forces’ New Helicopters: An “Easy 173
Button” for Crossing the Taiwan Strait?
Tom Fox
10. PLA Special-Operations Forces: Force Multipliers 193
in the Joint Island Landing Campaign
John Chen and Joel Wuthnow
11. Mine Warfare in a Cross-Strait Invasion 215
Thomas Shugart

Part IV. SCENARIO FACTORS

12. Battlespace Preparation for “Unification” in 233
China’s Unfinished Civil War
John K. Culver
13. Assessing the PLA’s Confidence in Its Ability 253
to Achieve Air and Sea Control around Taiwan
William Fox and Roderick Lee
14. PLA Logistics Support for Large-Scale Amphibious 299
Warfare
Kevin McCauley
 C O N T EN T S IX

15. Hostile Harbors: Taiwan’s Ports and PLA Invasion Plans 341
Ian Easton
16. Chinese Ferry Tales: The PLA’s Use of Civilian 371
Shipping in Support of Over-the-Shore Logistics  
J. Michael Dahm

Part V. IMPLICATIONS
17. Trading Places: U.S. Marine Corps and PLAN 421
Amphibious Forces in the 2020s
Sam J. Tangredi
18. If China Invades, How Should the U.S. Navy Respond? 439
Michael McDevitt
19. Deterring (or Defeating) a PLA Invasion:  457
Recommendations for Taipei
Andrew S. Erickson and Gabriel B. Collins
Appendix: Crossing the Strait? PLA Amphibious Vessels   473
Relevant to Taiwan Scenarios
Manfred Meyer, Larry Bond, and Chris Carlson
About the Contributors 483
Titles in the Series   495
Maps, Tables, Figures, and Exhibits

Maps
Acknowledgments
1. PRC Mainland & Taiwan
2. Taiwan Strait Closeup

Tables
Chapter 4
1. PLAGF Amphibious Combined-Arms Brigades (ACABs)
Appendix PLA Ground Forces’ Amphibious-Landing and Sea-
Transport Training in 2021

Chapter 5
1. PLANMC Brigades

Chapter 6
1. SCNDM Membership (2016)

Chapter 8
1. Key Events in the Airborne Corps’s Development
2. PLA Airborne Corps Aircraft and Other Equipment
3. PLAAF Transport Units and Aircraft
XII C H I N E S E A M P H I B I O U S WA R FA R E

Chapter 9
1. Recent Growth in the PLA’s Helicopter Force

Chapter 13
1. PLA Sensor Capabilities and Geographic Coverage
2. PLA Shooter Capabilities and Geographic Coverage
3. Assessed PLA Confidence in Achieving Air and Sea Control
Appendix A Complete List of Sensor Unit Types
Appendix B Complete List of Shooter Unit Types

Chapter 16
1. Civilian Ships Participating in Exercise Eastern Transportation-
Projection 2020A
2. Observed Timeline for Exercise Eastern Transportation-
Projection 2020A
3. Timeline of 2021 Military-Civil Fusion Amphibious and Logistics
Exercise Activity
4. RO/RO Ferries Participating in Amphibious-Landing Training,
July–August 2021
5. Merchant Ships Participating in Logistics Training, September 2021
6. RO/RO Ferries Participating in Amphibious-Landing Exercises,
September 2021
7. Civilian Vessels Participating in New-Type Floating-Causeway Test
and Evaluation

Figures
Chapter 10
1. PLA Special-Operations Forces Units and Locations

Chapter 16
1. Observed Timeline for Exercise Eastern Transportation-
Projection 2020A
2. Transits of Hai Yang Dao and San Hang Gong 8, 13–21 June 2020
3. Typical Track of Exercise Ships Driven by Navigation Constraints
4. Loading Operations Timeline, Lianyungang, 2 August 2020
5. Unloading Operations Timeline, Lanshan, 3 August 2020
6. Loading Operations Timeline, Lianyungang, 9 August 2020
7. Unloading Operations Timeline, Lanshan, 10 August 2020
8. Loading Operations Timeline, Lianyungang, 18 August 2020
 M A P S, TA B LE S, FI G U R E S, A N D E X H I B I T S XIII

9. Unloading Operations Timeline, Lanshan, 19 August 2020

10. Tracks of RO/RO Ferries Supporting Amphibious-Landing Exercises,
July–August 2021
11. Tracks of Civilian Ships Supporting PLA Exercises, September 2021
12. RO/RO Ferry Amphibious-Landing Exercise Tracks,
2–4 September 2021

Exhibits
Chapter 11
1. Bathymetry and Notional PRC Minefields in Vicinity of Taiwan
2. Notional PRC Minefields along the First Island Chain

Chapter 14
1. Landing Force Logistics Command Organization and Force
Composition
2. Transportation and Delivery Command Organization
3. Possible Missions of Civilian Ships in Support of the PLA
4. Current Major Civilian Airlines and Passenger Aircraft Inventory
5. Logistics Forward Support Base Command Organization and Force
Formation

Chapter 15
1. PLA Amphibious Staging Area
2. Potential Invasion Beaches
3. Taiwan’s Largest International Containerports
4. Taiwanese Ports
5. PLA Roles and Missions in Port Landing Operations
Foreword

Invading Taiwan
Chinese Amphibious Warfare across the Strait

In August 2022, the People’s Republic of China (PRC) encircled and over-
shot Taiwan with a battery of military exercises. The People’s Liberation
Army (PLA) conducted live-fire drills, air sorties, naval deployments, and
ballistic-missile launches in six zones encompassing the busiest internation-
al sea-lanes and air corridors surrounding Taiwan. Subsequent PLA activi-
ties suggest an effort to impose heightened, more-comprehensive pressure
on Taiwan moving forward.
This is merely the latest in the continuing series of PRC military threats
and provocations that have increased over the past several years. These have
included continued fortification of atolls and islands in the South China Sea,
almost nonstop PLA Air Force incursions into Taiwan’s air-defense identifi-
cation zone, and continued challenges to U.S. Navy vessels operating in the
South China Sea and Taiwan Strait.
Beijing’s provocations will continue for the foreseeable future as PRC
president, general secretary, and commander in chief Xi Jinping continues
to send the clear message to Taiwan, the United States, and its allies that
China has both the ability and the willingness to use an increasingly capable
and technologically advanced PLA to unify Taiwan with the mainland by
force. Make no mistake, this is not a PRC bluff—the threat to Taiwan is real
and grave.
XVI C H I N E S E A M P H I B I O U S WA R FA R E

That said, China would have to execute successfully a military opera-

tion that history shows is among the most difficult: an opposed amphibi-
ous landing. This feat has not been accomplished since the U.S. attack on
Inchon, South Korea, in September 1950. The PLA must transport thou-
sands of troops and tons of equipment one hundred miles across the Taiwan
Strait—one of the most militarized waterways on Earth. The few natural
landing beaches on Taiwan are crisscrossed with streams, marshes, and ca-
nals, and they lie at the base of buildings, cliffs, or hills. The center of this
island of nearly twenty-four million people is dominated by a north–south
mountain range that would be a nightmare for even the best, most experi-
enced army to assault. Finally, a motivated Taiwan military, supplied and
supported by the United States, has been preparing for this defensive battle
for over seventy years.
There is no question that a PRC invasion of Taiwan would be one of
the defining events of the twenty-first century. However, most contempo-
rary literature analyzing China–Taiwan military scenarios focuses on the
political, diplomatic, and informational factors leading to a PRC decision to
invade. Far less published analysis concentrates on the actual ability of the
PLA to execute a large-scale amphibious invasion successfully.
This is not surprising. Analysis of political decision-making—especially
within the Chinese Communist Party and PLA—is more art than science,
subject to hypothesis and much speculation. As a result, everyone from
learned scholars and government officials to the novice strategist can attempt
a reasonable assessment. Analysis of China’s comprehensive war-fighting
capability is the exact opposite. It requires an objective understanding and
careful consideration of information warfare, cyber and space technology,
weapons capabilities, maritime and aerospace operations, logistics supply
chains, geography, and even tides and currents. More science than art, it
requires of scholars and analysts expertise that may take years of study and
practical experience to develop.
From 4 to 6 May 2021, the Naval War College’s China Maritime Studies
Institute (CMSI) assembled just such a collection of specialists for its “Con-
ference on Large-Scale Amphibious Warfare in Chinese Military Strategy.”
The final product of that conference is this edited volume. The contributing
authors are the leading U.S. military, intelligence, and academic experts on
PLA capabilities. I was honored to call most of them colleagues and friends
during my over thirty years of China-focused assignments in Hong Kong
and Beijing, in the Indo-Pacific Command, in the Pentagon on the Army
Staff, and in the Office of the Secretary of Defense.
 F O R E WO R D X VII

The authors deconstruct the key elements necessary for any PRC at-
tack to succeed—weapons, technology, geography, operational doctrine,
amphibious lift, logistics and matériel readiness, to name but a few. They
then offer a balanced assessment of PLA strengths and weaknesses. Notably,
they explore whether the inexperienced soldiers and commanders of the
PLA—who have not mounted a large-scale military operation of any type
since 1979 (border clashes with India excepted)—would be able to employ
their advanced military technology effectively in maximum-intensity, high-
stakes combat.
The publication of this volume is particularly timely as we contemplate
the potential PLA “lessons learned” from the current Russia-Ukraine con-
flict. As Moscow learned at its cost in the initial stages of the conflict in
Ukraine, military technology by itself does not translate into military capa-
bility. Operational doctrine and tactics matter; logistics and geography mat-
ter; and finally, education, training, leadership, and soldier morale—yours
and your adversaries’—matter. The enemy gets to vote on your success. The
evolution of the Russia-Ukraine conflict has surprised many students of
war, and it no doubt has gained the full attention of the PLA leadership. At
the very least, this volume will provide a solid baseline of current PLA of-
fensive capabilities from which we can analyze the lessons that China learns
from Russia and Taiwan learns from Ukraine.
I congratulate the Naval War College, CMSI, and the contributors to and
editors of this volume. It has my strongest recommendation for serious stu-
dents of the China-Taiwan military scenario, and I believe it will become
the seminal reference, not only for those who study China’s ability to invade
Taiwan, but for those who study its political willingness to go to war.

Lt. Gen. Charles W. Hooper, USA (Ret.)

Washington, DC
October 2022
Acknowledgments

On behalf of the China Maritime Studies Institute (CMSI), the editors

thank everyone who contributed to this volume and the conference on
which it is based. As with all CMSI events and publications, countless people
made vital contributions. While it is not possible to list them individually,
we express sincere appreciation to all concerned.
We extend special thanks to Cdr. Dan Caldwell, USN (Ret.), both for
his management, as CMSI director, of the event that generated this volume,
and for the guidance and insights he has provided throughout, based on his
cutting-edge knowledge of the history, theory, and practice of joint mili-
tary operations. Commander Caldwell’s amphibious-warfare experience
includes tours as the operations officer on USS Duluth (LPD 6) during Op-
eration Iraqi Freedom, the executive officer on USS Pearl Harbor (LSD
52), and the operations officer on USS Makin Island (LHD 8). We also deep-
ly appreciate the years of leadership and support for CMSI provided by Lt.
Gen. Charles Hooper, USA (Ret.), as well as his insights and generosity in
helping to frame this work and to explain its significance.
Readers of this book will be oriented by a set of illuminating maps at the
front, provided by leading China scholar and cartographer Pete McPhail,
and at the back they will be deeply informed by an appendix, provided by
order-of-battle experts Manfred Meyer, Larry Bond, and Chris Carlson,
that depicts and details PLA amphibious vessels relevant to cross-strait
scenarios.
The support of the leadership of the Naval War College, and of the
U.S. Navy more broadly, has been essential. Particular gratitude is due
to Dr. Colin Jackson, Chairman, Strategic and Operational Research
XX C H I N E S E A M P H I B I O U S WA R FA R E

Department (SORD), in which CMSI resides, and to Dr. Peter Dutton, then
interim dean of the Center for Naval Warfare Studies, the Naval War Col-
lege’s research arm and home to SORD. Finally, we thank the entire Naval
War College Press team, under the leadership of Director Dr. Carnes Lord,
for its professionalism and dedication to this volume.
The book’s production was supported further by a generous contribu-
tion from the Leidos Chair of Future Warfare Studies, under the leadership
of Dr. Sam J. Tangredi, for which we are grateful. The resulting volume is the
eighth in CMSI’s Studies in Chinese Maritime Development series of edited
conference proceedings, published since 2007.

Andrew S. Erickson
Conor M. Kennedy
Ryan D. Martinson
Newport, Rhode Island
October 2022
Map 1. PRC Mainland & Taiwan

Tianjin Bohai Sea

Hebei

Shanxi 5 t h MB
Shandong 6 t h MB
1 s t LSG

Yellow Sea
128 t h AB
Jiangsu
127 t h AB
Henan
Anhui
5 t h LSF
131 s t AB
133 r d AB Shanghai
Hubei 5th ACAB
SOF 124th ACAB East
134 t h AB 130 t h AB China
Zhejiang Sea

3 r d LSG
Hunan Jiangxi
Fujian

3 r d MB
ait
Str
Taiwan

Guangxi Guangdong
14 t h ACAB
91 s t ACAB
4 t h MB
1st ACAB
125 t h ACAB
1 s t MB AB—Airborne Brigade
2 n d MB
6 t h LSF ACAB—Amphibious
South Combined-Arms Brigade
China
LSF—Landing Ship Flotilla
Sea
Hainan LSG—Landing Ship Group

SOF MB—Marine Brigade

Source: Pete McPhail

Map 2. Taiwan Strait Closeup

Fujian Xialiao
Beach
Matsu Islands
Jinshan Feicui Wan
Fuzhou
Port of Taipei Port of
Linkou Keelung
Fulong
Haihu
≈130 k Taipei Toucheng
m
Taoyuan
Zhuangwei

Quanzhou Luodong Port of

Su’ao

Xiamen
Port of Taichung Port of
Hualien
Taichung
Kinmen
Islands

Penghu
Islands Budai

North Tainan
Tainan
Port of Anping
Tainan
Kaohsiung
Port of Kaohsiung
Major city Linyuan
Jialutang
Taiwan port

Potential landing
beach

Taiwan islands

Source: Pete McPhail

 Andrew S. Erickson, Conor M. Kennedy,
and Ryan D. Martinson

Introduction: Taking Taiwan by Force?

Chinese Amphibious Warfare in the New Era

For over seventy years, the Taiwan Strait has separated the People’s
Republic of China (PRC) and the Republic of China (ROC). Just eighty-
one miles across at its narrowest point, this sea barrier also has helped to
maintain peace across the strait, preventing an armed resolution to the
Chinese Civil War. Over the past several decades, the rapid development
and modernization of the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) has strengthened
its overall combat power significantly, including a greater ability to proj-
ect force over water. This threatens to upend the basic calculus for peaceful
cross-strait relations and presents a major threat to Taiwanese security. PLA
amphibious warfare thus merits special attention and careful study in all its
aspects.
From 4 to 6 May 2021 the Naval War College’s China Maritime Studies
Institute (CMSI) held an academic conference (virtually, under pandemic
protocols) to address this issue. The roughly 160 attendees—leading Amer-
ican experts from government, academia, and U.S.-based think tanks—
considered the topic of large-scale PLA amphibious warfare (i.e., a Taiwan
invasion scenario). A by-product of those presentations and discussions
was this volume. As with all other CMSI volumes, this introduction reflects
the editors’ effort to synthesize the most important findings from the con-
ference. The chapters themselves reflect the authors’ personal views alone
2 C H I N E S E A M P H I B I O U S WA R FA R E

and not those of any institution with which they are affiliated, including the
U.S. government. No author is responsible in any way for content outside
his or her chapter.
Conference participants sought to answer key questions about PLA am-
phibious doctrine and capabilities. How well prepared is the PLA to execute
a joint island landing campaign against Taiwan? What capabilities is the
PLA developing to ensure success? What weaknesses could restrain it? How
have military reforms affected the joint amphibious force? In what ways
does historical experience, both foreign and Chinese, inform PLA thinking
on amphibious warfare? Conference participants also proposed solutions to
deter the PRC from attempting an assault on the island—and to frustrate
any amphibious operation should deterrence fail.
The answers to these questions have tremendous real-world significance
for the fate of Taiwan and any countries that would come to its aid. There
is no more urgent, high-stakes scenario with implications for American se-
curity and power on the global stage than a large-scale invasion across the
Taiwan Strait. Seizing control of Taiwan looms as the most ardent geopo-
litical goal of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), and its current general
secretary, Xi Jinping, appears determined to achieve “unification” with Tai-
wan during his time in power. With the cross-strait military balance shifting
perilously in Beijing’s favor, an emboldened Xi may have confidence in the
PLA’s ability to risk an attempt in the near term, as conditions become max-
imally favorable to the PRC. Senior U.S. military officials warn that China
might attempt to invade by the mid-to-late 2020s.1
Like the conference on which it is based, this volume comprises five
parts: (1) “Doctrinal Foundations of Chinese Amphibious Warfare,” (2)
“The Joint Amphibious Force,” (3) “Enablers of Amphibious Warfare,” (4)
“Scenario Factors,” and (5) “Implications.”

Doctrinal Foundations of Chinese Amphibious Warfare

Part 1 examines the historical experience, both Chinese and foreign, inform-
ing PLA amphibious doctrine. In chapter 1, Grant Rhode chronicles Shi
Lang’s successful campaign to subdue Taiwan during the early period of the
Qing dynasty. In 1661–62, famed naval commander—and Ming loyalist—
Koxinga (Zheng Chenggong) evicted Dutch colonists from Taiwan. For over
twenty years he and his descendants ruled the island, until Shi, leading a
force of three hundred junks and 21,000 men, defeated the Zheng navy near
the Penghu Islands (Pescadores), just west of Taiwan. This paved the way
 I N T RO D U C T I O N 3

for Shi’s largely uncontested landing on Taiwan. Although Shi’s successful

military campaign offers few practical lessons for today’s PLA, it does hold
symbolic and political value. It serves as “proof ” that Taiwan belongs to
China. It also reminds Chinese patriots that China has invaded Taiwan
before, and potentially can do so again. Indeed, the PLA’s first aircraft
carrier was informally named Shi Lang during the years before its 2012
commissioning as Liaoning.
In chapter 2, Xiaobing Li examines early PLA experience in amphibious
warfare, looking specifically at the failed campaign to seize Kinmen (Jin-
men) Island and the successful campaigns to take the islands of Hainan and
Yijiangshan. In October 1949, PLA forces failed to reinforce the first wave
of their amphibious assault on Kinmen, resulting in the loss of over nine
thousand landing troops (including over three thousand taken prisoner).
The PLA applied lessons learned from this failure in its successful invasion
of Hainan (April 1950) and Yijiangshan (January 1955), both occupied by
Nationalist forces. As the last major island landings conducted by the
Chinese military, these campaigns continue to inform PLA thinking on
amphibious doctrine.
Chapter 3, written by Christopher Yung and Zoe Haver, analyzes the
influence of Western amphibious thinking among PLA strategists. From
their reading of PLA sources, Yung and Haver distill six key pillars of PLA
amphibious doctrine: (1) dominance of the three domains (air, sea, and
information), (2) key-point strikes, (3) concentration of “elite strengths,”
(4) rapid and continuous assaults, (5) integrated and flexible support
operations, and (6) psychological attacks. All have echoes of doctrinal prin-
ciples developed by the Allies during World War II. The authors also discuss
recent efforts by PLA analysts to advance and update these concepts for a
cross-strait invasion scenario.

The Joint Amphibious Force

Part 2 discusses the four main components of the joint amphibious force:
(1) the amphibious units of the PLA ground forces (PLAGF), (2) the PLA
Navy Marine Corps (PLANMC), (3) the PLA Navy (PLAN) amphibious
fleet, and (4) the civilian support fleet. In chapter 4, Dennis Blasko out-
lines the missions, organization, capabilities, and training of the PLAGF’s
amphibious forces. As a result of the 2017 PLA reform, the PLAGF now
possesses six amphibious combined-arms brigades (ACABs): the 5th ACAB
(Hangzhou, Zhejiang Province), 124th ACAB (Hangzhou), 14th ACAB
4 C H I N E S E A M P H I B I O U S WA R FA R E

(Zhangzhou, Fujian Province), 91st ACAB (Zhangzhou), 1st ACAB (Boluo,

Guangdong Province), and 125th ACAB (Bao’an, Guangdong Province).
Despite efforts to modernize the amphibious force, readiness limitations in
conscript-heavy units and lack of training above the battalion level continue
to constrain PLAGF ACABs. These units account for a small fraction (about
7 percent) of the total number of army combined-arms brigades. Nonethe-
less, reforms have strengthened army capabilities to support a joint island
landing campaign through stronger aviation, special operations, long-range
artillery, and incorporation of new technologies such as unmanned aerial
vehicles and robots. The author concludes that, at present, the PLAGF am-
phibious force may be capable of seizing ROC-controlled offshore islands
but could not lead a major assault directed against the main island of Taiwan.
In chapter 5, Conor Kennedy examines the PLANMC’s likely contribu-
tions to a cross-strait invasion. Since 2017, the PLANMC has tripled in size.
While the PLA likely regards the new PLANMC as an expeditionary force
tasked with protecting China’s “overseas interests,” the PLANMC’s eight bri-
gades also would be expected to participate in any large-scale assault on
Taiwan. During the preliminary phase of the amphibious assault, PLANMC
forces likely would conduct advance operations to create favorable con-
ditions for landing operations. PLANMC forces also likely would focus
on smaller-scale landing operations throughout the depth of amphibious
objective areas in support of the larger campaign, as well as in support of
the army’s main assault over the beaches, working in conjunction with the
PLAGF’s combined-arms brigades. The inclusion of mechanized ground-
and air-assault battalions in PLANMC brigades means they also could be
charged with follow-on operations beyond the beachhead, including urban
combat.
Chapter 6, written by Lonnie Henley, looks at the role of civilian ship-
ping and the maritime militia in a cross-strait assault. Foreign observers
long have assumed that the PLA would need to requisition large numbers of
civilian ships, especially roll-on/roll-off vessels, to compensate for inade-
quate naval lift. Henley argues that this approach is not a “stopgap” measure
but a key component of the PLA’s preferred approach. Civilian ships likely
would be operated by China’s maritime militia, which is made up of members
of the armed forces with day jobs in civilian industries. PLA sources describe
the overall functions that the maritime militia could fulfill in a cross-strait
invasion, including force delivery, at-sea support, over-the-shore logistical
support, medical support, obstacle emplacement and clearing, engineering
support, reconnaissance, surveillance, early warning, deception and con-
cealment, and helicopter relay support. The PLA also openly acknowledges
 I N T RO D U C T I O N 5

the major challenges entailed in using the maritime militia in a large-scale

military operation: incomplete laws and regulations, inadequate data man-
agement, uneven training, and widespread use of flags of convenience.
Nevertheless, the capabilities of civilian shipping and the maritime militia
could be sufficient to enable a cross-strait invasion.
In chapter 7, Jennifer Rice introduces the PLAN amphibious fleet, which
comprises ten amphibious assault combatants, including eight amphibious
transport docks (i.e., LPDs) and two landing helicopter assault (i.e., LHA)
ships (with a third soon joining the fleet); thirty tank landing ships (LSTs);
twenty medium landing ships (LSMs); and dozens of smaller landing craft.
In recent years, the PLAN has prioritized production of larger amphibious
vessels better suited for overseas operations, not a Taiwan invasion. This
reflects a balanced approach to amphibious-force modernization, balanc-
ing the pursuit of global deployment capabilities against the maintenance
of modest traditional naval lift. However, China’s tremendous shipbuilding
capacity could enable the PLAN to surge production of amphibious vessels
quickly to meet its needs for a cross-strait invasion.

Enablers of Amphibious Warfare

Part 3 considers other forces that would be vital to a cross-strait cam-
paign but would not participate in the main invasion force. In chapter 8,
Cristina Garafola examines the roles and missions of the PLA Airborne
Corps, a component of the PLA Air Force (PLAAF). Chiefly comprising
six combined-arms brigades and one special-operations brigade, the Air-
borne Corps operates from light, medium, and heavy aircraft, including
the PLAAF’s Y-20. PLA writings suggest that Chinese paratroopers would
support an invasion by operating behind enemy lines, seizing and holding
important terrain and relieving pressure on the main invasion force. Despite
improvements in recent years, questions remain about the Airborne Corps’s
ability to operate effectively with other invasion forces, especially in com-
plex and degraded environments.
In chapter 9, Tom Fox looks at helicopter units of the PLAGF, a force
that has grown considerably in recent years, with some speculating that it
could provide the main thrust in a campaign to subdue Taiwan. Fox con-
siders two possible scenarios involving a helicopter-led invasion. In the first
scenario, the PLAGF would use nearly all its available helicopters to over-
whelm Taiwan’s defenses and convince the ROC leadership to capitulate. In
a second, “unconventional” scenario, the PLA would launch a sudden attack
6 C H I N E S E A M P H I B I O U S WA R FA R E

using its older helicopters, saving its more modern platforms for follow-on
operations. Drawing from his own experience as a helicopter pilot and
analysis of Chinese media coverage of PLA training, Fox concludes that
neither approach is plausible in the short term. In sum, the PLAGF helicop-
ter force offers no “easy button” for a cross-strait invasion.
Chapter 10, written by John Chen and Joel Wuthnow, focuses on PLA
and People’s Armed Police special-operations forces (SOFs) and their likely
contributions to a large-scale amphibious assault. Chen and Wuthnow
reckon that Chinese SOFs would play important roles in the preparatory
and main-assault phases of the landing. SOFs from the PLAGF, PLAN, and
PLAAF could infiltrate the island via special-mission craft and helicopters.
Once on the island, they would provide reconnaissance and targeting, clear
obstacles, conduct strikes and raids, and perform extraction missions. As
with other supporting forces, questions remain about the ability of PLA
SOFs to coordinate their activities effectively with non-SOF forces, espe-
cially those of other services. Moreover, the authors raise doubts about SOF
proficiency with the newer, more-advanced equipment required for the type
of operations that would be conducted in a Taiwan invasion campaign.
In chapter 11, Thomas Shugart examines a vital but often neglected
aspect of modern amphibious operations: mine warfare. Prior to the at-
tempted invasion, the PLA likely would use its massive inventory of sea
mines to blockade Taiwan, isolating it from international trade and the
support of its allies and partners. The PLA is capable of deploying mines
from submarines, aircraft, and surface ships, including craft operated by
members of the maritime militia. Its offensive mining operations could
extend to the Japanese islands, to instill caution in U.S. forces operating from
bases there, and perhaps even to compel Japanese neutrality. During the
cross-strait-assault phase of the campaign, the focus would shift, with the
PLAN’s mine-countermeasure (MCM) forces being tasked to clear the way
for the invasion fleet. PLAN MCM forces will play a crucial role in a cross-
strait invasion, but little is known about their true capabilities, except the
recent procurement of new minesweeping vessels and mine-hunting robots.

Scenario Factors
In part 4, the volume focuses on specific factors vital to the success of an inva-
sion. In chapter 12, John Culver looks at the potential conflict from Beijing’s
perspective, arguing that China would see the invasion as the last chapter
in an “unfinished civil war.” This has important implications for campaign
 I N T RO D U C T I O N 7

timelines and objectives. Culver reviews the PRC’s “all of regime” approach to
pursuing its territorial claims in the South China Sea, regarding it as a useful
template for what it might do to pursue its preferred resolution of Taiwan’s
status. This includes using domestic law to legitimize its actions, placing
law-enforcement forces out front and backing them up with preponderant
military forces, using economic coercion to pressure other territorial claim-
ants, shaping Chinese public opinion to support Beijing’s actions, starting
slowly and moving forward when no resistance is encountered, dividing
and isolating opponents, and taking steps to create a “new normal.” China’s
past, present, and future preparation of the battle space for eventual victory
could span years, perhaps decades, as part of its long-term political strategy
for “national unification.”
In chapter 13, William Fox and Roderick Lee discuss the all-important
topic of air and sea supremacy, which Chinese strategists recognize is a
precondition for a successful island landing campaign. The PLA rarely shares
its own assessments of its ability to meet these requirements, so Fox and Lee
painstakingly inventory the shooters and sensors that would be available to
Beijing in a near-term Taiwan conflict to gauge the Chinese military’s likely
confidence of its operational capabilities in zones extending to and beyond
Taiwan (i.e., within the first island chain, within the second island chain,
and beyond the second island chain). They conclude that the PLA likely has
moderate confidence in its ability to seize and maintain control of the air
in the context of a joint island landing campaign, but high confidence in its
ability to achieve localized sea control for the invasion.
Chapter 14, written by Kevin McCauley, is the first of three chapters
examining PLA logistics support for an invasion. In his comprehensive
treatment of the topic, McCauley draws heavily from an authoritative
PLA volume entitled Operational Logistics Support (作战后勤保障), pro-
duced by the All-Army Logistics Academic Research Center. He discusses
the challenges and considerations associated with logistics command and
control; transportation and delivery (air, sea, and ground); matériel and
petroleum, oil, and lubricants supply; combat medical treatment; infrastruc-
ture support; and war reserves during different campaign phases. At the
time the volume was published (2017), the authors cited weaknesses across
the whole range of logistics functions, with particular emphasis on inade-
quate transportation capabilities and war reserves. McCauley concludes that
at present the PLA remains logistically unprepared for a large-scale invasion
of Taiwan.
Many analysts assume that the PLA would assault Taiwan over the
beach, in a limited number of suitable locations along the coasts. However,
8 C H I N E S E A M P H I B I O U S WA R FA R E

in chapter 15 Ian Easton argues that China’s military instead could seek to
leverage Taiwan’s major ports to disembark the bulk of the invasion force.
This could enable the PLA to avoid the potential bottlenecks and dangers of
moving large numbers of troops and quantities of equipment over the beach.
The PLA may favor operations to seize the ports from Taiwan defenders,
by amphibious attack, sea-skimming raids, air assault, secondary assaults
after a successful beach landing, or special-forces infiltration. With insights
gleaned from PLA sources on port-landing operations, Easton assesses the
suitability of specific Taiwanese ports in relation to PLA requirements.
As Lonnie Henley shows in chapter 6, the PLA intends to rely on com-
mercial vessels to support logistics over the shore in a cross-strait invasion.
In chapter 16, J. Michael Dahm examines recent training activities by the
PLAN to develop the technologies and hone the skills needed to achieve
seamless civil-military integration in a major landing operation. On the ba-
sis of his careful reconstruction of Eastern Transportation-Projection
2020A (summer 2020) and training and exercises conducted in 2021, Dahm
argues that China’s commercial fleet is currently unable to provide the lo-
gistics capabilities needed to support an amphibious landing operation on
Taiwan effectively, despite clear signs of progress toward this goal.

Implications
The volume concludes with a discussion of implications for the U.S. military
in part 5. In chapter 17, Sam Tangredi compares trends in PLA and U.S.
Marine Corps amphibious-warfare doctrines. He observes that the two
appear to be moving in opposite directions—in other words, “trading places.”
For example, prior to its 2017 reform, the PLANMC largely was focused on
defense of PRC-occupied islands in the South China Sea. But with the Chi-
nese navy’s construction of big-deck amphibious assault ships, the PLANMC
appears to have embraced an assault doctrine reminiscent of that of the U.S.
Marine Corps prior to, during, and following World War II. For its part,
largely in response to the China challenge in the western Pacific, the U.S.
Marine Corps is developing a doctrine favoring defense of advanced
bases, akin to coastal defense—a significant departure from its long-standing
global-expeditionary-warfare mission.
In chapter 18, Michael McDevitt offers recommendations for how the
U.S. Navy should respond if tasked by civilian leadership to help Taiwan
frustrate a Chinese invasion attempt. McDevitt assumes that China will
begin its campaign to subdue Taiwan with coercive measures, including im-
posing a maritime exclusion zone around the island. If that fails to compel
 I N T RO D U C T I O N 9

Taipei to meet Beijing’s demands, China could conduct an air and missile
bombardment of Taiwan to destroy its airpower and degrade its command-
and-control and surveillance capabilities. It next might seize ROC islands
near the mainland coast and in the South China Sea.
McDevitt highlights the importance of the U.S.-Japan alliance in the
event of a Chinese attack on Taiwan; coordination between the two mil-
itaries would be vital. For example, McDevitt recommends that the two
navies develop a space-management plan for their respective submarine
forces in waters adjacent to Japan and Taiwan. Once fighting breaks out
between China and the United States, the zone of conflict will shift to the
Philippine Sea, where the PLA will seek to push U.S. forces as far east as
possible. Space-based support likely will be degraded for both sides; to
prevail, the U.S. Navy must be better than the PLA at operating in this “space-
deprived” environment. To enable itself to halt the Taiwan invasion, the U.S.
Navy should develop capabilities that can defeat the Chinese surveillance
system, learn to operate without space-based support, field organic air-
wing tanking so Navy fighters can conduct long-range sorties, and
introduce long-range antiship and land-attack cruise missiles that can
be launched by Navy aircraft.
In chapter 19, Andrew Erickson and Gabriel Collins consider Taiwan’s
options for better deterring and defeating a PRC invasion attempt. Vladi-
mir V. Putin’s invasion of Ukraine offers both a wake-up call regarding
the risk of great-power irredentism and lessons in how the target of such
aggression can defend itself best. With the PLA studying its Russian
counterpart’s experiences in Ukraine, Taiwan must learn and implement its
own lessons to keep ahead of the mounting threat. Taiwan, with support
from the United States, must make the island tougher to invade, even harder
to subdue, and harder still to occupy and govern. It can do this by turning
the antiaccess/area-denial (A2/AD) issue on its head and presenting PLA
forces with multiple, numerous, hard-to-counter defenses that specifical-
ly target key Chinese military weaknesses. Erickson and Collins accord-
ingly outline seven concrete areas for immediate, concerted investment:
(1) air defense, (2) sea-denial fires, (3) shore-denial fires, (4) mine warfare,
(5) information warfare (including jammers and decoys), (6) civil defense,
and (7) the resilience of critical infrastructure.

Overall Findings
The contributors’ findings, distilled here, will shock even optimists with
how little margin is left in this perilous situation, yet hearten even the most
10 C H I N E S E A M P H I B I O U S WA R FA R E

hardened pessimists with reasons to believe that deterring an invasion of

Taiwan is still completely feasible. The deep historical background and
rich, realistic details offer as gripping a reading as may be found in serious
scholarship. Accompanying the hard-hitting text are numerous supporting
graphics and data tables, as well as an appendix laying out the PLA’s am-
phibious order of battle of major amphibious ships and landing craft, with
detailed ship silhouettes and specifications.
Among this book’s key findings is that Beijing keeps strengthening its
relevant capabilities, particularly missiles—an area in which it long has
lacked the geographic and policy constraints that Washington faces and in
which it already boasts, in some respects, world-leading capabilities. The
PLA is developing both the sensors and shooters (surface-to-air missiles,
advanced fighter aircraft, etc.) needed to vie for air and sea superiority over
the Taiwan Strait. With probably the world’s most potent at-scale mine-
delivery capability, China’s capabilities appear to exceed those of the United
States, Japan, and Taiwan by far. China also has invested heavily in MCM
capabilities, and the PLA is developing technical solutions (e.g., unmanned
and logistics systems) to support a potential invasion force.
Yet China also retains many weaknesses. Despite sweeping reforms,
PLA jointness—essential to success in a Taiwan invasion—suffers per-
sistent limitations, including apparent lack of joint training among special-
operations communities. Most forces within the PLA lack any actual combat
experience that could prepare them for what would be a tough fight to take
Taiwan. Despite dramatic expansion since 2017, the PLANMC does not
seem to be optimizing itself for a traditional amphibious landing against
Taiwan; instead, the PLAGF retains the lead amphibious invasion role, but
it still faces hurdles in its own training and readiness. Notwithstanding sig-
nificant effort to bolster logistic-support capabilities, the postreform PLA
remains incapable of effectively sustaining invasion forces. PLA helicopter
forces suffer enduring limitations, particularly in overall readiness, and in
operational capacity under combat conditions, including air-ground inte-
gration. Add to this the magnitude of the operation that China would face,
on the scale of Operation Overlord, and success is anything but assured.
A major saving grace for Taiwan is that its natural geographic defenses
(e.g., the strait itself, weather, tides, currents, mudflats, coastal terrain) offer
formidable protection and a firm foundation for fortification. It is unsur-
prising that numerous PLA writings describe amphibious warfare as one of
the most complex and difficult forms of military operations.2
Our contributors reach major areas of consensus. Lacking in major
modern-era successes of its own (beyond its seizure of Hainan and
 I N T RO D U C T I O N 11

Yijiangshan Islands, etc.), the PLA has studied carefully foreign experi-
ences with amphibious operations and has incorporated relevant lessons. A
cross-strait invasion remains tremendously difficult and risky for the PLA,
despite a growing military imbalance across the strait. The PLA clearly has
attempted to emulate and incorporate major “gold standards” of U.S. doc-
trine, terminology, and forces. The PLA is attempting to boost the realism of
its amphibious training and exercises and recognizes sea and air control as
prerequisites for a successful invasion. The PLAN is building large amphib-
ious vessels, but these appear to be designed to support overseas operations,
not a cross-strait invasion per se. The PLAN has not yet built the large num-
bers of LSTs and LSMs that would support a conventional invasion of Tai-
wan; indeed, its inventory of those single-mission vessels arguably is smaller
than it was a decade ago. The PLA currently lacks the required amphibious
lift, logistics, and matériel for a robust cross-strait invasion. Thus, a ma-
jor invasion today would require heavy reliance on civilian assets; China is
pursuing comprehensive capabilities through incorporation of all possible
forces, including a major emphasis on maritime militias and civilian logis-
tics. Accordingly, the PRC is unlikely to achieve a major element of surprise.
In keeping with CMSI’s scholarly standards, our contributors debate
key points, including the following: Might the PLA preemptively threaten
strikes against—or seizure of—offshore islands (Kinmen, Matsu, Pratas,
Penghu Islands) as a means of coercion short of attempting to invade Tai-
wan’s main island? How effective might the PLAAF Airborne Corps be in
supporting the campaign, and how well will it integrate operations with
other arms and services? To what extent would the PRC have to exploit a
limited number of predictable landing points on Taiwan’s main island,
where Taiwan could prepare to conduct a defense prior to conflict? Does
the PLA seek to prioritize large-scale beach landings or seizure of Taiwan-
ese ports to facilitate invasion? Citing PLA textbooks, Easton argues that
major ports are the key priority. Several other authors contend strongly that
the PLA likely will be unable to conduct a large-scale cross-strait invasion
successfully until it masters what the U.S. military terms “joint logistics over
the shore.” And perhaps most significantly at this time: Could Beijing use ci-
vilian assets effectively to support a cross-strait invasion? Most contributors
conclude that current abilities are inadequate, but Henley argues strongly
that maritime militia forces might operate mobilized civilian shipping as a
“just good enough” logistical backbone.
Our book leaves readers, from U.S. and allied decision makers to mem-
bers of the naval-interest community, with several significant takeaways.
Overall, the PLA has achieved tremendous progress in developing many
12 C H I N E S E A M P H I B I O U S WA R FA R E

of the capabilities needed for a cross-strait invasion—the threat posed to

Taiwan is grave. Nevertheless, the inherent challenges and risks remain suf-
ficiently high for Xi and the CCP that Taipei, Washington, and Tokyo can
continue to deter—or, in a worst case, frustrate—an invasion. Even if sea
and air control over Taiwan and the strait no longer is guaranteed, credible
capability to achieve sea and air denial can be good enough to prevail against
the PLA. Key PRC sensors are far less numerous than key PRC shooters,
and hence a better single-point-failure target for limited U.S. and allied fires.
Taiwan must redouble its efforts to build A2/AD “porcupine” capabilities
grounded in its natural defenses. U.S. planners must consider the possibility
of the PRC improvising in just-good-enough-for-long-enough fashion to at-
tempt to pursue basic political objectives, particularly if events or trend lines
“force” Xi’s hand. Preparing to address this ultimate possibility has become
a pressing mission for the Taiwan and U.S. militaries. All make it essential to
read the ensuing chapters without delay.

Notes
1. Andrew S. Erickson, comp., “Testimony by Admiral Philip S. Davidson, USN,
Commander U.S. Indo-Pacific Command: ‘U.S. Indo-Pacific Command Posture,’”
China Analysis from Original Sources, 14 March 2021, www.andrewerickson.com/
2021/03/testimony-by-admiral-philip-s-davidson-usn-commander-u-s-indo
-pacific-command-u-s-indo-pacific-command-posture/; “Advance Policy Ques-
tions for Admiral John C. Aquilino, USN, Nominee for Commander, U.S. Indo-
Pacific Command,” www.armed-services.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/Aquilino
_APQs_03-23-21.pdf; Hearing on the Nomination of Admiral John C. Aquilino,
USN for the Reappointment to the Grade of Admiral and to Be Commander,
U.S. Indo-Pacific Command,” United States Senate Committee on Armed Services,
23 March 2021, video, 2:44:32, www.armed-services.senate.gov/hearings/21-03-23
-nomination_aquilino.
2. 肖天亮 [Xiao Tianliang], ed., 战略学 [Science of Military Strategy] (Beijing:
National Defense Univ. Press, 2020), p. 364; 王果 [Wang Guo] and 王翔 [Wang
Xiang], 登陆作战到底难在何处 [“What Makes Landing Operations So Difficult”],
人民海军 [People’s Navy], 29 December 2020, p. 4.
PART I

Doctrinal Foundations of
Chinese Amphibious Warfare
 Grant F. Rhode

1. Shi Lang’s Amphibious

Conquest of Taiwan in 1683

Over three centuries ago, Qing admiral Shi Lang successfully con-
quered Taiwan, dismantled Ming rule, and brought the island into the Qing
empire under mainland governance. What can today’s strategists learn from
Shi Lang’s amphibious conquest of Taiwan in 1683, and how does it relate to
current concerns about China’s increasingly assertive posture toward Taiwan
as an autonomous polity? In the twenty-first century, Taiwan is faced with
the possibility of an amphibious invasion by forces of the Chinese govern-
ment in Beijing. Taiwan faced that same possibility during the seventeenth
century, when the naval forces of the Qing dynasty commanded by Admiral
Shi spent two decades attempting to defeat residual forces on Taiwan loyal
to the deposed Ming dynasty under the leadership of powerful members of
the Zheng clan. Shi Lang finally defeated the Ming naval forces led by the
Zhengs in 1683, eradicated the Ming government on Taiwan, and oversaw
the incorporation of Taiwan into the Qing state.1
The parallels between the seventeenth and the twenty-first centuries are
striking. Both periods involve civil war, as well as struggle with foreign pow-
ers external to China. This chapter examines the similarities and differences
between these two situations three centuries apart, especially with regard to
amphibious operations, changing power dynamics, problems of leadership,
and possible alliances in the struggle for Taiwan.
16 C H I N E S E A M P H I B I O U S WA R FA R E

Shi Lang in Brief

Shi Lang was born into a prominent Fujian family a quarter of a century
after the Imjin War (1592–98). He studied military strategy as a youth and
became a senior captain in the fleet of the Zheng clan, which was affiliated
with the Ming and commanded by Koxinga (Zheng Chenggong).2 Follow-
ing the Qing capture of Beijing in 1644, Koxinga fought against the Qing
south of the Yangzi River. Known as a competent naval commander, Shi
Lang gave Koxinga advice regarding the defense of Xiamen on the southeast
coast of China facing the Strait of Taiwan. Koxinga ignored the advice and
was defeated there. Having a haughty temper and known to be both blunt
and rude, Shi snubbed Koxinga for not taking his advice. Koxinga impris-
oned Shi Lang, but he escaped and defected to the Qing in 1651, bringing
along with him deep knowledge of the Zheng forces’ plans and organization.
Koxinga responded by killing Shi’s father, brother, and son.
The feud between Shi Lang and Koxinga played out over the next four de-
cades, during which Koxinga initially was successful in establishing a Ming
successor state on Taiwan. This Ming rebel state was extinguished finally
by Shi Lang with his invasion of Taiwan in 1683. As an adviser to the great
Qing emperor Kangxi, Shi was successful in lobbying to have Taiwan made
a prefecture of the Qing province of Fujian in 1684, despite fierce opposition
at court. He became governor of Fujian Province, but his ambition to revive
the great Zheng trading operation as his own private business domain ulti-
mately failed.
Shi Lang died in 1696, leaving a legacy that continues to be reinterpret-
ed. Over the centuries, Chinese literature at different times and locations has
emphasized the various and sometimes opposing views regarding Shi’s naval
competency, his unification of Taiwan with the mainland, and his traitorous
act of defection. During the first years of this century, a “Shi Lang fever”
gripped the historical discourse in China, including in 2006 public presenta-
tion of a thirty-seven-episode China Central Television drama on Shi Lang
that took three years to produce.3 The rumored naming of the first Chinese
aircraft carrier as Shi Lang as it was being prepared to join the People’s Liber-
ation Army Navy (PLAN) fit well within the context of “Shi Lang fever” and
its focus on Shi’s unification of Taiwan with the mainland.4

Chinese Ming-Qing Civil War and European Arrivals in East Asia

During the early seventeenth century, turmoil and dynastic change engulfed
China. After three centuries of flowering under the Ming dynasty emper-
ors from the Zhu family, northern Jurchen tribes, later called Manchu,
 S H I L A N G ’ S A M P H I B I O U S C O N Q U E S T O F TA I WA N I N 16 83 17

increasingly pressured Beijing. As the Ming dynasty’s power collapsed, the

Manchu occupied Beijing in 1644 and established the Qing dynasty. The
seventeenth Ming emperor, Chongzhen, committed suicide in a park lying
just outside Beijing’s Forbidden City. Ming partisans retreated to Nanjing in
southern China to consolidate their resistance. Although the Manchu oc-
cupied Nanjing in 1645, just a year after their occupation of Beijing, Ming
partisans continued to hold out farther south. In 1662, the Manchu killed
the last Ming claimant to the throne.
It took twenty-two more years, until 1684, for the last portion of
Ming-controlled territory, Taiwan, to be incorporated into the Qing state.
Support for the Ming emperors in exile hinged on the powerful Zheng clan
on the Fujian coast. Although many members of the clan were involved
from the 1620s to the 1680s, the primary military support for the Ming
emperors came from Koxinga. During the late 1650s, Koxinga led two ma-
jor offensives against the Qing in Nanjing, which failed. These expeditions
were followed by Koxinga’s attack on the Dutch in Taiwan in the early 1660s,
which succeeded in driving the Dutch off the island; the military victory
surprised Europeans at the time. The Dutch retreated from Taiwan to their
base in Batavia (modern-day Jakarta) on Java, in the East Indies. However,
after ruling on Taiwan for two decades, the last Zheng family Ming loyalists
were defeated in a naval battle at the Penghu Islands in the Taiwan Strait in
1683. Following this defeat, the last holdout Ming loyalists on Taiwan were
subjugated to Qing rule. It was a defector from the Zheng family navy, Shi
Lang, who ultimately succeeded in defeating the Zheng navy at Penghu.
During these seventeenth-century decades of convulsive civil war with-
in China, Europeans arriving in East Asia struggled among themselves to
gain and control access to the commercial possibilities in the East Indies,
on the China coast, and in Japan. They established key trading ports in the
China seas. The chief Portuguese stronghold was Macao, while the Dutch
operated from Batavia and the Spanish from Manila.
Profits in the spice trade ran as high as 400 percent. During the 1590s,
Dutch merchants sent exploratory expeditions to the East Indies—notably,
to Banten, the pepper port of west Java, and to the Moluccas, the source of
pepper, thereby cutting out the Javanese middlemen. The English threat-
ened Dutch competitors by establishing the English East India Company
in 1600. Not to be outdone, Dutch merchants of the republic founded the
Vereenigde Oostindische Compagnie in 1602. English speakers referred to it
as the VOC or Dutch East India Company to distinguish it from the English
East India Company (EIC).5
The VOC issued shares of stock to the general public, making it the
forerunner of the modern multinational corporation and the world’s first
18 C H I N E S E A M P H I B I O U S WA R FA R E

publicly traded company. The VOC promoted Dutch interests outside Eu-
rope, and in addition to having the power to trade, it possessed quasi-
governmental powers to negotiate treaties, maintain armies and forts, wage
war, imprison and execute convicts, establish colonies, and issue coins. The
VOC established trading posts at Banten in 1603 and at Ambon in 1610
before setting up an adequate permanent trading center in 1619 in what
had been known as Jayakarta, renamed Batavia when it came under Dutch
control that year.
From their Batavia base, the Dutch worked to build their Asian empire.
During the 1620s, through clearing that they conducted for plantation de-
velopment, the Dutch decimated the indigenous population of the Banda
Islands. Unable to force the Portuguese out of Macao in an attack in 1622,
the VOC nevertheless followed the Portuguese string-of-pearls strategy by
establishing a trading center on the Penghu Islands in 1622, before the Chi-
nese forced them to move to Taiwan in 1624. From this mid–China coast lo-
cation, from which they had access to Chinese silk and porcelain, the Dutch
moved north to force the Portuguese out of Nagasaki, establishing in 1641
the only Japanese-sanctioned European trading post in the country, on the
artificial island of Dejima in Nagasaki Bay.6 The Dutch also replaced the
Portuguese in Malacca on the Malay Peninsula in 1641. Thus, by the 1640s
the Dutch had replaced the Portuguese as the predominant trading entity
in the China seas. The Spanish contested Dutch control of Taiwan by es-
tablishing the forts of San Salvador at Jilong (Keelung) in 1626 and San Do-
mingo at Danshui (Tamshui) in 1628, thereby challenging the establishment
of the Dutch forts at Zeelandia and Provintia in 1624. However, the Dutch
forced the Spanish to abandon Taiwan by 1642.7 Elsewhere, the Portuguese
presence in East Asia was reduced to Macao and the Spanish to Manila.
By the middle and latter half of the seventeenth century, the Dutch clearly
dominated East and Southeast Asia in terms of European influence. By the
late 1660s, the VOC was the richest private company in the West, with deep
pockets that during the 1680s nearly bankrupted England’s EIC via the two
companies’ head-to-head Asian competition.
However, the Dutch loss of Zeelandia during the Sino-Dutch war of
1661–62 marked the beginning of the demise of the lucrative Dutch China
trade, especially in silk. Although the VOC was flush with other successes at
the time, the Sino-Dutch war of the early 1660s foreshadowed the company’s
eighteenth-century decline, ultimately resulting in its dissolution in 1799.
 S H I L A N G ’ S A M P H I B I O U S C O N Q U E S T O F TA I WA N I N 16 83 19

The Zheng Clan and Koxinga

The powerful Zheng clan of the Fujian coast ran a successful maritime
trading empire between Java and Japan. Zheng Zhilong and his son Zheng
Chenggong (Koxinga) were the heads of the Zheng clan from the 1620s until
1662.
Despite the general decline in power of the Ming dynasty in the early sev-
enteenth century, southeastern China had developed successful maritime-
oriented commercial capabilities. The wealthiest of the Fujian merchants,
Zheng Zhilong, had a trading fleet based in Fujian Province that consisted
of hundreds of trading junks that plied the China seas from Batavia to Naga-
saki. Recent scholarship has shown that the revenues of the Zheng clan were
considerably more than those of the Dutch VOC, which at the time dwarfed
those of the English EIC.8 On a trip to Japan, Zheng Zhilong took a Japanese
wife near Hirado in Kyushu, where the couple had a son, who later became
known as Koxinga.
The apocryphal story of Koxinga’s birth is that his mother, Tagawa Mat-
su, the daughter of a samurai, was collecting oysters on a Kyushu beach and,
while resting by leaning against a rock, gave birth to Koxinga. This was in
1624, the year in which his father, who formerly had served as a translator
for the Dutch, helped drive the Dutch from the Penghu Islands to Taiwan.
Zheng Zhilong introduced his son—first trained in samurai arts as a young-
ster, and then trained in the Chinese classics—to Longwu, the Ming emper-
or in exile. The emperor bestowed on the boy the name Guoxingye, “he of
the royal surname,” romanized as Koxinga. However, the Zhengs, father and
son, became estranged and never reconciled after Zheng Zhilong defected
to the Qing in 1646, two years after they had defeated the Ming in north
China. Koxinga, the son, held out to fight for the Ming until his death in
1662. Before he died, he suffered a great maritime loss to the Qing in 1659
and achieved a great maritime victory against the Dutch in 1662.

Koxinga’s Naval Expeditions against the Qing and the Dutch

Although he successfully had resisted Qing forces in southern Fujian during
the early and mid-1650s, Ming loyalist Koxinga determined that he would
challenge the Qing by engaging in a northward expedition to push them
out of south China. Beginning in 1655, he conducted a series of halting yet
successful campaigns to control the coast in northern Fujian and Zhejiang
Provinces. As part of his fighting forces, he created units of “Iron Men,”
who could fight in iron-plated tunics. In 1658 and 1659, Koxinga led
20 C H I N E S E A M P H I B I O U S WA R FA R E

successive massive but ultimately unsuccessful expeditions to retake Nan-

jing from the Qing. The first expedition, of one hundred thousand soldiers
and one thousand ships, failed owing to storms. The second seems to have
failed because Koxinga delayed in pressing his advantage, which allowed
Qing reinforcement troops to expel Koxinga’s forces from their camp at the
base of the walls of Nanjing. As Qing forces chased Koxinga’s Ming forces
south, Koxinga decided to relocate his headquarters from Jinmen and Xia-
men (also known as Quemoy and Amoy) on the Fujian coast to the island
of Taiwan.9
Koxinga’s commanders objected that Taiwan was too wild and disease
ridden, but Koxinga overruled them and moved his base of operations there
for multiple interrelated reasons. Fujian remained constrained by the coastal
prohibitions instituted by the Qing, and it was lacking in space and security.
Koxinga believed that all these problems could be solved by moving to the
larger, more-defensible territory on Taiwan. Given his seafaring prowess,
Koxinga favored the position because it was accessible only by sea.
From 1661 to 1662, Koxinga successfully drove the Dutch from Taiwan
back to Batavia, using a fleet of three hundred junks and thirty thousand
men. His fleet left from Jinmen, and for a week it used the Penghu Islands
as a staging ground. His forces overcame the Dutch forts of Provintia and
Zeelandia during an eight-month siege.10 Koxinga established a new Ming
vassal state on Taiwan in early 1662.
However, Koxinga died suddenly less than five months after the Dutch
surrender in what appears to have been a state of abrupt, violent dementia
caused by both physical and psychological illness. His son, Zheng Jing, held
off repeated attempts to reclaim Taiwan by the Dutch and by the Qing, led
by Adm. Shi Lang. After Zheng Jing died in 1681, the young heir, Zheng
Keshuang, was unable to withstand Shi’s final attack on Taiwan in 1683.

Shi Lang’s Amphibious Operations against the Ming on Taiwan

After Koxinga captured Taiwan from the Dutch in 1662, the Dutch, in an
ultimately unsuccessful alliance attempt with the Qing, engaged Shi Lang to
take back the island from Zheng Jing, Koxinga’s son, in 1663. Shi scheduled
two invasion dates, but the threat of typhoons curtailed the operations. The
following year, the Qing appointed Shi Lang chief of the Fujian navy and
commanded him to capture Taiwan. However, this mission too was imped-
ed when a typhoon destroyed his fleet.
In 1667, Zheng Jing requested that the Qing recognize his Taiwan re-
gime as an equal and separate state. He also sought an alliance, to include
 S H I L A N G ’ S A M P H I B I O U S C O N Q U E S T O F TA I WA N I N 16 83 21

military assistance, from the Japanese, who were sympathetic to the Ming
cause, especially because Koxinga had been half-Japanese. However, the
Japanese declined because they had entered their long period of sakoku
(isolation).
Countering the entreaty from Zheng Jing to the Qing, Shi Lang lobbied
to attack Taiwan, but the suspicious Qing treated him like other defectors,
such as Koxinga’s father, Zheng Zhilong, and placed Shi under house arrest,
moving him to Beijing in 1668. At the time of the succession transition fol-
lowing Zheng Jing’s death in 1681, Shi Lang was released from house arrest
and reinstated to his post as chief of the Fujian navy. After Shi disagreed
with the governor of Fujian Province over how to attack the Zhengs on Tai-
wan, the Qing emperor Kangxi granted Shi Lang total control over military
decisions. In spite of opposition from within the Beijing court, which argued
that Taiwan was too remote, too unproductive, and too expensive to main-
tain, the emperor eventually authorized Shi Lang to conquer Taiwan for the
Qing.
On 7 July 1683, Shi Lang sailed from Fujian to the Penghu Islands, sev-
enty miles from the Fujian coast, to attack the Zheng navy stationed there.11
His fleet included three hundred junks and 21,000 men—a force two-thirds
the number that Koxinga had brought to Taiwan to evict the Dutch twenty-
two years earlier. Initially Shi Lang’s fleet was deflected south by a storm;
however, the Zheng navy, under the command of Liu Guoxuan, remained
unprepared because it believed that an attack during typhoon season was
unlikely. After the delay caused by hurricane-force winds, the Qing forc-
es made a devastating naval attack on the Ming naval forces in the Peng-
hu Islands. Bolstered by superior guns the Dutch had provided, the Qing
navy sank 169 Zheng junks with a loss of twelve thousand Ming naval men,
thereby shattering the Zheng clan’s naval superiority, while Shi Lang’s forces
suffered little harm. A Qing landing cohort completed the takeover of the
islands. Shi treated captives with leniency and fed them well, in contrast
with the famine that Zheng defenders faced on Taiwan.
From the Penghu Islands, Shi Lang’s navy sailed almost unopposed into
Tai Bay. He took control of Taiwan against only sporadic opposition; Zheng
morale crumbled amid divided military leadership, half of which wanted to
move the Ming resistance to Manila. At the proclamation of surrender on
26 August 1683, thirteen-year-old Zheng Keshuang handed over the Ming
emperor Yongli’s seals that were in his family’s possession and subsequent-
ly shaved his head Manchu-style as a sign of submission. In October, Shi
Lang proclaimed a general amnesty for all who recognized Qing rule. When
Shi visited Koxinga’s shrine a few months later, a few Zheng sympathizers
22 C H I N E S E A M P H I B I O U S WA R FA R E

committed suicide, but most agreed to the generous terms that Shi Lang
offered.
Meanwhile, debate in Beijing raged about whether to incorporate Tai-
wan into the state. Many advocated abandoning the island and moving its
population to the mainland. Desiring to replace the Zheng commercial en-
terprise on Taiwan with his own monopoly, Shi Lang counseled Emperor
Kangxi to incorporate Taiwan into China to prevent any further possibility
of its use as a base for any ongoing Ming insurgency. In February 1684, Shi
petitioned the throne to annex Taiwan. In March 1684, Emperor Kangxi
decided to incorporate Taiwan as a prefecture of Fujian Province. The new
Taiwan Prefecture consisted of three counties, with a total garrison of eleven
thousand men.12 As pleased as Shi Lang must have been by the incorpora-
tion of Taiwan into the Qing state, he was frustrated when Kangxi lifted the
maritime trading ban on the coast in November 1684, thereby opening it
to competition and ending Shi’s dream of a trade monopoly. Subsequently,
Shi’s influence declined until his death in 1696.
The geographical facts surrounding the Penghu Islands, Jinmen, and
Xiamen have implicated these islands in larger geopolitical struggles over
Taiwan historically and to the present day. All three invasions of Taiwan
during the seventeenth century used the Penghu Islands as a staging ground
for amphibious operations. The Dutch had established a fort in the Penghus
in 1622 before being forced to Taiwan by the Chinese in 1624. Koxinga, rep-
resenting the Ming, came through the Penghus in 1662 to defeat the Dutch
on Taiwan. Shi Lang, representing the Qing, came through the Penghus in
1683 to defeat the Ming-loyalist Zheng clan on Taiwan. In the 1880s, the
French navy attacked Taiwan by way of the Penghus. In March 1895, the
Japanese took the Penghus in the last battle of the Sino-Japanese War, pav-
ing the way for Taiwan to become a Japanese colony pursuant to the Treaty
of Shimonoseki, a situation that lasted for the next fifty years. With a large,
deep, natural harbor thirty miles from Taiwan and a position seventy miles
from the coast of China, the islands have provided a significant logistical
shortening of the final attack distance to Taiwan.
The importance of the twin islands of Xiamen and Jinmen just off the
coast of Fujian to control of both the southeast Fujian coast of China and
the Taiwan Strait was demonstrated clearly by the struggle between the
Ming and the Qing to control these islands. Although close together near
the coast, Xiamen is currently a Chinese island, while Jinmen belongs to
Taiwan.13 In the October 1949 battle of Guningtou on the northern beach-
es of Jinmen five miles from the Chinese mainland, the Nationalist army
decisively defeated the Communist attempt to drive the Nationalists from
Jinmen.14 The role that Jinmen played during the Taiwan Strait crisis of 1958
 S H I L A N G ’ S A M P H I B I O U S C O N Q U E S T O F TA I WA N I N 16 83 23

brought China and the United States to the brink of nuclear war.15 Thus,
the struggles of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries mirror those of the
seventeenth century, pointing to the continuing importance of these islands
in the twenty-first century.

Parallels between Seventeenth-Century

and Twenty-First-Century Taiwan
There is a remarkable historical parallel between the Ming-Qing and the
Nationalist-Communist civil wars and transitions of power. Both conflicts
moved from north to south within China, and in each struggle Taiwan be-
came the geographic refuge of last resort for the defeated party.
On the mainland, Koxinga is remembered best today as the hero lib-
erator of Taiwan from the Dutch; however, on Taiwan he is considered the
heroic civil war Ming holdout on Taiwan opposing the mainland Qing. Al-
though Koxinga was loyal to the Ming, he ultimately failed to reinstitute the
Ming dynasty on the mainland. Nevertheless, he successfully added Taiwan
to the realm of Chinese geography—an important point in the development
of Chinese historical narratives. Without Koxinga’s program to drive out the
Dutch, the chances are good that Taiwan never would have become a part of
the territory of the Chinese empire.16 As a result of Koxinga’s efforts, Taiwan
did not become a European-ruled island similar to the Philippines, which
was ruled by the Spanish. Thus, the results of Koxinga’s Sino-Dutch war sub-
stantially changed the path of East Asian politics.
Whereas Koxinga opposed the Dutch as a foreign power in the seven-
teenth century, Chiang Kai-shek opposed the Japanese as a foreign power
in the twentieth century. To the extent that Chiang assisted in the defeat of
Japan, he increasingly is being given credit in both Western and Chinese
scholarship. Then Taiwan became the refuge of last resort for Chiang Kai-
shek, as it had for Koxinga. Parallels between Koxinga and Chiang Kai-shek
have been drawn in both Chinese and Western scholarship, and the two
figures are linked inextricably in popular memory in Taiwan.17 Parallels be-
tween Taiwan’s seventeenth-century liberation by Shi Lang and its situation
today likewise remain embedded in Chinese historical imagination.

This chapter has examined changing power dynamics, problems of leader-

ship, and failed attempts at alliances in the struggle for Taiwan during the
seventeenth century.
Regarding changing power dynamics, rising Qing power eclipsed de-
clining Ming power in land-based operations, allowing the Qing to con-
solidate China north of the Yangzi River within a year of their occupation
24 C H I N E S E A M P H I B I O U S WA R FA R E

of Beijing in 1644. Through the Zheng clan, the Ming retained power at
sea from their Fujian coastal base on Xiamen and Jinmen, which enabled
Koxinga’s Ming navy to attack Nanjing in 1659 and to defeat the Dutch on
Taiwan in 1661. Following Koxinga’s death in 1662, the relative power of the
Ming Zheng clan’s navy gradually declined in relation to that of the Qing.
Today, China’s military power, especially at sea and in the air, is expanding
rapidly in relation to that of Taiwan, a capable but much smaller polity.
Regarding problems of leadership, the capability of seventeenth-century
Qing leadership had a significant impact on Taiwan at both the national and
operational levels. Taiwan’s independent Ming governance survived sepa-
rately from the mainland from 1662 until 1683—in all, twenty-one years.
Qing emperor Kangxi’s reign from 1661 until 1722 became increasingly
powerful over time and was the longest in Chinese history, at sixty-one
years. He took the throne at age seven, with regents and the empress wield-
ing power for seven years. His de facto power was in place by the end of
the 1660s, putting him in position to command more authoritatively and
to direct Shi Lang’s naval attacks on Taiwan. Today, Taiwan has survived
separately from the mainland for over seventy years, from 1949 until today.
Chinese president Xi Jinping has emerged as an increasingly powerful lead-
er in China, with a mission to incorporate Taiwan into the mainland People’s
Republic of China polity. Strong leadership at the top matters, and it will
impact future developments.
Operational leadership in the field also matters. Koxinga’s maritime
knowledge and skills, a product of his Zheng family legacy, contributed to
his strong personal leadership in wresting Taiwan from the Dutch. He ap-
pears to have been chastened by his earlier failure to strike decisively against
the Qing in Nanjing, and he subsequently maintained a sustained aggressive
action against the Dutch on Taiwan. Later, Shi Lang used his detailed knowl-
edge of Zheng naval practices—he had served as a Zheng commander—to
defeat the Zheng navy in the Penghu Islands.18 In China today, the question
remains whether there will be a latter-day commander similar to Shi Lang
who will succeed in attaching Taiwan to the mainland as Shi did in 1683, al-
beit after several earlier failed attempts and during a moment of weak lead-
ership on Taiwan.19
Regarding alliances, although the Zheng clan pleaded with the sympa-
thetic Japanese to assist the Zhengs in their struggle against the Qing, the
Japanese had committed themselves to sakoku, the “closed country” isola-
tionist policy.20 While the Ming sought but failed to obtain a Japanese al-
liance to help defend themselves, on the other side the Qing flirted with a
Dutch alliance, especially in the aborted Shi Lang–led Dutch/Qing invasion
 S H I L A N G ’ S A M P H I B I O U S C O N Q U E S T O F TA I WA N I N 16 83 25

attempt of 1663. Differences of opinion about the impact of bad weather led
to a breakdown such that the potential alliance never was finalized. Taiwan
has been described as a latter-day Melos, which during the Peloponnesian
War of the fifth century bc tragically relied on an unresponsive ally, Sparta.21
As a result, powerful Athens did what it could, violently subjugating Melos
and inflicting great suffering on the people of that island. Today, the United
States is more committed to Taiwan than Sparta was to Melos. Although
this may provide hope to Taiwan, the questions remain whether the United
States will stay involved, and, if it does, whether an entangling alliance will
be the proximate cause of a great-power “Thucydides’s Trap” war between
China and the United States today, as proximate causes Corinth and Megara
were for Athens and Sparta.22
This review of the case of Shi Lang, with its many strong parallels to the
context of Taiwan today, suggests that relative military power matters, leader-
ship matters, and alliances—existing or not—matter. History also matters,
as a way to understand these dynamics and the way that the rhymes of his-
tory can play out. Parallels between the seventeenth-century liberation of
Taiwan by Shi Lang and the place of Taiwan today are embedded in Chinese
historical imagination.

Notes
1. Key studies focused on late Ming–early Qing maritime history, with detailed ac-
counts of Koxinga, Shi Lang, and Taiwan, include Tonio Andrade, Lost Colony: The
Untold Story of China’s First Great Victory over the West (Princeton, NJ: Princeton
Univ. Press, 2011); Xing Hang, Conflict and Commerce in Maritime East Asia: The
Zheng Family and the Shaping of the Modern World, c. 1620–1720 (Cambridge,
U.K.: Cambridge Univ. Press, 2016); and Ronald C. Po, The Blue Frontier: Maritime
Vision and Power in the Qing Empire (Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge Univ. Press,
2018).
2. Ralph C. Croizier, Koxinga and Chinese Nationalism: History, Myth, and the Hero
(Cambridge, MA: East Asian Research Center, Harvard Univ., 1977); Jonathan
Clements, Coxinga and the Fall of the Ming Dynasty (Stroud, U.K.: Sutton, 2004).
3. Ronald C. Po, “Hero or Villain? The Evolving Legacy of Shi Lang in China and
Taiwan,” Modern Asian Studies 53, no. 5 (September 2019), p. 1505.
4. Prior to its commissioning into the PLAN, China’s first aircraft carrier was called
Shi Lang in some unofficial press reports. See, for instance, Peter W. Singer, “Who’s
Afraid of the Big, Bad Chinese Aircraft Carrier?,” Brookings, 28 July 2009, www
.brookings.edu/, and Wang Jyh-perng, “Is There Significance in a Name?,” Taipei
Times, 13 June 2011. The story that China’s first aircraft carrier would be named
Shi Lang was called a groundless rumor by Yang Yi, director of China’s Taiwan Af-
fairs Office of the State Council. Although Shi Lang was the most discussed name
26 C H I N E S E A M P H I B I O U S WA R FA R E

before the ship was commissioned formally in September 2012, other names were
the subject of public speculation, including Mazu, for the Chinese goddess of the
sea. Koxinga credited Mazu for his success in his amphibious capture of Taiwan
from the Dutch. The figure of Mazu that he hand carried from Fujian to Taiwan
still is worshipped in a Mazu temple in Luermen, Tainan. The ship was formally
named Liaoning when it was commissioned on 25 September 2012.
5. François Gipouloux, The Asian Mediterranean: Port Cities and Trading Networks
in China, Japan and Southeast Asia, 13th–21st Century, trans. Jonathan Hall and
Dianna Martin (Cheltenham, U.K.: Edward Elgar, 2011), pp. 126–37.
6. Warren I. Cohen, East Asia at the Center: Four Thousand Years of Engagement with
the World (New York: Columbia Univ. Press, 2000), pp. 194–200.
7. Substantial remains of Forts Zeelandia and Provintia are in Tainan. For those inter-
ested in the European-Ming saga, they are worth visiting, as are the fort in Danshui
and the fort remains in Jilong.
8. Hang, Conflict and Commerce in Maritime East Asia. The appendices are valuable
for their comparison of the revenues of the Zheng regime on Taiwan with those of
the VOC. See the analysis of Zheng market share, pp. 263–94.
9. Kinmen is the adapted Wade-Giles romanization used on Taiwan for Jinmen.
Herbert Allen Giles, after whom the Wade-Giles romanization is partly named,
served as British consul in Tamsui in the 1880s.
10. The history is told admirably in Andrade, Lost Colony.
11. More details of the 1683 battle of Penghu are in Hang, Conflict and Commerce in
Maritime East Asia, pp. 230–34.
12. In reality, Qing administration covered only the western plains of Taiwan, where
most of the Chinese settlers lived. The mountainous central and eastern sections
of the island remained underadministered, such that indigenous people continued
to control much of these areas. The Qing did not deem Taiwan worthy of being
designated a province with its own governor until 1885, when fears of Japanese
invasion of the island took hold in Beijing. Indeed, the Japanese took control of
Taiwan in 1895 in accordance with the terms of the Treaty of Shimonoseki.
13. The mid-twentieth-century struggle for Jinmen is documented in Michael Szonyi,
Cold War Island: Quemoy on the Front Line (Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge Univ.
Press, 2008).
14. Still-existing defensive fortifications on the beach are reminders of this successful
defense against amphibious invasion, now well documented in the Guningtou Bat-
tle Museum adjacent to the beaches.
15. Szonyi, Cold War Island, pp. 64–78
16. Croizier, Koxinga and Chinese Nationalism, p. 19. Croizier points out that it is an
irony of history that Koxinga’s last campaign was forced on him by his failure to
oust the Ming from Nanjing, yet this campaign became “his only lasting historical
achievement.”
17. Grant F. Rhode, “Tasting Gall: Chiang Kai-shek and China’s War with Japan,” in The
Road to Pearl Harbor: Great Power War in Asia and the Pacific, ed. John H. Maur-
er and Erik Goldstein (Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 2022), pp. 63–92.
Paul Cohen has illuminated the popular uses of Chinese history in his History and
 S H I L A N G ’ S A M P H I B I O U S C O N Q U E S T O F TA I WA N I N 16 83 27

Popular Memory: The Power of Story in Moments of Crisis (New York: Columbia
Univ. Press, 2014).
18. A leadership what-if question is: What might have happened if Koxinga, three
years younger than Shi Lang, had lived as long as Shi Lang? It is likely that Koxinga
would have been a wilier and better-prepared commander in 1683 than the young-
ster Zheng Keshuang.
19. Bad blood remains between the Zhengs and the Shis owing to the 1651 defection
of Shi Lang from the Ming to the Qing. At the present time, a Zheng will not marry
a Shi and vice versa. In another family development, descendants of Koxinga’s half
brother Shichizeamon changed their name from Tagawa to Zheng and served as
Meiji diplomats who oversaw Japanese control of China. See Po, “Hero or Villain?,”
p. 1508.
20. Donald Keene, The Battles of Coxinga: Chikamatsu’s Puppet Play, Its Background
and Importance (London: Taylor’s Foreign Press, 1951) provides careful scholar-
ship about an early eighteenth-century Japanese play telling the story of Koxinga’s
expedition to attack Nanjing. Keene subtly examines the complex interplay of Jap-
anese and Chinese influences on Koxinga, indicating the special relationship that
Koxinga had with Japan.
21. James R. Holmes and Toshi Yoshihara, “Taiwan: Melos or Pylos?,” Naval War Col-
lege Review 58, no. 3 (Summer 2005), pp. 43–61.
22. Graham Allison, Destined for War: Can America and China Escape Thucydides’s
Trap? (Boston: Houghton Mifflin H­­arcourt, 2017), pp. 34–39.
 Xiaobing Li

2. What Did the PLA Learn

from Its Jinmen, Hainan, and
Yijiangshan Landing Campaigns?

Since the Chinese Civil War (1945–1949) was primarily a contest for
control of the Chinese mainland, the People’s Liberation Army did not
gain extensive experience in amphibious operations. In the period after the
founding of the People’s Republic of China (PRC), the PLA did conduct
several landing operations intended to assert control over offshore islands.
These operations, both successes and failures, informed the early develop-
ment of PLA amphibious doctrine.
This chapter chronicles the PLA’s early amphibious campaigns and
examines the lessons that Chinese military leaders learned from them. It
comprises three main parts. Section 1 highlights the 1949 assault on Jin-
men (Quemoy or Kinmen) and the lessons learned from this failed landing
operation. Section 2 discusses how these lessons were applied to the suc-
cessful invasion of Hainan in 1950. Section 3 analyzes the PLA’s invasion of
Yijiangshan, which both further validated PLA amphibious doctrine and
offered new lessons of its own. It was also the PLA’s only joint operation
during the Cold War. The chapter concludes by summarizing key findings
and discussing their implications for a future large-scale landing campaign
across the Taiwan Strait.
30 C H I N E S E A M P H I B I O U S WA R FA R E

Jinmen: A Failed Landing

When Mao Zedong founded the PRC on 1 October 1949, Chinese lead-
ers still were confronting over one million Nationalist (Kuomintang, KMT)
fighters on Taiwan and in southwestern China. Mao’s first priority was to
consolidate the new state by eliminating all remnants of the KMT forces of
Chiang Kai-shek on Taiwan and other offshore islands.1 In late 1949, Chiang
moved the seat of his government to Taiwan. At Taipei, the new capital city
of the Republic of China (ROC), Chiang prepared for the final showdown
with Mao in the last battle of the civil war. He concentrated his troops on
four major islands: 200,000 men on Taiwan, 100,000 on Hainan, 120,000 on
the Zhoushan island group, and 60,000 on Jinmen.2
Jinmen is a small island group lying less than two miles off the mainland,
covering a total of sixty square miles and having a population of forty thou-
sand at that time. It is not in the open ocean, but instead lies just off the coast
from Xiamen, the largest seaport on the southeast mainland. After taking
over Xiamen on 17 October 1949, the Tenth Army Group ordered its 28th
Army to prepare a landing campaign against Jinmen. However, poor intelli-
gence caused the army command to pay insufficient attention to battle read-
iness. On the evening of 24 October, the 28th Army attacked Jinmen. As the
first wave landed, its ten thousand troops found themselves tightly encircled
by the KMT garrison at Guningtou, a small village near the landing site, and
suffered heavy casualties. Most of their familiar tactics that had been suc-
cessful in the civil war—such as achieving surprise to avoid superior enemy
firepower, outnumbering the enemy whenever possible, and engaging the
enemy in mobile operations—did not work in the landing.3
Next morning, KMT air and naval forces destroyed two hundred small
fishing junks concentrated around Xiamen before they could land PLA re-
inforcements.4 With no boats, the Tenth Army Group, 150,000 strong, could
not reinforce the Jinmen landings; its members could only listen helplessly
as their comrades pleaded for aid on the radio; and three days later, trans-
missions ceased. The 28th Army lost 9,086 landing troops, including more
than three thousand taken prisoner, while the KMT lost only about a thou-
sand defenders.5
No Chinese record exists revealing serious discussions at the high com-
mand concerning the Jinmen operation until 28 October, when the bad news
reached Beijing: one of the best army groups in the Third Field Army had
lost three regiments on the Jinmen beaches. Shocked, Mao drafted a circular
with a warning to all PLA commanders, “especially those high-level com-
manders at army level and above,” that they “must learn a good lesson from
the Jinmen failure.”6 The PLA high command learned four lessons from the
 W H AT D I D T H E P L A LE A R N FRO M I T S L A N D I N G C A M PA I G N S? 31

failed Jinmen landing: (1) cross-strait transportation was the key factor, (2)
coordination and communication were crucial for landing operations, (3)
landing forces must outnumber the enemy defense, and (4) naval and air
forces were necessary for large-scale amphibious campaigns. Su Yu, deputy
commander of the Third Field Army, warned his generals that amphibious
operations were “a new warfare” or “modern warfare, different from all the
wars we have fought before.”7
The KMT had different explanations for the PLA’s failure at Jinmen.
First, the PLA troops had become arrogant and conceited after they took
over Xiamen, and they underestimated the challenges of landing on Jinmen.
They thought they were successful as soon as they landed and did not have a
plan in case of setbacks. Second, the PLA did not have accurate information
on the KMT defense forces, which had received reinforcements from the
18th and 19th Armies. Third, the PLA had only one landing point, and the
28th Army timed its landing wrong; it chose the early morning for its attack.
This provided the KMT a chance to concentrate its defensive forces and
firepower through the first day—a task that would have been more difficult
at night. The PLA should have chosen two or more landing sites, with land-
ings at different times. Fourth, the landing troops did not have supporting
firepower and antitank guns. Last, the PLA did not have boats for its sec-
ond wave or any major reinforcements after it transported the first wave of
three regiments to Jinmen. KMT general Chiang Wei-kuo recalled during
an interview that the battle of Jinmen not only boosted the troops’ morale
but also convinced his father, Chiang Kai-shek, that the KMT government
could survive on these islands by building up a strong defense.8
Thereafter, the PLA developed a new strategy for offshore campaigns in
1949–50. It included (1) a centralized national command, (2) a large landing
force, (3) proper training, and (4) necessary naval and air support. Obvi-
ously, the high command still considered landings to be army-led operations.
First, the PLA high command realized that any major landing operation
was not a local campaign; it needed a centralized and integrated high com-
mand for planning, coordination, and mobilization of all available sources
at large scale. On 31 October, Mao telegraphed Lin Biao, Fourth Field Army
commander, to halt all amphibious operations on the South China Sea
coast.9 In early November, Mao instructed Su Yu to postpone the attacks on
the islands in the East China Sea.10 Su issued orders to the Seventh, Ninth,
and Tenth Army Groups on 14 November, instructing them that army group
commands no longer would order any offshore attack; only the field army
headquarters (HQs) could authorize such an operation.11
32 C H I N E S E A M P H I B I O U S WA R FA R E

Second, Mao believed that a major amphibious attack must concentrate

a large force capable of landing, defending the beachheads, and continu-
ing deeper attacks. On 18 December, on his way to Moscow, Mao drafted
a lengthy telegram to Lin Biao. This message was the first systematic con-
sideration of PLA amphibious operations by the top Chinese leaders.12 Mao
warned Lin, “The cross-strait operation is totally different from all of our
army’s experience in the ground operations in the past. . . . [You] must
concentrate and transport at least an entire army (forty to fifty thousand
men) with supplies for at least three days before landing at the enemy beach.
. . . You must study the lesson [of Jinmen].”13 The principle that any ma-
jor landing campaign must concentrate a large force continued to impact
Chinese strategy. In 1961, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) Central
Military Commission (CMC) organized the CMC War Strategy Research
Group, with Gen. Su Yu as chair, to study past landing campaigns and pre-
pare for another showdown against Chiang Kai-shek. The group invited the
field generals with landing experience on Jinmen to Beijing to provide more
details. Their research and reports emphasized the concentration of a force
numerically superior to the defensive garrison.14
Third, Mao suggested to Su Yu that all concerned armies needed to be
better prepared, with time taken to conduct amphibious operation train-
ing. From this point forward, Mao showed extra caution. He telegraphed
the field army commanders again in November that the “[c]ross-strait cam-
paign is totally different from all experience our army had in the past.” Mao
asked his commanders to “guard against arrogance, avoid underestimating
the enemy, and be well prepared.”15 Su carried out the training order in the
Third Field Army, while warning the high command that it would be “ex-
tremely difficult to operate a large-scale cross-ocean amphibious landing
operation without air and sea control.”16
Last, Mao indicated that the PLA needed naval and air forces to support
any major amphibious landing. For the PLA on the mainland, the offshore
operations became an important and difficult issue in late 1949 because of
the lack of amphibious experience and lack of naval and air forces. On 11
November 1949, the PLA high command proclaimed the establishment of
the PLA Air Force (PLAAF). Xiaoming Zhang points out, “Chinese Commu-
nist concepts for the development of airpower derived primarily from Mao
Zedong’s plan for the invasion of Taiwan in 1949.”17 In December, the high
command reorganized the HQ of the Twelfth Army Group, Fourth Field
Army, into the HQ of the PLA Navy (PLAN). Xiao Jinguang, commander of
the Twelfth Army Group, was the first commander of the PLAN.18
Mao paid a state visit to the Soviet Union on 16 December, hoping to get
what he desperately needed through a treaty of alliance. This would include
 W H AT D I D T H E P L A LE A R N FRO M I T S L A N D I N G C A M PA I G N S? 33

equipment for his new air and naval forces. The Soviet Union agreed to arm
the Chinese naval force with ships and equipment worth $150 million (1950
value), constituting half the total loan package that Joseph Stalin granted
during Mao’s two-month stay.19 Mao then placed a huge military order (1.2
billion rubles, about $220 million) with Stalin, including to purchase 340
warplanes.20 On 11 February, Mao wrote to Stalin ordering an additional 628
airplanes from the Soviets, and on 25 February he asked for 217 more Rus-
sian air force advisers.21 Since the Russian planes and warships arrived later,
the PLAAF and PLAN did not participate in the April 1950 Hainan landing.

The Hainan Landing and the Taiwan Invasion Plan

The army applied the lessons from the battle of Jinmen to its invasion of
Hainan in April 1950. First, from the very beginning the high command
worked closely with the field army and army group commands. On 10 Jan-
uary 1950, Mao instructed the CMC and the party center “to make an effort
to solve the problem of Hainan Island in the spring and summer seasons.”22
On 1 February, the CCP Central China Bureau held a Hainan campaign
conference and decided on an amphibious strategy that would combine
small-scale crossings with large-scale crossings; this was intended to cope
with the KMT naval and air superiority in the twenty-mile-wide Qiongzhou
Strait separating Hainan from the mainland. After his return from Moscow,
Mao approved the Fourth Field Army’s Hainan landing plan.23
Having learned the lessons of Jinmen, the PLA concentrated a large
landing force for the invasion. On 18 December 1949, Mao instructed the
Fourth Field Army “to prepare the 43rd and 40th Armies for attacks on
Qiongya.24 Then the high command approved the campaign proposal, in-
cluding the deployment of two infantry armies, three artillery regiments,
and combat-engineering troops, totaling one hundred thousand troops. The
PLA also instructed guerrilla troops (about twenty thousand men) on Hain-
an to support the landing campaign. The Fourth Field Army also ordered its
Fifteenth Army Group to prepare for a Hainan landing campaign.25
The landing forces additionally secured enough transport boats before
their landing. On 17 February, Mao sent another telegram to the Fourth
Command with the following instructions: “[You] must confirm the guar-
antee of landing transportation and preparation before you launch the at-
tack. Avoid push and rush, avoid mistake and loss.”26 Following Mao and
the high command’s instructions, the Fourth Field Army instructed its Fif-
teenth Army Group to take three months to prepare for its Hainan landing.
In December 1949, the army group command had ordered its 40th and 43rd
34 C H I N E S E A M P H I B I O U S WA R FA R E

Armies to move into coastal areas across from Hainan and begin their land-
ing training. Meanwhile, the Fifteenth Army Group Command collected
2,130 fishing junks and employed more than six thousand boat crewmen to
provide cross-strait transportation.27
From 5 to 10 March, the Fifteenth Army Group began its small-scale
night landings by sending battalion-size landing forces to cross the Qiong-
zhou Strait. The landing forces quickly overran the KMT garrison and
reached local guerrillas on Hainan. From 26 to 31 March, the 40th and 43rd
Armies sent two regiments with artillery units across the strait, and they
successfully landed on Hainan. These vanguard troops established their
bases and prepared sites for the large-scale landing of the Fifteenth Army
Group.28
At 1930 on 16 April, the first landing wave of fifty thousand troops in
350 boats sailed to Hainan. The KMT air patrol reported the assaulting
forces within ten to fifteen minutes of the fleet leaving the shore. Through-
out the night, six KMT warships attacked the PLA landing force but failed to
stop the crossing, with one KMT ship sunk and two damaged. By 0600 the
next morning, the first PLA wave had landed on Hainan. Then, the 118th
and 119th Divisions of the 40th Army broke through the KMT defense and
secured the landing sites. Meanwhile, the 128th Division of the 43rd Army
moved deeper and engaged the KMT’s 252nd Division—the main force for
Hainan’s defense. By 22 April, the 252nd Division had been destroyed, and
the KMT defense collapsed. The next day, the PLA took over Haikou, the
capital city of Hainan. On 23 April, the second wave of fifty thousand PLA
troops left the mainland, landing on Hainan the next morning. By 1 May,
the battle of Hainan was over, with the PLA victorious.29
The successful landing on Hainan encouraged the PLA to prepare for
a Taiwan landing in the spring of 1950. On returning from Moscow on 4
March, Mao met with the PLA high command. During the discussion, Mao
instructed Nie Rongzhen, acting chief of the General Staff, along with Su
Yu, to plan attacks on Taiwan. Mao emphasized the importance of training
airborne forces and preparing an additional four amphibious divisions.30 On
11 March, Su met Xiao Jinguang to discuss detailed plans for Taiwan’s liber-
ation. In April, the CMC approved the Su/Xiao plan. The Third Field Army
began landing training in the late spring. According to the plan, the Third
Field Army, including its Seventh, Eighth, and Ninth Army Groups, and the
navy would deploy half a million troops to attack Taiwan.31 The Thirteenth
Army Group of the Fourth Field Army, including three armies, remained
as a reserve for the attack, while the Nineteenth Army Group deployed its
three armies along the mainland coast as a mobile force. Total forces for the
invasion of Taiwan included nearly eight hundred thousand men.32
 W H AT D I D T H E P L A LE A R N FRO M I T S L A N D I N G C A M PA I G N S? 35

In May, the Ninth Army Group defeated 120,000 KMT defenders on

the Zhoushan island group and occupied those islands in the East China
Sea. In early June, the army group landed on the KMT-occupied Dongshan
and Wanshan island groups and took forty-eight small islands. Thus, in late
spring 1950, people on both sides of the Taiwan Strait expected an imminent
PLA attack on Jinmen and Taiwan.33 When the CCP held its Third Plenary
Session of the Seventh National Congress 6–9 June 1950 in Beijing, Mao
urged the party to regard the liberation of Taiwan and Tibet as its central
tasks. Su reported on PLA preparations for invading Taiwan.34
However, the Korean War broke out on 25 June, which altered Mao’s
design.35 The war surprised Mao and others in the Chinese leadership, since
neither the North Koreans nor the Russians had informed them of the attack
schedule.36 But the unexpected and abrupt U.S. policy shift toward Taiwan’s
security, from “hands-off ” to “hands-on,” was shocking to them.37 On 27
June, two days after the North Korean invasion of the South and after having
reached consensus between Congress and the Pentagon, President Harry S.
Truman announced the U.S. Seventh Fleet’s deployment to the Taiwan Strait
as a preventive measure against Chinese Communist attacks on KMT-held
Taiwan. The Seventh Fleet’s presence in the Taiwan Strait marked a turn-
ing point in the cross-strait situation. With direct American involvement
in the Taiwan Strait, the PLA now faced a serious challenge.38 One of Mao’s
speeches reflects Beijing’s point of view. Before June 1950, liberating Taiwan
from Nationalist forces was the PLA’s primary task; after June, Mao stated,
“The American armed forces have occupied Taiwan, invaded Korea, and
reached the boundary of Northeast China. Now we must fight against the
American forces in both Korea and Taiwan.”39
Truman’s order secured the ROC by preventing a planned PLA landing
on Taiwan by the end of June 1950.40 An amphibious campaign against U.S.
forces in the Taiwan Strait in the summer of 1950 could have been a military
disaster for the PLA. On 30 June, Premier Zhou Enlai officially postponed
the PLA’s landing operation against Taiwan.41 Later the CMC cabled Chen
Yi, commander of the Third Field Army, that there would be no attack on
Taiwan until 1952 at the earliest.42
The Seventh Fleet’s presence in the Taiwan Strait totally changed the bal-
ance of military power in the Chinese Civil War. Communist leaders faced
a new challenge; what had been part of the civil struggle had been trans-
formed into an international confrontation. From then on, Chinese lead-
ers had to include U.S. military power and strategy in their war decisions
regarding a new amphibious campaign across the Taiwan Strait.
36 C H I N E S E A M P H I B I O U S WA R FA R E

Yijiangshan: The First Joint Operation

By 1953, Chinese leaders had learned a hard lesson in Korea: that it was best
to avoid a full-scale war against the West, particularly the United States. The
PLA opted instead to fight “limited wars,” since they curbed human loss and
economic cost. Its limited attacks in the Taiwan Strait continued to promote
PRC interests while avoiding total war with the United States. After the Ko-
rean armistice in 1953, the PLA focused on the Taiwan Strait, planning a
new amphibious campaign against the KMT-held offshore islands.
Zhang Aiping, chief of Zhejiang Command (ZC), East China Military
Region (ECMR), proposed a “piecemeal” attack—one island at a time, be-
ginning with the northernmost small islands (the Dachen Islands) in the
East China Sea. Zhang’s proposal avoided the U.S. Seventh Fleet, which was
located about a hundred miles away in the South China Sea, and exploited
the Dachen island group’s location, which was more than two hundred miles
away from Taiwan. After success there, he would move south and attack
larger islands, one by one.43
The high command approved Zhang’s three-phase plan. The campaign
would commence with an amphibious assault involving land, air, and naval
forces—the first time the PLA would conduct joint operations. His second
phase would focus on gaining control of the air and sea to isolate the KMT
garrisons on the Dachens and surrounding islands. The third phase involved
island landing operations, for which the 24th Army began training.44
As the situation grew more unfavorable for the KMT, Chiang Kai-shek
personally visited KMT garrisons on the Dachen Islands from 6 to 7 May. He
told his troops there to avoid panic under any circumstances. Chiang Wei-
kuo recalled in an interview that his father’s visit strengthened the troops’
morale and quelled rumors of an evacuation from the islands. After Chiang
Kai-shek’s visit, the Dachen Islands’ garrisons received reinforcements and
more supplies.45
In early May 1954, the PLA readied for its landing on Dongji, a group
of small islands north of the Dachens. On 15 May, the troops landed at the
Dongji Islands and eliminated the KMT garrison, capturing sixty prisoners.
With Zhang Aiping’s success, the CMC decided in July that the ECMR and
ZC would launch a similar attack in September on the Dachen Islands, the
much larger island group off the Zhejiang coast.46
Zhang learned lessons from the Dongji amphibious campaign. He es-
tablished a joint command, the Zhejiang Front Command (ZFC), in the
summer of 1954 at Ningbo, for the Dachens campaign. This joint command
was a tripartite headquarters that included commanders from the air force,
navy, and army. They convened their first joint meeting on 31 August and
 W H AT D I D T H E P L A LE A R N FRO M I T S L A N D I N G C A M PA I G N S? 37

discussed details for the Dachens campaign. Zhang presented his cautious,
step-by-step plan to the branch commanders. To prepare for the PLA’s first
joint attack, Zhang emphasized the importance of close cooperation among
the services, and he sent infantry commanders to the navy and air forces for
training.47
Zhang and Nie decided on Yijiangshan, a half-square-mile islet, seven
miles north of the Dachen Islands, as the first target of the landing cam-
paign.48 Chinese officers and their Russian advisers could not agree on the
timing of the PLA landing; the ZFC commanders ultimately decided on
noon on 18 January 1955, weather permitting. The attack began at 0800
on 18 January, with fifty-four bombers and eighteen fighters raiding key
KMT positions, headquarters, and defense works at both Yijiangshan and
the Dachens. The bombers dropped 127 tons of ordnance over the course
of six hours. By 1220, coastal artillery at Toumenshan started a two-hour
bombardment of Yijiangshan. Four artillery battalions plus twelve artillery
companies barraged the island with forty thousand shells. During the can-
nonade, from 1318 to 1415, four escort ships and two gunboats fired from
the surrounding waters at the island’s defensive positions. The prelanding
bombardment destroyed almost all the defense works, artillery positions,
and communications on Yijiangshan. The heavy, repeated shelling also neu-
tralized the Dachens’ supportive fire.49
Around 1215, 188 ships of various types, including four escort ships,
two gunboats, twelve torpedo boats, six rocket gunboats, and more than
140 landing craft, transported Zhang’s ten-thousand-man invasion force,
along with 3,700 sailors, to Yijiangshan. Coordinating with the bombard-
ment and amphibious landings, PLAAF MiG-15s conducted low-altitude
strikes on the KMT beachhead at 1425. The first wave landed at Yijiang-
shan after 1430. In the east, the troops suffered more than thirty casual-
ties before landing, as KMT 60 mm rockets hit two of their transports.
The landing troops rushed the beach and took over defensive positions,
suffering forty PLA casualties. With support from the second wave, they
occupied key heights on the island. By 1730, the entire island had fallen
under PLA control.50
By next morning, the PLA had annihilated all remaining KMT pock-
ets of resistance. The KMT lost its entire garrison of 1,086 men: 567 dead
and 519 prisoners. The PLA suffered 2,092 total casualties: the army had
893 dead and 1,037 wounded, losing nearly 50 percent of its first landing
wave’s strength; naval forces had 23 dead and 139 wounded.51 The navy
also lost one landing craft and twenty-one ships were damaged, while
the PLAAF suffered no losses, although eight bombers and fighters were
damaged.52
38 C H I N E S E A M P H I B I O U S WA R FA R E

With the battle of Yijiangshan, the PLA had learned how to invade a
KMT-held island without risking a war with the United States and how to
conduct joint naval and air operations. First, PLA field generals had worked
closely with Beijing to avoid any conflict with the U.S. armed forces in the
region. Maj. Gen. Xu Yan, from China’s National Defense University, points
out that Beijing was convinced that the United States would not intervene
in the Yijiangshan landing.53 To keep the United States out of the Dachens
area, Nie Fengzhi, commander of the ZFC air forces, personally instructed
his pilots not to engage any U.S. aircraft without his permission. Nie recalled
that “throughout the whole campaign we had an excellent result with no
involvement with foreign air forces.”54
Another lesson the PLA learned was that performance among the dif-
ferent services could be uneven. The PLAAF 2nd Division had engaged the
KMT air force over the Dachens area since the spring of 1954. Although
Taiwan recently had received American F-84 fighters, the KMT air force had
yet to deploy them. Moreover, KMT pilots were no match for the PLAAF
pilots, with their Soviet-made MiG-15 jet fighters and fresh experience from
the Korean War.55 In six air engagements, six KMT fighters were shot down,
while the PLAAF lost only two.56 By May 1955, the PLA controlled the skies
north of the Dachen Islands.
The PLAAF began its assault on the Dachen Islands on 1 November
1954. For four days, bombers and fighters raided the Dachen Islands and
Yijiangshan, flying more than one hundred sorties and dropping over one
thousand bombs.57 The ZFC dominated both air and sea around the Dachen
Islands. Between 21 December 1954 and 10 January 1955, the ZFC air force
conducted five heavy raids against the Dachen Islands, totaling twenty-eight
bomber and 116 fighter sorties. On 10 January, the PLAAF raided Dachen
Harbor, sinking one KMT tank landing ship and damaging four others.58
Professor Lu Xiaoping from the PLAAF Command College emphasizes
the service’s success in providing air support for the Yijiangshan landing.
“During the combat implementation, the Air Force units and Army landing
force operated in close coordination, attacking the defending enemy forces
with flexibility, protecting the frontal charge of the landing unit.”59
In contrast, military historian Zhongtian Han argues that the PLAN per-
formed poorly during the Yijiangshan campaign. The ECMR East China
Sea Fleet (ECSF) targeted Sanmen Bay with six medium escort ships and
ten gunboats. On 18 March, the ECSF attacked KMT naval forces north
of the Dachen Islands, sinking one KMT warship and damaging another.
From 18 March to 20 May, the ECSF engaged the KMT navy in twelve bat-
tles, damaging nine KMT ships. Nevertheless, the PLAN lost its warship
 W H AT D I D T H E P L A LE A R N FRO M I T S L A N D I N G C A M PA I G N S? 39

Ruijin during the battle. Han believes the PLA was successful at the strategic
adaptation of joint operations, but failed at the operational level.60

Analysis of the PLA’s landing experiences from 1949 to 1955 indicates that
Chinese amphibious campaign doctrine evolved rapidly, because Chinese
generals were capable of adjusting to changing conditions and consis-
tently reassessing their own performance. Moreover, their changes in stra-
tegic planning about coastal offensives did not occur only in the crucible of
combat or after suffering another humiliating defeat like the Jinmen landing
of 1949; their Korean War experience paid off during offshore operations.
The PLA demonstrated four key capabilities: planning, learning, adapt-
ing, and political control. Although there was always a learning curve, the
PLA adapted to amphibious warfare and proved the political morale and
combat effectiveness of its personnel. The PLA high command centralized
preparations, operations, and logistics for its offshore attacks from 1950 to
1955. These findings also describe a swift transformation of a PLA landing
campaign from an army-based attack to a joint operation, with emphasis
on air raids, naval support, cross-strait transportation, and communication
among landing troops. Ultimately, the Chinese landing campaigns in the
early 1950s achieved their campaign goals by seizing Hainan and all the off-
shore islands in the East China Sea that have been the subject of this chapter.
However, Chinese leaders were frustrated by a technological gap of rel-
evant air and naval powers over the Taiwan Strait, making their operational
objectives nearly unachievable after 1955. The PLA was an army eager to
learn, and it quickly recognized the disparity between its weapons and those
available to the American military. Beginning in 1954, the PLA engaged in a
“limited war” in the Taiwan Strait, avoiding full-scale war against the United
States.
In addition to using Russian-model armaments from the 1950s, the Chi-
nese also tried to improve their own technology, and in the 1960s they de-
veloped their own weapon systems, including strategic weapons. The main
driver behind Beijing’s efforts to build hundreds of nuclear bombs was to
avoid being subjected again to 1950s-style nuclear blackmail by Washington
in the Taiwan Strait. The problem of Taiwan and the frequent crises in the
Taiwan Strait with the KMT and the United States have been used to justify
China’s nuclear modernization.61
During his second term (2017–22) and into his third (2022–27), Xi
Jinping has continued to employ nationalism as an ideology to unite
China and prepare the country for a large-scale cross-strait invasion. If he
has learned lessons from Mao’s era, prior to any Taiwan campaign he will
40 C H I N E S E A M P H I B I O U S WA R FA R E

launch a nationwide movement to mobilize the population, mass media, fi-

nancial institutions, and the economy while establishing a centralized com-
mand system for the amphibious operation. From Mao to Xi, the Taiwan
issue has garnered more attention than any other military-related topic.
Moreover, as other chapters in this volume demonstrate, the PLA has co-
pious new military hardware with which to enhance its capabilities for air-
ground integrated attacks, long-distance maneuver, and rapid assaults.
Nevertheless, the most important lesson Beijing learned from its am-
phibious campaigns is not to fight a large-scale war against the United States
in the Taiwan Strait. Any major U.S. intervention would endanger the PLA’s
landing campaign. To keep America away from the strait, Beijing may seek
to use nuclear deterrence, as it did from 1965 to 1968 to confine American
bombing of North Vietnam to areas south of the twentieth parallel. How-
ever, Mao did not offer a historical lesson on nuclear deterrence across the
Taiwan Strait, and Xi will have to learn it on his own.

Notes
1. 毛泽东 [Mao Zedong], 关于兵力部署的意见给林彪的电报 [“Telegram to Lin
Biao: My Suggestions on Your Troop Disposition and Battle Array”], 31 October
1949, in 建国以来毛泽东文稿 [Mao Zedong’s Manuscripts since the Founding
of the State] (Beijing: CCP Central Archival and Manuscript Press, 1989) [hereafter
Mao’s Manuscripts since 1949], vol. 1, p. 107.
2. 中华民国国防部 [Defense Ministry, ROC], 国军后勤史 [Logistics History of the
KMT Armed Forces] (Taipei: Bureau of History and Political Records, Defense
Ministry, 1992), vol. 6, pp. 199–200.
3. 解放军南京军区第三野战军战史编辑室 [War History Editorial Office for the
Third Field Army, PLA Nanjing Military Region Command], 中国人民解放军
第三野战军战史 [War History of the PLA Third Field Army] (Beijing: PLA Press,
1996), vol. 4, pp. 374–77.
4. 郝柏村上将 [Chief Gen. Hau Pei-tsun (KMT Army [Ret.])], interview by author,
Taipei, May 1994. Hau (1919–2020) served as the KMT army commander on the
offshore islands during the PLA attack on Jinmen in 1949. He later served as ROC
defense minister in the 1980s.
5. Compilation Committee of ROC History, A Pictorial History of the Republic of
China: Its Founding and Development (Taipei: Modern China, 1981), vol. 2, p. 297.
The KMT army officially claimed PLA casualties of about twenty thousand men,
including 7,200 prisoners. According to the author’s interviews in both Taiwan and
China, a figure of ten thousand PLA casualties seems most realistic.
6. 中央军委 [CMC], 军委关于攻击金门岛失利的教训的通报 [“Circular on the
Lesson of Jinmen Battle”], 29 October 1949. In 1987, the Archives and Research
Division of the CCP Central Committee found that Mao drafted the original
 W H AT D I D T H E P L A LE A R N FRO M I T S L A N D I N G C A M PA I G N S? 41

document. The division reprinted it from Mao’s manuscript and included it in

Mao’s Manuscripts since 1949, vol. 1, pp. 100–101.
7. Su Yu’s words quoted in 叶飞 [Ye Fei], 叶飞回忆录 [Memoirs of Ye Fei] (Beijing:
PLA Press, 1988), p. 608.
8. Gen. Chiang Wei-kuo (KMT Army [Ret.]), interviews by author, Rongmin Gen-
eral Hospital, Taipei, 26 May 1994.
9. Mao Zedong, My Suggestions on Your Troop Disposition and Battle Array. In
his telegram, Mao told Lin, “Do not attack the Leizhou Peninsula, much less take
a chance to attack the Hainan Island.” See Mao’s Manuscripts since 1949, vol. 1,
p. 107.
10. Two of these CMC telegrams were drafted by Mao to Su Yu. The first one is 军委
关于同意定海作战方案给粟裕等的电报 [“Telegram to Su Yu for the Operation
Plan of the Dinghai Campaign”], 4 November 1949, and the second is 关于定海作
战部署给粟裕的电报 [“Telegram to Su Yu: The Disposition of the Dinghai Cam-
paign”], 14 November 1949. The latter reads, “In view of the military failure on
Jinmen, you must check out closely and seriously all problems, such as boat trans-
portation, troop reinforcement, and attack opportunity on the Dinghai landing. If
it is not well prepared, we would rather postpone the attack than feel sorry about it
later.” Mao’s Manuscripts since 1949, vol. 1, pp. 118, 137.
11. He Di, “The Last Campaign to Unify China: The CCP’s Unrealized Plan to Liber-
ate Taiwan, 1949–1950,” in Chinese Warfighting: The PLA Experience since 1949,
ed. Mark A. Ryan, David M. Finkelstein, and Michael A. McDevitt (Armonk, NY:
M. E. Sharpe, 2003), p. 88.
12. 解放军军事科学院军事历史研究部 [Military History Research Division, PLA
Academy of Military Sciences, 中国人民解放军战史 [War History of the Chinese
People’s Liberation Army] (Beijing: Military Science, 1987), vol. 3, p. 359.
13. 毛泽东 [Mao Zedong], 渡海作战必须注意的问题 [“Pay Attention to These Is-
sues in Amphibious Campaigns”], 18 December 1949, responding to Lin’s telegram
of 10 December about the Fourth Field Army’s campaign proposal, including a
landing campaign on Hainan Island. This document is in 建国以来毛泽东军事
文稿 [Mao Zedong’s Military Manuscripts since the Founding of the PRC] (Beijing:
Military Science and CCP Central Archival and Manuscript Press, 2010), [hereaf-
ter Mao’s Military Manuscripts since 1949], vol. 1, pp. 104–106.
14. 肖锋少将 [Maj. Gen. Xiao Feng], 回忆金门之战 [“Recollection of the Battle of
Kinmen”], in 回顾金门登陆战 [Recollections of the Battle of Kinmen Landing], ed.
肖锋 [Xiao Feng] (Beijing: People’s Press, 1994), p. 55. Xiao Feng was deputy com-
mander of the 28th Army in the battle of Jinmen. His rank was senior colonel in
1955 and major general in 1961.
15. CMC, “Circular on the Lesson of Jinmen Battle,” p. 101.
16. Ye, Memoirs of Ye Fei, p. 608; staff member of the Tenth Army Group HQ, in-
terview by author, Hangzhou, Zhejiang, 6 July 2006. Ye was the commander of
the Tenth Army Group from 1949 to 1955. 星火燎原编辑部 [Xinghuo Liaoyuan
Composition Department], 中国人民解放军将帅名录 [Marshals and Generals of
the PLA] (Beijing: PLA Press, 1992), vol. 1, pp. 58–59.
42 C H I N E S E A M P H I B I O U S WA R FA R E

17. Xiaoming Zhang, Red Wings over the Yalu: China, the Soviet Union, and the Air
War in Korea (College Station: Texas A&M Univ. Press, 2002), p. 6.
18. 杨国宇 [Yang Guoyu], 当代中国海军 [Contemporary Chinese Navy] (Beijing:
China Social Sciences, 1987), p. 17.
19. Ibid., pp. 48, 52.
20. 韩怀智 [Han Huaizhi], 当代中国军队的军事工作 [Military Affairs of Contem-
porary China’s Armed Forces] (Beijing: China Social Sciences, 1989), vol. 2, p. 161.
21. Mao’s telegrams to Stalin on 11, 15, and 25 February 1950, as quoted in 楚峰
[Chu Feng], 二十世纪五十年代中苏军事关系研究 [“The Sino-Soviet Military
Relations in the 1950s”] (PhD diss., Party Univ. of the CCP Central Committee,
Beijing, 2006), pp. 45, 59.
22. 毛泽东 [Mao Zedong], 大力做好解放海南岛的准备工作 [“Make Great Cam-
paign Preparations to Liberate Hainan Island”], in Mao’s Military Manuscripts since
1949, vol. 1, pp. 119–20.
23. 毛泽东 [Mao Zedong], 同意四十三军以一个团先行渡海 [“Agree the 43rd Army
Has One Regiment to Cross the Strait First”], Mao’s telegram to Lin Biao on 12
February 1950, in Mao’s Military Manuscripts since 1949, vol. 1, p. 123.
24. 毛泽东 [Mao Zedong], 关于渡海作战等问题给林彪的电报 [“Telegram to Lin
Biao: On the Issues of Amphibious Campaigns”], in Mao’s Manuscripts since 1949,
vol. 1, pp. 190–91.
25. 解放军福州军区作战部 [Operation Department, PLA Fuzhou Military Region],
渡海登陆作战战例选编 [Selected Case Studies of Cross-Strait Landing Battles]
(Fujian: Fuzhou Military Region Command Printings, 1975), vol. 1, pp. 145–48.
26. Mao’s telegram, quoted in Han, Military Affairs of Contemporary China’s Armed
Forces, vol. 1, p. 136.
27. 张爱萍大将 [Gen. Zhang Aiping], 中国人民解放军 [The Chinese People’s Libera-
tion Army] (Beijing: Contemporary China, 1994), vol. 1, pp. 75–76.
28. Han, Military Affairs of Contemporary China’s Armed Forces, vol. 1, pp. 139–43.
29. 国防大学《战史简编》编写组 [War History Editorial Committee, PLA National
Defense Univ.], 中国人民解放军战史简编 [A Brief History of the Chinese PLA
Revolutionary War] (Beijing: PLA Press, 2001), p. 626.
30. 毛泽东 [Mao Zedong], 关于同意粟裕调四个师演习海战等问题给刘少奇的电
报 [“Telegram to Liu Shaoqi: Approval of Disposing Four Divisions for Landing
Campaign Exercise”], 10 February 1950, and 关于确定先打定海再打金门的方针
的批语 [“Instruction on the Proposal of Attacking Dinghai First, Jinmen Second,
Campaign Strategy”], 28 March 1950, in Mao’s Manuscripts since 1949, vol. 1,
pp. 256–57, 282.
31. 肖劲光大将 [Adm. Xiao Jinguang], 肖劲光回忆录 [Memoirs of Xiao Jinguang]
(Beijing: PLA Press, 1988), vol. 2, pp. 8, 26.
32. He, “The Last Campaign to Unify China,” pp. 82–83.
33. Chiang Wei-kuo, interview by author, Taipei, 23 May 1994. General Chiang re-
called that his father, Chiang Kai-shek, and KMT intelligence had information on
the PLA’s landing preparations in the spring of 1950.
 W H AT D I D T H E P L A LE A R N FRO M I T S L A N D I N G C A M PA I G N S? 43

34. 中共党史研究室 [CCP Party History Research Division], 中国共产党历史大事

记, 1919–1987 [Major Historical Events of the CCP, 1919–1987] (Beijing: People’s
Press, 1989), pp. 191–92.
35. Gen. Ye Fei, interview by author, Hangzhou, Zhejiang, July 1996. Ye served as com-
mander of the Tenth Army Group, Third Field Army of the PLA, from 1949 to
1951.
36. Mao was very dissatisfied with this and later confided, “They [the North Koreans]
are our next-door neighbor, but they did not consult with us about the outbreak
of the war.” Mao’s quote is in 李海文 [Li Haiwen], 中共中央什么时候决定志愿
军出国作战? [“When Did the CCP Central Committee Decide to Send the Vol-
unteers to Fight Abroad?”], 党的文献 [Party Literature and Archives] 5 (1993),
p. 85, cited in Shen Zhihua, “China Sends Troops to Korea: Beijing’s Policy-Making
Process,” in China and the United States: A New Cold War History, ed. Xiaobing Li
and Hongshan Li (Lanham, MD: Univ. Press of America, 1998), p. 20.
37. Xiaobing Li, “Truman and Taiwan: A U.S. Policy Change from Face to Faith,” in
Northeast Asia and the Legacy of Harry S. Truman: Japan, China, and the Two
Koreas, ed. James I. Matray (Kirksville, MO: Truman State Univ. Press, 2012),
pp. 127–28.
38. Hau Pei-tsun, interviews by author, Taipei, 23–24 May 1994. As the commander
of the KMT front artillery force on Jinmen Island, Hau felt relieved when he was
informed of the U.S. Seventh Fleet’s patrol in the Taiwan Strait in June 1950.
39. 毛泽东 [Mao Zedong], 三大运动的伟大胜利 [“The Great Achievements of the
Three Glorious Movements”], a speech at the Third Plenary Session of the First
National Committee of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference, 23
October 1951, in Mao’s Manuscripts since 1949, vol. 2, pp. 481–86; 毛泽东选集
[Selected Works of Mao Zedong] (Beijing: People’s Press, 1978), vol. 5, pp. 50–52.
40. Xiao, Memoirs of Xiao Jinguang, vol. 2, p. 26.
41. Ibid.
42. 刘树发 [Liu Shufa], 陈毅年谱: 1901–1972 [A Chronological Record of Chen Yi:
1901–1972] (Beijing: People’s Press, 1995), vol. 2, pp. 632–33.
43. Lt. Gen. Xu Changyou, interviews by author, Shanghai, April 2000. Xu served as
Gen. Zhang Aiping’s aide and then the deputy secretary general of the CMC. He
was the vice-commissar of the PLAN East Sea Fleet at the time of the interview.
44. 东方鹤 [Dong Fanghe], 张爱萍传 [Biography of Zhang Aiping] (Beijing: People’s
Press, 2000), vol. 2, pp. 663–64; Xiaobing Li, “PLA Attacks and Amphibious Oper-
ations during the Taiwan Strait Crises of 1954–55 and 1958,” in Ryan, Finkelstein,
and McDevitt, Chinese Warfighting, p. 146.
45. Chiang Wei-kuo, interviews by author, Taipei, 25–27 May 1994. When asked
during the interview about his father’s secret visit to the Dachens, General Chiang
pointed out that his father recognized the strategic importance of these islands
after the Korean War. Chiang Kai-shek made his trip to these offshore islands with-
out informing any KMT officials or American representatives in Taiwan other than
his naval commanders.
46. Dong, Biography of Zhang Aiping, vol. 2, pp. 664–65; Li, “PLA Attacks and
Amphibious Operations,” p. 148.
44 C H I N E S E A M P H I B I O U S WA R FA R E

47. 胡彦林中将 [Vice Adm. Hu Yanlin], 威震海疆: 人民海军征战纪实 [Shocking

the Sea: Records of the People’s Navy’s Battles] (Beijing: National Defense Univ.
Press, 1996), pp. 210–15.
48. Dong, Biography of Zhang Aiping, vol. 2, pp. 674–75; Han, Military Affairs of
Contemporary China’s Armed Forces, vol. 1, pp. 216–17; Li, “PLA Attacks and
Amphibious Operations,” p. 152.
49. 卢辉 [Lu Hui], 三军战一江 [Joint Forces Battle Yijiang] (Beijing: China United
Literature Publishing House, 2014), p. 126.
50. 杨忠义 [Yang Zhongyi], 苏联专家与中国海军航空兵 [Soviet Advisers and PLAN
Air Force] (Beijing: PLA Press, 2013), p. 220.
51. 地久 [Di Jiu] and 克峰 [Ke Feng], 潮涨潮落: 国共角逐台湾海峡纪实 [Ebb and
Flow: Records of the CCP-KMT Confrontation in the Taiwan Strait] (Beijing: China
Industrial and Commercial Publishing, 1996), pp. 210–12.
52. Han, Military Affairs of Contemporary China’s Armed Forces, vol. 1, pp. 220–21.
53. 徐焰 [Xu Yan], 抗美援朝影响了台湾问题的解决吗? [“Did the War to Resist the
U.S. and Aid Korea Alter the Solution of the Taiwan Issue?”], in 徐焰讲稿自选
集 [Self-selected Lecture Notes of Xu Yan], ed. 徐焰 [Xu Yan] (Beijing: National
Defense Univ. Press, 2014), pp. 118, 120–21. Xu is a professor at China’s National
Defense University and deputy secretary general of the Chinese Military History
Society.
54. 聂凤智 [Nie Fengzhi], 云击鹰翔震海空 [“Soaring Eagles Strike from the Clouds
and Shake the Sea and Sky”], in 三军挥戈战东海 [Joint Forces Wield Spears and
Fight in the East China Sea], ed. 聂凤智 [Nie Fengzhi] (Beijing: PLA Press, 1985),
p. 16.
55. The air force bases in east coast cities such as Shanghai, Hangzhou, and Ningbo
also were used by Zhang’s jets in the air campaigns.
56. 王定烈 [Wang Dinglie], 当代中国空军 [Contemporary Chinese Air Force] (Beijing:
China Social Sciences, 1989), p. 324.
57. 马冠三 [Ma Guansan], 鏖战东海忆当年 [“Remember the Combat Years in the
East China Sea”], in Nie, Joint Forces Wield Spears, p. 29. Ma was deputy com-
mander of the ZFC naval force.
58. Han, Military Affairs of Contemporary China’s Armed Forces, vol. 1, pp. 215–16.
59. Lu Xiaoping et al., The PLA Air Force (Beijing: China Intercontinental, 2012), p. 52.
60. Zhongtian Han, “The PRC’s Naval-Air Campaign in the East China Sea, 1954–
1955” (paper presented at the annual meeting of the Chinese Military History
Society, 10 May 2020, virtual [Zoom]).
61. The Taiwan Question and China’s Reunification in the New Era (Beijing: Taiwan
Affairs Office of the State Council and the State Council Information Office,
August 2022), pp. 15–16, english.scio.gov.cn/whitepapers/2022-08/10/content
_78365819.htm.
 Christopher Yung and Zoe Haver

3. The Six Pillars of

PLA Amphibious Doctrine

What are the principles that guide the development and potential use
of the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) amphibious force? How might these
principles translate into action in a large-scale invasion of Taiwan?
This chapter seeks to answer these questions through analysis of the
writings of PLA experts on amphibious warfare. These include edited vol-
umes and instructional materials published by the Chinese Academy of
Military Science and other authoritative PLA publishers. This chapter also
examines scholarly articles that PLA analysts have published in academic
periodicals, which provide indications of how the PLA may be developing
new technical and tactical solutions to doctrinal challenges. From these
works, this chapter distills the core principles that define PLA thinking on
amphibious operations. These principles represent the doctrinal foundation
of PLA amphibious warfare.1
This chapter comprises two main parts. Part 1 outlines the current am-
phibious missions of the PLA Navy (PLAN), with a focus on a cross-strait
invasion. Part 2—the core of the chapter—examines the following six key
principles of PLA thinking on amphibious warfare:
1. Dominance of the three domains
2. Key-point strikes
3. Concentration of “elite strengths”
46 C H I N E S E A M P H I B I O U S WA R FA R E

4. Rapid and continuous assaults

5. Integrated and flexible support operations
6. Psychological attacks
Each principle also is compared to historical amphibious operations and the
principles underlying their execution. The chapter concludes with a sum-
mary of key findings.

The PLAN’s Current Amphibious Missions

The PLAN is charged with preparing to execute three main amphibious
missions. The most obvious and pressing mission is a cross-strait assault
against Taiwan—the focus of this chapter. The service also is responsible
for asserting and defending China’s maritime and territorial claims in
the South China Sea and East China Sea. Carrying out this mission could
involve conducting lower-intensity amphibious assaults on islands and
smaller features, followed by a struggle to keep rival claimants or the Unit-
ed States from retaking those features. The third amphibious mission is
associated with out-of-area (or “far seas”) operations in support of the Belt
and Road Initiative (BRI) or China’s other overseas interests. These could
include transporting special-forces troops to protect Chinese nationals and
businesses from terrorist or insurgent threats abroad, conducting a large-
scale evacuation of noncombatants, or delivering supplies and support per-
sonnel to help build partner capacity in aid of the BRI and support other
Chinese foreign-policy efforts.2
Of these three amphibious missions, the highest priority, as noted, is a
Taiwan contingency. It is also the most difficult to address militarily, there-
fore demanding the most attention doctrinally. When formulating amphib-
ious doctrine, therefore, the PLA likely expends most of its time and effort
on preparing for a large-scale invasion of Taiwan.

Core Principles of PLA Amphibious Doctrine

The PLA has been wrestling with the challenges associated with amphibious
warfare since as far back as 1949, when it confronted the military problems
of taking Hainan Island, offshore islands in the Taiwan Strait, and Taiwan
itself. Mao Zedong placed Su Yu in charge of planning the amphibious as-
sault against Taiwan. During this planning, Su wrestled with the basics of
amphibious warfare, as they applied to the case in question: providing air
cover, establishing surface-ship superiority around the strait, and obtaining
 T H E S I X P I LL A R S O F P L A A M P H I B I O U S D O C T R I N E 47

enough “lift” to carry the troops across the strait.3 Over the subsequent de-
cades, the PLA has studied the most famous amphibious campaigns in mil-
itary history, emulated the best practices of other navies, and incorporated
some of the basics of amphibious doctrine.
PLA writings, especially the naval sections of the 2006 Science of Cam-
paigns, reveal that the PLA has adopted a number of established doctrinal
concepts. These include the need to accomplish the following:
• Organize two distinct components of an attack force, a sea compo-
nent and a land component, but also establish a single, unified am-
phibious command to oversee the operation
• Provide air support to protect the amphibious task force
• Provide naval-gunfire support to suppress, if not destroy, coastal
defenses
• Provide specialized landing vessels to transport ground forces, and
then to transition them from water to land
• Determine and plan for the right mix of assault forces and reserves
to make initial contact with the enemy, penetrate enemy defenses
ashore, and then push through and move inland with sufficient mo-
mentum to establish a firm, defensible lodgment
• Load transports in the order that enables units to off-load prepared to
fight 4
Examination of PLA doctrinal publications, however, also makes ev-
ident that the PLA has incorporated new or emergent doctrinal thinking
into its amphibious doctrine as it continues to wrestle with the specifics of
a Taiwan campaign. This new doctrinal thinking can be traced specifical-
ly to larger PLA thinking on war fighting that has emerged since the 1993
publication of the Military Strategic Guidelines. The Chinese military has
incorporated an assortment of new concepts, such as “informatization,”
“key-point strikes,” and “integrated joint operations.” These new ideas and
concepts are very visible in chapter 13 of Science of Campaigns, which focus-
es on joint landing campaigns.5 The remainder of this chapter addresses six
of these newer principles.6

Principle 1: Dominance of the Three Domains

Since the beginning of World War II, amphibious doctrine has had to ad-
dress the question of managing operations and establishing dominance in
three domains: air, sea, and land. The history of the various World War II
amphibious campaigns is essentially the history of the Allies figuring out
how to establish dominance in the air, on (and under) the sea, and at the
48 C H I N E S E A M P H I B I O U S WA R FA R E

point of the landing. The real challenge at the beginning of the war cen-
tered on how to determine who was in charge of which domain, and at what
point(s) during the operation. In the central Pacific, a particularly thorny
question—which commander (the amphibious-force commander or the
land-force commander) had overall authority—led to the formal establish-
ment of the Commander, Amphibious Task Force–Commander, Landing
Force doctrine. British operations in North Africa early in the war involved
nasty interservice arguments over whether the Royal Air Force should exer-
cise centralized control over all air operations or instead whether the British
ground forces and Royal Navy should retain limited control over aircraft for
specific operations.7 In different theaters of the war, the Allies came to vary-
ing conclusions on how to address these problems; however, it became clear
that the best system was one that brought about the following conditions:
• The initial establishment of air superiority
• Effective dominance by ground forces in land warfare and maritime
superiority in the maritime domain
• Coordination between maritime and air forces and between ground
and air forces
• The ability to pass control back and forth among domains, to the best
ability of the forces and commands involved 8
Contemporary PLA amphibious doctrine also emphasizes multidomain
dominance, but stresses the concept’s application to the sea, air, and infor-
mation domains—known as the “three dominances.” According to Science
of Campaigns, “[s]eizing information dominance in a landing campaign is
the crux to seizing air dominance and sea dominance,” and “[t]he goals in
seizure of information dominance are to greatly reduce the operational ef-
fectiveness of the enemy’s electronic equipment, and to ensure the full real-
ization of the operational effectiveness of friendly electronic equipment.” 9
PLA campaign literature states that it is essential, first, to seize the ad-
vantage over the adversary by degrading its command-and-control (C2)
networks and the ability of different nodes within the system to commu-
nicate with each other.10 At that point, the PLA would launch long-range
strikes in an attempt to disrupt the adversary’s ability to resist or engage in
military operations effectively. The PLA then would be in a position to seize
dominance in the relevant contested domains—in the case of Taiwan, the air
and maritime domains.
There are almost no publicly available studies or analyses that discredit
this approach. However, interestingly, it appears that PLA researchers do not
see it as a silver bullet for the Taiwan campaign. This is consistent with the
appearance of a number of PLA articles expressing concern that the PLA
 T H E S I X P I LL A R S O F P L A A M P H I B I O U S D O C T R I N E 49

still is unable to perform missions adequately in support of “informatized

war.”11 For example, our searches of Chinese scholarly journals uncovered
a number of articles in which researchers from the PLAN Marine Corps
training base appear to assume that enemy capabilities within the air and
maritime domains will be quite robust, suggesting that the PLA still is sort-
ing out how to address these threats operationally and tactically.
For example, one study examined how best to distribute the firepower
of amphibious assault ships armed with antiair-missile capabilities for the
purposes of enhancing the defense of the amphibious task force (ATF).12 A
second study looked at various tactical situations the ATF might encounter
and examined the capabilities of different antiair weapons systems to meet
those different threats.13 A third study considered hard- and soft-weapons
capabilities to meet the air threat.14 A fourth study probed the effectiveness
of antiair weaponry on amphibious assault ships, depending on the type of
air targets.15 Finally, one study analyzed the entire antiair-warfare system
through a comprehensive operational simulation confrontation between the
PLA and an adversary.16
This series of studies examining the effectiveness of defensive weapons
systems on amphibious assault ships indicates that PLA researchers are not
complacent about the capacity of information-dominance and systems-
disruption efforts to eliminate threats in the air and maritime domains. It
further suggests that the PLA does not believe that its ability to seize air
superiority over the Taiwan Strait can be assured.

Principle 2: Key-Point Strikes

During World War II, the first combatant force to use naval gunfire to strike
targets ashore was the Imperial Japanese Navy during the Guadalcanal cam-
paign. The Allies subsequently used and further developed this tactic in all
their amphibious campaigns in numerous theaters of the war. The focus
of naval-gunfire support and strike warfare in support of an amphibious
landing was on breaking coastal defenses. During the planning for the June
1944 Normandy landing, some consideration went into striking targets deep
inland in anticipation of a German armored response to D-day. Likewise,
early Allied planning called for attrition of the Luftwaffe and strikes on rail-
way networks to slow the defense’s response.17 However, the vast majority
of planning went into how either to destroy coastal defenses or to stun the
defenders into submission prior to the assault.
The PLA has taken the concept of strike operations as preparation for
invasion and expanded the doctrine to include attacking all elements of the
adversary’s system of defense. As part of the larger concept of “systems-
destruction warfare,” the PLA concept of key-point strikes includes attacks
50 C H I N E S E A M P H I B I O U S WA R FA R E

on early-warning detection systems, command and communications sys-

tems, missile positions, air-defense systems, hangars and runways, bases, and
harbors and anchorage areas.18 Additionally, the PLA concept calls for
coordinated strikes using missiles, aircraft, special forces, and information-
warfare assets. To do this, the PLA subscribes to the continued development
and refinement of a reconnaissance/targeting/intelligence/battle-damage-
assessment process, planning that conceptually focuses on systems warfare
and systems-on-systems attacks, and the capability to coordinate and
synchronize these strike-warfare operations.19
Although PLA joint doctrine appears to have embraced fully the im-
portance of “key-point strikes” and “systems-destruction warfare,” its direct
application to an amphibious assault does not appear to be complete-
ly settled. The presence of PLA Rocket Force (PLARF) personnel during
PLA amphibious exercises strongly suggests a key role for that branch of
the PLA, including to conduct ballistic-missile strikes against key nodes,
transportation networks, communications sites, and C2 sites, but also to
attack Taiwan’s coastal defenses directly.20 However, numerous studies by
PLA researchers have focused on placing missiles and other sources of
firepower on local assets such as surface ships, armored assault vehi-
cles and landing craft, and unmanned systems.21 This suggests either that
the PLA is not completely confident that short-range ballistic missiles
alone will accomplish the mission or that it simply wants to enjoy plenty
of redundancy in its firepower system when it attempts to break through
Taiwan’s coastal defenses.

Principle 3: Concentration of “Elite Strengths”

Regarding the question of how to concentrate amphibious forces during
landing operations, the Allies during World War II came to different con-
clusions depending on the theater of operation. For instance, given the
objectives of the ground campaigns following landing operations and the
geography of the respective landing areas, the North African and Sicilian
operations called for dispersed landings. Conversely, the Central Pacific
operations directed at tiny atolls had very few options but to land at the
point of heaviest Japanese defenses; by necessity, they concentrated their
amphibious assaults.22
The PLA traditionally has called for local superiority at the point of at-
tack and therefore has been inclined to concentrate its attack forces.23 The
challenge of Taiwan’s geography, which provides only a few landing options,
has prompted the PLA further to concentration of its attack. Science of
Campaigns states the following:
 T H E S I X P I LL A R S O F P L A A M P H I B I O U S D O C T R I N E 51

Concentration of elite strengths is a law for defeating one’s oppo-

nent in a localized war campaign under informationized conditions,
and is also an important material basis in striving for victory in a
campaign. In a future landing campaign, under conditions where the
enemy has superiority in high-performance naval and aerial ordnance
and in advance development of the battlefield, if one wants to break
through the enemy’s defenses and win a victory in the campaign,
one must concentrate elite strengths—Navy, Air Force, and 2nd
Artillery Corps [PLARF] force-units, and the landing assault force-
units—to form a dominant position over the enemy.24

Such concentration involves several key characteristics. It hinges on the

synthesis of high-tech weaponry, high-quality troops, and manpower and
material resources. It also calls for a focused effort at the main-direction
and key-point areas of attack; concentration of effort at critical junctures
in the campaign, particularly the first engagement; and concentration of
capabilities to resist and defend against an enemy’s military intervention.25
For the PLA, concentration requires advanced command, control, commu-
nications, computers, intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance fusion
that is networked and integrated with all the principal actors involved in the
amphibious assault; maneuverability and agility of the operational forces;
and seamless, integrated joint operations by the invasion force.26
The PLA’s emphasis on concentration of elite capabilities is demon-
strated in other doctrinal writings. Chapter 2 of the 2013 Science of Mili-
tary Strategy discusses the core principles and elements of the PLA’s “active
defense” strategy, highlighting the importance of concentrating superior
forces to “annihilate” enemy forces. In principle, achieving localized superi-
ority can help the PLA secure the initiative and preserve freedom of maneu-
ver for friendly forces. The overall strategic initiative can be gained through
a series of localized victories.27 In an amphibious campaign, concentrated
forces could seek to achieve local overmatch in Taiwan’s relatively few land-
ing areas.
Enhanced C2 of PLA forces at the tactical and operational levels will be
necessary to accumulate consecutive tactical victories and achieve localized
superiority. Evidence of the focus on this point includes publicly available
reporting on PLA exercises that portrays a highly centralized C2 process at
the brigade-command level. This process reportedly integrates tasks such
as receiving reconnaissance reports on enemy dispositions from reconnais-
sance teams, ordering missile attacks on enemy artillery and missile posi-
tions, and using integrated command platforms to coordinate unmanned
vessels to break up and destroy obstacles and mines.28 PLA doctrinal
52 C H I N E S E A M P H I B I O U S WA R FA R E

publications have claimed that to manage this process effectively, the PLA
command in charge of the campaign must speed up the “reconnaissance-
control-attack-evaluation” cycle, which suggests that the key to mastering
this cycle is improving the process of collecting and evaluating real-time
battlefield intelligence, deciding what to do with the gathered information,
and then rapidly directing units in the field to take action.29
Achieving force concentration in landing areas requires high levels of
joint coordination and control of a multitude of different force elements in a
complex and changing battlefield environment. We found PLA research that
seeks to improve on a centralized decision-making process for the joint-
landing campaign. One such study analyzed the use of an algorithm in
support of a C2 method for adjusting mission plans in response to
emergencies or other incidents arising suddenly from a complex, changeable
battlefield environment.30 Another study tests a large-scale loading-
optimization model that could help the overall amphibious commander to
centralize planning and management for a large-scale amphibious assault,
which would include the management and assignment of available ships, the
identification and use of berthing spaces, the assignment of forces for em-
barkation, and the rerouting of forces owing to changing circumstances.31
This essentially follows the Normandy model, which centralized C2 of the
entire Allied force conducting the invasion.32

Principle 4: Rapid and Continuous Assaults

A long-standing challenge of large-scale amphibious operations has been
the difficulty of quickly breaking through concentrated defenses, conduct-
ing a landing, and then moving inland rapidly with minimal operational
pause. Many of the World War II operations, but especially the June 1944
D-day landings in Normandy, presented the thorny problem of how to
breach and traverse sea-mine fields, obstacles in the surf zone, mines and
obstacles on the beaches, and concentrated coastal defenses that included
coastal-defense bunkers, artillery presighted in on beaches, and defenders
in open emplacements armed with automatic weapons.33
Anticipating similar challenges to PLA efforts to penetrate Taiwan’s
defenses, Science of Campaigns calls for the conduct of rapid and continu-
ous amphibious assaults. It correctly emphasizes eliminating obstacles and
mines at the landing area; calls for the combination and coordination of
amphibious vehicle, helicopter, hovercraft, and surface-effect-craft assaults;
advocates for the achievement of surprise at the point of landing; and calls
for actions and tactics to facilitate the landing of second-echelon and follow-
on forces.34
 T H E S I X P I LL A R S O F P L A A M P H I B I O U S D O C T R I N E 53

The PLA seems aware that enemy mines on the beaches, in the surf,
and in the Taiwan Strait would pose a tremendous challenge to its ability
to conduct rapid, continuous amphibious operations. It has spent some
time wrestling with the mine and obstacle problems. As Thomas Shugart
argues in chapter 11 of this volume, there is evidence that PLA planners
propose to manage the mine problem through offensive mining of the en-
emy’s ports and harbors—an approach that is diametrically opposite to the
U.S. Navy’s defensive approach to mine countermeasures. At the same time,
we identified a number of different PLA studies on the defensive-mining
problem. These include papers that address how to locate, track, and mark
mines; how to use rotary-wing unmanned aerial vehicles to destroy identi-
fied mines; and how to set up a comprehensive system to counter the enemy
mine problem.35 The diversity of research on this topic strongly suggests that
PLA joint doctrine remains unsettled about the most efficacious approach
to addressing the mine problem in a Taiwan scenario.

Principle 5: Integrated and Flexible Support Operations

Another traditional challenge of amphibious operations is supplying the in-
vasion force once it has landed successfully and is starting to move inland
to achieve the campaign’s larger objectives. During the Allied invasion of
North Africa (Operation Torch), Gen. George S. Patton Jr. was infamously
frustrated that initially he could not take his tanks to Casablanca, because
they could not make the journey from the landing sites in Morocco without
refueling, and the landing force had no trucks to carry fuel supplies.36 In
the earliest amphibious operations of the war, the U.S. Navy and U.S. Army
repeatedly loaded landing craft with bulk stores and other difficult-to-haul
matériel, causing those stores to be stockpiled on beaches for twenty-four
hours or more—a practice that left Allied logistics vulnerable to air attack.37
Both the Americans and the Japanese had difficulty providing steady, unin-
terrupted, and protected supplies to their forces on Guadalcanal.38 Japanese
supply problems were so severe that the Japanese combatants referred to
Guadalcanal as “Starvation Island.” The planners for the Normandy inva-
sion were sufficiently concerned about the difficulty of providing fuel to
their invading force continuously that they incorporated a new scheme: es-
tablishing a fuel farm on the Isle of Wight and running a large pipeline from
there to the invasion beaches (the scheme was known as Pipelines under the
Ocean, or PLUTO).39
In light of the need to supply PLA forces continuously after they succeed
in creating a lodgment on Taiwan, chapter 13 of Science of Campaigns calls
for the development and employment of an integrated and flexible support
54 C H I N E S E A M P H I B I O U S WA R FA R E

system for the amphibious invasion. In particular, the text calls for the
following:
• A military-civilian integrated supply and logistical support system
• Flexible and agile support modes of logistical operations
• A process to integrate comprehensively and unify the wide array of
supporting activities and units
These activities encompass not only the provision of fuel, food, and am-
munition but the performance of vital functions such as medical support.40
Given the magnitude of effort associated with a Taiwan invasion and
its related logistics-support operations, it would be extremely difficult to
execute integrated and flexible support operations effectively for such a
mission. As J. Michael Dahm shows in his chapter, the execution of military-
civil fusion operations in support of a Taiwan mission must overcome
challenges that include ensuring civilian compliance with military require-
ments and adequate training to enable civilian performance of wartime
duties. To conduct integrated and flexible support operations in support
of a large-scale invasion of Taiwan, the PLA also must transition from a
traditional approach to combat-service support, centered on warehouses
and depots, to one centered on agile, just-in-time logistics and dynamic
logistics operations. According to experienced observers of PLA logistics
reform, the PLA has not achieved this level of transformation.41
The large number of studies by PLA researchers that explore various
means of providing logistical support to a PLA invading force strongly sug-
gests that logistical and support operations are a work in progress. One such
study, for example, analyzed the use of amphibious transport dock–class
ships for medical support (as opposed to providing on-site medical-ship
care for the invasion).42 Other studies explored how to ensure timely med-
ical care for the PLAN special operations forces and medical support for
naval aviators conducting maritime missions, further suggesting that the
PLA’s approach to providing medical support in a cross-strait invasion
remains under development.43
Beyond the question of medical support, studies examining various lo-
gistical challenges that the PLA invasion force would face also suggest that
the service has not worked out entirely other aspects of logistical support
for this campaign. For instance, we discovered two studies highlighting
PLA researchers’ continuing concern about providing sufficient petro-
leum, oil, and lubricant supplies and other necessary war matériel to the
invasion force. The first study examines the Allies’ use of artificial harbors
near or onto the landing site to ensure continued access to supplies; the sec-
ond develops a method for comprehensively modeling the overall fuel
 T H E S I X P I LL A R S O F P L A A M P H I B I O U S D O C T R I N E 55

requirements of the amphibious campaign.44 The PLA also appears still to

be wrestling with plans related to the delivery of spare parts to the forces
operating ashore. For example, one study develops a predictive model to
help logisticians figure out how many and what kind of spare parts would
need to be delivered to the invasion force for it to repair damaged ar-
mored amphibious vehicles; another study analyzes how to reduce am-
phibious armored equipment damage during landing operations, with
specific logistics-support recommendations related to command, support
sites, and military-civil fusion.45 Finally, as mentioned above, the PLA
appears to have embraced military-civil fusion wholeheartedly as part
of the solution for delivering invasion-force equipment—in particular,
the use of civilian vessels to supplement amphibious lift. The imple-
mentation of this solution, however, still appears to require a great
deal of additional conceptualization and detailed planning. For instance,
one study develops a model to help logisticians effectively use space on
mobilized civilian general cargo, roll-on/roll-off, dry-bulk, and container-
ships for military-equipment transportation during a landing campaign.46

Principle 6: Psychological Attacks

During World War II, Allied campaigns employed psychological operations
as precursors to major amphibious landings. A major component of Oper-
ation Neptune, the Allied airborne and amphibious assault on Normandy,
involved a highly developed deception campaign to convince Nazi Germa-
ny that the invasion would take place either in the Scandinavian countries
(Fortitude North) or at Calais (Fortitude South). Planning for For-
titude centered on psychological-operations principles that prescribe re-
inforcing what an enemy already believes or is inclined to believe. In this
case, the German high command was inclined to believe that the invasion
would take place in Calais. As a result, the deception campaign centered on
reinforcing this idea through the creation of a “phantom army” near Dover,
complete with fake message traffic, fabricated reports from German agents
captured by the Allies, false movement of troops, the assignment of Gen-
eral Patton—whom the German high command expected to be placed in
command of the invasion—to command the phantom army, and even the
movement of a token number of forces toward Calais on D-day itself.47
Psychological operations also were manifest in the extensive use of pro-
paganda leaflets dropped into France and other German-occupied coun-
tries just prior to and following the beach assault. In the first week of the
invasion, more than twenty thousand leaflets were dropped into Normandy
and additional appeals were broadcast into France via radio. German and
other Axis military personnel were subjected to hundreds of propaganda
56 C H I N E S E A M P H I B I O U S WA R FA R E

leaflets dropped by special Allied “leaflet squadrons.” The leaflets described

the extent of the Allied effort, asserted the hopelessness of the Axis cause,
and warned the defenders that if they remained in place they surely would
perish. The radio broadcasts warned French citizens to stay clear of the areas
impacted by the assault, but also requested their assistance in sabotaging rail
and road networks.48
PLA campaign literature identifies psychological operations as being
key to successful military campaigns, including amphibious invasions.49
One PLA author explains that such operations consist of the following three
components:
• Extensive use of propaganda (through print media, television, radio,
and social media) to affect the mood, morale, and fighting spirit of
the defenders and adversary citizens
• A large display of weaponry and military capability and an apparent
willingness (through demonstrations) to use overwhelming force,
to terrify the opposing army and citizenry into surrendering their
positions
• Psychological deception, trickery, and sleight of hand used to lull de-
fenders into complacency and fool enemy forces into believing the
attack will take place elsewhere 50
The article specifically cites the Allies’ Operation Body Guard, which,
the author claims, aimed at psychologically lulling German defenses into
complacency while the Allies launched the Normandy amphibious and air-
borne invasion.51
The PLA also discusses psychological attacks in Science of Campaigns,
with specific recommendations for creating psychological effects prior to
the assault. The landing-campaign chapter calls for actions that isolate and
split up enemy formations and defenses. It specifically advocates using a full
range of psychological-warfare tools, including focused propaganda. More-
over, it recommends that the PLA select targets carefully to reduce civilian
casualties by using precision-guided munitions to control effects, thereby
seeking to mitigate animosity in the population.52

Analysis of PLA writings confirms that China’s military largely has accepted
a wide body of Western doctrine related to amphibious operations. Included
are doctrines on the following:
• Ensuring amphibious C2
• Establishing maritime and air superiority
• Embarking forces and loading amphibious ships properly
• Providing escorts for assault forces
 T H E S I X P I LL A R S O F P L A A M P H I B I O U S D O C T R I N E 57

• Isolating the area of the amphibious objective

• Conducting naval strikes on coastal defenses ashore
• Determining the right mix of assault forces and follow-on echelons
• Providing specialized landing vessels to perform amphibious
functions
Although the subjects of force-structure development and PLA exercises lie
beyond the scope of this chapter, observable trends in these areas reinforce
the conclusion that the PLA broadly, and the PLAN specifically, largely have
accepted basic tenets of amphibious doctrine as practiced in the West.53
The most prominent examples include the development and acquisition of
landing-helicopter-assault ships and LPDs, hovercraft assault platforms, ar-
mored amphibious-assault vehicles, and new classes of mine-warfare vessels.
This chapter has identified the six key principles that reside at the core
of Chinese amphibious doctrine. Those principles reflect the PLA’s current
thinking on the war-fighting environment and the specific challenges of
conducting an amphibious assault against Taiwan. These principles reflect
the PLA’s aspirations, not necessarily its current capabilities. This chapter
examined a number of academic studies by PLA researchers aimed at de-
veloping tactics and technical solutions to realize these doctrinal principles.
The journals associated with these studies are highly technical, but the large
volume of these studies reflects the heightened importance the PLA has
placed on realizing these approaches in a large-scale invasion of Taiwan.

Notes
1. Where the subject under discussion is larger doctrine, this chapter refers to the
PLA’s amphibious doctrine; where the subject is naval missions and doctrine spe-
cifically, the chapter refers to the PLAN. As a result, the reader will note a switching
back and forth between the terms PLA and PLAN.
2. For a fuller discussion on the PLA’s amphibious and expeditionary missions, see
Christopher Yung, “‘Building a World Class Expeditionary Force’: Testimony
before the US-China Economic and Security Review Commission Hearing on
China as a World Class Military Power,” U.S.-China Economic and Security
Review Commission, 20 June 2019, www.uscc.gov/sites/default/files/Yung_USCC
%20Testimony_FINAL.pdf.
3. William Bowers [Brig. Gen., USMC] and Christopher Yung, “China Has Learned
the Value of Amphibious Operations,” U.S. Naval Institute Proceedings 144/11/1,389
(November 2018), pp. 27–28.
4. Zhang Yuliang, ed., Science of Campaigns, trans. China Aerospace Studies In-
stitute [CASI] and Project Everest, In Their Own Words: Foreign Military
Thought (Montgomery, AL: CASI, 2020), pp. 567–91, 607–21, available at
58 C H I N E S E A M P H I B I O U S WA R FA R E

www.airuniversity.af.edu/CASI/Display/Article/2421219/in-their-own-words
-plas-science-of-campaigns/. For the original Chinese source, see 张玉良 [Zhang
Yuliang], ed., 战役学 [Science of Campaigns] (Beijing: National Defense Univ.
Press, 2006).
5. Zhang, Science of Campaigns, trans. CASI and Project Everest, pp. 351–74.
6. Other texts, such as the 2013 edition of the Academy of Military Science’s Science
of Military Strategy and the 2020 edition of National Defense University’s Science
of Military Strategy, also reference some of these concepts, albeit in less depth. See
肖天亮 [Xiao Tianliang], ed., 战略学 [Science of Military Strategy] (Beijing: Na-
tional Defense Univ. Press, 2020), pp. 231–32; and Academy of Military Science
Military Strategy Studies Department, Science of Military Strategy, trans.
CASI and Project Everest, In Their Own Words: Foreign Military Thought
(Montgomery, AL: CASI, 2021), pp. 250, 263, 278, available at www.airuniversity
.af.edu/CASI/Display/Article/2485204/plas-science-of-military-strategy-2013/.
For the original Chinese source of the latter, see 军事科学院军事战略研究部
[Academy of Military Science Military Strategy Studies Department], 战略学 [Sci-
ence of Military Strategy], ed. 寿晓松 [Shou Xiaosong] (Beijing: Military Science,
2013).
7. Christopher Yung, Gators of Neptune: Naval Amphibious Planning for the Nor-
mandy Invasion (Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 2006), pp. 35–37.
8. Ibid., pp. 21–41.
9. Zhang, Science of Campaigns, trans. CASI and Project Everest, p. 358.
10. Edmund J. Burke et al., People’s Liberation Army Operational Concepts (Santa Mon-
ica, CA: RAND, 2020), pp. 7–8, www.rand.org/pubs/research_reportsRRA394-1
.html.
11. For a good summary of those articles, see Dennis J. Blasko, “The Chinese Military
Speaks to Itself, Revealing Doubts,” War on the Rocks, 18 February 2019, waronthe
rocks.com/2019/02/the-chinese-military-speaks-to-itself-revealing-doubts.
12. 王慕鸿 [Wang Muhong] et al., 两栖攻击舰对空自防御作战火力分配模型 [“Am-
phibious Assault Ship Air Self-defense Combat Firepower Distribution Model”],
火力与指挥控制 [Fire Control and Command Control] 45, no. 12 (2020), pp.
127–31.
13. 王慕鸿 [Wang Muhong], 周智超 [Zhou Zhichao], and 关庆云 [Guan Qingyun],
基于态势驱动的两栖攻击舰对空自防御动态火力分配 [“Amphibious Assault
Ship Antiair Self-defense Dynamic Firepower Distribution Based on Situation
Driver”], 指挥控制与仿真 [Command Control & Simulation] 41, no. 5 (2019),
pp. 27–30.
14. 王慕鸿 [Wang Muhong], 张浩 [Zhang Hao], and 徐圣良 [Xu Shengliang], 两栖攻
击舰对空自防御作战软硬武器火力冲突检测及消解 [“Amphibious Assault Ship
Antiair Self-defense Combat Soft- and Hard-Weapons Firepower Conflict Detec-
tion and Resolution”], 指挥控制与仿真 [Command Control & Simulation] 42,
no. 6 (2020), pp. 122–26.
15. 王慕鸿 [Wang Muhong], 徐瑜 [Xu Yu], and 陈国生 [Chen Guosheng], 两栖攻击
舰对空自防御作战目标威胁评估研究 [“Amphibious Assault Ship Antiair Self-
defense Combat Target Threat Assessment Research”], 现代防御技术 [Modern
Defense Technology] 48, no. 6 (2020), pp. 67–73, 95.
 T H E S I X P I LL A R S O F P L A A M P H I B I O U S D O C T R I N E 59

16. 王慕鸿 [Wang Muhong], 张文娟 [Zhang Wenjuan], and 徐圣良 [Xu Shengliang], 基
于对抗全过程仿真的两栖攻击舰对自防御作战能力评估 [“Amphibious Assault
Ship Antiair Self-defense Operational Capability Analysis Based on Confrontation
Whole-Process Simulation”], 舰船电子工程 [Ship Electronic Engineering] 40, no.
11 (2020), pp. 132–36.
17. Yung, Gators of Neptune, pp. 80, 126.
18. Zhang, Science of Campaigns, trans. CASI and Project Everest, p. 359.
19. Jeffrey Engstrom, Systems Confrontation and System Destruction Warfare: How the
Chinese People’s Liberation Army Seeks to Wage Modern Warfare (Santa Monica,
CA: RAND, 2018), pp. 19–106.
20. 南部战区海军远海联合训练 攥指成拳 多军兵种整体联动 [“Southern Theater
Command Navy Far-Seas Training, Grasp Fingers into Fist, Multiple Services
Integrated Joint Operation”], 中视网 [CCTV Net], 2 March 2021, tv.cctv.com/
2021/03/02/VIDExDJyfQ4jm51MMXstuiFt210302.shtml?spm=C53074552346
.PLgREq4pd4yq.E+zufm7A0dzE0.65.
21. 桑雨 [Sang Yu] et al., 舰载对陆导弹登陆点规划选取研究 [“Shipborne Antiland-
Missile Landing-Point Planning and Selection Research”], 战术导弹技术 [Tac-
tical Missile Technology], no. 6 (2020), pp. 120–26; 桑雨 [Sang Yu] et al., 海洋潮
汐对对陆导弹登陆区的影响及优化方法 [“The Effect and Optimization Method
of Ocean Tides on Antiland-Missile Landing Area”], 海洋测绘 [Hydrographic
Surveying and Charting] 40, no. 1 (2020), pp. 30–34; 罗泽峰 [Luo Zefeng], 基于多
传感器融合的两栖突击车火力制算法优化 [“Amphibious Assault Vehicle Fire-
power Control Simulation Optimization Based on Multisensor Fusion”], 舰船
电子工程 [Ship Electronic Engineering] 39, no. 2 (2019), pp. 15–18, 51; 余浩 [Yu
Hao], 李玉龙 [Li Yulong], and 姜毅 [Jiang Yi], 两栖车行进间发射动力学研究
[“Amphibious Vehicle during Motion Launch Dynamics Research”], 弹箭与制
导学报 [Journal of Projectiles, Rockets, Missiles, and Guidance], no. 3 (2020),
pp. 123–27; 周锋 [Zhou Feng] et al., 一种对岸火力支援无人艇的设计与实验
[“Design and Experiment for Coastal Fire Support Unmanned Vehicles”], 兵工
自动化 [Ordnance Industry Automation] 38, no. 7 (2019), pp. 11–13, 29.
22. Yung, Gators of Neptune, pp. 21–41.
23. John W. Garver, “China’s Decision for War with India in 1962,” in New Directions
in the Study of China’s Foreign Policy, ed. Alastair Iain Johnston and Robert S. Ross
(Stanford, CA: Stanford Univ. Press, 2006), p. 118; Xiaoming Zhang, “China’s 1979
War with Vietnam: A Reassessment,” China Quarterly, no. 184 (December 2005),
pp. 853–55.
24. Zhang, Science of Campaigns, trans. CASI and Project Everest, p. 354.
25. Ibid.
26. Burke et al., Operational Concepts, p. 6.
27. Academy of Military Science Military Strategy Studies Department, Science of Mil-
itary Strategy, p. 49.
28. 赵友平 [Zhao Youping], 央视昨天发布“东南海域多兵种联合登岛演练”视频,
岛内媒体迅速读出“关键”信息 [“CCTV Yesterday Released ‘East China Sea
Ocean Area Multiservice Joint Island Landing Exercise’ Video, Media on the Is-
land Quickly Read ‘Key’ Information”], 环球网 [Huanqiu Net], 11 October 2020,
taiwan.huanqiu.com/article/40ErkqrRzhd.
60 C H I N E S E A M P H I B I O U S WA R FA R E

29. Burke et al., Operational Concepts, p. 11.

30. 武君胜 [Wu Junsheng], 基于突发事件的任务计划动态调整模型及算法 [“Mis-
sion Planning Dynamic Adjustment Model and Algorithm Based on Sudden In-
cidents”], 控制与决策 [Control and Decision] 35, no. 5 (2020), pp. 1052–62.
31. 程健 [Cheng Jian], 张会 [Zhang Hui], and 杨静 [Yang Jing], 一种登陆作战兵力
上船装载方案优化计算方法 [“A Landing Operation Force Loading Plan Opti-
mization Calculation Method”], 数学的实践与认识 [Mathematics in Practice and
Theory] 51, no. 1 (2021), pp. 126–31.
32. In fact, one of the enduring historical controversies of the Allied invasion was the
argument between the U.S. Navy and the Royal Navy over whether the Normandy
plan was too centralized. American after-action reports complained that the plan
left no room for subordinate commanders to take the initiative and to react to set-
backs, while the Allied naval commander in chief argued that a highly centralized
plan and operation was necessary for such a complex operation as the Normandy
assault. See Yung, Gators of Neptune, pp. 148–51.
33. Ibid., pp. 93–103.
34. Zhang, Science of Campaigns, trans. CASI and Project Everest, pp. 355–56.
35. 刘海龙 [Liu Hailong] and 梁恒 [Liang Heng], 登陆破障装备技术发展应用述
评 [“Landing Breaking Obstacle Equipment Technological Development and
Application Review”], 国防科技 [National Defense Technology] 41, no. 5 (2020),
pp. 14–18; 徐凯 [Xu Kai], 未来联合登陆破障需要把握的几个问题 [“The Sev-
eral Questions of Future Joint Landing Breaking Obstacles Requirements to Be
Grasped”], 国防科技 [National Defense Technology] 41, no. 5 (2020), pp. 9–13;
齐铎 [Qi Duo] et al., 旋翼型两栖无人机的发展现状及其在近海破障作战中的
应用分析 [“Rotary-Winged Amphibious Unmanned Vehicle Development Sta-
tus and Analysis of Its Application in Near-Seas Obstacle Breaking Operations”],
飞航导弹 [Aerodynamic Missile Journal], no. 11 (2019), pp. 43–47; 衡辉 [Heng
Hui] et al., 反水雷体系建设探讨 [“Countermine System Construction Investi-
gation”], 数字海洋与水下攻防 [Digital Ocean & Underwater Warfare] 3, no. 5
(2020), pp. 416–19.
36. Samuel Eliot Morison, History of United States Naval Operations in World War II,
vol. 2, Operations in North African Waters: October 1942–June 1943 (Boston: Little,
Brown, 1984), p. 155.
37. COMINCH Report of Amphibious Operations: During the Period August to Decem-
ber 1943, COMINCH P-001, 22 April 1944, pp. 5–8, Second World War Published
Materials Shelves, Joint Forces Staff College Library, Norfolk, VA.
38. Richard B. Frank, Guadalcanal: The Definitive Account of the Landmark Battle
(New York: Penguin Books, 1992), pp. 407–409.
39. Roland G. Ruppenthal, Logistical Support of the Armies, US Army in World War
II: European Theater of Operations (Washington, DC: Center of Military History,
1995), vol. 1, pp. 323–24.
40. Zhang, Science of Campaigns, trans. CASI and Project Everest, p. 357.
41. LeighAnn Luce and Erin Richter, “Handling Logistics in a Reformed PLA: The
Long March toward Joint Logistics,” in Chairman Xi Remakes the PLA: Assessing
Chinese Military Reforms, ed. Phillip C. Saunders et al. (Washington, DC: NDU
Press, 2019), pp. 278–80.
 T H E S I X P I LL A R S O F P L A A M P H I B I O U S D O C T R I N E 61

42. 薛晨 [Xue Chen] et al., 船坞登陆舰医疗救治平台模拟仿真分析 [“Dock Land-

ing Ship Medical Treatment Platform Simulation Analysis”], 东南国防医药 [Mil-
itary Medical Journal of Southeast China] 20, no. 4 (2018), pp. 350–53.
43. 史成和 [Shi Chenghe] et al., 中国海军特种作战部队医学保障存在的问题及
思考 [“Chinese Navy Special Operations Forces Medical Guarantee Presence
Problems and Reflections”], 海军医学杂志 [Journal of Navy Medicine] 39, no. 4
(2018), pp. 300–302; 黄宾 [Huang Bin], 王嘉琪 [Wang Jiaqi], and 张舒 [Zhang
Shu], 舰载机飞行员执行海上任务时航卫保的挑战与对策 [“Challenges and
Counter-measures for Supporting Shipborne Pilots Carrying Out Maritime
Missions”], 西南国防医药 [Medical Journal of National Defending Forces in
Southwest China] 30, no. 10 (2020), pp. 945–47.
44. 罗雷 [Luo Lei] et al., 诺曼底登陆人工港的建设与启示 [“Normandy Landing
Artificial Harbor Construction and Revelation”], 军事交通学院学报 [Journal
of Military Transportation University] 22, no. 1 (2020), pp. 15–18; 万海鸥
[Wan Hai’ou] et al., 基于 MS 的登岛作战油料跨海输送消耗与需求分析 [“Island
Landing Operation Oil Cross-Sea Transportation Consumption and Demand
Analysis Based on MS”], 兵器装备工程学报 [Journal of Ordnance Equipment
Engineering] 39, no. 7 (2018), pp. 141–44.
45. 王宝 [Wang Bao] et al., 基于 FAHP 的两栖装甲装备备件需求预测模型 [“Am-
phibious Armored Equipment Spare Parts Requirements Predictive Model
Based on FAHP”], 舰船电子工程 [Ship Electronic Engineering] 40, no. 3 (2020),
pp. 107–10; 翁辉 [Weng Hui], 柳俊 [Liu Jun], and 姜广贺 [Jiang Guanghe],
登陆作战两栖装甲装备战损研究 [“Landing Operations Amphibious Armored
Equipment Combat Damage Research”], 军事交通学院学报 [Journal of Military
Transportation University] 21, no. 10 (2019), pp. 43–47.
46. 汪欣 [Wang Xin] and 王广东 [Wang Guangdong], 大规模动员民船军事装载面
积估算方法研究 [“Large-Scale Mobilized Civilian Vessels Military Loading Space
Evaluation Method Research”], 国防交通工程与技术 [Traffic Engineering and
Technology for National Defense] 18, no. 6 (2020), pp. 26–29, 42, 69.
47. Roger Hesketh, Fortitude: The D-day Deception Campaign (Woodstock, NY:
Overlook, 2000), pp. 11–27, 46–211.
48. Caroline Reed, “D-day Propaganda,” History Today 34, no. 6 (June 1984); Clay-
ton D. Laurie, The Propaganda Warriors: America’s Crusade against Nazi Germany
(Lawrence: Univ. Press of Kansas, 1996), pp. 192–209; JPat Brown, “Recently De-
classified Records Outline the Psychological Warfare Aspect of D-day,” Muckrock,
6 June 2019, www.muckrock.com/news/archives/2019/jun/06/cia-dday-political
-warfare/.
49. 王勇男 [Wang Yongnan], 局部战 战役: 战局控制论 [On Operational Situations:
Control of Campaigns in Local War] (Beijing: Current Affairs, 2010), pp. 150–52.
50. Ibid.
51. Interestingly, the author has this detail slightly wrong. Body Guard was the code
name for the operation to keep the plans for the Allied invasion of Normandy a
secret. The actual operation that was intended actively to deceive the Germans into
believing the invasion would take place elsewhere was code-named Fortitude.
James Rubin, “Deception: The Other ‘D’ in D-day,” NBC News, 4 June 2004, www
.nbcnews.com/id/wbna5139053.
62 C H I N E S E A M P H I B I O U S WA R FA R E

52. Zhang, Science of Campaigns, trans. CASI and Project Everest, pp. 297–98.
53. Zhao, “‘East China Sea Ocean Area Multiservice Joint Island Landing Exercise’”;
“Southern Theater Command Navy Far-Seas Training”; 杨晶 [Yang Jing], 苏鹤
[Su He], and 朱文强 [Zhu Wenqiang], 我们在战位报告丨强军路上, 两栖精兵
锐不可当! [“We Report from the Battle Position | On the Road to a Strong Mil-
itary, Amphibious Elite Soldiers Are Unstoppable!”], 中国军网 [China Military
Online], 18 September 2020, www.81.cn/yw/2020-09/18/content_9905076.htm;
刘中涛 [Liu Zhongtao] and 刘亚迅 [Liu Yaxun], 一支部队见证军兵种联战联训
新优势 —— 抢滩登陆, 联合作战攥指成拳 [“A Unit Witnesses Military Service
Joint Training New Advantages—Land on the Beach, Joint Operation Fingers Curl
into Fist”], 中国军网 [China Military Online], 19 December 2018, www.81.cn/
jfjbmap/content/2018-12/18/content_223436.htm.
PA R T II

The Joint Amphibious Force

 Dennis J. Blasko

4. The PLAGF Amphibious Force

Missions, Organization, Capabilities, and Training

One of the most important missions assigned to the People’s Liber-

ation Army (PLA) ground forces (PLAGF) is to provide forces equipped
and trained to enhance China’s military posture to deter Taiwan from tak-
ing further steps toward independence. All four services—the PLAGF, the
PLA Navy (PLAN), the PLA Air Force (PLAAF), and the PLA Rocket Force
(PLARF)—plus the Strategic Support Force and Joint Logistics Support
Force, have a role in this effort. If deterrence fails, one military option avail-
able to the senior Chinese Communist Party leadership is to order the PLA
to conduct what would be an extremely difficult and complex operation
known as a joint island landing campaign, which would be supported by a
joint-firepower campaign. Although a traditional over-the-beach amphibi-
ous landing likely would not be the first military course of action undertak-
en in a campaign directed against Taiwan, the PLA clearly is preparing for
this possibility should other options fail.
The core of the PLAGF’s contribution to the Taiwan deterrence and
war-fighting missions resides in six amphibious combined-arms brigades
(ACABs) assigned, two each, to the three group armies stationed closest to
Taiwan in the Eastern and Southern Theater Commands (TCs). Reforms
undertaken since 2017—which include increasing the capabilities and ca-
pacities of PLAGF helicopter units and special-operations forces (SOFs),
long-range multiple-rocket launchers and air-defense weapons, and non-
kinetic electronic-warfare and cyberattack units—have expanded greatly
66 C H I N E S E A M P H I B I O U S WA R FA R E

the options available to PLAGF commanders to conduct joint island landing

and joint-firepower campaigns.
If ordered to conduct operations against Taiwan or its offshore islands,
the six ACABs will work in concert with elements of their parent group
armies and theater commands in an operation that likely will be reinforced
by additional PLAGF units from outside the region. Any PLAGF action
against Taiwan will be coordinated with units from the other services and
forces, and it also will involve militia forces and civilian assets in support.
However, because the various forces involved are dispersed in peacetime, it
will require days, if not weeks, to move and assemble the units within strik-
ing range of Taiwan and prepare them for launching an assault.
Once these forces are ashore, they will face the fact that Taiwan’s topog-
raphy is not optimal for conducting rapid, large-scale, mechanized, offen-
sive movements. Only a few beaches along its west coast are suitable for am-
phibious landing, and behind them the terrain soon becomes mountainous
and checkered with rice paddies and urban sprawl. Given the restrictions
that the terrain imposes, the PLA leadership apparently has sought to mod-
ernize PLAGF capabilities, as well as capabilities in the other services, in an
attempt to shift the decisive phase of a joint island landing campaign away
from a traditional over-the-beach amphibious assault followed by a mecha-
nized ground movement inland. Instead, the effort will entail a series of air-
borne (parachute) or airmobile (helicopter) assault operations to seize ports
of entry on the coast, airfields, and other key terrain/objectives closer to the
center of gravity of Taiwan’s defenses. This will enable the rapid insertion of
second-echelon, follow-on forces by sea and air.1 Nonetheless, a large-scale
assault by multiple ACABs remains a major component of China’s deter-
rence posture and any joint-landing operation.2
This chapter first addresses the current status of the PLAGF’s ACABs
and the support they are likely to receive from their brother army units.
It then discusses training, including examining PLAGF amphibious and
sea-transport exercises and drills conducted in 2021 that involved both am-
phibious and nonamphibious PLAGF units. This analysis is consistent with,
and supports, the U.S. Defense Department’s assessment in 2020 and
2021 that “[b]oth PLAA [PLA Army] and PLAMC [PLAN Marine Corps]
units equipped for amphibious operations conduct regular company- to
battalion-level amphibious training exercises, and the PLA continues to
integrate aerial insertion training into larger exercises. . . . The PLA rarely
conducts amphibious exercises involving echelons above a battalion,
although both PLAA and PLANMC units have emphasized the develop-
ment of combined-arms battalion formations since 2012.”3
 T H E P L AG F A M P H I B I O U S F O RC E 67

Order of Battle
Prior to the 2017 reforms, three PLAGF amphibious units were stationed on
China’s east coast:
• The 1st Amphibious Mechanized Infantry Division, First Group
Army (GA), located in Hangzhou, Zhejiang, in the Nanjing Military
Region
• The 14th Amphibious Armored Brigade, Thirty-First GA, located in
Zhangzhou, Fujian, in the Nanjing Military Region
• The 124th Amphibious Infantry Division, Forty-Second GA, located
in Boluo, Guangdong, in the Guangzhou Military Region 4
Like most of the other PLAGF divisions, the 1st Amphibious Mecha-
nized Infantry Division and the 124th Amphibious Infantry Division were
disbanded, and each was transformed into two ACABs. The 14th Amphib-
ious Armored Brigade also was transformed into an ACAB, and elements
of the former 91st Motorized Infantry Division, also in Zhangzhou, were
equipped to form a sixth ACAB. Several units were transferred from their
previous garrison locations to new areas, with moves that included crossing
former military region boundaries. As a result, four ACABs are subordi-
nate to the Eastern TC and two to the Southern TC, distributed across three
group armies.5

PLAGF Amphibious Combined-Arms Brigades

The six new ACABs are structured similar to heavy combined-arms bri-
gades, but have been issued amphibious assault guns—capable of swimming
in the ocean—instead of main battle tanks, and amphibious infantry fighting
vehicles / armored personnel carriers—also capable of swimming—instead
of vehicles that sink.6 Each ACAB is composed of the following:

Table 1. PLAGF Amphibious Combined-Arms Brigades (ACABs)

Group Army Brigade Name Location

5th ACAB Hangzhou, Zhejiang

72nd
124th ACAB Hangzhou, Zhejiang

14th ACAB Zhangzhou, Fujian

73rd
91st ACAB Zhangzhou, Fujian

1st ACAB Boluo, Guangdong

74th
125th ACAB Bao’an, Guangdong
68 C H I N E S E A M P H I B I O U S WA R FA R E

• Four combined-arms battalions—each with two amphibious assault

gun companies, two amphibious mechanized infantry companies, a
firepower company (mortars and man-portable air defense systems
[MANPADS]), and a service support company (with reconnaissance
and engineer platoons)
• One reconnaissance battalion with amphibious recon vehicles, small
unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), and technical reconnaissance
systems
• One artillery battalion with amphibious 122 mm howitzers, tracked
122 mm rocket launchers, and antitank guided-missile systems
• One air-defense battalion with tracked antiaircraft gun systems,
short-range surface-to-air missile systems, and MANPADS
• One operational support battalion with command-and-control
(C2) vehicles, electronic-warfare systems, engineering equipment,
chemical-defense systems, and security elements
• One service support battalion with supply, medical, and repair and
maintenance units 7
Within the four amphibious combined-arms battalions, each assault gun
and mechanized infantry company at full strength is equipped with fourteen
vehicles, while the firepower and service support companies add another
estimated fifteen to twenty vehicles.8 A single amphibious combined-arms
battalion incorporates about eighty total vehicles of all types and an estimat-
ed five to six hundred soldiers. The other five battalions within the brigade
are smaller in personnel numbers and have fewer vehicles, adding an esti-
mated two thousand or more personnel and probably about another hun-
dred vehicles (but not all of them can swim). Thus, a full ACAB amounts
to an estimated five thousand personnel and over four hundred vehicles—
numbers that are important for planning how many amphibious ships or
craft are needed to transport a complete unit. In total, the six ACABs com-
mand twenty-four amphibious combined-arms battalions and six recon-
naissance battalions—units dedicated to being the first wave of an over-the-
beach amphibious assault.

Group Army Support for Amphibious Operations

In any amphibious operation, ACABs almost certainly would be support-
ed by other elements of the group army to which they belong. As a result
of the 2017 structural reforms, each group army has a mostly standardized
structure comprising a total of six combined-arms brigades and six or seven
supporting brigades. Combined-arms brigades are categorized as “heavy”
 T H E P L AG F A M P H I B I O U S F O RC E 69

(or amphibious), with tracked armored vehicles; “medium,” with wheeled

armored vehicles; or “light,” transported by trucks or, increasingly, Meng-
shi (Warrior) wheeled armored vehicles. Although each group army has
six combined-arms brigades, the distribution of brigade type—heavy, me-
dium, and light—varies among the group armies (usually there are one to
four of each type per group army). Nonamphibious brigades from the five
group armies in the Eastern and Southern Theaters (Seventy-first through
Seventy-fifth) and the three group armies in the Northern TC (Seventy-
eighth through Eightieth) may engage in cross-beach landing training (from
PLAGF amphibious craft or PLAN landing ships) or sea-transport move-
ments (using commercial civilian ships). These exercises likely replicate the
second echelon of an amphibious-landing campaign, coordinated to arrive
after first-echelon forces have secured landing beaches or ports.9
The supporting brigades in a group army consist of an artillery bri-
gade, an air-defense brigade, a SOF brigade, an army aviation (helicopter)
or air-assault (helicopters and organic infantry) brigade, an engineer and
chemical-defense brigade (five group armies have a separate engineer bri-
gade and chemical-defense brigade), and a service support brigade. Nearly
all these assets could be used to support amphibious operations.10
Group army artillery brigades would play an important role in providing
fire support for the invasion. As a result of the 2017 reforms, all now are
assigned a battalion of 300 mm PHL03 long-range, multiple-rocket launch
systems having a range of 70 to 160 kilometers, depending on the type of
munition. When properly positioned along China’s coasts and offshore is-
lands, these weapons could deliver fire on the Penghu Islands and the beaches
on the west coast of Taiwan from Taichung north. More recently, the longer-
range 370 mm PCH191 system has been deployed to the three group
armies opposite Taiwan with ACABs, adding a second long-range,
multiple-rocket launch battalion to their artillery brigades.11 This new
system greatly expands the area on the mainland from which these units
can bring most of Taiwan’s west coast (from Tainan north) under fire.
Group army air-defense brigades along the coast will integrate their HQ-
16-series medium-range surface-to-air missile and electronic-warfare units
with PLAAF and PLAN air defenses to protect PLA assembly areas and sea
movements in the Taiwan Strait.
PLAGF aviation brigades, air-assault brigades, or both provide group
army commanders the ability to transport troops across the strait and de-
liver aerial fire support to both amphibious landings and airmobile opera-
tions farther inland. Army aviation units in group armies frequently train
with SOF units and are likely to be employed to insert small SOF teams
beyond the beach to capture important inland objectives. PLAGF helicopter
70 C H I N E S E A M P H I B I O U S WA R FA R E

units train less frequently with infantry units, but army aviation brigades
provide the group army commander the option of conducting airmobile op-
erations to deliver units up to an infantry battalion in size to seize key ter-
rain, such as airfields, as well as supporting landing operations with recon-
naissance and attack helicopters. Except for the Seventy-third Group Army
Aviation Brigade stationed in Fujian, which could make the round-trip
flight to Taiwan from its home airfields, other army aviation brigades likely
would need to predeploy to forward airfields and field-arming and refueling
points prior to the start of a major operation. Some assembly and recovery
field sites are likely to be situated on offshore islands closer to Taiwan than
those on the mainland. In recent years, PLAGF helicopter units have prac-
ticed operations from PLAN ships and large commercial ships.12 In addition
to the army aviation and SOF brigades in the Seventy-second, Seventy-third,
and Seventy-fourth Group Armies, several other out-of-area army aviation
and SOF brigades are likely to reinforce the cross-strait mission.13
Other elements of the Seventy-second, Seventy-third, and Seventy-
fourth Group Armies likely also would support the amphibious invasion.
Group army engineer units, for example, may facilitate the movement to
assembly areas and provide construction and camouflage support for units
once they have arrived at points of embarkation. Chemical-defense units
are capable of generating smoke to conceal key areas at critical periods of
an amphibious operation. Service support brigades augment assault units
with additional trucks and heavy equipment transporters necessary to move
personnel, weapons, and supplies to assembly areas. Their communications,
electronic-warfare, and UAV units will be integrated with other, nonarmy
assets to maintain C2, produce nonkinetic combat effects, and gather
intelligence.14
No ACABs are located in immediate proximity to the assembly and
embarkation points, so they will need to make a land movement (by road
or rail) of hours or days to reach their designated areas. Despite the con-
ventional wisdom that Taiwan is located “about a hundred miles from the
mainland,” that rule of thumb applies only to units near coastal Fujian.
Other units will have to make land, sea, or air movements much longer than
a hundred miles to get into position to start combat operations or to reach
Taiwan. Nonetheless, units probably have practiced many of these preassault
tasks for many years during the course of routine training.

The PLA Training Cycle and Amphibious-Unit Training

All PLA units create annual training plans (or schedules) that include train-
ing objectives and the dates of major events, especially large exercises and
 T H E P L AG F A M P H I B I O U S F O RC E 71

evaluations, training competitions, and training with foreign forces. They

base these plans on guidance issued at an end-of-year training conference.15
For most PLAGF units (and ground units in the other services, such
as the PLANMC, PLAAF Airborne Corps, and PLARF), which comprise
a high percentage of two-year conscripts (estimated to amount to about 50
percent of personnel in squads, platoons, and companies), unit manning
levels and training are dependent on the annual conscription cycle.16 For
decades, the PLA inducted new conscripts once a year; new soldiers entered
basic training in September just as conscripts who had served two years were
demobilized. For the next three months, while basic training was under way,
only half a “conscript heavy” unit’s authorized number of conscripts were
available for unit training. Shortly after new soldiers entered their perma-
nent companies in December or January and were integrated into their bil-
lets, the annual unit training cycle would begin. However, the new soldiers
were not yet fully trained to be part of teams, and they also had to undergo
on-the-job professional training in such areas as driving or heavy-weapons
gunnery. As a result, the first four months (roughly through April) of unit
training every year started with the basics of team building and improving
the individual skills necessary to conduct larger, more-complex training.17
In 2021, the PLA changed from once-a-year conscription to a twice-a-
year cycle, in the spring and fall.18 Depending on how well this policy is
implemented, it could raise significantly the level of readiness for “con-
script heavy” units and allow them to take part in more-complex training
throughout the year.

The Annual Training Cycle and Amphibious and

Sea-Transport Training
In addition to developing proficiencies in the normal attack, defend, and
withdraw tasks that any ground-combat unit must master, PLAGF amphib-
ious units also must develop an array of specialized skills unique to their
amphibious mission. It appears that battalions require about a month of
shore-based training to prepare them to accomplish these basic tasks, so
that they can participate in battalion-size or larger amphibious exercises.19
Therefore, every year amphibious units rotate into and out of a limited num-
ber of coastal (beach) locations to develop these specialized abilities; they
also deploy to inland training areas, often near their barracks, to train on
the more-general tasks that all combined-arms battalions must be capable
of conducting.20 Many aspects of amphibious training also are more depen-
dent on weather conditions, especially sea states, than other military train-
ing is, so most amphibious and sea-movement training occurs from around
March to September. The limited window of good weather is a factor that
72 C H I N E S E A M P H I B I O U S WA R FA R E

may interfere with units’ completing all required training tasks every year.
In addition to dedicated amphibious units, other PLAGF units located near
the coast (not equipped with amphibious vehicles) also take part in shore-
landing and sea-movement training.
The three largest permanent army amphibious training areas are at
Dongshan Island in southern Fujian Province, at Dacheng Bay near the
Fujian/Guangdong provincial border, and near Shanwei, Guangdong Prov-
ince, with several other, smaller training areas located along the coast. The
Dacheng Bay training area can accommodate an entire ACAB, while the
others appear to be more suitable for an amphibious combined-arms battal-
ion.21 Basic tasks practiced at shore training areas include personal survival
swimming; armored amphibious vehicle (AAV) driving, maintenance, and
rescue/recovery; loading and unloading of AAVs on PLAGF landing craft
onshore, on PLAN amphibious ships anchored offshore, or both; AAVs’ en-
tering the sea from shore for landing-formation practice or gunnery against
shore-based targets; assault landing by AAVs swimming to shore from
PLAN amphibious ships; shore landing by troops in small (squad size) mo-
tor boats; offshore and onshore obstacle clearance; and movement inland to
destroy enemy forces. Progressive training for these tasks begins with squad
and platoon drills, moving up to company and battalion formations. Every
training season, new conscript vehicle drivers, gunners, and infantrymen
must undergo this training to prepare themselves and the unit for larger
battalion-evaluation exercises.22
In 2020, the PLA Daily produced a short video of a typical sequence
of events in a battalion joint-landing exercise supported by brigade, group
army, and PLAN assets. It covered the following:
• Day and night loading of PLAN amphibious ships anchored offshore
or in port
• Small teams in rubber boats conducting initial reconnaissance of
landing beaches, assisted by small UAVs
• Artillery bombarding landing beaches (in this case, 122 mm howit-
zers and 122 mm multiple-rocket launchers from the brigade artillery
battalion provided fire support) 23
• Attack helicopters (from the group army aviation brigade) firing on
targets near the beach, or transport helicopters inserting troops to
objectives beyond the shoreline, or both
• Unmanned surface vessels clearing obstacles in the water from the
approaches to landing beaches
• Reconnaissance and engineer troops landing in small motorboats to
clear beach obstacles
 T H E P L AG F A M P H I B I O U S F O RC E 73

• Amphibious fighting vehicles and assault guns disembarking from

PLAN amphibious ships to assault the shore and consolidate the
beachhead
• Helicopters inserting additional SOF troops beyond the beach
• Armored amphibious units moving inland to seize key terrain and
assigned objectives
• Small unmanned reconnaissance robots advancing inland 24
Although the recorded demonstration was intended for external audi-
ences, the individual clips and sequence of events conform to PLA amphibious-
landing doctrine. Similar exercises probably are conducted by many, if not
all, amphibious combined-arms battalions as a culmination and evaluation
of their time spent training at the coast.
Battalions are the building blocks of larger operations, so preparing
battalions to perform the technical intricacies of amphibious landings is
fundamental to any large-scale joint island landing campaign. Execution of
each phase of an amphibious operation is extremely difficult on its own,
but in combination the phases must be carefully planned, sequenced, and
controlled by staffs at brigade and higher levels to ensure that all assets and
capabilities are employed properly and do not interfere with actions taken
by brother units. However, a large-scale joint island landing does not need
to be practiced all at the same time and in the same area; furthermore, some
aspects, such as PLARF strikes, can be computer simulated for staff plan-
ning purposes.
Annual amphibious training thus includes a lot of small-unit practice
before larger exercises can be conducted. Given the total number of am-
phibious combined-arms battalions to be trained at the small handful of
training areas, at least one unit, and usually more, will be conducting some
phase of amphibious training throughout the spring and summer, weather
permitting. The Chinese military media routinely publicize much of this
training, for deterrence and propaganda effects. However, not all exercises
are reported in the media, and what is reported often does not identify the
units involved, the exercise location, or the length of the exercise. Most of
the time, not all elements of the exercises are included in media reports—so
what is seen and reported may not represent the totality of the exercise—and
some exercises are reported multiple times by multiple media outlets. File
footage from other exercises may be used to fill gaps in current reports, and
reporting may contain errors in details.

Analysis of PLAGF Amphibious and Sea-Movement Training in 2021

Openly reported training events in 2021 illustrate the annual cycle of PLA
amphibious and sea-movement training.25 What follows is an analysis of
74 C H I N E S E A M P H I B I O U S WA R FA R E

roughly thirty-two army amphibious training events and six sea-movement

exercises employing civilian roll-on/roll-off (RO/RO) ships reported in the
Chinese media (including two entries observed on Google Earth imagery)
from March through October 2021.26 This analysis covers both amphibi-
ous and nonamphibious units across the PLA, including from other TCs
and group armies beyond the Seventy-second, Seventy-third, and Seventy-
fourth Group Armies. The chapter appendix provides brief descriptions
and sourcing data for these events. The events analyzed here certainly do
not include all PLAGF amphibious and sea-movement training (since many
events are not covered by the Chinese media), but they represent a signifi-
cant portion of what occurred during 2021.
At least ten of the thirty-eight events were covered by multiple Chinese
media reports. Of the total, twenty-nine were conducted by units from the
Eastern TC, seven by the Southern TC, and two by the Northern TC. Only
nine events revealed training with PLAN sealift assets, and only three in-
cluded movement by army landing craft (two of the PLAGF units were not
amphibious units).
Six exercises used civilian RO/RO ships (four in the Eastern TC and two
in the Northern TC, from mid-July to mid-August). Four of the brigades
involved in the six movements by civilian RO/RO ships were not amphib-
ious units. The number of sea-movement exercises probably was the most
significant aspect of the 2021 training season, as those evolutions represent
the landing of the second echelon of an amphibious assault after the first-
wave forces (including airmobile or airborne troops) have captured ports
where the ships could unload. These sea movements could have been coor-
dinated with other real-troop exercises or with computer simulations to give
higher-level staffs training in coordinating multiple units in a single larger
notional exercise.
In roughly twenty exercises, no landing ships were observed or men-
tioned, and amphibious vehicles were observed only swimming to or from
shore, sometimes firing at targets onshore. It is possible that sealift was
involved in some of these events, but the majority of amphibious training
reports portrayed platoons and companies practicing the basics of amphib-
ious movement to shore. These platoons and companies, no doubt, were
deployed to amphibious training areas as part of the battalions to which
they belong.
Only fourteen events were estimated to involve enough forces to be
battalion-level exercises, including all six RO/RO sea-transport exercises
(one of which appeared to involve multiple battalions of an air-defense bri-
gade). Thus, as mentioned earlier, this analysis of training activity supports
the U.S. Defense Department’s conclusion that PLAGF amphibious units
 T H E P L AG F A M P H I B I O U S F O RC E 75

“conduct regular company- to battalion-level amphibious training exer-

cises,” with increasing amounts of helicopter or heavy-lift insertion of
personnel to support operations on the beach, but these operations rarely
involve echelons above the battalion.
Without an examination of the level of amphibious and sea-transport
training in previous years at the same level of detail, it is not possible to de-
termine whether the tempo and content of three dozen exercises conducted
in 2021 indicate an increase or decrease over normal training patterns. It
also is not possible, using only open sources, to determine how many of the
PLAGF’s twenty-four amphibious combined-arms battalions achieved their
targets for operational readiness. However, this analysis does demonstrate
that amphibious training is undertaken routinely, somewhere along China’s
coast, weather permitting, nearly every week from March through October
each year.

The modernization of PLAGF amphibious and support units demonstrates

the capability to conduct amphibious operations. Regular amphibious and
combined-arms training activities cover most of the general and special-
ized skills required to carry out a landing against Taiwan, despite the con-
straints of the conscription system. Moreover, group armies could render
to their subordinate amphibious units significant combined-arms support,
especially fire support, which has been enhanced by the recent delivery of
advanced multiple-rocket launch systems. Furthermore, the number of sea-
movement training events identified in 2021 also indicates effort to prepare
second-echelon forces for delivery to Taiwan.
However, PLAGF amphibious capabilities do not necessarily translate
into the capacity to launch a large-scale amphibious assault on Taiwan effec-
tively. The number of units dedicated to the specialized task of amphibious
assault is a small fraction (about 7 percent) of the number of combined-arms
brigades in the entire force (six out of eighty-three total combined-arms bri-
gades). Currently, there is no open-source indication of an intention to in-
crease the number of ACABs. Moreover, the PLA lacks the amphibious lift
capacity for the approximately thirty thousand personnel and the more than
2,400 vehicles of the six current ACABs.27
The PLAGF may be capable of more-modest aims. As the U.S. Defense
Department assessed in its 2021 report, the “PLA is capable of attempting
various amphibious operations short of a full-scale invasion of Taiwan. With
few overt military preparations beyond routine training, the [People’s Repub-
lic of China] could launch an invasion of small Taiwan-occupied islands in
the South China Sea such as Pratas or Itu Aba. A PLA invasion of a medium-
sized, better-defended island such as Matsu or Jinmen is within the PLA’s
capabilities.”28
76 C H I N E S E A M P H I B I O U S WA R FA R E

Some PLAGF amphibious units could swim to islands in the Matsu or

Jinmen groups, be supported by their own organic artillery, and not require
PLAN amphibious lift support. Such a scenario would not require perfor-
mance of the difficult task of delivering large volumes of follow-on forces for
the push inland. Such an operation on its own, however, likely would not be
decisive enough to force Taiwan to capitulate.
The PLAGF’s amphibious capacity has been augmented significantly by
other capabilities. Since the 2017 reforms, new army aviation / airmobile and
SOF brigades have strengthened options to support a joint island landing
campaign beyond the traditional over-the-beach assault. The number of
units capable of long-range rocket, missile, and aerial bombardment in all
services also has increased over the past five years. New technologies, such
as UAVs and robots, are being acquired that may expand capabilities fur-
ther and complicate Taiwan’s defense planning. These capabilities add new
dimensions to previous PLA courses of action directed at Taiwan.

Appendix: PLA Ground Forces’ Amphibious-Landing and Sea-Transport

Training in 2021

No. Date Army Unit Activity / Estimated Size

1 16 March 72nd GA PLAN Type 071 anchored, four AAVs in water to

(early rear, Mi-17 and Z-10 attack helicopters over ship;
spring) platoon/company training 1

2 29 March 73rd GA Nine AAVs (in three photos) swimming to shore in

a “maritime driving drill”; company training 2

3 6 April 14th Type 63A, AAVs, small boats in landing training

ACAB, and inland movement and rail movement; battal-
73rd GA ion training 3

4 9 April STC / Amphibious battalion in parking area behind the

probably beach, no beach activity; battalion training 4
74th GA

Notes:
AAV = armored amphibious vehicle; ACAB = amphibious combined-arms brigade; CAB = combined-arms
brigade; ETC = Eastern Theater Command; GA = group army; IFV = infantry fighting vehicle; LCAC =
air-cushion landing craft; LCM = medium landing craft; LST = tank landing ship; NTC = Northern Theater
Command; PLAGF = People’s Liberation Army ground forces; PLAN = People’s Liberation Army Navy;
RO/RO = roll-on/roll-off; STC = Southern Theater Command; UAV = unmanned aerial vehicle.
1. Photo from 中国军网 [China Military Online], 16 March 2021, www.81.cn/jfjbmap/content/2021-03/
16/content_284858.htm.
2. “Amphibious Armored Vehicles Move Forward at Sea,” China Military Online, 14 April 2021, english
.chinamil.com.cn/view/2021-04/14/content_10021898_3.htm.
3. This reporting could possibly be file footage from different events. 奋进“十四五” 开启新征程训战一
体锻造两栖作战劲旅 [“Forge Ahead in the ‘14th Five-Year Plan’ and Open a New Journey, Integrate
Training and War Fighting and Forge an Elite Amphibious Force”], 央视网-军事报道 [CCTV—
Military Report], 6 April 2021, tv.cctv.com/2021/04/06/VIDEoRVvtwVQmtydt4HL8WYQ210406
.shtml.
4. Satellite view of 22°49’20” N, 115°33’44” E, Google Earth, 9 April 2021.
 T H E P L AG F A M P H I B I O U S F O RC E 77

Appendix. continued
No. Date Army Unit Activity / Estimated Size

5 12 April 74th GA Five AAVs swimming; platoon/company training 5

6 20 April 72nd GA Trucks and armored vehicles loading/unloading on

PLAN LST 917 in port; probably company training 6

7 Late April 72nd GA Three AAVs swimming from shore (Dongshan);

company training 7

8 29 April STC / Three AAVs swimming ashore, approximately seven

probably on beach, possibly up to fifteen in barracks motor
74th GA pool (Shanwei); amphibious battalion in parking
area behind beach; company training 8

9 2 May 74th GA Fourteen AAVs swimming from shore, firing

while swimming, and landing on shore; company
training 9

10 11 May 74th GA AAV swimming from PLAN LST (possibly a contin-

uation of event 9); platoon or higher training 10

11 12 May 73rd GA Four AAVs swimming (no shore, no ships visible);

platoon training11

12 17 May 14th Six to seven Type 63As and AAVs swimming and
ACAB, conducting landing training and movement inland;
73rd GA company training12

5. Image from 中国军网 [China Military Online], 17 April 2021, www.81.cn/jfjbmap/content/2021-04/

17/content_287333.htm.
6. 直击演训场多兵种联合跨海装载航渡演练 [“Witnessing Multiarm Joint Training Exercises in
Cross-Sea Loading and Transit Drills”], 央视网-军事报道 [CCTV—Military Report], 20 April 2021,
tv.cctv.com/2021/04/20/VIDEPAv46kKuqhHi79euLnBy210420.shtml?spm=C53074552346.PLgREq4
pd4yq.Ezufm7A0dzE0.63.
7. Photo from 中国军网 [China Military Online], 6 May 2021, www.81.cn/jfjbmap/content/2021-05/06/
content_288597.htm.
8. Satellite views of 22°41°24° N, 115°25°6° E, and 22°49°20°, 115°33°44° E, Google Earth, 29 April 2021.
9. 节日我们在战位上粤东某海域两栖装甲部队泛海强渡 [“We Are at Our Combat Posts during the
Festival, Amphibious Armor Units Crossing the Sea in an Area of Eastern Guangdong”], 央视网-军
事报道 [CCTV—Military Report], 2 May 2021, tv.cctv.com/2021/05/02/VIDEjZDy2eiO0Y2iUJAU
jg5w210502.shtml?spm=C52346.PPajx7cbYDEB.S60782.6; 直击演训一线·第74集团军某旅两栖
装甲海上协同精准高效 [“Directly to the Front Line of Exercises, Amphibious Armor of the 74th
Group Army Coordinates at Sea Accurately and Efficiently”], 正午国防军事 [Midday National
Defense], 3 May 2021, tv.cctv.com/2021/05/03/VIDECeyR4VoKDqMrIFLBW28F210503
.shtml?spm=C28340.PbtJD1QH3ct0.ET7FuMZSfFtz.1.
10. Photo from 中国军网 [China Military Online], 19 May 2021, www.81.cn/jfjbmap/content/2021-05/
19/content_289689.htm.
11. 泛水编波 [“Surface Crossing Wave Formation”], 中国军网 [China Military Online], 14 May 2021,
www.81.cn/jfjbmap/content/2021-05/14/content_289286.htm.
12. 百年铸辉煌第73 集团军某旅一连: 铁心向党当先锋 [“A Hundred Years of Glory, First Company
of a 73rd Group Army Brigade: Serving as a Vanguard for the Party with Iron Hearts”]央视网-军事
报道 [CCTV­—Military Report], 17 May 2021, tv.cctv.com/2021/05/17/VIDEWNVi2Rios0Gwfepgcjq
K210517.shtml?spm=C52346.PPajx7cbYDEB.S60782.2.
78 C H I N E S E A M P H I B I O U S WA R FA R E

Appendix. continued

No. Date Army Unit Activity / Estimated Size

13 21 May 5th ACAB, “Amphibious training exercise focused on subjects

72nd GA of basic driving, landing craft ferrying and assault
wave formation”; company training13

14 18–21 May 73rd GA Mengshi loads/unloads from PLAGF LCM LD174,

as well as a truck from LD173; company training 14

15 Mid-May 74th GA Two AAVs circling LST “steer on and off a landing
ship during the several-week-long realistic combat
training”; platoon training 15

16 23 May 72nd GA Four AAVs swimming; platoon training16

17 26 May 73rd GA Multiple AAVs swim on/off PLAN LST (similar to

training seen in event 15); platoon training 17

18 7 June 85th CAB, Armored vehicles, trucks, and dismounted troops

72nd GA load/unload PLAN LSTs 982 (Yuting II), 981 (Yuting
II), 939 (Yuting I) at port; battalion training 18

19 13 June 14th Twelve AAVs landing, 2nd Battalion monthlong

ACAB, amphib training (no landing ships observed);
73rd GA battalion training 19

20 15 June 73rd GA Ten AAVs swimming ashore in line and abreast;

company training 20

13. “IFVs Conduct Amphibious Training,” China Military Online, 11 June 2021, english.chinamil.com.cn/
view/2021-06/11/content_10047785_2.htm.
14. “Military Vehicles Pull Out of RO-RO Vessel,” China Military Online, 27 May 2021, english.chinamil
.com.cn/view/2021-05/27/content_10040485.htm.
15. AAV loading/disembarking on two PLAN LSTs anchored off Dongshan can be seen on a Google
Earth image dated 19 August 2019 at 23°41’15” N, 117°28’55” E. This also could be a continuation
of training from event 9; “IFVs and Landing Ship Conduct Coordination Training,” China Military
Online, 5 June 2021, english.chinamil.com.cn/view/2021-06/05/content_10044245_2.htm.
16. Image from 中国军网 [China Military Online], 27 May 2021, www.81.cn/jfjbmap/content/2021
-05/27/content_290304.htm.
17. “IFVs and Landing Ship in Coordination Training,” China Military Online, 8 June 2021, english
.chinamil.com.cn/view/2021-06/08/content_10045871.htm.
18. 直击演训场装载航渡锤炼部队两栖作战保障能力 [“Directly to the Training Grounds, Loading
and Ferrying Tempers the Troops’ Amphibious Combat Support Capabilities”], 央视网-军事报道
[CCTV—Military Report], 7 June 2021, tv.cctv.com/2021/06/07/VIDEG2rR4bpkta654OtugXRi210607
.shtml; 东部战区两栖演练强化跨海作战能力 [“Eastern Theater Command Amphibious Exercises
Strengthen Cross-Sea Combat Capabilities”], 央视网 [CCTV], 10 June 2021, v.cctv.com/2021/06/10/
VIDEelyDFheIbd2pv3F8wwOb210610.shtml.
19. 海训场上砺精兵 [“Sharpening Soldiers at a Maritime Training Field”], Chinese Central Television
(CCTV), 13 June 2021, tv.cctv.com/2021/06/13/VIDEWJ5I0ADBZfdN8t7qQHwg210613.shtml?spm
=C28340.PbtJD1QH3ct0.ET7FuMZSfFtz.6.
20. “Amphibious Armored Vehicles Make Ways to Beach-Head,” China Military Online, 18 July 2021,
english.chinamil.com.cn/view/2021-07/18/content_10062990_3.htm.
 T H E P L AG F A M P H I B I O U S F O RC E 79

Appendix. continued

No. Date Army Unit Activity / Estimated Size

21 10 July 73rd GA Twelve AAVs swimming ashore; company training 21

22 19 July 35th CAB, 35th CAB loading civilian RO/RO Bohai Zuan Zhu,
71st GA including Type 96 tanks and Type 86 IFVs: event in-
cluded personnel swim training; battalion training 22

23 23 July NTC Heavy CAB (may be 69th CAB from Weifang)

railroad movement to load RO/RO Bohai Zuan Zhu
(Yantai–Dalian); at least battalion training 23

24 Late July 91st “In late July, elements of the 73rd GA 91st CAB
ACAB, embarked onto [RO/RO] Bohai Zhen Zhu and SCSC
73rd GA Fortune at Xiamen Port for a 4-day training event”;
probably at least battalion training 24

25 27 July 14th Battalion command post, small-boat recon, forty to

ACAB, fifty small UAVs, formation of AAVs (three four-
73rd GA vehicle platoons) (Blue force on shore), landing in-
cluded clearing obstacles, no landing ships observed
(Dongshan); battalion training 25

21. Image from 中国军网 [China Military Online], 13 July 2021, www.81.cn/jfjbmap/content/2021-07/
13/content_294015.htm.
22. 奋斗百年路启航新征程牢记初心使命争取更大光荣第71集团军某合成旅: 传承英雄精神锻造精
兵劲旅 [“Struggle for a Hundred Years, Set Sail for a New Journey, Remember the Original Mission,
and Strive for Greater Glory. A Combined-Arms Brigade of the 71st Group Army: Inheriting the
Heroic Spirit and Forging Elite Forces”], 央视网-军事报道 [CCTV—Military Report], 19 July 2021,
tv.cctv.com/2021/07/19/VIDEPnwe0SMxNGTw5Y20sKvm210719.shtml?spm=C53074552346
.PLgREq4pd4yq.0.0.
23. 刘海鹏 [Liu Haipeng], 胡兴 [Hu Xing], and 李游 [Li You], 铁水联运探索陆海投送保障 “新模
式” [“Combined Rail and Waterway Transport Explores a ‘New Model’ of Land and Sea Delivery
Support”], 中国军网八一电视 [China Military Online Bayi TV], 23 July 2021, tv.81.cn/jq360/2021
-07/23/content_10066178.htm.
24. 赵亚雄 [Zhao Yaxiong], 范道恒 [Fan Daoheng], and 徐定海 [Xu Dinghai], 军地协同提升两栖部
队跨海投送能力 [“Military-Civilian Coordination to Enhance the Ability of Amphibious Forces to
Cross the Sea”], 中国军视网 [js7tv.cn], 16 August 2021, www.js7tv.cn/video/202108_255176.html.
25. This same exercise was reported again on 31 August 2021, the report noting the “recent beach raid
training exercise . . . amphibious landing drills on subjects of landing craft ferrying, assault wave
formation, beach-landing, obstacle breaking, and so on.” 第73 集团军某两栖重型合成旅全记录: 东
南沿海联合演练渡海登陆119高地 [“Full Record of an Amphibious Heavy Combined-Arms Brigade
of the 73rd Group Army: Joint Drills along the Southeast Coast, Crossing the Sea and Landing on Hill
119”], 央视网-正午国防军事 [CCTV—Midday National Defense], 27 July 2021, tv.cctv.com/2021/
07/27/VIDEamwpfPiwayHlDbs2qbIE210727.shtml; 解放军东南沿海越海夺岛登陆演练台媒:
剑指台湾 [“The People’s Liberation Army Crosses the Sea and Seizes an Island in a Landing Exercise,
Taiwanese Media: They Are Targeting Taiwan”], 新华网 [Xinhua Net], 28 July 2021, www.xinhuanet
.com/mil/2021-07/28/c_1211262923.htm; “Amphibious Armored Vehicles Make Ways to Beach-
Head,” China Military Online, 31 August 2021, english.chinamil.com.cn/view/2021-08/31/content
_10083283.htm.
80 C H I N E S E A M P H I B I O U S WA R FA R E

Appendix. continued

No. Date Army Unit Activity / Estimated Size

26 4 August 2nd CAB, Night railroad movement, tanks/armored vehicles,

71st GA trucks daytime load/unload RO/RO Bohai Zuan
Zhu, movement from ETC to NTC; at least battalion
training 26

27 4 August 73rd GA Fourteen to fifteen small boats in shore assault

and obstacle demolition; company training and
evaluation 27

28 Early 34th CAB, Five days/nights, Mengshi, armored vehicles, port

August 72nd GA loading, three army LCM LDX65s; battalion
training 28

29 9 August 73rd GA Five AAVs disembark/embark on PLAN landing

ship and launch at sea to circle ship and reload;
company training 29

30 11 August NTC / Air Troops, at least two battalions towed antiair artillery,
Defense HQ-16, formation on dock, load/unload COSCO
Brigade, Yong Xing Dao RO/RO in Dalian; brigade training 30
79th GA

31 12 August 73rd GA Seven AAVs swim ashore abreast, twelve AAVs

(midsum- swim ashore in line; (likely a continuation of event
mer) 29); company training 31

26. 北部战区直击演训场军地联动探索陆海投送无缝衔接新模式 [“Directly to the Training Ground

in the Northern Theater Command, Joint Military-Civilian Movement Explores a New Mode of
Seamlessly Connecting Land and Sea Delivery”], 央视网-军事报道 [CCTV—Military Report], 4
August 2021, tv.cctv.com/2021/08/04/VIDERiyXyN3x702QuMbb6EP2210804.shtml?spm=C28340
.PbtJD1QH3ct0.ET7FuMZSfFtz.9.
27. Image from 中国军网 [China Military Online], 8 August 2021, www.81.cn/jfjbmap/content/2021-08/
08/content_295982.htm. The same footage of the 4 August 2021 event was included in reports
on 25 August and 11 October. 燃! 抢滩登陆演练现场画面 [“Burn! The Scene of a Beach
Landing Exercise”], 央视网新闻 [CCTV News], 25 August 2021, m.news.cctv.com/2021/08/25/
ARTIXd5ZnaxisrgWIc9sNCHk210825.shtml; 赵亚雄 [Zhao Yaxiong] et al., 抢滩登陆演练正在展!
[“In Southern Fujian Waters, a Beach Landing Exercise Is Under Way!”], 中国军网八一电视 [China
Military Online Bayi TV], 11 October 2021, tv.81.cn/jq360/2021-10/11/content_10097575.htm.
28. 直击演训一线, 第72集团军某合成旅5天5夜远程航渡锤炼海上作战保障能力 [“Directly to the
Front Line of Training, a Combined-Arms Brigade of the 72nd Group Army Conducts a 5-Day
and 5-Night Long-Distance Voyage to Temper Maritime Combat Support Capabilities”], 央视
网-正午国防军事 [CCTV—Midday National Defense], 5 August 2021, tv.cctv.com/2021/08/05/
VIDEPpuHPreiW8HYi7UBIFFq210805.shtml?spm=C28340.PbtJD1QH3ct0.ET7FuMZSfFtz.3; 东南
沿海, 陆军登陆演练! [“The Army’s Landing Exercise on the Southeastern Coast!”], 环球网 [Global
Times], 26 August 2021, china.huanqiu.com/article/44Vb0jX2UjP.
29. “Amphibious IFVs Practice Maritime Driving Skills,” China Military Online, 27 August 2021, english
.chinamil.com.cn/view/2021-08/27/content_10081994.htm.
30. 吴旭升 [Wu Xusheng] et al., 准备登船! 集群跨海投送演练开始! [“Ready to Embark! Grouped
Cross-Sea Delivery Exercise Begins!”], 中国军网八一电视 [China Military Online Bayi TV], 11
August 2021, tv.81.cn/sytj-tupian/2021-08/11/content_10074519.htm.
31. Image from 中国军网 [China Military Online], 12 August 2021, www.81.cn/jfjbmap/content/2021
-08/12/content_296304.htm; image from 中国军网 [China Military Online], 16 August 2021, www.81
.cn/jfjbmap/content/2021-08/16/content_296598.htm.
 T H E P L AG F A M P H I B I O U S F O RC E 81

Appendix. continued

No. Date Army Unit Activity / Estimated Size

32 17 August 5th ACAB, Seventeen AAVs swimming, amphib truck swims

72nd GA ashore, no landing ships observed; company
training32

33 17 August 74th GA May be light CAB, five army LCMs land on beach,
ten small boats; battalion training33

34 17 August ACAB, 122 mm self-propelled artillery, loading/landing

73rd GA RO/RO Bohai Zhen Zhu at ports; battalion training34

35 22 August ETC PLAN LCAC with elements of unidentified army

brigade35

36 4 72nd GA “[M]ilitary helicopters and amphibious assault vehi-

September cles attached to a brigade of the army under the PLA
Eastern Theater Command conduct coordination in
a maritime training exercise on September 4, 2021,”
with three PLAN LSTs; battalion training36

37 9 ETC Six AAVs swimming in line; company training37

September

38 14 73rd GA New soldier training, three AAVs swimming, firing

September drill, eight AAVs swimming (Dongshan); company
training38

39 26 Unidenti- Two AAVs swimming, no details provided; platoon

November fied army training39
brigade

32. 谢权鑫 [Xie Quanxin] et al., 超燃! 水陆两栖卡车海上装备抢救演练! [“On Fire! Amphibious
Truck in At-Sea Recovery Drill!”], 中国军网八一电视 [China Military Online Bayi TV], 17 August
2021, tv.81.cn/jq360/2021-08/17/content_10076962.htm.
33. 直击演训场渡海登陆检验两栖作战能力 [“Directly to the Training Ground to Cross the Sea and
Land, Testing Amphibious Combat Capabilities”], 央视网-军事报道 [CCTV—Military Report], 17
August 2021, tv.cctv.com/2021/08/17/VIDEAQfJHQvZya1fyG5XjqCR210817.shtml?spm=C52346
.PiumOrlYLNUM.E0VXtwLj8YU7.12.
34. 直击演训场军地协同提升跨海投送能力 [“Directly to the Training Ground, Military-Civilian
Coordination to Improve Cross-Sea Delivery Capabilities”], 央视网-军事报道 [CCTV—Military
Report], 17 August 2021, tv.cctv.com/2021/08/17/VIDEEpnow4vveqIcoXVYlB4P210817.shtml
?spm=C52346.PiumOrlYLNUM.E0VXtwLj8YU7.13.
35. Image from 中国军网 [China Military Online], 25 August 2021, www.81.cn/jfjbmap/content/2021
-08/25/content_297467.htm.
36. “Amphibious Assault Vehicles in Maritime Training Exercise,” China Military Online, 12 September
2021, english.chinamil.com.cn/view/2021-09/12/content_10088509.htm.
37. 泛水编波 [“Assault Wave Formation”], 中国军网 [China Military Online], 12 September 2021, www
.81.cn/jfjbmap/content/2021-09/12/content_298856.htm.
38. 赵亚雄 [Zhao Yaxiong] et al., 新兵来了! 海上实弹射击初体验 [“New Recruits Are Here! First
Experience of Live Fire at Sea”], 中国军网八一电视 [China Military Online Bayi TV], 23 September
2021, tv.81.cn/jq360/2021-09/23/content_10092493.htm; image from 中国军网 [China Military
Online], 23 September 2021, www.81.cn/jfjbmap/content/2021-09/23/content_299601.htm.
39. Image from 中国军网 [China Military Online], 26 November 2021, www.81.cn/jfjbmap/content/2021
-11/26/content_303946.htm.
82 C H I N E S E A M P H I B I O U S WA R FA R E

Notes
1. In addition to PLAGF forces, PLAAF airborne units likely will be employed, ear-
ly on in a joint island landing campaign, to capture inland airfields and perhaps
coastal ports. Recent evidence of PLAGF helicopter and SOF training to secure
ports and airfields can be found at 陆航+特战! 强强联手展开夜间兵力投送
演练 [“Army Aviation + Special Operations! Join Forces to Launch Night Force
Projection Exercise”], PLA Daily, 21 October 2021, www.81.cn/syjdt/2021-10/21/
content_10101220.htm, and “Z-20 Helicopters to Play More Roles in China’s Mil-
itary,” PLA Daily, 19 December 2020, english.chinamil.com.cn/view/2020-12/19/
content_9955018.htm.
2. The emphasis on airborne, airmobile, and SOF operations in this paragraph differs
from a generic description of a brigade amphibious operation found in Headquar-
ters, U.S. Army Dept., Chinese Tactics, ATP 7-100.3 (Washington, DC: August 2021),
sects. 7-54 to 7-57, armypubs.army.mil/epubs/DR_pubs/DR_a/ARN34236-ATP
_7-100.3-001-WEB-3.pdf [hereafter Chinese Tactics]. ATP 7-100.3 contains a wealth
of information about PLAGF organization, equipment, and tactics.
3. U.S. Defense Dept., Military and Security Developments Involving the People’s Re-
public of China 2021 (Washington, DC: Office of the Secretary of Defense, 2021),
p. 120. In the 2020 report, this content is located on p. 118.
4. Dennis J. Blasko, “The PLA Army/Ground Forces,” in The PLA as Organization
v2.0, ed. Kevin Pollpeter and Kenneth W. Allen (n.p.: Defense Group Inc., [2015]),
pp. 284–85, apps.dtic.mil/sti/pdfs/AD1082742.pdf.
5. Dennis J. Blasko, “The PLA Army after ‘Below the Neck’ Reforms: Contributing to
China’s Joint Warfighting, Deterrence and MOOTW Posture,” Journal of Strategic
Studies 44, no. 2 (2021), pp. 170–71.
6. The 14th still is equipped with some older Type 63A light amphibious tanks,
but they likely will be retired in the relatively near future. After reforms, Type
63As have been seen in the report “Amphibious Light Tanks Head to Shore in
Formation,” PLA Daily, 2 August 2019, eng.chinamil.com.cn/view/2019-08/02/
content_9577563.htm, and video at “PLA Conducts Joint Multi-dimensional
Sea-Crossing and Island-Landing Drill,” PLA Daily, 13 October 2020, english
.chinamil.com.cn/view/2020-10/13/content_9917986.htm.
7. Joshua Arostegui, “PLA Army and Marine Corps Amphibious Brigades in a
Post-reform Military,” in Crossing the Strait: China’s Military Prepares for War with
Taiwan, ed. Joel Wuthnow et al. (Washington, DC: National Defense Univ. Press,
2022), p. 179. See also Chinese Tactics, secs. 2–9.
8. Because of the lack of numbers from official Chinese sources, the author uses
the word “estimated” to qualify the guesses he made to fill in information gaps
throughout this chapter.
9. Blasko, “The PLA Army after ‘Below the Neck’ Reforms,” pp. 162–64.
10. Ibid., pp. 162, 164–65.
11. Liu Zhen, “China’s Military Gives Glimpse of Updated Long-Range Rocket
System,” South China Morning Post, 9 January 2021, www.scmp.com/news/china/
military/article/3117044/chinas-military-gives-glimpse-updated-long-range
-rocket-system.
 T H E P L AG F A M P H I B I O U S F O RC E 83

12. “Army Helicopters Coordinate with Naval Landing Ships in Joint Training,”
PLA Daily, 26 September 2021, english.chinamil.com.cn/view/2021-09/26/
content_10093530.htm; “Multi-type Army Helicopters Conduct Deck-Landing
Training on Civilian Semi-submersible Vessel,” PLA Daily, 21 August 2020, english
.chinamil.com.cn/view/2020-08/21/content_9887106.htm.
13. It is unlikely that all army aviation or SOF assets will be deployed to support a Tai-
wan campaign. A few units are likely to remain behind in each theater command in
case of emergency on another front. Nonetheless, a total of ten each army aviation
and SOF brigades, or two-thirds of available units, would be a reasonable estimate
for a phased deployment before and throughout the duration of the campaign.
14. Each theater command army also has a subordinate electronic-countermeasures
brigade that will be integrated into the campaign as appropriate.
15. “Regular Press Conference of the Ministry of National Defense on January 27,”
PLA Daily, 7 February 2022, eng.chinamil.com.cn/view/2022-02/07/content
_10129458.htm; Chen Guoquan and Li Tang, “Chinese Navy to Conduct Combat
Drills in South China Sea,” PLA Daily, 23 March 2018, eng.chinamil.com.cn/
view/2018-03/23/content_7982176.htm.
16. Aviation units in all services and ship units have higher percentages of commis-
sioned and noncommissioned officers than most army, marine, and airborne units
and should not be affected as greatly by conscripts coming and going. Accordingly,
aviation and ship units should be able to maintain higher levels of readiness and be
available for larger and more complex training exercises and real-world missions
throughout the year than their ground-focused comrades.
17. Marcus Clay and Dennis J. Blasko, “People Win Wars: The PLA Enlisted Force,
and Other Related Matters,” War on the Rocks, 31 July 2020, warontherocks
.com/2020/07/people-win-wars-the-pla-enlisted-force-and-other-related
-matters/. In 2013, the period of recruitment and basic training was shifted to the
fall; prior to that, recruits went to basic training in December and units were un-
dermanned for three months during the winter portion of the training season.
18. Marcus Clay, Dennis J. Blasko, and Roderick Lee, “People Win Wars: A 2022 Real-
ity Check on PLA Enlisted Force and Related Matters,” War on the Rocks, 12 August
2022, warontherocks.com/2022/08/people-win-wars-a-2022-reality-check-on-pla
-enlisted-force-and-related-matters/.
19. 海训场上砺精兵 [“Sharpening Soldiers at a Maritime Training Field”], Chinese
Central Television (CCTV), 13 June 2021, tv.cctv.com/2021/06/13/VIDEWJ5I0AD
BZfdN8t7qQHwg210613.shtml?spm=C28340.PbtJD1QH3ct0.ET7FuMZSfFtz.6.
20. Because of the limited number of specialized training areas, the number of units,
and the time it takes to prepare a battalion for all tasks necessary to conduct an
amphibious assault, it is not clear from open sources whether all twenty-four am-
phibious combined-arms battalions undergo a full cycle of amphibious training at
shore locations every year.
21. For example, an ACAB can be seen deployed to Dacheng Bay on Google Earth im-
agery of 18 July 2020 at 23°37’36” N, 117°13’09” E; an amphibious combined-arms
battalion can be seen on Google Earth imagery of Dongshan on 14 August 2019
at 23°40’26” N, 117°28’10” E; and, as an example at a smaller training area, an
84 C H I N E S E A M P H I B I O U S WA R FA R E

amphibious combined-arms battalion can be seen northeast of Shanwei on Google

Earth imagery of 9 April 2021 at 22°49’20” N, 115°33’44” E.
22. These observations are based on PLA descriptions of amphibious training events,
including those cited in the chapter appendix.
23. In a real-world situation, longer-range artillery / multiple-rocket launchers, or
PLAAF, PLAN, and conventional PLARF units, or both would provide fire
support for more-distant objectives, augmented by cyber and electronic-warfare
operations.
24. “PLA Conducts Joint Multi-dimensional Sea-Crossing and Island-Landing Drill.”
This video did not depict second-wave landings, which would deliver artillery and
other units and supplies to the beach to support the advance inland.
25. PLAN marines conducted additional amphibious training not assessed here.
26. A thirty-ninth event was reported on 26 November 2021, but other than showing
two AAVs in the water it provided no details and is not included in the analysis to
follow.
27. Quick Look Report: “Large-Scale Amphibious Warfare in Chinese Military Strategy”
(Newport, RI: China Maritime Studies Institute, [2021]), available at www.andrew
erickson.com/2021/06/quick-look-cmsis-4-6-may-2021-conference-large-scale
-amphibious-warfare-in-chinese-military-strategy-taiwan-strait-campaign-focus/.
28. U.S. Defense Dept., Military and Security Developments Involving the People’s
Republic of China 2021, p. 117.
 Conor M. Kennedy

5. The New Chinese Marine Corps

A “Strategic Dagger” in a Cross-Strait Invasion

The People’s Liberation Army (PLA) has two main amphibious ground-
combat forces: amphibious combined-arms brigades in the army and the ma-
rine corps within the navy. For many years, the marine corps remained quite
limited. Initially consisting of a single brigade, later expanded to two brigades,
the service arm could not contribute much to a large-scale landing cam-
paign across the Taiwan Strait. However, PLA reforms initiated in 2017 have
transformed the People’s Liberation Army Navy Marine Corps (PLANMC).
It has tripled in size, garnering significant attention from Chinese and out-
side observers. The PLA Navy (PLAN) also has built a number of large am-
phibious ships to carry the forces involved.
While the latest developments by the PLANMC indicate that it is pre-
paring for more-diverse missions, including greater roles in overseas opera-
tions, the service arm’s chief mission remains amphibious warfare. This has
important implications for Taiwanese security. Advances in the service’s abil-
ity to conduct modern amphibious-combat operations may both enhance its
effectiveness in traditional beach landings and introduce new capabilities in
support of an overall joint campaign against Taiwan. This chapter examines
the PLANMC’s projected role in a cross-strait amphibious campaign and
analyzes how new additions to the force could be used against Taiwan.
The chapter contains three main sections. The first discusses the service
arm’s transformation and future orientation. The second section examines
86 C H I N E S E A M P H I B I O U S WA R FA R E

progress in brigade development to gauge readiness and the capabilities

available for landing operations. The third section analyzes the PLANMC’s
likely roles in the different phases of an invasion of Taiwan (i.e., a joint island
landing campaign [JILC]) and explores its current ability to perform these
roles.

The “New” PLANMC

Prior to 2017, the PLANMC consisted of just two brigades that were sub-
ordinate to the South Sea Fleet (now the Southern Theater Navy [STN]);
its personnel numbered around twelve thousand.1 These two brigades were
largely responsible for operations in the South China Sea, including guard-
ing Chinese-occupied features, and for contributing forces to antipiracy es-
cort task forces.2 As a major beneficiary of the “below the neck” reforms that
began in 2017, the force was elevated to corps-leader grade; established a
new headquarters subordinate to the PLAN in Beijing; and added several
new brigades, including an aviation brigade.3 This expansion and reform
was meant to give the force a greater role in China’s military operations and
the PLAN’s strategy of “near-seas defense and far-seas protection.”4
The force now is tasked with new missions along with its long-standing
amphibious-warfare mission. Over the past decade, the requirement for the
PLA to diversify its mission set resulted in an expanded range of military
responsibilities for PLANMC forces, including greater emphasis on nonwar
military operations.5 Under the slogan of “all-domain operations” (全域作
战), the PLANMC now regularly trains to operate in new environments,
including in desert, cold, jungle, and high-elevation training areas.6 When
the “new” PLANMC was established officially in 2017, its leadership called
on the force “to strive to build an elite force capable of full-spectrum oper-
ations, all-domain operations, operations in all dimensions, and emergency
operations at all times.”7 According to the PLANMC’s first commandant,
units must maintain high levels of readiness to deploy, fight, and win “with-
out additional personnel or equipment and without precombat training”
(不经人员装备补充、不经临战训练).8
Concepts for maneuver are shifting from traditional linear surface
landings to multidimensional precision assaults. For example, the PLAN-
MC deputy chief of staff and former brigade commander Chen Weidong
wrote in September 2021 that marine corps assault patterns will include
multidimensional projection, multiarm coordinated assault, and over-the-
horizon concealed launch. Supported by combined precision information
 THE NEW CHINESE M ARINE CORPS 87

and firepower offensive capabilities, forces will conduct rapid precision ma-
neuver to strike weak areas throughout adversaries’ depth to exploit gaps
in their coverages, outflank them, and divide their defensive systems. This
is meant to paralyze the enemy, increase operational effects, and reduce
friendly exposure on the ground.9 Many of these concepts reflect growing
recognition of the wider utility of fielding versatile amphibious-combat
forces across an expanded set of missions beyond the marines’ previous fo-
cus on beach landings, as well as lessons learned observing decades of U.S.
Marine Corps operations.
Most importantly, the PLANMC is seen as the PLAN’s future expedi-
tionary force for operating overseas to secure China’s national interests and
respond to crises.10 Echoing other official statements, former PLANMC
political commissar Yuan Huazhi frankly stated in 2018 that “we must
fully recognize the status and role of the marine corps as the ‘first choice
for military forces to go abroad.’”11 For the PLANMC to serve this function,
its leaders emphasize the importance of readiness, speed, adaptability, and
versatility in future-force development. PLANMC forces now are deployed
regularly to China’s first overseas base, in Djibouti, and eventually will em-
bark on future amphibious-strike-group vessels deployed to the far seas.12
While many of these new developments may not be dedicated to ac-
complishing a traditional landing on Taiwan, a more modern and versatile
PLANMC will make the force more effective in any of the operations it con-
ducts in support of such a joint campaign. The next section will examine
the postreform PLANMC and the development of its new combined-arms
brigades.

PLANMC Force Development

A look at postreform PLANMC development is essential to assessing what
capabilities will be available in a cross-strait amphibious invasion. As stated
above, several new brigades were formed, most from existing PLA ground
forces (PLAGF) units. Four new maneuver brigades were created, two each
in the Northern Theater Navy (NTN) and Eastern Theater Navy (ETN).
The former PLAN “Jiaolong” commando regiment was upgraded to a bri-
gade and placed under the PLANMC. Additionally, an aviation brigade was
formed in Shandong to provide organic aviation support for PLANMC bri-
gades. The below table displays the names and locations of the PLANMC’s
eight brigades.
88 C H I N E S E A M P H I B I O U S WA R FA R E

Table 1. PLANMC Brigades

Theater Command Brigade Name Location

Southern 1st Marine Brigade Zhanjiang, Guangdong

2nd Marine Brigade Zhanjiang, Guangdong

Special-Operations Brigade Sanya, Hainan

Eastern 3rd Marine Brigade Jinjiang, Fujian

4th Marine Brigade Jieyang, Guangdong

Northern 5th Marine Brigade Qingdao, Shandong

6th Marine Brigade Qingdao; Yantai, Shandong

Naval Shipborne Zhucheng, Shandong

Aviation Brigade

The PLA reforms also reorganized the brigade structure. Previous ma-
rine brigades in the STN had contained several infantry battalions and an
amphibious armor regiment as the primary assault forces. The reforms have
reorganized these forces into combined-arms battalions—flattening the
chain of command from brigade to battalion in much the same way that
PLAGF brigades have done. As the 1st Marine Brigade commander ex-
plained in 2020, “The combined-arms battalion as the operational unit to
take on independent combat missions is a true portrayal of the past three
years of reform and transfer.” The 1st Brigade was the first PLANMC unit
to test out the new combined-arms battalion structure, forming the 1st
Combined-Arms Battalion (Amphibious). With this new structure, person-
nel comprising reconnaissance (recon), engineering, firepower, and other
elements are built into the combined-arms battalion, enhancing combat
power and flexibility at the battalion level.13
These reforms have encountered challenges. Equipment and units can
be reorganized and moved around, but battalion commanders also must
have sufficient training and experience to handle the increased burden of
coordinating different arms. Commanders and their staffs must grasp an
understanding of the new specialties that become their responsibility. In
landing exercises, some 1st Brigade battalion staff members reportedly did
not make use of the recon elements under their command and lacked un-
derstanding of the obstacle-removal procedures of the engineering detach-
ments, causing delays for follow-on units.14
Discussions published in PLAN official media indicate that the bri-
gades are working through this transition to develop capable battalion
 THE NEW CHINESE M ARINE CORPS 89

commanders and staffs and correct old ways of thinking.15 For example, the
service has sought to improve the quality and focus of officer evaluations.
In April 2019, PLANMC Headquarters evaluated the capabilities of com-
mand and staff officers with respect to operations, command, political work,
and integrated support, placing weight on war fighting in the overall eval-
uations. This was conducted force-wide for over sixty deputy regiment and
battalion-grade officers.16
Currently, PLANMC brigades consist of the following nine battalions:17
• Amphibious mechanized infantry 1st Battalion (两栖机械化步兵一
营)
• Amphibious mechanized infantry 2nd Battalion (两栖机械化步兵
二营)
• Medium mechanized infantry 3rd Battalion (轻型机械化步兵三营)
• Air-assault infantry battalion (空中突击步兵营)
• Reconnaissance battalion (侦察营)
• Artillery battalion (炮兵营)
• Air-defense battalion (防空营)
• Operational-support battalion (作战支援营)
• Service-support battalion (勤务保障营)
Each amphibious combined-arms battalion likely consists of the follow-
ing components:18
• Four mechanized infantry companies (机步连)
• Firepower company (火力连)
• Reconnaissance platoon (侦察排)
• Air-defense element (防空分队)
• Artillery element (炮兵分队)
• Engineer element (工兵分队)
• Repair team (修理小队)
The four mechanized infantry companies are reported to be equipped
with fourteen combat vehicles each, for a total of fifty-six Type 05 vehicles
(ZBD-05s and ZTD-05s) per battalion, and thus 112 per brigade.19 These
are the primary amphibious vehicles for PLANMC landing operations. The
addition of firepower companies and engineer, recon, and air-defense el-
ements enhances the battalion’s ability to operate independently and seize
coastal terrain.
90 C H I N E S E A M P H I B I O U S WA R FA R E

The most combat-ready units are found in the STN. The two original,
prereform brigades, the 1st and 2nd, are located near Zhanjiang City and
are likely the amphibious mechanized forces most ready to mobilize and ex-
ecute landing operations. These brigades continue to train regularly on the
Leizhou Peninsula for amphibious-landing operations. Based in Sanya, the
Special-Operations Brigade has grown to around three thousand personnel
in an unknown number of battalion formations. Around a thousand of these
personnel are transfers from other units. Because the enlarged force initially
lacked sufficient professional training staff, a number of experts have been
brought in from other special-operations units to bolster training capacity.
Additionally, force development appears to emphasize further improvement
in coordinated operations. These special-forces units usually are kept at
high levels of readiness.20
In the NTN, the transformation of the 6th Brigade from the former
77th Motorized Infantry Brigade (Twenty-Sixth Group Army) appears
to be near completion. Type 05 assault vehicles and infantry fighting ve-
hicles (IFVs) have been allocated to the two amphibious mechanized in-
fantry battalions, ZBL-09 IFVs and ZTL-11 assault vehicles to the medium
mechanized infantry battalion, and CS/VP4 Lynx all-terrain vehicles to un-
specified units.21 The 6th Brigade reportedly takes part in regular amphibious-
training programs (海训), as well as other transregional training events.22
The 5th Brigade received ZBD-09 and ZTL-11 wheeled vehicles for its medi-
um mechanized infantry battalion sometime in 2020, and it has established
its reconnaissance battalion. However, it is unclear whether the 5th Brigade
has created amphibious mechanized infantry battalions.23 These two bri-
gades likely conduct much of their amphibious training in the amphibious
training area in Ganjingzi District of Dalian, Liaoning Province.24
The 7th Aviation Brigade is a significant addition to the PLANMC,
which previously relied on PLAN helicopters to provide aerial mobility. De-
scribed by the 7th Aviation Brigade political commissar as a “leading force
for advancing from the sea to shore in depth” and “a force for strategic ma-
neuver,” the aviation forces are expected to conduct vertical-landing opera-
tions into the adversary’s depth.25 When the brigade was established in 2017,
it lacked training grounds, support forces, and pilots.26 The brigade’s deputy
chief of staff frankly told reporters in 2020 that it lacked flight equipment
and flight instructors who could teach and who understood command; “ev-
erything was started from scratch.”27 It appears that a number of PLAGF
helicopter pilots were transferred and retrained for shipboard operations.
Other pilots in the brigade were PLANMC cadets who graduated from the
Army Aviation College in 2020.28 The PLANMC has been equipped with
 THE NEW CHINESE M ARINE CORPS 91

a limited number of Z-8C and Z-9 helicopters (likely transferred from the
PLAN), in which air-assault units have begun training.29 Other helicopter
types could be added to the force in the future. These may include the Z-20
medium-lift helicopter, to provide a flexible, multimission platform, and
the Z-10, for close air support; however, these have not been observed yet.30
The brigade currently contains at least two flight squadrons (飞行大队) and
an aircraft-maintenance group (机务大队), but these elements will grow
in size gradually as more helicopters are delivered and pilots assigned.31
Flight teams train to operate with PLAN landing ships. Public reports show
PLANMC pilots training with the ETN amphibious transport dock (LPD)
No. 985 (Qilianshan) in day and night operations, including nighttime hot
refueling.32 Between 2021 and 2022, the PLAN commissioned two Type 075
amphibious assault ships (LHAs), with at least one more expected to join the
fleet in the near term. PLANMC flight squadrons already are conducting
coordination training with these new ships.33 These will be essential plat-
forms for enabling PLANMC air-assault and vertical-landing operations.34
In the ETN, PLAN reporting indicates that the 3rd Brigade in Fujian Prov-
ince gradually is receiving equipment and regularly conducts amphibious-
landing training exercises. One of the mechanized infantry companies in
this brigade reportedly was the first to begin receiving amphibious armored
vehicles (两栖步战车), likely receiving them sometime in 2019.35 It is un-
clear whether this refers to Type 05–series vehicles or to other amphibious-
capable combat vehicles, such as the ZBL-09 or ZTL-11. Training approach-
es are similar to those that STN marine brigade amphibious units are
reported to use, covering conducting beach assaults, using breaching teams,
and coordinating naval gunfire support, among other subjects.36 One report
suggests that the 3rd Brigade trains with an ETN landing ship group, prac-
ticing countermeasures to be employed in an island landing confrontation
and maintaining the security of landing ships at sea.37 The 3rd Brigade also
contains a medium mechanized infantry battalion, air-assault battalion, re-
con battalion, and operational-support battalion, similar to the structure of
the other brigades.38 Much less information is available on the 4th Brigade
in Jieyang, Guangdong Province, although it has received some equipment,
such as ZBL-09 IFVs.39
Since the PLANMC was expanded and reforms began in 2017, the ser-
vice’s evolution is far from complete. The 77th Motorized Infantry Brigade’s
transformation into a PLANMC brigade was likely easier than the transition
for the coastal-defense units that now are part of the 3rd, 4th, and 5th Bri-
gades; the latter units came out of outdated forces under the provincial mil-
itary district system instead of a group army, and they probably will require
92 C H I N E S E A M P H I B I O U S WA R FA R E

more investment. Xi Jinping’s visit to PLANMC Headquarters in October

2020 put significant emphasis on the force’s development, resulting in the
PLAN Party Committee releasing the “Decision on Thoroughly Implement-
ing the Spirit of Chairman Xi’s Important Speech and Strengthening the
Guidance and Assistance of the Navy Marine Corps” in December of that
year. This signaled increased support for PLANMC manning, equipping,
training, and other measures to boost the service’s development.40 Urgency
communicated from Beijing and senior PLAN leadership likely will catalyze
a period of rapid strengthening of the force.
In total, the PLANMC currently could contribute to a cross-strait land-
ing six or more amphibious mechanized infantry battalions—that is, forces
equipped with vehicles that can swim to a hostile shore. The exact number
of these and other battalion types will depend on the final configuration
of the new brigades—in particular, those brigades transferred from former
coastal-defense units. Limited reporting on the 3rd, 4th, and 5th Brigades
leaves it unclear whether the PLANMC will standardize its six maneuver
brigades. New battalion types, such as a “high-mobility light infantry battal-
ion” (高机动轻型步兵营) in one of the new brigades, suggest that the bri-
gade structures will not be completely uniform.41 Additionally, the special-
operations brigade probably can contribute several battalions of highly
trained special-forces personnel.
Efforts are under way by PLANMC Headquarters to bolster amphibious-
warfare capabilities, with special emphasis on new unit commanders.
During the Lunar New Year in 2018, it held a ten-day collective training ses-
sion for up to one hundred commanders at different levels, focusing on their
war-fighting abilities. Experts were brought in from the PLAN, PLAGF,
PLA Strategic Support Force, military academies, and other organizations
to support this event. Commanders received training on the operational
patterns of amphibious landing, island and reef capture, and special oper-
ations; tactics covering embarkation and transit, landing-craft ferrying and
assault-wave formation, assault landings, and seizure of points throughout
the adversary’s depth; and resistance to enemy counterattacks, reconnais-
sance, sabotage, and vertical landings. They trained to make decisions and
give combat orders to units within their landing combat organizations and
to coordinate operational support. Headquarters staff gave special attention
to ensuring that commanders were evaluated and given feedback on an indi-
vidual basis. This crash course in amphibious warfare reportedly had partic-
ipants studying and training for sixteen hours a day.42 Additional iterations
of collective training sessions likely will be necessary owing to the extremely
short duration of this event.
 THE NEW CHINESE M ARINE CORPS 93

The PLANMC’s efforts to develop commanders likely are underpinned

by programs launched by the former Naval Marine Academy in 2011 to de-
velop a “theoretical system of new-type amphibious operations.” This was
part of an overhaul of the academy to build core institutional knowledge
and amphibious-warfare excellence in the PLAN that included numerous
projects on amphibious operational theory and research, equipment ap-
plications, training, and overall support to the PLANMC.43 The academy
now has been transformed into a PLANMC training base, and its doctrine-
development work probably has been subsumed under that of PLANMC
Headquarters.44
Overall, the new marine brigade structure demonstrates that the
PLANMC is not optimizing itself for a traditional amphibious assault on
Taiwan’s coast. Compared with the PLAGF’s six amphibious combined-arms
brigades, the PLANMC lacks full heavy amphibious-combat units, instead
opting for more-flexible and -diverse capabilities within each brigade. From
an examination of the statements by senior PLANMC leaders on force de-
velopment, changes to training programs over the past several years, and
the new brigade structure, it is increasingly clear that the PLANMC is de-
veloping into an expeditionary force capable of operating overseas. Never-
theless, the force certainly will be a key component of the landing forces in
any JILC, and its newly reorganized battalions may be more combat effective
under this new structure. The next section discusses the potential roles that
PLANMC brigades are likely to play.

Joint Island Landing Campaign

The JILC is the PLA’s main operational concept for an invasion of Taiwan.
The JILC’s primary objectives are to break through Taiwan’s coastal defenses
and establish a beachhead to enable further offensive action to seize and oc-
cupy key targets, if not capture the entire island.45 The JILC features multiple
subcampaigns requiring intense combat conducted jointly by all the PLA
service arms. The projected campaign consists of three phases; (1) prelimi-
nary operations; (2) assembly, embarkation, and transit; and (3) the assault
landing and the establishment of the campaign landing site (beachhead).46
This chapter will exclude discussion of operations to seize Taiwan’s offshore
islands and focus on PLANMC landing operations against Taiwan itself.
The PLANMC could fulfill multiple roles in this campaign, but it is
unlikely to constitute the main force. Configured entirely for amphibious
combat, the PLAGF’s amphibious combined-arms brigades probably will
serve as the main body of the overall landing forces.47 The PLANMC may
94 C H I N E S E A M P H I B I O U S WA R FA R E

coordinate with these forces or conduct other, separate or independent

operations.48
The sections that follow will examine the potential roles of the PLANMC
in each of the three campaign phases and beyond.

Preliminary Operations
Prior to the amphibious assault, the PLA likely will carry out a series of
preliminary (advance) operations, the goals of which would be to “paralyze”
the enemy’s operational system and create favorable conditions for landing
operations.49 To this end, the joint forces will be tasked with shaping the
operational environment through mine countermeasures, naval blockade,
integrated firepower assaults, and so forth. For its part, the PLANMC likely
will operate as part of the advance force. Specifically, it will conduct beach
reconnaissance, sabotage raids, and mine clearance and obstacle destruction
close to or on D-day.50
The PLANMC has significant manpower to apply to these activities
taking place in amphibious objective areas. PLANMC recon battalions—
specifically, the armed recon companies (武装侦察连), and potentially re-
con elements assigned to the combined-arms battalions—are trained to ap-
proach the coastline covertly and conduct these operations.51 These forces
can reconnoiter beach areas, providing information on beach gradients,
depths, tide and wave states, the sea bottom, ground-traverse conditions,
routes of enemy approach, defense works, and vertical-landing areas.52
Engineering elements in the combined-arms battalions will take part in
mine and obstacle clearance prior to the assault, using amphibious breaching
vehicles delivered to the PLANMC in the early 2010s and other small craft.
These can use line charges to clear paths toward the beach.53 It is unclear
how the underwater-demolition companies (潜水爆破连) tasked with mine
and obstacle clearance under the former engineering and chemical-defense
battalions (工兵防化营) have been affected by the new brigade structure.54
Additionally, these operations are a core function of the special-
operations brigade. These forces routinely train for covert insertion by air
using rotary or fixed-wing aircraft, on the surface in small inflatable craft,
and underwater by submarine and special-operations delivery vehicles.
They are proficient in demolition, target reconnaissance, target designa-
tion, and sabotage raids against command-and-control hubs, ammuni-
tion depots, ports and ships, airfields, and other key targets.55 The special-
operations brigade provides a sizable addition to the advance operations of
the PLANMC and may continue conducting special operations during and
after landing operations.
 THE NEW CHINESE M ARINE CORPS 95

When employing amphibious forces in advance operations, each PLA

commander must weigh an imperative to assault a specific landing area
against the need to maintain tactical surprise. Large-scale amphibious land-
ings against Taiwan quickly will lose strategic surprise when forces are mo-
bilized across the strait and the bombardment commences. However, com-
manders still may seek to achieve tactical surprise in their respective landing
areas. Significant advance operations might risk losing this advantage—or
they might help support it; the PLANMC may employ some of its forces to
deceive the enemy by conducting advance operations to draw attention to
false landing areas, thus hiding the true landing-objective area.56

Assembly, Embarkation, and Transit

This phase of operations involves movement of PLANMC brigades from
their home bases into assembly areas for embarkation on assigned transport
and landing ships. The limited number of landing ships the PLAN has will
complicate the detailed planning that goes into the embarkation phase. It is
unclear exactly how many landing ships will be available for the JILC and to
which service they will be assigned. Numerous merchant vessels will have
to be mobilized and modified appropriately to carry some of the landing
forces, possibly including elements of the PLANMC.
PLANMC transregional training exercises conducted since 2014 have
sought to improve rapid-mobilization and transport functions within the
force, in coordination with service and joint military transportation de-
partments. While these exercises have focused on transporting units over
thousands of kilometers to distant training bases, they have offered signif-
icant experience and lessons in planning, preparing, and conducting force
transport. The August 2015 exercises at the Malong training base in Yunnan
demonstrated improvements in efficiency in moving amphibious-combat
units over long distances using multiple modes of transport. Scenario el-
ements were introduced during transit to increase complexity, such as re-
sponding to air threats and carrying out troop dispersal and concealment.57
Repeated iterations of planning, preparation, embarkation, transit, and de-
barkation or transfer have provided significant data and feedback to evalu-
ation groups assessing and optimizing the complex logistics of moving bri-
gades and other PLAN units.58 Improvements made to the process will apply
force-wide, but certainly to the 1st and 2nd Brigades, which have the most
experience with these transregional exercises.
All PLANMC brigades are located close to major ports. Both the 1st and
2nd Brigades have access to rail or roadway networks and can reach loading
sites used by the STN 6th Landing Ship Flotilla in Zhanjiang, Guangdong,
96 C H I N E S E A M P H I B I O U S WA R FA R E

with relative ease. This was demonstrated publicly during the launch of an-
nual training in January 2018, when an amphibious mechanized infantry
combined-arms battalion of the 1st PLANMC Brigade embarked on LPDs
and tank landing ships (LSTs). Public accounts of this exercise showed load-
ing operations coordinated with surface and aviation forces. However, it was
not realistic for a cross-strait landing.59 In a real operation, the PLANMC
likely would attempt to conceal force concentration in multiple assembly
and standby areas before proceeding to the embarkation point, at which
point efforts would focus on accomplishing loading operations smoothly
and rapidly to reduce exposure to adversary strikes.60
Units of the 3rd and 4th Brigades that are able to join the amphibious
assault could be expected to embark aboard vessels of the 5th Landing Ship
Flotilla in the ETN. However, the apparent lack of amphibious lift in the
PLAGF’s watercraft units for the six amphibious combined-arms brigades
in the ground forces suggests that ETN landing ships may be reserved for
those units’ use, to ensure that fully formed amphibious-combat units can
get ashore. A similar situation applies to the PLANMC’s 5th Brigade, which
may not have access to PLAN landing ships.
Simply put, existing PLAN amphibious lift is inadequate to the size of
the total landing forces.61 Therefore campaign planners will need to decide
which forces they will prioritize. If the PLANMC is not the primary landing
force, it may need to use alternative means to get to landing areas. Recent de-
velopments in merchant shipping may indicate efforts to address this short-
coming. For example, in July 2020 the PLANMC’s 1st Brigade mobilized
all personnel and equipment from Zhanjiang to conduct landing exercises
off the coast of western Guangdong. Chinese reporting portrays a civilian-
operated roll-on/roll-off (RO/RO) ship at one of the 6th Landing Ship Flotil-
la’s loading berths taking on combat troops and Type 05 amphibious armor.
Footage shows the ability to conduct amphibious launch from the RO/RO
ship.62 This represents an important variable in the amphibious-lift equation
for the broader PLA and suggests that, with appropriate modifications, the
PLANMC may have access to additional lift for assaulting forces.
PLANMC brigades will embark assault-echelon and follow-on forces on
available PLAN landing ships, while nonamphibious elements likely will be
transported by merchant shipping. The 6th Brigade demonstrated the feasi-
bility of this approach during a large-scale projection exercise in July 2019,
during which it embarked forces onto the NTN landing ship dadui and mer-
chant RO/RO vessels using multiple RO/RO berths in Qingdao, Weihai, and
Yantai. Type 05 amphibious vehicles loaded onto LSTs, while trucks, towed
artillery, troops, and various other wheeled equipment went on large RO/RO
ships. A total of nine ships were used to transport this brigade.63
 THE NEW CHINESE M ARINE CORPS 97

This exercise appears to have been focused on logistics during maritime

transport, so it may not be reflective of preparations for landing operations;
however, the assignment and disposition of shipping to move this brigade
offer some valuable insights. In a cross-strait landing, assault-echelon forces
will form the initial waves and may depart from their vessels under combat
conditions, so these elements will be given higher priority for assignment
to PLAN landing ships. Nonamphibious follow-on forces, such as light,
wheeled combat vehicles or towed artillery, may have to wait aboard mer-
chant shipping for lighterage to get ashore. The exercise also highlighted the
geographic dispersal of embarkation areas across multiple port areas for a
single brigade.
A significant portion of PLANMC forces can load at sea and therefore
do not require a port of embarkation.64 In their amphibious-training areas,
PLANMC amphibious vehicles train regularly, day and night, in well-deck
launch and recovery offshore.65 This mode could prevent congestion in port
areas and mitigate some risk of loading in enclosed harbor areas that may
be subject to adversary precision strikes or mining operations. Additional-
ly, loading for the JILC could take place under the pretext of amphibious-
training exercises.
The PLANMC will be vulnerable throughout the assembly, embarka-
tion, and transit phase, especially from air threats. Air-defense battalions
can help protect the force and landing ships at embarkation areas from
low-flying threats, primarily by using man-portable air-defense systems
(MANPADS). These battalions do not appear to field any vehicle-based radar
or surface-to-air-missile systems and likely will be reliant on resources of the
joint forces. An article highlighting postreform changes to the 1st Brigade
describes air-defense elements conducting “joint air intelligence and early
warning” (实施联合空情预警) to establish early-warning systems during
a landing exercise.66 This suggests that the 1st Brigade can tap into PLAN or
joint early-warning networks, although little information is available on how
this would work in practice. Air-defense battalions belonging to brigades
transferred from former coastal-defense units also can be seen training with
older towed antiair artillery pieces, which eventually may be replaced with
more-modern equipment.67
During transit, PLANMC air-defense elements take part in amphibious-
transport fleet air defense.68 One PLAN report from July 2015 indicates that
MANPADS units supporting fleet air defense are under amphibious task force
command, which can task ship weapon mounts and PLANMC MANPADS
to engage targets when within range, using ship target tracking.69 Overall,
air defense appears to be an important gap in PLANMC capabilities. How-
ever, low-altitude threat coverage may be sufficient in the JILC, given that
98 C H I N E S E A M P H I B I O U S WA R FA R E

significant airpower and naval screens by PLA joint forces likely will be
available to protect transiting forces.70
The exact assignment and configuration of amphibious shipping for the
PLANMC in a cross-strait landing remain unclear. This is not owing just
to the continued lack of landing ships for such large-scale operations but
also to the lack of clarity on force objectives in the amphibious operational
area. Planned operations ashore ultimately will determine PLANMC load-
ing plans and shipping assignments.

Assault Landing and Establishment of a Beachhead

After the amphibious fleet has transited the strait safely and arrived at its
objective operational areas, the assault phase of operations for the landing
forces commences. This is the key phase of the JILC; its objectives are to
conduct a landing assault, secure a beachhead for assault follow-on forces,
overcome enemy counterattacks, and consolidate and expand landing
sites.71 Existing PLANMC forces probably can contribute just six amphibi-
ous combined-arms battalions to beach landings, indicating a more limited
role among the joint landing forces. However, the new brigade force struc-
ture brings new capabilities that may entail a unique supporting role within
the overall campaign.
Campaign joint command will assign PLANMC forces to landing ar-
eas as required by campaign objectives and the established landing plans.
The exact locations of primary, secondary, and false landing areas are
unknown. As amphibious task forces approach deployment zones and
advance-force intelligence comes in, task-force and landing-force com-
manders will finalize specific landing sites. Prereform PLA landing-site re-
quirements indicated that landing sections for amphibious regiments would
cover a front of 2 to 4 kilometers (km) and each battalion landing point
would cover 0.5 to 1 km. More-recent work by the Naval Marine Academy
notes that battalion landing points now cover 1 to 2 km.72 This would put
the two amphibious combined-arms battalions of a brigade on a 2-to-4-
kilometer section of beach. Indeed, one brigade’s amphibious-assault
landing exercises in July 2020 reportedly spanned 3 km of coast off eastern
Guangdong.73
Prior to the assault phase, PLANMC special-operations units already
may have infiltrated assigned areas and attempted sabotage operations
against enemy observation posts, command-and-control facilities, airfields,
and other key sites to disrupt defenders and slow down counterattacks
against the landing forces.74 These forces may have gone ashore covertly
or been inserted by air; they even may have been delivered offshore by
maritime militia fleets.75
 THE NEW CHINESE M ARINE CORPS 99

PLANMC assault-wave formations primarily comprise relatively fast

amphibious armor and assault craft. The Type 05 series of vehicles, which
PLANMC brigades began receiving in 2006, are capable of reaching forty-
five kilometers per hour on water and withstanding 12.7 mm rounds.76
Assault-gun and IFV versions constitute the bulk of amphibious armor for
the force, with additional command, salvage, and ambulance versions. The
PLANMC’s 122 mm self-propelled howitzer vehicle, the PLZ-07B, also is
based on the Type 05 chassis and can swim to shore.77 Assault-echelon units
will be capable of launching from landing ships in the deployment zone and
joining wave formations without significant transfer activities, thereby en-
hancing the speed of landings.
Battalion landing groups likely will go ashore in five to seven waves,
with companies in two to three waves. Engineer elements will precede them,
using rocket-propelled line charges and amphibious breaching vehicles to
clear and mark landing lanes.78 Amphibious armor, such as ZTD-05 105 mm
assault guns and ZBD-05 30 mm cannon, will be in the first waves to lay fire
on beach defenses and firing points, providing cover for infantry arriving
on assault craft. Their amphibious armor uses Beidou satellite positioning
to assist in movement and determining firing coordinates.79 Battalion-level
training activities that include live fire against shore targets during periods
of rough weather and low-light conditions will help improve vehicle crew
coordination and accuracy.80 Additionally, since 2013 PLANMC infantry
units have improved coordinated strikes with the individual strike guidance
system (单兵引导打击系统) to direct fires against enemy positions.81
Recent training events indicate that the PLANMC is working to better
integrate supporting elements into coordinated amphibious assaults under
the new battalion structure. For example, an STN marine brigade conduct-
ing live combat-tactics training in southeast Guangdong Province in July
2020 combined multiple training subjects simultaneously to simulate an
opposed landing. The assault echelon reportedly passed through “enemy
barrage zones” under radio silence, while communications elements (通信
分队) acquired information on enemy searches for friendly radio signals
and then conducted signal jamming against the defenders. Dozens of spe-
cialties were reported to be integrated into the assault training in a seamless
progression, whereas it was noted that previous practices had focused on
individual and small-group training methods.82
To enhance combat readiness, the 1st Brigade has been analyzing data
collected from drills during “sea training” (海练) conducted by all combat
units to solve problems in personnel allocation, ammunition consumption,
equipment support, and other areas. Problems addressed include reducing
the loads that personnel carry to ensure they can continue to march and
10 0 C H I N E S E A M P H I B I O U S WA R FA R E

fight, accounting for attrition rates, considering morale levels, practicing

tactics in ammunition supply, and seeking a number of other solutions.83
Service-support elements reportedly are providing greater combat support
to units on the battlefield. Personnel develop multiple proficiencies—for ex-
ample, being able both to drive vehicles and to work on their chassis. The
performance of personnel in exercises at Zhurihe training events apparently
has shown improved flexibility and breadth of support on the battlefield.84
Keeping equipment in operating condition will be critical, since numerous
breakdowns are likely to occur as equipment is stressed in combat.
The PLANMC is unable to concentrate as much force into landing areas
as the PLAGF amphibious combined-arms brigades, so PLANMC brigades
may conduct landing operations in support of PLAGF landings and the
overall campaign’s objectives. According to the Science of Campaigns, the
JILC would combine focused assaults with landings in multiple directions,
in an attempt to confuse and disperse defending forces, preventing them
from concentrating force against a few landing areas.85 So the PLAGF might
concentrate forces in the primary landing areas, while the PLANMC would
target secondary landing areas where brigades could be used to strike objec-
tives or launch rapid offensive maneuvers inland. The threat of PLANMC
flanking assaults and operations in depth may constitute an attempt to com-
pel defenders to assume a passive position and to complicate their ability to
mass force against the heavier landing forces in the primary landing areas.86
In theory, this could relieve pressure on the PLAGF while the ground forces
consolidate and expand beachheads and prepare for the construction of
landing bases and the inflow of follow-on forces.
Coordination between PLAGF and PLANMC units will need to im-
prove to leverage fully such joint operations. One report on changes and
improvements to postreform joint landing operations by the STN in early
2018 noted previous problems with coordination. The report cited an in-
stance of a PLAGF battalion taking heavy simulated losses during a joint
exercise because it would not wait for the PLANMC battalion to complete
its destruction of enemy firepower in depth before launching its own as-
sault. Furthermore, the lack of attack helicopters in the PLANMC means it
will rely heavily on the PLAGF’s aviation brigades to provide rotary-wing
close air support. Efforts are under way to improve the ability of PLAGF at-
tack helicopters to operate from PLAN landing ships or civilian platforms.87
However, efforts to better incorporate PLAGF aviation into the joint landing
forces appear to be concentrated largely on army landing operations with
PLAN landing ships, not in conjunction with the PLANMC.88
 THE NEW CHINESE M ARINE CORPS 101

Beyond the Beachhead

The new structure of PLANMC brigades enables a more diverse set of capa-
bilities designed for combat in a variety of environments. In a cross-strait in-
vasion, these capabilities will allow a greater role for brigade operations out-
side the initial amphibious assault. The PLAN Party Committee’s “Decision
on Thoroughly Implementing the Spirit of Chairman Xi’s Important Speech
and Strengthening the Guidance and Assistance of the Navy Marine Corps”
(discussed earlier) emphasizes the PLANMC’s efforts to transform itself
from a coastal and sea force into one that can be effective in all domains—it
intends to operate from the sea and air and on land.89 In a cross-strait land-
ing, this would entail the PLANMC operating beyond the beaches.
The addition of air-assault battalions to brigades, the construction of ad-
ditional LPDs and LHAs, and the enabling of vertical-landing capabilities by
inclusion of the aviation brigade will expand the PLANMC’s ability to con-
duct “multidimensional landing operations” (立体登陆作战).90 Helicopter-
landing zones will be used to deliver battalions of troops to locations 15
to 60 km in the adversary’s depth, selected to best support the main land-
ing operations. Each landing zone will contain multiple landing sites, each
of which should be one to two square kilometers in area for a single heli-
copter wave, probably consisting of five to six Z-8C helicopters, to deliver
company-size units.91 The site-selection process will consider the disposi-
tion of enemy strength, suitability for landing and mounting a defense, and
ease of target destruction and disruption of enemy reserve units entering
the battle space.92
Recent 7th Aviation Brigade tactical-training subjects have highlighted
operations in adversary rear areas, focusing on adaptive training during
nighttime and under radio silence, using low-elevation flights to avoid de-
tection by adversary air-defense radar. In addition to exercises covering
search and rescue, door gunnery, and materials delivery, adversarial con-
tingencies were introduced, forcing pilots to use alternate landing sites.93
Transport helicopters are a shortcoming in the PLANMC’s current order of
battle, and it is unclear whether the two known flight dadui have received
all their required aircraft. The absence of attack helicopters in the force also
could leave helicopter routes unguarded. With time, the PLANMC will gain
the proficiency required to conduct vertical assaults from the flight decks of
PLAN ships such as the Type 075 and Type 071.
The addition of medium mechanized infantry battalions allows for
greater mobility inland. While not equal to the Type 05 series in amphibious
combat, ZBL-09 and ZTL-11 vehicles are amphibious capable and thus may
102 C H I N E S E A M P H I B I O U S WA R FA R E

not have to wait for naval lighterage systems to get ashore.94 The PLANMC’s
introduction of the ZTQ-15 light tank will bolster ground-warfare capabil-
ities further, although which units are receiving this tank and in what num-
bers remains unclear.95 Continuous-firepower assault exercises conducted
by the 1st Brigade in the fall of 2020 indicate that the medium mechanized
infantry battalions will engage the adversary farther inland. The exercises
reportedly introduced training scenarios that required units to engage in
rapid and continuous maneuver while facing various adversary attacks and
electronic jamming, to adjust to units losing command elements, and to re-
spond to the necessity to clear obstacles and enter minefields. Units also co-
ordinated with air-assault battalions operating in the enemy’s depth.96 These
mobile battalions can make better use of Taiwan’s roadways to push through
layers of defense and possibly link up with air-assault or special-operations
forces. Coordinated operations from ship to shore and ship to objective by
amphibious, ground-warfare, and air-assault units could seek to paralyze
Taiwan’s defending forces with attacks in depth.
Furthermore, if Taiwanese defenders fail to break the PLA on the coast
and are forced inland, they may need to resort to urban defense as attack-
ers seek to secure port facilities and airfields. Urban combat is a relatively
new subject for the PLANMC; however, it is an important component of the
PLANMC’s “All-Domain Operations.” 97 Urban-combat subjects have been
introduced into PLANMC training, such as during cold-weather training
at the Zhurihe Combined Tactics Training Base—which, notably, con-
tains a mockup of downtown Taipei. At this training base, PLANMC units
square off against opposition blue forces to improve “offensive combat by
PLANMC combined-arms assault groups against a coastal city” (海军陆战
队合成突击群濒海城市进攻战斗).98
Lacking their own close air support and given the potential limitations
in naval gunfire support, PLANMC forces will need to bring their own fire-
power during the course of an inland push. Arriving in the follow-on forces,
PLZ-07B self-propelled howitzers, a number of towed howitzers fielded by
artillery battalions, and FHJ-02 62 mm multiple-rocket launchers (MRLs)
(operated by chemical-defense elements) will provide a boost to forces at-
tempting to expand landing areas farther inland.99 The PLANMC has not
been known to operate any vehicle-based MRLs; strangely, however, the
amphibious-landing competition that the PLAN held in July 2018 displayed
a Type 81 122 mm wheeled MRL in service with the PLANMC.100 This may
have been merely a holdover from a former coastal-defense unit; however,
 THE NEW CHINESE M ARINE CORPS 103

the addition of MRLs to any of the brigades could enable greater firepower
support for inland operations.

The PLANMC does not appear to be optimizing itself for a traditional

amphibious landing against Taiwan. The force is smaller than the PLA group
armies trained and equipped for a cross-strait invasion. With multiple types
of battalions in each brigade, the PLANMC is not configured for large-scale
opposed landing operations. Compared with the PLAGF’s aviation brigades,
the marine corps aviation brigade—given its singular nature, the lack of
close air support, and the continuing absence of confirmation of the num-
ber of air-assault battalions—provides very limited vertical-envelopment
capabilities. More importantly, the expanding missions of the PLANMC are
focused overseas. Given these factors, the PLANMC on its own will not be
the force that breaks Taiwan.
Nonetheless, the PLANMC will play its part if a cross-strait invasion is
launched, and various force improvements will increase its utility within a
JILC. Headquarters is leading an effort to revamp the abilities of battalion
commanders and staff, hoping thereby to improve the coordination of bat-
talion operations. New training programs are increasing the abilities of the
force to transport over long distances and operate in various environments,
including urban areas. Innovations in transport using RO/RO ships may
provide additional amphibious lift for PLANMC forces, offering solutions
to an enduring challenge for the overall JILC. The newly created brigades
eventually will bring additional capabilities to the equation.
With the above limitations in mind, the PLANMC scheme of maneu-
ver ashore might be focused on smaller-scale landing operations combin-
ing ship-to-shore and ship-to-objective maneuver and special operations
throughout the depth of amphibious objective areas in support of the larger
campaign. Operations could focus on rapid, multidimensional landings and
maneuver to control vital objectives and conduct frontal and rear attacks
against defenders.101 The PLANMC is also uniquely positioned to provide
ample amphibious-recon and special-operations forces for preliminary
operations.
Senior members of the People’s Republic of China and PLAN leadership
publicly have attached great importance to the PLANMC. The first com-
mandant of the force stated that it would “strive to become a strategic dagger
that General Secretary Xi and the Central Military Commission can trust
and upon which they can rely heavily.”102 With significant support for the
service’s development, the PLANMC will be expected to fulfill a greater role
in future operations, including any large-scale amphibious landing against
Taiwan.
10 4 C H I N E S E A M P H I B I O U S WA R FA R E

Notes
1. 胡波 [Hu Bo], 中国为啥必须要有一支强大的海军陆战队? [“Why Does China
Require a Strong PLAN Marine Corps?”], 瞭望智库 [Liao Wang Institute], 28
March 2018, www.lwinst.com/hongguan/6577.htm.
2. The South China Sea mission began in early 1988 when the 1st Brigade (at the
time, the only one) was given the task of deploying forces to construct and hold
reef structures in the Spratly Islands. A second brigade, the 164th, was transfer-
red to the PLANMC from the PLA ground forces in 1998. 李发新 [Li Faxin],
中国人民解放军海军陆战队 [The PLA Marines] (Beijing: China Intercontinental
Press, 2013), pp. 33, 56–57.
3. The PLANMC Headquarters is located in Chaozhou, Guangdong. 孔军: 这次军
队规模结构和力量编程改革, 海军陆战队调整扩编 [“Kong Jun: Marine Corps
Adjustments and Expansion in Current Reform of Military Scale, Structure,
and Force Composition”], 澎拜新闻 [The Paper], 31 July 2017, m.thepaper.cn/
kuaibao_detail.jsp?contid=1747551.
4. 安卫平 [An Weiping], 海军陆战队跨越式发展之我见 [“My Opinions on the
Leapfrog Development of the Navy’s Marine Corps”], 人民海军 [People’s Navy],
13 January 2017, p. 3.
5. 黄新宇 [Huang Xinyu] and 邓万彬 [Deng Wanbin], 海军陆战队非战争军事行
动装备建设思考 [“Thoughts on Construction of Naval Marine Corps Nonwar
Military Operations Equipment”], 人民海军 [People’s Navy], 9 June 2010, p. 4.
6. 王元元 [Wang Yuanyuan] and 曾行贱 [Zeng Xingjian], 有效提升海军陆战队
全域作战能力—专访寒训指挥员、南海队副参谋长李晓岩 [“Effectively Im-
prove the Navy Marine Corps’s All-Domain Combat Capabilities—Interview
with Li Xiaoyan, Commander of Cold Training and Deputy Chief of Staff of
the South Sea Fleet”], 当代海军 [Modern Navy], no. 2 (2015), pp. 21–23.
7. Original text: “争取在最短的时间, 建成一支能践行全谱作战、 全域作战、 全
维多栖作战、全时应急作战的精锐之师.” 陶佳伟 [Tao Jiawei] and 陈浩天 [Chen
Haotian], 永做最锋利的尖刀劲旅—海军陆战队某旅始终牢记统帅嘱托, 以背
水攻坚、勇往直前的精气神抓备战打仗 [“Always Be the Keenest Force—Navy
Marine Corps Brigade Always Keeps the Commander in Chief ’s Task in Mind
and Prepares for Battle with the Spirit of No Retreat and Moving Forward
Courageously”], 人民海军 [People’s Navy], 17 September 2020, pp. 1–2.
8. 孔军 [Kong Jun], 人民日报远望塔: 彰显兵种特性锤炼战略尖刀 [“People’s
Daily Observation Tower: Highlighting the Features of the Service and Tempering
a Strategic Dagger”], 人民网 [People’s Daily Online], 11 February 2018, opinion
.people.com.cn/n1/2018/0211/c1003-29817389.html.
9. 陈卫东 [Chen Weidong], 透视两栖作战新特点 [“Insight into the New Charac-
teristics of Amphibious Operations”], 中国军网 [China Military Online], 16
September 2021, www.81.cn/jfjbmap/content/2021-09/16/content_299226.htm.
10. An, “My Opinions on the Leapfrog Development,” p. 3.
11. 袁华智 [Yuan Huazhi], 锻造能打胜仗的战略尖刀 [“Creating a Strategic Dagger
That Can Fight and Win”], 人民海军 [People’s Navy], 15 June 2018, p. 2.
12. 庹新国 [Tuo Xinguo] and 邱桂华 [Qiu Guihua], 转型, 闯出一条科学发展之路
—陆战学院加快适应调整改建纪实 [“Transformation and Breaking Out on a
 THE NEW CHINESE M ARINE CORPS 10 5

Path of Scientific Development—a Record of the Naval Marine Academy Accel-

erating and Adapting to Reorganization”], 人民海军 [People’s Navy], 1 June 2012,
p. 3; 过年啦官兵送祝福啦驻吉布提保障基官兵给祖国人民拜年啦 [“It’s the
New Year and the Troops Send Blessings, the Troops Stationed at the Support
Base in Djibouti Wish the Homeland a Happy New Year”], 解放军新闻传播中
心融媒体 [PLA News Broadcast Center Integrated Media], 15 February 2018,
v.qq.com/x/page/s0553v19jd2.html.
13. Tao and Chen, “Always Be the Keenest Force,” pp. 1–2.
14. Ibid., p. 1.
15. Ibid., pp. 1–2.
16. 于征祥 [Yu Zhengxiang] and 范旭东 [Fan Xudong], 突出打仗标准全程督考—
海军陆战队从严组织拟提升干部考核 [“Highlight Thorough Supervision of
Standards in War Fighting—Navy Marine Corps Strictly Organizes Plan for
Improving Cadre Evaluations”], 人民海军 [People’s Navy], 12 April 2019, p. 1.
17. 王素森 [Wang Susen], 夏德伟 [Xia Dewei], and 夏雷 [Xia Lei], 对抗演练, 直戳
战伤救护“软肋” [“Confrontation Drills, Straight into the ‘Weak Spots’ in Cas-
ualty Rescue”], 人民海军 [People’s Navy], 9 February 2018, p. 2; 洪昂 [Hong
Ang] and 陶佳伟 [Tao Jiawei], 精神之光照耀强军征程—海军联系点、陆战某
旅积极推动培育弘扬新时代海军精神日常化具体化形象化生活化的探索
[“The Light of Spirit Shines on the Journey to Strengthen the Military—Navy
Connections and a Marine Brigade Actively Promote the Exploration of Culti-
vation and Enrichment of a Naval Spirit in the New Era That Is Regularized,
Concrete, Visualized, and Down-to-Earth”], 人民海军 [People’s Navy], 14 Sept-
ember 2020, p. 3; 陶佳伟 [Tao Jiawei], 火力全开, 直捣黄龙 [“Go Directly to the
Root of the Problem in Full Force”], 人民海军 [People’s Navy], 10 November 2020,
p. 2; 夏德伟 [Xia Dewei] and 夏雷 [Xia Lei], 雄狮高原敢伏虎—海军陆战队某旅
野战驻训中开展主题教育纪实 [“Lions on the Plateau Dare to Take On Tigers—
a Record of Themed Education Carried Out during a Navy Marine Corps
Brigade’s Field Training”], 人民海军 [People’s Navy], 25 June 2018, p. 2; 王淑叶
[Wang Shuye], 张震 [Zheng Zhen], and 牛涛 [Niu Tao], 一张维修表, 缘何牵动
六个科? [“How Could One Maintenance Table Affect Six Departments?”], 中国
军网 [China Military Online], 5 June 2020, www.81.cn/hj/2020-06/05/content
_9828702.htm; 夏德伟 [Xia Dewei] and 高敬 [Gao Guojing], 三级军士长吴贵云:
只为“利剑”舞苍穹 [“Master Sergeant Class Three Wu Guiyun: Merely a ‘Sharp
Sword’ Dancing in the Sky”], 南部战区微信公众号 [Southern Theater Navy
Official WeChat Account], 8 November 2017, mil.news.sina.com.cn/2017-11-08/
doc-ifynmvuq9430959.shtml.
18. 方高明 [Fang Gaoming] and 谢佑贤 [Xie Youxian], 鸡雄山战斗功臣连—海军陆
战队某旅2营火力连 [“Hero Company of Jixiongshan Battle—2nd Battalion
Firepower Company of a Navy Marine Corps Brigade”], 人民海军 [People’s
Navy], 23 September 2020, p. 2; Tao and Chen, “Always Be the Keenest Force,”
pp. 1–2; 曾被称为海上步兵, 现在装备大换装, 中国海军陆战队快认不出来了
[“Once Known as Infantry at Sea, the Chinese Navy Marine Corps Is Now
Unrecognizable with Major Changes in Current Equipment”], 新浪网—刀口谈
兵官微 [Sina Weibo—Daokou Discussion on Troops Official Weibo], 8 September
2020, k.sina.com.cn/article_1183596331_468c3f2b00100tqbt.html?from=mil.
10 6 C H I N E S E A M P H I B I O U S WA R FA R E

19. This is slightly less per brigade than before reform, when each would have had
an assault-gun battalion of forty-one ZTD-05s and two mechanized infantry
battalions each with forty-one ZBD-05s, totaling 123 vehicles. 簡一建 [Jian
Yijian], 共軍「兩棲作戰能力」發展之研析 [“Research and Analysis of the Deve-
lopment of the Communist Army’s ‘Amphibious Combat Capabilities’”], 陸軍
學術雙月刊 [Army Academic Bimonthly], December 2017, pp. 57–58; “Once
Known as Infantry at Sea.”
20. 翟思宇 [Zhai Siyu], 特战精兵磨砺出—海军陆战队某旅聚焦实战加强核心战
斗力建设 [“Honing Special Warfare Elites—Navy Marine Corps Brigade Focuses
on Live Combat to Strengthen the Building of Core Combat Capabilities”],
人民海军 [People’s Navy], 29 April 2019, p. 3; 翟思宇 [Zhai Siyu] and 曹可轩
[Cao Kexuan], “蛟龙突击队”开展群众性练兵比武 [“‘Jiaolong Commandos’
Carry Out Mass Training Contest”], 中国军网 [China Military Online], 10 August
2018, www.81.cn/tzjy/2018-08/10/content_9248798.htm.
21. 惠一楠 [Hui Yinian], 王淑叶 [Wang Shuye], and 牛涛 [Niu Tao], 传统之光照
亮强军实践—海军主题教育联系点、陆战队某旅弘扬优良传统培育红色
传人的新闻追踪 [“The Light of Tradition Illuminates the Practice of a Strong
Military—Tracing the News on the Navy’s Themed Education Connections and
a Marine Corps Brigade Carrying Forward Fine Traditions and Cultivating Red
Disciples”], 人民海军 [People’s Navy], 28 April 2020, p. 3; 强军路上我们在战位
报告“火蓝刀锋”锻造新质战力 [“On the Way to a Strong Military, Reporting to
Our Combat Posts and Forging New Combat Power with ‘Blue Flame on the
Blade’s Edge’”], 央视网 [CCTV], 31 March 2021, tv.cctv.com/2021/03/31/VIDE
ySOkASxZPEi6JLjieCA1210331.shtml.
22. Hui, Wang, and Niu, “The Light of Tradition Illuminates,” p. 3.
23. 海军陆战队实弹训练, 新型轮式战车首次亮相 [“New-Type Wheeled Combat
Vehicles Revealed during Navy Marine Corps Live-Fire Training”], 央视网
[CCTV], 12 July 2020, v.cctv.com/2020/07/12/VIDEYWEAkdVlhZh1fFuvofrp
200712.shtml; 市拥军优属慰问团走访慰问驻青部队基层单位和优抚对 [“City
Delegation for Supporting and Promoting the Military Visits Grassroots Posts
and Preferential Treatment Recipients of Unit Garrisons in Qingdao”], 青岛
日报 [Qingdao Daily], 13 February 2018, www.dailyqd.com/epaper/html/2018
-02/13/content_205325.htm.
24. 直击演训一线·海军陆战队某旅全流程全要素两栖登陆作战演练 [“Go Straight
to the Front Line of Training—a Navy Marine Corps Brigade in Complete,
Full-Element Amphibious Landing Combat Exercises”], CCTV-7 正午国防军事
[CCTV-7 Midday National Defense], 24 September 2021, tv.cctv.com/2021/09/
24/VIDEYui6J6J6ETluYRdXWH0K210924.shtml.
25. 苗国正 [Miao Guozheng], 锻造能打胜仗的陆战雄鹰 [“Forging Eagles in Ground
Warfare That Can Fight and Win”], 人民海军 [People’s Navy], 13 July 2020, p. 3.
26. 王宏博 [Wang Hongbo] and 牛涛 [Niu Tao], 解码“陆战先锋”的场效应—海
军陆战队创新典型激励模式提升思想政治工作质效的探索与实践 [“Decod-
ing the Field Effect of ‘Marine Vanguards’—Exploration and Practice of the Navy
Marine Corps Innovation in Typical Incentive Models to Improve the Quality
and Effectiveness of Ideological and Political Work”], 人民海军 [People’s Navy],
19 June 2020, p. 3.
 THE NEW CHINESE M ARINE CORPS 107

27. 展望“十四五”奋进新征程海军陆战队某旅: 加快转型锻造陆战铁翼 [“A Navy

Marine Corps Brigade Advances Bravely on a New Journey in the ‘Fourteenth
Five-Year Plan’: Accelerate Transformation and Force the Iron Wings of Land
Warfare”], 央视网—军事报道 [CCTV—Military Report], 24 November 2020,
tv.cctv.com/2020/11/24/VIDENAjQQ1Ip9TDIKLuUvske201124.shtml.
28. 海军陆战队舰载直升机飞行学员喜获蓝天“通行证” [“Navy Marine Corps
Shipborne Helicopter Cadets Receive Their ‘Pass’ into the Blue Sky”], 海军新闻
微信公众号 [PLAN News Official WeChat Account], 22 April 2020, www.cannews
.com.cn/2020/0422/211999.shtml.
29. 胶东半岛某机场战鹰轰鸣猛虎添翼立体突击 [“The Roar of Eagles at an Airport
on the Jiaodong Peninsula, Winged Tigers in Multidimensional Assault”], 胶东网
[JiaoDong.net], 31 July 2020, news.bandao.cn/a/393107.html.
30. 中国海军两栖攻击舰载机的选型 [“Selecting Shipborne Helicopters for the Chi-
nese Navy’s Amphibious Assault Ship”], 舰载武器 [Shipborne Weapons (February
2019), p. 31; 075型的舰载机 [“Aircraft of the Type 075”], 舰载武器 [Shipborne
Weapons], no. 3 (March 2020), p. 21.
31. 王宏博 [Wang Hongbo] and 牛涛 [Niu Tao], “先锋”引领陆战猛虎向战冲锋—海
军陆战队连续三年开展“陆战先锋”系列评选表彰形成典型激励磁场效应
[“‘Vanguards’ Lead the Marine Corps Tigers on the War Charge—Navy Marine
Corps Holds Series of Selections and Commendations for ‘Marine Vanguards’
for Three Consecutive Years, Creating a Magnetic Field of Incentives”], 人民海
军 [People’s Navy], 19 June 2020, p. 1; 傅原野 [Fu Yuanye] and 牛涛 [Niu Tao],
红心向党为战前行—海军陆战队某舰载航空兵旅开展主题党日活动侧记
[“Red Hearts to the Party Marching ahead of War—a View into Themed Party Day
Activities Held by the Navy Marine Corps Shipborne Aviation Brigade”], 人民海
军 [People’s Navy], 7 July 2020, p. 2; 傅原野 [Fu Yuanye], 年终岁尾, 再来一次‘上
门服务’—某旅聚焦破解难题提升帮建质效 [“Another ‘Doorstep Service’ at the
End of the Year—a Brigade Focuses on Solving Problems to Improve the Quality
and Efficiency of Assistance”], 人民海军 [People’s Navy], 24 December 2020, p. 2.
32. 丛连营 [Cong Lianying], untitled photograph, 人民海军 [People’s Navy], 30
December 2020, p. 1.
33. Conor M. Kennedy and Daniel Caldwell, The Type 075 LHD: Development,
Missions, and Capabilities, China Maritime Report 23 (Newport, RI: Naval War
College China Maritime Studies Institute, October 2022), p. 28, digital-commons
.usnwc.edu/cmsi-maritime-reports/23.
34. 南海舰队入列三艘新战舰专家: 夺岛能力、二次核反击能力大大增强 [“Three
New Warships Join the South Sea Fleet. Expert: Island Seizure and Nuclear
Second Strike Capabilities Greatly Enhanced”], 环球时报 [Global Times],
25 April 2021, www.xinhuanet.com/mil/2021-04/25/c_1211126765.htm; 王世纯
[Wang Shichun], 075三号舰下水或于年内试航 [“Third 075 Launched and May
Have Sea Trial within the Year”], 观察者网 [Observer], 29 January 2021,
www.guancha.cn/military-affairs/2021_01_29_579667.shtml.
35. 许磊磊 [Xu Leilei] and 张飞龙 [Zhang Feilong], 仰望崇高, 他们用奋斗续写光
荣 —海 军 陆 战 队 某 旅 机 步 一 连 运 用 优 良 传 培 育 弘 扬 新 时 代 海 军 精 神
纪事 [“Looking Up into the Majestic Heights, They Continue to Write Glory in
10 8 C H I N E S E A M P H I B I O U S WA R FA R E

Struggle—Chronicle of a Navy Marine Corps Brigade 1st Mechanized Infantry

Company Using Fine Traditions to Cultivate and Carry Forward the Spirit of the
Navy in the New Era”], 人民海军 [People’s Navy], 18 December 2020, p. 1.
36. 莫海明 [Mo Haiming] and 姜顺 [Jiang Shun], “两栖尖兵”背水攻坚—陆战队
某旅从难从严组织抢滩登陆演练 [“No Retreat for ‘Amphibious Pioneers’—a
Marine Corps Brigade Strictly Organizes Beach Landing Exercises”], 人民海军
[People’s Navy], 4 December 2020, p. 1.
37. 孙毅 [Sun Yi] and 李珂嘉贺 [Li Kejiahe], 航行多设险演练频发难—东部战
区海军某登陆舰大队聚焦联演联训锤炼作战能力 [“Setting Up Dangers along
Routes to Create Difficulties in Drills—a Landing Ship Dadui of the Eastern Theater
Navy Focuses on Joint Exercises and Training to Temper Combat Capabilities”], 人
民海军 [People’s Navy], 24 November 2020, p. 2.
38. 五中全会精神在军营海军陆战队某旅: 贯彻全会精神争做转型先锋 [“Fifth
Plenary Session Spirit in the Barracks of a Navy Marine Corps Brigade: Carrying
Out the Plenary Session Spirit and Striving to Be a Vanguard of Transforma-
tion”], 央视网 [CCTV], 22 November 2020, tv.cctv.com/2020/11/22/VIDEgi7
MDTDHLIYMwLLWNkvx201122.shtml; 陶佳伟 [Tao Jiawei] and 吴浩宇 [Wu
Haoyu], 一堂“足球课” [“A ‘Lesson from Football’”], 人民海军 [People’s Navy],
27 November 2020, p. 2; 张磊峰 [Zhang Leifeng], 徐鹏 [Xu Peng], and 全中宝
[Quan Zhongbao], 家属来队坐上“1号车”—转隶一年多来, 海军陆战队某旅暖
心举措频出 [“Family Members Visit Troops on ‘Car No. 1’—over a Year since
Transferring, a Navy Marine Corps Brigade Has Made Frequent Heart-Warming
Gestures”], 中国军网 [China Military Online], 4 July 2019, www.81.cn/jfjbmap/
content/2019-07/04/content_237549.htm; 揭来同志先进事迹报告会举行 [“Re-
port Meeting on the Advanced Deeds of Comrade Jie Lai Held”], 石狮日报
[Shishi Daily], 10 July 2018, epaper.ssrb.com.cn/html/2018-07/10/content_43116
_277155.htm.
39. Official sources have shown that CS/VP4 all-terrain vehicles have been delivered to
this brigade; however, there has been little reporting on its other capabilities. 吴浩
宇 [Wu Haoyu] and 贾成露 [Jia Chenglu], 擂响新年度训练战鼓—海军陆战队
某旅开训突出实战化 [“Beating the War Drums for Another Year of Training—a
Navy Marine Corps Brigade Highlights Realism as It Begins Training”],
当代海军 [Modern Navy], no. 1 (2019), pp. 22–23; 直击演训场—新质作战力量
海军陆战队某旅: 转型重塑打造三栖尖兵 [“Directly from Training Grounds,
a New Type Combat Force. A Navy Marine Corps Brigade: Transforming
and Reshaping to Create a Triphibious Vanguard”], 央视网-国防军事早报
[CCTV—National Defense Military Morning Report], 13 October 2020, tv.cctv
.com/2020/10/13/VIDEtkofTbXGv49jAjE9Qtic201013.shtml.
40. 杨涛 [Yang Tao], 海军党委引发《关于深入贯彻习主席重要讲话精神、 加强海军
陆战队指导帮带的决定》[“Navy Party Committee Initiated the ‘Decision on
Thoroughly Implementing the Spirit of Chairman Xi’s Important Speech and
Strengthening the Guidance and Assistance of the Navy Marine Corps’”], 人民
海军 [People’s Navy], 8 December 2020, p. 1.
41. 胡能 [Hu Neng] and 高坤 [Gao Kun], 打造胜战的“精神刀锋” [“Creating a ‘Spiri-
tual Blade’ for Victory”], 人民海军 [People’s Navy], 31 May 2018, p. 3.
 THE NEW CHINESE M ARINE CORPS 10 9

42. 夏德伟 [Xia Dewei], 陈冉 [Chen Ran], and 夏雷 [Xia Lei], 把领兵之人“炼”成胜
战之锋—海军陆战队紧扣实战组织四级军事主官集训 [“‘Refine’ Troop Leaders
into the Front Line of Victory—Navy Marine Corps Organizes Collective Train-
ing of Four Levels of Military Officers, Sticking Closely to Combat Realism”],
人民海军 [People’s Navy], 27 February 2018, p. 1.
43. Tuo and Qiu, “Transformation and Breaking Out,” p. 3.
44. Operations research and development work and officer professional education
appear to have continued, despite the redesignation of the Naval Marine Acad-
emy. When the PLA announced its list of outstanding educators, PLAN aca-
demies were listed by name (e.g., Naval Aviation University), while the former
Naval Marine Academy was listed as “91976部队.” 王永杰 [Wang Yongjie] and
吴旭 [Wu Xu], 中央军委政治工作、训练管理印发通报—表彰全军优秀教师和
优秀教育工作者 [“The Political Work and Training and Administration De-
partments of the Central Military Commission Issued a Circular—Recognizing
Outstanding Teachers and Educators in the Military”], 解放军报 [PLA Daily],
10 September 2018, 81rc.81.cn/news/2018-09/10/content_9276433_2.htm.
45. U.S. Defense Dept., Annual Report to Congress: Military and Security Develop-
ments Involving the People’s Republic of China (2020) (Washington, DC: Office
of the Secretary of Defense, 2020), p. 114 [hereafter Annual Report to Congress:
China (2020)].
46. 张玉良 [Zhang Yuliang], ed., 战役学 [Science of Campaigns] (Beijing: National
Defense Univ. Press, 2006), pp. 293, 298.
47. Annual Report to Congress: China (2020), pp. 116–17; 军事科学院军事战略
研究部 [Academy of Military Science Military Strategy Studies Department],
战略学 [Science of Military Strategy] (Beijing: Military Science, 2013), pp. 199,
209.
48. 中国海军军人手册 [Handbook for Officers and Enlisted of the Chinese PLA Navy]
(Beijing: Sea Tide, 2012), pp. 25–26.
49. Zhang, Science of Campaigns, pp. 299–305.
50. 陈岛 [Chen Dao],《海军兵种》系列丛书—海军陆战队作战百问 [The Naval Ser-
vice Series—Marine Corps] (Beijing: Sea Tide, 2015), p. 186.
51. 海军陆战队某旅侦察兵渗透破袭 [“Reconnaissance Troops of a Navy Marine
Corps Brigade in Infiltration and Sabotage Raid”], 央视网 [CCTV], 28 March
2020, tv.cctv.com/2020/03/28/VIDEMe65Kt9WRZPpKx0fQhAu200328.shtml
?spm=C53074552346.PLgREq4pd4yq.0.0.
52. Chen, The Naval Service Series—Marine Corps, p. 186.
53. 廖志勇 [Liao Zhiyong], 两栖装甲破障车 [“Amphibious Armored Breaching
Vehicle”], 中国人民解放军国防大学国际防务学院 [International College of De-
fence Studies, NDU, PLA, China], 1 May 2016, www.cdsndu.org/html_ch/to
_articleContent_article.id=40288a8553c564450154bdb56c1c039f.html.
54. 王剑 [Wang Jian] and 周启青 [Zhou Qiqing], 陆战队某旅火箭破障车首次实射
开门红 [“Marine Brigade Rocket Breaching Vehicle Off to a Good Start with
First Live Fire”], 人民海军 [People’s Navy], 4 September 2012, p. 1; 曾庆
[Zeng Qing], 滩头破障显身手—海军陆战队某工兵防化营训练写真 [“Clearing
110 C H I N E S E A M P H I B I O U S WA R FA R E

Beachhead Barriers Demonstrate Skills—a Portrait of Training for a Navy Marine

Corps Engineering and Chemical-Defense Battalion”], 当代海军 [Modern
Navy], no. 5 (2010), pp. 44–45.
55. 李有华 [Li Youhua], 孙宏韬 [Sun Hongtao], and 黎友陶 [Li Youtao], 海军某特
战团:‘海上蛟龙’雷霆出击 [“Navy Special Forces Regiment: ‘Sea Dragons’ Strike
with Thunder”], 当代海军 [Modern Navy], no. 1 (2017), p. 31; 孙宏韬 [Sun
Hongtao] and 黎友陶 [Li Youtao], 伞骑绝尘, 高空突袭破敌顽—直击南海舰
队某特战团高空伞降训练 [“Parachuting In and Vanishing on the Ground: A
View of a South Sea Fleet Special Operations Regiment’s High-Altitude Para-
chute Training”], 当代海军 [Modern Navy], no. 12 (2016), pp. 38–41; Zhang,
Science of Campaigns, pp. 303–304; 揭秘中国海军陆战队‘蛟龙突击队’队员均具
四栖作战和海上反恐能力 [“Revealing the Quadriphibious Combat and Mari-
time Counterterrorism Capabilities of the Chinese Navy Marine Corps ‘Jiaolong
Commandos’”], 央视网 [CCTV], 20 December 2017, m.news.cctv.com/2017/
12/20/ARTIln7zgYcODwIAyosJZEup171220.shtml.
56. Chen, The Naval Service Series—Marine Corps, p. 188.
57. 尚文斌 [Shang Wenbin] et al., 大漠行动雪域荒原锻造战地之王 [“Desert Op-
eration Forges Battlefield Primacy in the Snowy Wasteland”], 当代海军 [Mo-
dern Navy], no. 2 (2016), pp. 22–27.
58. 刘文平 [Liu Wenping], 邵龙飞 [Shao Longfei], and 余文强 [Yu Wenqiang],
中国海军陆战队打造全域作战能力 [“Chinese Navy Marine Corps Creates All-
Domain Combat Capabilities”], 当代海军 [Modern Navy], no. 10 (2015), pp.
10–17.
59. 海军展开联合装载演练提升协同能力 [“The Navy Conducts Joint Loading
Drills to Improve Coordination”], 央视 [CCTV], 5 January 2018, news.sina.com
.cn/o/2018-01-05/doc-ifyqinzs9137941.shtml.
60. Chen, The Naval Service Series—Marine Corps, p. 122.
61. Annual Report to Congress: China (2020), p. 117.
62. This ship was equipped with an improved, hydraulically driven stern ramp, en-
abling in-water amphibious launch and recovery. 直击演训一线—海军陆战
队某旅渡海登陆作战演练锤炼部队两栖作战能力 [“Seeing the Front Line of
Exercises—a Navy Marine Corps Brigade in Landing Combat Exercises to
Develop Amphibious Combat Capabilities in Units”], 央视网 [CCTV], 3 August
2020, tv.cctv.com/2020/08/03/VIDE9NwTywxw4gbBDl7dOgWh200803.shtml.
63. 聚焦实战化演兵场胶东半岛军地联合跨海投送演练 [“Focus on Combat Real-
ism in Exercises, Joint Military and Civilian Trans-sea Projection Exercise on
the Jiaodong Peninsula”], 央视网 [CCTV], 10 July 2019, tv.cctv.com/2019/07/10/
VIDEHWOqXi5vvwpwTERrgdVX190710.shtml.
64. Chen, The Naval Service Series—Marine Corps, p. 121.
65. One brigade with the former South Sea Fleet began conducting nighttime armor
launch and recovery in June 2014. 万云哲 [Wan Yunzhe], 傅文君 [Fu Wenjun],
and 周启青 [Zhou Qiqing], 暗夜, 铁甲耕海犁波—海军陆战队某旅夜间海上
浮渡装卸载掠影 [“Armor Plow into the Sea Waves at Night—a Glimpse of a
Navy Marine Corps Brigade Nighttime Afloat Loading and Unloading at Sea”],
人民海军 [People’s Navy], 10 July 2014, p. 3.
 THE NEW CHINESE M ARINE CORPS 111

66. Tao and Chen, “Always Be the Keenest Force,” pp. 1–2.
67. “New-Type Wheeled Combat Vehicles Revealed during Navy Marine Corps
Live-Fire Training.”
68. For an ETN fleet example, see image by 李吴 [Li Wu], 人民海军 [People’s Navy],
25 August 2017, p. 2.
69. For an example, see the STN Landing Ship Flotilla LPD Jinggangshan acting as
command ship of a landing transport task force in July 2015. 徐苗波 [Xu Miaobo],
untitled, 人民海军 [People’s Navy], 22 July 2015, p. 2. PLANMC embarked forces
are under the command of the PLAN transport fleet commander when
embarkation orders are given, continuing to the point at which the assault
landing commences. Chen, The Naval Service Series—Marine Corps, p. 129.
70. Zhang, Science of Campaigns, pp. 301–303.
71. Ibid., pp. 309–11; Chen, The Naval Service Series—Marine Corps, p. 151.
72. This book project was launched by the PLAN’s publishing house Hai Chao Press
(Sea Tide) in 2012 and was written by faculty members and other per-
sonnel at the Naval Marine Academy who were involved in the series of
research projects on amphibious-warfare theory. The volume’s author states
that it was written to be authoritative for both PLA-wide and local-enthusiast
readers. Chen, The Naval Service Series—Marine Corps, pp. 113–14.
73. 吴浩宇 [Wu Haoyu] and 贾成露 [Jia Chengwu], 抢滩登陆, 海上蛟龙冲锋急—
海军陆战队某旅综合施训提高协同作战能力 [“Beach Landings, the Sea Dragon
Charges Quickly—a Navy Marine Corps Brigade Comprehensively Implements
Training to Improve Coordinated Operations Capabilities”], 人民海军 [People’s
Navy], 9 July 2020, p. 1.
74. Zhang, Science of Campaigns, p. 308.
75. 刘自力 [Liu Zili] and 陈青松 [Chen Qingsong], 海上民兵参加海战的任务与
行动 [“On the Tasks and Operations of Maritime Militia Engaged in Naval
Warfare”], 国防 [National Defense], no. 11 (2018), pp. 50–51.
76. 中国海军陆战队新型两栖战车抢滩登陆无坚不摧 [“There Is Nothing the Chi-
nese Navy Marine Corps’s New-Type Amphibious Combat Vehicle Cannot
Overcome in Beach Landings”], 中国青年报 [China Youth Daily], 10 April 2009,
www.chinanews.com/gn/news/2009/04-10/1640411.shtml; “ZBD-05 Amphibi-
ous Infantry Fighting Vehicle,” Army Technology, n.d., www.army-technology
.com/projects/zbd-05-amphibious-infantry-fighting-vehicle/.
77. PLZ-07B两栖自行榴弹炮 [“PLZ-07B Amphibious Self-propelled Howitzer”],
搜狐 [Sohu], 23 August 2017, www.sohu.com/a/166675745_99974130.
78. Chen, The Naval Service Series—Marine Corps, p. 158; 海军探秘海军陆战队装载
航渡准备抢滩登陆 [“Navy Explores the Marine Corps in Loading and Ferrying
to Prepare for Beach Landings”], 央视网 [CCTV], 27 November 2019, tv.cctv
.com/2019/11/27/VIDEJGw1hp60RceN1h8IfuqQ191127.shtml.
79. 海军陆战队抢滩登陆, 两栖战车海上“飙车”秀移动射击, 敌碉堡被一发干 [“Navy
Marine Corps in a Beach Landing, Amphibious Combat Vehicles Show
Off ‘Racing’ at Sea and Firing on the Move, Knocking Out the Enemy
Bunker”], 央视网 [CCTV], 22 November 2019, news.cctv.com/2019/11/22/VIDE
FV9iVDghtSLMLNwUQsVV191122.shtml.
112 C H I N E S E A M P H I B I O U S WA R FA R E

80. An August combined-arms battalion training exercise reportedly took place

with waves reaching over two meters. 海军陆战队跨昼夜实弹射击训练 [“Navy
Marine Corps Day and Night Live Fire Training”], 央视网—新闻直播间
[CCTV—Live News], 19 August 2021, tv.cctv.com/2021/08/19/VIDE6X1uT8Y
pzswToLld2ZQW210819.shtml.
81. 高毅 [Gao Yi], 南海舰队某陆战旅登陆演练强本领 [“A South Sea Fleet Ma-
rine Brigade’s Strong Skills in Landing Exercises”], 人民海军 [People’s Navy],
7 November 2012, p. 2; 南海舰队抢滩登陆演习水雷重创登陆战车 [“Landing
Vehicles Hit Hard by Sea Mines in South Sea Fleet Landing Exercise”], 中国
军网 [China Military Online], 21 October 2013, www.81.cn/jskj/2013-10/21/
content_5600354.htm.
82. Wu and Jia, “Beach Landings, the Sea Dragon Charges Quickly,” p. 1.
83. 陈岩 [Chen Yan], 复盘总结, 中军帐里起硝烟—陆战队某旅优化战法训法提升战
备建设水平 [“Replay Review, Gunsmoke Rises from the Chinese Military Tent—
a Marine Corps Brigade Optimizes Tactics and Training to Improve War Pre-
paredness Levels”], 人民海军 [People’s Navy], 15 September 2020, p. 2.
84. Tao and Chen, “Always Be the Keenest Force,” pp. 1–2.
85. Zhang, Science of Campaigns, pp. 309–10.
86. While not specific to an individual service, the Science of Campaigns JILC
description includes these types of operations. Ibid., pp. 310–11.
87. 张懋瑄 [Zhang Maoxuan], 刘健 [Liu Jian], 周启青 [Zhou Qiqing], 联战联训,
我们该如何发力—来自南海舰队深入推进联合训练的探索与思考 [“How We
Exert Strength in Joint Warfare and Joint Training—Exploration and Reflec-
tions from the South Sea Fleet’s In-Depth Promotion of Joint Training”],
人民海军 [People’s Navy], 12 January 2018, p. 3.
88. 刘中涛 [Liu Zhongtao], 滑停 [Hua Ting], and 周鹏程 [Zhou Pengcheng],
东海舰队某登陆舰支队牵头组织联合登陆演练—立体投送凌晨展开 [“An East
Sea Fleet Landing Ship Flotilla Takes the Lead in Organizing a Joint Landing
Exercise—Multidimensional Delivery Starts Early in the Morning”], 人民海军
[People’s Navy], 24 October 2016, p. 1.
89. The original Chinese is “从濒海涉海向全域运用转变.” Yang, “Navy Party Com-
mittee,” p. 1.
90. Multidimensional landing refers to the simultaneous execution of landing
operations from the sea surface and air. 军事科学院 [Academy of Military
Science], 中国人民解放军军语 [PLA Directory of Military Terminology] (Beijing:
Military Science, 2011), p. 95.
91. Chen, The Naval Service Series—Marine Corps, pp. 115–16. Z-8 helicopters can
carry approximately twenty-four troops and can launch as a helicopter wave off
the seven spots on the Type 075’s deck. “Changhe Z-8 Transport Helicopter,”
Airforce Technology, n.d., www.airforce-technology.com/projects/changhez8
transport/; 南海舰队一天入列三型舰艇都是何等利器? [“What Kind of Weapons
Are the Three Ships Newly Commissioned by the South Sea Fleet?”], 央视网
[CCTV], 26 April 2021, news.cctv.com/2021/04/26/ARTICd3uMA8ZHOCIa6
BXDEz210426.shtml.
92. Chen, The Naval Service Series—Marine Corps, p. 116.
 THE NEW CHINESE M ARINE CORPS 113

93. 范旭东 [Fan Xudong] and 傅原野 [Fu Yuanye], 陆战雄鹰闯夜关—海军陆战

队某舰载航空兵旅下半夜飞行训练见闻 [“Marine Eagles Break through the
Night—a Navy Marine Corps Shipborne Aviation Brigade’s Flight Training in
the Middle of the Night”], 人民海军 [People’s Navy], 16 July 2020, p. 1.
94. “NORINCO ZBL-09 (Snow Leopard) 8x8 Wheeled Armored Personnel Carrier
(APC),” Military Factory, 3 July 2019, www.militaryfactory.com/armor/detail
.asp?armor_id=1079.
95. 在习近平强军思想指引下我们在战位报告海军陆战队某旅: 从两栖劲旅到全域
精兵 [“Under the Guidance of Xi Jinping’s Thought on Strengthening the Army,
We Report from Combat Posts, a Navy Marine Corps Brigade: From a Crack
Amphibious Force to an All-Domain Elite”], 央视网—军事报道 [CCTV—
Military Report], 2 June 2021, tv.cctv.com/2021/06/02/VIDE11UKlaVIFQXS
9VkxVJgl210602.shtml.
96. Tao, “Go Directly to the Root of the Problem,” p. 2.
97. 梁庆松 [Liang Qingsong], 邵龙飞 [Shao Longfei], and 周启青 [Zhou Qiqing],
真打真练, 寒区砺兵“实”当头 [“Real Combat, Real Training. ‘Real’ Is the Pledge
for Troops Grinding in Cold Regions”], 人民海军 [People’s Navy], 4 March
2014, p. 1.
98. 郭新华 [Guo Xinhua] and 刘文平 [Liu Wenping], 从3次跨区训练看陆战队全
域作战本领 [“Seeing the Marine Corps’s All-Domain Operations Skills
through 3 Instances of Transregional Training”], 人民海军 [People’s Navy],
21 October 2015, p. 4.
99. 牛涛 [Niu Tao], 赶紧收藏! 一波海军陆战队炮兵实弹射击美图来袭 [“Collect
It Now! A Wave of Beautiful Navy Marine Corps Artillery Live-Fire Photos Is
Coming”], 解放军新闻传播中心 [PLA News Broadcast Center], 7 May 2019,
baijiahao.baidu.com/s?id=16328706534945095&wfr=spider&for=pc; 官媒曝光
我军最小多管火箭炮, 个小威力大, 纵火能力惊人 [“Official Media Reveal the
PLA’s Smallest Multiple Rocket Launcher, Small and Powerful with Amazing
Firepower”], 搜狐—军事黑科技 [Sohu.com—Military Black Technology], 16
July 2018, www.sohu.com/a/241488349_455745.
100. 凌弘毅 [Ling Hongyi], 中国ZBD-05式栖装甲步战车大展雄风—现场直击
“2018 国际军事比赛”之“海上登陆” [“China’s ZBD-05 Amphibious Armored
Infantry Fighting Vehicle Shows Its Glory—Seeing the ‘Amphibious Landings’
of the ‘2018 International Military Competition’ On-Site”], 现代兵器 [Modern
Weaponry], no. 10 (2018), p. 44.
101. 史益星 [Shi Yixing] and 吴志丹 [Wu Zhidan], 两栖作战, 战争舞台的“长青树”
[“Amphibious Operations, an ‘Evergreen Tree’ on the Stage of Warfare”], 解放
军报 [PLA Daily], 2 October 2018, www.81.cn/jmywyl/2018-10/02/content
_9302793.htm.
102. Kong, “People’s Daily Observation Tower.”
 Lonnie D. Henley

6. Civilian Shipping and Maritime Militia

The Logistics Backbone of a Taiwan Invasion

Seagoing civilian cargo ships are an important component of the large-scale combat
power-projection system.
—Zhang Jian and Wu Juan, Army Military Transportation University, 2017

Discussion of a potential Chinese military invasion of Taiwan almost

always hinges on whether the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) has enough
lift capacity to deliver the would-be invasion forces across the Taiwan
Strait and, to a lesser extent, whether it could sustain them once they
are ashore on Taiwan. The argument centers on PLA Navy (PLAN)
amphibious landing ships and other over-the-shore amphibious-assault
assets, with most observers concluding that the PLAN has not built
enough of these ships, and therefore that the PLA cannot (yet?) carry
out a full-scale invasion.
This chapter argues that the PLA plans to rely heavily on mobilized
maritime militia forces operating requisitioned civilian shipping as the
logistical backbone of a cross-strait landing operation, including both the
delivery of PLA forces onto Taiwan and logistical sustainment for the PLAN
fleet at sea and ground forces ashore.1 Moreover, the PLA regards civilian
shipping not as a stopgap measure until more PLAN amphibious shipping
can be built but as a central feature of its preferred approach. This chapter
116 C H I N E S E A M P H I B I O U S WA R FA R E

will examine China’s extensive system for generating and preparing this
support force, the roles it will undertake in an invasion operation, and the
challenges that must be overcome if the plan is to succeed.

The Scope of the Problem

Most authors looking at the Chinese military threat to Taiwan conclude that
the PLA cannot land enough forces on Taiwan to make an invasion via-
ble; that it will not reach the capability to do so until it builds many more
amphibious-landing ships; and that accomplishing that will take at least
several years, even if it accelerates its efforts.2 There has been little detailed
analysis to underpin that judgment, at least not in open sources, but most
observers assess that the PLA would need to land three hundred thousand
or more troops on Taiwan in total, and that the PLAN amphibious fleet can
land only around one division, roughly twenty thousand troops, in a single
lift.3 Since these constraints seem obvious, the logical conclusion is that the
PLA must judge itself not yet capable of invading Taiwan.4
The PLA’s prospects appear even worse when one considers the rest of
the logistical and operational requirements for a major landing operation,
beyond the formidable challenge of getting enough troops ashore quickly
in the face of determined resistance. The PLAN auxiliary fleet is inade-
quate to sustain large-scale combat operations, even if those operations
were conducted close to China’s shores, as a Taiwan conflict would be. The
PLAN has enlisted hundreds of civilian vessels to perform tasks ranging
from over-the-shore logistics to at-sea replenishment, emergency repair
and towing, medical support, casualty evacuation, and combat search and
rescue, suggesting that its own inventory of support ships falls far short of
what it deems necessary for a landing campaign.5 Skeptics will argue that
this constitutes more proof that the PLA itself does not take the invasion
option seriously. The contrary view presented here is that the PLA does
take these requirements seriously, but that it intends to rely on maritime
militia support for large-scale combat operations, and specifically for a
Taiwan invasion campaign.
Over the past decade, the maritime militia (海上民兵) has attracted
considerable attention, led by the efforts of Andrew Erickson and Conor
Kennedy at the Naval War College, focused mainly on its role in support-
ing China’s claims in the South China and East China Seas.6 Kennedy and
Kevin McCauley also have examined the role of civilian ships in military
power projection outside East Asia.7
 C I V I LI A N S H I P P I N G A N D M A R I T I M E M I LI T I A 117

What has received much less Western attention is the maritime mili-
tia’s projected role in large-scale combat operations, despite Chinese au-
thors having written extensively on the subject since the PLA began serious
consideration of a Taiwan invasion in the first decade of the twenty-first
century. Nanjing Military Region Mobilization Department director Guo
Suqing observed in 2004 that a cross-strait island-landing campaign
would require a large number of civilian ships.8 He noted the availabili-
ty of many suitable ships, some of which already had been retrofitted for
wartime use, but warned that “the traditional form of last-minute non-
rigorous civilian ship mobilization can no longer meet the needs of large-
scale cross-sea landing operations.” Wang Hewen of the former General
Logistics Department’s Institute of Military Transportation noted that ef-
forts to strengthen the retrofitting of civilian vessels for military use had
accelerated in 2003, and a 2004 article from the Shanghai Transportation
War Preparedness Office outlined the retrofitting work under way there.9
In 2004, Zhou Xiaoping of the Naval Command College called for an
overhaul of the mobilization system, arguing that “if the traditional
administrative order–style mobilization and requisition methods were
still followed, it would be difficult to ensure the implementation of
civilian ship preparation and mobilization.”10 The civilian government
and the PLA acted on these concerns, and over the past twenty years the
maritime militia has evolved into a major force multiplier for the PLAN in
large-scale combat operations.

Operational Roles for the Maritime Militia

in a Taiwan Invasion
Kennedy and Erickson have written at length on the militia’s peacetime
mission to assert China’s maritime claims, centered on fishing boats that
may or may not do any actual fishing. The militia forces discussed here
are very different, encompassing large-capacity commercial vessels, in-
cluding containerships, general-cargo ships, bulk carriers, tankers, roll-on/
roll-off (RO/RO) ferries, barges, semisubmersibles, oceangoing tugboats,
passenger ships, and “engineering ships,” as well as smaller vessels.11 Au-
thors from the Army Military Transportation University noted in 2015 that
the force consisted of over five thousand ships organized into eighty-nine
militia transportation units, fifty-three waterway-engineering units, and
143 units with other specializations.12
Unlike the U.S. Merchant Marine model, in which government officers
and crews take control of leased ships, Chinese maritime militia units are
118 C H I N E S E A M P H I B I O U S WA R FA R E

composed mostly of the regular crews of the mobilized ships—what the

Central Military Commission (CMC) Militia and Reserve Bureau director
called the “model of selecting militiamen according to their ship” (依船定
兵模式).13 The close correlation between requisitioned ships and militia
units is essential for integration into military operations. There need to be
clear command relationships with the supported PLA units, and the crews
need to be trained on their operational tasks; then there is the increasingly
important issue of legal rights and obligations in wartime. Local or provin-
cial mobilization officials negotiate the requisitioning terms with the ship-
owners, either large shipping companies or individual owners, while the
crews are inducted into militia units (by some process that is not explained
very clearly in the available writings). Several articles note that some
militiamen are not enthusiastic about their role.14
PLA sources cite a wide range of wartime functions for the maritime
militia. In a Taiwan invasion scenario, they include the following:
Delivery of forces. The most obvious operational role for militia
units is to carry forces to the battlefield; this function is referred
to as “military unit transportation and delivery” (部队运输投送).
PLA sources list this as a primary role for civilian shipping, and
note that it is to include participating in the assault landing phase of
the operation.15 Several delivery modes are contemplated, the most
straightforward being through existing ports. A 2019 article on am-
phibious heavy combined-arms brigades in cross-strait island land-
ing operations notes that as part of the first echelon ashore, one of
the brigades’ most important tasks would be to create the conditions
for second-echelon units to land by conducting operations such as
seizing ports and piers.16 Articles published in 2014 and 2019 on
amphibious-landing bases make the same point, and include rapid
repair of piers among the main tasks to be undertaken to help the
second echelon get ashore.17 Other landing modes include lightering
from cargo ships to shallow-draft vessels; semisubmersible vessels
delivering amphibious vehicles or air-cushion landing craft; and
RO/RO ships delivering amphibious forces to their launching point
or directly to shore.18
At-sea support. The PLAN has only a few replenishment ships—not
enough to sustain the huge number of vessels that would be involved
in a cross-strait invasion.19 Given the relatively short distances to
Taiwan landing sites, most PLAN ships likely would rely on shore-
based support, but the service also envisions performing at-sea
replenishment using militia ships, including fuel tankers and cargo
 C I V I LI A N S H I P P I N G A N D M A R I T I M E M I LI T I A 119

ships fitted with equipment for alongside replenishment and heli-

pads for vertical resupply.20 Militia ships also would provide emer-
gency services, including towing, rapid repair, firefighting, search
and rescue, technical support, and even personnel augmentation to
replace casualties aboard naval ships.21
Over-the-shore logistical support. A published discussion of logis-
tical support in island landing operations notes the importance of
fuel tankers laying pipelines to support forces ashore.22 The authors
do not specify maritime militia with regard to this role, but, given
the prominence of tankers in other discussions of militia support, it
seems likely that they would take part in this activity as well. Requi-
sitioned cargo ships also will play a major role in logistical support
through captured ports or via lighters and barges to expedient float-
ing docks.
Medical support. The PLAN’s fleet of hospital ships could be over-
whelmed by the casualties resulting from a major landing operation.
Militia would augment this force with containerized medical mod-
ules deployed on a variety of commercial ships, as well as smaller
vessels providing casualty evacuation and first aid.23
Obstacle emplacement and clearing. Several sources list emplacing
and clearing mines and other obstacles among tasks for the mari-
time militia to perform in a landing operation, without providing
much further detail.24
Engineering support. Maritime militia forces will not be waiting
passively for first-echelon units to reopen damaged ports. Tug-
boats, barges, salvage ships, crane ships, and dredgers will join the
effort to clear obstacles, open channels, and repair docks and other
facilities.25
Reconnaissance, surveillance, and early warning. While much of this
discussion focuses on large ships, the huge fleet of militia fishing
boats would have a large role in a Taiwan operation as well, provid-
ing eyes and ears across the entire maritime theater.26
Deception and concealment. One major advantage the PLAN de-
rives from having hundreds of militia ships in the battle space is
the ability to hide its most valuable platforms among the radar clut-
ter. Many sources list deception, camouflage, and feints among the
militia’s tasks. One 2018 article explains that militia ships will “use
corner reflectors, false radio signals, false heat sources, etc., to set
up counterfeit ships, missiles, fighters and other targets on the sea
120 C H I N E S E A M P H I B I O U S WA R FA R E

. . . to cause the enemy to make wrong judgments and lure the en-
emy into attacking the false target.”27 Flooding the strait with false
targets would complicate severely Blue (defenders’) efforts against
the invasion fleet.
Helicopter relay platform. The Taiwan Strait is relatively narrow, but
a two-hundred-mile round-trip for each sortie still creates a signifi-
cant strain for helicopter operations, so some militia ships will serve
as “helicopter relay support platforms” (直升机中继保障平台). They
will be fitted with helipads, ammunition-storage compartments,
aviation fuel bladders and refueling equipment, limited repair fa-
cilities, and flight-control support systems to keep the helicopters
in the fight.28

Maritime Militia Force Development

The NDMC System
Preparing maritime militia forces to operate civilian ships in wartime is a
large, complex endeavor in which many parts of Chinese government and
military systems are involved. The effort is coordinated through national
defense mobilization committees (NDMCs) at the national, provincial, mu-
nicipal, and county levels. The national-level body styles itself in English as
the State Commission for National Defense Mobilization (国家国防动员委
员会) (referred to hereafter as SCNDM, to distinguish it from NDMCs at
lower levels). In 2016, Premier of the People’s Republic of China Li Keqiang
was its director, while its two deputy directors were Secretary General of the
State Council Yang Jing and Minister of National Defense Chang Wanquan,
listed in that order.29 A long list of agencies is represented on the committee
(see table 1). It seems very likely that the makeup of lower-level NDMCs
reflects that of the SCNDM; certainly, the Gansu NDMC’s does.30
The broad membership roster highlights two important facts about
NDMCs. First, national-defense mobilization is primarily a civilian gov-
ernmental function, not a military function. Over the past six years, CMC
control over the military side of national-defense mobilization has been
strengthened by several actions—notably, the promotion of the previous
General Staff Department Mobilization Department to being a separate,
top-level department of the CMC in 2015.31 Some observers interpret re-
cent changes to the National Defense Law as giving the CMC authority
over the entire process, but this is a fundamental misunderstanding.32 The
PLA is the customer for mobilized resources, establishing requirements
 C I V I LI A N S H I P P I N G A N D M A R I T I M E M I LI T I A 121

that other departments fulfill under the leadership and authority of the
government. The premier heads the SCNDM and governors or mayors
head NMDCs at lower levels.33

Table 1. SCNDM Membership (2016)

State Commission for National Defense Mobilization (2016)

Director Li Keqiang
Deputy Director Yang Jing
Deputy Director Chang Wanquan
Secretary-General Sheng Bin

Member Organizations

• Relevant departments of the • Ministry of Housing and

Central Military Commission Urban-Rural Development
• CCP Central Organization • Ministry of Transport
Department • Ministry of Commerce
• National Development and • Ministry of Culture
Reform Commission
• Health and Family Planning
• Ministry of Education Commission
• Ministry of Science and • State-Owned Assets Supervision
Technology and Administration Commission
• Ministry of Industry and • State Administration of Press,
Information Technology Publications, Radio, Film, and
• Ministry of Public Security Television
• Ministry of Civil Affairs • State Statistics Bureau
• Ministry of Justice • All-China Federation of Trade
• Ministry of Finance Unions
• Ministry of Human Resources • Central Committee of the
and Social Security Communist Youth League
• Ministry of Land and Resources • All-China Women’s Federation

Source: “State Commission for National Defense Mobilization.”

Second, NDMCs are coordinating bodies; they lack administrative au-

thority of their own. An article from Hubei Province emphasizes that the
provincial NDMC is responsible for organizing, guiding, and coordinating
national-defense mobilization, while the people’s government is respon-
sible for implementation.34 An article noted in 2013 that because all the
agencies carrying out mobilization fall under the bureaucratic purview
of the National Planning Commission system (计委系统) rather than the
military system, “the military basically is not involved, and it is difficult for
local governments to reflect military needs in a timely manner.”35
For civilian ship mobilization and maritime militia training, the key
structures within the NDMC coordination system are transportation war-
preparedness offices (交通战备办公室) and transportation-mobilization
122 C H I N E S E A M P H I B I O U S WA R FA R E

offices (交通动员办公室), established from national to county levels. These

offices consolidate the whole range of PLA transportation requirements
and, in the case of civilian shipping, work with government offices to de-
velop overall approaches; identify specific ships to mobilize; draft plans for
ship requisition, retrofitting, and conversion; advise on militia organiza-
tional structure and personnel; and develop militia training requirements.36

The Provincial Military District System

On the PLA side of this process, the key structures are the provincial mili-
tary districts (省军区, PMDs) and their subordinate subdistricts (军分区) at
the prefecture level. At the county level, the PMD system and the local gov-
ernment share joint authority over the people’s armed forces departments
(人民武装部, PAFDs). The PMD system has not received much attention
from observers outside China, but it is the PLA’s interface with the entire
apparatus of civilian support to military operations.
The PMD system serves a wide range of functions, from recruitment
to civil defense to representing PLA interests within major nondefense in-
dustries. But a subdistrict commander in Jiangsu asserted in 2018 that “na-
tional defense mobilization is the PMD system’s primary responsibility”
(国防动员工作, 是省军区系统的主责主业).37 PMD mobilization depart-
ments represent the PLA in the provincial NDMCs, serving as the conduit
through which operational forces articulate support requirements. The
PMDs man, equip, organize, and train militia units and exercise direct
command of the militia in peacetime.

Maritime Militia Training

If civilian shipping is to participate effectively in large-scale combat oper-
ations (and survive the experience), the crews must learn a range of mili-
tary skills in addition to their basic navigation and shiphandling abilities.
Training topics include PLA command relationships and coordination
processes; marshaling, assembling, and sailing in formation; use of mili-
tary communications equipment and procedures; self-defense and mutual
defense; rescue and first aid; military loading and unloading techniques;
basic knowledge of the operating environment from a military perspec-
tive; operation of equipment particular to assigned support tasks; knowl-
edge about the unit supported and the assigned role in that unit’s mission;
knowledge about anticipated enemy threats; and topics such as “dockless
unloading” (无码头卸载).38
In 2015, the National Transportation War Preparedness Office issued
an Outline for Training and Evaluation of National Defense Transportation
 C I V I LI A N S H I P P I N G A N D M A R I T I M E M I LI T I A 123

Specialized Support Teams (《国防交通专业保障队伍训练与考核大纲》).

This document specifies military training requirements for all militia-
transportation support units, including highway, air, and rail as well as
maritime units; however, like most such outlines, it does not appear to be
available publicly.39

Construction, Retrofitting, and Conversion

Outfitting a civilian ship for military operations is a major task. Ships
need mounts and interfaces for specialized military equipment, from
radios to underway-replenishment apparatus to berthing and life support
for transported soldiers. They may need stronger hulls and decks than
their commercial tasks require and tie-down points for heavy military
equipment. Their assigned military mission may require specialized fit-
tings for reconnaissance and surveillance gear, medical treatment facili-
ties, firefighting gear, and emergency-repair facilities.
The most efficient approach is to address these requirements in the de-
sign and shipbuilding process. China touted its first civilian RO/RO ship
built to military specifications in 1997.40 Second best is to identify spe-
cific ships, make contractual arrangements with the owner, and retrofit
them with the equipment and interfaces they need. In 2015, the National
Transportation War Preparedness Office issued regulatory guidance for
the retrofit and conversion process: the Technical Standards for Implement-
ing National Defense Requirements in New Construction of Civilian Ships
(《新造民船贯彻国防要求技术标准》) and the Technical Requirements for
Modifying Civilian Ships for Military Transportation (《民船军运改装技术
要求》).41 The process is managed at the local level by “civilian ship ret-
rofitting and conversion centers” (民船加[改]装动员中心), under the joint
supervision of the local maritime-affairs department and PAFD.42

Command and Control

In peacetime, maritime militia units fall under the command of the PMD
system. In wartime, most units would transfer to the operational control of
a PLA-supported unit command, a principle that one article calls “whoev-
er uses, commands” (谁使用、谁指挥).43 The PMD reportedly would retain
command of some units performing wide-area functions such as intelli-
gence collection, reconnaissance, and early warning.44
Several authors bemoan persistent problems in the PLA’s ability to
command mobilized ships and militia. Col. Xu Guo’an, commander of
a military subdistrict in Jiangsu, complained in 2018 that the peacetime
124 C H I N E S E A M P H I B I O U S WA R FA R E

militia suffered from an “unscientific” command structure and “weak”

command functions, while the transition from peacetime to wartime com-
mand relations suffered from cumbersome communication and slow pro-
cesses—incompatible with the need to mobilize forces rapidly for informa-
tized warfare.45 Faculty members from the Navy Logistics College noted
in 2017 that the commanders of militia units themselves are militiamen—
part-timers often lacking systematic military training or strong command
abilities. Furthermore, they wrote, militia training conducted with the
PLAN did not spend as much time as needed on vital tasks unfamiliar to
civilian sailors, such as sailing in formation, dockless unloading, and mili-
tary communications.46 Such training seems to be far from routine; a 2019
article praises an exercise in which civilian ships transported a surface-
to-air missile (SAM) battalion on a long movement across the Bohai Gulf,
Yellow Sea, and East China Sea—noting in passing that this was the first
time the SAM unit had traveled by ship.47 A remarkably frank assessment
of PLA failures in the 1949 battle of Jinmen cited abysmal command and
control of civilian shipping among the major causes of the fiasco—a lesson
the PLA should take to heart in future island landing operations.48

Challenges and Known Problems

A large share of PLA articles on this and other topics take the form of “prob-
lems and responses.” While the proposed solutions at no time will be per-
mitted to be implemented and might not work if they were, the format does
provide us a ready list of problems the authors believe need to be fixed, or at
least topics they think will attract attention.
Data management. Maintaining current and accurate information
for thousands of ships and tens of thousands of crewmen is a major
chore, and PLA writers are unanimous that it is not being per-
formed well enough. Deciding which ships to bring into the system
and which ships are suited for which tasks requires extensive in-
formation on ship type, capacity, seaworthiness, fittings, and other
aspects. Large commercial ships spend most of their time away from
their home region, and just keeping track of whether the vessel is
close enough to be mobilized is a challenge. Ships are bought, sold,
leased, and transferred, and the task of notifying the home-port
PAFD of the change often falls through the cracks. Crewmen gain
experience, undergo training, get injured, change jobs, and retire.
Each individual has to be evaluated for political reliability as well as
 C I V I LI A N S H I P P I N G A N D M A R I T I M E M I LI T I A 125

skill levels. Data systems are often incompatible from one locality
to another, making it difficult to aggregate data at a higher level.49
Training quality. Keeping individual militiamen trained to the prop-
er level is also a challenge. Like on which the ships they sail, crew-
men are away from their home port much of the year. When they are
home, they often seek other jobs; this is particularly true of fisher-
men during the annual three-month fishing moratorium. Training
curricula are often inadequate—an issue the Outline presumably is
intended to address. The quality of training equipment varies great-
ly, and many localities do not have adequate facilities for training on
the many topics required. Militia units do not train often enough
with the navy units under which they will serve or the army units
they will load, transport, and unload.50
Finance and law. The whole mobilization system continues to grap-
ple with China’s incomplete transition from a command economy to
a market economy. Creating a viable legal, regulatory, and economic
foundation for mobilization in the reform era has been a two-decade
effort, and it remains far from finished.51 The most challenging is-
sue on the financial side is that of compensation for the use of ships
and crews; what entity should be compensated, at what rate, by what
part of the Chinese regime? As late as 2019, authors complained that
many situations were left uncovered by the body of relevant laws and
regulations, that the compensation standards were not clear enough,
that the compensation rates were out of date, and that the fiscal bur-
den was not distributed appropriately among national, provincial,
and local governments.52
Moreover, there is no mechanism for adjudicating disputes over
compensation, owing to the general ban on litigation against the
state under the Administrative Litigation Law.53 The pertinent laws
and regulations do not include enough cross-references. For example,
as one author notes, the Military Service Law stipulates that veterans
and militiamen have priority in applying for civil service positions,
but the Civil Service Law does not, while the Military Service Law
itself does not establish any penalties for militia personnel refusing
military training.54
Foreign-flag ships. As is the case with the rest of the global ship-
ping industry, an ever-growing portion of the Chinese-funded com-
mercial fleet uses flags of convenience.55 A 2018 article by officers
from the Army Military Transportation University and the CMC
126 C H I N E S E A M P H I B I O U S WA R FA R E

Logistics Support Department assessed that 62.5 percent by tonnage

of the shipping capacity controlled by Chinese entities in 2015 flew
foreign flags. The authors were confident that China could justify
requisitioning these ships in an emergency, despite the lack of any
specific legal provision to do so, but they opined that registering
them, getting them ready for mobilization, and getting their person-
nel trained properly would be a particular challenge for the NDMC
and transportation mobilization department at each level.56

The PLA concept of operations for a cross-strait landing on Taiwan relies

heavily on large numbers of civilian ships and their crews, organized into
maritime militia units under the operational command of the supported
force. The PLA has spent over two decades developing the bureaucratic ap-
paratus, laws, and regulations to organize, train, and manage this force. This
author finds nothing in PLA writings on this subject to suggest that this is
a temporary measure intended merely to fill the gap until the PLAN ex-
pands its own fleet of transports and auxiliary ships. Rather, this seems to be
how Chinese leaders, civilian and military, think the PLA should function:
leveraging the enormous resources of China’s civilian economy to support
military operations.
Any landing operation of this scale would be immensely complicat-
ed, and the reliance on maritime militia and mobilized civilian ships adds
yet another layer of complexity and uncertainty. Undoubtedly the support
effort would not go as well as planners might wish, given the many
problems of which they already know and the inevitable new crises that
will erupt midfight. That does not mean it is doomed to fail, however. Cap-
turing enough ports and keeping them open almost certainly will be the
main challenge. If first-echelon forces succeed at that, the rest of the oper-
ation has a reasonable chance of success, at least in this author’s opinion.
Either way, an attempted invasion of Taiwan not only would be one of the
most ambitious landing operations in history; it also undoubtedly would
represent the largest-ever mobilization of civilian shipping to support mil-
itary operations—far outstripping Dunkirk in the number of civilian ves-
sels, and the Falklands War in tonnage. The militia logistics backbone is
vital to the success of a Taiwan invasion.
 C I V I LI A N S H I P P I N G A N D M A R I T I M E M I LI T I A 127

Notes
The author is retired from the U.S. Defense Department (DoD). This article was
cleared for open publication by the Department of Defense Office of Prepublica-
tion and Security Review, DOPSR Case 21-S-1603. The views expressed in this
article are those of the author and do not reflect the official policy or position
of the Defense Department or the U.S. government. The appearance of external
hyperlinks does not constitute endorsement by DoD of the linked websites or the
information, products, or services contained therein; DoD does not exercise any
editorial, security, or other control over the information at these locations.
1. The epigraph above is from 张健 [Zhang Jian] and 吴娟 [Wu Juan], 大规模作
战海上民用运输船舶动员与运用 [“Mobilization and Employment of Seagoing
Civilian Cargo Ships in Large-Scale Operations”], 军事交通学院学报 [Journal of
Military Transportation University], no. 11 (November 2017), pp. 1–5, 45.
2. 李德威 [Li Dewei], 109年中共軍力報告: 臺海安全挑戰更嚴峻 [“2020 Commu-
nist China Military Power Report: Security Challenges across the Taiwan Strait
Are More Severe”], 青年日報 [Youth Daily News (Taipei)], 31 August 2020, www
.ydn.com.tw/news/newsInsidePage?chapterID=1256680; Aaron Tu and Dennis
Xie, “China Not Ready for Full Assault: Report,” Taipei Times, 1 September 2020,
www.taipeitimes.com/News/front/archives/2020/09/01/2003742623; 2020 Report
to Congress of the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission
(Washington, DC: U.S. Government Publishing Office, December 2020),
p. 395, available at www.uscc.gov/sites/default/files/2020-12/2020_Annual_Report
_to_Congress.pdf; U.S. Defense Dept., Annual Report to Congress; Military
and Security Developments Involving the People’s Republic of China 2020
(Washington, DC: Office of the Secretary of Defense, September 2020), p. 114,
available at media.defense.gov/2020/Sep/01/2002488689/-1/-1/1/2020-DOD
-CHINA-MILITARY-POWER-REPORT-FINAL.PDF.
3. Ian Easton, The Chinese Invasion Threat: Taiwan’s Defense and American Strategy
in Asia (Manchester, U.K.: Eastbridge Books, 2017), loc. 2689, Kindle.
4. I have argued elsewhere that this does not appear to be how the Chinese assess
the situation, that PLA leaders do believe the PLA is ready if called on, and that
the reliance on civilian shipping is the likely basis for their assessment. See Lon-
nie Henley, “Testimony before the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review
Commission Hearing on Cross-Strait Deterrence: PLA Operational Concepts
and Centers of Gravity in a Taiwan Conflict,” U.S.-China Economic and Securi-
ty Review Commission, 18 February 2021, www.uscc.gov/hearings/deterring-prc
-aggression-toward-taiwan.
5. To this author’s knowledge, there has not been a rigorous assessment outside
China of how many auxiliary ships of what types the PLA would require to execute
and sustain an invasion of Taiwan.
6. Conor M. Kennedy and Andrew S. Erickson, China’s Third Sea Force, the People’s
Armed Forces Maritime Militia: Tethered to the PLA, China Maritime Report
1 (Newport, RI: China Maritime Studies Institute, March 2017), digital-commons
.usnwc.edu/cmsi-maritime-reports/1.
128 C H I N E S E A M P H I B I O U S WA R FA R E

7. Kevin McCauley, “Testimony before the U.S.-China Economic and Security

Review Commission ‘China’s Power Projection and U.S. National Interests’
[Hearing]: China’s Logistic Support to Expeditionary Operations,” U.S.-China
Economic and Security Review Commission, 20 February 2020, www.uscc.gov/
hearings/chinas-military-power-projection-and-us-national-interests; Conor M.
Kennedy, “Civil Transport in PLA Power Projection,” China Maritime Report
4 (Newport, RI: China Maritime Studies Institute, December 2019), digital
-commons.usnwc.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1003&context=cmsi-maritime
-reports.
8. 郭苏青 [Guo Suqing], 组建民兵船运团保障部队渡海登陆作战 [“Establish a
Militia Shipping Regiment to Support Military Sea-Crossing Landing Opera-
tions”], 国防 [National Defense], no. 12 (December 2004), pp. 35–37.
9. 王和文 [Wang Hewen], 新形势下推动民船贯彻国防要求体系发展的思考
[“Thoughts on Developing the System for Civilian Ships Carrying Out National
Defense Requirements under the New Situation”], 军事交通学院学报 [Journal of
Military Transportation University], no. 1 (November 2015), pp. 22–26; 周铁成
[Zhou Tiecheng], 浅议民船加(改)装的基本原则和程序 [“Brief Thoughts on the
Basic Principles and Procedures for Retrofitting or Modifying Civilian Ships”], 国
防 [National Defense], no. 6 (2004), pp. 49–50.
10. 周晓平 [Zhou Xiaoping], 从世界民船建设的成功经验看我民船队伍建设的制
点 [“A Look at Points of Leverage for Developing China’s Civilian Ship Units
Derived from Successful Worldwide Experience in the Development of Civilian
Shipping”], 军事学术 [Military Art Journal], no. 1 (2004), pp. 57–58.
11. Wang, “Thoughts on Developing the System,” p. 23.
12. 刘兴 [Liu Xing], 刘畅 [Liu Chang], and 李远星 [Li Yuanxing], 金门战役民船保
障存在的问题及启示 [“Problems and Insights from Civilian Shipping Support
in the Battle of Jinmen”], 军事交通学院学报 [Journal of Military Transportation
University], no. 2 (February 2015), pp. 20–23.
13. 王文清 [Wang Wenqing], 破解海上民兵建设难题 [“Solving the Problem of
Maritime Militia Development”], 中国国防报 [China National Defense News],
28 July 2016, p. 3; 何军毅 [He Junyi], 胡威标 [Hu Weibiao], and 姚建新 [Yao
Jianxin], 万船齐发挺进“海战场” [“Ten Thousand Ships Marched into the ‘Sea
Battlefield’”], 国防 [National Defense], no. 9 (2017), pp. 80–83.
14. 罗正然 [Luo Zhengran], 赵继承 [Zhao Jicheng], and 魏联军 [Wei Lianjun],
新形势下海上民兵建设要冲破哪些思想藩篱? [“Under the New Situation,
What Ideological Barriers Should the Construction of Maritime Militia Break
Through?”], 中国国防报 [China National Defense News], 31 August 2017, www
.81.cn/mb/2017-08/31/content_7071612_2.htm.
15. 陈炫宇 [Chen Xuanyu], 任聪 [Ren Cong], and 王凤忠 [Wang Fengzhong],
渡海登岛运输勤务保障面临的问题和对策 [“Issues Encountered in Transport-
ation Support for Island Landings, and Responses Thereto”], 物流技术
[Matériel Transport Technology], no. 10 (2016), pp. 166–69.
16. 黄谦 [Huang Qian] and 王红旗 [Wang Hongqi], 两栖重型合成旅登陆作战后
勤保障 [“Logistical Support to Amphibious Heavy Combined-Arms Brigades
in Landing Operations”], 国防科技 [National Defense Technology], no. 3 (June
2019), pp. 89–92.
 C I V I LI A N S H I P P I N G A N D M A R I T I M E M I LI T I A 129

17.汪欣 [Wang Xin] and 王广东 [Wang Guangdong], 运输投送力量在跨海登岛作

战登陆基地开设中的运用研究 [“Research on the Employment of Transporta-
tion and Projection Forces in Establishing Landing Bases for Cross-Sea Landing
Operations”], 国防交通工程与技术 [National Defense Transportation Engineer-
ing and Technology], no. 5 (September 2019), pp. 12–16; 赵德⻰ [Zhao Delong]
et al., 机械化步兵旅登陆作战基地保障研究 [“Research on Landing Operations
Base Support for Mechanized Infantry Brigades”], 军事交通学院学报 [Journal
of Military Transportation University] 16, no. 9 (September 2014), pp. 44–48.
18. 中国首艘机动登陆平台舰服役具有5大独特军事应用 [“China’s First Mobile
Landing Platform Ship in Service Has Five Unique Military Applications”],
中国青年报 [China Youth Daily], 24 July 2015, www.xinhuanet.com/mil/2015
-07/24/c_128055305.htm; Zhang and Wu, “Mobilization and Employment of Sea-
going Civilian Cargo Ships,” pp. 1–5, 45.
19. Chad Peltier, China’s Logistics Capabilities for Expeditionary Operations (Wash-
ington, DC: U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission, February
2020), www.uscc.gov/research/chinas-logistics-capabilities-expeditionary-operations.
20. Wang, “Thoughts on Developing the System,” pp. 22–26.
21. 刘自力 [Liu Zili] and 陈青松 [Chen Qingsong], 海上民兵参加海战的任务与行
动 [“On the Tasks and Operations of Maritime Militia Engaged in Naval Warfare”],
国防 [National Defense], no. 11 (2018), pp. 50–51.
22. Wang and Wang, “Research on the Employment,” pp. 12–16.
23. 陈国芳 [Chen Guofang], 李朝贵 [Li Chaogui], and 陈万年 [Chen Wannian],
“世昌号,” 我们热烈欢迎您—我国第一艘国防动员船诞生 [“‘Shichang,’ We
Warmly Welcome You: The Birth of China’s First National Defense Mobilization
Ship”], 中国民兵 [China Militia], 15 April 1997, p. 26; Wang, “Thoughts on De-
veloping the System,” p. 24; He, Hu, and Yao, “Ten Thousand Ships Marched,”
pp. 80–83.
24. Liu and Chen, “On the Tasks and Operations,” pp. 50–51; 陈卫国 [Chen Wei-
guo], 关于加强濒海地区民船支前动员建设的思考 [“Thoughts on Strength-
ening the Mobilization of Civilian Ships in Coastal Areas to Support the Front”],
国防 [National Defense], no. 12 (2019), pp. 64–66; Guo, “Establish a Militia Ship-
ping Regiment,” pp. 35–37; Wang, “Thoughts on Developing the System,” p. 23.
25. Wang, “Thoughts on Developing the System,” pp. 22–26.
26. He, Hu, and Yao, “Ten Thousand Ships Marched,” pp. 80–83; 张践 [Zhang Jian],
围绕“六化”抓建推动海上民兵转型 [“Focus on the ‘Six Modernizations’ to Pro-
mote the Transformation of Maritime Militia”], 国防 [National Defense], no. 10
(October 2015), pp. 21–23.
27. Liu and Chen, “On the Tasks and Operations,” pp. 50–51.
28. 刘扬 [Liu Yang], 解放军陆航直升机半潜船起降演练 [“PLA Ground Force
Aviation Helicopter Take-Off and Landing Exercise on Semisubmersible Ship”],
环球时报 [Global Times], 21 August 2020, available at www.sohu.com/a/4141
54690_162522, cited in John Dotson, “Semi-submersible Heavy Lift Vessels:
A New ‘Maritime Relay Platform’ for PLA Cross-Strait Operations?,” James-
town Foundation China Brief 20, no. 15 (31 August 2020), jamestown.org/program/
semi-submersible-heavy-lift-vessels-a-new-maritime-relay-platform-for
-pla-cross-strait-operations/; Wang, “Thoughts on Developing the System,” p. 24.
13 0 C H I N E S E A M P H I B I O U S WA R FA R E

29. 国家国防动员委员会 [“State Commission for National Defense Mobilization”],

国防动员网 [National Defense Mobilization Online], 28 September 2016, www
.gfdy.gov.cn/org/2016-09/28/content_7281555.htm.
30. 省委、省政府、省军区决定成立甘肃省国防动员委员会 [“The Provincial Party
Committee, the Provincial Government, and the Provincial Military Region
Decided to Establish the Gansu Provincial National Defense Mobilization Com-
mittee”], 甘肃省 [Gansu Province], 7 July 2020, www.gansu.gov.cn:8443/art/2020/
7/7/art_11169_16719.html.
31. Joel Wuthnow and Phillip C. Saunders, “Central Military Commission Reforms,”
appendix to “Introduction: Chairman Xi Remakes the PLA,” in Phillip C.
Saunders et al., eds., Chairman Xi Remakes the PLA: Assessing Chinese Military
Reforms (Washington, DC: National Defense Univ. Press, 2019), p. 27.
32. Minnie Chan, “China’s Military Takes Charge of War Powers with New De-
fence Law,” South China Morning Post, 3 January 2021, www.scmp.com/news/
china/military/article/3115988/chinas-military-takes-charge-war-powers-new
-defence-law; Ben Lowsen, “China’s Updated National Defense Law: Going for
Broke,” Jamestown Foundation China Brief 21, no. 4 (26 February 2021),
jamestown.org/program/chinas-updated-national-defense-law-going-for-broke/.
33. 市国防动员委员会召开工作会议全面提高国防动员应急应战能力 [“The Mu-
nicipal National Defense Mobilization Committee Held a Working Meeting to
Comprehensively Improve the Emergency Response Capability of National
Defense Mobilization”], 汕尾市人民政府网站 [Shanwei City], 21 July 2020,
available at www.sohu.com/a/408886462_100175981.
34. 湖北省民用运力国防动员办法 [“Measures for National Defense Mobilization
of Civil Transport Capacity in Hubei Province”], 河北省人民政府 [People’s Gov-
ernment of Hubei Province], 23 June 2013, www.hubei.gov.cn/zfwj/szfl/201307/
t20130705_1711145.shtml.
35. 郭辽 [Guo Liao], 宋云霞 [Song Yunxia], and 赵福林 [Zhao Fulin], 浅析民船动
员中的法律问题及对策 [“Analysis on the Legal Problems and Countermeasures
in the Mobilization of Civilian Ships”], 政工学刊 [Political Science Journal], no. 7
(July 2013), pp. 46–47.
36. 何国本 [He Guoben] et al., 战略投送支援船队训练现状及对策 [“Current Sit-
uation and Responses for Strategic Projection Support Fleet Training”], 军事交
通学院学报 [Journal of Military Transportation University] 19, no. 5 (May 2017),
pp. 1–4; Zhang and Wu, “Mobilization and Employment of Seagoing Civilian
Cargo Ships,” pp. 1–5, 45.
37. 徐国安 [Xu Guo’an], 加强国防动员建设的几点思考 [“Some Thoughts on
Strengthening the Construction of National Defense Mobilization”], 国防 [Na-
tional Defense], no. 12 (December 2018), pp. 55–57.
38. 金来州 [Jin Laizhou], 民船快速动员的组织与实施刍议 [“On the Organi-
zation and Implementation of Rapid Mobilization”], 国防 [National Defense],
no. 1 (2015), pp. 60–61; 杜又功 [Du Yonggong] and 杜干 [Du Gan], [“Mili-
tary Application Training and Employment Management for Civilian Cargo
Ships”], 军事交通学院学报 [Journal of Military Transportation University] 19,
no. 10 (October 2017), pp. 20–23; Chen, “Thoughts on Strengthening the Mo-
bilization,” pp. 64–66; 刘宝新 [Liu Baoxin] et al., 无码头卸载设备军用物资
 C I V I LI A N S H I P P I N G A N D M A R I T I M E M I LI T I A 131

装备水路集装箱运输 [“Equipment for Unloading Sea Containers Carrying

Military Matériel and Armament without Terminals”], 集装箱化 [Container-
ization] 29, no. 10 (October 2018), pp. 6–9.
39. 张歌 [Zhang Ge], 注重分类指导, 突出军民融合, 国防交通专业保障队伍有了
首部训考大纲 [“Pay Attention to Guidance by Categories, Highlight Military-
Civilian Integration, the National Defense Transportation Professional Support
Team Has the First Training and Examination Outline”], 解放军报 [PLA Daily],
7 February 2015, military.people.com.cn/n/2015/0207/c172467-26523697.html.
For a more in-depth discussion of “outlines,” see David M. Finkelstein, The PLA’s
New Joint Doctrine: The Capstone of the New Era Operations Regulations System,
CNA Occasional Paper DOP-2021-U-030643-Final (Arlington, VA: CNA, Sep-
tember 2021).
40. Chen, Li, and Chen, “‘Shichang,’ We Warmly Welcome You,” p. 26.
41. 倪大伟 [Ni Dawei],《新造民船贯彻国防要求技术标准》颁布实施 进一步促进
我军战略投送和海上支援保障能力建设 [“The Promulgation and Implementa-
tion of ‘Technical Standards for the Implementation of National Defense
Requirements for Newly Built Civilian Ships’ to Further Promote the Con-
struction of Our Military’s Strategic Projection and Maritime Support Capa-
bilities”], 解放军报 [PLA Daily], 6 June 2015, military.people.com.cn/n/2015/
0606c172467-27112315.html; Wang, “Thoughts on Developing the System,”
pp. 22–26.
42. Jin, “On the Organization and Implementation,” pp. 60–61.
43. Du and Du, “Military Application Training and Employment,” pp. 20–23.
44. 徐海峰 [Xu Haifeng], 适应新形势—全面规范海上民兵建设 [“Adapt to the
New Situation: Fully Standardize the Development of Maritime Militia”], 国防
[National Defense], no. 2 (February 2014), pp. 65–66.
45. Xu, “Some Thoughts on Strengthening,” pp. 55–57.
46. Du and Du, “Military Application Training and Employment,” pp. 20–23.
47. 熊华明 [Xiong Huaming], 如何让民用船舶助力军事运输?—随某任务分队跨
海机动闻思录 [“How Can Civilian Ships Help Military Transportation?—Ac-
companying a Mission Unit to Cross-Sea Maneuver”], 中国国防报 [China
National Defense News], 24 May 2019, p. 3.
48. Liu, Liu, and Li, “Problems and Insights from Civilian Shipping Support,” pp. 20–
23.
49. 熊昕 [Xiong Xin] and 陈新文 [Chen Xinwen], 沿海省军区民用船舶动员问
题研究 [“Research on Problems of Civilian Ship Mobilization in Coastal Area
Provincial Military Districts”], 国防科技 [National Defense Technology] 40, no.
2 (April 2019), pp. 68–72; 毕毅 [Bi Yi], 加快国防动员法规体系建设推进新
时代国防动员创新发展 [“Accelerate the Establishment of a Legal System for
National Defense Mobilization and Advance the Innovative Development of
National Defense Mobilization in the New Era”], 国防 [National Defense], no. 8
(August 2019), pp. 40–43; 张绍明 [Zhang Shaoming], 增强动员能力促进国防
建设—《湖北省民用运力国防动员办法》解读 [“Enhance Mobilization Ability
and Promote National Defense Construction—Interpretation of the Measures
for National Defense Mobilization of Civil Transport Capacity in Hubei Province”],
132 C H I N E S E A M P H I B I O U S WA R FA R E

湖北日报 [Hubei Daily], 19 July 2013, www.hubei.gov.cn/zwgk/zcsd/201307/t20

130719_459562.shtml.
50. Xiong and Chen, “Research on Problems of Civilian Ship Mobilization,” pp. 68–
72; Luo, Zhao, and Wei, “Under the New Situation, What Ideological Barriers?”
51. Lonnie Henley, “The Legal and Regulatory Basis for Defense Mobilization in
China” (paper presented at the “CNAC/RAND Conference on Mobilization
and the PLA,” Warrenton, VA, February 2005).
52. Xiong and Chen, “Research on Problems of Civilian Ship Mobilization,” pp. 68–
72; Chen, “Thoughts on Strengthening the Mobilization,” pp. 64–66.
53. Guo, Song, and Zhao, “Analysis on the Legal Problems,” pp. 46–47.
54. Bi, “Accelerate the Establishment of a Legal System,” pp. 40–43.
55. Chinese-funded ships being held through subsidiaries located outside China tech-
nically may not be Chinese owned.
56. 刘宝新 [Liu Baoxin] and 刘嘉生 [Liu Jiasheng], 中资方便旗船国防动员问题
研究 [“National Defense Mobilization of Chinese-Funded Ships with Flags of
Convenience”], 军事交通学院学报 [Journal of Military Transportation Universi-
ty] 20, no. 1 (January 2018), pp. 15–20.
 Jennifer Rice

7. The PLA Navy’s Amphibious Fleet

Modernizing for Missions Near and Far

China’s naval amphibious fleet has evolved since the People’s Liberation
Army (PLA) Navy (PLAN) commissioned its first tank landing ships (LSTs)
in the late 1970s and early ’80s. While the pace of the modernization process
initially was gradual, it accelerated midway through the first decade of the
twenty-first century with the addition and growth of new global missions
for the navy.
China’s amphibious forces train and prepare for traditional amphibious-
assault missions and conduct routine logistics operations, such as re-
supplying China’s naval bases and military outposts in the South China
Sea. The introduction of larger amphibious combatants, such as the Yuzhao-
class (Type 071) amphibious transport dock (LPD) and the Yushen-class
(Type 075) landing helicopter assault (LHA) amphibious ships, greatly
expands the substance and scope of the PLAN’s amphibious forces and
adds new capabilities for it to conduct global expeditionary missions.
Although policy statements and continued modernization efforts
demonstrate China’s intent to develop a strong military force, with a
particular focus on capabilities suited to preventing Taiwan from pursuing
independence, development trends in China’s amphibious force do not in-
dicate urgent preparations for traditional cross-strait combat operations.
Even as the PLAN acquires new ships for long-distance amphibious
13 4 C H I N E S E A M P H I B I O U S WA R FA R E

missions, China’s navy is removing older landing ships from active service
and missing opportunities to maximize its traditional naval lift capacity.
Beijing is taking a balanced approach to its naval amphibious moderniza-
tion to support broad strategic goals, of which modest support to cross-
strait capabilities is a part.

Strategic Transitions Driving the Development of

the PLAN Amphibious Force
Since the PLAN’s founding in 1950, China’s naval strategy has transitioned
from concentrating on “near-coast defense” (近岸防御) to “near-seas de-
fense” (近海防御), to, most recently (in 2015), “near-seas defense, far-seas
protection” (近海防御、远海护卫).1 Near-coast defense, the focus of the
PLAN’s first strategy, reflected the navy’s role as the maritime branch of the
land forces and concentrated on protecting China’s mainland from foreign
invasion. During the 1950s, the PLAN constructed its first-generation am-
phibious forces, including medium and large LSTs, but in the 1960s and
early ’70s the majority of its amphibious force still comprised smaller utility
landing craft.2
In the 1980s, the PLAN’s strategy transitioned from a near-coast to a
near-seas concentration, which emphasized defense of China’s maritime
sovereignty inside the first island chain.3 In the 1990s and early years of the
following decade, to build toward a credible ability to conduct amphibious
operations against Taiwan and to support small PLA footprints on offshore
islands and Chinese-claimed reefs, the PLAN launched a new wave of
amphibious-ship acquisition, including of large LSTs with helicopter decks
and greater lift capacity.4 In the first half of the first decade of the twenty-
first century, additional waves followed that included acquisition of
Yuting II–class (Type 072A) LSTs, Yunshu-class (Type 073A) medium
landing ships (LSMs), and Yubei-class (Type 074A) utility landing craft
(LCUs).5
In 2007, the PLAN commissioned its first Yuzhao-class LPD.6 Although
designed and constructed during the PLAN’s “near seas” strategic period,
this platform reflected newer leadership guidance, known as the New His-
toric Missions, and anticipated the expansion in naval strategy that was
adopted officially by 2015. First articulated in a speech by former Chinese
president Hu Jintao in 2004, the New Historic Missions significantly expand-
ed the PLA’s responsibilities to include safeguarding China’s strategic and
economic interests, protecting overseas Chinese citizens and investments,
 T H E P L A N AV Y ’ S A M P H I B I O U S FLEE T 135

and sustaining world peace.7 The Yuzhao LPD and the Yushen LHA—the
first of the latter class was commissioned in April 2021—are both capable
of providing lift during traditional amphibious-combat operations, but are
also well suited to global missions in support of China’s strategic interests.8

The PLAN’s Amphibious Force

The PLAN currently operates approximately nine amphibious-assault com-
batants, thirty LSTs, twenty LSMs, and several dozen smaller landing craft.9
Over the past decade, the PLAN’s amphibious modernization efforts have
centered on acquiring Yuzhao LPDs and Yushen LHAs, but the service also
has launched new landing craft to operate in conjunction with the large am-
phibious ships, as well as a small number of new LSTs and LSMs, primarily
as direct replacements for older units being decommissioned.
For nearly two decades, the Yuting II LST has been the workhorse of
China’s amphibious fleet.10 The PLAN currently operates fifteen hulls,
constructed in two waves in 2003–2005 and 2015–16.11 Each of these ships
is capable of carrying at least ten light tanks and 250 troops.12 Like the
older Yuting I–class (Type 072III) LSTs, which were constructed primar-
ily during the 1990s and as many as ten of which are still in operational
service, the Yuting IIs have a helicopter deck to augment logistics flexibili-
ty.13 Both Yuting I and Yuting II LSTs have estimated operational ranges of
three thousand nautical miles (nm) and top sustained speeds of seventeen
knots. Both classes provide an expanded lift capacity over the older Yukan-
class (Type 072) LST, which does not have a helicopter deck, although the
PLAN continues to operate a small number of Yukans.14
The PLAN’s primary LSM classes are the Yuhai (Type 074/074B) and
the Yunshu. Smaller than LSTs, these LSMs have a lower lift capability than
and roughly half the operational range of Yuting I and II LSTs, but are very
capable of supporting amphibious-combat operations. Yuhai-class LSMs
were constructed in two phases, in the 1990s and in 2017–18. A total of
eleven Yuhais are in service.15 These ships have a top speed of approxi-
mately fourteen knots and can lift at least two light tanks plus additional
troops.16 Each of the slightly larger Yunshu-class LSMs, all ten of which
were commissioned in 2004, can lift at least six light tanks.17
The Yubei-class LCUs were part of the PLAN’s wave of amphibious ac-
quisitions in the first years of this century; the service commissioned elev-
en in 2004–2005. These relatively large landing craft are capable of lifting
at least three light tanks or up to 250 troops each.18 The PLAN acquired
136 C H I N E S E A M P H I B I O U S WA R FA R E

two Pomornik (Type 958) air-cushion utility landing craft (LCUAs) from
Russia beginning in 2012 and built two more in China under license.19 This
large LCUA can achieve top speeds greater than sixty knots and has a range
of 300 nm at more-economical speeds. The class can lift several tanks or
vehicles plus troops, but has difficulty operating in high sea states and
generally is thought to have low reliability and high maintenance require-
ments.20 Low inventory numbers, lack of construction of additional units,
and relatively infrequent press references to relevant training suggest the
PLAN has not integrated this platform fully into its operations.
In addition to the larger, independently operating Yubei LCU, the
Pomornik LCUA, and older, more-traditional classes of LCUs, the PLAN
also operates at least twenty Yuyi-class (Type 726A) air-cushion medium
landing craft (LCMAs).21 The Yuyis are designed to operate from the well
decks of Yuzhao LPDs and Yushen LHAs; the Yuzhaos can accommodate
four LCMAs, the Yushens two.22 Each Yuyi LCMA can lift approximately
two amphibious-assault vehicles plus troops. Yuyis have a limited opera-
tional range of approximately 200 nm, but can transit at very high speeds
of forty knots.23
The Yuzhao LPD class is one of the most notable additions to the PLAN’s
amphibious fleet; it substantively expands the amphibious force’s mission
capabilities. In addition to embarking Yuyi LCMAs in its well deck, the
Yuzhao LPD can accommodate four medium-lift helicopters in hangars,
up to eight amphibious-assault vehicles on the vehicle deck, and from six
hundred to eight hundred troops.24 Without Yuyi LCMAs embarked, a Yu-
zhao reportedly can carry up to twenty-four amphibious-assault vehicles
in its well deck.25 The Yuzhao can operate at higher speeds than traditional
landing ships and has a range of up to 10,000 nm at economical cruising
speeds, allowing it to operate seamlessly with Chinese naval-combatant
task groups around the world.26 The Yuzhao’s lift and range capabilities
dwarf those of the PLAN’s other amphibious classes. The PLAN’s eight
LPDs offer a versatile, multidimensional assault capability for traditional
amphibious combat, such as cross-strait operations, but more significantly
the ship’s lift, range, endurance, and multimission capability enable the
PLAN for the first time to conduct global expeditionary operations.
The Yushen LHA offers global capabilities similar to those of the
Yuzhao LPD. Even larger than Yuzhao (but smaller than the U.S. Navy’s
Wasp- and America-class ships), Yushen is able to embark up to thirty
medium-lift helicopters and has at least six landing spots on its flight deck.
Like the Yuzhao, the Yushen has a well deck to support multidimensional
amphibious-assault operations. Some reports describe the Yushen as a
 T H E P L A N AV Y ’ S A M P H I B I O U S FLEE T 137

future maritime operations command hub that will play a critical role in
dispatching amphibious forces during assault missions, and possibly will
transform the PLAN’s approach to future landing operations.27 The first
Yushen, Hainan (LHA 310), was commissioned in April 2021, and two
additional hulls currently are under construction or in sea trials.28 Like the
Yuzhao, the Yushen provides additional lift capacity to contribute to tra-
ditional amphibious operations but also offers valuable options for global
expeditionary operations.

Mixed Messages: Trends That Reduce the PLAN’s

Cross-Strait Capabilities
Even as the PLAN is acquiring new landing ships and craft, it also is remov-
ing amphibious ships from active service, thereby reducing the net increase
in lift that the new platforms provide. China’s inconsistent approach to the
size of its naval amphibious force suggests that significantly increasing its
traditional naval amphibious-lift capability is not currently, or abidingly,
a priority. In the past decade, the PLAN has reduced its amphibious lift in
three different ways: decommissioning, transfer to nonmilitary services,
and allocation for experimental activities.
From 2019 to 2021, the PLAN decommissioned at least five landing
ships. It decommissioned two Yukan-class LSTs in July 2020.29 These plat-
forms were constructed in the late 1970s and early ’80s and each served for
approximately forty years. This is a typical service life for ships in modern
navies; for example, the U.S. Navy expects most classes of its naval ships to
serve for thirty to forty years.30 For reasons that are less understandable, the
PLAN in 2019 decommissioned three Yuhai-class LSMs.31 The Yuhai class
became operational in 1995, meaning that the decommissioned ships had
served for less than twenty-five years when taken out of naval service. It is
possible, however, that these ships will be transferred to other government
organizations or sold to other countries. In the 1980s, China built several
classes of LSMs, including the Yudao and Yuliang classes, all of which have
been removed from active service in the amphibious fleet.32 The condition
of these Chinese amphibious ships at the time of their decommissioning is
unknown; however, if maximizing naval lift were a priority, the ships likely
could have been overhauled or preserved to contribute to future large-scale
operations.
By 2015, the PLAN had transferred three Yukan-class LSTs tempo-
rarily to the China Coast Guard, which probably used them to further
138 C H I N E S E A M P H I B I O U S WA R FA R E

island-construction logistics in the South China Sea. Two of these ships

reportedly were returned with modifications, including installation of a
crane. This reduced the ships’ ability to support amphibious lift but in-
creased their flexibility to support logistics. Overall, the transfers away
from the PLAN and the modifications to the returned ships reduced the
PLAN’s order of battle and lift capacity.33
In 2018, the PLAN heavily modified one Yuting I LST, likely fitting it
with a developmental electromagnetic naval rail gun weapon and welding
the bow doors shut.34 The weapons-testing function is a necessary one for a
navy to modernize, but performing this support role prevents the platform
involved from participating in routine amphibious operational training
and reduces its ability to provide lift during any combat operation occur-
ring in the near term.
Diplomatic and political sensitivities also may put pressure on acquisi-
tion planning. Beijing is frequently explicit about its intention to unify Tai-
wan with the mainland, publicly stating its firm resolve to protect its claimed
territorial sovereignty and reiterating that China and Taiwan “must and will
be” unified. Notwithstanding this intent, China’s top leaders have many
reasons not to invest in a large, single-use force—particularly given that
Beijing prefers a “peaceful reunification” over the use of force.35 A surge in
single-use ship construction risks drawing international attention to Bei-
jing’s activities. During an increase in amphibious-ship construction in
2003–2005, numerous organizations noted the significance of the force’s
growth.36
Additionally, any naval force requires routine maintenance, consumable
supplies, personnel to operate its ships, and pier space for berthing. All these
factors come with significant long-term costs that any modern navy must
consider prudently when making budget and force-planning decisions.
Operational value and strategic need justify these costs for many naval
platforms, but if additional amphibious-lift ships in the PLAN are useful
only for limited military purposes—such as a cross-strait operation—the
costs could become burdensome or detract from fulfilling other, emerging
mission requirements.

Opportunities to Bolster Amphibious Lift

If Beijing musters the political will and intent to invade Taiwan, the PLA
has several options to bolster its traditional naval lift and increase its
capabilities to move troops, vehicles, and supplies during a cross-strait
amphibious operation. First, China could surge production of amphibious
 T H E P L A N AV Y ’ S A M P H I B I O U S FLEE T 139

vessels, as it has a significant advantage in the capacity (in size and capabil-
ity) of its shipbuilding industry. China is the largest ship-producing nation
by tonnage, and it is home to the world’s largest shipbuilder as measured
by production capacity: the state-owned China Shipbuilding Group.37
Although the PLAN once purchased foreign ships and submarines to aug-
ment its order of battle, China currently produces all classes of naval ships,
including almost all weapons and naval sensors. Furthermore, China al-
ready has demonstrated its ability to use its shipyards to surge production
of amphibious ships; from 2003 to 2005, the PLAN commissioned ap-
proximately thirty amphibious ships and craft.38 Nearly two decades later,
China’s domestic, state-owned shipyards clearly have the capacity, skills,
and experience to increase significantly the PLAN’s traditional naval lift in
a relatively short time.
Second, the PLAN can augment its traditional naval lift by requisition-
ing civilian logistics and transportation ships. This is a key focus of the
PLA, as discussed in the chapters by Michael Dahm and Lonnie Henley. In
June 2020, for example, the twenty-thousand-ton, civilian, roll-on/roll-off
(RO/RO), car-carrier ship Changdalong participated in an exercise that
centered on loading and off-loading a PLA ground forces (heavy)
combined-arms brigade. At 140.5 meters long and 24.4 meters wide, the
ship can carry approximately two thousand cars on eight decks. Changda-
long has taken part in ten of these exercises over the past few years.39
In 2015, the government issued new technical guidelines requiring
that all civilian shipbuilders ensure that their ships were suitable for mil-
itary uses during an emergency. The guidelines cover five ship categories,
including container, RO/RO, multipurpose, and bulk. Use of these ships
would enhance the PLA’s strategic projection capabilities during a military
crisis.40
Even before these guidelines were issued, China was working to im-
prove its “ships taken up from trade” capability. In 2012, China launched
a 36,000-ton RO/RO ferry—the largest of its kind at the time of building.
The Military Transportation District of the former Jinan Military Area
Command coordinated with the shipbuilder on the ship’s requirements.41
Although the vessel’s primary purpose is to ferry passengers for commer-
cial use, it is also a strategic-lift platform able to transport two thousand
troops and three hundred vehicles, and to land helicopters.42
Using these types of large merchant vessels and passenger ferries can
increase significantly the PLAN’s capacity to transport and deliver large
volumes of personnel, vehicles, and supplies. However, these deep-draft,
civilian ships require suitable ports for unloading, and therefore they
cannot be used for amphibious assaults.
14 0 C H I N E S E A M P H I B I O U S WA R FA R E

PLAN Amphibious Training, Operations, and Support

to Exercises
Chinese TV commentators have noted that military conflict may be the only
way to “resolve” China’s relationship with Taiwan, and in such an event the
skill-set associated with amphibious landings will be the military’s most im-
portant capability.43 Most publicized training takes place at dedicated sites
along the Chinese coast, in the Eastern and Southern Theaters, often near
the Taiwan Strait, demonstrating the priority the PLA places on preparation
for amphibious-assault operations.
Each year, forces from PLAN naval-landing-ship flotillas, PLAN Marine
Corps units, and selected units from the PLA ground forces’ amphibi-
ous combined-arms brigades conduct amphibious training. Increasingly
that training focuses on integrated joint maneuvers that include theater-
command army, navy, air force, rocket force, and strategic support force
elements exploring tactics and operational methods.44 Training scenarios
typically involve beach assaults by amphibious armored vehicles swimming
off LSTs and LSMs standing offshore.45 The drills routinely incorporate
executing formations, at-sea maneuvers, live-fire drills, clearing of obstacles,
and loading/unloading operations from LSTs and LSMs.46 Press reports on
recent exercises describe the order of amphibious-assault mission phases,
from preassault reconnaissance to opening artillery strikes, and from
obstacle clearing to opening safe sea-lanes for multidimensional assault
waves to enable beach landing and seizure.47 The training simulates cross-
strait landings, with reference to three-dimensional images of Taiwan that
have been observed occasionally in unit-training camps.48
Like the LSTs and LSMs, the PLAN’s larger amphibious combat-
ants participate in coastal training and simulated amphibious assaults,
frequently deploying embarked Yuyi-class LCMAs to ferry troops ashore
in island-seizure training exercises. In March 2021, a Yuzhao-class LPD
practiced loading, unloading, and landing operations in a simulated island
seizure with several Yuyi LCMAs in the South China Sea.49 In January 2021
in the South China Sea, two Yuzhao LPDs, Changbaishan (LPD 989) and
Wuzhishan (LPD 987), participated in a series of drills that included live-fire
beach-assault, air-defense, LCMA loading/unloading, and landing-ashore
functions.50 In mid-November 2020, three LPDs (Changbaishan, Wuzhi-
shan, and Kunlunshan [LPD 998]) participated in a landing-ship-flotilla
exercise in the South China Sea under the PLA Southern Theater
Command, during which LCMAs conducted landing and disembark-
ing missions, as well as vessel board, search-and-seizure, and live-fire
operations.51
 T H E P L A N AV Y ’ S A M P H I B I O U S FLEE T 141

LSTs also are identified frequently in the Spratly Islands.52 According

to Jane’s Defence Weekly, some amphibious ships are used mainly to pro-
vide logistics support to naval detachments.53 It is likely that augmenting
logistics support to naval bases and outposts—the farthest of which are
completely reliant on mainland China for food, water, and supplies—is
recognized as a secondary mission responsibility for LSTs and LSMs;
however, while conducting naval base logistics support contributes to
the PLA’s overall combat readiness, carrying out this routine logistics
mission may reduce the LST/LSM force’s readiness for amphibious-assault
missions.
In addition to amphibious exercises emphasizing landing operations,
Yuzhao LPDs routinely participate in long-distance deployments to con-
duct real-world training, often in the Pacific and Indian Oceans. These
missions focus on preparing for a range of expeditionary and combat
missions, not narrowly for a cross-strait operation. In February 2021,
Wuzhishan participated in a PLAN task group that transited over 8,000 nm
and remained at sea for more than thirty days. Wuzhishan’s participation
in this deployment followed a pattern of similar LPD task group deploy-
ments in 2018 and 2019, when Jinggangshan (LPD 999) and Changbaishan,
respectively, participated in far-seas operations that included joint drills.54
According to press releases from China’s military, the 2021 task-group
training themes included air and missile defense, antiterrorism and anti-
piracy operations, and joint search-and-rescue (SAR) operations.55 In a slight
departure from some past deployments, on its return in late February the
2021 task group—augmented by other Southern Theater units, including
Changbaishan—participated in complex joint-service amphibious-landing
and -assault drills with Southern Theater army and PLAN Marine Corps
units.56 During the training, Wuzhishan deployed at least two LCMAs and
also participated in gunnery exercises.57 Conducted as part of the blue-
water deployment, these amphibious operations demonstrated the PLAN’s
growing expeditionary capabilities.

The Future of Amphibious Missions: Global Expeditionary

Operations
The PLAN’s current naval strategy highlights Beijing’s intent to operate
globally to safeguard China’s interests. China’s 2019 defense white paper
identified worldwide threats that included regional turmoil, terrorism, and
piracy, noting the risks these pose to China’s investments and personnel
142 C H I N E S E A M P H I B I O U S WA R FA R E

overseas. Beijing uses these threats to justify its requirement to develop a

global, quick-reaction, expeditionary force. In part to better support and
augment its national priorities to protect overseas interests, Beijing seeks
an active voice in the reform and execution of global governance and
wishes to demonstrate its status as a stakeholder and contributor to peace
on the high seas.58 As a result, the PLAN participates in UN-sponsored
vessel-protection operations, provides international humanitarian assis-
tance and disaster relief, and jointly maintains the security of internation-
al passages. Increasingly, the PLAN’s large amphibious combatants play a
role in accomplishing these global missions. The endurance and operation-
al flexibility of the PLAN’s expeditionary forces provide Beijing with the
tools to justify and implement its global-security-policy preferences.
In 2010, the PLAN first began deploying its Yuzhao-class LPDs on
operational missions to support China’s counterpiracy naval-escort task
force in the Gulf of Aden.59 As part of the sixth task force, Kunlunshan
deployed for approximately six months, escorting 588 ships through the
Gulf of Aden, and conducting several goodwill visits during its return
transit, including to Bahrain and Indonesia.60 Kunlunshan’s participa-
tion in the counterpiracy mission allowed China to experiment with new
naval-escort models that integrated ships, aircraft, and landing craft.61
Since 2010, Yuzhao-class LPDs have participated in three more escort-task-
force deployments in the Gulf of Aden and conducted goodwill visits in
Africa, Europe, Asia, and Australia.62 In April 2014, two PLAN Yuzhao-
class LPDs demonstrated their ability to support ad hoc, real-world
missions when Jinggangshan and Kunlunshan joined in SAR operations for
a missing aircraft, Malaysia Airlines flight 370.63 Changbaishan’s partici-
pation in this mission demonstrated both the LPD force’s readiness and its
operational flexibility.
The PLAN also increasingly is using its Yuzhao-class LPDs to support
naval-diplomacy missions and engage foreign partners during bilateral
and multilateral exercises. Changbaishan participated in the Joint Sea
2015 Chinese and Russian military exercise in the Sea of Japan, near Vlad-
ivostok. This iteration of the recurring bilateral exercise was noteworthy
for its inclusion of the PLAN’s first landing operations outside China,
demonstrating Beijing’s interest in developing its expeditionary capabili-
ties and its intent to do so. During the exercise, Changbaishan launched ten
amphibious armored vehicles and helicopters to fast-rope marines ashore.
Yunwushan (LST 997) also took part in this joint-landing exercise.64
Also in 2015, Jinggangshan participated in the ASEAN Regional Forum’s
disaster-relief exercise in Malaysia. Held every two years, this multilateral
 T H E P L A N AV Y ’ S A M P H I B I O U S FLEE T 143

exercise typically incorporates a combination of tabletop exercises and

at-sea SAR drills, accompanied by additional forums to promote informa-
tion sharing and cooperation.65 In 2016, Changbaishan joined the Royal Thai
Navy in Exercise Blue Strike 2016, a three-dimensional humanitarian-
rescue training operation.66
Large amphibious combatants also most likely will provide logistics
support to China’s fledgling overseas military-support network. Currently
China operates one external base, in Djibouti, and it probably is planning
to construct a second, in Cambodia.67 China’s 2019 defense white paper
calls for the PLA to develop overseas logistical-support facilities to address
deficiencies in Beijing’s ability to protect its overseas interests.68 As the PLA
builds and operates these overseas facilities, it probably will use the PLAN’s
large amphibious combatants to ferry troops, weapons, and military equip-
ment between China and these locations. Just as the PLA historically has
used its amphibious-vessel fleet to support its operations on PLA-manned
outposts in the South China Sea, these vessels will provide similar logistical-
support capabilities farther abroad.

The PLAN’s amphibious developments and acquisitions to date do not

indicate a sense of urgency in relation to traditional amphibious cross-
strait operations. According to the U.S. Defense Department’s 2020 report
on China’s military power, as of 2020 the PLA was not capable of conduct-
ing a “full-scale” invasion of Taiwan, but it could support amphibious
operations against smaller Taiwan-held islands in or near the Taiwan
Strait. The report concludes that, absent evidence of a significant buildup
of large and medium-size landing ships, the PLA likely is not planning a
direct beach assault against Taiwan.69
Instead, trends suggest that China’s navy has adopted a balanced
approach. The force’s maintenance (or lack thereof) of traditional naval
lift and its acquisition of large amphibious combatants support Beijing’s
emerging goals to develop a modern navy capable of furthering China’s
global interests. At the same time, the PLAN’s amphibious development
also provides modest value to potential cross-strait operations. The PLAN
operates an amphibious force that is sufficient to support routine training
needs, conduct small-scale amphibious-assault missions, and participate
in global operational deployments.
China’s balanced approach to its amphibious force modernization
suggests two different potentially controversial and debatable consider-
ations for the application of China’s traditional amphibious lift in a notion-
al cross-strait operation, and it may challenge some long-held assumptions
14 4 C H I N E S E A M P H I B I O U S WA R FA R E

among analysts who closely study cross-strait tensions and diplomatic

relations. First, the size and composition of the force indicate that China’s
approach to cross-strait operations will not rely as heavily on direct beach
assault and traditional lift as once was assumed, although the precise ratio
of naval lift versus other forms of amphibious lift is unknown. Alterna-
tively, the current amount of naval amphibious lift suggests that Beijing’s
desire for unification has a long timeline, and that the regime does not yet
require the acquisition of larger amounts of naval lift. These two consider-
ations are not necessarily mutually exclusive.
The most significant takeaway from examining the composition of
the PLAN’s amphibious force is the service’s transition toward blue-water
capabilities, as manifested in its acquisition patterns, operations, and stra-
tegic guidance. The PLAN is developing a multimission force, and nowhere
has this been more evident than in the development of its Yuzhao LPDs
and Yushen LHAs. Looking ahead, reports indicate that this expeditionary
amphibious-assault force will continue to expand with the advent of the even
more capable Type 076 amphibious-assault ship, which is likely a follow-on
to the Yushen and may be fitted with systems to accommodate unmanned
combat aerial vehicles.70 Although Beijing continues to invest heavily in
capabilities necessary for a cross-strait operation—refusing to renounce
the use of force and reserving the option to take all necessary measures
to safeguard the country’s claimed territorial integrity—the PLAN’s high-
endurance, multimission acquisitions and global missions point to
Beijing’s long-term ambition to ensure worldwide security for China’s
interests on the high seas.

Notes
1. The PLA defines naval strategy as the “guidelines and approach for planning
and directing the overall construction and employment of the navy.” 中国人民
解放军军语 [PLA Dictionary of Military Terms] (Beijing: Academy of Military
Science Press, September 2011), p. 888; Nan Li, “The Evolution of China’s
Naval Strategy and Capabilities: From ‘Near Coast’ and ‘Near Seas’ to ‘Far Seas,’ ”
in The Chinese Navy: Expanding Capabilities, Evolving Roles, ed. Phillip C.
Saunders et al. (Washington, DC: National Defense Univ. Press, 2011), pp. 111–16;
China’s Military Strategy (Beijing: Information Office of the State Council, 2015).
2. “Rising STOM: China Expands Amphibious Capabilities,” Jane’s International
Defence Review, 16 October 2013.
3. Li, “The Evolution of China’s Naval Strategy and Capabilities,” p. 118.
4. “Yuting I (Type 072III) Class,” Jane’s Fighting Ships, 25 February 2021; “Yuting II
(Type 072A) Class,” Jane’s Fighting Ships, 22 September 2021.
 T H E P L A N AV Y ’ S A M P H I B I O U S FLEE T 145

5. “Yunshu (Type 073A) Class,” Jane’s Fighting Ships, 26 February 2021; “Yubei (Type
074A) Class,” Jane’s Fighting Ships, 22 September 2020.
6. “Yuzhao (Type 071) Class,” Jane’s Fighting Ships, 25 February 2021.
7. Jia Yong, Cao Zhi, and Li Xuanliang, “Advancing in Big Strides from a New His-
torical Starting Point—a Record of Events on How the Party Committee and the
Central Military Commission Promote Scientific Development in National De-
fense and Army Building,” Xinhua, 7 August 2007.
8. “Yuzhao (Type 071) Class”; Guo Yuandan, “Three New Warships Commissioned
to PLA Navy, Creating Three ‘Firsts,’” China Military Online, 25 April 2021,
eng.chinamil.com.cn/view/2021-04/25/content_10028649.htm.
9. “China—Navy,” Jane’s Sentinel Security Assessment—China and Northeast Asia,
1 April 2021; Guo, “Three New Warships Commissioned.”
10. “Rising STOM.”
11. “Yuting II (Type 072A) Class.”
12. Andrew Tate, “China Commissions Type 072A LST,” Jane’s Navy International,
27 October 2015.
13. “Yuting I (Type 072III) Class.”
14. “Yukan (Type 072II) Class,” Jane’s Fighting Ships, 25 February 2021.
15. “Yuhai (Type 074/074B) Class,” Jane’s Fighting Ships, 19 March 2021.
16. “Rising STOM.”
17. “Yunshu (Type 073A) Class.”
18. “Yubei (Type 074A) Class.”
19. “Pomornik (Zubr) (Project 1232.2) (Type 958) Class,” Jane’s Fighting Ships,
26 February 2021.
20. 孙晨旭 [Sun Chenxu], 独家探访国产野马气垫登陆艇 [“Exclusive Visit to Do-
mestically Produced Mustang Air-Cushion Landing Craft”], 央视网-正午国
防军事 [CCTV—Midday National Defense Military Affairs], 18 November
2020, tv.cctv.com/2020/11/18/VIDERSBszPOm3V7zvCTzJfPp201118.shtml; “Proj-
ect 1232.2 Zubr / Pomornik Class: Amphibious Landing Craft,” GlobalSecurity
.org, www.globalsecurity.org/military/world/russia/1232_2.htm.
21. “Yuyi (Type 726A) Class,” Jane’s Fighting Ships, 19 March 2021.
22. U.S. Defense Dept., Annual Report to Congress: Military and Security Developments
Involving the People’s Republic of China (2020) (Washington, DC: Office of the
Secretary of Defense, 2020), p. 47 [hereafter Annual Report to Congress: PRC
(2020)]; “Yuzhao (Type 071) Class”; Peter Wood, “China: Type 075 Amphibious
Assault Ship Launched,” OE Watch 9, no. 11 (November 2019), p. 30.
23. “Yuyi (Type 726A) Class.”
24. The PLA Navy: New Capabilities and Missions for the 21st Century (Washington,
DC: Office of Naval Intelligence, 2015), p. 18; Andrew Tate, “China Launches Fifth
LPD for PLAN,” Jane’s Defence Weekly, 16 June 2017; Wood, “China: Type 075
Amphibious Assault Ship Launched.”
25. 簡一建 [Jian Yijian], 共軍「兩棲作戰能力」發展之研析 [“Research and Analysis
of the Development of the Communist Army’s ‘Amphibious Combat Capabili-
ties’”], 陸軍學術雙月刊 [Army Academic Bimonthly], December 2017, p. 58.
14 6 C H I N E S E A M P H I B I O U S WA R FA R E

26. 沪东中华: 为中国海军打造靓丽名片 [“Hudong Zhonghua: Creating a Beauti-

ful Name Card for the Chinese Navy”], China State Shipbuilding Corporation,
28 August 2014, www.cssc.net.cn/, archived from the original on Internet
Archive on 22 December 2017 at web.archive.org/web/20171222220107/http://
www.cssc.net.cn/component_news/news_detail.php?id=17797.
27. Ma Haoliang, “Rapid Delivery of Amphibious Fighting Power: 075 Ship Com-
mand Platform for Island Seizure,” Ta Kung Pao, 10 August 2020, www.takung
pao.com.hk/paper/index.html.
28. “Type 075 Class,” Jane’s Fighting Ships, 19 March 2021; “China’s First Type 075
Amphibious Assault Ship Ends First-Stage Trial,” China Military Online, 27 August
2020, eng.chinamil.com.cn/view/2020-08/27/content_9891364.htm.
29. “Yukan (Type 072II) Class.”
30. “China’s Two First-Generation Ocean-Going Landing Ships Decommissioned,”
SeaWaves, 4 August 2020, seawaves.com/?p=4021; David B. Larter, “The US
Navy’s Fleet Is Getting Old. It Might Get a Lot Older,” Defense News, 7 June 2018,
www.defensenews.com/naval/2018/06/07/the-us-navys-ships-are-getting-old
-they-might-be-getting-a-lot-older/.
31. Andrew Tate, “Chinese Navy Decommissions Amphibious Ships,” Jane’s Defence
Weekly, 29 May 2019; “Yuhai (Type 074/074B) Class.”
32. “Yudao Class (Type 073),” Jane’s Fighting Ships, 13 February 2013; “Yudao (Modi-
fied Type 073II) Class,” Jane’s Fighting Ships, 27 February 2021; “Yuliang (Type 079)
Class,” Jane’s Fighting Ships, 31 January 2018; “China—Navy.”
33. “Yukan (Type 072II) Class.”
34. “Yuting I (Type 072III) Class”; Andrew Tate, “China May Be about to Commence
Sea Trials of Electromagnetic Gun,” Jane’s Defence Weekly, 1 February 2018; Dylan
Malyasov, “Chinese Tank-Landing Ship with Electromagnetic Railgun Passes Sea
Trials,” Defence Blog, 1 April 2019, defence-blog.com/news/chinese-tank-landing
-ship-with-electromagnetic-railgun-passes-sea-trials.html.
35. China’s National Defense in the New Era (Beijing: Information Office of the State
Council, 2019).
36. Mikhail Barabanov, “Contemporary Military Shipbuilding in China,” Eksport
Vooruzheniy, 15 August 2005, Open Source Center CEP20050811949014; “Genesis
of a Roundtable Forum on the People’s Liberation Army,” Series on 2005 People’s
Liberation Army Roundtable Forum (No. 1), Ch’uan-Ch’iu Fang-Wei Tsa-Chih, 1
April 2005, pp. 82–95.
37. Annual Report to Congress: PRC (2020), pp. 143–44.
38. “Yuting II (Type 072A) Class”; “Yunshu (Type 073A) Class”; “Yubei (Type 074A)
Class.”
39. Peter Wood, “74th Group Army Conducts Mobilization Exercise with Roll-On
Roll-Off Ships,” OE Watch 10, no. 7 (July 2020), p. 41.
40. Zhao Lei, “New Rules Mean Ships Can Be Used by Military,” China Daily, 17 June
2015, usa.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2015-06/18/content_21037024.htm.
41. “‘Bohai Emerald Pearl’ 2300P/2500LM RoPax (RORO Passenger Ferry [ROPAX
Vessel]),” GlobalSecurity.org, www.globalsecurity.org/military/world/china/stuft
-ro-pax-2300.htm.
 T H E P L A N AV Y ’ S A M P H I B I O U S FLEE T 147

42. “Rising STOM.”

43. Liu Xuanzun, “PLA Holds Amphibious Landing Drills to ‘Show Firm Will against
Taiwan Secessionists,’” Global Times Online, 13 October 2020, www.globaltimes
.cn/content/1203126.shtml/.
44. 国防军事早报 [“Morning Report on Defense”], 中国军网 [China Military On-
line], 2 March 2021, www.81.cn/.
45. 国防科工 [“Defense Science and Industry”], China Central Television, 19 Novem-
ber 2020, www.cctv.com.cn/.
46. Liu Xiaowei, Liu Guanghui, and Xia Tao, “Amphibious Tank Troops Training
at Sea: The Challenges Are Not Only the Wind and Waves!,” 人民前线 [People’s
Front Line], Wechat, 10 October 2020, wx.qq.com/.
47. Liu, “PLA Holds Amphibious Landing Drills.”
48. Liu, Liu, and Xia, “Amphibious Tank Troops Training at Sea.”
49. “Air-Cushioned Landing Crafts Conduct Beach Landing Training,” China Military
Online, 10 April 2021, eng.chinamil.com.cn/view/2021-04/10/content_10019102
.htm.
50. 央视微博 [CCTV-Military Microblog], 26 January 2021, video.h5.weibo.cn/
1034:4597648519528477/4597649083473981?luicode=20000061&lfid=45976490
83473981.
51. “Dock Landing Ships Steam in South China Sea,” China Military Online, 23 No-
vember 2020, eng.chinamil.com.cn/view/2020-11/23/content_9941241.htm.
52. “LOOK: China’s Military Deployment on Spratly Islands,” Inquirer.net, 9 May
2018, newsinfo.inquirer.net/989207/look-chinas-military-deployment-on-spratly
-islands/.
53. Tate, “Chinese Navy Decommissions Amphibious Ships.”
54. “PLA South China Sea Fleet Sets Sail for Far Sea Drill,” Global Times Online,
17 January 2019, www.globaltimes.cn/content/1136077.shtml; “PLA Fleet Returns
to Homeport from Far-Sea Training,” China Military Online, 26 February 2018,
eng.chinamil.com.cn/view/2018-02/26/content_7952635.htm.
55. “Naval Flotilla Conducts Joint Training Exercise in Far Seas,” China Military
Online, 26 March 2021, eng.chinamil.com.cn/view/2021-03/26/content_10010860
.htm.
56. “Morning Report on Defense.”
57. “Naval Landing Ship Flotilla Conducts Actual Combat Training,” Ministry of
National Defense People’s Republic of China, 17 March 2021, eng.mod.gov.cn/
news/2021-03/17/content_4881131.htm, originally appearing on China Military
Online.
58. China’s National Defense in the New Era.
59. “Chinese Navy Sees Broadened Horizon, Enhanced Ability through 10-Year
Escort Missions,” Global Times Online, 30 December 2018, www.globaltimes.cn/
content/1134066.shtml.
60. 钟魁润 [Zhong Kuirun], 尹航 [Yin Hang], and 李彦林 [Li Yanlin], 护航手段的
崭新探索—海军第六批护航编队亚丁湾护航启示录 [“New Explorations in Es-
cort Methods—Revelations from the PLAN’s Sixth Escort Task Force’s Escorts
14 8 C H I N E S E A M P H I B I O U S WA R FA R E

in the Gulf of Aden”], 解放军报 [PLA Daily], 28 November 2010, mil.news.sina

.com.cn/2010-11-28/0804621119.html; 美丽的麦纳麦——中国海军舰艇编队出
访巴林花絮 [“Beautiful Manama—Highlights of the Chinese Naval Fleet’s Visit
to Bahrain”], 新华社 [Xinhua], 16 December 2010, www.gov.cn/jrzg/2010-12/16/
content_1767279.htm; 刘秋丽 [Liu Qiuli], 第六批护航编队 [“Sixth Escort Task
Force”], 中国军网 [China Military Online], 14 December 2018, www.81.cn/2018zt/
2018-12/14/content_9378902.htm.
61. Zhong, Yin, and Li, “New Explorations in Escort Methods.”
62. 中国海军护航编队在亚丁湾联合护航 [“Chinese Navy Escort Task Force Con-
ducts Joint Escort in the Gulf of Aden”], 新华社 [Xinhua], 22 August 2013, www
.gov.cn/jrzg/2013-08/22/content_2471843.htm; 中国海军第十五批护航编队对
坦桑尼亚进行访问 [“Chinese Navy’s Fifteenth Escort Task Force Conducts
Friendly Visit in Tanzania”], 新华社 [Xinhua], 30 December 2013, www.gov.cn/
jrzg/2013-12/30/content_2557175.htm; 黄海敏 [Huang Haimin], 中国海军第十
五批护航编队访问斯里兰卡 [“Chinese Navy’s Fifteenth Escort Task Force Visits
Sri Lanka”], 中国军网 [China Military Online], 14 January 2014, photo.chinamil
.com.cn/pla/2014-01/14/content_5734684.htm; 肖永 [Xiao Yong] et al., 海军第
十八批护航编队长白山舰实战砺兵硝烟烈 [“Eighteenth Naval Escort Task
Force Ship Changbaishan in Intense Live Combat”], 中国军网 [China Military
Online], 13 October 2014, photo.81.cn/pla/2014-10/13/content_6176312.htm;
中国海军第18批护航编队访问英国 [“Chinese Navy’s 18th Escort Task Force
Visits Britain”], 国际在线 [International Online], 13 January 2015, news.sina
.com.cn/o/2015-01-13/131831393557.shtml; 中国海军第十八批护航编队访问
荷兰 [“Chinese Navy’s Eighteenth Escort Task Force Visits the Netherlands”],
新华社 [Xinhua], 27 January 2015, www.gov.cn/xinwen/2015-01/27/content
_2810408.htm; 中国海军第十八批护航编队到访法国 [“Chinese Navy’s Eigh-
teenth Escort Task Force Visits France”], 驻法国使馆 [PRC Embassy in France],
10 February 2015, www.mfa.gov.cn/web/zwbd_673032/nbhd_673044/t1236828
.shtml; 中国海军舰艇编队三访希腊将与希方海上联合演练 [“Chinese Navy
Task Force Visits Greece for the Third Time and Will Conduct Joint Exercises
with Greece”], 中国侨网 [China Overseas Chinese Network], 16 February 2015,
military.people.com.cn/n/2015/0216/c172467-26577313.html; 中国海军第十八
批护航编队停靠新加坡 [“Chinese Navy’s Eighteenth Escort Task Force Stops
in Singapore”], 新华社 [Xinhua], 11 March 2015, www.gov.cn/xinwen/2015
-03/11/content_2832464.htm; 张海龙 [Zhang Hailong], 来永雷 [Lai Yonglei],
and 薛成清 [Xue Chengqing], 护航进行时: 海军第三十、三十一批护编
队在亚丁湾会合 [“While an Escort Is in Progress: Navy’s Thirtieth and Thirty-
First Escort Task Forces Meet in the Gulf of Aden”], 央广军事 [China
National Radio Military], 25 December 2018, www.mod.gov.cn/action/2018-12/
25/content_4832817.htm; 中国海军第31批护航编队访问澳大利亚 [“Chinese
Navy’s 31st Escort Task Force Visits Australia”], 新华网 [Xinhua Net], 3 June
2019, www.xinhuanet.com/politics/2019-06/03/c_1124578710.htm.
63. 白瑞雪 [Bai Ruixue], 郭良川 [Guo Liangchuan], and 肖永 [Xiao Yong], 中国海
军舰艇编队继续在南印度洋搜寻查证 [“Chinese Ship Formation Continues
Searching for Clues in the Indian Ocean”], 新华社 [Xinhua], 6 April 2014, www
.gov.cn/xinwen/2014-04/06/content_2654091.htm.
 T H E P L A N AV Y ’ S A M P H I B I O U S FLEE T 149

64. 张剑 [Zhang Jian], 梁庆松 [Liang Qingsong], and 孙国强 [Sun Guoqiang], 全景
扫描中俄海上实兵演习 [“A Panorama of China-Russia Maritime Exercises”],
当代海军 [Navy Today], no. 9 (2015), pp. 62–67.
65. 高毅 [Gao Yi], 井冈山舰起航参加东盟地区论坛第四次联合救灾演习 [Jinggang-
shan Departs to Participate in the ARF Joint Disaster-Relief Exercise”], 解放军
报 [PLA Daily], 20 May 2015, www.politics.people.com.cn/n/2015/0520/c70731
-27029190.html.
66. 李鹏芳 [Li Pengfang], “蓝色突击-2016” 中泰联训中方官兵离开泰国返程回
国 [“‘Blue Strike–2016’ Chinese-Thai Joint Training, Chinese Troops Depart
Thailand to Return Home”], 中国军网-中国海军 [China Military Online—
China Navy], 13 June 2016, www.xihuanet.com//mil/2016-06/13/c_129058124
.htm; 严家罗 [Yan Jialuo], 肖永 [Xiao Yong], and 周启青 [Zhou Qiqing], “蓝色突
击-2016” 中泰海军陆战队联合训练之一, “兄弟连” 第三次携手 [“‘Blue Strike
–2016’ China-Thai Marine Corps Joint Training, Part One. ‘Company of
Brothers’ Come Together for the Third Time”], 当代海军 [Navy Today], no. 6
(2016), pp. 22–23.
67. “China Opens First Overseas Base in Djibouti,” Al Jazeera, 1 August 2017,
www.aljazeera.com/news/2017/8/1/china-opens-first-overseas-base-in-djibouti;
Sopheng Cheang, “US Expresses Concern over China Link to Cambodian
Base,” ABC News, 7 October 2020, abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/us-expresses
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68. China’s National Defense in the New Era.
69. Annual Report to Congress: PRC (2020), pp. 114, 117.
70. Andrew Tate, “China Appears to Be Designing LHD with Catapult to Operate
UCAVs,” Jane’s Defence Weekly, 22 July 2020.
PA R T III

Enablers of Amphibious Warfare

 Cristina Garafola

8. The PLA Airborne Corps in

a Joint Island Landing Campaign

In May 2018, the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) announced a major new
milestone for its Airborne Corps (空降兵). Chinese paratroopers made
their inaugural jump from the Y-20, the country’s first indigenously built
aircraft in its strategic-airlift fleet. In the same exercise, the corps, which is
part of the PLA Air Force (PLAAF), completed its first heavy-equipment
drop from the new aircraft, marking another important achievement in the
corps’s modernization.1
Despite these developments and other recent modernization efforts un-
der way within the airborne forces, the Airborne Corps’s potential role in a
cross-strait invasion has received relatively little attention compared with
that paid to the development of key ground and naval invasion forces.2 A
past lack of focus on the capability of airborne units may have stemmed
from the extreme capacity limitations of the PLA’s strategic-airlift forces,
which restricted the PLA’s ability to deploy significant numbers of airborne
troops across the strait. However, the 2018 exercise and other recent mile-
stones presage a potentially much more active and significant role for the
Airborne Corps in future cross-strait operations.
In recent years, the PLA Airborne Corps has undergone significant reor-
ganization and modernization to improve capabilities relevant to cross-strait
operations. The corps also appears to be increasing its training on complex
15 4 C H I N E S E A M P H I B I O U S WA R FA R E

topics, including in combined-arms and joint contexts. However, like the

PLA writ large and the PLAAF in particular, the Airborne Corps suffers
from a lack of combat experience. It has not conducted combat operations
abroad but rather has been tasked to support the regime during periods of
domestic turmoil or for domestic humanitarian-assistance and disaster-
relief (HA/DR) operations. Key questions also remain regarding the corps’s
ability to integrate with other PLA units and conduct operations in complex
or degraded environments, as well as the PLAAF’s broader ability to secure
the command of the air needed to enable airborne troops to land on Taiwan.
This chapter chronicles the changing capabilities of the PLA Airborne
Corps over the past decade and provides a foundation for assessing the
corps’s role in a cross-strait invasion. It comprises four main sections. Sec-
tion 1 briefly summarizes the force structure of the corps. Section 2 reviews
the Airborne Corps’s stated roles and missions in a joint island landing cam-
paign (JILC). Section 3 examines recent efforts to strengthen the corps’s
ability to conduct operations relevant to a cross-strait invasion. Section 4
discusses ongoing challenges that the PLA Airborne Corps must overcome
to perform large-scale operations of this kind effectively. The chapter con-
cludes with a summary of its main findings and a road map for future re-
search on this topic.

History and Force Structure

Unlike in the U.S. armed forces, China’s Airborne Corps always has been
subordinate to the PLAAF rather than the PLA ground forces. The corps
traces its roots to 1950, with the Central Military Commission’s establish-
ment of an air force marine brigade. The unit underwent several changes
over the subsequent decade, successively becoming the Air Force Marine
First Division, the Paratroops Division, and the Airborne Division, until fi-
nally it was restructured into a corps-level organization. Table 1 lists key
organizational and operational milestones in the corps’s development.
Today, the corps includes the following known units:
• Six airborne combined-arms brigades (空降兵旅), consisting of
three light motorized brigades, two mechanized brigades, and one
air-assault brigade3
• One transport aviation brigade (运输航空兵旅), which may include
the prereorganization helicopter regiment4
• One special-operations brigade (特种作战旅)
• One combat-support brigade (作战支援旅)
 T H E P L A A I R B O R N E C O R P S I N A J O I N T I S L A N D L A N D I N G C A M PA I G N 155

Table 1. Key Events in the Airborne Corps’s Development

Year(s) Event

1950 The Central Military Commission establishes an air force marine

brigade.

1961 Now known as the PLAAF 15th Airborne Corps, the unit’s headquarters
is located in Xiaogan, Hubei Province.

1967 The corps deploys to Wuhan to subdue an uprising during the Cultural
Revolution.

Mid-1970s The Airborne Corps consists of three airborne divisions.

Mid-1980s The corps’s three divisions are reduced to three brigades.

1989 The corps deploys to Beijing during the Tiananmen Square crisis and
military crackdown.

1992 The Airborne Corps is officially designated a lead unit within the PLA’s
rapid-reaction force (快速反应部队), even though it already had been
training in that role.

1993 The airborne brigades are upgraded to three divisions of about ten
thousand troops each.

Mid-1990s For the first time, the Airborne Force commander is selected as one
of the PLAAF’s four deputy commanders (1993), possibly reflecting
increased leadership attention on the role of airborne forces. The PLAAF
also receives its first Il-76 transports.

2008 Airborne forces support earthquake relief efforts in Sichuan.

2017–18 As part of broader PLA reforms, the corps is renamed from the PLAAF
15th Airborne Corps to the PLA Airborne Corps, but remains part of
the PLAAF. Its three division headquarters are abolished and its six
regiments are converted into brigades.

2020 The Airborne Corps supports COVID relief efforts in Wuhan.

Note: For more on the development of rapid-reaction units and forces, see Blasko, The Chinese Army Today,
pp. 84–85, 104, 175.
Source: Adapted from Allen and Garafola, 70 Years of the PLA Air Force, p. 140.
156 C H I N E S E A M P H I B I O U S WA R FA R E

• One training base (训练基地)

• One new training brigade (训练旅)5
Table 2 lists major equipment types in the PLA Airborne Corps’s order of
battle. Table 3 provides the PLAAF transport aircraft available to the force.

Table 2. PLA Airborne Corps Aircraft and Other Equipment

TRANSPORT AIRCRAFT: 40
Medium: 6 Y-8
Light: 34 (20 Y-5; 2 Y-7; 12 Y-12D)

HELICOPTERS:
8 WZ-10k attack helicopters
8 Z-8KA combat search-and-rescue helicopters
12 Z-9WZ multirole helicopters

ARMORED FIGHTING VEHICLES:

180 ZBD-03 airborne-combat vehicles
4 ZZZ-03 armored personnel carriers (command posts)
Modified CS/VN3 armored utility vehicles

ANTITANK/ANTI-INFRASTRUCTURE:
Some self-propelled HJ-9

ARTILLERY: 162+
122 mm towed: est. 54 PL-96 (D-30)
107 mm multiple-rocket launchers: est. 54 PH-63
54+ mortars: some 82 mm; 54 100 mm

AIR DEFENSE:
Point-defense surface-to-air missiles: QW-1 (CH-SA-7)
25 mm towed guns: 54 PG-87

Source: Adapted from IISS, The Military Balance (2022), pp. 260–63.

Table 3. PLAAF Transport Units and Aircraft

Units Aircraft

1 regiment with Il-76MD/TD Candid TRANSPORT AIRCRAFT: 247+

1 regiment with Il-76MD Candid; Heavy: 51+ (20 Il-76MD/TD Candid;
Il-78 Midas 31+ Y-20)
1 regiment with Y-7 Medium: 55+ (30 Y-8C; 25+ Y-9)
2 regiments with Y-9 Light: 111 (70 Y-5; 41 Y-7/Y-7H)
2 regiments with Y-20/Y-20U

Note: Table 3 excludes VIP transport units operating personnel aircraft. The Y-8Cs listed in the aircraft
count were described previously as part of a mixed Y-8C/Y-20 regiment, but this is now listed as a Y-20-
only unit. Military Balance (2022) lists the new Y-20Us as tanker/transport aircraft, with three in inventory
for 2022.
Source: Adapted from IISS, The Military Balance (2022), p. 261.
 T H E P L A A I R B O R N E C O R P S I N A J O I N T I S L A N D L A N D I N G C A M PA I G N 157

One additional element of note in the corps’s force structure is the CH-802
small drones operated by the airborne brigades.6

The Role of the PLA Airborne Corps

in a Cross-Strait Invasion
The 2006 Science of Campaigns summarizes the role of the Airborne Corps
as follows: “Through air mobility, the airborne force carries out operation-
al activities in the enemy’s depth in order to achieve specific strategic and
campaign goals.” In the context of a cross-strait invasion, the corps’s key role
would be to support a PLA JILC.7 Science of Campaigns cites three main
phases in a JILC: (1) preliminary operations; (2) assembly, embarkation,
and transit; and (3) the assault landing and the establishment of the cam-
paign landing site (beachhead). Airborne forces likely would participate in
the first and third phases. During the preliminary phase, forces would be
inserted via airborne operations to conduct “sabotage raids” behind ene-
my lines to help the PLA seize command of the air. Described as “elite spe-
cial operations units,” these forces would target key enemy airfield, radar,
command-and-control, and munitions infrastructure.8
The Airborne Corps also likely would play a supporting role during the
assault landing phase, during which the elements of the first echelon of the
invasion, including both amphibious-assault and vertical-landing forces,
would maneuver toward their objective areas. In Science of Campaigns, the
corps’s part of the operation is described as an airborne landing combined
“with [a] frontal assault onto land . . . to assist and complement landing
force operations with active actions.” Airborne forces then would “imme-
diately initiate attacks against predetermined targets, taking advantage of
the situation when the enemy’s state is unclear and they cannot organize
effective resistance in time and the counter–airborne landing units have
not arrived, to quickly seize and occupy objectives, actively complement
landing force operations, and accelerate the speed of the assault onto land,
ensuring that the assault onto land succeeds in one stroke.” Airborne forces
also are expected to support the resistance against any counterattacks that
enemy forces undertake against the PLA’s lodgment.9
Science of Campaigns sheds light on how the PLAAF likely would ap-
proach a major airborne campaign. It highlights four main elements. First,
the PLA would need to seize information superiority (制信息权) and com-
mand of the air (制空权). The text describes these as “preconditions” (前提
条件) for a successful airborne campaign. Second, the PLA would conduct
158 C H I N E S E A M P H I B I O U S WA R FA R E

preparatory fires (火力准备). Third, the airborne troops would be trans-

ported, in this case across the Taiwan Strait, and would conduct paradrops
or landings in selected locations. Once the troops had landed, they would
begin the campaign’s fourth phase: ground operations (地面作战). In this
phase, they would capture landing sites, set up PLA operations at the sites
for follow-on landings, carry out ground offensives, and transition to de-
fensive operations as needed.10
As this sequence suggests, PLAAF aviation forces are a key enabler for
the airborne campaign, encompassing not only the transport units them-
selves but also aircraft that can seize command of the air, target enemy forc-
es in the landing area, and defend vulnerable cargo aircraft. Information
is also a key enabler of airborne operations—information regarding not
only the enemy’s whereabouts but also the locations of other PLAAF and
PLA unit movements, to enable timing airborne operations for maximum
effect. Maintaining that situational awareness becomes challenging once
airborne units land, and sustaining their combat power (which is relatively
limited compared with that of regular ground forces) is also difficult.11
Science of Campaigns details other attributes of airborne campaigns
worth noting. First, it highlights the use of deception during transport to
confuse the adversary. Second, it calls for leveraging night and poor weath-
er for operations. Third, it recommends that airborne forces “strive to
[move] . . . to the target area using one single flight.” Last, it prescribes that,
once troops have been dropped or landed, attention should turn to taking
out vital links or targets, including suppressing enemy attacks.12

Building New Capabilities Relevant

for a Cross-Strait Invasion
The PLA Airborne Corps is building capabilities directly relevant to the
roles it likely would play in a cross-strait invasion. It is undergoing signif-
icant reorganizational efforts to bolster its capability to conduct mecha-
nized maneuver and assault, benefiting from growth in the PLA’s airlift ca-
pacity, increasing the complexity of its training, and learning from foreign
outreach and training abroad.

Reorganizing to Improve Capability for Mechanized

Maneuver and Assault
Over roughly the past decade, the Airborne Corps’s force structure for
mechanized maneuver and assault has grown. A 2011 PLA-linked source
 T H E P L A A I R B O R N E C O R P S I N A J O I N T I S L A N D L A N D I N G C A M PA I G N 159

described the corps circa 2005–10 as operating in “a lightly armed mode

of ‘one person, one parachute, one gun,’ and light weapons with mortar.”13
One U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) assessment likewise found that the
pre-2018-reform Airborne Corps was a “traditional motorized force” that
emphasized parachute operations.14
The corps’s mechanized force structure developed during this period,
with one of its three divisions featuring a mechanized company that lat-
er was expanded to a battalion. This unit consisted of infantry fighting
vehicles capable of being dropped by parachute. Another division had a
special-operations group and a small helicopter group (大队).15 This he-
licopter unit was established in 2005 and later expanded to a regiment in
2012.16 Some reports indicate that the corps’s special-operations group
also had become a regiment prior to the reforms.17 These airborne special-
operations forces were expected to conduct reconnaissance operations,
raids, sabotage, harassing attacks, and special technical attacks.18
Following the broader trend of “brigadization” for PLA ground forc-
es and some PLAAF units (begun in 2015 and implemented in 2016), the
corps was reorganized in 2018 to integrate combined-arms units at the bri-
gade level, thereby increasing the corps’s overall combat capability after
it arrived on the battlefield. At least one brigade also has been outfitted
with the ZBD-03 infantry fighting vehicle. Mechanized equipment helps
improve units’ combat power and maneuverability once on the ground, po-
tentially alleviating some of the challenges of postlanding operations that
are identified in PLA strategy texts.19

Leveraging Growing Airlift Capacity

Airlift capacity is highlighted repeatedly as a constraint facing the PLAAF,
both in terms of enabling activities such as PLA-wide operational maneuver
and as “an important mark of a strategic air force more broadly,” especially
in fielding high-capacity, long-range transport aircraft. The 2013 Science
of Military Strategy states that “the PLA should . . . do everything possible
to see that strategic air transport capability realizes historic leaps within
a short time span and ensures peacetime and wartime ability to conduct
long-range, rapid, large-scale air-projection maneuver.”20 The 2020 Science
of Military Strategy similarly calls on the PLAAF to continue to improve its
airlift and airborne capabilities.21
Consisting of small and medium transport aircraft, the PLA Airborne
Corps’s organic aviation brigade by itself cannot support the corps’s mo-
bility adequately. Therefore, the force must rely on other PLAAF medium
and heavy transport capabilities (and, potentially, search-and-rescue units)
16 0 C H I N E S E A M P H I B I O U S WA R FA R E

to support large-scale operations.22 The numbers of such aircraft have in-

creased dramatically in recent years, directly benefiting the corps’s ability
to deploy rapidly in a variety of scenarios.
DoD assesses that a related objective in the restructuring of the corps
“was to create a responsive and streamlined airborne corps capable of
air-delivering modular combat units—including aerial drop of mecha-
nized infantry forces.”23 These drops are accomplished most effectively
with large transport aircraft, which until the past few years have consti-
tuted a significant capacity gap for the PLAAF. A 2017 RAND study found
that the small number of heavy transport aircraft available prior to 2016—
probably no more than two dozen aging Il-76 aircraft in total—likely con-
strained the PLAAF’s capacity to deploy units rapidly across the country,
limiting it to carrying only one airborne division at a time—only a third of
the corps’s operational strength.24 However, the Y-20 indigenous transport
aircraft was delivered officially to operational units beginning in 2016, and
its inventories have grown rapidly since then. Total PLAAF inventories of
heavy transport aircraft have more than doubled in the past five years, with
at least thirty-one new Y-20s outnumbering the twenty older Il-76s as of
2022.25 If China continues to build and field Y-20s at similar rates over the
next few years, this long-standing capacity constraint on rapid deployment
of the corps could be effectively mitigated.

Improving the Sophistication of Training at Home

The Airborne Corps has made steady progress in improving its training
over the past twenty years, with particular focus since 2018 on sophistica-
tion and realism. The corps has incorporated more-complex topics into its
training regimen, including training for nighttime operations; with greater
numbers of aircraft, troops, and equipment; in complex geographic and
weather conditions; and with other PLA and PLAAF forces. Some of these
efforts are of long standing; the list below summarizes select training ac-
tivities conducted within China’s borders from 2001 to 2010.
• 2001: Liberation 1 (解放一号), a joint exercise, involved three op-
erational phases and nearly a hundred thousand troops. The training
site was selected for its resemblance to Taiwan. Following an informa-
tion war, the second phase included a nighttime airborne landing in
support of a joint ocean crossing and amphibious-landing exercise.26
• 2008: Airborne forces reportedly performed their first “integrated
parachuting” of both troops and heavy equipment.27
• 2009: Airborne Movement (空降机动) 2009 saw elements of all
three airborne divisions participate in a twenty-day exercise, in what
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one Chinese source calls “the largest ever Chinese airborne force
trans-regional campaign mobility comprehensive training exercise.”28
• 2009: The Vanguard (前锋) 2009 joint exercise focused on ground
and air force unit training, featuring an exercise headquarters staffed
by both ground and air force officers. Along with the participation of
airborne troops, helicopters and fixed-wing aircraft supported
ground operations during the exercises.29
• 2010: Paratroopers from the corps conducted the PLA’s “first organic
and large-scale parachute drill” on the Tibetan Plateau, with over six
hundred troops dropped.30
More-recent exercises continue this emphasis on increasing the com-
plexity of training topics. Following a 2014 adjustment to the PLA’s top mil-
itary strategic guidance that placed increasing emphasis on war fighting in
the maritime domain, air force leaders have pushed for a greater PLAAF
role in overseas operations, including for the Airborne Corps.31 In 2017,
an air-transport brigade from the airborne forces conducted “low-altitude,
penetration tactical training” over an unfamiliar area of open sea, which
one China Aerospace Studies Institute report assessed to be one of multiple
recent training activities to practice island airdrop operations.32
As mentioned in the introduction, in 2018 airborne troops completed
their first jumps from the Y-20, and the new transport aircraft completed
its first heavy-equipment drop.33 DoD also has noted that during that year
the corps undertook training that leveraged “long-range raid and airborne
operations based on actual war plans,” as well as focusing on combat real-
ism and staffs’ ability to conduct command and control. One of these 2018
exercises included the corps’s participation for the first time in Red Sword
(红剑), one of the PLAAF’s premier training “brands”; conducted annually,
it emphasizes force-on-force confrontation.34 In 2019, a seminar the PLA
held in Beijing focused on integrating the corps into joint operations and
improving other airborne-training topics.35 Exercises in 2020 and 2021 saw
the corps perform a number of training events with Y-20 aircraft, includ-
ing Y-20s dropping equipment and paratroopers, in August 2020; moving
elements of a brigade, along with Il-76 and Y-9 aircraft, in September 2020;
and conducting day and night airborne training, in April 2021.36 In 2020, the
corps also operated with a PLA Navy (PLAN) unit in a maritime environ-
ment, conducted opposition-force training with PLA ground forces units,
and leveraged military and civilian logistics for rapid, long-distance mobil-
ity.37 Many of these latest training milestones reflect a focus on capabilities
relevant to supporting a future JILC.
162 C H I N E S E A M P H I B I O U S WA R FA R E

Learning from Foreign Militaries

Airborne troops have trained with other militaries in China since 2005,
and since 2011 Chinese airborne troops have conducted exercises overseas
with other militaries. These exercises likely have been intended both to
support China’s diplomacy and to gain a better understanding of coun-
terparts’ tactics, techniques, and procedures. The list below summarizes
select training events that have occurred during multilateral and bilateral
engagements:
• 2005: For the first time, China’s airborne troops participated in an
international exercise, Peace Mission, although their paradrops
took place in China. Russia also took part.38
• 2007: Airborne troops jumped with Russian counterparts in Peace
Mission in China.39
• 2011: Airborne troops traveled to Belarus for their first overseas exer-
cise, Divine Eagle.40
• 2011: Airborne troops conducted a counterterrorism exercise, Coop-
eration, with Venezuela.41
• 2013 and 2014: Airborne troops conducted two iterations of the
Sharp Knife airborne series with Indonesian counterparts.42
• 2014: Chinese airborne troops again joined the Peace Mission
exercise in China.43
• 2015: Airborne troops returned to Belarus for a second counterter-
rorism exercise.44
• 2016 and 2017: A Chinese airborne platoon participated in a com-
petition during the International Army Games in 2016 (Russia) and
2017 (China). The platoon conducted jumps with a helicopter.45
• 2017: During the Shaheen VI China-Pakistan air force combined-
training event, Chinese airborne special-forces troops and PLAAF
and PLAN aircraft and ground units participated alongside Pakistani
counterparts.46
• 2018: Il-76 and Y-9 transport aircraft conducted low-altitude drops
of troops and equipment during the Aviadarts portion of the Interna-
tional Army Games in Russia.47
• 2019: Airborne troops represented the PLA for the first time in the
small-scale survival exercise Kowari, a trilateral exercise with the
United States and Australia.48
• 2019: Units from a corps brigade joined Tsentr, a Russian-led mul-
tilateral exercise in Russia. They reportedly performed paradrops
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and “airborne landing operations” with Russian counterparts,

although the degree to which these combined operations truly were
integrated is not known.49
• 2020: Airborne troops participated in Airborne Platoon, a contest
part of the International Army Games in Russia, and operated using
Russian infantry vehicles for the first time.50
• 2021: Airborne troops joined the Zapad/Western-Joint (西部·联
合) exercise with Russia that took place in China. One commentary
stated that the PLA forces conducted “low-altitude parachute landing
of airborne troops at multiple altitudes, and mixed delivery of both
personnel and equipment for the army aviation and special opera-
tions forces” for the first time.51
Some international exercises involving the PLA have provided signif-
icant learning opportunities for Chinese airborne troops, or at least they
are portrayed so in PLA media. One 2017 article provides this anecdote
summarized by Western analysts: “One infantry fighting vehicle company
commander in the PLA airborne forces noted . . . that foreign forces strongly
emphasized various forms of night training. The commander compiled his
knowledge and led his entire company in subject-based night training upon
his return to China” to improve the unit’s skills.52

Key Questions regarding Capabilities Needed

for a Cross-Strait Invasion
Although advancements in Airborne Corps mechanization, airlift capaci-
ty, and training indicate that the force is improving its overall capabilities,
key questions remain regarding the extent to which the corps has mastered
the significant operational complexities required to support a cross-strait
invasion effectively. While a detailed examination into these topics is be-
yond the scope of this chapter, key issue areas are summarized below.

Unity of Effort? Integrating Operations by Similar Units

To operate most effectively, the PLA Airborne Corps must develop the abil-
ity to integrate its operations with those of the PLA’s other airborne forces.
The PLA ground forces and PLAN Marine Corps (PLANMC) are develop-
ing their own air-assault units.53 The 2020 Science of Military Strategy calls
on the PLA ground forces to continue developing air-landing and paradrop
capabilities to help realize a three-dimensional army, along with army avi-
ation forces, to form the backbone of the army’s aerial-assault strength.54
16 4 C H I N E S E A M P H I B I O U S WA R FA R E

Ground-force air-assault brigades equipped with helicopters can undertake

“force projection and air insertion missions,” and DoD notes that these
PLA ground-force air-assault brigades can augment the Airborne Corps’s
brigades for some types of operations.55
Recent training suggests that some level of PLAAF fixed-wing airlift
support to PLA ground-force aviation and other units is occurring al-
ready. In summer 2021, Y-20 transport aircraft began training with the
PLA ground forces, including helicopter and special-operations units.
One 2021 joint exercise involving a Xinjiang-based PLA ground-force
aviation brigade, PLAAF units, special-operations forces, and electronic-
countermeasure troops saw the transport aircraft moving ground-based
support elements to the exercise and undertaking other unspecified
operations.56
In the maritime domain, PLAAF leaders are pursuing a growing ar-
ray of overwater missions for air force units, including “vertical amphib-
ious landings” for the corps, but the PLANMC also has this capability.57
There is additional potential overlap between the Airborne Corps’s special-
operations brigade and airborne-qualified personnel in ground-force
special-operations and reconnaissance units.58 Like the PLA ground forces
aviation brigades, ground-force special-operations units began conducting
paradrop training from the new Y-20 aircraft in 2021.59
Overall, it is likely that both PLA ground forces air-assault and
special-operations forces, along with PLANMC units, have unique
missions in support of combined-arms operations within the ground and
naval forces. However, the extent to which airborne forces and sister units
in other services are able to coordinate directly or via higher headquarters
in the event of a contingency is not clear. Future research on this issue
could survey the extent to which joint training occurs among these units,
as well as whether detailed reporting on their overall training activities can
provide more information on areas of mission overlap.  

Operating in Complex or Degraded Conditions

Reporting on airborne forces’ training activities suggests that the corps
is working to improve its operational capabilities under complex or
degraded conditions. PLA discussion of this topic tends to focus on car-
rying out training in poor weather or harsh climates or at night. During
Peace Mission 2007, transport aircraft from China and Russia carried
out paradrops and equipment drops during a storm.60 In 2018, an airborne
brigade air-defense unit undertook a monthlong opposition-force training
drill in the mountains of Gansu Province, including nighttime training.61
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Other airborne-training discussions note an emphasis on precise timing

and understanding of aircraft flight routes, airdrop trajectories, and other
information, such as for troop and equipment drops conducted as part of
the Peace Mission 2014 exercise.62
But whether airborne troops can adapt to degraded or missing infor-
mation is another question; the article on the 2014 exercise merely quoted a
pilot as saying that lacking precise information about those elements would
lead to “mission failure.”63 Future research on this training topic could
examine the extent to which airborne forces are training under complex
electromagnetic or other conditions resulting in degraded information,
as well as the extent to which they encounter these training topics during
opposition-force training.

Lack of Relevant Experience

A third area of concern relates to the corps’s lack of large-scale combat
experience. The PLA writ large engaged in its last major combat operations
during the 1979 invasion of Vietnam, and the corps’s sister branch, the
PLAAF aviation forces, last fought during the second Taiwan Strait crisis,
in 1958. However, all historical employment of China’s airborne forces has
consisted of domestic deployments during periods of internal upheaval in
China. In 1967, during the Cultural Revolution, airborne forces helped put
down a regional uprising in Wuhan, and they also deployed to Beijing in
1989 during the Tiananmen Square crisis and military crackdown.64
In addition to the corps being untested in combat, conducting domes-
tic missions may detract from maintenance of its combat capabilities. One
China Aerospace Studies Institute assessment finds that responsibility to
fulfill a regime-preservation role may limit other deployments to only a
portion of the corps’s end strength. “[I]t is unlikely that more than four
airborne brigades augmented” by special-operations and combat-support
elements “would participate in a single operation because of the require-
ment to have brigades available to defend the regime.”65
In recent years, internal HA/DR missions also have resulted in deploy-
ments of airborne troops. Following the 2008 earthquake in Wenchuan,
Il-76 aircraft conducted airdrops from low altitude, while troops parachut-
ed into the area to set up communication channels.66 In 2020, airborne
forces conducted COVID-19-related missions in Wuhan.67 While major in-
ternal disaster-relief missions may not occur frequently enough to detract
from the corps’s readiness and combat capabilities, future research could
explore the extent to which the corps supports additional, smaller-scale
domestic missions, and whether PLA analysts assess trade-offs against pre-
paring for wartime missions.
16 6 C H I N E S E A M P H I B I O U S WA R FA R E

Heavily Reliant on Support from Another Service Arm—

Aviation Forces
Finally, as a RAND review of PLAAF employment concepts noted, suffi-
cient air support is a requirement for successful airborne operations. Spe-
cifically, the PLAAF must suppress enemy air defenses so that transport
aircraft can ferry troops close to the landing zone.68 It also must achieve
command of the air. Once on the ground, airborne forces likely still would
benefit from some form of support from PLAAF aircraft as well as PLA lo-
gistics units, even if their organic fires, mobility, and defensive capabilities
are becoming more robust.69
Future research examining this problem set more closely would need
to assess the PLAAF’s ability to defend airborne packages in contested en-
vironments, as well as its ability to surge and maintain high operational
tempos to support the specific windows required to execute cross-strait
airborne operations.

The Airborne Corps is expected to support a cross-strait invasion by pen-

etrating behind enemy lines. During a JILC, the corps’s role would be
to conduct paradrops or landing operations onto Taiwan, facilitated by
PLAAF aircraft. Once on the island, airborne forces are expected to seize
and hold terrain and conduct a variety of operations to support the broader
invasion. In recent years, the corps has reorganized to improve its capabili-
ty for mechanized maneuver and assault, leveraging the PLAAF’s larger in-
ventories of transport aircraft, particularly the Y-20; has improved the so-
phistication of its training at home; and has gleaned insights from abroad
via training with foreign militaries while also supporting the Communist
Party’s and the PLA’s broader diplomacy efforts.
That being said, key questions remain regarding the extent to which
the corps has solved potential challenges to its ability to conduct airborne
operations successfully. These include effectively integrating with similar
ground-force and marine units, which have overlapping roles; carrying out
operations in complex or degraded environments; overcoming the corps’s
lack of relevant combat experience; and delivering sufficient air support
and successfully suppressing enemy fires to escort vulnerable transport
aircraft behind enemy lines.
To address these gaps, future research can identify the combined-arms
and joint exercises in which the corps participates and assess the frequency
and complexity of those exercises. Changes to the types of aircraft or he-
licopter forces from which they operate may provide indications of evolv-
ing operational concepts. Also, overseas exchanges and training may offer
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additional insights into the corps’s evolving capabilities and focus areas for
improvement.
Finally, while this chapter has reviewed substantial evidence that the
PLA expects its airborne forces to support cross-strait operations, some
caution may be warranted.70 Historically, large-scale airborne operations
in highly contested environments have resulted in significant casualties
to airborne units. Risks to airborne forces in modern warfare only have
grown; capable opponents today can pose a wide array of threats to air-
borne forces, as well as to the transport aircraft supporting them.71 The
opportunity costs of deploying airborne forces into high-end conflict
scenarios—particularly if air-dropped—therefore may be significant,
especially considering that transport aircraft can perform an array of other
valuable missions.
While there is no indication that the PLA is rethinking radically the
roles for the Airborne Corps, a 2020 commentary by a PLAAF Command
Academy researcher took an expansive view of the corps’s future roles,
describing the PLA’s airborne force as “strategic fists” that not only can
support major conflicts central to a country’s national security but also
can “defend national interests and expand [the country’s] national security
space on a global scale.”72 It is possible that the PLA increasingly will seek
to leverage airborne forces for a broader array of operations farther afield
and in less-contested environments.

Notes
1. Huang Panyue, ed., “Paratroops Jump Out of Y-20 Transport Aircraft,”
China Military Online, 10 May 2018, eng.chinamil.com.cn/view/2018-05/10/
content_8028273.htm; Li Qiang, “Y-20’s Completion of First Heavy Equip-
ment Airdrop Is of Great Significance,” PLA Daily, 12 June 2018, english
.pladaily.com.cn/view/2018-06/12/content_8059912.htm, originally appearing on
China Military Online.
2. A notable exception is Roderick Lee, The PLA Airborne Corps in a Taiwan
Scenario (Washington, DC: National Defense Univ. Press, forthcoming). On
ground and naval forces’ role in an invasion, see, for example, Eric Heginbotham
et al., The U.S.-China Military Scorecard: Forces, Geography, and the Evolving
Balance of Power, 1996–2017, RR-392-AF (Santa Monica, CA: RAND, 2015), avail-
able at www.rand.org/pubs/research_reports/RR392.html.
3. U.S. Defense Dept., Annual Report to Congress: Military and Security Develop-
ments Involving the People’s Republic of China 2021 (Washington, DC: Office
of the Secretary of Defense, November 2021), p. 58 [volumes of this annual
report hereafter cited as Annual Report to Congress: China (year)]. The report
notes that each of these six brigades “typically commands four combined arms
16 8 C H I N E S E A M P H I B I O U S WA R FA R E

battalions (identified as either mechanized, motorized, or assault), an artillery

battalion, a reconnaissance and pathfinder battalion, an operations support bat-
talion, a service support battalion, and possibly a transportation battalion.”
4. Roderick Lee finds that one of the combined-arms brigades has a helicopter regi-
ment. Lee, The PLA Airborne Corps in a Taiwan Scenario.
5. Annual Report to Congress: China (2019), p. 40; Lawrence Trevethan, “Brigadi-
zation” of the PLA Air Force (Montgomery, AL: China Aerospace Studies
Institute, 2018), pp. 6–7; Annual Report to Congress: China (2020), p. 53;
Kenneth W. Allen and Cristina L. Garafola, 70 Years of the PLA Air Force
(Montgomery, AL: China Aerospace Studies Institute, 2021), pp. 140–41,
available at www.airuniversity.af.edu/Portals/10/CASI/documents/Research/PLA
AF/2021-04-12%20CASI_70%20Years%20of%20the%20PLAAF_FINAL%20ALL
.pdf; Annual Report to Congress: China (2021), p. 58. For a detailed review of
the Airborne Corps’s organizational structure, see Lee, The PLA Airborne Corps
in a Taiwan Scenario.
6. PLA Aerospace Power: A Primer on Trends in China’s Military Air, Space, and
Missile Forces, 2nd ed. (Montgomery, AL: China Aerospace Studies Institute,
2019), p. 109, available at www.airuniversity.af.edu/Portals/10/CASI/Books/
Primer_2nd_Edition_Web_2019-07-30.pdf.
7. 张玉良 [Zhang Yuliang], ed., 战役学 [Science of Campaigns] (Beijing: National
Defense Univ. Press, 2006), pp. 310–12, 589.
8. It is not clear whether these references are to airborne-force-specific or special-
operations forces units in general. Ibid., pp. 319–20.
9. Ibid., pp. 327–29.
10. Ibid., pp. 589, 594–95, 598–602.
11. Ibid., pp. 593–94.
12. Ibid., p. 592.
13. Ian Burns McCaslin and Andrew S. Erickson, Selling a Maritime Air Force: The
PLAAF’s Campaign for a Bigger Maritime Role (Montgomery, AL: China
Aerospace Studies Institute, February 2019), pp. 19, 52 note 72, available
at www.airuniversity.af.edu/Portals/10/CASI/Books/CASI_Maritime_CAF_Web
_Version.pdf.
14. Annual Report to Congress: China (2019), p. 40.
15. Dennis J. Blasko, The Chinese Army Today: Tradition and Transformation for the
21st Century, 2nd ed. (New York: Routledge, 2012), p. 104.
16. PLA Aerospace Power, p. 25.
17. Xi Zhigang and Jiang Long, “In-Depth: A Close Look at Chinese Airborne Troops,”
China Military Online, 30 August 2017, eng.chinamil.com.cn/view/2017-08/
30/content_7736996.htm. This link is now broken, but the article is available at
china-defense.blogspot.com/2017/09/in-depth-close-look-at-chinese-airborne
.html.
18. Blasko, The Chinese Army Today, p. 132.
19. For a detailed examination of the Airborne Corps’s mechanized forces, see Lee,
The PLA Airborne Corps in a Taiwan Scenario.
 T H E P L A A I R B O R N E C O R P S I N A J O I N T I S L A N D L A N D I N G C A M PA I G N 169

20. 寿晓松 [Shou Xiaosong], ed., 战略学 [Science of Military Strategy] (Beijing: Acad-
emy of Military Science Press, 2013), p. 221.
21. 肖天亮 [Xiao Tianliang], ed., 战略学 [Science of Military Strategy] (Beijing: Na-
tional Defense Univ. Press, 2020), pp. 374–77.
22. Trevethan, “Brigadization” of the PLA Air Force, p. 26. The International Institute
for Strategic Studies states that the corps’s transport brigade has Y-5, Y-7, Y-8, and
Y-12 aircraft. International Institute for Strategic Studies [IISS], The Military Bal-
ance (London: IISS, 2022), p. 261 [volumes of this annual publication hereafter
cited as IISS, The Military Balance (year)]. See also Lee, The PLA Airborne Corps in
a Taiwan Scenario.
23. Annual Report to Congress: China (2018), p. 97; Annual Report to Congress: China
(2019), p. 86.
24. Cristina L. Garafola and Timothy R. Heath, The Chinese Air Force’s First Steps
toward Becoming an Expeditionary Air Force, RR-2056-AF (Santa Monica, CA:
RAND, 2017), available at www.rand.org/pubs/research_reports/RR2056.html.
25. IISS, The Military Balance (2021), pp. 218, 232; IISS, The Military Balance (2022),
p. 261.
26. Blasko, The Chinese Army Today, p. 187.
27. McCaslin and Erickson, Selling a Maritime Air Force, pp. 19, 52 note 72.
28. Xinhua News Agency, 18 October 2009, quoted in Dennis J. Blasko, “PLA Exercises
March toward Trans-regional Joint Training,” Jamestown Foundation China Brief
9, no. 22 (4 November 2009), available at jamestown.org/program/pla-exercises
-march-toward-trans-regional-joint-training/.
29. Blasko, “PLA Exercises March”; Blasko, The Chinese Army Today, pp. 184–85.
30. Wang Haitao and Zhao Qigang, “Airborne Troops Realize Rapid High-Altitude
Combat in Organic Unit,” PLA Daily, 13 August 2010, english.pladaily.com.cn/.
This link is now broken, but the article is reproduced at china-defense.blogspot
.com/2010/08/15th-airborne-corps-conducts-large.html.
31. For more on PLAAF leaders’ increasing push for the air force to adopt a maritime
role, see Mark R. Cozad and Nathan Beauchamp-Mustafaga, People’s Liberation
Army Air Force Operations over Water: Maintaining Relevance in China’s Chang-
ing Security Environment, RR-2057-AF (Santa Monica, CA: RAND, 2017), avail-
able at www.rand.org/pubs/research_reports/RR2057.html; McCaslin and Erick-
son, Selling a Maritime Air Force; and Allen and Garafola, 70 Years of the PLA Air
Force.
32. McCaslin and Erickson, Selling a Maritime Air Force, p. 19, citing Lu Xiaoping,
The PLA Air Force (Beijing: China Intercontinental, 2011), p. 105; 尹闻博 [Yi
Wenbo] and 蒋龙 [Jiang Long], 全域直达练就能降: 空降兵某航运旅对陌生
海岛目标实施模拟空降训练小记 [“Achieving Airdrop Capability through All-
Domain Direct Reach Operations: Air Force Airborne’s Air Transport Brigade
Carries Out Simulated Airdrop over Unfamiliar Island Targets”], 空军报 [Air
Force Daily], 7 June 2017, p. 1.
33. Huang, “Paratroops Jump Out of Y-20 Transport Aircraft”; Li, “Y-20’s Completion
of First Heavy Equipment Airdrop.”
34. Annual Report to Congress: China (2019), pp. 23, 86.
170 C H I N E S E A M P H I B I O U S WA R FA R E

35. Annual Report to Congress: China (2020), p. 53.

36. 低可视涂装运-20首次曝光高调展示重装空投步战车 [“First Exposure of the
Low-Visibility Coating on Y-20; High-Profile Display of Heavy Air-Dropped In-
fantry Fighting Vehicle”], 新浪军事 [Sina Military], 13 August 2021, mil.news
.sina.com.cn/china/2021-08-13/doc-ikqcfncc2678610.shtml.
37. Annual Report to Congress: China (2021), p. 58.
38. 陈辉 [Chen Hui] and 刘昌宝 [Liu Changbao], 第一支空降兵部队: 蓝天劲旅
[“The First Airborne Force Unit: An Elite Blue-Sky Force”], 新华社 [Xinhua],
27 July 2017, m.xinhuanet.com/2017-07/27/c_129665599.htm.
39. Garafola and Heath, The Chinese Air Force’s First Steps, p. 13.
40. Ibid., p. 19.
41. Ibid.
42. Ibid.
43. Ibid.
44. Ibid.
45. CGTN, “China’s Airborne Troops Win 11 Events in Int’l Army Games,” 12 August
2017, YouTube video, 0:47, www.youtube.com/watch?v=OJFzWbVQyOY.
46. PLA Aerospace Power, p. 75. It does not appear that airborne forces participated in
Shaheen VII, VIII, or IX.
47. Annual Report to Congress: China (2019), p. 62.
48. Xu Yi, ed., “China-Australia-US Joint Exercise ‘KOWARI 2019’ Held,” China
Military Online, 5 September 2019, eng.chinamil.com.cn/view/2019-09/05/
content_9611995.htm.
49. Annual Report to Congress: China (2020), p. 53.
50. Annual Report to Congress: China (2021), p. 58.
51. Li Wei, “Interview: Highlights of China-Russia Joint Exercise Zapad/Interaction-
2021,” China Military Online, 10 August 2018, english.chinamil.com.cn/view/2021
-08/10/content_10073992.htm.
52. John Chen and James Mulvenon, “PLA Foreign Training Exchanges: More than
Military Diplomacy?,” in The People of the PLA 2.0, ed. Roy Kamphausen
(Carlisle, PA: Strategic Studies Institute and U.S. Army War College Press,
July 2021), pp. 317–18, available at press.armywarcollege.edu/cgi/viewcontent
.cgi?article=1940&context=monographs.
53. Annual Report to Congress: China (2019), p. 40.
54. Xiao, Science of Military Strategy, pp. 351, 354.
55. Annual Report to Congress: China (2019), p. 32.
56. “First Exposure of the Low-Visibility Coating on Y-20.” Another article also
summarized a series of CCTV television reports on PLA exercises. 运-20列装5
周年: 解锁新战法! 首次和武直-10协同奔袭作战 [“5-Year Anniversary of the
Y-20 Entering Service: Unlocking New Tactics! First Coordinated Assault Op-
erations with WZ-10”], 腾讯网 [Tencent Network], 6 July 2021, new.qq.com/
omn/20210706/20210706A098E000.html. See additionally Liu Xuanzun, “China’s
Y-20 Cargo Aircraft Joins 1st Helicopter Assault Drill, Celebrates 5th In-Service
 T H E P L A A I R B O R N E C O R P S I N A J O I N T I S L A N D L A N D I N G C A M PA I G N 171

Anniversary,” Global Times, 6 July 2021, www.globaltimes.cn/page/202107/1228004

.shtml.
57. McCaslin and Erickson, Selling a Maritime Air Force, p. 19.
58. Blasko, The Chinese Army Today, p. 104.
59. “5-Year Anniversary of the Y-20 Entering Service.”
60. Garafola and Heath, The Chinese Air Force’s First Steps, pp. 13–14.
61. Allen and Garafola, 70 Years of the PLA Air Force, pp. 300, 459 note 1642.
62. “Chinese Il-76 Aircraft to Conduct Heavy-Equipment Air Dropping,” Global
Times, 24 August 2014, www.globaltimes.cn/content/877805.shtml.
63. Ibid.
64. Allen and Garafola, 70 Years of the PLA Air Force, pp. 46–47, 77–78, 80.
65. Trevethan, “Brigadization” of the PLA Air Force, p. 26.
66. Garafola and Heath, The Chinese Air Force’s First Steps, p. 21.
67. Zhao Lei, “1,400 Military Medics Arrive in Wuhan to Fight Epidemic,” China
Daily, 13 February 2020, www.chinadaily.com.cn/a/202002/13/WS5e44f7a5a310
128217277562.html; 空军运-20飞抵武汉! 首次参加非战争军事行 [“PLAAF
Y-20 Flies to Wuhan! First Time Participating in MOOTW”], 新华 [Xinhua],
13 February 2020, www.xinhuanet.com/2020-02/13/c_1125569747.htm.
68. Zhang, Science of Campaigns, pp. 593–94.
69. Roger Cliff et al., Shaking the Heavens and Splitting the Earth: Chinese Air Force
Employment Concepts in the 21st Century, MG-915-AF (Santa Monica, CA: RAND,
2011), p. 166.
70. The author thanks Scott Boston for his review of this chapter and for raising the
points that follow in the text.
71. John Gordon IV et al., Enhanced Army Airborne Forces: A New Joint Operational
Capability, RR-309-A (Santa Monica, CA: RAND, 2014), esp. pp. 15–30 on threats,
available at www.rand.org/pubs/research_reports/RR309.html.
72. 王明亮 [Wang Mingliang], 空降兵为什么被称为“战略拳头” [“Why Airborne
Troops Are Called ‘Strategic Fists’”], 新浪 [Sina], 17 September 2020, news.sina
.com.cn/o/2020-09-17/doc-iivhvpwy7147522.shtml.
 Tom Fox

9. The PLA Ground Forces’

New Helicopters
An “Easy Button” for Crossing the Taiwan Strait?

China watchers long have paid close attention to the modernization

efforts that the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) has carried on more or
less continuously since Deng Xiaoping included them as one of his Four
Modernizations. While much academic and media coverage of this process
understandably has focused on high-dollar and high-technology platforms
such as fighter jets, submarines, and aircraft carriers, the PLA also has made
significant investments in updating its rotary-wing capabilities. The PLA
not only has developed and acquired different types of advanced helicop-
ters; it also has bought more of them, modified their organizational struc-
ture, and trained their pilots and aircrews to feature these capabilities more
prominently. Because of the historical centrality of Taiwan “reunification”
and recently increased cross-strait tensions, these developments raise the
big question: How might these new helicopters help the PLA invade Taiwan?
This chapter seeks to answer that question, while focusing specifically
on the rotary-wing capabilities of the PLA ground forces (PLAGF). The
chapter proceeds in four parts. The first part explores the new rotary-wing
capabilities by analyzing the helicopters themselves, the organizations field-
ing them, and the training and doctrine for their employment. The second
part focuses on scenario development. It presents two possible approaches
174 C H I N E S E A M P H I B I O U S WA R FA R E

that the PLAGF might use to leverage these new capabilities in a Taiwan
invasion. The third part assesses the PLAGF’s current readiness to play the
roles envisioned in the two scenarios. The fourth part turns to Taiwan’s op-
tions for responding to these developments and how best to counter the
PLA’s increased capabilities.
This chapter also highlights changes within the PLAGF’s aviation corps.
While rotary-wing capability development also has improved PLA Navy
(PLAN) options for antisubmarine warfare and amphibious operations, the
bulk of significant change has occurred within the PLAGF. With these new
capabilities, a massive cross-strait air assault may look like an “easy button”
to help the PLA avoid the notorious difficulty of amphibious operations.1
This chapter argues that the PLAGF currently lacks the capabilities needed
to serve this function in a cross-strait invasion scenario.

The PLAGF’s Helicopters, Aviation Units, and

New Air-Assault Capabilities
In the past ten years, the PLA quickly has developed a very robust helicopter
force. The table below compares growth numbers in 2011, 2012, 2020, and
2021 of the PLA’s helicopter force.
These numbers suggest that the PLAGF’s aviation forces are still very
much in development. The rapid fielding of new helicopters—the Z-10,
Z-19, and, most notably, Z-20—means that baseline proficiency for pilots

Table 1. Recent Growth in the PLA’s Helicopter Force

Helicopter 2011 2012 2020 2021

Attack/Recon

Z-10 10 16 150 150

Z-19 0 0 120 120

Z-9 126 226 234 234

Lift

Heavy: Z-8 7 17 105 111

Medium: Mi-17 200 200 278 278

Medium: Z-20 0 0 12+ 24+

Source: International Institute for Strategic Studies, The Military Balance, respective years noted, available at
www.iiss.org/publications/the-military-balance/archive.
 T H E P L A G RO U N D F O RC E S’ N E W H ELI C O P T ER S 175

and units will take time to achieve, putting operational capability even fur-
ther down the road. This table also captures some degree of uncertainty
about where the overall fielded helicopter force is going, particularly with
the introduction of the Z-20. It is unclear what total number of Z-20s the
PLA has ordered and whether these new “homegrown” Chinese helicop-
ters will replace Mi-17s and Z-9s fully in combat formations. It is possible
that this current, initial fielding of Z-20s is a test run of their reliability
before the scaling up of full production for them to replace older platforms.
A December 2020 article in China Military Online implied that the Z-20s
eventually would replace the Mi-17s completely, stating, “[T]his reflects
the general trend that the Z-20 is replacing the Mi-17 series.”2 Given the
relatively slow rate of fielding shown in the Military Balance numbers (from
12+ to 24+) in the last two years, it is reasonable to expect a correspondingly
slow training period to retrain former Mi-17 and Z-9 pilots and train new
pilots to fly the Z-20.3 Later in this chapter, I discuss the downstream effects
of that on operational capabilities.
How do these helicopters stack up qualitatively against their U.S. equiv-
alents? While it might be tempting to run through charts of maximum
airspeeds, gross weights, and other technical minutiae, that type of
analysis could miss the forest for the trees. Helicopters have technical
limitations that come down to the basic physics and aerodynamics of
rotary-wing aviation. This current generation of Chinese platforms likely
compares favorably with its U.S. counterparts, which should come as no
surprise, given the latecomer catch-up advantage and the proli-
feration of technological expertise.4 Therefore, the more relevant analysis
focuses on operational capabilities, not technical capabilities.
The recent reorganization of the PLAGF has overhauled significant-
ly how aviation fits into the operational scheme, making army aviation
brigades an essential part of all thirteen group armies.5 This aligns with
overall PLA efforts to prepare for modern warfare and generally mirrors
how the U.S. Army includes a combat-aviation brigade (CAB) in each of its
divisions. In addition to those thirteen Chinese brigades, aviation brigades
are assigned to both the Tibet and Xinjiang military districts.
PLAGF aviation brigades generally follow the same organizational
structure. Each brigade includes four transport battalions, two attack
battalions, one reconnaissance squadron, a headquarters element, and a
maintenance-and-support battalion.6
The two specially designated air-assault brigades assigned to the
Seventy-Fifth and Eighty-Third Group Armies are exceptions to this rule.
These air-assault brigades differ from the standard aviation brigade because
176 C H I N E S E A M P H I B I O U S WA R FA R E

they have two or three permanently assigned infantry battalions.7 This

arrangement enables them to focus narrowly on training for air-assault op-
erations and to increase their proficiency in that specific mission set.8
Owing to the massive growth of the PLA’s helicopter fleet over the
last decade and the significant turnover in types of helicopters, it remains
difficult to ascertain the exact numbers of helicopters per battalion in each
of these brigades. Using the International Institute for Strategic Studies
numbers, Dennis Blasko estimates about eighty helicopters per brigade, but
he recognizes that the brigades may not be at full strength yet.9 By compar-
ison, sources suggest that the U.S. Army’s active CABs have 110 helicopters
apiece.10 These American CABs belong to divisions that typically have ten
to fifteen thousand soldiers.11 Since Blasko assesses that PLA group armies
typically are manned at fifty to sixty thousand personnel, this is clearly
not an apples-to-apples comparison.12 The U.S. Army currently has a much
higher ratio of helicopters to soldiers; however, the PLA may be building up
to a more robust ratio to meet the demands of modern combat.
Helicopters provide unmatched mobility and flexibility, and it appears
that the PLAGF recognizes this and is changing its tactics and organiza-
tions accordingly. The clearest statement of this sentiment appeared in
a 2018 PLA Daily article by PLAGF staff member Yuan Ziliang, entitled
“Winning the Ground War from the Air.”13 This detailed rundown of the
development of air-assault capabilities provides an invaluable window into
recent PLA thinking about why helicopters matter on the modern bat-
tlefield, and it gives an assessment of current progress in implementing
changes to support these new capabilities.
Yuan specifically cites the lessons learned from air-assault operations
in Vietnam, the Persian Gulf, Iraq, and Afghanistan to argue how essential
these capabilities are for fighting modern wars. He goes on to introduce
six types of air-assault operations: attack-in-depth operations (超越攻击
作战), leapfrog-combat operations (蛙跳合击作战), vertical-landing oper-
ations (垂直登陆作战), point-seizure operations (要点夺控作战), special-
air-raid operations (特种空突作战), and crisis-control operations (危机管
控行动). These are listed here in approximate descending order of size and
complexity.
All six types of air-assault operations could be used in Taiwan sce-
narios, but the first three are most relevant to a large-scale amphibious
invasion. They are the most robust capabilities, so they have the highest
chance of being decisive. It is reasonable to expect that all six might be used
to varying degrees, but the most dangerous (from the perspective of Tai-
wan’s defense) are attack-in-depth, leapfrog-combat, and vertical-landing
operations.
 T H E P L A G RO U N D F O RC E S’ N E W H ELI C O P T ER S 177

PLAGF views on air assault and vertical envelopment likely share simi-
larities with U.S. Army doctrine. A 2019 PLA Daily article quotes a deputy
brigade commander, Shi Lei, who described air assault as “not just army
aviation carrying infantry, but a new combat force combining the two.”14
This description is remarkably similar to the way the U.S. Army regards
air-assault operations. For example, the 2010 edition of the Gold Book,
the 101st Airborne’s unofficial guide to executing air-assault operations,
describes air assault as a “combined arms mobile strike,” exploding the
myth that air assaults are merely “air movements of rifle companies.”15 The
similarity between the ways PLA leaders and U.S. Army leaders view this
capability is almost certainly not coincidental. The PLA is a learning orga-
nization, and the U.S. Army has by far the most experience in air-assault
operations on which to draw, so it is unsurprising to see the PLA mirroring
U.S. Army doctrinal thinking.
Chinese media coverage of PLA air-assault brigades offers some in-
sights into the scale and quality of training. It is common to see reports
on exercises with “several dozen helicopters.”16 Reports on China Cen-
tral Television Channel 7 (CCTV7), the official state channel devoted to
PLA issues, show runways full of helicopters with the blades turning
accompanied by a follow-on shot of numerous airborne aircraft headed
off for the mission. One such shot showed thirty-seven helicopters, which
is no small feat given the notorious difficulty of helicopter maintenance.
Involving over three thousand troops and one hundred helicopters,
Assault-2013 was reportedly the largest airmobile exercise PLAGF avia-
tion forces ever have conducted.17
Nonetheless, being able to put a large number of helicopters into the
air for a long-planned exercise is not necessarily indicative of overall
readiness or operational capacity. While these reports show that PLAGF
aviation units are able to get their helicopters into the air simultaneously,
it does not say much about the ability of these units to fly tight formations
at low altitudes for long distances—the critical factors for a crossing of the
Taiwan Strait. Indeed, most of the CCTV7 helicopter coverage shows very
loose formations at relatively high altitudes. Both of those factors would
contribute to easier detection by Taiwanese forces defending the island.
Perhaps more importantly, the absence of media reports showing off the
capabilities needed for a Taiwan invasion suggests that these aviation units
are not yet at that proficiency level.
It is exceedingly difficult to assess the training level of a unit from these
videos alone, but an April 2021 video of the Eighty-Third Group Army’s
air-assault brigade is instructive for what it lacks.18 While it does a nice job
showing off the new Z-20 helicopter and exciting rappelling troop-delivery
178 C H I N E S E A M P H I B I O U S WA R FA R E

techniques, it does not demonstrate that the ground forces can commu-
nicate effectively with the armed Z-10 helicopters to direct fires. A good
portion of the segment focuses on this capability, but the training appears
stilted and staged—which does not bode well for the unit’s ability to ac-
complish the same task successfully in the more demanding mode of com-
bat operations. Air-ground integration is difficult, and it seems the Eighty-
Third Group Army’s air-assault brigade has a long way to go yet.
To be clear, this is only the first step of air-ground integration, as it is
within the organic unit’s capabilities set. Derek Solen’s recent paper about
the PLA’s development of close air support details how far off the PLAGF
and PLA Air Force (PLAAF) remain from being able to integrate their plat-
forms and units to achieve effects on the battlefield.19 While they have the
necessary technologies to accomplish this, the units seem to be at the very
basic level of demonstrating that they can talk to each other, connect their
weapons-designation and -delivery systems, and get rounds downrange.
This is a far cry from the high-level integration that would be required to
synchronize joint fires and air support to set the conditions for a cross-
strait air assault, let alone the level of integration that ground forces would
want to support their continued offensive operations following a successful
landing. These are not capabilities that units can develop rapidly, as they
are highly resource intensive and demand that each participating unit be
proficient in its own missions before combining forces to execute effective
joint training.
An April 2021 report on the Eightieth Group Army aviation brigade
shows how its training is increasingly complex. The report focused on the
element of controlling helicopters far forward on the battlefield.20 This
coverage showed progress in terms of building institutional knowledge
to develop aircrew proficiency while simultaneously demonstrating a tac-
tical preference to retain control at the unit headquarters. There are sig-
nificant trade-offs in terms of initiative and flexibility with that type of
control. Moreover, this approach relies on constant communication and
shared situational awareness, which could be degraded by the distances
across the strait and Taiwan’s active efforts to contest PLA forces in the
electromagnetic spectrum. When coupled with the difficulty of integrating
joint fires detailed above, this report showing PLAGF aviation units taking
initial steps to command and control airmobile operations suggests how
far away the PLA remains from the ability to execute these operations with
proficiency.
 T H E P L A G RO U N D F O RC E S’ N E W H ELI C O P T ER S 179

Developing Scenarios for Air Assaults across the Strait

While it is clear that the PLA follows the U.S. military’s example on air-
assault operations to some extent, it is essential to remember that there are
significant differences between the air assaults the U.S. military has executed
in its recent combat operations and the ones the PLA is developing for cross-
strait operations in a Taiwan scenario. From Vietnam to Iraq to Afghanistan,
the U.S. military has not had to deal with one hundred miles of water sepa-
rating its air bases from its targets. This certainly increases the degree of dif-
ficulty for the PLA as it considers how best to employ air-assault capabilities
in support of an amphibious assault across the strait.
This section offers two plausible scenarios for a Taiwan invasion, one
conventional and one unconventional. Both of these possibilities reflect the
recent development of helicopters as a “main force in cross-sea operations,”
as noted in December 2020 Global Times reporting.21 Instead of using he-
licopter landings as a component in support of a large amphibious assault,
the scenarios discussed below imagine helicopter landings as the decisive
operation to achieve a victory for the PLA in taking Taiwan. These scenar-
ios draw on the conclusions of Daniel Taylor and Benjamin Frohman in
their analysis of retired PLA lieutenant general Wang Hongguang’s bold
assessment that the PLA can seize Taiwan successfully in three days.22
They find that the PLA is not outfitting itself for a full-on Normandy-style
landing and that Wang’s argument for a multidimensional attack tracks
with both the PLA’s technological acquisitions and its development of new
training and doctrine.
In both scenarios, the large-scale air assaults would be nested within
a larger joint scheme of maneuver that also would include a massive pre-
paratory bombardment by air and missile forces, followed by a significant
amphibious assault. The primary goal of that amphibious assault would
be to present the Taiwanese armed forces with multiple dilemmas, thereby
stretching Taiwan’s resources and diverting attention away from the inland
landing zones where the PLA aims to achieve overmatch and secure its vic-
tory. Key inland landing zones might include existing airfields and other
infrastructure that would allow follow-on forces to flow into Taiwan and
control the island.
The main difference between the conventional and unconventional
scenarios presented here is a strategic assumption about how quickly the
PLA could compel Taiwan’s political leadership to surrender. The conven-
tional scenario assumes that rapid dominance moves this process along
very quickly, with the focal point at Taiwan’s presidential office building.
18 0 C H I N E S E A M P H I B I O U S WA R FA R E

The unconventional scenario assumes that the PLA anticipates a more

drawn-out fight in which it could achieve relatively quick overmatch of
the Taiwanese armed forces, but that it also would have to transition into
complex and difficult stability operations before getting Taiwan’s leaders
to the negotiating table. To prepare for that counterinsurgency in this un-
conventional scenario, the PLA would have to hold some of its best assets
in reserve during the initial assault.
Both scenarios assume a moderately robust defense of Taiwan, primar-
ily by the Taiwanese armed forces; they do not account for U.S. military
assistance, because of the rapidity of the operations. This is a “best-case”
scenario for the PLA, giving it the benefit of the doubt in achieving some
level of strategic surprise by hiding China’s intentions, probably under the
guise of exercises, training, or other normal military movements. While
this may be highly unlikely, given the deep mutual intelligence penetra-
tion on both sides of the strait, making these scenarios “worst-case” for
Taiwan clarifies how its leaders best could prepare and demonstrates how
difficult it would be for the PLA to pull them off even with such helpful
assumptions.23

Scenario 1: Conventional Air-Assault Overmatch for Rapid Victory

The first scenario is a massive air-assault operation that attempts to max-
imize the number of soldiers on the ground within the shortest amount of
time. This is a “put all your eggs in one basket” approach. In this scenario,
the PLAGF would use nearly all its rotary-wing inventory to overwhelm
Taiwan’s defenses and convince Taiwan’s political leadership that resis-
tance is futile and surrender is preferable. This scenario imagines PLAN
amphibious assaults as feints to pull resources away from the airfields
and population centers that are decisive for the PLA. Further, it requires
that the PLAAF maintain air superiority over Taiwan for the twenty-four
hours of near-constant air assaults spread throughout the island. The PLA
Rocket Force (PLARF) would need to play a significant role in suppressing
Taiwanese air defenses and launching preparatory fires on key targets and
landing zones. This is a highly complex scenario requiring significant joint
integration originating from the highest levels of command and control
but necessary all the way down to the tactical level of unit coordination,
deconfliction, and synchronization. While the PLA has made great strides
in achieving “jointness,” its own assessment is that it still has a long way to
go on these fronts.24
A brief rundown of the complexity of this scenario helps in assessing
its plausibility. Given the objective of maximizing PLA personnel on the
ground in Taiwan in the shortest amount of time, this scenario revolves
 T H E P L A G RO U N D F O RC E S’ N E W H ELI C O P T ER S 181

around securing airfields and ports to ensure that massive numbers of

reinforcements could flow in rapidly following the initial invasion. The
two specially designated air-assault brigades of the Seventy-Fifth and
Eighty-Third Group Armies would be tasked with securing the crown
jewels: Taipei Songshan Airport and Kaohsiung Airport and Harbor. Other
army aviation brigades would assault other important targets, including
Taoyuan Airport, Taichung Airport, military bases, and key terrain in
support of the amphibious landings. The PLA likely would leave some assets
in reserve to preserve flexibility and retain the ability to reinforce itself,
as well as to maintain vigilance on other fronts in case a neighboring
force took advantage of Beijing’s preoccupation with Taiwan. Except for
the Tibet and Xinjiang brigades, a plausible number of brigades in reserve
is three, leaving ten full brigades to participate in the scenario.
To pre-position the required helicopters, personnel, and ammunition
within range of their destinations across the strait, the PLAGF would have
to move five out-of-area brigades into assembly areas closer to the coast.
While the helicopters likely would fly there despite some risk of detection,
the troops and matériel probably would move overland via rail and road. It
would be nearly impossible for the PLA to move this much muscle without
raising eyebrows in the foreign intelligence community, not to mention the
possibility of local populations sharing pictures of so many helicopters fly-
ing overhead via social media. In the very best case, this type of movement
would take multiple days—and more likely over a week—to iron out main-
tenance kinks that arose in the initial deployment and to set up refueling
and rearming operations.
Assuming a successful initial deployment, the next big hurdle is getting
across the strait. While spreading out target destinations geographically
makes the problem set a bit easier, it still would be a tall task to manage
the airspace to sequence hundreds of helicopters fully loaded with troops
supported by helicopter gunships securing their landings and subsequent
maneuver. The distance involved to cross the strait from suitable mainland
staging areas does not allow much room for error in deconflicting the air-
space. Each brigade-level air assault demands its own unique entry and exit
routes, and prudence dictates planning at least one alternate route, if not a
second alternate as well, depending on resistance encountered at the shore-
line or elsewhere. Helicopter pilots generally prefer remaining closer to the
ground to avoid radar detection and threats, but successful suppression of
that threat would open up other flight profiles for these PLA helicopters.
One advantage for the PLA in this planning is that the terrain is static.
It can conduct thorough reconnaissance of the target terrain over time
via multiple methods, ranging from technologically advanced geospatial
182 C H I N E S E A M P H I B I O U S WA R FA R E

intelligence to simple, seemingly innocuous tourism. Detailed reconnais-

sance allows for better planning, and these benefits multiply when cou-
pled with high-quality simulation capabilities.25 The PLA is sure to exploit
opportunities for rehearsals in accurately constructed virtual-training
environments—likely for years leading up to an actual attempt to secure
“reunification” by force.
Another aspect of the extremely crowded airspace is that the attack he-
licopters likely would be tasked with conducting independent attacks in
addition to securing the air assaults. That increases the demand for air
corridors and further complicates airspace management. Once again, for
this planning process to succeed it would need to be deeply joint, as both
the PLAAF and PLARF simultaneously would put significant demands on
the airspace to achieve their desired effects on the battlefield.
Even though air assaults are the decisive operations in this scenario’s
scheme of maneuver, it is reasonable to expect that there also would be sev-
eral airborne operations as well, since paratroopers could overwhelm other
targets and present the Taiwanese armed forces with more dilemmas. The
PLA special-operations forces might be air-dropped from PLAGF aviation
brigades’ small planes, which are capable of inserting teams of eight to
twelve soldiers, while the larger airborne operations would rely on PLAAF
transport planes (Y-20, Il-76, Y-9, and Y-8) carrying larger loads of over one
hundred paratroopers.26 These airborne operations require more airspace
deconfliction and would place even greater demands on the rotary-wing
attack-aviation assets in support of ground maneuver.
While the PLA has increased joint exercises and is working up to
greater planning and execution integration, the difference in scale between
those exercises and this operation is massive.27 The PLA has significant
work to do in this area before it can feel confident in its ability to man-
age this high level of complexity for the airspace alone. This discussion
omits another major challenge: planning and sequencing of fire-support
missions. Suffice it to say that coordinating rocket and missile fires across
the strait in support of the PLAGF’s missions while deconflicting with the
simultaneous PLAN amphibious assault would be difficult. It is also worth
a reminder here that the rosy assumption about achieving some strategic
surprise is very rosy indeed.
This scenario also calls for a direct assault on the presidential office
building by PLA special-operations forces in an effort to seize control of
the governmental decision-making apparatus, physically to capture Tai-
wan’s political leaders, and to deal a devastating psychological blow to both
the military and the civilian populace. The well-documented mock-up of
 T H E P L A G RO U N D F O RC E S’ N E W H ELI C O P T ER S 183

this key building at Zhurihe demonstrates the PLA’s focus on it as a target

and allows for hyperrealistic training.28 The psychological effects of seeing
one’s seat of government captured in military training exercises certainly
are not lost on PLA planners. However, the difficulty of this portion of the
operation cannot be overstated, mostly because Taiwan knows it is coming.
This allows for thorough contingency planning to keep Taiwan’s political
leaders safe.
In this scenario, the full employment of the PLAGF’s rotary-wing avi-
ation capabilities would aim for the rapid seizure of ten key targets in the
initial wave. This assumes one target each for ten aviation brigades, with
three held in reserve and the Xinjiang and Tibet brigades remaining com-
mitted to their military districts. Subsequent waves either could reinforce
those positions or could secure lower-priority targets. Planners would have
to assume some attrition of helicopters in each sortie, but optimistically
they could plan for four total cross-strait insertions in the first twenty-four
hours, assuming that the units are fully manned, are able to execute a mid-
day crew swap, and can keep the helicopters flying all day.29 Sorties later
in the day likely would be planned for smaller units and targets, given the
anticipated combat attrition and demands of helicopter maintenance. Re-
turning to the planning assumption of rapid victory, we can see that these
numerous and long flight hours are unsustainable for anything but the
briefest of operational windows. This scenario anticipates rapid war ter-
mination that mirrors the bold assumptions made by Lieutenant General
Wang in his version of a successful invasion.

Scenario 2: Unconventional Air Assault for the Long Haul

The second scenario differs from the first because of its driving assumption
that securing a political end to armed conflict will take much more time.
If the PLA accepts this planning assumption, it could consider innovative
approaches, such as taking advantage of its reported pending replacement
of Mi-17s with Z-20s.30 While the PLA theoretically could mothball this
fleet or sell these excess Mi-17s to foreign militaries to recoup some of its
investment, it also could use them for a one-way trip across the Taiwan
Strait as the initial assault force for a planned occupation of the island.31
This would allow the PLA to assume greater risk with these helicopters, as
they would be unnecessary for the long-term design of the PLA.
This scenario offers some significant advantages for the PLAGF’s avi-
ation forces when compared with the more conventional first scenario.
Chief among these advantages is an increased ability to achieve some de-
gree of strategic surprise. Because this approach would not employ the
18 4 C H I N E S E A M P H I B I O U S WA R FA R E

entire helicopter inventory, there is a greater chance that it could be con-

cealed under the guise of divestment of the Mi-17 inventory or some oth-
er false pretense. It also would be smaller in scale, making it more likely
to escape the notice of watchful intelligence analysts in Taiwan, Japan, and
the United States. Finally, the one-way-trip aspect of this operation would
allow for more-distant staging of these forces, thus enabling better conceal-
ment of preparations. Depending on the loading and use of auxiliary fuel
tanks, assault elements could stage as far away as one thousand kilometers,
well beyond the mainland coastal areas typically associated with cross-strait
operations.
The general theory of this scenario would be to accept a high level of
risk with the initial air-assault force by attacking a similar target set to
that of the first scenario, but without the full support of attack helicopters
and with less joint support by preparatory fires. This unconventional ini-
tial assault then would allow for a follow-on mission that looks more like
the conventional first scenario. However, the follow-on mission would be
much easier, because opening with the unconventional wave would force
Taiwan to expend its antiair resources and show its hand. Because the PLA
would accept the higher losses of Mi-17s and expect that most, if not all, of
them would not return to the mainland, this would alleviate much of the
complexity in airspace management for the second wave.
Another significant benefit of this approach is the diminished risk for the
second wave of helicopters. The PLA could expect higher survivability for
those aircraft, preserving that combat power for the transition to stability
operations. Employing these newer and higher-cost platforms in this way is
a particularly attractive option if the PLA expects that it will have to sustain
a fighting force on Taiwan for prolonged operations to force Taiwan’s leaders
to the negotiating table. Once airfields and ports are secured, the PLA would
flow huge numbers of ground forces into Taiwan, and the army aviation
brigades would provide these forces with impressive mobility and flexibility
to occupy key terrain all over the island.
The most significant drawback to this unconventional approach is the
expected high initial attrition rate. Commanders might have a hard time
motivating their pilots and ground forces to accept such a high-risk mission,
especially because the overall scheme of maneuver makes quite clear that
this is a one-way trip for most and acknowledges that much of the mission’s
tactical utility stems from forcing Taiwan to expend its defensive antiair
resources. While the ideological fervor of PLA forces may be robust—partic-
ularly with regard to the sacrosanct mission of “national reunification”—
PLA leaders probably would have to oversell the expected survivability of
 T H E P L A G RO U N D F O RC E S’ N E W H ELI C O P T ER S 185

these forces to the participants themselves. Some of that success in convinc-

ing the participants might depend on the broader political context at the
time, as certain circumstances could encourage greater volunteerism for a
mission that borders on martyrdom.

Assessing PLA Readiness for Cross-Strait Air Assaults

In both these scenarios, the PLA would mass its rotary-wing capabilities
to achieve dominance via a series of complex cross-strait air assaults. The
significant buildup of helicopters within the PLAGF and its accompany-
ing training and doctrinal updates make these kinds of operations possible
for future Taiwan contingencies. On the basis of the evidence currently
available, the PLAGF is at best a decade away from being able to mount
an operation on this scale with the requisite joint integration to give it a
fighting chance for success.32 This assessment is derived primarily from
the observed exercises as reported by Chinese media sources, in which
the key weaknesses in both scale and jointness are readily apparent. To be
fair, the PLA acknowledges that these advanced capabilities remain aspira-
tional and in development. PLAGF expert Yuan Ziliang (discussed above)
set the time horizon at twenty to thirty years before reaching operational
proficiency in line with the demands of the modern battlefield.33
Observers should continue to watch these joint exercises and the PLA’s
professional publications for developments as the PLA builds this capac-
ity.34 Key indicators of progress would include the scale, complexity, and
frequency of the exercises. Media reports consistently emphasize scale, but
there has been little in the way of multibrigade rotary-wing participation.
For complexity, it is worth noting how many different types of units are in-
volved in these exercises and how many different mission tasks are trained
over the course of a large-scale exercise. Until there is evidence of oper-
ations that include the PLAGF, PLAAF, and PLARF synchronizing their
efforts to achieve effects, foreign observers should be highly skeptical that
they can accomplish the necessary coordination to get across the strait and
into desired key target areas to land helicopters and dismount maneuver
forces. Exercise frequency is another critical signal. Prior coordination of
such exercises is extremely difficult. When the PLA develops habitual re-
lationships across its joint force, it will be able to conduct more-frequent
exercises.
One word of caution about relying on exercises for this analysis:
soldiers tend to dislike “dog and pony shows.” In our media-driven world,
18 6 C H I N E S E A M P H I B I O U S WA R FA R E

there is growing demand for photos and videos to prove something hap-
pened. With military training, the best photos and videos do not neces-
sarily demonstrate the greatest degree of proficiency or readiness. What
makes for a great video might not be tactically sound. Moreover, getting a
hundred helicopters into the air simultaneously for the photo opportunity
might come at the cost of training something more complex and tactically
useful.
Further assessment demands a discussion of the key risks the PLA
faces in an attempted cross-strait air assault. From a rotary-wing perspec-
tive, this is all about the surface-to-air threat, which includes surface-to-
air missiles (SAMs), man-portable air-defense systems (MANPADS), and
good, old-fashioned guns. Technological developments in these systems fa-
vor the defense.35 Most analyses of these antiair capabilities focus on their
effects against fighter, bomber, and command-and-control capabilities be-
cause the battle among those platforms determines air superiority.
Helicopter pilots tend to conceptualize this threat a bit differently, for
two reasons. First, helicopters are lower-priority targets, so in a resource-
constrained environment (an island defense, for example) they are less
likely to draw fire from the most-advanced platforms. Second, attempt-
ing to evade the radar threat turns any and every gun into an antiaircraft
gun.36 Well-planned battle positions with interlocking fields of fire present
a real threat to low-flying helicopters, even if the adversary only has light
machine guns. While the PLA has some countermeasures for the SAM and
MANPADS threats, there are not a lot of effective ways to remain safe from
flying lead except speed, stealth, and counterfire.37 Taiwan has a significant
advantage here as it prepares defenses for an anticipated PLA air assault.
Terrain restricts the suitability of landing areas while also dictating pre-
ferred air corridors; thus, there is ample time to plan defenses of key terrain
and increase the degree of difficulty for PLA helicopters.
One way the PLA could overcome this need for landing space is in-
sertion via fast-roping.38 Fast-roping allows for insertion into restrictive
terrain, and jungle and urban environments are most relevant for this
analysis. The technique’s most significant advantage is that it does not re-
quire the helicopter to land; if executed aggressively, it shortens the time
required on location at an objective. It does, however, require the helicopter
to perform a stationary hover as the ground troops dismount—making it
extremely vulnerable to the full range of surface-to-air threats. The pri-
mary mitigation of risk comes from the speed of the fast-roping. While this
is an impressive special capability, its tactical utility diminishes at scale
and is not likely to be used for such a massive operation as a cross-strait
air assault.
 T H E P L A G RO U N D F O RC E S’ N E W H ELI C O P T ER S 187

Appreciation of how dangerous and difficult such an air assault would

be raises the questions: How does the PLA interpret these risks, and to
what extent are its Chinese Communist Party (CCP) leaders willing to
accept that risk and its accompanying low probability of success? This
opens the door to a much broader analysis of Chinese military strategy and
decision-making that is beyond the scope of this chapter. However, the PLA’s
doctrinal preference for caution suggests that such a high-risk and low-
certainty operation does not match the clear objectives of managed risk
and high certainty embraced by the PLA.39 Still, air-assault operations do
present new opportunities for the PLA as it considers its options for future
Taiwan scenarios. Given the notorious difficulty of amphibious operations,
the PLA is making a prudent investment by developing more-robust air-
assault capabilities.

Takeaways for Taiwan

Taiwan can take steps to make the challenges described above even more
insuperable for the PLAGF. While some might advocate for high-cost plat-
forms and high-technology sensors in the face of a threat from the air,
a low-cost, high-volume approach that focuses on the procurement of
mobile high-caliber machine guns and significant ammunition stores
would provide greater flexibility and resilience to face the air-assault
threat. The Taiwanese also could pursue the development of antihelicopter
mines, especially to harden known targets and to exploit the advantages of
terrain.40 These recommendations could help the Taiwanese military in-
flict casualties quickly and retain its own freedom of maneuver in the face
of potentially overwhelming numbers coming from the mainland.
Taiwan could bolster its ability to deter and defend against a PLAGF
air assault further by preparing for this specific scenario more explicitly
and exercising its response. Such exercises would be clear signals to the
PLA and CCP that Taiwan is thinking through its defense plan thor-
oughly and considering the specific risks presented by rotary-wing
capabilities. Including a segment of the civilian population in a response
drill would communicate further resolve to counter the threats presented
by the PLA’s development of these new capabilities. While there are risks
of overinflating the threat and creating unnecessary fear in the civilian
populace by exercising a large-scale response, they may be worth taking
if they heighten the average Taiwanese citizen’s awareness about how the
PLA thinks about its role in a future invasion. As noted, PLA observer Lon-
nie Henley made clear in recent testimony to the U.S.-China Economic
18 8 C H I N E S E A M P H I B I O U S WA R FA R E

and Security Review Commission’s hearing on cross-strait deterrence,

“Taiwan’s will to resist is vital but unknowable.”41 Such exercises simulta-
neously could test and build this critical will to resist while signaling
resolve to both the PRC and Taiwan’s international partners.

Not an “Easy Button”—Yet

The PLAGF has developed significant rotary-wing capabilities in the last
decade, and it appears poised to make even greater gains in the next de-
cade, judging by its continued fielding of new helicopters and its commit-
ment to training for the complexity of modern battlefields. While it takes
a long time to build pilot, aircrew, and unit proficiency and even longer
to integrate that capability with ground brethren and the joint force, PLA
watchers should continue to follow developments in this space closely.
In theory, they eventually could become a game changer for the military
balance across the strait, but they are not there yet. The PLA might de-
cide to test these new capabilities on a softer target such as the Kinmen
(Quemoy) or Matsu (Mazu) Islands, although that comes with significant
political risk, the discussion of which is beyond the scope of this analysis.42
Solely from a military perspective, those islands are much harder for Tai-
wan to defend, owing to the extremely favorable geography (small size and
proximity to the mainland) for the PLA.
In the final analysis, all cross-strait military scenarios depend sig-
nificantly on the political circumstances in which they would occur. Air-
assault operations to cross the Taiwan Strait represent a new development
and present Taiwan with another challenge for defending the island, but
not an immediately pressing one and not an undeterrable one. Nonethe-
less, as the PLA continues to strengthen these capabilities, the CCP will
attempt to exploit additional political leverage gained by shifting the mil-
itary balance further in its favor. While deterrence remains possible now
and well into the future, the most important variable to watch is the risk
tolerance of CCP leaders for bearing the significant casualties that would
accompany any attempts to take Taiwan by force. Air assaults are not an
“easy button” for the CCP, but in the next decade they will become a more
realistic option with lower costs than an amphibious assault. And it could
be a button that political circumstances tempt CCP leaders to press.
 T H E P L A G RO U N D F O RC E S’ N E W H ELI C O P T ER S 189

Notes
1. Airborne operations and air assaults are different kinds of operations. Air assault
involves inserting ground troops via helicopter and airborne refers to parachuting
out of an airplane.
2. Chen Lufan, “Z-20 to Play More Roles in China’s Military,” China Military Online,
19 December 2020, english.chinamil.com.cn/view/2020-12/19/content_9955018
.htm.
3. See, e.g., International Institute for Strategic Studies, The Military Balance 2022
(Abingdon, U.K.: Routledge, 2022).
4. Much of the technological expertise likely was stolen, but those gains be-
ing ill-gotten is largely irrelevant to the analysis here. The Z-20 is a near copy
of the American Black Hawk. The PLA was able to reverse engineer much of
the technology from its purchase of S-70s in the 1980s. See Kyle Mizokami,
“Meet China’s Blackhawk Helicopter, the ‘Copyhawk,’” Popular Mechanics, 9 No-
vember 2017, www.popularmechanics.com/military/aviation/a28956/china-black
hawk-helicopter-copyhawk/.
5. Dennis J. Blasko, “The PLA Army after ‘Below the Neck’ Reforms: Contributing to
China’s Joint Warfighting, Deterrence, and MOOTW Posture,” Journal of Strategic
Studies 44, no. 2 (2021), p. 165.
6. U.S. Army Dept. Headquarters, Chinese Tactics, ATP 7-100.3 (Washington, DC:
9 August 2021), p. 43, available at armypubs.army.mil/epubs/DR_pubs/DR_a/ARN
34236-ATP_7-100.3-001-WEB-3.pdf.
7. Blasko, “The PLA Army after ‘Below the Neck’ Reforms,” p. 164.
8. For a detailed account of the initial training of these units, see 林乘东 [Lin Cheng-
dong], 钱晓虎 [Qian Xiaohu], and 蔡鹏程 [Cai Pengcheng], 突击: 朝着中国陆
军腾飞的方向 [“Assault: The PLA Takes Off in a New Direction”], 解放军报
[PLA Daily], 21 January 2019, www.81.cn/jmtt/2019-01/21/content_9409406.htm.
9. Blasko, “The PLA Army after ‘Below the Neck’ Reforms,” p. 167.
10. U.S. Government Accountability Office, “Force Structure: Army’s Analyses of
Aviation Alternatives” (briefing for congressional defense committees, 26 Feb-
ruary 2015, updated 27 April 2015), enclosure 1 in John H. Pendleton, Force
Structure: Army’s Analyses of Aviation Alternatives, GAO-15-430R (Washington,
DC: U.S. Government Accountability Office, 27 April 2015), p. 11.
11. “Division,” in “Military Units: Army,” U.S. Department of Defense, 19 April 2021,
www.defense.gov/Experience/Military-Units/Army/#army.
12. Blasko, “The PLA Army after ‘Below the Neck’ Reforms,” p. 164.
13. 袁自亮 [Yuan Ziliang], 从空中打赢地面战争 [“Winning the Ground War from
the Air”], 解放军报 [PLA Daily], 12 July 2018, www.81.cn/jfjbmap/content/
2018-07/12/content_210771.htm.
14. Lin, Qian, and Cai, “Assault: The PLA Takes Off in a New Direction.”
15. U.S. Army 101st Airborne Division, Gold Book (Fort Campbell, KY: 2010),
pp. 2–4. This manual is available for purchase in various editions. It is not “au-
thoritative doctrine,” as it makes clear (p. 2), but both its existence and its size
speak to the complexity of air-assault operations. At over three hundred pages,
it culls numerous best practices from doctrine and experience.
19 0 C H I N E S E A M P H I B I O U S WA R FA R E

16. Among other similar reports in the PLA Daily from the last few years, see 冯
凯旋 [Feng Kaixuan] and 周朝荣 [Zhou Chaorong], 全景式记录习主席视察79
集团军 [“Record of Xi Jinping’s Inspection of the 79th Army”], 中国军网 [China
Military Online], 18 October 2018, photo.81.cn/pla/2018-10/18/content_9316355
_13.htm; 吴世科 [Wu Shike] and 张亮亮 [Zhang Liangliang], 气温超40℃大漠
深处有战鹰出没 [“Temperature Exceeds 40°C War Eagles in the Depth of
the Desert”], 中国军网 [China Military Online], 17 July 2017, photo.81.cn/
pla/2017-07/17/content_7678379.htm; and 王宁 [Wang Ning], 朝阳伴我去飞行某
陆航旅数十架直升机进行战术演练 [“The Morning Sun Accompanies Me in
Flying: Dozens of Helicopters From a Certain Army Aviation Brigade
Conduct Tactical Exercises”], 中国军网 [China Military Online], 5 December
2014, photo.81.cn/pla/2014-12/05/content_6256229.htm.
17. 特大动作: 解放军100余架直升机集结练攻击 [“Extraordinary Action: Over 100
PLA Helicopters Gather for Attack”], 中国新闻 [China News], 27 August 2013,
www.chinanews.com/mil/hd2011/2013/08-27/239515.shtml. The troop number
referenced likely includes all servicemembers involved in the exercise, so it
should not be understood as representing the total of troops carried or moved, as
it includes pilots, maintainers, support elements, and others.
18. 插上“翅膀”的步兵 [“Infantry with Wings”], 国防故事 [National Defense Story],
CCTV7, 22 April 2021, tv.cctv.com/2021/04/22/VIDEKiiZWfO9mhWgcYPlndxu
210422.shtml?spm=C28340.PbtJD1QH3ct0.ET7FuMZSfFtz.6.
19. Derek Solen, “The Improvement of the PLA’s Close Air Support Capability,” Air Uni-
versity, 17 December 2020, www.airuniversity.af.edu/Portals/10/CASI/documents/
Research/CASI%20Articles/2020-12-17%20PLA's%20improving%20Close%20
Air%20Support%20capability.pdf?ver=5Jah3h28qsohyD4SkMYz-g%3d%3d.
20. 张硕 [Zhang Shuo], 为飞行员“私人订制”训练计划, “指标清单”里有什么? [“What
Is the ‘List of Indicators’ for a Pilot’s ‘Personalized’ Training Program?”],
人民陆军微信公众号 [PLA WeChat Official Account], 28 April 2021, www.81.cn/lj/
2021-04/28/content_10030019.htm.
21. Liu Xuanzun, “PLA Army Helicopters Switch Role from Support to Main Force
in Cross-Sea Operations,” Global Times, 23 December 2020, www.globaltimes.cn/
content/1210819.shtml.
22. Daniel Taylor and Benjamin Frohman, “Economic Integration Is Not Enough: Pol-
icy and Planning for Taiwan in the Xi Jinping Era,” in Securing the China Dream:
The PLA’s Role in a Time of Reform and Change, ed. Roy Kamphausen, David Lai,
and Tiffany Ma (Washington, DC: National Bureau of Asian Research, 2020), pp.
68–74.
23. Tanner Greer cites Ian Easton’s assessment that Taiwanese, American, and Japanese
intelligence will have relatively high confidence of an invasion sixty days prior and
know for sure at least thirty days prior. See Tanner Greer, “Taiwan Can Win a War
with China,” Foreign Policy, 25 September 2018, foreignpolicy.com/2018/09/25/
taiwan-can-win-a-war-with-china/.
24. Joel Wuthnow, “‘A Brave New World for Chinese Joint Operations,’” Journal of
Strategic Studies 40, nos. 1–2 (2017), pp. 169–95; Dennis J. Blasko, “The Chinese
Military Speaks to Itself, Revealing Doubts,” War on the Rocks, 18 February 2019,
warontherocks.com/2019/02/the-chinese-military-speaks-to-itself-revealing
-doubts/.
 T H E P L A G RO U N D F O RC E S’ N E W H ELI C O P T ER S 191

25. 奋进“十四五”开启新征程 运用“科技+” 为战斗力赋能 [“Forge Ahead in the 14th

Five-Year Plan, Start a New Journey, Use ‘Tech+’ to Empower Combat”], 军事
报道 [Military Report], CCTV7, 20 April 2021, tv.cctv.com/2021/04/20/VIDE
FU33XMUYsu76Ad0UHgWs210420.shtml?spm=C52346.PPajx7cbYDEB.S607
82.19. Because the People’s Armed Police unit depicted seems well equipped
with robust simulation capabilities, PLA aviation units likely would have similar
facilities, and they might have even better ones.
26. Blasko, “The PLA Army after ‘Below the Neck’ Reforms,” p. 167. The PLAGF has
its own Y-9s, so it too could develop organic options here and not necessarily
rely on its sister services. For a media report on this, see Li Jiayao, “Transport
Planes Boost PLA Abilities,” Air University, 20 December 2017, www.airuniversity
.af.edu/CASI/Display/Article/1401088/transport-planes-boost-pla-abilities/,
originally posted at english.chinamil.com.cn/. For a thorough discussion of the
PLAAF’s development of these capabilities, see Cristina L. Garafola and Timothy R.
Heath, The Chinese Air Force’s First Steps toward Becoming an Expeditionary
Air Force (Santa Monica, CA: RAND, 2017), available at www.rand.org/pubs/
research_reports/RR2056.html.
27. Leng Shumei and Liu Xuanzun, “Joint PLA Combat Exercises to Be Normalized
amid Intensifying Situation in Taiwan Straits and SCS,” Global Times, 14 November
2020, www.globaltimes.cn/content/1206802.shtml.
28. For a detailed look at China’s premier training facility with a full mock-up of
Taiwan’s presidential office building, see Joseph Trevithick, “China’s Largest Base
Has Replicas of Taiwan’s Presidential Building, Eiffel Tower,” The Drive: The
War Zone, 27 May 2020, www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/33591/chinas-biggest
-base-has-huge-replicas-of-taiwans-presidential-building-and-the-eiffel-tower.
29. It is nearly impossible to overstate how significant a maintenance demand flying
for twenty hours in a single day is for helicopters. In a series of admittedly rosy
assumptions, this may be the rosiest yet.
30. Chen, “Z-20 to Play More Roles in China’s Military.”
31. Both are unlikely scenarios, especially because the PLA is in the process of increas-
ing its helicopter-to-solider ratio, as previously mentioned. A more likely role for
these helicopters is to remain as legacy platforms for as long as they are still useful.
32. This assessment is highly contingent on how accepting CCP and PLA leaders
would be of risk, both military and political. How decision makers determine what
exactly a “fighting chance for success” is depends on the goals they set and the
losses they are willing to accept to achieve them.
33. Yuan, “Winning the Ground War from the Air.”
34. For a good example of the currently limited scope and scale of these joint exer-
cises, see Liu Xuanzun, “PLA Army’s Attack Helicopters Conduct Sea-Crossing
Assault Drills on Navy Warship,” Global Times, 5 August 2020, www.globaltimes.cn/
content/1196799.shtml.
35. For a brief review of how the U.S. Air Force is thinking about these developments,
see Kyle Rempfer, “Here’s How Improving Enemy Anti-aircraft Threats Put Pilots
and Crews at Risk,” Air Force Times, 6 May 2019, www.airforcetimes.com/news/
your-air-force/2019/05/07/heres-how-improving-enemy-anti-aircraft-threats
-put-pilots-and-crews-at-risk/.
192 C H I N E S E A M P H I B I O U S WA R FA R E

36. Not a pistol or other handgun, but pretty much everything else.
37. Evidence abounds for this in CCTV7 broadcasts and other media reports. For a
particularly striking photo, see Feng and Zhou, “Record of Xi Jinping’s Inspection
of the 79th Army.” Here, “stealth” refers to “avoiding detection” broadly without
regard for technological capabilities.
38. Chen, “Z-20 to Play More Roles in China’s Military.”
39. This preference for caution is embodied in the concept of “effective control”
(有效控制). See Academy of Military Science Military Strategy Studies De-
partment, Science of Military Strategy (2013), trans. China Aerospace Studies
Institute and Project Everest, In Their Own Words: Foreign Military Thought
(Montgomery, AL: China Aerospace Studies Institute, 8 February 2021), pp.
135–43, available at www.airuniversity.af.edu/CASI/Display/Article/2485204/plas
-science-of-military-strategy-2013/. For a thorough dive into this literature and
its implications for defense and strategic planners, see Burgess Laird, War
Control: Chinese Writings on the Control of Escalation in Crisis and Con-
flict (Washington, DC: Center for a New American Security, April 2017),
s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/files.cnas.org/documents/CNASReport-Chinese
-Descalation-Final.pdf.
40. For a brief introduction to this relatively underexplored technology and the dilem-
mas it presents, see Michael Peck, “The U.S. Army Fears Russia’s
(and Others[’]) ‘Helicopter-Killer’ Mines,” The Buzz (blog), National Interest,
3 January 2017, nationalinterest.org/blog/the-buzz/the-us-army-fears-russias
-others-helicopter-killer-mines-18925.
41. Lonnie Henley, “Testimony before the U.S.-China Economic and Security
Review Commission Hearing on Cross-Strait Deterrence: PLA Operational
Concepts and Centers of Gravity in a Taiwan Conflict,” U.S.-China Economic
and Security Review Commission, 18 February 2021, www.uscc.gov/sites/default/
files/2021-02/Lonnie_Henley_Testimony.pdf.
42. The 2020 China military power report assesses that the PLA is capable of invad-
ing one of these islands now. This assessment seems correct, but Taiwan could
make it a very costly operation if it chose to defend the islands. See U.S. Defense
Dept., Military and Security Developments Involving the People’s Republic of Chi-
na 2020: Annual Report to Congress (Washington, DC: Office of the Secretary of
Defense, 2020), p. 114, available at media.defense.gov/2020/Sep/01/2002488689/
-1/-1/1/2020-DOD-CHINA-MILITARY-POWER-REPORT-FINAL.PDF.
 John Chen and Joel Wuthnow

10. PLA Special-Operations Forces

Force Multipliers in the Joint Island
Landing Campaign

One Important But sometimes Overlooked factor that will influence

the success of any People’s Liberation Army (PLA) attempt to seize Taiwan
is special-operations forces (SOF) support to the main assault force.1 Spe-
cial operations have contributed to amphibious assaults in several modern
campaigns, including Normandy (1944), the Falkland Islands (1982), and
Grenada (1983). U.S. joint doctrine for amphibious operations continues
to assign SOF multiple roles, including military information support, civil-
military operations, foreign humanitarian assistance, special reconnaissance,
direct action, and preparation of the environment.2 During the preparatory
and primary landing phases of a Taiwan invasion, and even during a poten-
tial mop-up campaign against resistance fighters, the PLA likely would use
SOF for similar purposes.3 Depending on their performance, these forces
either could enable or could frustrate the operations of conventional PLA
units, or perhaps have no effect at all.
This chapter addresses the potential role of PLA SOF in a Taiwan cam-
paign from three perspectives.4 The first is doctrine. By analyzing authori-
tative PLA publications, including Lectures on the Science of Special Opera-
tions, we find that PLA SOF are assigned three roles: a primary role in special
reconnaissance and secondary roles in strikes/raids on key targets and in
19 4 C H I N E S E A M P H I B I O U S WA R FA R E

information operations. The second is force structure and capabilities. The

PLA Navy (PLAN), PLA Air Force (PLAAF), PLA ground forces (PLAGF),
and People’s Armed Police (PAP) all possess SOF relevant to a Taiwan con-
tingency, including some forces that have expanded in recent years. The
PLA also has acquired special-mission equipment relevant to amphibious
missions, such as underwater personnel-delivery systems. The third is train-
ing. On the basis of PLA print and television media reports, it appears that
PLA SOF have focused on squad-level and individual skills training, but
there is also evidence of SOF involvement in larger combined-arms exercis-
es. However, we found that joint training is limited, and there is almost no
open-source evidence of SOF actively preparing for information operations.
The PLA has worked steadily over the last decade to ready SOF for an
island landing scenario by refining doctrine, bolstering capabilities, and
improving training. However, there are several variables that will influence
these units’ performance, including the following:
• Their technical proficiency and potential greater use of unmanned sys-
tems; the latter could replace humans in some roles, but they also in-
crease technical-proficiency requirements
• Their degree of jointness, including the need for larger and more-
frequent exercises with non-SOF units and continued reforms to joint
command structures at and below the theater level
• The degree to which commanders try to micromanage SOF activities
on the battlefield, which could lead to suboptimal results if those forces
hesitate to act without explicit approval
The Taiwan and U.S. defense establishments should work to evaluate these
challenges and weaknesses and determine whether plans for Taiwan’s de-
fense adequately consider PLA SOF.

Doctrine
PLA sources increasingly have noted the importance of special operations
in modern warfare.5 Both the 2013 Academy of Military Science (AMS) Sci-
ence of Military Strategy and the 2020 National Defense University (NDU)
Science of Military Strategy place SOF alongside other specialized capabili-
ties—for instance, electronic warfare, aviation, missiles and missile defense,
and information warfare—that the military needs to prevail in future wars.6
Other volumes describe SOF as integral to military operations other than
war, including overseas counterterrorism missions.7 The 2020 NDU Science
 P L A S P E C I A L- O P ER AT I O N S F O RC E S 195

of Military Strategy describes SOF as practitioners of a form of “asymme-

tric warfare” that involves reconnaissance, sabotage, strikes, and “psycho-
logical operations involving all types of technologies and means.” The text
encourages the PLA to build SOF capabilities in the areas of reconnaissance,
strike, and survival behind enemy lines.8
SOF roles in an island landing scenario are discussed in various
campaign-level PLA texts. The 2006 NDU Science of Campaigns assesses
that special operations will be conducted in island landings to “isolate, split
up, and collapse the enemy,” “weaken the enemy’s operational capabilities,”
and “decrease the intensity of the enemy’s resistance.” 9 A 2013 AMS teach-
ing volume, Lectures on Joint Battles notes that SOF would infiltrate behind
enemy lines, destroy key targets, guide fire assaults, and capture key ene-
my personnel.10 The most-detailed descriptions are contained in another
2013 AMS teaching volume, Lectures on the Science of Special Operations.
The authors begin their analysis of special operations in an island landing
by sketching the role that British SOF played in the 1982 Falkland Islands
campaign; those forces assisted the main landing force by gathering intel-
ligence and conducting raids to “confuse and disrupt” Argentine forces,
allowing the marines to land “with little resistance.”11
In Chinese operational concepts, SOF can play several distinct roles in
an island landing. First, and likely most prominent, is reconnaissance and
targeting.12 This includes monitoring weather and hydrological conditions;
scouting enemy positions and movements, as well as enemy obstructions
in the main landing approaches; tracking high-value enemy targets; iden-
tifying and illuminating targets for conventional precision-guided missile
strikes; and conducting battle-damage assessments.13 Lectures on the Sci-
ence of Special Operations observes that British SOF landed on East Falk-
land Island three weeks prior to the main assault, during which time they
kept track of hydrological conditions, monitored enemy troop movements,
and evaluated enemy fortifications to “ensure the smooth landing of the
Marines and paratroopers.”14
The second role is to conduct strikes and raids. Science of Campaigns
describes SOF raids—for instance, sabotaging airfields, naval port facilities
and ships, radar stations, command posts, ammunition depots, and coastal-
observation posts—as an enabler of both air and sea dominance during the
initial phases of an island landing. During the landing phase, SOF would
attempt to “pin down and scatter the enemy’s operational forces,” reducing
their ability to concentrate on opposing the main assault.15 Lectures on the
Science of Special Operations also discusses raids against enemy political
and civilian targets.16 The authors attribute the rapid U.S. success during
19 6 C H I N E S E A M P H I B I O U S WA R FA R E

the 1983 Grenada campaign to special operations that secured the gover-
nor general’s residence, government offices, television-broadcast facilities,
and key roads and other infrastructure in the capital of Saint George’s.17
The volume describes raids to rescue captured air and naval personnel in
a section on blockade operations, but this mission also would apply to an
island landing.18
The third role is psychological-warfare operations.19 Science of Cam-
paigns assigns to SOF the function of “disintegrating enemy resolve”
through disinformation; it also describes a category of “special technical
warfare” that includes infiltrating enemy networks or using enemy radio
and television stations to disseminate one’s own propaganda.20 Lectures
on the Science of Special Operations similarly asserts that SOF will help
to shape the information battlefield during an island landing in at least
two ways: seizure or destruction of enemy communications and broadcast
networks; and psychological campaigns, such as distributing propaganda
materials in enemy-occupied areas, setting up wireless transmitters and
receivers, and facilitating the broadcast of propaganda to weaken enemy
resolve.21
Notably, Chinese sources tend not to discuss the role of SOF in phases
of an island landing beyond the initial assault. Science of Campaigns and
other texts contain little analysis of the role that the military, including
SOF units, would play in defeating a protracted counterinsurgency, per-
haps indicating a conviction that enemy resistance would collapse follow-
ing a successful decapitation strike.22 Nevertheless, given their expertise in
counterterrorism and similar operations garnered in restive locations such
as Xinjiang, it is possible that either PLA or PAP SOF could be used against
resistance fighters following a Taiwan invasion campaign.
According to Chinese writings, one of the key requirements of success
is a high degree of integration between SOF and other forces during the
run-up to and execution of an island landing. Lectures on Joint Battles de-
scribes special combat forces as one of six landing groups under a common
joint headquarters; the others are landing (ground), maritime, air, missile,
and information groups.23 Lectures on the Science of Special Operations de-
scribes the need to achieve close coordination among these forces: “[S]pe-
cial operations must work closely with other operations and pursue them in
a unified manner. This puts high demands on the coordination of planning
organizations and battlefield control.” 24 For instance, SOF would need to
coordinate with air and missile forces in targeting, and with Strategic Sup-
port Force (SSF) psychological-warfare and technical-reconnaissance units
in information operations.
 P L A S P E C I A L- O P ER AT I O N S F O RC E S 197

The previous command structure, in which the PLAAF, PLAN, and

other forces were integrated only poorly into the theaters, was not suited to
a doctrine that calls for close coordination. However, reforms undertaken
during the Xi Jinping era alleviated this challenge by granting theater com-
manders authority over a wider range of forces, including PLAN SOF, and
encouraging them to concentrate on joint training.25 A 2018 China Military
Science article by two staff officers from the Southern Theater Command
confirms that theater commanders are responsible for planning and op-
erational coordination for SOF, while the Central Military Commission’s
responsibility is limited to providing overall guidance.26
Nevertheless, the lack of recent campaign texts renders it difficult to
evaluate how the system will operate at the tactical and operational levels.
It is also worth noting that, in practice, the reforms did not create stand-
ing joint task forces that would encourage stronger peacetime coordination
across the different services.27 Moreover, as discussed below, the shift to a
theater structure has not necessarily resulted in closer integration of SOF
into joint training, and some SOF, including those under the PAP and Air-
borne Corps, remain outside theater purview.

Force Structure and Capabilities

Most PLA SOF are organized into brigades and assigned to the five theater
commands.28 According to both authoritative and nonauthoritative Chi-
nese sources, each of the PLAGF’s thirteen group armies has a SOF bri-
gade, and the PLAAF Airborne Corps, PLAN Marine Corps (PLANMC),
and PLA Rocket Force each have one SOF brigade.29 Some of these SOF
brigades are relatively new formations converted from conventional forces
as part of an attempted expansion of SOF capabilities, and they are prob-
ably more similar in mission and force structure to the U.S. Army Rang-
ers than to the elite Delta Force.30 These formations and their approximate
geographic locations are depicted in the figure. Judging by location, the
units most likely to support an amphibious assault on Taiwan are the five
SOF brigades of the Eastern and Southern Theater Commands, along with
the PLANMC’s Sea Dragons brigade (蛟龙突击队), based in Hainan, and
possibly the PLAAF’s Thunder Gods brigade (雷神突击队), located near
the eastern seaboard in Hubei Province. In addition, reconnaissance
battalions assigned to the PLAGF group armies and PLANMC brigades
are not designated explicitly as SOF, but they also may carry out special-
warfare missions in a Taiwan scenario.31
19 8 C H I N E S E A M P H I B I O U S WA R FA R E

Figure 1. PLA Special-Operations Forces Units and Locations

13

13
10 15
11 16 Theater Commands:
10 15 14
c 8 Eastern

11 17 16 Theater Commands:
Southern

8 14 1 EasternWestern
c
Southern
Northern
17
b 2
12 9 1 Central
Western

Northern
9 b 2 Ground Forces Air Force
12 3 Central
Navy (Marines) Rocket Force
18
5 4 3
Ground Forces Air Force

7 6
Navy (Marines) Rocket Force
18
5 4
a
7 6
a

Source: Peter Wood (@PeterWood_PDW), “New map—PLA Special Forces,” Twitter (now X), 5 January 2020,
6:36 pm, twitter.com/peterwood_pdw/status/1213967625849434112?lang=en. Used with the permission of
Peter Wood.

Most relevant to a large-scale island landing are the PLAGF’s SOF bri-
gades. While their mission is distinct, their internal structure resembles
that of other PLAGF brigades in some respects. For instance, SOF brigades
follow a standard “brigade-battalion-company-team” (旅-营-连-队组) hi-
erarchy, and their field-command arrangements include basic, reserve, and
rear command posts.32 This structure resembles more closely that of the
U.S. Army Rangers than of the Delta Force or SEALs, which delegate more
authority to the team commander.
Like army combined-arms brigades, SOF brigades aspire to operate
independently on the battlefield. This requires organic support capabil-
ities such as unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) reconnaissance battalions
(无人机侦察营) and fire-support companies (火力支援连) with truck-
mounted cannon, heavy mortars, and shoulder-fired surface-to-air
missiles.33 However, a 2018 China Military Science article suggests
that more staff officers responsible for operations, intelligence, and co-
ordination with other branches are needed for those battalions to be able
to operate independently.34
 P L A S P E C I A L- O P ER AT I O N S F O RC E S 19 9

SOF brigades reportedly emphasize a “centralized command style”

(集中式指挥) more common in conventional units rather than a flexible,
“task-oriented command style” (任务式指挥). Centralized command is
facilitated primarily by radio and satellite communications, which con-
ventional units also might employ. However, SOF brigades apparent-
ly suffer from some of the same command-and-control problems that
conventional PLA units of the same size are known to encounter. For
instance, two scholars at the PLAGF Command College noted in 2019
that down-echelon voice communications were difficult to maintain
using comparatively slow, single-function, limited-bandwidth radios and
satellite-communication terminals. This meant that brigade, battalion,
and company commanders did not have data links with each other, and
SOF battalions, companies, and platoons did not have consistent ac-
cess to the integrated command platform or its command-automation
capabilities.35
There is some evidence that SOF brigades have instituted arrangements
to facilitate tactical and operational coordination with other services and
branches. According to two PLA scholars, PLAGF SOF brigades reportedly
integrate personnel from other services by including liaison officers from
relevant PLAN, PLAAF, PLAGF aviation, and artillery units in the basic
command post. A SOF brigade basic command post is “authorized to give
priority to the support of intelligence, firepower, and other forces,” and fire
support from naval, air force, and long-range artillery units can be guided
through liaison officers in accordance with target-detection and position
information.36 This structure is consistent with the emphasis that Chinese
theorists place on close coordination between SOF and supported units
in reconnaissance, strike, and psychological-warfare missions during an
island landing campaign.
PLA SOF likely have priority access to modern equipment, such as
individual-soldier communications systems and night-vision equipment.
They also are likely to have access to special-mission equipment that
would be vital in an amphibious assault on Taiwan.37 For instance, SOF
have fielded UAVs of varying sizes, from hand-launched UAVs and micro-
copters at the squad level to medium-altitude BZK-005 vehicles as part of
larger formations. In some instances, SOF units use commercially avail-
able, off-the-shelf micro-UAVs to perform intelligence, surveillance, and
reconnaissance functions ahead of assault drills.38 As noted above, there
also are dedicated UAV battalions in some army SOF brigades; these field
larger UAVs.39 PLA SOF also claim to use various ground-based battle-
field sensors and instruments. Recent Chinese media reports show
20 0 C H I N E S E A M P H I B I O U S WA R FA R E

members of one Eastern Theater Command Army SOF brigade using laser
designators, and troops from a reconnaissance company in a different the-
ater setting up reconnaissance instruments and ground-based sensors.40
PLA writings stress that SOF should gather technical signature intelligence
using battlefield sensors, but little information on this hardware was avail-
able at the time of writing.41
The most-advanced equipment available to PLA SOF likely is used in
clandestine maritime operations. This equipment includes undersea sen-
sors, diver-propulsion vehicles, and undersea personnel-delivery systems,
although the deployment and operational status of this equipment are un-
clear from open sources. For instance, undated screen grabs of official Chi-
na Central Television Military Report episodes show PLAN frogmen train-
ing with diver-propulsion systems and a larger diver-delivery submersible,
and an unofficial source from 2015 posted pictures of PLAN frogmen us-
ing small diver-propulsion vehicles and training to exit a submarine us-
ing torpedo tubes.42 Chinese defense-industry researchers have developed
diver navigation aids, radios, and handheld direction-finding sonars for
special operations in low-visibility underwater environments, although it
is unclear which models have reached the force and in what numbers.43
Such equipment would be critical in both reconnaissance and sabotage op-
erations in the initial phases of an island landing.
Beyond the PLA, China’s paramilitary force also has SOF capabilities
that could be relevant during a Taiwan contingency. While the PAP main-
tains SWAT-like forces in each province that perform law-enforcement
functions on a local scale, it also has a few elite commando units that can
be employed in more-demanding circumstances farther from their home
bases. Under a recent restructuring, these units were assigned to two
national-level “mobile contingents” (机动总队) that do not have fixed geo-
graphic areas of operations.44 Both are large rapid-reaction forces with
mixed capabilities that can be deployed in major contingencies. Most
relevant to a Taiwan scenario is the 2nd Mobile Contingent, whose head-
quarters is in Fuzhou but whose subordinate units are scattered across
southern China. This organization has two SOF detachments, one of
which is believed to be the Snow Leopards commando unit (雪豹突击队).
Founded in 2002, the Snow Leopards were based in Beijing but moved
to Guangzhou as part of the restructuring.45 The unit focuses on coun-
terterrorism and hostage rescue, and includes assault, reconnaissance,
explosive-ordnance-disposal, and sniper teams.46 Its members possess
standard equipment for “close-range fire strikes,” including pistols and
assault rifles, while some also operate crossbows, submachine guns, and
 P L A S P E C I A L- O P ER AT I O N S F O RC E S 201

heavy machine guns.47 The unit’s location, internal composition, and

equipment would make it useful for some aspects of a Taiwan contingency,
including protecting critical infrastructure within China from sabotage
and even conducting “political rendition”–type operations on Taiwan.48

Training
SOF units practice a variety of skills relevant to an island landing, al-
though Chinese sources describe difficulties that could diminish those
forces’ readiness for a Taiwan campaign. Army SOF, for example, practice
obstacle clearing, stealthy marches, survival behind enemy lines, direction
finding, nighttime reconnaissance, observational reporting, blocking ma-
neuvers, and battlefield first aid.49 The PLANMC Sea Dragons comman-
dos reportedly spend more than a year learning parachuting, rappelling,
direction finding, special vehicle driving, search and seizure, demolition,
and hand-to-hand combat skills, as well as reconnaissance skills includ-
ing map identification, photo taking and video recording, and encryption
protocols for transmitting intelligence.50 The PLAAF Airborne Corps
Thunder Gods SOF brigade trains for high-altitude/high-opening and
high-altitude/low-opening parachute jumps, among other skills.51 SOF
personnel also train to capture high-value targets for intelligence purposes
(捕俘) for a variety of campaigns, including an island landing scenario.52
Official Chinese media routinely refer to SOF units as “triphibious”
(三栖) or “quadphibious” (四栖), reflecting the forces’ ability to operate in
air, land, sea, and underwater environments.53 Army SOF units from the
Eastern Theater Command practice combat swimming, paddling in small
rubber boats, shooting from moving watercraft, and scuba diving.54 In a
2016 exercise, troops from a Southern Theater Command Army SOF bri-
gade fast-roped from helicopters at twenty meters above water, then trav-
eled five kilometers to a beach using surface and subsurface methods.55
The Sea Dragons practice deploying rubber boats and fast-roping frog-
men from helicopters into the water.56 Likewise, the Thunder Gods held
large training events in 2019 and 2020 in which personnel practiced using
steerable parachutes, parachuting into water, and extricating themselves
from parachute harnesses.57
SOF units also have demonstrated rapid-extraction capabilities across
multiple domains. In 2017 footage, PLANMC frogmen practiced a diver-
extraction method in which they boarded a passing motorized rigid inflat-
able boat from the water, while a 2020 image showed the Thunder Gods
202 C H I N E S E A M P H I B I O U S WA R FA R E

apparently practicing a rapid extraction using a helicopter rope-suspension

technique.58 Other extraction training undertaken during combat search-
and-rescue drills focuses on coordination among fire-support elements to
cover forces exfiltrating by truck.59
Like those of their PLA SOF comrades, elite PAP SOF units aim to im-
prove readiness through rigorous selection and training. The Snow Leop-
ards, for instance, profess adherence to stringent selection standards, with
40–50 percent of recruits failing to pass initial screening. Nevertheless, a
senior officer described retention as a problem, with fewer long-serving
members than comparable units in other countries.60 The Snow Leopards’
annual “Devil Week” training simulates operations in “actual combat en-
vironments,” including desert, jungle, sea, air, and urban environments.
Most of this training focuses on counterterrorism assignments, including
the water-to-shore training featured in the 2020 Devil Week.61 The Snow
Leopards and other PAP units also have participated regularly in interna-
tional exercises and competitions, mostly focused on counterterrorism.62
PLA training instructors stress that special operations are mostly
squad-size maneuvers, involving only one to two personnel at a time, six
to twelve at most (similar to the size and scale of U.S. Green Beret detach-
ments or some Navy SEAL teams). Having personnel with multiple skills
is considered critical to survival and success in small-unit operations.63
Small-unit maneuvers provide SOF with low-risk opportunities to prac-
tice skills relevant to an amphibious assault. In August 2020, for instance,
members of a 72nd Group Army SOF brigade landed on a small, uninhab-
ited, and unfamiliar island in the East China Sea by disembarking from
small motorboats and swimming to the island to achieve surprise. Once
ashore, they scaled cliffs and stormed a simulated rear command post (后
备指挥所), quickly collected and processed intelligence through document
exploitation, and used special communication protocols to report the in-
formation up echelon.64
Beyond individual and small-unit drills, PLA SOF units also train
in larger, more-complex, combined-arms formations that showcase like-
ly SOF missions during an amphibious landing on Taiwan. In December
2020, PLANMC SOF participated in a combined-arms island landing and
seizure exercise involving squad-size (班组) mechanized infantry units. In
the opening phase, SOF used mine-clearing line charges to destroy land-
ing obstacles while sniper teams simultaneously seized optimal sniping
positions and began to execute ambushes at critical points on the enemy’s
front line. Shortly thereafter, SOF troops fast-roped from helicopters onto
high ground and began infiltration and attacks ahead of the main landing
 P L A S P E C I A L- O P ER AT I O N S F O RC E S 203

force. Assault vehicles then deployed smoke screens to cover infantry fight-
ing vehicles carrying out suppressing fire, while SOF proceeded to destroy
vital enemy targets one by one.65 SOF also have trained at the national
training range at Zhurihe, where satellite imagery has identified a mockup
of Taiwan’s presidential building. However, it is unclear how much they
focus on preparing for a decapitation strike.66
Some field exercises involving larger SOF units combine tactical and
operational experimentation with validation of combat capabilities in
a landing scenario. One complex three-day exercise in September 2020
paired Z-10 attack and Mil Mi-17 transport helicopters of a 73rd Group
Army aviation brigade with troops from a 73rd Group Army SOF bri-
gade. The helicopters evaded air-defense radars and antiaircraft fire, then
proceeded to the landing zones, and the aviation brigade conducted low-
altitude reconnaissance, then landed SOF troops.67 For its part, the SOF
brigade experimented with up to eight fast-ropes from a single Mi-17, pur-
portedly reducing disembarkation time by up to 50 percent.68
Other, larger SOF exercises closely resemble conventional combat op-
erations involving organized command decision-making and coordination
of fire support from artillery and aircraft. During a September 2020 exer-
cise, personnel from a Southern Theater Command SOF brigade arrived
in an unfamiliar area, set up a command post and corresponding commu-
nications, and rehearsed operational planning. Other troops proceeded to
carry out different training activities in all weather conditions against sim-
ulated opposing “Blue Team” forces, including hostage extraction, night-
time reconnaissance, and target designation for fire support.69
Coordination between SOF and non-SOF forces mostly involves tech-
nologies and platforms that are not organic to PLA SOF units. The most
frequently depicted examples show the use of army and navy rotary-wing
aircraft for parachute jump training and troop transport.70 In a few publicly
reported instances, army SOF personnel have trained with attack helicop-
ters from army aviation brigades, with those platforms scouting landing
zones.71 In recent exercises, there also likely has been direct integration of
SOF reconnaissance elements with higher-echelon intelligence authorities.
For instance, one winter 2020 exercise featured troops from a SOF brigade
of the 82nd Group Army using Beidou positioning, navigation, and timing
transmitters issued by the former General Staff Department Survey and
Navigation Bureau to relay targeting information to a command post.72
Despite apparent progress in training, SOF face several deficiencies
in preparing for island landing operations. First, reports suggest that SOF
have struggled with special-mission equipment that would be vital for
20 4 C H I N E S E A M P H I B I O U S WA R FA R E

successful prelanding operations. A 2015 article by special-warfare research-

ers at the Naval Submarine Academy published in an Army Special Forces
Academy journal remarked that the limited oxygen supply, heavy weight,
excessive cavitation, and complex battery charging and assembly of the
main Chinese-built diver-delivery vehicle meant that for safety reasons the
training programs for those vehicles should be carried out only in waters
precleared of obstacles and debris, with no explosives allowed within three
nautical miles of the training area.73 It is unclear whether more-recent ex-
ercises have led to a removal of those restrictions.
Second is inadequate attention to technical reconnaissance. Two PLAGF
Command College scholars argue that SOF personnel are poorly trained
to obtain and handle the intelligence collected by technical equipment,
noting that SOF brigades have “focused on armed reconnaissance training
at the expense of technical reconnaissance,” resulting in “comparatively
infrequent use of unmanned vehicles and battlefield television reconnais-
sance” and “low reconnaissance efficiency.” A heavy emphasis on armed
reconnaissance training also reportedly had resulted in reduced attention
to specialized skills such as aerial imagery interpretation and target recog-
nition and indication. As a result, “SOF officers and personnel have com-
paratively weak ability to obtain and handle intelligence.” 74
Third, PLA SOF do not appear to train for missions that could sup-
port offensive information warfare, including psychological operations or
unconventional warfare. There is no public mention of any training with
special-mission aircraft or broadcast equipment or with nonmilitary as-
sets or of interaction with local populations that could support offensive
psychological operations. As a result, the role of PLA SOF in information
operations likely would be limited to kinetic operations against critical
information infrastructure such as network-management or data centers,
computer server farms, or even undersea communications cables.75 This
also might involve simple operations to plug in devices on broadcasting
antennae that would allow information-operations personnel to access and
exploit them.
Fourth is limited cross-service integration. There is little open-source
evidence of SOF units from different services training together or with
non-SOF units from different services, except for the occasional provision
of PLAAF aircraft for army SOF parachute jump training.76 There is also
no evidence that the Snow Leopards or other PAP SOF units have partici-
pated in joint exercises with PLA forces. Theater commanders have no de
facto authority over PAP units, which report through their own headquar-
ters; this reduces the ability of theater leadership to incorporate PAP units
 P L A S P E C I A L- O P ER AT I O N S F O RC E S 20 5

into joint training and supervise them in a contingency.77 Absent stron-

ger coordination, it is unlikely that PAP SOF would be part of the initial
landing, although these units could be called on once major operations are
complete to assist in hunting down political figures.78

PLA SOF likely would play important supporting roles in an amphibious

assault on Taiwan. Their capabilities and training are geared toward sev-
eral missions that would be undertaken during the preparatory and main-
assault phases of the landing, including infiltration via special-mission
craft and helicopters, reconnaissance and targeting, obstacle clearance,
strikes and raids, and extractions. While Chinese doctrinal sources do not
discuss such a scenario, it also is likely that PAP or other special forces
would remain on Taiwan following a successful landing to conduct
counterinsurgency-type missions. One area in which doctrine still may be
ahead of practice is information operations. It is unclear from open-source
reports whether SOF are preparing for on-island propaganda work or are
training with other relevant PLA units, including the SSF, for this mission.
While PLA SOF have made progress in recent years, several variables
would influence their performance in an island landing. One is whether
SOF can field and better integrate special-mission equipment for complex
and dangerous missions. While China’s defense industry undoubtedly
continues to improve manned special-mission equipment for SOF,
researchers also have stressed the utility of unmanned undersea and
aerial vehicles for dangerous special operations such as mine and obstacle
clearing.79 Coordination and effective application of unmanned systems
will call for more-demanding training and recruitment requirements
within PLA SOF.
Another variable is whether SOF can coordinate their operations ef-
fectively with non-SOF supporting and supported forces. How much co-
ordination is necessary likely would vary according to unit composition
and mission type. SOF units with a diverse range of organic capabilities
and specialized hardware and dedicated support units may require less
joint coordination than units tasked to accomplish special operations in
which the mission rather than the unit is defined as “special.” Elite com-
mando units like the U.S. Navy’s Naval Special Warfare Development
Group (SEAL Team 6) with dedicated transport and intelligence support
units may require little interaction with main landing forces, but others,
such as brigade-size army units that would deploy alongside and direct-
ly support the main landing forces, may need to coordinate more ex-
tensively. In the latter scenario—which appears to be more likely for the
20 6 C H I N E S E A M P H I B I O U S WA R FA R E

majority of PLA SOF units—the lack of permanent joint structures below

the theater level could diminish the effectiveness of joint operations in-
volving special forces, potentially leading to catastrophic results similar
to the failed U.S. hostage-rescue attempt in Iran during Operation Eagle
Claw.80 Moreover, some relevant units, including from the SSF, PAP, and
Airborne Corps, reside outside the theater structure, leading to questions
about joint command even at that level. Evidence that these potential
shortcomings are being addressed would be inclusion of Airborne Corps
and PAP SOF in theater command–led exercises; the establishment of per-
manent, lower-level joint commands or liaison arrangements; and real-
world operations, perhaps in counterterrorism missions within China and
farther from home, that would require SOF to learn lessons and adapt.
Chinese special operations also would have to reconcile the imperative
to conduct small, clandestine operations behind enemy lines with a desire
to maintain unified command under the joint command construct. Gener-
ally, there is a tension between the Leninist emphasis on centralization and
the need to grant autonomy to lower-level PLA commanders. This could be
especially problematic in special operations; centralized command could
lead to poor performance if small units fail to act because of a lack of ex-
plicit authorization, or if they are forced to maintain radio communica-
tions and thus reveal their positions to the enemy. Evidence from training
or updated doctrine could offer signs of whether SOF teams are given ade-
quate autonomy in the field.
Nevertheless, even partly effective special operations could hamper
Taiwan’s defenses and thus should be addressed explicitly in defensive con-
cepts. Taiwan’s articulation of a more “asymmetric and innovative” way
of defeating an island landing, which has been discussed in recent years
under the “overall defense concept” label, should acknowledge explicitly
the threat posed by Chinese SOF preceding and during all phases of an
island landing and determine whether additional changes to tactics and
capabilities are needed.81 Those approaches also should identify PLA weak-
nesses, such as a lack of technical proficiency, limited jointness, and poten-
tial overreliance on radio communications for command and control, and
tailor responses accordingly. It is also worth exploring whether, and how,
U.S. SOF may work with their Taiwan counterparts to evaluate the dangers
posed by PLA SOF, share best practices, and conduct joint training.82
 P L A S P E C I A L- O P ER AT I O N S F O RC E S 207

Notes
1. The Office of the Secretary of Defense’s congressionally mandated report on the
Chinese military, for instance, contains only scant references to SOF. The only
allusion to SOF in an island landing is the statement that SOF could “infiltrate
Taiwan and conduct attacks against infrastructure or leadership targets”—an
assessment too brief to capture fully the range of SOF assignments. U.S. Defense
Dept., Military and Security Developments Involving the People’s Republic of China
(Washington, DC: Office of the Secretary of Defense, 2020), p. 113.
2. U.S. Defense Dept., Amphibious Operations, JP 3-02 (Washington, DC: Joint Chiefs
of Staff, 21 January 2021), p. VI-4.
3. For a general description of PLA concepts of island landing campaigns, see
Michael Casey, “Firepower Strike, Blockade, Landing: PLA Campaigns for a
Cross-Strait Conflict,” in Crossing the Strait: China’s Military Prepares for War
with Taiwan, ed. Joel Wuthnow et al. (Washington, DC: National Defense Univ.
Press, 2022), pp. 113–37, ndupress.ndu.edu/Portals/68/Documents/Books/crossing
-the-strait/crossing-the-strait.pdf.
4. While the focus of this chapter is island landings, PLA SOF also would play a role
in a blockade.
5. For an earlier analysis, see Dean Cheng, “The Chinese People’s Liberation Army
and Special Operations,” Special Warfare, July–September 2012, available at www
.soc.mil/SWCS/SWmag/archive/SW2503/SW2503TheChinesePeoplesLiberation
Army.html.
6. The lengthiest discussions are in sections on army strategy, but air and naval
SOF also are noted. 军事科学院军事战略研究部 [Academy of Military Science
Military Strategy Studies Department], 战略学 [Science of Military Strategy]
(Beijing: Military Science, 2013), pp. 205–206; 肖天亮 [Xiao Tianliang], ed., 战
略学 [Science of Military Strategy] (Beijing: National Defense Univ. Press, 2020),
p. 265.
7. Kevin McCauley, “PLA Special Operations: Combat Missions and Operations
Abroad,” Jamestown Foundation China Brief 15, no. 17 (3 September 2015),
available at jamestown.org/program/pla-special-operations-combat-missions-and
-operations-abroad.
8. Xiao, Science of Military Strategy, p. 355.
9. 张玉良 [Zhang Yuliang], ed., 战役学 [Science of Campaigns] (Beijing: National
Defense Univ. Press, 2006), p. 312.
10. 陈荣弟 [Chen Rongdi], 联合战斗教程 [Lectures on Joint Battles] (Beijing: Mili-
tary Science, 2013), p. 169.
11. 郭明 [Guo Ming], ed., 特种作战学教程 [Lectures on the Science of Special Opera-
tions] (Beijing: Military Science, 2013), p. 181. For a broader analysis of PLA
lessons from this campaign, see Christopher D. Yung, “Sinica Rules the Waves?
The People’s Liberation Army Navy’s Power Projection and Anti-access/Area
Denial Lessons from the Falklands/Malvinas Conflict,” in Chinese Lessons from
Other Peoples’ Wars, ed. Andrew Scobell, David Lai, and Roy Kamphausen (Car-
lisle, PA: U.S. Army War College Strategic Studies Institute, 2011), pp. 75–114.
20 8 C H I N E S E A M P H I B I O U S WA R FA R E

12. The 2011 edition of the PLA’s dictionary of military terminology notes in its defi-
nition of special operations (特种作战) that an alternative term for these activities
is special reconnaissance operations (特种侦察作战). See 全军军事术语管理委
员会 [All-Military Terminology Management Committee], 中国人民解放军军语
[China People’s Liberation Army Military Terminology] (Beijing: Military Science,
2011), p. 875.
13. Zhang, Science of Campaigns, p. 199; Guo, Lectures on the Science of Special Op-
erations, p. 183; Chen, Lectures on Joint Battles, p. 76.
14. Guo, Lectures on the Science of Special Operations, p. 183.
15. Zhang, Science of Campaigns, pp. 316, 326.
16. Guo, Lectures on the Science of Special Operations, p. 183.
17. Ibid. Special operations did play a notable role in Operation Urgent Fury, but
their mission was quite different from what the PLA would be expected to ac-
complish on Taiwan. For instance, Navy SEALs rescued the governor general,
whereas the PLA would be expected to capture or eliminate key Taiwanese polit-
ical figures. See Ronald H. Cole, Operation Urgent Fury: The Planning and Exec-
ution of Joint Operations in Grenada 12 October–2 November 1983 (Washing-
ton, DC: Joint History Office, 1997), p. 29, available at www.jcs.mil/Portals/36/
Documents/History/Monographs/Urgent_Fury.pdf.
18. Guo, Lectures on the Science of Special Operations, p. 188. A blockade likely would
precede an island landing. SOF also could attempt to rescue Chinese personnel
on land.
19. For more on information operations in a Taiwan campaign, see Fiona Cunning-
ham, “Testimony before the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Com-
mission: Hearing on ‘Deterring PRC Aggression towards Taiwan,’” U.S.-China
Economic and Security Review Commission, 18 February 2021, www.uscc.gov/sites/
default/files/2021-02/Fiona_Cunningham_Testimony.pdf.
20. Zhang, Science of Campaigns, p. 199.
21. Guo, Lectures on the Science of Special Operations, pp. 183–84.
22. However, PLA units have conducted urban-warfare training. For a discussion, see
Sale Lilly, “‘Killing Rats in a Porcelain Shop’: PLA Urban Warfare in a Taiwan Cam-
paign,” in Wuthnow et al., Crossing the Strait.
23. Chen, Lectures on Joint Battles, p. 169. This mirrors the incorporation of SOF into
joint constructs, as depicted in other PLA writings. See Jeffrey Engstrom, Systems
Confrontation and System Destruction Warfare (Santa Monica, CA: RAND, 2018),
p. 35.
24. Guo, Lectures on the Science of Special Operations, p. 183.
25. For a general description of the new command structure, see Joel Wuthnow, “A
Brave New World for Chinese Joint Operations,” Journal of Strategic Studies 40,
nos. 1–2 (2017), pp. 169–95.
26. 唐旻晖 [Tang Minhui] and 徐常 [Xu Chang], 站在新的历史起点, 加快推动我
军特种部队建设转型 [“Reach a New Historical Starting Point and Accelerate the
Transformation of the PLA’s Special Forces”], 中国军事科学 [China Military Sci-
ence], no. 2 (2018), p. 54.
 P L A S P E C I A L- O P ER AT I O N S F O RC E S 20 9

27. The need for closer integration of forces at the tactical and operational levels is
a theme of recent PLA writings on joint operations. See Xiao, Science of Military
Strategy, pp. 264–67. Also see Derek Solen, “Chinese Views of All-Domain Op-
erations,” Air University (AU), 31 August 2020, www.airuniversity.af.edu/CASI/
Display/Article/2310442/chinese-views-of-all-domain-operations/.
28. For a prereform assessment of Chinese SOF, see Dennis J. Blasko, “Chinese Spe-
cial Operations Forces: Not like ‘Back at Bragg,’” War on the Rocks, 1 January
2015, warontherocks.com/2015/01/chinese-special-operations-forces-not-like
-back-at-bragg/.
29. For a partial listing of PLA SOF from an unofficial source, see 21支特战劲旅
磨砺反恐尖刀 [“21 Special Forces Contingents, Practiced Antiterrorism Dag-
gers”], 大公报 [Ta Kung Pao], 2 September 2019, www.takungpao.com/news/
232108/2019/0902/343977.html; and International Institute for Strategic Studies,
The Military Balance 2021 (Abingdon, U.K.: Routledge, 2021), pp. 249–55.
30. For instance, one official source indicates that a motorized infantry brigade in the
81st Group Army (Central Theater Command) was converted to a SOF brigade in
May 2017. See 军事报道 [Military Affairs Report], 创新人才培养, 加快新质战斗
力生成 [“Innovate Personnel Training, Accelerate the Production of New Quality
Combat Power”], aired 10 May 2022, on CCTV-7, available at tv.cctv.com/v/v1/
VIDEbuNXXK8M9UEC2gqI34Tk200510.html.
31. 吴登峰 [Wu Dengfeng], 范旭东 [Fan Xudong], and 翟思宇 [Di Siyu], 海军陆战
队某旅侦察营: 锻造特种作战的利刃尖刀 [“Marine Corps Unidentified Brigade
Reconnaissance Battalion: Forging the Blades and Daggers of Special-Warfare”],
新华 [Xinhua], 27 December 2018, www.81.cn/jwgz/2018-12/27/content_9389652
.htm.
32. 董伟 [Dong Wei] and 王本胜 [Wang Bensheng], 特种作战旅如何构建敏捷化
指挥体系 [“How to Build an Agile Command System for a Special Operations
Brigade”], 中国社会科学报 [Chinese Social Sciences Today], no. 1820 (2019), sscp
.cssn.cn/xkpd/jsx_20175/201911/t20191121_5046131.html.
33. 国防军事早报 [National Defense and Military Affairs Morning Report], 微光作
业静谧夜空中敌情复杂险象环生 [“Shimmering Operations in the Quiet Night
Sky in a Complex and Dangerous Enemy Situation”], aired 27 July 2020, on CCTV-
7, available at www.js7tv.cn/video/202007_224641.html; 演兵2020 陆军特种兵:
磨砺锻造新时代特战利箭 [“Army Special-Warfare Exercises in 2020: Sharpen
and Forge Special-Warfare Weapons in the New Era”], 央视网 [CCTV], 29 De-
cember 2020, tv.cctv.com/2020/12/29/VIDEvyusavi5RsjtaqQHpu4L201229.shtml.
34. Tang and Xu, “Reach a New Historical Starting Point,” p. 54.
35. Dong and Wang, “How to Build an Agile Command System.”
36. Ibid.
37. Much of this equipment is not necessarily exclusive to designated SOF but in-
stead apparently is distributed among both SOF units and smaller non-SOF
reconnaissance formations.
38. The example used here is a DJI Mavic Air model. See 国防军事早报 [National
Defense and Military Affairs Morning Report], 直击演训场: 利刃出鞘 解放军特
210 C H I N E S E A M P H I B I O U S WA R FA R E

战旅年终大考战味十足! 换羽新飞陆军合成营数字化装备全副武装跑出强军
加速度! [“Go Straight to the Training Ground: The Sharp Edge of the Sword Is
Out of the Sheath, PLA Special Operations Brigade End-of-the-Year As­sessment
Has a Full War Flavor! Change of Feathers, New Flight, PLAGF Combined-Arms
Brigade Digitized Equipment Accelerates the Strong Army”], aired 25 November
2020, on CCTV-7, available at www.youtube.com/watch?v=5VLHZgDpf30.
39. “Shimmering Operations in the Quiet Night Sky.” Of note, UAV availability is not
unique to SOF units; other reconnaissance units of group army brigades also use a
variety of UAVs for airborne intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance.
40. Of note, this equipment is not exclusive to SOF. See cctv/national defense report
author, “Go Straight to the Training Ground”; and 军事报道 [Military Affairs
Report], 九九重阳送温暖 [“Sending Warmth on the Double Ninth Festival”],
aired 17 October 2018, on CCTV-7, available at www.js7tv.cn/vid­eo/201810_161
502.html.
41. Dong and Wang, “How to Build an Agile Command System.”
42. 为何中国官方突然高调展示蛙人艇? 专家称意在震慑越南勿轻举妄动 [“Why
Did Chinese Officials Suddenly Display a Frogman Boat? Expert Says It Is to Con-
vince Vietnam Not to Act Rashly”], Sina News, 28 January 2020, k.sina.com.cn/
article_7094401811_1a6dbfb1300100pc4s.html?from=mil; H. I. Sutton, “Chinese
Naval Special Forces Projects and Capabilities,” Covert Shores, 28 May 2015, www
.hisutton.com/Chinese%20Naval%20Special%20Forces%20projects%20and%20
capabilities.html.
43. For one example, see 白峻 [Bai Jun] et al., 蛙人水下信息系统发展综述 [“A Sum-
mary of Frogman Information System Development”], 电声技术 [Electroacoustic
Technology] 38, no. 9 (2014), pp. 259–64.
44. Joel Wuthnow, China’s Other Army: The People’s Armed Police in an Era of Reform,
China Strategic Perspectives 14 (Washington, DC: National Defense Univ. Press,
April 2019), pp. 12–13, available at inss.ndu.edu/Portals/82/China%20SP%2014
%20Final%20for%20Web.pdf.
45. One Chinese source associates the Snow Leopards with the 2nd Mobile Con-
tingent, 1st SOF Detachment, which is based in Guangzhou. 喜报! 祝贺淮滨籍
武警雪豹突击队员翁振华荣立二等功 [“Good News! Congratulations to Weng
Zhenhua, Member of the Snow Leopards, for His Second Class Merit Award”],
河南日报 [Henan Daily], 22 February 2021, www.henandaily.cn/content/2021/
0222/282452.html. The other SOF detachment is located in Huzhou, Zhejiang.
46. Cortez A. Cooper III, “‘Controlling the Four Quarters’: China Trains, Equips, and
Deploys a Modern, Mobile People’s Armed Police Force,” in Learning by Doing:
The PLA Trains at Home and Abroad, ed. Roy Kamphausen, David Lai, and Travis
Tanner (Carlisle, PA: U.S. Army War College Strategic Studies Institute, 2012), p.
139.
47. 雪豹突击队: “国字号” 反恐精锐部队 [“Snow Leopard Commandos: ‘National
Brand’ Antiterrorist Elite Force”], 中国军网 [China Military Online], 6 February
2015, www.81.cn/wj/2015-02/06/content_6342550.htm.
48. Wuthnow, China’s Other Army, p. 22
49. 武元晋 [Wu Yuanjin], 亮剑陵展锋芒—陆军“精武—2018”军事武竞赛掠影 [“Shin-
ing the Sword in the Metallic Forest: A Glimpse of the Army’s ‘Jinwu-2018’
 P L A S P E C I A L- O P ER AT I O N S F O RC E S 211

Military Battlefield Competition”], 解放军画报 [PLA Pictorial], October 2018

(2nd half), available at www.plapic.com.cn/pub/2018-10/26/content_9323905
.htm.
50. 正午国防军事 [“Noon National Defense and Military Affairs Report”], aired 8
August 2020, on CCTV-7, available at tv.cctv.com/2020/08/08/VIDERUavVRIdh
CZsfhoL8f3n200808.shtml?spm=C52346.Peju2R0pHxYA.S82959.86.
51. 国防故事 [National Defense Stories], 超燃! 中国空降兵 “雷神” 突击队超严格
选拔过程公开 淬炼 “尖刀利刃”! [“Fast Burn! China’s Airborne ‘Thunder Gods’
Special Forces Team’s Ultrarigor­ous Selection Process Publicly Tempers the ‘Sharp
Blades and Knives!’”], aired 25 February 2021, on CCTV-7, available at www
.youtube.com/watch?v=KhOuRAtOFJU.
52. 范伟 [Fan Wei], 捕俘在岛屿特种作战的应用 [“Applied Research on Capturing
Enemy Personnel in Island Special Operations”], 军事体育学报 [Journal of Mili-
tary Physical Education] 35, no. 4 (October 2016), pp. 38–39.
53. For one example of just such an appellation, see “Noon National Defense and Mil-
itary Affairs Report.”
54. 军事报道 [Military Affairs Report], 武装泅渡特战队员搏击风浪磨砺硬 [“Armed
Swimming, Special Operators Combat Wind and Waves to Sharpen Their
Skills”], aired 26 August 2019, on CCTV-7, available at www.js7tv.cn/video/201
908_191141.html.
55. 刘莎莎, [Liu Shasha], ed., 我军展开海上特种训练, 蛙人负重25公斤定向潜水
[“Our Army Launches Special Training at Sea, Frogmen Carry 25 Kilograms
Underwater”], 人民网 [People’s Daily Online], 8 December 2016, www.js7tv.cn/
news/201612_71325.html. This unit is now within the 74th Group Army, based
in the Southern Theater Command.
56. 军事报道 [Military Affairs Report], 海军陆战队某旅侦察营: “蛟龙” 出击 “夜枭”
先行 [“Reconnaissance Battalion of a Marine Corps Brigade: ‘Sea Dragons’ Strike
‘Night Lords’ First”], aired 28 December 2018, on CCTV-7, available at www
.js7tv.cn/video/201812_168543.html.
57. 军事报道 [Mil­itary Affairs Report], 空降兵某旅: 多伞型超低空水上跳伞训练
[“An Airborne Brigade: Multipara­chute, Ultra-Low-Altitude, Above-Water Para-
chute Training”], aired 30 May 2019, on CCTV-7, available at www.js7tv.cn/
video/201905_182599.html; 国防军事早报 [National Defense and Military Affairs
Morn­ing Report], 空降兵某旅成建制完成水上跳伞 [“A Parachute Brigade Com-
pletes Above-Water Parachuting”], aired 10 August 2020, on CCTV-7, avail-
able at www.js7tv.cn/video/202008_226019.html.
58. 蛟龙突击队: 山岳丛林锻造全域作战的反恐尖刀 [“Sea Dragons Special Opera-
tions Force: Mountain and Jungle Training Creates a Multi-Operational Anti-
Terrorism Knife”], 峥嵘90年 为你守护 海之骄子 [“90 Years of Greatness for
Your Protection: Pride of the Sea”], 央视网 [CCTV Online], 4 August 2017,
www.js7tv.cn/video/201708_106487.html; 顾熙熙 [Gu Xixi] and 沈帅 [Shen
Shuai], 想成为特种兵吗? 请收下这份指南 [“Do You Want to Become a Spe-
cial Operator? Please Accept This Guide”], 中国军网 [China Military Online],
10 October 2020, www.81.cn/tz/2020-10/10/content_9915940.htm.
59. 军事快报 [Military Affairs Digest], 蛟龙突击队: 山岳丛林锻造全域作战的反
恐尖刀 [“Sea Dragons Special Oper­ations Force: Mountain and Jungle Training
212 C H I N E S E A M P H I B I O U S WA R FA R E

Creates a Multioperational Antiterrorism Knife”], aired 28 May 2018, on CCTV-7,

available at www.js7tv.cn/video/201805_146509.html.
60. 雪豹突击队训 “生不如死” 反恐精英无所不能 [“Snow Leopard Training Is
‘Death Better than Life,’ Counterterrorism Elites Are All Around”], 中国新闻周
刊 [China News Weekly], 18 July 2017, news.qq.com/a/20170718/008379.htm.
61. 雪豹突击队组合训练挑战极限 刷新综合战斗能力 [“Snow Leopard Comman-
do Combination Training Challenges Limits, Refreshes Comprehensive Combat
Capabilities”], 中国新闻网 [China News Service], 24 June 2020, m.yunnan.cn/
system/2020/06/24/030745347.shtml.
62. Cooper, “‘Controlling the Four Quarters,’” p. 139.
63. “Noon National Defense and Military Affairs Report.”
64. 军事报道 [Military Affairs Report], 东南沿海, 特战队员连贯展开渡海登岛演
练 [“On the Southeast Coast, Special Forces Continuously Carry Out Island
Landing Training”], aired 16 August 2020, on CCTV-7, available at www.js7tv
.cn/video/202008_226694.html.
65. 军事报道 [Military Affairs Report], 多兵种协同 海军陆战队登岛夺控演练
[“Multibranch Coordination, Marines Conduct Island Seizure Exercise”], aired
28 December 2020, on CCTV-7, available at www.js7tv.cn/video/202012_237736
.html.
66. “Competition of PLA Special Operations Forces Concludes,” China Military On-
line, 22 August 2013, en.people.cn/90786/8373495.html; Joseph Trevithick, “Chi-
na’s Largest Base Has Replicas of Taiwan’s Presidential Building, Eiffel Tower,”
The Drive, 27 May 2020, www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/33591/chinas-biggest
-base-has-huge-replicas-of-taiwans-presidential-building-and-the-eiffel-tower.
PLA media reports have not associated SOF training at Zhurihe with that specific
mock-up publicly.
67. 军事快播 [Military Affairs Digest], 陆航特战多方式机降突防 锻造精飞善战的
空中利刃 [“Army Aviation and Special Forces Multimodal Airborne Penetration,
Forging a Sharp Flying Sword”], aired 14 September 2020, on CCTV-7, available
at www.js7tv.cn/video/202009_229393.html; 军事报道 [Military Affairs Report],
多方式机降突防 锻造能飞善战的陆空铁拳 [“Multimodal Airborne Penetra-
tion, Forging a Sharp Iron Fist”], aired 15 September 2020, available at www
.js7tv.cn/video/202009_229548.html.
68. “Army Aviation and Special Forces Multimodal Airborne Penetration.”
69. 军事快播 [Military Affairs Digest], 陆军第75集团军某特战旅: 破袭夺控锤炼
立体化渗透作战打赢能力 [“A 75th Group Army Special Operations Bri-
gade: Breakthrough Attack to Seize Control, Refining the Ability to Win Three-
Dimensional Infiltration Opera­tions”], aired 26 September 2020, on CCTV-7,
available at www.js7tv.cn/video/202009_230429.html.
70. 军事报道 [Military Affairs Report], 陆军第71集团军某旅: 高空伞降 特战队
员立体突袭 [“A 71st Group Army Brigade: High-Altitude Parachute Landing,
Special-Forces Three-Dimensional Raid”], aired 24 November 2019, on CCTV-7,
available at www.js7tv.cn/vid­eo/201911_199454.html.
71. 军事报道 [Military Affairs Report], 科尔沁草原 陆航特战联合跨昼夜伞降训练
[“Horqin Grasslands, Land and Air Special Forces Conduct Night and Day
 P L A S P E C I A L- O P ER AT I O N S F O RC E S 213

Parachute Training”], aired 8 August 2020, on CCTV-7, available at www.js7tv.cn/

video/202008_225917.html.
72. 朝闻天下演兵2020 陆军特种兵: 磨砺锻造新时代特战利箭 [“Chaowen Tian-
xia 2020 Exercise Army Special Forces: Sharpening and Forging SOF Arrows
in the New Era”], aired 29 December 2020, on CCTV-13, available at tv.cctv
.com/2020/12/29/VIDEvyusavi5RsjtaqQHpu4L201229.shtml.
73. 王涛 [Wang Tao], 于波杨 [Yu Boyang], and 王基山 [Wang Jishan], 国产蛙人运
载器组训的重难点 [“The Important and Difficult Points of Domestic Frogman
Carrier Training”], 军事体育学报 [Journal of Military Physical Education] 34,
no. 3 (July 2015), pp. 40–41. The authors are SOF specialists from the Risk Pre-
vention and Rescue Department of the Naval Submarine Academy (海军潜艇学
院防险救生系).
74. Dong and Wang, “How to Build an Agile Command System.”
75. For an example of an expanded list of possible targets for special operations, see
陈志奇 [Chen Zhiqi] and 赵云峰 [Zhao Yunfeng], 信息化战争背景下联合特种
作战任务新特点 [“New Specialties in Joint Special Operations Missions in the
Context of Informatized Warfare”], 国防科技 [National Defense Technology] 40,
no. 3 (June 2019), p. 65.
76. 军事报道 [Military Affairs Re­port], 远程投送, 特种兵高空编队伞降 [“Long-
Range Delivery, Special-Forces High-Altitude Parachute Team Parachute Drop”],
aired 24 July 2019, on CCTV-7, available at www.js7tv.cn/video/201907_187850
.html.
77. Joel Wuthnow, “Who Does What? Command and Control in a Taiwan Scenario”
(paper presented at the 2020 CAPS-RAND-NDU Conference on the PLA, 20
November 2020, virtual).
78. On urban warfare in a Taiwan invasion scenario, see Lilly, “‘Killing Rats in a Por-
celain Shop.’”
79. 孙成陆 [Sun Chenglu], 特种作战中无人机侦察力量的运用 [“Application of
Unmanned Reconnaissance Vehicles in Special Operations”], 四川兵工学报
[Journal of Sichuan Ordnance] 32, no. 1 (January 2011), p. 44.
80. Operation Eagle Claw was an aborted attempt to rescue fifty-two hostages from
the U.S. embassy in Tehran in April 1980. One of the key findings from the offi-
cial review was that planning and training for this operation suffered from lim-
ited interoperability among U.S. forces drawn from all four services. The panel
suggested that a standing Joint Task Force construct would have reduced these
problems. See Special Operations Review Group, Rescue Mission Report [a.k.a.
The Holloway Report] ([Washington, DC]: [Joint Chiefs of Staff], 23 August 1980),
p. 60, doc. 8 in “The Hunt for Bin Laden: Background on the Role of Special Forces
in U.S. Military Strategy,” The September 11th Sourcebooks 6, National Security
Archive Electronic Briefing Book 63, National Security Archive, 21 December
2001, nsarchive2.gwu.edu/NSAEBB/NSAEBB63/doc8.pdf; see also William C.
Flynt III [Maj., USA], Broken Stiletto: Command and Control of the Joint Task
Force during Operation Eagle Claw at Desert One (Fort Leavenworth, KS:
School of Advanced Military Studies, 1995).
81. Nevertheless, countering PLA SOF was not addressed explicitly in recent artic-
ulations. See, for example, Lee Hsi-min and Eric Lee, “Taiwan’s Overall Defense
214 C H I N E S E A M P H I B I O U S WA R FA R E

Concept, Explained,” The Diplomat, 3 November 2020, thediplomat.com/2020/11/

taiwans-overall-defense-concept-explained/; and 2021 Quadrennial Defense Re-
view (Taipei: [Taiwan] Ministry of National Defense, 2021).
82. Some unofficial media reports have suggested that there already has been a de-
gree of cooperation between U.S. and Taiwan SOF. See, e.g., Joseph Trevithick,
“Army Releases Ultra Rare Video Showing Green Berets Training in Taiwan,”
The Drive, 29 June 2020, www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/34474/army-releases
-ultra-rare-video-showing-green-berets-training-in-taiwan.
 Thomas Shugart

11. Mine Warfare in a Cross-Strait Invasion

This chapter uses open-source information to attempt to answer key

questions about the potential use of mine warfare (MIW) by the People’s
Liberation Army (PLA) in an invasion of Taiwan. In terms of scope, MIW
comprises two key elements: first, mines and the means to deploy them; and
second, mine countermeasures (MCM), which include destroying mines
in land-based inventories, defeating minelayers and preventing them from
laying their weapons, and rendering safe mines that already have been de-
ployed for either offensive or defensive reasons. Both aspects of MIW will
be considered here.
The key questions about MIW as it relates to a cross-strait invasion—
those that seem likely to offer the most utility to defense thinkers and prac-
titioners—are the following:
• What would be the objectives of Chinese employment of MIW in an
invasion of Taiwan?
• Do the MIW forces of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) have the
appropriate capabilities to achieve these objectives?
• What MIW capabilities do Taiwan and the United States possess that
might help to deter a PRC attack on Taiwan?
• What countermeasures are Taiwan, the United States, and allies/
partners able to employ that might reduce the effectiveness of the
PRC’s MIW efforts? Would they be successful?
• What asymmetries exist between the two sides? How might we expect
these asymmetries to be exploited?
216 C H I N E S E A M P H I B I O U S WA R FA R E

After answering these questions, the chapter will conclude with recommen-
dations for the United States and its allies to blunt the effectiveness of PRC
MIW and to maximize the success of U.S. and allied MIW efforts.
Certainty in the answers to some of the questions above is difficult to
achieve, as open-source information on many of the specifics of the PLA’s
MIW capabilities is sparse and sometimes contradictory. For example,
open-source estimates of China’s total naval mine inventory vary from fifty
thousand to over one hundred thousand, with little clarity on what propor-
tion of those mines is modern, and thus the most difficult to counteract. De-
tails on the development of Chinese MCM forces are also somewhat murky;
while reasonable estimates of the number of MCM vessels exist, there is little
trustworthy detail to be found on their effectiveness or the subsystems they
use to find and neutralize mines. Nevertheless, open-source information al-
lows us to gain a broad understanding of the MIW capabilities of both sides
and to find points of significant asymmetry.
The seminal work on China’s MIW efforts—the 2009 China Maritime
Studies Institute’s (CMSI’s) Chinese Mine Warfare: A PLA Navy “Assassin’s
Mace” Capability (coauthored by Andrew S. Erickson, Lyle J. Goldstein, and
William S. Murray)—already has established a strong foundation on this
topic, using countless Chinese sources to do so.1 Rather than attempting
to duplicate these efforts fourteen years later, this chapter will attempt to
build on them, using in part additional perspective taken from recent trans-
lations of Chinese strategic documents. More importantly, it will attempt to
take CMSI’s foundational work—along with that of others—and look at it
through the lens of dramatic changes to the regional military balance in the
last decade or so, accounting as well for changes (and worrying setbacks) in
the development of U.S. and allied MIW capabilities. In terms of framing
and context, this chapter will assume—without addressing national motiva-
tions and larger geopolitical factors—a full-blown invasion of Taiwan and a
maximal effort potentially involving military action against Taiwanese, U.S.,
and allied military forces. Because of current geopolitical trend lines, this
chapter also will assume a near-term scenario (approximately 2025), as well
as the involvement of Japan and Australia as cobelligerents.

The Mine Warfare Military Balance

This section provides an overview of the capabilities of China’s MIW forces
versus those fielded by Taiwan, the United States, and other allies, as well as
related developmental and procurement trends.
 M I N E WA R FA R E I N A C RO S S - S T R A I T I N VA S I O N 217

China
With a combination of both a robust inventory of naval mines and a compre-
hensive suite of available delivery platforms, China fields what is probably
the world’s most potent at-scale mine-delivery capability. While estimates
of China’s mine inventory vary, according to a 2015 Office of Naval Intel-
ligence (ONI) report, China fields more than fifty thousand mines, with
a “large variety of mine types such as moored, bottom, drifting, rocket-
propelled, and intelligent mines.” China does not appear to be standing
still in developing its mining capabilities, and ONI expects the PLA to
“continue to develop more advanced mines in the future such as extended-
range propelled-warhead mines, antihelicopter mines, and bottom-
influence mines more able to counter minesweeping efforts.”2 For mining
platforms, China has an impressive array of options. With delivery possi-
ble via surface ships, multiple aircraft types, dozens of submarines, and
hundreds of maritime militia vessels, China has the capability to conduct
large-scale mining operations either openly or clandestinely and in either
benign or contested areas.3
China also has developed robust and modernized MCM capabilities
over recent decades, with significant numbers of advanced and dedicated
MCM vessels joining its fleet in recent years.4 According to ONI, as of 2019
China possessed more than two dozen dedicated minesweepers, as well as
five or more minehunting drone-control ships, which can deploy a total
inventory of more than fifteen remote-controlled unmanned surface ves-
sels (USVs).5 China regularly and publicly exercises its MIW forces in both
minelaying and minesweeping and claims that it maintains the capability
to neutralize Taiwanese mines swiftly enough to support a cross-strait in-
vasion.6 In recent years, Chinese writers also have discussed the use of both
maritime militia vessels and civilian helicopters in conducting MCM oper-
ations, although the effectiveness of such military-civil fusion minehunting
efforts remains unclear.7

Taiwan
Recently, Taiwan has signaled an increase in its MIW efforts as a focus
area of its asymmetric overall defense concept.8 As a result, after years of
relative neglect, Taiwan’s MIW capabilities are of somewhat mixed quality,
with nascent improvements in some areas.
In mining capability, while Taiwan recently introduced four dedicated
“fast minelayers” and appears to be developing “smart mines” of its own,
open-source details on the overall size and capabilities of Taiwan’s mine
218 C H I N E S E A M P H I B I O U S WA R FA R E

inventory remain sparse.9 The minelayers discussed above appear to be

the only dedicated delivery platforms, with no known submarine or air-
delivery capability, although Taiwan has requested to purchase U.S.-made
mines, likely including Quickstrike air-delivered versions.10
Given the Chinese mine threat described above, as well as Taiwan’s
stark reliance on seaborne trade and supply, Taiwan’s naval minesweeping
capabilities seem quite limited. The Taiwanese navy’s MCM fleet appears
to consist of only six fully operational vessels: two former U.S. Osprey-class
minesweepers and four small, German-built coastal minehunters.11 Taiwan’s
most recent effort to build a new class of minehunters ended in a fiasco
of corruption and fraud—the owner of one of Taiwan’s main shipbuilding
companies was sentenced to twenty-five years in prison.12

The United States

One might expect the United States, as the world’s naval superpower—and
one that is particularly reliant on long, seaborne supply lines—to have the
world’s foremost naval capabilities in MIW; however, that does not appear
to be the case. In recent years, limited U.S. investment in dedicated MIW
capabilities has relegated the United States to a position in which its MCM
capabilities in a high-end military conflict are likely to be inadequate, and
its ability to conduct at-scale minelaying in contested environments seems
to be—at least for now—limited or nonexistent.
For U.S. MCM forces, the last decade was supposed to be a period of
transition, during which legacy capabilities built around the U.S. Navy’s
Avenger-class MCM ships and the U.S. Marine Corps’s MH-53 minesweep-
ing helicopters were supposed to be retired in favor of capabilities built
around the modular MCM function of the littoral combat ship (LCS) pro-
gram.13 Instead, the retirement of both the Navy’s minehunters and the
Marine Corps’s MH-53 helicopters have had to be held in abeyance because
of repeated delays and testing failures during development of the MCM
module program (a separately funded program from the LCS). This is to
say nothing of the troubles associated with the LCS program itself, which
will be truncated far short of its original predicted hull count, and whose
Freedom-class variant has been found wanting in its basic reliability and
ability to stay at sea.14 According to Navy budget documents, the MCM
module will continue developmental and initial operational testing into
2023, and capabilities will continue to be extended to testing on “vessels of
opportunity” such as the Navy’s expeditionary mobile base, now that the
LCS program’s days are numbered.15 Clearly, when one considers the hopes
of Erickson, Goldstein, and Murray in 2009 that “the commitment to LCS
can be viewed as a strong commitment to MCM,” things have not turned
out as well as those scholars expected.
 M I N E WA R FA R E I N A C RO S S - S T R A I T I N VA S I O N 219

In terms of minelaying, U.S. capabilities are relatively limited—and

will remain so until several current developmental programs come to frui-
tion. The United States has not fielded a new naval mine variant for almost
forty years, and as a result it has minimal capabilities for mining in con-
tested environments. While a classified number of clandestinely delivered
Mk 67 submarine-launched mobile mines (SLMMs) remain in storage in
Guam, their design is quite dated, and it seems that these mines are not
compatible with the Navy’s current-production Virginia-class attack sub-
marines. Furthermore, use of these mines in Navy exercises does not ap-
pear to have been discussed publicly since 2015.16 The United States also
fields several variants of Quickstrike air-delivered bottom mines, although
all current-production versions require the operation of aircraft (all non-
stealthy types) over, or near, their intended delivery location. While there
are new mining capabilities in development for use in contested environ-
ments—such as the Quickstrike Extended Range (a winged variant of the
smallest, five-hundred-pound Quickstrike bottom mine), the unmanned
underwater vehicle (UUV)–like mining expendable delivery unmanned
submarine asset (known as MEDUSA) submarine-launched mine, and
the large UUV-delivered, clandestine-delivered mine (using excess former
SLMM warheads)—these programs remain several years away from full-
rate production.17

Regional Allies
Japan and Australia, the two U.S. allies that seem most likely to be ready and
able to contribute meaningfully to any effort to defend Taiwan, maintain
MIW capabilities of their own—specifically, in the field of MCM. Japan
has a force of more than two dozen minehunters, as well as a drone-control
ship and multiple MCM USVs, while Australia maintains a modest force of
four Huon-class coastal minesweepers. What is questionable, however, is
how much these MCM forces would be able to contribute to an MIW cam-
paign in a cross-strait conflict. Japan’s minesweepers may be busy keeping
open the approaches to Japan’s own ports and naval bases, and Australia’s
minesweepers may take too long transiting from the antipodes to affect the
outcome of a conflict significantly.

Mine Warfare in PRC Strategic Thinking

Having described the types of MIW forces available in a cross-strait con-
flict, this chapter now turns to how those forces may be employed and what
the objectives of MIW employment might be for the PRC.
220 C H I N E S E A M P H I B I O U S WA R FA R E

PRC Campaign Plans in a Taiwan Invasion Scenario

A review of PLA strategic writings suggests that there is no distinct and
separate campaign plan for MIW alone. Rather, the use of MIW is inte-
grated into the broader campaign plans that would be used as the basis for
the PRC’s planning of a Taiwan invasion. According to Ian Easton of the
Project 2049 Institute, in the course of an attack on Taiwan the PLA likely
would execute four of its main joint operational plans, specifically:
• Joint firepower strike operations
• Joint blockade operations
• Joint landing operations
• Joint anti–air raid operations
These joint operations could be conducted independently, in combination,
or in series—depending on the circumstances of the scenario. For example,
the initiation of an anti–air raid campaign might be called for in the case
of a U.S. intervention via missile strikes and air attacks on PLA forces.18
Similarly, the 2013 edition of the Chinese Academy of Military Sci-
ence’s Science of Military Strategy indicates that the strategic missions of
the PLA Navy (PLAN) encompass conducting joint campaigns to include
“information assault, fire strike, sea-air blockade, 3-D island landing, and
multidimensional protection, plus countering of the powerful enemy’s in-
tervention.” This document specifically highlights “various missiles” and
“smart torpedoes and mines” as types of “informationized weapons,” the
wide-ranging use of which will become one of the fundamentals of naval
warfare.19

Mine Warfare Doctrine in China’s Joint Campaign Plans

In terms of sequencing, Easton theorizes that the first major operational
phase of a Taiwan invasion would consist of blockade and bombing oper-
ations, followed by amphibious landing operations.20 He states that PLA
writings focus on the use of sea mines in blockade operations, with multi-
ple layers of drifting, bottom, and moored mines delivered by submarines,
bombers, and surface minelayers at the initiation of a conflict. The PLA’s
objective would be to reduce Taiwan’s shipping capacity as part of a mul-
tilayered quarantine to prevent resupply of the island.21 After blockading
mines are laid, Chinese doctrine calls for close surveillance of mined areas,
with forces tasked—if necessary—to “wipe out” minesweeping forces to
safeguard the integrity of the mine blockade, as well as to conduct replen-
ishment minelaying swiftly if necessary.22
Erickson, Goldstein, and Murray wrote in 2009 that the Chinese Na-
tional Defense University’s Campaign Theory Study Guide also advocates
 M I N E WA R FA R E I N A C RO S S - S T R A I T I N VA S I O N 221

deployment of mines from both submarines and aircraft as part of a block-

ade campaign against Taiwan, and that other Chinese writers have suggest-
ed laying mines along the first island chain to prevent the entry of U.S. nu-
clear submarines into the “near seas” proximate to China (the Yellow Sea,
East China Sea, and South China Sea). They indicate that Chinese writings
tend to focus on thirteen particular characteristics of MIW, including the
following observations:23
• MIW development attracts relatively little attention from outsiders
(one need only consider the relative oceans of ink spent writing about
China’s “carrier-killer” ballistic missiles).
• Mines may have strategic effects well beyond any actual combat loss-
es they inflict (the mere suspicion that they might be present may
suffice to shut down a port until proved otherwise).
• There is a strong tendency to discuss preemptive offensive use of
mines to give the advantage of surprise.
• Chinese analysts focus on civil-military integration in MIW (well
predating recent Western analytical focus on China’s military-civil
fusion concept).
• Antisubmarine-warfare (ASW) mines, properly placed in “anti-
submarine mine zones,” might provide mitigation for the PLAN’s
relatively modest ASW capabilities against U.S. nuclear submarines
(although these have improved in recent years, at least for China’s
surface combatants).
• Satellite navigation systems may enhance the effectiveness and pre-
cision of minelaying operations significantly, as well as augment the
ability to transmit the locations of minefields to friendly forces (see
the recent completion by China of its own satellite navigation con-
stellation, BeiDou).24
Following the establishment of a blockade of Taiwan, as cross-strait
landing operations proceeded, China’s MCM operations would come to
the fore, with minesweepers leading the way to “clear disembarkation
zones free of sea mines before the transport ships arrived to drop anchor.”25
These advance minesweeping activities also would include clearing “ma-
neuver zones for the firepower support ships” and, if necessary, would
involve covering forces to interdict enemy antiminesweeping forces and
coastal-defense systems. If required, air and naval units would be tasked
with striking enemy minelaying forces and would provide surveillance to
ensure that cleared areas remained free of mines.26
In a manner quite different from how MIW normally is conceived of
by U.S. and allied navies, Chinese operational doctrine calls for the use of
222 C H I N E S E A M P H I B I O U S WA R FA R E

offensive MIW as a key operational method for gaining sea control, par-
ticularly in the “near seas.” By blockading enemy ports and naval bases
using a combination of maritime-strike aircraft, submarines, missile units,
and minefields placed along key egress routes, China could avoid enemy
“operational strengths on the sea from unfolding” and prevent their full
capabilities from being brought into action.27 If enemy naval units do man-
age to get to sea, Chinese doctrine also calls for responsive offensive min-
ing—conducting mobile minelaying along apparent routes of travel, “so as
to impede or destroy an enemy ship formation as it sails, to delay the enemy
ship formation’s activity, and to create favorable conditions” for follow-on
strikes.28
China’s strategic appreciation for MIW seems to be derived from ob-
servations of the outsize effects that MIW had in some of the conflicts
that Chinese thinkers have studied keenly, such as the Korean War and
the U.S.-led Desert Storm campaign against Iraq.29 In both of those con-
flicts, MIW efforts caused outsize effects on U.S. and allied naval forces,
with numerous ships damaged or sunk, and effectively neutered planned
amphibious efforts at Wonsan (in Korea) and Kuwait.

U.S. Mine Warfare: Contrasting Priorities

When compared with the clear importance that MIW has in Chinese stra-
tegic thought, the relative unimportance of it in U.S. strategy and doctrine
becomes readily apparent. As a specific data point, while the recently re-
leased U.S. triservice maritime strategy does mention improving U.S. un-
dersea mine-warfare capabilities, the only other mention of mine warfare
in the document is its classification as a “specialty capability”—one to be
undertaken largely by allies and partners.30 Although details of the Navy’s
distributed maritime operations concept remain classified, open discus-
sion of it has involved very little discussion of MIW. The topic is similar-
ly absent from discussions of the higher-level joint concept for access and
maneuver in the global commons (known as JAM-GC). The U.S. Marine
Corps Commandant’s planning guidance does call for improvements to
MCM capabilities but says little else about U.S. MIW efforts.
But regardless of what U.S. strategic documents say, what President Jo-
seph R. Biden once stated—“Don’t tell me what you value[;] show me your
budget, and I’ll tell you what you value”—remains valid. Along these lines,
a detailed review of fiscal year 2021 USN budget documents indicates that,
despite multiple programs touted publicly as significant improvements to
U.S. MIW capabilities, the sum of spending on development and fielding
of MIW programs constitutes less than 1 percent of all Navy and Marine
 M I N E WA R FA R E I N A C RO S S - S T R A I T I N VA S I O N 223

Corps spending on research and development (R&D) and procurement.

Further back, in fiscal year 2020, $71 million of R&D funding for Quick-
strike joint direct attack munition / extended range aerial mine variants
ended up on the Navy’s unfunded priorities list, although Congress did
add $27.5 million on its own initiative to help push development forward.31
Put simply, when one wonders about the fairly limited U.S. MIW capabil-
ities described above, it is clear that the country is essentially getting what
it has paid for.

PRC Execution of Mine Warfare in

a Taiwan Invasion Scenario
Given the fielded MIW forces of the potential participants in a cross-strait
conflict and the available information about the PLAN’s MIW doctrine,
how might China employ sea mines in a Taiwan invasion? For the specifics
of the scenario, this analysis assumes a time frame within the next five
years or so and the involvement of the United States and Japan as cobel-
ligerents assisting in the defense of Taiwan, the United States in a com-
prehensive manner and Japan in a largely supporting and defensive role.
This analysis also assumes that China launches the assault from an exercise
posture, with a limited degree of warning, and that weapons development
and fielding plans continue at their current pace and trajectory until then.
Exhibit 1, overlaid on a bathymetric representation of the region, shows
a potential distribution of PRC mines in and around the Taiwan Strait.
These minefields would be laid with the objectives described above in Chi-
na’s MIW doctrine: to isolate the Taiwan Strait from U.S. and allied forces
(especially U.S. submarines); to trap Taiwan’s navy within its own ports;
and to blockade Taiwanese ports to pressure the populace, prevent resup-
ply and reinforcement by allied heavy forces, and isolate Taiwan’s economy.
China could deploy sea mines overtly in its territorial sea and international
waters before hostilities commence, but it could mine Taiwanese territorial
waters either clandestinely or after hostilities commence. Along the south-
ern entrance to the Taiwan Strait, PLAN submarines clandestinely could
lay dual-capable ASW / anti–surface ship bottom mines within Taiwan’s
territorial waters, turning them on by remote control at the beginning of
the invasion. Further west, outside Taiwanese waters but still in water deep
enough for effective submarine operations, Chinese air and surface forces
(including the maritime militia) could lay dual-capable bottom mines in
a belt leading seaward during the days leading up to conflict. Even far-
ther to the west, in areas too shallow for effective submarine operations,
Chinese surface vessels (military and civilian) could lay another belt of
224 C H I N E S E A M P H I B I O U S WA R FA R E

Exhibit 1. Bathymetry and Notional PRC Minefields in Vicinity of Taiwan

Tam Shui Port Keelung Naval Base and Port

Taipei

Su’ao Naval Base and Port

Submarine-laid ASW/ASUW bottom mines

Surface/air-laid ASW/ASUW mines Taichung Naval Base and Port

Surface-laid ASUW mines

Nonmined ASW patrol lines Hualien Port

Mailiao Port
Taiwan
Magong Naval Base and Port
Budai Port

Anping Naval Base and Port

Tsoying Naval Base

Kaohsiung Naval Base and Port

100 km

Notes: ASUW = antisurface warfare; ASW = antisubmarine warfare.

simpler antisurface bottom and moored mines, thereby declaring associat-

ed exclusion zones and driving traffic toward controlled, nonmined patrol
zones closer to the Chinese coast. Similar minefields could be laid along
the northern entrance to the strait to seal off PLA operating areas from
both axes of potential approach. With traffic channeled into smaller zones
closer to China’s coast, focused patrol lines could be established in non-
mined areas to attempt to prevent the entry of U.S. and allied submarines
and warships into the strait.
As suggested by Chinese doctrine, the PLAN could lay down layered
minefields around Taiwan’s major naval and commercial ports along both
the east and west coasts. Submarine-laid remote-controlled mines would
be first to be placed within Taiwan’s territorial waters, and especially in the
small minable zones along the steep drop-off on Taiwan’s east coast. Since
maritime militia mining operations would be more difficult along Tai-
wan’s east coast, in that area a greater emphasis probably would be placed
on aerial delivery or delivery by larger civilian vessels, whether surrepti-
tiously or otherwise.
On the Taiwanese side, with a crisis looming one could expect Taiwan
to attempt to lay mines within its territorial waters in the approaches to the
most likely invasion beaches on the country’s west coast. One also could
 M I N E WA R FA R E I N A C RO S S - S T R A I T I N VA S I O N 225

assume that efforts to lay mines in international waters likely would face
stiff opposition and harassment from Chinese surface forces, the China
Coast Guard (the world’s largest such organization), and other government
and maritime militia vessels. In the days leading up to an invasion attempt,
China likely would engage in an aggressive, whole-of-society effort to keep
the strait clear of anyone else’s mines and open for its own transport vessels.
Exhibit 2 depicts minefields that the PLA might deploy farther afield in
the region, with the objective of containing U.S. and some allied warships
in port or blocking their return to port for rearming, resupply, or repair.
Minefields sown before the conflict among the Japanese islands would
need to be laid by submarines, with replenishment after conflict initiation
conducted by sorties of minelaying aircraft in those areas that might be
accessible to them. While the gaps along the Ryukyu Islands are likely to
be too large to deny passage completely into the East China Sea, enough
mines could be laid along the Ryukyus to at least slow and instill caution
in U.S. and allied vessels planning to reposition through the various straits
along the island chain. Finally, if the PLA’s leaders were willing to be more
aggressive in attempting to force Japan to stay neutral or to withhold sup-
port for U.S. operations from Japanese territory, the PLAN could attempt
to use submarines or aircraft (or even clandestine merchant ships) to mine

Exhibit 2. Notional PRC Minefields along the First Island Chain

Notes: ASUW = antisurface warfare; ASW = antisubmarine warfare.

226 C H I N E S E A M P H I B I O U S WA R FA R E

the approaches to Japan’s major ports, attempting to use the leverage of a

mine blockade of Japan’s trade to extort acquiescence to PRC aggression
against Taiwan.

Assessment and Asymmetries

In 2009, Erickson, Goldstein, and Murray stated, “At present, the prospects
for American MCM forces rapidly countering Chinese MIW are not prom-
ising.”32 Similarly, in 2012 Scott Truver assessed that the “U.S. Navy and
its allied and partner nations are ill prepared to cope with Chinese mine
warfare strategies and operations,” and that the “U.S. Navy is significantly
hamstrung in types and numbers of mines and in its ability to deploy them
in the Near Seas.”33 In the decade or so since these gloomy assessments
were shared, the situation hardly has improved. Rather than evening up
the balance by deploying flexible and modular capabilities at scale, the U.S.
MCM transition process has been mired in developmental delays for years
and tied to a now-doomed LCS program. (Although, given that the MCM
module now is advertised as usable by “vessels of opportunity,” one won-
ders why it was associated so closely and for so long with a vessel that made
many compromises in the interest of high speed and low observability—
which apparently are unnecessary to execute the mission.) Owing to slow
development and inconsistent funding, the U.S. Navy is still years away
from a current-production, offensive, advanced mine that could be deliv-
ered effectively in contested areas.
Perhaps more importantly than these programmatic challenges, the
larger context within which both sides’ MIW forces would attempt to con-
duct their missions has become highly asymmetric—and dramatically for
the worse for Taiwanese, U.S., and allied and partner forces in the vicinity
of Taiwan. In 2009, China’s antiship ballistic missiles were merely a rumor,
rather than now apparently being a fully tested weapon system that can be
deployed by the hundreds. Most of China’s surface ships then were crude
and obsolescent types rather than the highly modern and capable frigates,
destroyers, and cruisers that Chinese shipyards have churned out in recent
years. A decade ago, China seemed unlikely to be able to gain the air domi-
nance over the Taiwan Strait that it would need for its MIW forces to oper-
ate effectively and to deny the forces of Taiwan and its allies; this no longer
seems to be the case, given China’s much more modern air forces, as well
as the punishment that missile/rocket forces might be able to deliver to al-
lied airfields across the region. In short, the extensive counterintervention
 M I N E WA R FA R E I N A C RO S S - S T R A I T I N VA S I O N 227

investments that China has made in recent years seem likely to provide the
umbrella that China’s MIW forces would need to operate effectively, and
these measures may be able to suppress or hold at arm’s length those of
Taiwan and its partners—making an already challenging task nearly im-
possible. China’s unique and ever-more-capable maritime militia tips the
scales further, providing huge numbers of potential minelayers as well as
covering forces to harass and interfere with allied MIW forces in the run-
up to a conflict.

There are few mysteries in understanding why U.S. MIW capabilities re-
main marginal at this point—and there are no “magic beans” available to
improve them significantly without commensurate investment. In reality,
suggestions and opportunities abound for how to improve U.S. and allied
MIW capabilities and use them to greater effect; however, without more
focus on this crucial warfare area, as well as increased and consistent fund-
ing, these ideas are unlikely to move the needle on U.S. capabilities.
In the absence of such significant changes in the capability of fielded
U.S. MCM forces, Taiwan and U.S. allies probably should focus on building
additional national resilience, stockpiling critical supplies, and preparing
their populaces for the significant disruptions that would come with an
effective Chinese mine blockade. U.S. and allied navies also should steel
themselves for the damage and losses they may endure when operating in
the face of an aggressive Chinese mining campaign. If they are unwilling
to take such losses, they should be ready to press U.S. national leadership to
lean forward aggressively in the run-up to a crisis, taking the risks neces-
sary to deny China’s MIW forces the opportunity to deploy their weapons
and seize the initiative. If that, too, is infeasible, then they should be ready
to accomplish their missions from a distance—largely ceding the “near
seas” to PRC control—and prepare for a denial of access to their own main
operating bases and major ports.
In any case, defense thinkers and practitioners should understand that
the potency of mine warfare has increased dramatically in recent decades
with the use of smarter mines that are much harder to fool, to find, and to
remove. As the focus of national-security attention swings to great-power
competition—and at that, in a theater dominated by the maritime domain,
inhabited by allied nations that are dependent on seaborne trade, and with
an adversary who appears to appreciate all this fully—the United States
should pay greater attention to this venerable and often underappreciated
means of conducting naval warfare.
228 C H I N E S E A M P H I B I O U S WA R FA R E

Notes
1. Andrew S. Erickson, Lyle J. Goldstein, and William S. Murray, Chinese Mine War-
fare: A PLA Navy “Assassin’s Mace” Capability, China Maritime Study 3 (Newport,
RI: Naval War College Press, 2009).
2. Office of Naval Intelligence, The PLA Navy: New Capabilities and Missions for the
21st Century (Washington, DC: 2015), pp. 20–21.
3. Erickson, Goldstein, and Murray, Chinese Mine Warfare, pp. 25–32.
4. Office of Naval Intelligence, The PLA Navy, p. 21.
5. Farragut Technical Analysis Center, “China People’s Liberation Army Navy
(PLAN), Coast Guard, and Government Maritime Forces: 2019–2020 Recognition
and Identification Guide” (poster), Office of Naval Intelligence, 20 April 2021, www
.oni.navy.mil/Portals/12/Intel%20agencies/China_Media/2020_China_Recce
_Poster_UNCLAS.jpg.
6. Xu Hailin, “Anti-underwater Mine Warfare Drill to Protect Maritime Sovereignty,”
Global Times, 18 June 2018, www.globaltimes.cn/content/1107348.shtml+&cd=
1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us; Liu Xuanzun, “PLA Minesweepers to Break Taiwan
Sea Mines Threat,” Global Times, 21 September 2020, www.globaltimes.cn/content/
1201603.shtml.
7. 刘自力 [Liu Zili] and 陈青宋 [Chen Qingsong], 海上民兵参加海战的任务与行动
[“Tasks and Operations of the Maritime Militia When Participating in Maritime
Combat”], 国防 [National Defense], no. 11 (2018), pp. 50–51; 张炜 [Zhang Wei],
张修志 [Zhang Xiuzhi], and 王久法 [Wang Jiufa], 民用直升机在反水雷中的应
用探讨 [“An Examination of the Use of Civil Helicopters in Mine Countermeasure
Operations”], 数字海洋与水下攻防 [Digital Ocean & Underwater Warfare] 3,
no. 5 (October 2020), pp. 367–71. Both articles are CMSI translations.
8. Drew Thompson, “Hope on the Horizon: Taiwan’s Radical New Defense Concept,”
War on the Rocks, 2 October 2018, warontherocks.com/2018/10/hope-on-the
-horizon-taiwans-radical-new-defense-concept/.
9. Joseph Trevithick, “Taiwan’s Next Batch of Stealthy Catamarans Will Have Serious
Mine-Laying Capabilities,” The Drive: The War Zone, 24 May 2019, www.thedrive
.com/the-war-zone/28201/taiwans-next-batch-of-stealthy-catarmans-will-have
-serious-mine-laying-capabilities; National Chung-Shan Institute of Science and
Technology, “Mine,” NCSIST, 20 April 2021 www.ncsist.org.tw/ENG/csistdup/
products/product.aspx?product_id=255&catalog=38.
10. Mike Stone and Patricia Zengerle, “Exclusive: U.S. Pushes Arms Sales Surge to Tai-
wan, Needling China—Sources,” Reuters, 16 September 2020, www.reuters.com/
article/us-usa-taiwan-arms-exclusive-idUSKBN2671M4.
11. Erickson, Goldstein, and Murray, Chinese Mine Warfare, p. 49.
12. Matthew Strong, “Taiwan Shipbuilder Sentenced to 25 Years in Navy Minesweeper
Scandal,” Taiwan News, 27 September 2019, www.taiwannews.com.tw/en/news/
3785654.
13. Sam Taylor, “Breaking the Tether: The Future of Mine Warfare” (PowerPoint
presentation, Sea-Air-Space 2019, National Harbor, MD, 8 May 2019), available
at www.navsea.navy.mil/Portals/103/Documents/Exhibits/SAS2019/DrSamTaylor
-SAS-05082019.pdf.
 M I N E WA R FA R E I N A C RO S S - S T R A I T I N VA S I O N 229

14. Ronald O’Rourke, Navy Force Structure and Shipbuilding Plans: Background and
Issues for Congress, CRS Report (Washington, DC: Congressional Research Service,
18 March 2021), available at crsreports.congress.gov/product/pdf/RL/RL32665/
333; Sam LaGrone, “Navy Calls Freedom LCS Propulsion Problem Class-Wide De-
fect, Won’t Take New Ships until Fixed,” USNI News, 19 January 2021, news.usni
.org/2021/01/19/navy-calls-freedom-lcs-propulsion-problem-class-wide-defect
-wont-take-new-ships-until-fixed; Stone and Zengerle, “U.S. Pushes Arms Sales.”
15. U.S. Navy Dept., Department of Defense Fiscal Year (FY) 2021 Budget Estimates:
Navy—Research, Development, Test & Evaluation, Navy; Justification Book Vol-
ume 2 of 5 (Washington, DC: February 2020), www.secnav.navy.mil/fmc/fmb/
Documents/21pres/RDTEN_BA4_Book.pdf; Ashley Conner, “NSWC Panama
City Supports Mine Countermeasure Mission Package Demo aboard Vessel of
Opportunity,” Naval Sea Systems Command, 2 October 2019, www.navsea.navy
.mil/Media/News/SavedNewsModule/Article/1977656/nswc-panama-city
-supports-mine-countermeasure-mission-package-demo-aboard-vesse/.
16. U.S. Navy Dept., U.S. Navy Program Guide 2017 (Washington, DC: 2017),
available at media.defense.gov/2020/May/18/2002302043/-1/-1/1/NPG17.PDF;
Albert H. Konetzni Jr. [Vice Adm., USN], “Mine Warfare,” CHIPS, January–
March 2003, available at www.doncio.navy.mil/chips/ArticleDetails.aspx?ID=
3450; Richard D. Parker [Lt. (j.g.), USN], “SUBPAC Conducts Clandestine
Mine Exercise,” Commander, U.S. Pacific Fleet, 21 September 2015, www.cpf.navy
.mil/news.aspx/010453.
17. Hans Lynch [Capt., USN] and Scott C. Truver, “Toward a 21st-Century US Navy
Mining Force,” Defense One, 22 August 2018, www.defenseone.com/ideas/2018/08/
toward-21st-century-us-navy-mining-force/150709/.
18. Ian Easton, “China’s Top Five War Plans,” Project 2049 Institute, 6 January 2019,
project2049.net/2019/01/06/chinas-top-five-war-plans/.
19. 军事科学院军事战略研究部 [Academy of Military Science Military Strategy
Studies Department], 战略学 [Science of Strategy] (Beijing: Military Science Press,
2013), pp. 209, 215, trans. China Aerospace Studies Institute [CASI] and Project
Everest as Science of Military Strategy (2013), In Their Own Words: Foreign Mili-
tary Thought (Montgomery, AL: CASI, 8 February 2021), pp. 263, 271, available
at www.airuniversity.af.edu/CASI/In-Their-Own-Words/Article-Display/Article/
2485204/plas-science-of-military-strategy-2013/.
20. Ian Easton, The Chinese Invasion Threat: Taiwan’s Defense and American Strategy
in Asia, 2nd ed. (Manchester, U.K.: Eastbridge Books, 2019), p. 105.
21. Ibid., p. 112.
22. 张玉良 [Zhang Yuliang], ed., 战役学 [Science of Campaigns] (Beijing: National
Defense Univ. Press, 2006), trans. CASI and Project Everest as Science of
Campaigns (2006), In Their Own Words: Foreign Military Thought (Mont-
gomery, AL: CASI, 2 December 2020) [hereafter CASI Science of Cam-
paigns], p. 345, available at www.airuniversity.af.edu/CASI/Display/Article/
2421219/plas-science-of-campaigns/.
23. Erickson, Goldstein, and Murray, Chinese Mine Warfare, pp. 29, 31, 41–47, 53.
24. Elizabeth Howell, “China Launches Final Beidou Satellite to Complete GPS-Like
Navigation System,” Space.com, 22 June 2020, www.space.com/china-launches
-final-beidou-navigation-satellite.html.
23 0 C H I N E S E A M P H I B I O U S WA R FA R E

25. Easton, The Chinese Invasion Threat, p. 135.

26. CASI Science of Campaigns, pp. 364–65.
27. Ibid., p. 343.
28. Ibid., p. 363.
29. Erickson, Goldstein, and Murray, Chinese Mine Warfare, pp. 4, 6.
30. U.S. Navy, U.S. Marine Corps, and U.S. Coast Guard, Advantage at Sea: Prevailing
with Integrated All-Domain Naval Power (December 2020), pp. 13, 22, media.defense
.gov/2020/Dec/17/2002553481/-1/-1/0/TRISERVICESTRATEGY.PDF/TRISER
VICESTRATEGY.PDF.
31. “Navy Fiscal Year 2020 Unfunded Priorities List,” enclosure in J. M. Richardson to
James M. Inhofe and J. M. Richardson to Adam Smith, 22 March 2019, available at
www.defensedaily.com/wp-content/uploads/post_attachment/239633.pdf.
32. Erickson, Goldstein, and Murray, Chinese Mine Warfare, p. 47.
33. Scott C. Truver, “Taking Mines Seriously: Mine Warfare in China’s Near Seas,” Na-
val War College Review 65, no. 2 (Spring 2012).
PA R T I V

Scenario Factors
 John K. Culver

12. Battlespace Preparation

for “Unification” in China’s
Unfinished Civil War

Recent U.S. assessments of potential China-Taiwan conflict (and U.S. mil-

itary intervention) frame China’s military modernization as newly threaten-
ing and destabilizing, and somehow morally intolerable.1 Such U.S. assess-
ments also tend to focus almost exclusively on military aspects, ignoring
the significant “gray zone” and nonmilitary aspects that China’s own recent
actions in the South China Sea (SCS) have demonstrated. China’s ongoing
strategic campaign to prepare the ground for unification with Taiwan chal-
lenges typical warning paradigms, which define monitoring and response
criteria for employment of military forces that assume that the starting con-
dition is “peacetime.” Decades ago, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP)
decided to employ all means of state power, consistent with other strategic
goals, to achieve unification with Taiwan.
For the CCP, the Chinese Civil War never ended, and the party can-
not claim credit for ending the “century of humiliation” and “reunifying”
the motherland until it is resolved. For China, battlespace preparation for
a conflict with and over Taiwan covers many nonmilitary domains, owing
to the shadow nature of its largely nonmilitary contest along the Taiwan
Strait for the last seventy years. Over decades of relative peace and a massive
expansion of economic, tourist, and people-to-people ties between Taiwan
and the mainland, the CCP has continued the civil war. Throughout this
23 4 C H I N E S E A M P H I B I O U S WA R FA R E

period, China has been conducting a “whole of regime” strategy for reuni-
fication that has remained at low-to-moderate intensity, while employing
nonmilitary means because successive administrations on Taiwan, and in
the United States, have not pressed the issue of Taiwan’s status. Now, both
Taipei and Washington seem to be pressing it, especially the administration
in Washington.
China has a political strategy for unification, which has a military com-
ponent. However, much U.S. analysis reverses this and frames China’s op-
tions as absolute peace or war, and if war, the only military option the analy-
sis considers is invasion.2 This is a dangerous oversimplification. For China,
the first and most important goal would not be to win quickly in a conven-
tional military sense. Instead, the goal would be not to lose while China sets
the conditions for eventual victory—a victory that the CCP will frame in
political rather than strictly military terms. The CCP probably could afford
to continue to be patient as it executes a series of strategic campaigns. It
could be prepared for this kind of war to last for months, perhaps years, even
for a decade if necessary.
Analysis of China’s recent actions as indications of a more intensive—
even decisive—phase of operations requires an approach tailored to these
unique characteristics. The most recent and useful paradigm might be Chi-
na’s successful strategy to change the status quo permanently in the SCS
since 2013—without firing a shot. China is applying its whole-of-regime
capabilities to its “unended” civil war, which likely means that classic mil-
itary warning indicators only will come late in a dangerous scenario—one
in which the CCP no longer seeks to preserve the status quo and instead
has made the strategic decision to pursue the conditions for reunification
actively.

Correctly Framing China’s View of the “Taiwan Issue”

The CCP’s war with the Kuomintang (KMT, or Nationalist Party of the Re-
public of China) started in China in the 1920s, paused during the decade
of anti-Japanese war and the Second World War, then culminated in the
immediate postwar period with the CCP’s victory and the remnants of the
KMT fleeing to Formosa/Taiwan in 1949. For the CCP, the Chinese Civil
War just shifted means, modes, and tempo and has continued to the present.
For many modern-day citizens of Taiwan, China’s civil war means lit-
tle. It was fought in the past by two groups of Chinese citizens on the main-
land, one of which subsequently occupied the island of Formosa (Taiwan)
 B AT T LE S PAC E P R EPA R AT I O N F O R “ U N I FI C AT I O N ” 235

by force, secured its control with the massacre of 28 February 1947, and
instituted a dictatorship that ruled under martial law until 1987. From this
perspective, the civil war effectively ended with the death of Generalissimo
Chiang Kai-shek in 1975 or with the end of KMT dictatorship in the early
1990s, when Taiwan held its first democratic elections.
From Beijing’s perspective, Washington has been enmeshed in this
ongoing civil war almost since the conflict’s inception, through both acts
and decisions not to act. The U.S. government has played a decisive role
at nearly every juncture, even while professing an official position of not
taking a position, other than that the two sides should work to resolve the
issue peacefully. The U.S. decision not to support unpopular, deeply cor-
rupt KMT leader Chiang Kai-shek—a Second World War ally—in his fight
on the mainland hastened the CCP’s victory there, but that only marked
the beginning of the next phase of the Chinese Civil War.
The deployment of the U.S. Navy’s Seventh Fleet to the Taiwan Strait in
1950 after the start of the Korean War effectively checked any plans China
had to mount an invasion.3 Taiwan remained a military dictatorship until
1987, when Chiang’s son, Chiang Ching-kuo, lifted martial law and began
the transition to vibrant, tech-led economic growth and popular elections
to strengthen the island’s attractiveness to nonautocrats and to counter
Taiwan’s growing isolation.4 Even then, the official policy of the Republic
of China (ROC) on Taiwan was to realize its goal of reunification under the
KMT, not independence from China.5
At the height of U.S.-ROC relations, prior to President Richard M. Nix-
on’s 1972 visit to China, the United States maintained a mutual defense
treaty with the ROC. The United States stationed troops on Taiwan, kept
nuclear weapons there, and sent U.S. combat troops fighting in Vietnam
to Taiwan for rest and recuperation. On Henry A. Kissinger’s first, secret
visit to negotiate Nixon’s trip to China, a key Chinese requirement was U.S.
agreement to remove American nuclear weapons from Taiwan.6 Taiwan
consequently would launch the first of its repeated efforts to develop its
own nuclear weapons—all uncovered and stopped by the U.S. government
and the international community.7
Over the past several decades, in part because of the U.S. commitment
neither to support Taiwan’s independence nor to abandon its former ally,
China shifted priorities for its war with Taiwan to building cross-strait
trade; establishing economic, transportation, and “people to people” links;
and strengthening the basis for stable U.S.-China relations. When tensions
flared and China staged military demonstrations, its goal was to maintain
this status quo. In many instances, the principal goal of the CCP threats
236 C H I N E S E A M P H I B I O U S WA R FA R E

and military demonstrations during periods of tension (typically around

a Taiwan election cycle) was to pressure the United States to constrain
Taiwan rather than to act directly on Taiwan itself. And the United States
frequently performed this role through, for example, public comments by
presidents or senior U.S. officials that were critical of the candidate of the
Democratic Progressive Party (DPP)—the party typically regarded as most
sympathetic to Taiwan’s independence.8
The primary political goal of the CCP’s Taiwan policy since roughly
1979 has been to preserve the possibility of political unification at some
undefined point in the future, while Beijing pursued economic reform and
opening. Tellingly, China’s 2005 law laying a foundation for the use of force
is an “anti-secession” law, not a “unification law”—a distinction that was
debated actively for the two years prior to its passage.9
Furthermore, since Washington switched its diplomatic recognition
from the government of Taipei to that of Beijing, Taiwan has emerged as a
vibrant democracy, and polling indicates that most Taiwanese do not feel
very threatened; there exists little domestic pressure to increase military
spending massively or return to lengthy universal conscription.10 Most peo-
ple on Taiwan are not worried about imminent attack, because forty years
since U.S. derecognition of the ROC have passed without war, and because
some think that Taiwan could not prevail without massive U.S. military
intervention, so there is little point in building up Taiwan’s own military.
The Taiwanese public also continues to mistrust its military as an insti-
tution because of the ROC military’s origins as a pro-KMT, mainlander-
dominated stronghold.11

Characteristics of a Militarized “War of National

Reunification”
As mentioned, over decades of relative peace and a massive expansion
of economic, tourist, and people-to-people ties between Taiwan and the
mainland, the CCP has continued the civil war. China has been conduct-
ing a whole-of-regime strategy for reunification that has remained at
low-to-moderate intensity, while employing nonmilitary means because
successive administrations on Taiwan and in the United States have not
pressed the issue. China has been able to sustain its immediate goal of pre-
venting Taiwan’s independence and preserving the possibility of political
compromise under a framework that it still can call “unification.” Beijing
determinedly has built China’s composite national power and controlled
the risk of war through deep economic integration with Taiwan, the United
States, and the international system.
 B AT T LE S PAC E P R EPA R AT I O N F O R “ U N I FI C AT I O N ” 237

Many of the understandings, military factors, and ambiguous positions

that enabled decades of peace, prosperity, and democracy on Taiwan now
are eroding. This erosion is caused by China’s expanding economic and
military power, Taiwan’s consolidating democracy led by the proautonomy
DPP, and burgeoning U.S. determination to exploit the issue for leverage
(i.e., play the “Taiwan card”) in its strategic rivalry with China.12 The more
destabilizing factors driving the dynamic include the following three items.
The first factor is Taiwan’s domestic political and identity develop-
ment; even the KMT is unlikely to sustain its prior position on the “1992
consensus.” 13 To avoid political oblivion, the KMT continues to transition
into a fully Taiwan-centric party that must appeal to domestic sentiment,
which is turning even more strongly against any form of unification under
any timeline.
Second, there is the emergence of full-blown U.S.-China strategic ri-
valry, which increases Taiwan’s attraction to both major U.S. political par-
ties as a litmus test of “standing up to China.” Contrary to the myth that
the main constraint against Taiwan’s independence has been the threat of
Chinese military action, at least since the mid-1990s the main constraint
has been pressure on Taipei by Washington. U.S. policies and actions
have demonstrated this influence over the course of the proindependence
(DPP) Chen Shui-bian administration (2000–2008) and the prointegration
(KMT) Ma Ying-jeou administration (2008–16), which in 2015 culminat-
ed in the first meeting between the respective leaders of the CCP and the
KMT since 1945.14 The United States seems more incentivized today than
at any time since 1979 to play the Taiwan card because of great-power com-
petition, rather than because of actions by an explicitly proindependence
leader in Taipei (which the president at the time of this writing, Tsai Ing-
wen, is not).
The third, and perhaps most important, factor is China’s own emer-
gence as a great power with clear military dominance vis-à-vis Taiwan and
seeming near parity versus the United States. The CCP no longer has the
excuse of not acting violently because it is “weak,” as it did after the 2001
collision near Hainan Island between a Chinese fighter aircraft and a U.S.
reconnaissance airplane, or after the United States accidentally bombed
the Chinese embassy in Belgrade in 1999. Chinese domestic public opinion
has grown more nationalistic, reflecting Beijing’s portrayal of its relative
governance success compared with Washington’s throughout decades of
economic expansion and, more recently, the trade war and the pandemic—
all of which were claimed to be Chinese achievements.15 Yet there is little
evidence that China seeks to tap this nationalism to support harsher pol-
icies toward Taiwan. Instead, the more typical case is that the CCP uses
238 C H I N E S E A M P H I B I O U S WA R FA R E

its information and propaganda apparatus to keep public opinion docile,

to block and remove inflammatory messages/memes, and to prevent ma-
jor demonstrations.16 For the CCP, the Taiwan issue traditionally has been
fraught with risks, not opportunities.
As previously stated, China has a political strategy for unification,
which has a military component. Much U.S. analysis reverses this and
frames China’s options as absolute peace or war. If war, this analysis as-
sumes, the only possibility is invasion.17 This is a dangerous oversimplifica-
tion, both of the nature of the China-Taiwan issue and its history, and of the
means, modes, and timelines of potential Chinese multidomain operations
if and when Beijing acts to compel unification within a finite time frame.
Such analysis also frequently frames U.S. obligations—under the Taiwan
Relations Act, President Ronald W. Reagan’s “six assurances,” and other
moral or quasi-legal imperatives—to defend Taiwan without mentioning
Taiwan’s defense of itself very much. The following is a recent example of
this view from Elbridge Colby and Jim Mitre:

Moreover, China has built a military specifically to force unifica-

tion. Beijing’s most attractive military strategy to cleanly and reso-
lutely settle the issue would likely be an invasion, and blunting such
an assault should be the United States’ top priority for defending
Taiwan. At the same time, the Pentagon also needs to be prepared
to relieve Taiwan if China chooses a more indirect strategy, such
as a blockade and/or bombardment of the island to try to coerce it
into surrender.18

Colby and Mitre’s first assertion gives insufficient credit to the trans-
formation of the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) over many decades, and
especially the 2010s, not only for Taiwan contingencies but also to be the
armed force of a great power with global interests. Much of what China’s
defense industry has built and is building, including its large new class-
es of amphibious-assault ships and aircraft carriers, could have less to do
with Taiwan and more to do with the SCS and missions beyond East Asia,
including noncombatant evacuation operations and noncombatant protec-
tion missions, and potential armed conflict in the Indian Ocean. In the
event of war with the United States over Taiwan, these platforms still would
be crucial, given the PLA’s lack of amphibious lift, yet insufficient, unless
Chinese forces gain the full air, sea, and undersea superiority necessary to
sustain major amphibious operations. As conservative war planners, PLA
leaders likely assume that the United States would intervene with major
military force. As a result, amphibious operations across the Taiwan Strait
 B AT T LE S PAC E P R EPA R AT I O N F O R “ U N I FI C AT I O N ” 239

would be high-attrition warfare that would put at risk large, expensive na-
val platforms, which are also big, high-value targets.
With regard to amphibious lift, at least, what China has not done may
be more interesting than what it has. So far, it has not built the large num-
bers of tank landing ships and medium landing ships that would enable
an invasion of Taiwan; actually, its inventory of those more necessary and
expendable vessels is smaller than it was a decade ago, according to the
U.S. Department of Defense reports to Congress on the Chinese military,
published annually since 2009.19
As former senior defense intelligence official Lonnie Henley informed
the U.S.-China Commission under the heading “A Failed Landing Would
Not End the War” in written testimony in February 2021:

If ordered to compel reunification by military force, the PLA

would bring every tool to bear. Among its most effective lines
of operations would be a long-term air, maritime, and infor-
mation blockade of Taiwan. Such a blockade could be the main
effort, eschewing an attempted landing altogether, or it could be
part of a larger invasion campaign. Most importantly, even if the
landing failed, the PLA could continue the blockade indefinitely
and neither US nor Taiwan forces would have much ability to over-
come it.20

Moreover, should military conflict come to the Taiwan Strait in the next
few years, the past will not serve as prologue for China’s modes, means, and
goals. The unfinished Chinese Civil War will reemerge as more than a mil-
itary contest. And it is likely that from the moment the shooting starts the
contest will cease to be solely the unfinished Chinese Civil War; rather, it
will become the China-U.S. war. Taiwan would be the first battlefield of in-
tensive combat operations between the world’s two most powerful military
forces in a war that quickly would become about much more than Taiwan’s
autonomy and prosperity or the lives of its twenty-four million people.
For the CCP, such a conflict would be about its legitimacy and survival
and the return of China as the dominant power in East Asia. Failing to
fight over Taiwan probably would not be an option for the CCP; indeed,
China seems convinced that it has an asymmetrical interest in the out-
come, compared with the United States.
For Washington, it would present a Hobson’s choice: intervene in
open-ended, financially ruinous conflict with another nuclear power
for the first time and risk unprecedented combat losses, or be perceived
as standing aside to allow an assault on a vibrant democracy and its
24 0 C H I N E S E A M P H I B I O U S WA R FA R E

twenty-four million citizens. U.S. allies and partners will be torn by the
cost of picking the U.S. side versus the potential ramifications of not coun-
tering Chinese aggression.
In a crisis to compel unification, the scope and intensity of China’s
means, modes, and measures could increase exponentially. China probably
does not need to invade the island quickly and, if successful in doing so (by
no means assured), then to fight a ruinous counterinsurgency for decades.
As mentioned above, for China, the first and most important goal would
not be to win quickly in a conventional military sense. Instead, it would be
not to lose while it sets the conditions for eventual victory—a victory that
the CCP will frame in political rather than strictly military terms.
The CCP probably could afford to continue to be patient as it executes
a series of strategic campaigns. It could be prepared for this war to last for
months, years, even a decade if necessary. In its potential long-term nature,
it would be analogous to other struggles for national unification—those in
Vietnam, Korea, Germany, and even the U.S. Civil War.
If the Chinese Civil War becomes a kinetic conflict, the key distinction
that China will make is that East Asia is in a condition of “not peace,” along
with all the economic and security ramifications of that new reality. The
region that has driven global economic growth for the past several decades
would become a war zone—breaking global supply chains, transportation
links, and financial systems.
China will insist that other countries not provide the U.S. military with
access to bases, waters, and airspace, or they will risk becoming targets
for multiple domains of Chinese aggression. Rather than being the “se-
curity guarantor of the Western Pacific,” China will seek to portray the
United States as the “insecurity guarantor” that disrupts the region’s (and
the world’s) trade, prosperity, and peace, thereby creating doubt and gaps
between the United States and its allies and partners.
For China, its adversaries’ center of gravity is not purely their military
capacity to blunt an invasion. Instead, it is the will of the Taiwanese people
and military to fight, and the will and capacity of the United States to in-
tervene decisively and maintain a posture to do so for a long time. Military
operations almost certainly would not be binary—bluster or invade—but
rather would cover a wide spectrum that could be intensified or reduced at
China’s choosing.
Early in a conflict, China could use long-range strikes to destroy all
Taiwan’s key military and leadership facilities, power generation, and
telecommunications. It probably could embargo all Taiwan’s oil imports
and use cyberattacks to cut or compromise much of the island’s high-
bandwidth connectivity to the outside world, and may be able to sustain
 B AT T LE S PAC E P R EPA R AT I O N F O R “ U N I FI C AT I O N ” 241

this activity indefinitely. It can seize all Taiwan-held offshore islands, in-
cluding the Penghus and Pratas. China then could proceed to use these
as mobilization and embarkation bases for future landing operations on
Taiwan and as choke points against U.S. intervention, while burnishing
nationalist domestic support early in the conflict.
And perhaps most importantly, China can seek the right time and con-
ditions to demonstrate to the people of Taiwan—and Japan, Australia, and
the United States—that the U.S. military cannot prevent or undo Beijing’s
actions, and either will not put its major military assets into harm’s way
or, having done so, will suffer surprising and politically devastating losses.
Beijing would strive to portray the U.S. position as analogous to victoryless
wars in Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan—albeit at far higher potential hu-
man and financial costs for Washington and its allies.
In such a scenario, the CCP would need an end to the Chinese Civil
War on terms that it can call unification. Its best outcome would be one
negotiated by Taiwan’s political authorities that cannot be negated by U.S.
military, economic, or diplomatic action. While Washington focuses on
ensuring that it can respond to a Chinese invasion of Taiwan, it also should
consider that Beijing may conclude that the most effective way to achieve
a negotiated outcome is to deter or defeat the U.S. military as a primary
line of operations rather than invade Taiwan. Next, China could take ad-
vantage of the psychological impact on Taiwan to press for negotiations or
wear down the population’s will to resist through prolonged air and sea
blockade.

Chinese Preparation for Multiple Battlefields

China’s continuing strategic campaign to establish conditions for Taiwan’s
unification with the mainland challenges typical warning paradigms,
which set monitoring and response criteria for employment of military
forces and assume that the starting condition is peacetime. The CCP made
a decision decades ago to employ all forms of state power, as long as doing
so did not conflict with other strategic goals. The military forces required
to execute major phases of such a campaign are already largely in place in
eastern China. During previous periods of cross-strait military tension in
the 1990s and early years of the following decade, a key warning indicator
was the movement of the PLA’s most modern aircraft, submarines, and
surface-to-air missiles (SAMs) into areas opposite Taiwan. Today, almost
all the essential forces are in place, yet many disagree that China intends to
attack Taiwan in the near future.
242 C H I N E S E A M P H I B I O U S WA R FA R E

The past two decades also have brought intensive economic integration
between Taiwan and China (and Hong Kong). Trade continues to grow,
having reached the highest point since economic relations resumed. Ac-
cording to a recent Brookings Institute report, “China and Hong Kong
combined now represent 34% of Taiwan’s overall trade, compared with
13% with the United States and 11% with Japan. Despite [the incentives of
Taipei’s Look South policy], the Association of Southeast Asian Nations’
(ASEAN) share of Taiwan’s total trade volume has actually dropped from
16% in 2017 to 14% [in 2020].”21 The CCP long had calculated that China’s
intensive economic integration would improve sentiments on Taiwan for
closer political alignment with China, but polling indicates that Beijing’s
heavy-handed actions in Xinjiang and especially in Hong Kong and in-
cidents of targeted economic pressure on Taiwan have blunted any such
warming.22
China also gains advantage owing to common language, extensive
family and commercial ties, and broad and deep United Front operations
targeting Taiwan. Chinese media entities have expanded ownership of Tai-
wan’s media outlets; actions have included state-run, Beijing-based media
allegedly paying for placement of articles in the run-up to Taiwan’s 2020
presidential elections.23
Unsurprisingly, Taiwan is a major target of all Chinese intelligence or-
ganizations. This targeting raises U.S. concerns about transfers of sensitive
intelligence and military systems, which could be heightened in wartime
when closer U.S.-Taiwan cooperation would be crucial.24 As Peter Mattis, a
leading U.S. expert on Chinese intelligence operations, has noted, “While
Taiwan faces an espionage and subversion challenge from China at a scale
that no modern democracy has faced, its leading political parties struggle
to address the problem. . . . The stakes are not trivial spy-vs-spy games but
the integrity of Taiwan’s democracy, and the weakness is every bit as crip-
pling as an ill-equipped or poorly-prepared military.”25
In summary, a CCP political decision to shift goals—from preventing
Taiwan’s independence to compelling an outcome it can claim represents
the decades-old dream of unification—would not take place in a vacuum.
In a very real sense, China has been “preparing the battlefield” for decades,
and it continues every day to do so via diverse modes and means. This
preparation includes the increase of violations of Taiwan’s air-defense
identification zone (ADIZ)—but not Taiwan’s territorial airspace—and
the buildup of overwhelming military capability.26 China also has been
attempting actively to influence Taiwan’s past two elections; despite the
 B AT T LE S PAC E P R EPA R AT I O N F O R “ U N I FI C AT I O N ” 243

debatable results, it is likely to ramp up unprecedented efforts for Taiwan’s

2024 presidential contest.27

Beijing’s South China Sea Model

Analysis of China’s behavior for indications of a more intensive phase of
operations requires an approach suited to these particular characteristics.
The most recent and useful paradigm might be China’s successful strategy
to alter the status quo in the SCS without the use of armed force. Since
2013, China substantially has advanced its goal of gaining “effective con-
trol” not only over its seven expanded, militarized outposts but also poten-
tially over the entire area.28 Sometimes called gray-zone warfare, Beijing’s
tactics might better be termed “finding the seams, staying below threshold
for conflict.”
Active occupation and disputation of maritime claims among multiple
claimants over the Spratly Islands and other features in the SCS mostly
date from the 1970s, but there are aspects that make China’s actions there
highly relevant for Taiwan. These include the following preferred set of
tools.  

Lawfare Using Domestic Law

In both Taiwan and the SCS, the CCP has worked diligently to “create a
veneer of legal legitimacy for its position.” 29 The moral authority Beijing
asserts is an important aspect of domestic messaging, and it could be used
to frame a casus belli should events require it. In both the Taiwan and SCS
cases, China appeals to history as its core legal justification, especially to
the predations of outside powers during the “century of humiliation.”
The CCP exerts significant effort to lay down legal argumentation for
its policies and to employ “lawfare” as part of its tool kit. This effort has ex-
panded significantly domestic Chinese statutes on “anti-secession,” mar-
itime law, and related national-security and sovereignty matters over the
past two decades.30  

Preponderant Military Forces, with Maritime

Law Enforcement Out Front
China has built up overwhelming military capacity opposite Taiwan and
at its massively expanded outposts in the Spratly and Paracel Islands. Prior
to its island building and militarization in the SCS, the large and mod-
ern China Coast Guard, Maritime Safety Administration, and maritime
24 4 C H I N E S E A M P H I B I O U S WA R FA R E

militia carried out both China’s more routine and its sometimes aggressive
actions, which enabled it to be assertive while staying below the threshold
of direct military confrontation.
The 2012 confrontation between China Marine Surveillance and the
Philippine navy at Scarborough Shoal, which resulted in a permanent Chi-
nese law-enforcement presence there, which likely validated this model.
China since has applied the model to many other situations.  

Economic Leverage
China is a major trading partner of all the other claimants to the Spratly
Islands: Vietnam, the Philippines, Malaysia, Brunei, and Taiwan. As with
Taiwan, China has used targeted, temporary economic punishment to
show displeasure toward other claimants and to demonstrate the costs of
aggressive resistance to Beijing’s preferences.

Diplomatic Isolation and Disunity

China works diligently to prevent unity among the other claimants or
within the broader international community—especially ASEAN. This ap-
proach is similar to its efforts during the administration of President Tsai
to isolate Taiwan further internationally. China’s approach to asserting its
territorial claims in the SCS includes the following elements.

Ensure National Unity to Defend China’s Claims

Well before China commenced island building, dating to the 2009 dead-
line for submissions to the United Nations Commission on the Limits of
the Continental Shelf, China sought to strengthen its relatively weak legal
claims by publishing and popularizing a body of supporting evidence and
pseudolegal papers.31 These efforts reinforced in the minds of the Chinese
public—and some external audiences—the legitimacy of China’s claims
and its subsequent actions.
When the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea
(UNCLOS) arbitral tribunal ruled strongly in favor of the Philippines in
2016, China took all available steps to inoculate its citizens against this
outcome. It refused to participate in the arbitration and organized signifi-
cant foreign lobbying to support China’s position. When the new Rodrigo
Duterte regime in the Philippines failed to build on the favorable decision,
China claimed some measure of vindication.32

Start Slowly, and Move Forward If No Major Resistance Is Encountered

When China began land reclamation in the Spratly Islands in late 2013 or
early 2014, it started dredging and island building at what would be the
 B AT T LE S PAC E P R EPA R AT I O N F O R “ U N I FI C AT I O N ” 245

smallest of its seven expanded occupied features, and this action drew little
international attention.33 It had done similar—but less extensive—island
building in the Paracels (islands also claimed by Vietnam) during the pre-
vious decade and received little international criticism, even after it per-
manently stationed fighter aircraft, SAMs, and antiship missile launchers
there. It was not until mid-2014, when China commenced massive oper-
ations at Fiery Cross Reef using dozens of high-capacity cutter suction
dredgers, that Western analysts realized that the planned expansion would
be sufficient to have a full-length military runway of more than three thou-
sand meters, and significant port and military capacity. International in-
terest mounted, but Beijing apparently did not perceive sufficient reason to
curtail its activities, and it started equally massive expansions of Subi and
Mischief Reefs soon thereafter. Between 2013 and 2016, China went from
being the only major claimant without an airfield in the Spratlys to having
three major military airfields there, each capable of operating any aircraft
in the PLA’s inventory.

Divide Opponents; Isolate Weak Ones

China used its economic and diplomatic weight to prevent ASEAN unity
and exploited the organization’s general reluctance to involve itself in se-
curity issues and territorial disputes unsuited to its consensus-based mod-
el and economic focus. In 2012, Beijing effectively embargoed imports of
Philippine bananas owing to the confrontation over Scarborough Shoal,
foreshadowing its “pineapple war” with Taipei.34 China later sought to iso-
late the Philippines when the latter brought its dispute to the UNCLOS
arbitral tribunal in 2013. The election of President Duterte in 2016—
shortly before Manila won the dispute at the UNCLOS arbitration panel
—neutralized initial advantages for the Philippines and the United States
when he refused to build on the results, pivoting demonstrably away from
Washington and toward Beijing.

Create a “New Normal”

China’s island building, enhanced military infrastructure, and expanded
coast guard and maritime-security presence now appear permanent, and
they have set the foundation for future island building—activities that in-
clude the construction of major tourist facilities and the influx of a signif-
icant civilian population. China has not fulfilled the more dire predictions
of foreign critics yet—it has not based fighter aircraft at its new bases nor
begun new land reclamation at Scarborough Shoal. Yet China has demon-
strated that it could take all those steps with little warning. China also has
incorporated the Spratlys into its governmental administrative hierarchy,
24 6 C H I N E S E A M P H I B I O U S WA R FA R E

and it is enforcing Chinese fishing and environmental laws using law-

enforcement vessels and aircraft. It increasingly is acting as the sovereign
power for the disputed area.

Cumulatively, China’s tactics in the SCS amount to a highly success-

ful strategy. Beijing found key “seams” in international law, the U.S.-
Philippine alliance, and the resolve of most other claimants and ASEAN,
and it stretched them to achieve its goals. Technically, China’s island build-
ing and militarization broke no international laws, nor has it violated the
letter of the 2002 Declaration on the Conduct of Parties in the South China
Sea. It seized no new islands—most of the seven expanded features were
occupied first in the 1980s, the last in 1994; it expelled no other claimants;
and it has not challenged overflight of the area (although it has warned
foreign aircraft about directly overflying its outposts).
Beijing’s SCS success also showcased the limits of U.S. power and op-
tions by not providing Washington an easy pretext to use military force,
and by doing so before the relationship was defined by strategic rivalry.
Washington’s long-standing policy of not picking sides in maritime dis-
putes—even most of those involving U.S. allies—and ambiguity on the ex-
tent of the U.S.-Philippines defense treaty likely gave Beijing confidence
to avoid the “redlines.” There is no evidence that Beijing perceives signifi-
cant costs for its actions in the SCS; instead, its major gains likely reinforce
the attractiveness of applying the same tool kit in other areas, including
Taiwan.

Implications of the SCS Tool Kit for Taiwan

China’s application of its whole-of-regime capabilities to its ongoing civil
war likely means that classic military warning indicators will come only
late in a dangerous scenario during which the CCP no longer seeks to pre-
serve the status quo and instead has made the strategic decision to pursue
reunification using all means, including military force.
The key event—well before shots are fired, fleets and aircraft are mar-
shaled, or a blockade is announced—will be a political decision by the CCP
Politburo Standing Committee (PBSC). There was no clear indication of
when the PBSC made the decision to start island expansion in the Spratlys.
But while the SCS actions of 2013–16 risked confrontation with adversar-
ies, the prospect of major military conflict proved to be low, especially once
major land reclamation was complete by the end of 2015.
 B AT T LE S PAC E P R EPA R AT I O N F O R “ U N I FI C AT I O N ” 247

For a Taiwan scenario, conservative, prudent military planning by the

PLA probably would dictate that it assumes major U.S. military interven-
tion would occur once China was prepared to initiate significant combat
operations. As it did in the SCS, China would attempt first to set the condi-
tions for its eventual success.  

Ensure National Unity to Defend China’s Claims

Decades of propaganda and indoctrination from Chinese primary schools
onward would seem to leave little additional work to be done, but the focus
of previous mass campaigns since 1979 has been on “preserving the status
quo” and preventing de jure independence for Taiwan, not on compelling
reunification. A key distinction would be a shift emphasizing that China’s
patience had reached its end, conditioning the Chinese people to be pre-
pared for the sacrifices of wartime.
More fundamentally, Chinese official statements and authoritative me-
dia could warn domestic and foreign audiences that the “objective condi-
tions” that enabled Deng Xiaoping in 1978 to proclaim that “peace and sta-
bility are the dominant, durable trends” no longer applied, thereby framing
reunification with Taiwan as an imperative of U.S.-China strategic rival-
ry.35 Monitoring and translation of open-source information will be critical
to discerning trends along these lines.  

Start Slowly, and Move Forward If No Major Resistance Is Encountered

Rather than a “bolt out of the red” invasion attempt, China likely would
begin by testing capabilities and reactions in a variety of domains. Chi-
na’s large, more-regular air incursions into Taiwan’s ADIZ in the first
half of 2021 could serve as an example, but these would build into more
flights in the north of the strait, not just in the southwest, furthest from
Taiwan. China has a multitude of options to increase pressure selectively,
to send signals, or to condition Taiwan and others to a “new normal.” This
would apply not only, or even most importantly, in the military domain
but in legal, administrative, commercial, and other areas, including some
as seemingly obscure as air-traffic-control administration, international
standards-setting bodies, and agricultural-inspection standards.  

Divide Opponents; Isolate Weak Ones

Taiwan has many friends but only one security guarantor (albeit an am-
biguous one). Beijing would seek to ensure that there is no U.S.-led coa-
lition supporting and enabling defense of Taiwan. Japan remains the key
24 8 C H I N E S E A M P H I B I O U S WA R FA R E

fourth-party potential actor because U.S. access to naval and air bases there
is essential to any defense of Taiwan. Beijing probably could be expected to
play up the history issue—Taiwan’s former status as a Japanese colony that
began 126 years of political separation from the mainland—and leverage
the severe economic repercussions for Japan if it were to become embroiled
in a war with China. Unlike its more limited capabilities against the con-
tinental United States, China has the means to strike anywhere in Japan
with conventional ballistic and cruise missiles and combat aircraft, and Ja-
pan long has lived in the shadow of China’s medium-range, nuclear-armed
missiles.
China also would seek to limit outside military, intelligence, or diplo-
matic support for U.S. intervention. It would focus on other U.S. regional
allies—South Korea, Australia, the Philippines, and Thailand—to ensure
that U.S. forces would not be permitted to operate from those countries
against China.  

Create a “New Normal”

Western analysts should focus on understanding the phases of Chinese
strategy for Taiwan, instead of only endgames. In the event the PBSC shifts
to “achieving reunification” as a goal for 2049, as Xi Jinping intimated in
a 2017 address, China will accelerate preparations in all domains, with
an initial goal of conditioning expectations in China—and on Taiwan.36
The CCP’s ultimate objective is not invasion per se but rather a process
for authorities of China and Taiwan to negotiate the formal, long-term po-
litical relationship across the strait. Military, economic, information, and
diplomatic coercion and inducements all would be in play, and the red-
line for threatened military force would shift from preventing permanent
separation to responding to a refusal by Taipei to begin the political pro-
cess—there is language in the 2005 antisecession law along these lines. For
example, article 4 states that accomplishing “the great task of reunifying
the motherland is the sacred duty of all Chinese, the Taiwan compatriots
included,” while article 8 warns that in the case of actions by Taiwan “sep-
aratists” that “completely exhaust” possibilities for peaceful reunification,
China will employ “nonpeaceful means.”37
If 2049 is the CCP’s deadline for beginning a formal unification pro-
cess, China’s cross-strait policies clearly could break from the past some-
time after 2030, when the PLA’s massive reforms undertaken in 2016 are
realized fully. China’s proposals initially could be fairly lenient, not dissim-
ilar to the CCP’s 1979 letter to the Taiwan compatriots, but a key condition
would be the end of the existence of any U.S.-Taiwan security framework
without Beijing’s explicit approval.38
 B AT T LE S PAC E P R EPA R AT I O N F O R “ U N I FI C AT I O N ” 249

Notes
1. Elbridge A. Colby, The Strategy of Denial: American Defense in an Age of Great
Power Conflict (New Haven, CT: Yale Univ. Press, 2021).
2. Elbridge A. Colby and Jim Mitre, “Why the Pentagon Should Focus on Taiwan,”
War on the Rocks, 7 October 2020, warontherocks.com/2020/10/why-the-pentagon
-should-focus-on-taiwan/.
3. Bruce A. Elleman, High Seas Buffer: The Taiwan Patrol Force, 1950–1979, Newport
Paper 38 (Newport, RI: Naval War College Press, 2012), pp. 1, 11–15.
4. Richard C. Bush and Ryan Hass, “Taiwan’s Democracy and the China Challenge,”
Brookings Institution, February 2019, www.brookings.edu/wp-content/uploads/
2018/12/FP_20190226_taiwan_bush_hass.pdf.
5. Elleman, High Seas Buffer; Yang Hengjun, “Chiang Ching-kuo, China’s Democratic
Pioneer,” China Power (blog), The Diplomat, 10 December 2014, thediplomat.com/
2014/12/chiang-ching-kuo-chinas-democratic-pioneer/; Bush and Hass, “Taiwan’s
Democracy and the China Challenge.”
6. Hans Kristensen, “Nukes in the Taiwan Crisis,” Strategic Security (blog), Federa-
tion of American Scientists, 13 May 2008, fas.org/blogs/security/2008/05/nukes
-in-the-taiwan-crisis/.
7. William Burr, ed., “Taiwan’s Bomb,” Briefing Book 656, National Security Ar-
chive, 10 January 2019, nsarchive.gwu.edu/briefing-book/nuclear-vault/2019-01
-10/taiwans-bomb; Kyle Mizokami, “China’s Greatest Nightmare: Taiwan Armed
with Nuclear Weapons,” The Buzz (blog), National Interest, 12 September 2019,
nationalinterest.org/blogbuzz/chinas-greatest-nightmare-taiwan-armed-nuclear
-weapons-80041.
8. Yasuhiro Matsuda, “Taiwan’s Presidential Election in 2004: Its Impact on the PRC-
Taiwan Relations” (paper prepared for the European Association of Taiwan
Studies Conference, School of Oriental and African Studies, Univ. of London,
18 April 2004), available at www.soas.ac.uk/taiwanstudies/eats/eats2004/file24406
.pdf. Note also the Obama administration’s vocal distrust of the DPP candidate
in the 2012 Taiwan election, as portrayed in William Lowther, “Schriver Urges
US to Stay Out of 2016 Taiwan Polls,” Taipei Times, 14 May 2014, www.taipei
times.com/News/front/archives/2014/05/14/2003590293.
9. Edward Cody, “China Sends Warning to Taiwan with Anti-secession Law,”
Washington Post, 8 March 2005, www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/
2005/03/08/china-sends-warning-to-taiwan-with-anti-secession-law/5dcdfae
8-4523-4350-9d45-77a85f6b240f/. For the initial 2004 Chinese National People’s
Congress consideration of a “Unification Promotion Law,” see 中华人民共和国
国家统一促进法 (学者建议案) [“National Unification Promotion Law of the
People’s Republic of China (Scholar Proposal)”], 博讯 [Boxun], 1 November 2002,
boxun.com/news/gb/pubvp/2004/05/20040519083.shtml.
10. Dennis V. Hickey, “More and More Taiwanese Favor Independence—and
Think the US Would Help Fight for It,” China Power (blog), The Diplomat, 3
December 2020, thediplomat.com/2020/12/more-and-more-taiwanese-favor
-independence-and-think-the-us-would-help-fight-for-it/.
250 C H I N E S E A M P H I B I O U S WA R FA R E

11. Richard C. Bush, Bonnie Glaser, and Ryan Hass, “Opinion: Don’t Help China by
Hyping Risk of War over Taiwan,” NPR, 8 April 2021, www.npr.org/2021/04/
08/984524521/opinion-dont-help-china-by-hyping-risk-of-war-over-taiwan;
Tanner Greer, “Why I Fear for Taiwan,” Scholar’s Stage (blog), 11 September 2020,
scholars-stage.blogspot.com/2020/09/why-i-fear-for-taiwan.html.
12. Bush, Glaser, and Hass, “Don’t Help China by Hyping Risk of War over Taiwan.”
13. Richard C. Bush, “Cross-Strait Relations: Not a One-Way Street,” Order from Chaos
(blog), Brookings Institution, 22 April 2016, www.brookings.edu/blog/order-from
-chaos/2016/04/22/cross-strait-relations-not-a-one-way-street/.
14. Jane Perlez and Austin Ramzy, “China, Taiwan and a Meeting after 66 Years,”
New York Times, 3 November 2015, www.nytimes.com/2015/11/04/world/asia/
leaders-of-china-and-taiwan-to-meet-for-first-time-since-1949.html.
15. Kai Quek, “Nationalism in China Is Running High. Here’s How Beijing Reins It
In,” Washington Post, 1 June 2020, www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2020/06/01/
nationalism-china-is-running-high-heres-how-beijing-reins-it/.
16. Jessica Chen Weiss, “How Hawkish Is the Chinese Public? Another Look at ‘Rising
Nationalism’ and Chinese Foreign Policy,” Journal of Contemporary China 28, no.
119 (September 2019), pp. 679–95; Alastair Iain Johnston, “Is Chinese Nationalism
Rising? Evidence from Beijing,” International Security 41, no. 3 (Winter 2016/17),
pp. 7–43.
17. Colby and Mitre, “Why the Pentagon Should Focus on Taiwan.”
18. Ibid.
19. U.S. Defense Dept., Military and Security Developments Involving the People’s
Republic of China 2020 (Washington, DC: Office of the Secretary of Defense,
1 September 2020), pp. 47, 118, available at media.defense.gov/2020/Sep/01/2002
488689/-1/-1/1/2020-DOD-CHINA-MILITARY-POWER-REPORT-FINAL.PDF.
20. Lonnie Henley, “Testimony before the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review
Commission Hearing on Cross-Strait Deterrence: PLA Operational Concepts and
Centers of Gravity in a Taiwan Conflict,” U.S.-China Economic and Security Re-
view Commission Hearing on Cross-Strait Deterrence, 18 February 2021, www.uscc
.gov/sites/default/files/2021-02/Lonnie_Henley_Testimony.pdf. Emphasis added.
21. Syaru Shirley Lin, “Taiwan’s Continued Success Requires Economic Diversifica-
tion of Products and Markets,” Order from Chaos (blog), Brookings Institu-
tion, 15 March 2021, www.brookings.edu/blog/order-from-chaos/2021/03/15/
taiwans-continued-success-requires-economic-diversification-of-products
-and-markets/.
22. Hickey, “More and More Taiwanese Favor Independence”; Lindsay Gorman,
“Pineapple War Shows Taiwan Won’t Be Bullied by Beijing,” Foreign Policy, 16
March 2021, foreignpolicy.com/2021/03/16/taiwan-china-pineapple-war-economic
-bullying-democracies-boycott/.
23. Yimou Lee and I-hwa Cheng, “Paid ‘News’: China Using Taiwan Media to Win
Hearts and Minds on Island—Sources,” Reuters, 9 August 2019, www.reuters.com/
article/us-taiwan-china-media-insight/paid-news-china-using-taiwan-media-to
-win-hearts-and-minds-on-island-sources-idUSKCN1UZ0I4.
 B AT T LE S PAC E P R EPA R AT I O N F O R “ U N I FI C AT I O N ” 251

24. Peter Mattis, “China’s Espionage against Taiwan (Part I): Analysis of Recent
Operations,” Jamestown Foundation China Brief 14, no. 21 (7 November 2014),
available at jamestown.org/program/chinas-espionage-against-taiwan-part-i-analysis
-of-recent-operations/.
25. Peter Mattis, “Counterintelligence Remains Weakness in Taiwan’s Defense,” James-
town Foundation China Brief 17, no. 11 (17 August 2017), available at jamestown
.org/program/counterintelligence-remains-weakness-in-taiwans-defense/.
26. “Taiwan Reports Largest Incursion Yet by Chinese Air Force,” Reuters, 12 April
2021, www.reuters.com/world/china/taiwan-reports-largest-incursion-yet-by-chinese
-air-force-2021-04-12/.
27. Connor Fairman, “When Election Interference Fails,” Net Politics (blog), Council on
Foreign Relations, 29 January 2020, www.cfr.org/blog/when-election-interference
-fails.
28. Oriana Skylar Mastro, “How China Is Bending the Rules in the South China
Sea,” The Interpreter, 17 February 2021, www.lowyinstitute.org/the-interpreter/how
-china-bending-rules-south-china-sea.
29. Ibid.
30. Shigeki Sakamoto, “China’s New Coast Guard Law and Implications for Maritime
Security in the East and South China Seas,” Lawfare (blog), 16 February 2021, www
.lawfareblog.com/chinas-new-coast-guard-law-and-implications-maritime
-security-east-and-south-china-seas.
31. Mastro, “How China Is Bending the Rules.”
32. Wang Wen and Chen Xiaochen, “Who Supports China in the South China Sea
and Why,” The Diplomat, 27 July 2016, thediplomat.com/2016/07/who-supports
-china-in-the-south-china-sea-and-why/.
33. Mira Rapp-Hooper, “Before and After: The South China Sea Transformed,” Asia
Maritime Transparency Initiative, 18 February 2015, amti.csis.org/before-and-after
-the-south-china-sea-transformed/.
34. Gorman, “Pineapple War Shows Taiwan”; Andrew Higgins, “In Philippines,
Banana Growers Feel Effect of South China Sea Dispute,” Washington Post,
10 June 2012, www.washingtonpost.com/world/asia_pacific/in-philippines
-banana-growers-feel-effect-of-south-china-sea-dispute/2012/06/10/gJQA47
WVTV_story.html.
35. Dai Bingguo, “We Must Stick to the Path of Peaceful Development,” PRC Ministry
of Foreign Affairs, 6 December 2010, www.fmprc.gov.cn/mfa_eng/topics_665678/
cpop_665770/t777704.shtml.
36. “Xi Jinping’s Report at the 19th CPC National Congress,” China Daily, 18 October
2017,www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/19thcpcnationalcongress/2017-11/04/content
_34115212.htm.
37. “Anti-secession Law,” Embassy of the PRC in the United States of America, 15 March
2005, www.china-embassy.org/eng/zt/999999999/t187406.htm.
38. “Message to Compatriots in Taiwan,” China.org, 1 January 1979, www.china.org.cn/
english/taiwan/7943.htm.
 William Fox and Roderick Lee

13. Assessing the PLA’s Confidence

in Its Ability to Achieve Air and
Sea Control around Taiwan

Understanding the cross-strait military balance of power among the

United States, Taiwan, and the People’s Republic of China (PRC) is not a
new problem set. For over two decades, the U.S. Defense Department has
issued annual public reports to Congress discussing modernization trends
in the People’s Liberation Army (PLA), with each report containing sections
dedicated to discussing the balance in the context of a Taiwan invasion. This
chapter takes a partly quantitative approach to help assess a key component
of that balance: control of the air and sea in the vicinity of Taiwan.
Chinese military strategists recognize air and sea control as essential to
any successful cross-strait invasion. Therefore, their confidence in the PLA’s
ability to achieve these aims is a key factor informing how and when Beijing
might use force against Taiwan. This chapter seeks to gauge Chinese leaders’
current confidence by evaluating PLA sensor units, operational units capa-
ble of executing fires, peacetime activity, and training.
We conclude that the PLA likely has moderate confidence in its abili-
ty to gain control of the air and high confidence in gaining control of the
seas to an extent sufficient to enable an amphibious loading on the main-
land, a crossing of the strait, and an unloading on Taiwan. By control, we
mean the ability to operate within a given domain without one’s adversary
25 4 C H I N E S E A M P H I B I O U S WA R FA R E

prohibitively impeding one’s ability to conduct operations. We use the term

interchangeably with dominance and superiority.
This chapter first discusses how air and sea control fit into the larger
scheme of the joint island landing campaign (JILC), as well as our method-
ology for determining PLA confidence levels. Next it evaluates PLA sensors
and shooters as the basis of determining confidence. It then combines the
discussions of available sensors and shooters with known PLA operational
activity and training to reach assessed confidence levels. Finally, it concludes
with a brief discussion of how the United States might prevent the PRC from
achieving air and sea dominance.

Air and Maritime Control as Part of the JILC

According to the 2006 Science of Campaigns—a seminal, albeit dated, PLA
document describing various military campaigns—operations to seize in-
formation, air, and sea dominance should occur in an early phase of the
JILC.1 Seizing dominance in these domains is essential to ensuring safety
during all subsequent campaign phases.
The PLA is likely to execute a series of nested or independent cam-
paigns to achieve this dominance, to include an air-offensive campaign
and a conventional missile-assault campaign. This joint approach to seiz-
ing control in the air and maritime domains no doubt was merely an as-
pirational concept when the PLA first drafted the document in 2006 but
likely would be the standard approach today.
Having gained control of the air and seas, especially around Taiwan,
the PLA then can shift its focus toward training preparatory fires against
sites that might be able to contest the amphibious landing. However, the
PLA still will have to sustain continuous operations throughout the en-
tire JILC to ensure that the adversary does not contest or regain control of
either domain.

Not Just Taiwan: Air and Maritime Control

in a Counterintervention Scenario
China anticipates the potential for U.S. and allied military intervention in
a Taiwan invasion scenario. The PLA National Defense University’s 2015
edition of Science of Strategy (hereafter Science of Strategy 2015) identifies
the United States as the PLA’s most dangerous threat, then instructs the
 THE PL A’S CONFIDENCE IN ACHIE VING CONTROL AROUND TAIWAN 255

PLA to prepare for the most dangerous and complex threats in its plan-
ning.2 Therefore, to reduce operational risk, a prudent planner would factor
in the prospect of extensive outside intervention. This assumption is sup-
ported by the PLA Academy of Military Science’s 2013 edition of Science
of Strategy (hereafter Science of Strategy 2013), which describes executing
near-seas defense and far-seas protection, in part by “countering the strong
adversary’s intervention.”3 Science of Strategy 2015 explains the logic:
“[T]he powerful enemy’s operational system is the most complete, his
weapons and equipment are the most advanced, and his operational ca-
pability is the strongest; and after completing the operational preparations
against the powerful enemy, dealing with other opponents will be accom-
plished with ease.”4
U.S. intervention in a Taiwan scenario would change the PLA’s strate-
gic geography, because U.S. forces could hold the JILC at risk from both in-
side and outside the first island chain, including via precision strikes from
long range—over a thousand miles away. That would compel the PLA to
expand its defensive depth; increase the geographic scope of its air and sea
dominance; and allocate resources to deter, degrade, or destroy the U.S.
forces that hold the JILC at risk. While PLA writings on the topic focus
primarily on establishing sea and air control around its main operational
areas in the near seas, the PLA also gradually is developing its ability to
execute offensive operations in distant seas to counter intervening forces.
According to Science of Strategy 2015, mobile operations outside the first is-
land chain are becoming “the foundation for integrated operations within
the first island chain,” and the PLA must “expand the depths of maritime
defense . . . against the powerful enemy’s forces . . . far from the homeland.”5
Doing so “eases pressure on the near-seas battlefield.”6
As of 2015, the PLA assessed itself to be “the side whose actual strengths
are relatively weak” operating in the far seas. This self-assessment led the
PLA to prefer using asymmetric “guerrilla style” (游击) operations and
surprise “sabotage” attacks (破袭) against a superior force in the far seas
rather than seeking to establish absolute sea and air dominance.7 At the
same time, the PLA was in the process of building up the equipment and
capabilities needed to be able to increase its defensive depth and fight more
effectively outside the first island chain. Acquisitions, training patterns,
and operational trends since 2015 confirm the PLA’s continued progress in
developing a force that can fight in distant seas.8
256 C H I N E S E A M P H I B I O U S WA R FA R E

Prerequisites of Joint Force Integration

and Battlefield Dominance
Notwithstanding geographic factors, the PLA believes it can win wars
against a strong opponent only by operating as an integrated joint force.
Science of Strategy 2015 identifies “system attack and destruction warfare”
(体系破击战) as the PLA’s basic method of carrying out operational mis-
sions. The framework sees modern militaries as integrated “systems of sys-
tems” that are stronger than the sum of their parts because they operate as
coherent wholes. Victory goes to the side that can preserve its own systemic
integrity while “taking apart the enemy’s operational system.” The PLA
intends for its joint campaigns to be conducted in interconnected fashion
and for its service branches to operate in that manner. Ultimately, system-
attack-and-destruction warfare seeks to achieve “the mutual fusion of all
strengths in integrated joint operations and the integrated-whole superi-
ority of interconnection and intercommunication of all essential factors.” 9
The PLA will use integrated joint operations to achieve “battlefield
comprehensive dominance” (战场综合制权), which Science of Strategy
2015 defines as the sum of dominating a series of mutually supporting do-
mains. This includes air dominance and sea control. The essential point is
that the PLA depends on complementary domains of dominance enabling
each other, with information, space, and network dominance enabling the
force to achieve and maintain air and sea control. These areas of domain
dominance are therefore also dependencies, without which sea and air
dominance “will last only briefly and cannot be maintained or brought
into play.”10 Therefore, the PLA’s confidence in its ability to achieve sea and
air dominance depends on its perceived ability to dominate the domains
that enable integrated joint operations.
Historically, the PLA has not been sanguine about its ability to con-
duct joint operations. Science of Strategy 2013 identified structural imped-
iments to joint operations and expressed concerns about whether its offi-
cers and troops would be able to cope with the demands of informatized
warfare.11 Internally directed PLA publications reiterated similar critiques
about personnel on more than 550 occasions between 2006 and 2019, ac-
cording to analysis by Dennis Blasko and Alastair Iain Johnston. One such
oft-repeated critique, the “Two Inabilities” (两个能力不够), chastised the
PLA for being incapable of fighting modern wars and criticized its offi-
cers as being incapable of executing command in such wars.12 While the
critical self-evaluations evolved in formulation and emphasis over the thir-
teen years between 2006 and 2019, the tone and general focus remained
 THE PL A’S CONFIDENCE IN ACHIE VING CONTROL AROUND TAIWAN 257

consistent, even as the PLA underwent rapid modernization and extensive

structural reforms. Critique frequency increased under Xi Jinping, even
as he successfully implemented structural reforms and the PLA’s relative
power continued to increase.
This suggests that while critiques do reflect the real and enduring con-
cerns of PLA leadership, primarily they are used as tools to focus military
commanders’ and political officers’ attention toward areas of leadership
priority, and they may not convey accurately changes in the PLA’s assess-
ments of its own capabilities. As David Finkelstein observes in a related
analysis, the PLA’s frank self-assessments of its own shortcomings “should
not be misconstrued as an argument that the Chinese armed forces are not
an increasingly capable, increasingly advanced, and potentially formidable
force.”13
The PLA’s concerns over its ability to operate as an integrated joint force
have driven several mitigation efforts that have bolstered its capabilities
and gradually increased its confidence. First, the PLA’s extensive military
reforms, first announced in 2015, removed many of the PLA’s structural
impediments to joint operations. While previous efforts to reform the PLA’s
structure were stymied by vested interests, the current round of reforms
appears to have made significant progress in transforming the PLA into an
integrated joint force.14 Second, the PLA is investing in the types of capabil-
ities that would help it maintain at least localized information, space, and
network dominance in a highly contested environment.15 Third, the PLA
is training to operate in environments in which information, space, and
network dominance is challenged. Fourth, for more than a decade the PLA
has conducted large-scale joint military exercises of increasing sophistica-
tion and complexity, and has achieved “substantial progress” in elements of
joint operations.16 Presumably, post-2015 joint exercises would contribute
to testing and refining joint command and control in the PLA’s new post-
reform theater command structure.
Most of these efforts, however, are not new, and the PLA’s internal cri-
tiques maintain a steady drumbeat in spite of observable progress. How
then should we understand the PLA’s level of confidence in its ability to
achieve and maintain the domain dominances that enable air and sea con-
trol? Answering this important question fully lies beyond the scope of this
chapter, but we offer a few framing principles for consideration.
First, the PLA’s military capabilities are improving dramatically in
most observable domains, so we would expect the PLA’s force-integration
capabilities, and its confidence therein, to trend in the same direction, if
not to the same degree or at the same pace. Second, the PLA is addressing
258 C H I N E S E A M P H I B I O U S WA R FA R E

its self-diagnosed weaknesses actively, which also, logically, should in-

crease its confidence. Science of Strategy 2013 identified the PLA’s force
structure as being poorly suited to joint operations, so the structural re-
forms announced in 2015 established joint theater commands specifically
designed to facilitate command and control for forces across theaters and
services.17 Presumably, the theater commands have matured since 2015,
especially after coping with challenging situations such as the border cri-
ses with India in 2017 and 2020. Science of Strategy 2013 also highlighted
PLA concerns about whether its personnel would be able to win informa-
tized wars.18 The PLA continues to highlight the importance of this issue
in official media, confirming that senior leadership does not consider the
problem to be solved. As discussed above, though, such messaging may
be understood best as a leadership tool aimed at getting the PLA’s polit-
ical officers and military commanders at all levels to focus on improving
joint capabilities, rather than as a precise barometer of the PLA’s current
self-assessed capabilities. Third, however, the PLA has an enduring, wary
respect for the United States; it credits “the strong enemy” with the ability
to disrupt adversary systems of systems.
In aggregate, the PLA’s confidence in its ability to seize and maintain
information, space, and network dominance is low enough that China is
unlikely to initiate a war of choice. However, if the PLA is forced to act in a
crisis, its conservative risk calculus could render it relatively well prepared.

Methodology
The PLA does not discuss openly its confidence in its ability to seize air
or maritime superiority in the context of a JILC directed toward Taiwan.
Therefore our research approach focuses on identifying mission subsets
that the PLA must be able to execute to achieve air or sea control. For each
mission subset, we evaluate the number of assets the PLA has at its disposal
to execute the mission subset in question, as well as how the PLA describes
its own training in that discipline. On the basis of those quantitative and
qualitative indicators, we make an assessment of how well the PLA cur-
rently can execute each mission subset. We then use this objective assess-
ment of capability as a proxy indicator of how confident the PLA is in its
ability to execute that mission.
The PLA’s JILC plans discuss the need to execute advance firepower
strikes against key adversary nodes, followed by efforts to seize air and
maritime control. In discussing these preparatory phases, the PLA iden-
tifies the primary targets that must be prosecuted in that phase. These
 THE PL A’S CONFIDENCE IN ACHIE VING CONTROL AROUND TAIWAN 259

targets fall into five discrete categories: fixed land, mobile land, maritime
surface, maritime subsurface, and airborne.19 Given the PLA’s emphasis on
prosecuting targets both in its immediate periphery and farther out, we
categorize targets geographically as well. For the five target categories, we
also break down the PLA’s confidence in prosecuting targets of that type
within the first island chain, between the first and second island chains,
and beyond the second island chain.20
Our methodology focuses on identifying PLA units predominantly
tasked with conducting intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance
(ISR) missions to find the targets and PLA units tasked with engaging
those targets. To determine PLA confidence, we then look at total avail-
able units and the assessed competency of those units. We also consider
factors such as geography, target mobility and size, and timing. To simplify
our analysis, we do not count shooter-based sensors, such as those aboard
surface warships or fighter aircraft, in our tally of available sensors.

Sensors
The PLA’s belief that information is the most important element in modern
warfare has led it to acquire a wide variety of sensors. These sensors enable
the PLA to find, fix, and track targets across all war-fighting domains. This
chapter identifies seventeen sensor-unit types that represent most of the
PLA’s high-end ISR assets. In the following sections, we discuss the five
sensor categories, what the sensors can detect, and how far out they can
detect targets. These capabilities inform our assessment of PLA confidence
in prosecuting targets of interest. Table 1 summarizes the number of PLA
sensor-unit types capable of detecting the five different categories of en-
emy targets inside the first island chain, inside the second island chain, and
outside the second island chain. The full list of sensor-unit types and their
detection capabilities appears in appendix A.

Table 1. PLA Sensor Capabilities and Geographic Coverage

Target Location Target Type

Fixed Mobile Maritime Maritime Airborne

Land Land Surface Subsurface

Inside first island chain 9 9 12 4 10

Inside second island chain 5 4 11 3 6

Outside second island chain 4 4 5 2 2

26 0 C H I N E S E A M P H I B I O U S WA R FA R E

Ground-Based Sensors
Although the PLA has migrated to using more airborne and space-based
sensors to overcome the physical limits of geography, ground-based sen-
sors are still a crucial part of the PLA’s ISR network. There are three sub-
categories of ground-based sensors: radar sites, passive-detection sites, and
ground observers.
Ground-based sensor units constitute seven out of the seventeen iden-
tified sensor-unit types. These comprise PLA Navy (PLAN) observation
and communications brigades, PLAN and PLA Air Force (PLAAF) radar
brigades, the PLAAF’s Skywave radar brigade, PLA Strategic Support Force
(PLASSF) radar sites, PLA Rocket Force (PLARF) passive-detection units,
and PLA special-operations forces (SOFs).
The PLA press describes PLAN observation and communications bri-
gades as being able to provide early warning in the maritime and air do-
mains, with some articles suggesting they also may operate undersea sen-
sors.21 We credit these units with being able to detect surface, subsurface,
and airborne targets within the first island chain, and surface targets out to
the second island chain using over-the-horizon (OTH) radar sites.
PLA press releases discuss how PLAN and PLAAF radar brigades pro-
vide early warning of incoming airborne targets.22 On the basis of the types
of radar systems with which these units typically are equipped and the
radar horizon that limits almost all ground-based radars, we credit these
units with being able to detect airborne targets out to the first island chain.
At least one PLAAF brigade operates OTH radar sites.23 This unit op-
erates multiple transmitter and receiver sites that provide a robust OTH
capability against airborne targets out to the second island chain.24
The PLASSF operates several high-end radar sites, including several
large phased-array radar sites.25 Although these sites likely are intended to
provide space situational awareness and strategic early warning, they prob-
ably also can detect some airborne targets out to the second island chain.
To help detect maritime surface targets, the PLARF has a regimental-
level unit that operates several passive-detection sites.26 There is no dis-
cussion about how far this unit can detect maritime surface targets. We
assume it can detect some targets beyond the first island chain.
PLA SOFs represent the last type of ground-based sensors. These units
frequently train to infiltrate enemy territory and act as reconnaissance ele-
ments.27 Given that these units mostly infiltrate areas using small boats or
helicopters, we credit them with being able to detect ground-based targets
only inside the first island chain.
 THE PL A’S CONFIDENCE IN ACHIE VING CONTROL AROUND TAIWAN 261

Air-Breathing Sensors
Given their large radar horizon, air-breathing sensors allow the PLA to
expand its ISR coverage dramatically beyond that of land-based sensors.
Four of the seventeen sensors fall under this category: PLAN and PLAAF
special-mission aircraft divisions, as well as PLAN and PLAAF unmanned
aerial vehicle (UAV) units.
PLA special-mission aircraft (SMA) divisions field a wide range of air-
borne sensors. All SMA divisions operate airborne early warning (AEW)
and signals-intelligence aircraft that can operate beyond the first island
chain. Therefore, we credit all SMA divisions with being able to detect
some land targets as well as maritime surface and airborne targets beyond
the first island chain. PLAN SMA divisions also operate the Y-8Q antisub-
marine warfare (ASW) aircraft, which we credit with being able to detect
subsurface targets beyond the first island chain.28
The PLA also operates numerous UAV units that can provide persistent
overhead ISR coverage.29 We credit all PLA UAV units with being able to
detect land targets out to the first island chain and maritime surface targets
beyond the first island chain.

Space-Based Sensors
The PLA also has access to a constellation of satellites that provides global
ISR coverage. Three of the seventeen sensors considered in this chapter are
space-based sensors: the Yaogan series; the Gaofen series; and a notional
third category that includes a large number of smaller constellations or in-
dividual satellites operated by the PLASSF and other civilian systems, to
which the PLA has access.
The Yaogan-series satellites appear to carry a range of electro-optical,
infrared, synthetic-aperture-radar, and signals-intelligence payloads.30 As
of 2021, roughly seventy-three Yaogan satellites were operational in low
earth orbit.31 These satellites provide global coverage of virtually all points
of interest and likely can detect land targets and maritime surface targets.
The Gaofen-series satellites likely carry payloads similar to those of the
Yaogan series.32 In addition, the 2015 China military power report cites
that Gaofen-2 was the first submeter-resolution imagery satellite in the
PRC’s inventory, suggesting that these satellites can provide reasonably
high-resolution imagery.33 As of 2021, roughly thirty-four Gaofen satellites
were operational in low earth orbit.34 We credit these satellites with being
able to detect the full range of land and maritime surface targets globally.
The PRC operates several other military and civilian satellites. To cap-
ture these other space-based sensors, we credit an additional sensor unit
with the same capabilities as the Yaogan and Gaofen series.
262 C H I N E S E A M P H I B I O U S WA R FA R E

Maritime Sensors
The PLAN’s fleet of surveillance vessels—Dongdiao-class electronic-
reconnaissance ships (AGIs) and Dongjian-class ocean surveillance ships
(i.e., AGOSs)—provides a capable at-sea ISR capability.35 In peacetime, the
PLAN deploys AGIs beyond the second island chain; it is unclear whether
it would do so in wartime.36 PLAN combatants also carry a robust suite of
sensors. Assuming that the PLA is willing to risk, or even sacrifice, these
assets in wartime, we credit the PLAN operational-support flotillas that
operate these vessels with being able to detect all maritime targets and air-
borne targets beyond the second island chain.
The PRC has access to a fleet of civilian vessels and maritime platforms
that likely can act as ISR pickets.37 For purposes of this analysis, we com-
bined these systems into a single notional sensor unit that can detect mari-
time surface targets beyond the first island chain and maritime subsurface
targets within the first island chain.

Network Sensors
The PLASSF Network Systems Department and its subordinate technical
reconnaissance bases provide the PLA with a signals-intelligence capabil-
ity that can help to detect targets of all types. The PLASSF also likely has
other technical means of identifying targets of interest through network
operations.38 We represent these capabilities through a notional sensor
capable of detecting all target categories.

Shooters
Once the PLA locates a target using its sensors, it will determine which
assets should engage the target. This section discusses the various types of
“shooters” that the PLA has at its disposal for prosecuting air, maritime,
and land targets. In total, we identified 150 shooters that likely represent
most PLA fires. We then evaluate what targets each shooter can engage,
given the likely technical capabilities of the system in question, along with
descriptions of what missions these units train to perform. This section
subsequently informs our assessed PLA confidence in prosecuting various
targets, on the basis of the total number of shooters capable of engaging
the target set in question. Table 2 summarizes the number of PLA shooter
units capable of detecting the five different categories of enemy targets in-
side the first island chain, inside the second island chain, and outside the
second island chain. The full list of shooters is available in appendix B.
 THE PL A’S CONFIDENCE IN ACHIE VING CONTROL AROUND TAIWAN 263

Table 2. PLA Shooter Capabilities and Geographic Coverage

Target Location Target Type

Fixed Mobile Maritime Maritime

Airborne
Land Land Surface Subsurface

Inside first island chain 98 29 69 28 80

Inside second island chain 26 2 34 19 25

Outside second island chain 4 0 10 10 8

Maritime Units
The PLAN’s aircraft carriers, other surface combatants, and submarines
fall under the maritime-shooter category. This category contains six types:
aircraft carriers with embarked air wings, destroyer flotillas, frigate flotil-
las, submarine flotillas, submarine bases, and fast-attack-craft squadrons.
We credit PLAN aircraft carriers, with their associated air wings, as
being able to prosecute targets across all five categories within the second
island chain. PLAN aircraft carrier task groups occasionally deploy beyond
the first island chain, suggesting that they are somewhat capable of engag-
ing targets within the second island chain.39 J-15 pilots train in land-attack
missions using rocket pods and bombs, thus enabling them to engage fixed
and mobile land targets.40 There is limited evidence that the PLA occasion-
ally fits J-15s with YJ-91 antiradiation missiles.41 The PLA press also has re-
vealed several occurrences of J-15s launching YJ-83 antiship cruise missiles
(ASCMs) and PL-12 air-to-air missiles (AAMs), indicating an antisurface
warfare (ASuW) and antiair warfare (AAW) capability.42 Lastly, helicopters
embarked on an aircraft carrier provide it with an ASW capability.43
PLAN destroyer flotillas can engage most types of targets out beyond
the second island chain. These units occasionally deploy beyond the sec-
ond island chain, suggesting that they could operate in these areas in
wartime.44 PLA press outlets regularly report on these units engaging in
ASuW, ASW, and AAW training.45 The PLA occasionally discusses these
units conducting “deep land attack” training, and the U.S. Defense De-
partment’s 2020 China military power report states that these assets have a
land-attack cruise missile (LACM) capability.46
PLAN frigate flotillas are far less capable than destroyer flotillas. The
former units oversee the PLAN’s older and smaller frigates, which currently
are able to engage maritime surface and subsurface targets only within the
first island chain. In 2021, the PLAN conducted the first observed training
26 4 C H I N E S E A M P H I B I O U S WA R FA R E

event involving a Jiangdao light frigate leaving the first island chain. This
suggests that the PLAN is starting to build a capability for its frigate flo-
tillas to conduct operations beyond the first island chain, but such a ca-
pability is extremely nascent.47 Within the first island chain, these units
regularly train to conduct ASuW and ASW missions.48 However, we do not
credit these units with being able to prosecute airborne targets, owing to
the extremely limited range and magazine depth of the air-defense systems
fitted to Jiangdaos and other older frigates.
PLAN submarine flotillas can engage maritime surface targets out
to the second island chain and subsurface targets within the first island
chain. The PLAN equips these units with conventional submarines that
have demonstrated the ability to deploy to the Indian Ocean.49 Therefore
we credit them with being able to deploy as far as the second island chain.
In addition to a robust ASuW capability, PLAN conventional submarines
occasionally train for ASW operations.50
PLAN submarine bases operate the handful of nuclear attack subma-
rines that represent the higher end of the PLAN’s submarine inventory.
These units can engage all maritime targets as well as fixed land targets
beyond the second island chain, assuming that PLAN nuclear submarines
can transit at a minimum speed of advance of ten knots and maintain an
endurance of over sixty days. Although very little is known publicly about
PLAN nuclear-submarine operations, the 2020 China military power
report states that by the mid-2020s the PLAN will have a new Shang-class
nuclear-powered, guided-missile variant capable of conducting ASuW,
ASW, and land-attack missions.51 We also credit current Shang-class
nuclear-powered attack submarines with a limited land-attack capability
using a YJ-18 in either a secondary land-attack mode or a separate YJ-18
land-attack variant.52
We credit fast-attack squadrons with being capable of engaging mar-
itime surface targets within the first island chain. The PLA typically fits
these units with the Houbei guided-missile patrol boat, which has limited
endurance and seaworthiness. These units typically train to operate for
only a few days at sea, and they only conduct ASuW training.53

Ground-Based Fires
The PLA also fields a wide array of ground-based fires that can help to
achieve air and maritime superiority. Within this category, there are
seven discrete unit types: surface-to-surface missiles, long-range rocket
artillery, coastal-defense cruise missiles, surface-to-air missiles (SAMs),
special-operations forces, electronic-countermeasure (ECM) systems, and
network-attack systems.
 THE PL A’S CONFIDENCE IN ACHIE VING CONTROL AROUND TAIWAN 265

Operated almost entirely by the PLARF, PLA surface-to-surface mis-

siles can engage fixed land and maritime surface targets as far as the sec-
ond island chain. At the low end of the spectrum, the PLARF fields several
short-range ballistic-missile and cruise-missile units capable of engaging
fixed land targets within the first island chain.54 PLARF DF-21D units can
engage maritime targets slightly beyond the first island chain, whereas
DF-26 units can engage fixed land and maritime surface targets out to the
second island chain.55 Some PLARF operational units now also field newer
systems such as the DF-17 hypersonic-glide vehicle and CJ-100 supersonic
cruise missile, which are capable of ranging fixed land targets slightly be-
yond the first island chain.56
The PLA ground forces (PLAGF) also have some long-range rocket-
artillery systems capable of targeting some fixed land sites on Taiwan.57
However, given that these units likely will have competing operation-
al requirements that will make them unavailable for operations aimed at
achieving air and maritime superiority, we include only one notional unit
in our list of shooters.
The PLAN fields approximately six coastal-defense cruise-missile
regiments that can engage maritime surface targets within the first island
chain. These units mostly operate the YJ-62 ASCM and train to fire these
systems in a wide variety of environments.58
The PLA operates one of the most robust inventories of SAMs in the
world. Units operating these SAMs train to engage large volumes of air-
borne targets and to operate as part of a larger integrated air-defense
system.59 Given the advertised range for the export variants of SAMs in
PLA service, we credit these systems with being capable of engaging air-
borne targets within the first island chain.60 For this analysis, we credit
the PLAAF with nine SAM brigades that operate along the PRC coastline
as well as three PLAN aviation air-defense brigades. We do not include
PLAGF air-defense brigades under this category because of the limited
range of most of their air-defense systems. Although PLAGF SAM brigades
frequently train to redeploy to other parts of the PRC, we assume that the
PRC is unlikely to redeploy units from the Beijing capital area or from re-
gions of the PRC that have no redundant coverage.
In addition to acting as forward observers, PLA SOFs can engage in
kinetic operations. Given that most PLA press releases on SOF unit train-
ing show these units being delivered by helicopter or small boat, we assess
that they are limited to operations within the first island chain.61 The PLA
openly discusses using SOF units to target key nodes, and we observe these
units training to seize airfields and other key land targets of interest in
26 6 C H I N E S E A M P H I B I O U S WA R FA R E

the present day.62 We capture this capability in the form of a notional SOF
brigade shooter that can engage fixed and mobile land targets within the
first island chain.
Supplementing these kinetic fires, the PLA also operates ECM units.
We credit all ECM units with being able to engage airborne targets within
the first island chain by jamming the radar signals or data links that some
airborne targets must transmit or receive if they are to operate effectively.63
In addition to this universal capability, some ECM units have additional
ones. We credit the Eastern Theater Command Air Force ECM Brigade
with the ability to engage mobile targets within the first island chain, since
it is equipped with ASN-301 antiradiation drones.64 We credit the PLASSF’s
32090 Unit with being able to degrade all but maritime subsurface targets
within the first island chain, given its probable space-jamming capabilities
that can degrade at least global-positioning and satellite communications.65
Lastly, the PLA has a growing ability to engage in network attack.66 For
this chapter, we amalgamate all PLA network-attack capabilities within a
notional PLASSF Network Systems Department shooter that can engage all
fixed land targets, regardless of location.

Air Units
The last broad category of shooters is air units. Although PLAAF units
constitute most of these shooters, the PLAN and PLAGF also have aviation
units that can contribute to achieving air and maritime superiority. With-
in this category, there are nine unit types: fifth-generation fighters, 4.5-
generation fighters, fourth-generation fighters, third-generation fighters,
bombers, ASW aircraft, ECM aircraft, rotary-wing aircraft, and UAVs.
Fifth-generation fighter units constitute a small proportion of the
PLA’s overall combat-aircraft inventory, with the J-20 being the only air-
craft type in inventory as of 2021. Although information on the J-20 is lim-
ited, the 2020 China military power report states that J-20s will help to
enable counterair operations in the western Pacific.67 Given the J-20’s likely
low radar cross section, advanced avionics, refueling capability, and ability
to field long-range PL-15 AAMs, we credit J-20 units with being able to
engage airborne targets beyond the first island chain.68 Despite the lack of
evidence showing J-20s with land-attack munitions, we credit these units
with a notional capability against fixed and mobile targets within the first
island chain.
The 4.5-generation fighters represent a very capable and pervasive
component of the PLA’s fighter inventory. The J-10B/C and J-16 account
for the bulk of the PLA’s current 4.5-generation fighter inventory, although
 THE PL A’S CONFIDENCE IN ACHIE VING CONTROL AROUND TAIWAN 267

the PLA also operates a handful of Su-35 and possibly J-11D fighters that
fall within this category.69 Given that PLAAF fourth- and 4.5-generation
fighters frequently sortie up to the first island chain, they likely can sortie
slightly beyond as well.70 Units equipped with these aircraft train to per-
form a wide range of missions, including counterair operations, ground
attack using guided munitions, ground attack with forward observers, and
maritime surface strike.71 We credit all 4.5-generation fighter units with
being able to engage all land targets within the first island chain as well
as airborne targets beyond the first island chain. We also credit J-16 units
with a maritime-surface-attack capability within the first island chain.
Most PLA fighter units operate fourth-generation aircraft. Flight ac-
tivity indicates that PLA fourth-generation fighter pilots are comfortable
operating within the first island chain.72 Ground-attack training is a stan-
dard topic for these units, and press reporting on training shows them
operating with everything from rocket pods to laser-guided munitions.73
These units also frequently train to engage in counterair missions, often
at night and within “complex electromagnetic environments.”74 Photos of
PLA fourth-generation aircraft typically show a mix of PL-12 and PL-10
AAMs for counterair missions. Given the capabilities depicted, we credit
fourth-generation fighter units with being able to engage all land and air-
borne targets within the first island chain.
The PLA’s remaining inventory of fighter aircraft consists of older,
third-generation fighters—notably, the J-7 and J-8. Although the J-8 is ca-
pable of air-to-air refueling, in recent years there have been no public re-
ports of either of these aircraft types operating near, let alone beyond, the
first island chain. Furthermore, no PLA press reports on J-7 units discuss
maritime training. Limited video footage from CCTV-7 shows that J-7 units
at least still train to conduct ground-attack missions, using rocket pods.75
Recent photos of J-7s and J-8s reveal that they typically are fitted with
short-range air-to-air missiles.76 Given this information, we credit third-
generation fighter units with being able to engage only fixed land and air-
borne targets within the first island chain.
Supplementing these fighters are several PLA attack-aircraft units.
All these units are equipped with the JH-7 fighter-bomber. JH-7 units
regularly train to conduct ground-attack missions with both guided muni-
tions and rocket pods.77 All JH-7s are also capable of executing maritime-
surface-strike missions with ASCMs, although this is predominantly a
mission for PLAN aviation JH-7s.78 JH-7s typically only fly with short-
range air-to-air missiles for self-defense. With these capabilities in mind,
we credit all JH-7 units with being able to engage all land targets and mar-
itime surface targets within the first island chain.
26 8 C H I N E S E A M P H I B I O U S WA R FA R E

Bomber units constitute a major portion of the PLA’s overall precision-

strike capability. All PLA bomber units operate some variant of the H-6
bomber. As of 2021, PLAAF H-6 bomber units characterized training in
the “western Pacific” beyond the first island chain as a normal activity.79
A PLAN bomber unit characterized a seven-hour maritime-strike train-
ing flight as routine, indicating that those units also are comfortable
operating beyond the first island chain.80 PLAAF H-6s train to use a wide
range of munitions, including LACMs, ASCMs, and iron bombs.81 PLAAF
air-refuelable H-6Ns also likely are capable of fielding air-launched
ballistic missiles.82 PLAN H-6s train with iron bombs and ASCMs.83
Given these capabilities, we credit all PLA bomber units with being able to
attack maritime surface targets beyond the first island chain and fixed land
targets within the first island chain. We also credit all PLAAF bomber
units with being able to attack fixed land targets out to the second island
chain. The PLAAF’s single known H-6N unit is credited with being able to
attack fixed land targets beyond the second island chain.
In addition to being a sensor system, the PLAN’s Y-8 ASW variant also
can prosecute undersea targets. These aircraft fly within the first island
chain on a near-daily basis and regularly fly beyond the first island chain.84
PLA press releases describe these units as training to operate in multi-
aircraft formations to find undersea targets and destroy them.85 In some
cases, the aircraft receive cueing data from other sensors.86 Given how
these units train and operate, we credit all three units with being able to
engage undersea targets beyond the first island chain.
As of 2021, the PLAAF operated a small number of Y-9 GX11 electronic-
warfare aircraft that are subordinate to special-mission aircraft divisions.
For the sake of simplicity, we amalgamate these aircraft into a single no-
tional shooter. The 2020 China military power report states that these
aircraft can “disrupt adversary battlespace awareness at long ranges.”87
We credit this “shooter” with being able to degrade maritime surface
and air targets out to the second island chain and fixed, maritime
surface, air, and mobile land targets inside the first island chain.
Although PLAGF aviation-brigade attack helicopters likely will be re-
served to support the landing portion of the JILC, they could be used to
maintain air and maritime superiority if needed. Therefore we include a
single notional PLAGF aviation brigade in our shooter list. These units not
only can attack all types of land targets on Taiwan; they also train to engage
maritime surface targets.88 We credit this one notional shooter with be-
ing able to engage land and maritime surface targets inside the first island
chain.
 THE PL A’S CONFIDENCE IN ACHIE VING CONTROL AROUND TAIWAN 269

The PLA rarely discusses its UAV units, especially in an attack con-
text. However, PLA air bases frequently host UAVs of various types, many
of which can be armed.89 The PLAAF also has the 69th Aviation Brigade,
which operates unmanned J-6 fighters. This unit almost certainly is in-
tended to attack targets on Taiwan.90 We credit a notional PLAAF UAV
unit with being able to engage all land targets inside the first island chain,
and the 69th Aviation Brigade with being able to engage fixed land targets
inside the first island chain.

Findings
This section provides an overall assessment of PLA confidence in its ability
to seize control of the air and sea in the context of a Taiwan-focused JILC.
It also offers details about PLA confidence regarding its ability to prosecute
various targets of interest across different geographic areas.
The PLA likely has moderate confidence in its ability to seize and
maintain control of the air in a Taiwan-focused JILC. It likely is highly
confident in its ability to prosecute most target types within the first island
chain, especially fixed targets such as airfields and air-defense sites, surface
vessels, and aircraft. However, its only moderate confidence in its ability
to engage enemy forces beyond the first island chain—forces that still can
contest air control inside the first island chain—likely creates doubts in
its overall ability to attain control of the air. The potential for the pres-
ence of adversary assets capable of contesting air control creates a situation
wherein neither side has true campaign-level or strategic air superiority,
although the PLA may be able to create local and temporary air superiority
when needed.
With moderate confidence of achieving air control or high confidence
of denying adversary air control in mind, the PLA likely has high confi-
dence in its ability to seize and maintain control of the seas. The PLA has
a greater ability to attrit maritime targets out to the second island chain
and thus reduce the adversary’s ability to interfere in maritime operations
inside the first island chain, especially around Taiwan. Even with contested
control of the air, the large number of shooters that can prosecute mari-
time and airborne targets inside the first island chain suggests higher PLA
confidence in attaining maritime superiority. Table 3 presents key find-
ings from this analysis, including our own degree of uncertainty in specific
assessments.
270 C H I N E S E A M P H I B I O U S WA R FA R E

Table 3. Assessed PLA Confidence in Achieving Air and Sea Control

Mission Assessed PLA Uncertainty

Confidence in Our Assessment

Overall air control Moderate Moderate

Overall maritime control High Low

Fixed (1st island chain) High to very high Low

Fixed (2nd island chain) Moderate Moderate

Fixed (outside 2nd island chain) Low Moderate

Mobile land (1st island chain) Moderate Moderate

Mobile land (2nd island chain) Low to none Low

Maritime surface High to very high Low

(1st island chain)

Maritime surface Moderate Moderate

(2nd island chain)

Maritime surface Low Moderate

(outside 2nd island chain)

Maritime subsurface Moderate Moderate

(Taiwan / 1st island chain)

Maritime subsurface Low High

(2nd island chain)

Maritime subsurface None Low

(outside 2nd island chain)

Air (Taiwan / 1st island chain) High Moderate

Air (2nd island chain) Low High

Fixed Land Targets

Targets such as naval bases, harbors, airfields, radar sites, air-defense sites,
logistics facilities, and command posts constitute a large portion of those
the PLA identifies as needing to be destroyed to seize air and maritime
dominance.91 This section discusses the PLA’s confidence in its ability to
disable or destroy various types of facilities that may hamper its ability to
operate in the air and on the sea.
Given the extensive number of fixed sites that the PLA explicitly iden-
tifies as needing to be destroyed and the importance of degrading these
 THE PL A’S CONFIDENCE IN ACHIE VING CONTROL AROUND TAIWAN 271

sites to enable it to execute routine wartime operations, fixed land targets

are likely the highest-priority target set for the PLA. Rather than whole-
sale destruction of adversary forces, the PLA places a massive emphasis on
destroying select critical nodes that are necessary to the adversary’s oper-
ational system.92
The PLA likely has high confidence that it can destroy or degrade fixed
targets of interest within the first island chain and very high confidence for
targets on Taiwan. This assessment is based on the large number of sensors
and shooters at the PLA’s disposal for this target set and the growing com-
plexity featured in PLA training events related to attacking fixed targets.
The PLA has nine sensor types and ninety-eight shooters that can engage
these targets. PLA training indicates that all identified shooters are also
confident in their ability to execute ground-attack missions. PLAAF fighter
units frequently train to attack fixed targets inside contested airspace and
PLARF short-range ballistic-missile brigades regularly train to execute
multiple salvos while under attack.93
The PLA likely has moderate confidence in its ability to degrade tem-
porarily fixed land targets out to the second island chain. This assessment
is based on the number of shooters, their magazine depth, and training
limitations. The PLA has six sensor types and twenty-six shooters at its
disposal but will be limited by the magazine depth of those shooters. Fur-
thermore, discussions of PLA training in this field show that there are still
some gaps. On the one hand, commentary from a PLARF DF-26 train-
ing event indicates that the units deploying these missiles are comfortable
executing multisalvo attacks under adverse operating conditions.94 How-
ever, press reporting on PLA bomber units indicates that there are con-
cerns about the bombers being able to operate as part of a larger joint force
beyond the PRC’s periphery.95
For fixed land targets beyond the second island chain, the PLA may
have low confidence in its ability to conduct notional strikes. It fields only
four identified shooters capable of ranging this target set, and these shoot-
ers are extremely vulnerable when operating so far from the PRC. PLAN
surface training formations occasionally operate beyond the second island
chain, although we have no indications regarding how these training for-
mations might translate into confidence during wartime.

Mobile Land Targets

Mobile land targets include SAM transporter-erector-launchers (TELs),
other short-range air-defense systems (SHORADs), mobile radar systems,
coastal-defense cruise-missile TELs, and other key support vehicles. The
272 C H I N E S E A M P H I B I O U S WA R FA R E

Science of Campaigns does not identify “mobile land targets” explicitly as

a separate category, but it does discuss broadly the need to destroy enemy
air-defense systems, radars, and surface-to-surface missile systems.96 The
fact that such systems are frequently mobile and thus more difficult to tar-
get warrants a separate target category.
Destroying or suppressing these systems would improve the survivabil-
ity of PLA air and maritime forces operating within range of the systems
in question. Doing so also would increase the probability of a hit for PLA
air-launched standoff munitions and surface-to-surface missiles target-
ing sites typically defended by mobile SAMs and SHORADs. However,
most targets within this category are likely not key system nodes. Given
the PLA’s belief that victory is achieved through systems confrontation
(体系对抗) and system-attack-and-destruction warfare (体系破击战), the
destruction or suppression of tactical targets likely is not a high priority
for the PLA.97
The PLA likely has moderate confidence in its ability to prosecute mo-
bile land targets within the first island chain. We base this conclusion on
the PLA’s limited training to engage such targets. The PLA has nine sensor
types and twenty-nine shooters capable of finding and engaging targets
of this type, which likely is sufficient for most scenarios. However, these
sensors and shooters are limited by the relative lack of training in this
discipline.
To find, fix, and fire on mobile land targets consistently, shooters must
train regularly to use advanced organic sensors or to use timely target data
from an offboard sensor. Although the PLA occasionally conducts train-
ing in these skill-sets, it is likely not enough to generate more than mod-
erate confidence. PLA fighter units occasionally, but not frequently, train
in ground attack using targeting pods.98 PLA fixed-wing aircraft and SOF
units also occasionally train together to engage ground targets, with SOF
units acting as forward observers.99 However, the lack of press reporting on
such training events suggests they are infrequent.
The PLA likely has low to no confidence in its ability to engage mobile
land targets beyond the first island chain. The PLA has only two shooters
capable of engaging such targets: its aircraft carriers. Although the PLAN
operates those carriers outside the first island chain, they have not yet de-
ployed near land targets within or beyond the second island chain.

Maritime Surface Targets

Maritime surface targets include aircraft carriers, other surface combat-
ants, amphibious-warfare ships, and naval auxiliaries. Broadly speaking,
 THE PL A’S CONFIDENCE IN ACHIE VING CONTROL AROUND TAIWAN 273

the PLA explicitly states that maritime surface targets should be destroyed
to achieve maritime control.100 The PLA specifically highlights aircraft car-
riers as representing strategic capabilities, stating that they “assume great
significance for a campaign victory” and constitute “strategic ‘fist’ forces
for naval maneuver operations.”101 Logistics vessels also hold great impor-
tance, with the Science of Campaigns stating that “to strike at and degrade
the enemy’s logistics has become one of the important means to accom-
plish campaign goals.”102
Within the first island chain, the PLA likely has high to very high con-
fidence that it can engage maritime surface targets of interest. Twelve of
the identified sensor-unit types can detect surface targets inside the first
island chain, and sixty-nine shooters can engage these targets. Historical-
ly, PLAN units with a primary ASuW mission set trained heavily in this
discipline. However, recent press reporting indicates that these units have
shifted the focus of their training away from ASuW, in favor of air defense
and antisubmarine warfare in particular.103 This shift likely indicates that
these units have achieved an acceptable level of institutional expertise in
ASuW operations and now can devote their attention to other types of
competencies.
The PLA likely has moderate confidence in its abilities to engage mari-
time surface targets between the first and second island chains. It still has a
reasonable number of sensors and shooters (eleven and thirty-four, respec-
tively) that can find and engage surface targets in this area. The PLAN and
PLAAF also regularly train in these waters.104 However, in these operating
areas the PLA has fewer sensors and shooters to prosecute targets over a
larger area, and its naval shooters are particularly vulnerable, so its confi-
dence likely is reduced.
PLA confidence in engaging maritime surface targets beyond the sec-
ond island chain is likely low. In comparison with the assets available to
it in the first and second island chain regions, the PLA has relatively few
sensors and shooters (five and ten, respectively) available in this area. In
peacetime these shooters only occasionally train to operate beyond the
second island chain, and they likely would be extremely vulnerable in
wartime.

Maritime Subsurface Targets

Maritime subsurface targets predominantly consist of submarines, both
conventional and nuclear. The PLA long has recognized the serious threat
of submarines to its transport fleet, but it lacked substantial resources with
which to prosecute these subsurface targets—until the PLAN’s major ship-
building efforts that began around 2010.105
274 C H I N E S E A M P H I B I O U S WA R FA R E

With the introduction of numerous ASW-capable combatants, modern

submarines, and dedicated ASW aircraft, the PLA now likely has moderate
confidence in its ability to engage subsurface targets within the first island
chain. This assessment is based on the moderate number of sensors and
shooters (five and twenty-eight, respectively) available, as well as the in-
creasing confidence observable in training.
Characterization of PLAN training in ASW activities shows the poten-
tial for a reasonable amount of confidence. An unspecified level of ASW
proficiency is a standard requirement for all PLAN surface combatants be-
fore a vessel training center can certify them as operationally ready.106 Once
that minimum level is achieved, ASW-capable units frequently train to op-
erate as ASW formations that hunt for subsurface targets or sanitize areas
of any potential submarines.107 With some regularity, surface combatants
also train with submarines and aircraft to conduct joint ASW.108 However,
it is extremely difficult to translate these open-source characterizations of
ASW training into an actual confidence level. At best, the increase in train-
ing and standards suggests a relative improvement in confidence.
Between the first and second island chains, the PLA may have low con-
fidence in its ability to find and engage subsurface targets. This assessment
of low confidence derives from the limited numbers of sensors and shoot-
ers available, as well as the lack of training. The PLA has three sensor-unit
types and nineteen shooters capable of finding and engaging these targets.
These units train only to a limited extent to operate beyond the first island
chain.109 We also assume that PLAN submarines can and do sortie out this
far; however, there is only sporadic discussion of PLAN units conducting
ASW training in these areas.
Beyond the second island chain, we assess that the PLA has essentially
no confidence in its ability to engage subsurface targets reliably.

Airborne Targets
Airborne targets encompass two subcategories of interest to the PLA. The
first subcategory is aircraft, consisting of fighters, AEW aircraft, and UAVs.
The PLA discusses the need to destroy such airborne targets both general-
ly, with regard to how it intends to achieve air superiority, and specifically,
in the context of an island landing campaign.110 The second subcategory
is missiles. With the growing global use of standoff munitions, as well as
improvements to PLA weapon systems and sensors, the PLA by 2013 began
placing a premium on “anti-missile” capabilities.111
Destroying airborne targets has offensive and defensive benefits. In
terms of achieving air superiority, the PLA acknowledges that the adversary
 THE PL A’S CONFIDENCE IN ACHIE VING CONTROL AROUND TAIWAN 275

inevitably will be able to get combat aircraft into the air, and that once this
happens they should be destroyed.112 With its growing ability to destroy
airborne targets far from PRC territorial airspace, the PLA now also likely
looks to AEW aircraft and tankers as a means of system destruction, given
its appreciation of how important friendly airborne command posts are in
informatized environments.113
From a defensive perspective, destroying inbound missiles reduces the
chance that the PLA’s operational system will be disrupted. Although the
PLA believes that conflict is most likely to be centered on the maritime do-
main, it recognizes that the most dangerous course of action by its adver-
sary would be to conduct aggressive strikes against the mainland intending
to destroy the PRC’s ability to wage war.114 Defending against incoming
missiles helps to mitigate threats to key war-fighting nodes in the PRC and
vulnerable amphibious lift during the crossing phase of a JILC.
The PLA likely has high confidence in its ability to destroy or disable
airborne targets within the first island chain. Ten of the identified sen-
sor types can find airborne targets, and eighty shooters can engage those
targets within this area. The PLA also appears to be highly proficient in
executing air-defense missions near its own airspace.
PLA descriptions of training related to engaging airborne targets
demonstrate confidence in the service’s ability to deal with modern air-
borne threats. For example, one fighter brigade has discussed how it excels
in medium-range air-to-air combat, suggesting it is confident in using the
current inventory of medium-range air-to-air missiles.115 On the ground,
SAM brigades appear to be confident in their ability to deal with multiaxis
saturation attacks and operate as part of an integrated air-defense system.116
Discussions of deficiencies focus on units’ not always maintaining broader
situational awareness, with some fighter units being too aggressive, thereby
allowing adversary forces to penetrate in other areas.117 However, the PLA
is seeking actively to resolve the deficiency represented by units trying to
achieve high kill rates without addressing actual mission requirements.
The PLA’s confidence in engaging such targets between the first and
second island chains likely is low. The PLA has a moderate number of sen-
sors and shooters capable of finding and engaging targets in this area (six
and twenty-five, respectively). However, the large geographic area, long
time-to-target for shooters not on station, lack of permanent shooters on
station beyond possible surface action groups, and apparent lack of train-
ing likely reduce PLA confidence.
The confidence found in PLA discussions of air operations around its
periphery essentially disappears when it comes to operations outside the
276 C H I N E S E A M P H I B I O U S WA R FA R E

first island chain. PLAAF fighter units occasionally discuss flying in the
“far seas,” with AEW aircraft also occasionally training in these areas, but
little else is discussed.118 This is in stark contrast with the confidence appar-
ent in reporting on PLAAF bomber training beyond the first island chain.

Our analysis of the sensors and shooters the PLA has available today indi-
cates that the service likely has moderate confidence in its ability to seize
and maintain control of the air in the context of a Taiwan-focused JILC. It
probably has high confidence in its ability to prosecute fixed targets such
as airfields and air-defense sites, surface vessels, and aircraft located within
the first island chain. However, significantly lower confidence in its abil-
ity to engage enemy forces beyond the first island chain—in areas from
which enemy forces can launch strikes against near-seas targets—likely
creates doubts in its overall ability to attain control of the air. Given the
tremendous breadth of sensors and shooters capable of striking maritime
targets out to the second island chain, the PLA likely has high confidence
in its ability to seize and maintain control of the seas in a Taiwan invasion
scenario.
Unless the Chinese Communist Party opts to reduce its defense spend-
ing dramatically, PLA modernization trends in terms of hardware and sys-
tem performance only will increase as time passes. This suggests that PLA
confidence will improve as well. Of course, the rate at which the PLA closes
the gap with its potential adversaries also is affected by adversary deci-
sions. The United States and its allies now clearly recognize that the PLA is
on track to achieve operational overmatch, and they have started to invest
in changing that trajectory. Their actions inevitably will impact the PLA’s
confidence in its own capabilities.
However, the way to diminish PLA confidence in its ability to gain con-
trol of the land, sea, and air is not to develop systems that counter PLAN
vessels, aircraft, or missiles. Instead, the United States should look to ways
of destroying the PLA’s information network. Blinding the adversary and
destroying its information systems are the hallmarks of American war
fighting. However, debates about “how to beat China” should war break
out focus too much on killing PLA shooters.
As our discussion of sensors and shooters reveals, the PLA has a pleth-
ora of shooters available, and attriting those numbers is an extremely
daunting challenge. However, a tally of unique sensor units suggests that
the PLA has roughly seventy sensor-unit equivalents that can be brought
to bear on a Taiwan-related mission. Although this list is not short, it al-
most certainly would be less resource intensive to campaign against those
 THE PL A’S CONFIDENCE IN ACHIE VING CONTROL AROUND TAIWAN 277

seventy sensor units until the PLA loses information dominance than it
would be to attrit enough of the 150 shooter units for the PLA no longer to
feel that it could seize Taiwan.
To simplify the problem addressed in this chapter, our methodology
examines dedicated sensors and shooters separately. One variable that
could impact our findings is the quantity of shooter-based sensors. As
mentioned previously, warships in the surface fleet carry their own capable
suite of sensors that, if fully integrated into PLA joint operations, could add
a significant number of sensors capable of target detection across multiple
domains, then prosecute those targets with their shipboard weaponry. This
applies to other combatants across the PLA’s joint forces as well. Never-
theless, this chapter’s focus on sensor packages and the breadth of shoot-
ers available provides a substantial basis for examining PLA confidence in
securing the sea and air domains in a JILC.
Appendix A. Complete List of Sensor Unit Types

Sea Sea Sea Sea Sub- Sea Sub- Sea Sub-

Fixed Fixed Fixed Mobile Mobile Surface Surface Surface surface surface surface Air Air Air
1IC 2IC Outside 1IC 2IC 1IC 2IC Outside 1IC 2IC Outside 1IC 2IC Outside

PLAN OBCOMM 1
brigades

PLAN SMA divisions 1 1 1 1 1 1 1

PLAN radar brigades 1

PLAN UAV regiments 1 1 1 1

PLAN operational 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1
support flotillas

PLAAF radar brigades 1

PLAAF SMA divisions 1 1 1 1 1 1

PLAAF UAV units 1 1 1

PLAAF Skywave 1 1
radar brigade
 PLARF passive- 1 1
detection unit

PLA SSF radar sites 1 1

PLA SSF Yaogan series 1 1 1 1 1 1

PLA SSF Gaofen series 1 1 1 1 1 1

Other civilian and 1 1 1 1 1 1

military satellites

PLA SSF TTRBs

PLA SOF observers 1 1

Civilian vessels and 1 1 1

maritime platforms

Notes: 1IC = first island chain; 2IC = second island chain; OBCOMM = observation and communications; PLA = People’s Liberation Army; PLAAF = People’s Liberation Army Air Force; PLAN =
People’s Liberation Army Navy; PLARF = People’s Liberation Army Rocket Force; PLASSF = People’s Liberation Army Strategic Support Force; SMA = special-mission aircraft; SOF = special-
operations force; TTRB = Theater Technical Reconnaissance Bureau; UAV = unmanned aerial vehicle.
Appendix B. Complete List of Shooter Unit Types

Sea Sea Sea Sea Sea Sea

Fixed Fixed Fixed Mobile Mobile Surface Surface Surface Subsurface Subsurface Subsurface Air Air Air
1IC 2IC Outside 1IC 2IC 1IC 2IC Outside 1IC 2IC Outside 1IC 2IC Outside

3rd Destroyer Flotilla 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1

6th Destroyer Flotilla 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1

2nd Destroyer Flotilla 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1

9th Destroyer Flotilla 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1

1st Destroyer Flotilla 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1

10th Destroyer Flotilla 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1

CV 16 + air wing 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1

CV 17 + air wing 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1

22nd Submarine Flotilla 1 1 1 1

42nd Submarine Flotilla 1 1 1 1

32nd Submarine Flotilla 1 1 1 1

52nd Submarine Flotilla 1 1 1 1

2nd Submarine Flotilla 1 1 1 1

12th Submarine Flotilla 1 1 1 1

2nd Submarine Base 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1

1st Submarine Base 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1

11th Frigate Flotilla 1 1

12th Frigate Flotilla 1 1

13th Frigate Flotilla 1 1

14th Frigate Flotilla 1 1

15th Frigate Flotilla 1 1

16th Frigate Flotilla 1 1

17th Frigate Flotilla 1 1

18th Frigate Flotilla 1 1

19th Frigate Flotilla 1 1

Qingdao PTG Squadron 1

Shanghai PTG Squadron 1

Fuzhou PTG Squadron 1

Guangzhou PTG Squadron 1

1st CDCM Regiment (Fujian) 1

2nd CDCM Regiment (Fujian) 1

3rd CDCM Regiment (Shanghai) 1

Appendix B. Complete List of Shooter Unit Types (continued)

Sea Sea Sea Sea Sea Sea

Fixed Fixed Fixed Mobile Mobile Surface Surface Surface Subsurface Subsurface Subsurface Air Air Air
1IC 2IC Outside 1IC 2IC 1IC 2IC Outside 1IC 2IC Outside 1IC 2IC Outside

Yulin CDCM Regiment 1

Yulin/Sansha CDCM Regiment 1

11th CDCM Regiment (Qingdao) 1

4th Naval Aviation Brigade 1 1 1

6th Naval Aviation Brigade 1 1

8th Naval Aviation Brigade 1 1 1

9th Naval Aviation Brigade 1 1

5th Naval Aviation Brigade 1 1 1

ETN Bomber Regiment 1 1 1

STN Bomber Regiment 1 1 1

ETN SMA Division 1 1

(Y-8 ASW)

STN SMA Division 1 1

(Y-8 ASW)

NTN SMA Division 1 1

(Y-8 ASW)

ETN Air Defense Brigade 1

STN Air Defense Brigade 1

NTN Air Defense Brigade 1

ETN ECM Brigade 1

STN ECM Brigade 1

NTN ECM Brigade 1

7th Aviation Brigade (J-16) 1 1 1 1 1

8th Aviation Brigade (J-10A) 1 1

9th Aviation Brigade (J-206) 1 1 1 1

78th Aviation Brigade (J-8DF) 1 1 1

83rd Aviation Brigade (JH-7A) 1 1 1

95th Aviation Brigade (J-11B) 1 1

25th Aviation Brigade (J-7E) 1 1

40th Aviation Brigade (J-16) 1 1 1 1 1

41st Aviation Brigade (J-11A) 1 1

85th Aviation Brigade 1 1 1 1

(Su-30MKK)

4th Aviation Brigade (J-11A) 1 1

Aviation Brigade (J-10B/C) 1 1 1 1

Appendix B. Complete List of Shooter Unit Types (continued)

Sea Sea Sea Sea Sea Sea

Fixed Fixed Fixed Mobile Mobile Surface Surface Surface Subsurface Subsurface Subsurface Air Air Air
1IC 2IC Outside 1IC 2IC 1IC 2IC Outside 1IC 2IC Outside 1IC 2IC Outside

6th Aviation Brigade 1 1 1 1

(Su-35/30MKK)

26th Aviation Brigade (J-16) 1 1 1 1 1

124th Aviation Brigade (J-10A) 1 1

125th Aviation Brigade (J-10A) 1 1

54th Aviation Brigade 1 1 1 1

(Su-30MKK)

130th Aviation Brigade (J-10A) 1 1

131st Aviation Brigade (J-10C) 1 1 1 1

132nd Aviation Brigade (J-7E) 1 1

16th Aviation Brigade (J-11A) 1 1

18th Aviation Brigade (J-7H) 1 1

97th Aviation Brigade (J-7E) 1 1

98th Aviation Brigade (J-16) 1 1 1 1 1

99th Aviation Brigade (J-16) 1 1 1 1 1

109th Aviation Brigade (J-8DF) 1 1

110th Aviation Brigade (JH-7A) 1 1

111th Aviation Brigade (J-11B) 1 1

1st Aviation Brigade (J-20) 1 1 1 1

2nd Aviation Brigade (J-10C) 1 1 1 1

3rd Aviation Brigade (J-16) 1 1 1 1 1

31st Aviation Brigade (JH-7A) 1 1 1

61st Aviation Brigade (J-10B) 1 1 1 1

63rd Aviation Brigade (J-11B) 1 1

88th Aviation Brigade (J-7H) 1 1

89th Aviation Brigade (J-11B) 1

15th Aviation Brigade (JH-7A) 1 1 1

34th Aviation Brigade (J-10A) 1 1

35th Aviation Brigade (J-10A) 1 1 1

44th Aviation Brigade (J-7G) 1 1

55th Aviation Brigade (J-11A) 1 1

52nd Aviation Brigade (J-7G) 1 1

53rd Aviation Brigade (J-7L) 1 1

Appendix B. Complete List of Shooter Unit Types (continued)

Sea Sea Sea Sea Sea Sea

Fixed Fixed Fixed Mobile Mobile Surface Surface Surface Subsurface Subsurface Subsurface Air Air Air
1IC 2IC Outside 1IC 2IC 1IC 2IC Outside 1IC 2IC Outside 1IC 2IC Outside

19th Aviation Brigade (J-11B) 1 1

21st Aviation Brigade (J-7L) 1 1

43rd Aviation Brigade (J-10A) 1 1

56th Aviation Brigade (J-10B) 1 1 1 1

70th Aviation Brigade (J-10A) 1 1

72nd Aviation Brigade (J-10C) 1 1 1 1

28th Bomber Regiment 1 1 1 1

29th Bomber Regiment 1 1 1 1

30th Bomber Regiment 1 1 1 1

22nd Bomber Regiment 1 1 1 1

23rd Bomber Regiment 1 1 1 1

24th Bomber Regiment 1 1 1 1 1

107th Bomber Regiment 1 1 1 1

108th Bomber Regiment 1 1

106th Bomber Brigade 1 1 1 1 1

20th SMA Division (notional 1 1 1 1 1 1

all ECM)

1st SAM Brigade 1

8th SAM Brigade 1

5th SAM Brigade 1

14th SAM Brigade 1

3rd SAM Brigade 1

4th SAM Brigade 1

15th SAM Brigade 1

10th SAM Brigade 1

19th SAM Brigade 1

J-6 Attack UAV Brigade 1

Notional PLAAF UAV attack 1 1

capability

ETCAF ECM Brigade 1 1

STCAF ECM Brigade 1

NTCAF ECM Brigade 1

613 Brigade (DF-15) 1

Appendix B. Complete List of Shooter Unit Types (continued)

Sea Sea Sea Sea Sea Sea

Fixed Fixed Fixed Mobile Mobile Surface Surface Surface Subsurface Subsurface Subsurface Air Air Air
1IC 2IC Outside 1IC 2IC 1IC 2IC Outside 1IC 2IC Outside 1IC 2IC Outside

614 Brigade (DF-17) 1 ?

615 Brigade (DF-11A) 1

616 Brigade (DF-17) 1 ?

617 Brigade (DF-16) 1

623 Brigade (CJ-10) 1

624 Brigade (DF-21D) 1 1

625 Brigade (DF-26) 1 1 1 1

626 Brigade (DF-26) 1 1 1 1

627 Brigade (DF-17) 1 ?

635 Brigade (CJ-10) 1

636 Brigade (DF-16) 1

646 Brigade (DF-26) 1 1 1 1

653 Brigade (DF-21D) 1

654 Brigade (DF-26) 1 1 1 1

655 Brigade (DF-17) 1 ?

656 Brigade (CJ-100) 1 1 1 1

666 Brigade (DF-26) 1 1 1 1

Army, Navy, and PLAAF SOF 1 1

Army rocket-artillery brigades 1

Army aviation brigades 1 1 1

ETC Army ECM Brigade

STC Army ECM Brigade 1

NTC Army ECM Brigade 1

PLA SSF ECM brigades 1 1

PLA SSF NSD/TTRB offensive

1 1
cyber

Notional PLAAF UAV Attack 1 1 1

Capability

Total 98 ~26 4 29 2 70 34 10 28 19 10 80 26 8

Notes: 1IC = first island chain; 2IC = second island chain; ASW = antisubmarine warfare; CDCM = coastal-defense cruise missile; ECM = electronic countermeasures; ETC = Eastern Theater Command;
ETCAF = Eastern Theater Command Air Force; ETN = Eastern Theater Navy; NSD = Network Systems Department; NTC = Northern Theater Command; NTCAF = Northern Theater Command Air
Force; NTN = Northern Theater Navy; PLAAF = People’s Liberation Army Air Force; PLASSF = People’s Liberation Army Strategic Support Force; PTG = guided-missile patrol craft; SAM = surface-to-
air missile; SMA = special-mission aircraft; SOF = special-operations force; STC = Southern Theater Command; STCAF = Southern Theater Command Air Force; STN = Southern Theater Navy; TTRB =
Theater Technical Reconnaissance Bureau; UAV = unmanned aerial vehicle.
29 0 C H I N E S E A M P H I B I O U S WA R FA R E

Notes
1. 张玉良 [Zhang Yuliang], ed., 战役学 [Science of Campaigns] (Beijing: National
Defense Univ., 2006), translated by Chinese Aerospace Studies Institute and Proj-
ect Everest as Science of Campaigns (Montgomery, AL: Chinese Aerospace Studies
Institute, 2020), pp. 112, 358.
2. 肖天亮 [Xiao Tianliang], ed., 战略学 [Science of Strategy] (Beijing: National De-
fense Univ., 2015), p. 260.
3. 寿晓松 [Shou Xiaosong], ed., 战略学 [Science of Strategy] (Beijing: Military Sci-
ence, 2013), p. 209.
4. Xiao, Science of Strategy, p. 260. Emphasis added.
5. Ibid., pp. 339, 342.
6. Shou, Science of Strategy, p. 217.
7. Xiao, Science of Strategy, pp. 342–45.
8. Roderick Lee, “The PLA Navy’s Zhanlan Training Series: Supporting Offen-
sive Strike on the High Seas,” Jamestown Foundation China Brief 21, no. 9
(13 April 2020), jamestown.org/program/the-pla-navys-zhanlan-training-series
-supporting-offensive-strike-on-the-high-seas/; Defense Intelligence Agency, China
Military Power: Modernizing a Force to Fight and Win (Washington, DC: 2019),
pp. 33–35, 63–82, available at www.dia.mil/Portals/27/Documents/News/Military
%20Power%20Publications/China_Military_Power_FINAL_5MB_20190103.pdf;
Mark R. Cozad, “Toward a More Joint, Combat-Ready PLA?,” in Chairman Xi
Remakes the PLA, ed. Phillip C. Saunders et al. (Washington, DC: National De-
fense Univ. Press, 2019), pp. 212, 218.
9. Xiao, Science of Strategy, pp. 241–51, esp. p. 245.
10. Ibid., p. 249.
11. Shou, Science of Strategy, p. 213. Science of Strategy characterizes the PLA’s force
structure as a shortcoming—literally, a “short board” (短板).
12. Dennis J. Blasko, “The Chinese Military Speaks to Itself, Revealing Doubts,”
War on the Rocks, 18 February 2019, warontherocks.com/2019/02/the-chinese
-military-speaks-to-itself-revealing-doubts/; Dennis J. Blasko [Lt. Col., USA
(Ret.)], “‘PLA Weaknesses and Xi’s Concerns about PLA Capabilities’: Testimony
before the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission Panel on
‘Backlash from Abroad: The Limits of Beijing’s Power to Shape Its External
Environment,’” U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission, 7 February
2019, www.uscc.gov/sites/default/files/Blasko_USCC%20Testimony_FINAL.pdf.
13. David M. Finkelstein, “Breaking the Paradigm: Drivers behind the PLA’s Current
Period of Reform,” in Saunders et al., Chairman Xi Remakes the PLA, p. 62.
14. Cozad, “Toward a More Joint, Combat-Ready PLA?,” p. 218.
15. J. Michael Dahm, High-Frequency Communications, “South China Sea Military
Capability Series: A Survey of Technologies and Capabilities on China’s Military
Outposts in the South China Sea” (Laurel, MD: Johns Hopkins Applied Physics
Laboratory, July 2020), www.jhuapl.edu/Content/documents/High-Frequency
-Communications.pdf.
16. Cozad, “Toward a More Joint, Combat-Ready PLA?,” pp. 212, 218; 冯智源 [Feng
Zhiyuan], 向榜样看齐丨听听他们的故事 [“Follow Your Role Models, Listen to
 THE PL A’S CONFIDENCE IN ACHIE VING CONTROL AROUND TAIWAN 291

Their Stories”], 中国军网 [China Military Online], 12 November 2019, www.81

.cn/zghjy/2019-11/12/content_9673251_9.htm.
17. Shou, Science of Strategy, p. 213.
18. Ibid.
19. Zhang, Science of Campaigns, pp. 316–23.
20. The authors acknowledge that not all targets that fall within these categories should
be treated equally. For example, an expeditionary temporary air base is harder to
find and engage than a known airfield. However, we sought to simplify our catego-
ries, and thus we do not make this distinction.
21. 余署峰 [Yu Shufeng], 杨海峰 [Yang Haifeng], and 张容瑢 [Zhang Rongrong], 某观
通旅整合力量资源提升预警探测能力—听风观涛织“天网” [“Observation and
Communications Brigade Integrates Troops and Resources to Enhance Early
Warning and Detection Capabilities—Hear the Wind and Read the Waves to
Weave a ‘Sky Net’”], 人民海军 [People’s Navy], 25 August 2017, p. 1.
22. 吴进军 [Wu Jinjun] and 余爽 [Yu Shuang], 戍守海空65载, 他们是南海风云的
“瞭望者” [“Guarding the Sea and Air for 65 Years, They Are the ‘Lookouts’ for
the South China Sea”], 南海舰队 [South Sea Fleet], WeChat, 23 June 2020; 高江
[Gao Jiang] and 邹刚健 [Zou Gangjian], 大漠演兵场, 党旗飘扬! [“Desert
Training Ground, Party Flags Flutter!”], 南部空军 [Southern Theater Air Force],
WeChat, 14 September 2020.
23. 余苗 [Yu Miao] et al., 基于改进AHP-TOPSIS法天波雷达作战效能评估 [“Eval-
uation of Combat Effectiveness Based on Improved AHP-TOPSIS Method”], 现代
雷达 [Modern Radar], no. 11 (2019), pp. 51–56.
24. 余苗 [Yu Miao] and 程建 [Cheng Jian], 天波超视距雷达作战效能评估基本问
题探析 [“Analysis of the Basic Problems of the Assessment of Tianbo Superposed
Radar Operation Efficiency”], 火力与指挥控制 [Fire and Command Control],
no. 12 (December 2018), pp. 81–84.
25. Marcus Clay, “Strategic Support Force Organizational Directory,” Air University,
forthcoming, www.airuniversity.af.edu/.
26. China Aerospace Studies Institute (@CASI_Research), “96816 Unit (PLARF 61
Base UAV Regiment) 60th detachment located on Chongming Island,”
Twitter, 7 August 2020, 5:05 pm, twitter.com/CASI_Research/status/129184304
4434739207; 张怡霄 [Zhang Yizhen] et al., 弹打击海上目标中的无源侦察精度
影响分析 [“Influence Analysis of Accuracy of Missiles Using Passive Reconnais-
sance to Hit Maritime Targets”], 兵器装备工程学报 [Journal of Ordnance Equip-
ment Engineering] 40, no. 10 (October 2019), p. 1.
27. 张南 [Zhang Nan], 庞中秀 [Pang Zhongxiu], and 高骏峰 [Gao Junfeng], 这个旅
强化一专多能训练, “瘦身” 后的侦察小组更加灵活机动 [“This Brigade Streng-
thens Training in One Specialization and Multiple Capabilities, ‘Slimming’ Recon-
naissance Teams Makes It More Flexible”], 解放军报 [PLA Daily], 16 April 2021,
www.81.cn/yw/2021-04/16/content_10023204.htm.
28. U.S. Defense Dept., Annual Report to Congress: Military and Securi-
ty Developments Involving the People’s Republic of China 2020 (Washing-
ton, DC: Office of the Secretary of Defense, 2020) [hereafter U.S. Defense
Dept., Annual Report to Congress: PRC (2020)], pp. 51, 95, available at
292 C H I N E S E A M P H I B I O U S WA R FA R E

media.defense.gov/2020/Sep/01/2002488689/-1/-1/1/2020-DOD-CHINA
-MILITARY-POWER-REPORT-FINAL.PDF.
29. Ibid., p. 52.
30. Mark Stokes et al., China’s Space and Counterspace Capabilities and Activities
(Washington, DC: U.S. China Economic and Security Review Commission,
30 March 2020), https://www.uscc.gov/sites/default/files/2020-05/China_Space
_and_Counterspace_Activities.pdf.
31. Gunter D. Krebs, “Spacecraft: Earth Observation—China,” Gunter’s Space Page, 9
October 2021, space.skyrocket.de/directories/sat_eo_chin.htm.
32. Ibid.
33. U.S. Defense Dept., Annual Report to Congress: Military and Security Develop-
ments Involving the People’s Republic of China 2015 (Washington, DC: Office
of the Secretary of Defense, 2015), p. 13, available at dod.defense.gov/Portals/1/
Documents/pubs/2015_China_Military_Power_Report.pdf.
34. N2YO.com database (for Gaofen, accessed 1 April 2021), www.n2yo.com/
database/?q=gaofen#results/.
35. U.S. Defense Dept., Annual Report to Congress: PRC (2020), p. 79.
36. U.S. Defense Dept., Annual Report to Congress: Military and Security De-
velopments Involving the People’s Republic of China 2019 (Washington, DC:
Office of the Secretary of Defense, 2019), p. 60, available at media.defense
.gov/2019/May/02/2002127082/-1/-1/1/2019_CHINA_MILITARY_POWER
_REPORT.pdf.
37. Andrew Erickson, “The China Maritime Militia Bookshelf: Latest Data & Official
Statements + My Fact Sheet & Recommendations,” Andrew S. Erickson, 7 April
2020, www.andrewerickson.com/2020/04/the-china-maritime-militia-bookshelf
-latest-data-official-statements-my-fact-sheet-recommendations/; H. I. Sutton, “Chi-
na Builds Surveillance Network in South China Sea,” Forbes, 5 August 2020, www
.forbes.com/sites/hisutton/2020/08/05/china-builds-surveillance-network-in
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38. Clay, “Strategic Support Force Organizational Directory.”
39. 統合幕僚監部 [Joint Staff (Japan)], 中国機の東シナ海及び太平洋における飛
行について [“Flight of Chinese Aircraft in the East China Sea and Pacific
Ocean”], press release, 4 April 2021, www.mod.go.jp/js/Press/press2021/press
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40. 是时候介绍这支“海空天团”了! [“It’s Time to Introduce This ‘Sea Space Group’!”],
北海舰队 [North Sea Fleet], WeChat, 23 July 2019.
41. Andreas Rupprecht, “Images Show PLANAF J-15s Armed with KD-88 and YJ-91
Missiles,” Janes, 15 November 2019, www.janes.com/defence-news/news-detail/
images-show-planaf-j-15s-armed-with-kd-88-and-yj-91-missiles.
42. 军事快播20201228 [“Military Express 20201228”], 中国军视网 [China Military
TV Network], 28 December 2020, www.js7tv.cn/video/202012_237724.html.
43. 李新凯 [Li Xinkai] and 麦华韬 [Mai Huatao], 抢滩登陆、深海营救、昼夜空战
. . . 一组大片带你走进南海官兵的训练场 [“Grab the Beach, Deep-Sea Rescue,
Stay in the Sky. . . A Group of Blockbusters Takes You into the Training Ground
of South China Sea Officers and Men”], 南海舰队 [South Sea Fleet], WeChat,
15 March 2021.
 THE PL A’S CONFIDENCE IN ACHIE VING CONTROL AROUND TAIWAN 293

44. Lee, “The PLA Navy’s Zhanlan Training Series.”

45. 方思航 [Fang Sihang] et al., 东海, 舰炮隆隆淬利剑 [“East China Sea, Naval Guns
Rumbling as Swords Temper”], 海军新闻 [Navy News], WeChat, 10 July 2020.
46. Lee, “The PLA Navy’s Zhanlan Training Series”; U.S. Defense Dept., Annual
Report to Congress: PRC (2020), p. 44.
47. 王金志 [Wang Jinzhi], 跨越赤道: 中国海军舰艇编队赴远海训练 [“Cross the
Equator: China Navy Ship Formation Heads to the Far Seas for Training”], 人民
网 [People’s Daily Online], 4 June 2021, available at www.xinhuanet.com/mil/
202/c_1211186804.htm.
48. 张伟峰 [Zhang Weifeng] and 蔡盛秋 [Cai Shengqiu], 转战多个海区这个支队
训练考核实战化水平高 [“Transfer to Many Sea Areas, the Detachment Training
Evaluation Is High Level”], 南部战区 [Southern Theater Command], WeChat,
18 December 2020; 周道先 [Zhou Daoxian] and 刘礼鹏 [Liu Lipeng], 剑气
凛冽, “海上猛虎”砺兵东海 [“Strong Sword Spirit, ‘Maritime Tigers’ Train in
the East China Sea”], 东海舰队发布 [East China Sea Fleet Release], WeChat,
3 March 2021.
49. Shihar Aneez and Ranga Sirilal, “Chinese Submarine Docks in Sri Lanka despite
Indian Concerns,” Reuters, 2 November 2014, www.reuters.com/article/sri-lanka
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50. 郑仁超 [Zheng Renchao] and 王维 [Wang Wei], 战位解难题 深海练攻防某潜
艇支队紧贴实战要求开展攻防对抗演练 [“Resolving Issues on Battle Stations
and Practicing Offensive and Defensive Operations Deep Undersea: Submarine
Flotilla Carries Out Confrontation Drills by Adhering Closely to Combat Require-
ments”], 人民海军 [People’s Navy], 4 June 2018, p. 1.
51. U.S. Defense Dept., Annual Report to Congress: PRC (2020), p. 45.
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53. 杜柯橙 [Du Kecheng] and 姚尚秉 [Yao Shangbing], 东海,导弹快艇火力打击
[“East China Sea, Missile Speedboat Fires”], 海军新闻 [Navy News], WeChat,
5 November 2020.
54. Ma Xiu, PLA Rocket Force Organization, China Aerospace Studies Institute
(Montgomery, AL: 2022), available at www.airuniversity.af.edu/Portals/10/CASI/
documents/Research/PLARF/2022-10-24%20PLARF%20Organization.pdf.
55. U.S. Defense Dept., Annual Report to Congress: PRC (2020), p. 55.
56. Ma, PLA Rocket Force Organization.
57. U.S. Defense Dept., Annual Report to Congress: PRC (2020), p. 60.
58. Peter Dutton, Andrew Erickson, and Ryan Martinson, eds., China’s Near Seas
Combat Capabilities, China Maritime Studies 11 (Newport, RI: Naval War Col-
lege Press, 2014); 刘勇 [Liu Yong], 苏亚乾 [Su Yaqian], and 王意夫 [Wang Yifu],
燃爆! 这场紧急出动训练, 让人热血沸腾 [“Explosion! This Emergency Training
Is Bloody, and People’s Blood Is Boiling”], 东海舰队发布 [East China Sea Fleet
Release], WeChat, 23 September 2020.
59. 刘鹏越 [Liu Pengyue], 央媒看空军｜一支导弹劲旅的“体系练兵”样本 [“Cen-
tral Media on the Air Force, a Sample of ‘System Training’ by a Guided-Missile
Brigade”], 空军在线 [Air Force Online], WeChat, 14 April 2021.
29 4 C H I N E S E A M P H I B I O U S WA R FA R E

60. 中国新锐导弹FD-2000B成功出口, 北非摩洛哥集齐全套中国防空装备 [“Chi-

na’s New Landmark FD-2000B Successfully Exported, North Africa Morocco Set
Complete Chinese Air Defense Equipment”], 军武次位面 [Military Martial Arts],
WeChat, 1 July 2020.
61. 刘魁 [Liu Qi] and 吴官柱 [Wu Guanzhu], 神兵天降! 直击陆航、特战协同伞降
现场 [“God’s Troops! Directly Hit Army Aviation, Special Operations Coor-
dinated Parachute Drop”], 忠诚号 [Loyalty], WeChat, 23 March 2021.
62. Zhang, Science of Campaigns, p. 362; 李小凡 [Li Xiaofan], 第83集团军某特战
旅拔点夺要红蓝对抗 [“A Special Operations Brigade of the 83rd Group Army
Will Win Red-Blue Confrontation”], 央视军事报道 [CCTV-7], 5 November
2020, tv.cctv.com/2020/11/05/VIDEYv2SzRGwKjJHbiLqGnvG201105.shtml.
63. Marcus Clay and Mark Stokes, “China’s Quest for Electromagnetic Spectrum
Superiority,” Air Force University, forthcoming, www.airuniversity.af.edu/.
64. Elsa Kania, The PLA’s Unmanned Aerial Systems: New Capabilities for a “New Era”
of Chinese Military Power (Montgomery, AL: China Aerospace Studies Institute,
2018), www.airuniversity.af.edu/Portals/10/CASI/Books/PLAs_Unmanned_Aerial
_Systems.pdf.
65. Clay, “Strategic Support Force Organizational Directory.”
66. U.S. Defense Dept., Annual Report to Congress: PRC (2020), p. 74; Clay, “Strategic
Support Force Organizational Directory.”
67. U.S. Defense Dept., Annual Report to Congress: PRC (2020), p. 76.
68. Douglas Barrie, “Air-Launched Missiles: A Low-Observable Numbers Game,”
Military Balance Blog, IISS, 24 April 2020, www.iiss.org/blogs/military-balance/
2020/04/air-launched-missiles-china-plaaf-j-20-fighter.
69. U.S. Defense Dept., Annual Report to Congress: PRC (2020), p. 75.
70. Drake Long, “China Warships, Fighter Jets Deployed in Spratly Islands,” Radio
Free Asia, 3 August 2020, www.rfa.org/english/news/china/spratlys-jets-080320
20192013.html.
71. 徐强 [Xu Qiang] and 卢定兴 [Lu Dingxing], 又稳又准! 这场对地突防突击
训练, 训出水 [“Both Stable and Accurate! This Ground Assault Training, Sweat-
ing from Training”], 西部空天 [Western Skies], WeChat, 21 April 2021; 牛锐
利 [Niu Ruili], 空军某基地: 体系磨砺铸空中精锐 [“An Unnamed Air Force
Base: The System Is Being Sharpened to Become an Airborne Elite”], 空军新
闻 [Air Force News], WeChat, 30 November 2020; 詹伯钦 [Zhan Boqin], 午夜
过后,战鹰加力升空! [“After Midnight, the War Eagles Take Off with More
Power”], 空军新闻 [Air Force News], WeChat, 10 April 2021; Andreas Rupprecht,
“Images Show PLAAF J-16 Armed with YJ-83K Anti-ship Missile,” Janes, 18
February 2020, www.janes.com/defence-news/news-detail/images-show-plaaf-j-16
-armed-with-yj-83k-anti-ship-missile.
72. Mercedes Trent, Over the Line: The Implications of China’s ADIZ Intrusions in
Northeast Asia (Washington, DC: Federation of American Scientists, August 2020),
uploads.fas.org/2020/08/ADIZ-Report.pdf; Greg Waldron, “Beijing Air Power
Turns Up the Heat on Taiwan,” Flight Global, 16 April 2021, www.flightglobal.com/
defence/beijing-air-power-turns-up-the-heat-on-taiwan/143327.article.
73. 徐同宣 [Xu Tongxuan], 央视看空军 | 对抗正激烈, 飞机从雷达屏上“消失”了
[“CCTV on the Air Force, Confrontation Is Fierce, the Plane ‘Disappears’ from
 THE PL A’S CONFIDENCE IN ACHIE VING CONTROL AROUND TAIWAN 295

the Radar Screen”], 空军在线 [Air Force Online], WeChat, 31 August 2020; 牛
锐利 [Niu Ruili], 双剑合璧!飞行员千里突击,空降兵指引“落地惊雷” [“Double
Swords! The Pilot Assaults from a Thousand Miles Away, the Airborne Soldiers
Guide ‘Landing Thunder’”], 空军新闻 [Air Force News], WeChat, 18 November
2020.
74. 王金龙 [Wang Jinlong] and 孙忠浩 [Sun Zhonghao], 穿越黑夜, 他们用航迹唤
醒天空 [“Cross the Black Night, They Use Their Tracks to Wake Up the Sky”],
空军在线 [Air Force Online], WeChat, 19 June 2020.
75. 军事报道20201114 [“Military Report 20201114”], CCTV-7, 14 November 2020,
tv.cctv.com/2020/11/14/VIDEkKSRiWLymrKQ1oDi36T4201114.shtml.
76. 陈彦丞 [Chen Yanzhen], 托载战鹰51年, 老战友再见, 新战友你好! [“Carrying
the Wars for 51 Years, Old Comrades, Goodbye, New Comrades, Hello!”], 北部空
军 [Northern Theater Air Force], WeChat, 13 July 2020.
77. 张奥 [Zhang Ou], 闪现, 一招制敌! 高能“隐形豹”这样养成 [“Flash, the En-
emy Is Tricked! A Highly Capable ‘Invisible Leopard’ Is Built This Way”], 西部
空天 [Western Skies], WeChat, 1 April 2021; 峻涛 [Jun Tao], 郝鹏 [Hao Peng],
and 子晗 [Zi Yu], 复杂条件下锤炼应急作战能力, 这支航空兵旅“一剑封喉”
[“Refining Emergency Combat Capabilities under Complex Conditions, This Avi-
ation Brigade Is ‘a Sword to the Throat’”], 西部空天 [Western Skies], WeChat, 22
December 2020.
78. 刘华军 [Liu Huadun], 四机同框, 昼夜对抗! [“Four Aircraft in One Frame, Day
and Night Confrontation!”], 南部空军 [Southern Theater Air Force], WeChat, 26
March 2021.
79. 曹嫒嫒 [Cao Ai’ai] and 王文彬 [Wang Wenbin], 新年首飞: 宁可千日无战争,
不可一日无战备! [“The New Year’s First Flight: Hoping for a Thousand Days of
No War, Cannot Have One Day without Readiness!”], 南部空军 [Southern Theater
Air Force], WeChat, 4 January 2021.
80. 朱玉波 [Zhu Yubo] and 马亚洲 [Ma Asia], 高清大图! 直击海军航空兵某团实
弹轰炸训练 [“HD Big Picture! Directly Witnessing the Live Bombing Training of
a Naval Aviation Regiment”], 人民海军 [People’s Navy], WeChat, 26 April 2020.
81. Andreas Rupprecht (@RupprechtDeino), Twitter, 28 October 2020, 3:29 pm,
twitter.com/RupprechtDeino/status/1321534492268498945; 王洪 [Wang Hong],
张文成 [Wang Wencheng], and 赵振东 [Zhao Zhendong], 又快又准又好! 比武,
越是艰险越向前! [“Fast, Accurate, and Good! Competition among Aircraft Tech-
nicians, the More Difficult It Is, the More People Move Forward!”], 空军新闻 [Air
Force News], WeChat, 13 January 2021.
82. Greg Waldron, “Chinese H-6N Appears with Mysterious Ballistic Missile,” Flight
Global, 18 October 2020, www.flightglobal.com/defence/chinese-h-6n-appears
-with-mysterious-ballistic-missile/140671.article.
83. 高宏伟 [Gao Hongwei] et al., 海空之上, 战鹰突击 [“Above the Sea and in the
Air, the War Eagle Strikes”], 海军新闻 [Navy News], WeChat, 17 November 2020.
84. Taiwan issues reports on PLA flights into its air-defense identification zone.
See the Republic of China Ministry of National Defense Twitter account
(@MoNDefense). Japan also issues reports on Chinese military activities in
its airspace. See, for example, Joint Staff, “Flight of Chinese Aircraft.”
85. 张英锴 [Zhang Yingyi], 海空猎鲨, 现场直击区 [“Sea Air Shark Hunt, on Scene!”],
南部战区 [Southern Theater Command], WeChat, 31 March 2021.
 29 6 C H I N E S E A M P H I B I O U S WA R FA R E

86. 高宏伟 [Gao Hongwei] and 秦钱江 [Qin Qianjiang], 海天间织网布阵 [“Weav-
ing a Net between the Sea and Sky”], 南海舰队 [South Sea Fleet], WeChat,
16 February 2021.
87. U.S. Defense Dept., Annual Report to Congress: PRC (2020), p. 51.
88. 徐海东 [Xu Haidong] and 岳浩疆 [Yue Haoxin], 陆战精锐2020自白: 江淮雄鹰,
振翅翱翔 [“Confessions of a Land Warfare Elite 2020: The Eagle Soaring on Wings
over Jianghuai”], 亮剑东南 [Sword Southeast], WeChat, 31 December 2020.
89. U.S. Defense Dept., Annual Report to Congress: PRC (2020), p. 52.
90. 市领导来莲慰问驻连部队官兵 [“City Leaders Come Visit the Soldiers Station-
ed in Liancheng County”], 连城县广播电视台 [Liancheng County Radio and Tel-
evision Station], 2 February 2019, www.sohu.com/a/293054167_819012.
91. Zhang, Science of Campaigns, pp. 361–63.
92. Xiao, Science of Strategy, p. 245.
93. 张碧 [Zhang Bi] and 黄胜 [Huang Sheng], 寒冬! 首飞! 告捷! [“Winter! First
Flight! Deliberate!”], 中部号角 [Central Horn], WeChat, 13 January 2021; 崔石
磊 [Cui Shilei] et al., “东风快递员” 子夜亮剑! [“‘Dongfeng Express’ Flashes Its
Sword at Night!”], 东部战区 [Eastern Theater Command], WeChat, 18 March 2021.
94. 陈世锋 [Chen Shifeng], 一名发射营营长的心声: 打赢是我的极致追求 [“The
Hope of a Battalion Commander: Winning Is My Ultimate Pursuit”], 中国火箭军
[Chinese Rocket Force], WeChat, 9 February 2021.
95. 刘敏学 [Liu Minxue], 战神出击, 锻造战略进攻铁拳! [“The God of War
Strikes, Forging an Iron Fist of Strategic Attack!”], 中部号角 [Central Horn],
WeChat, 16 April 2021.
96. Zhang, Science of Campaigns, p. 359.
97. Xiao, Science of Strategy, pp. 241–42, 244–48.
98. 军事报道 20191111 [“Military Report 20191111”], CCTV-7, 11 November 2019,
tv.cctv.com/2019/11/11/VIDEI4apuaYjTfsUVIL4awCT191111.shtml.
99. 空降兵加速转型迈向“合成飞行军” [“Airborne Soldiers Accelerate Transforma-
tion toward ‘Combined Flying Army’”], 中国军网 [China Military Online], 9
June 2020, www.81.cn/jfjbmap/content/2020-06/09/content_263324.htm.
100. Zhang, Science of Campaigns, p. 342.
101. Ibid., p. 40; Shou, Science of Strategy, p. 214. The authors follow here the China
Aerospace Studies Institute and Project Everest translation of Science of Strategy
2013, appearing on page 270.
102. Zhang, Science of Campaigns, p. 262.
103. 张春晖 [Zhang Chunhui], 徐承华 [Xu Chenghua], and 谷任红 [Gu Renhong],
海上战斗打响, 烎! [“The Battle at Sea Has Begun!”], 东部战区 [Eastern Theater
Command], WeChat, 22 February 2021.
104. Lee, “The PLA Navy’s Zhanlan Training Series.”
105. Zhang, Science of Campaigns, p. 545.
106. 段宴兵 [Duan Yanbing] et al., 向战为战, 提升政治工作对备战打仗贡献率
[“Embracing War to Prepare for War, Enhance the Contributions of Political Work
to Preparing for War and Fighting War”], 北海舰队 [North Sea Fleet], WeChat,
15 December 2020.
 THE PL A’S CONFIDENCE IN ACHIE VING CONTROL AROUND TAIWAN 297

107. Zhou and Liu, “Strong Sword Spirit, ‘Maritime Tigers’ Train in the East China
Sea.”
108. 常润 [Chang Run] and 洪利峰 [Hong Lifeng], 合力围猎联袂突击某潜艇支
队下大力破解联合作战难题 [“A Submarine Flotilla Vigorously Cracks the
Joint Combat Problem”], 人民海军 [People’s Navy], 10 January 2017, p. 1;
梁庆松 [Liang Qingsong], 代宗锋 [Dai Zongfeng], and 苑敏武 [Yuan Minwu],
大洋筑盾牌—东海舰队某潜艇支队锻造水下新型作战力量纪实 [“Unleash-
ing Victorious Thunder—Record of an East Sea Fleet Submarine Flotilla Forg-
ing a New-Type Underwater Combat Force”], 人民海军 [People’s Navy], 26 April
2017, p. 1.
109. Joint Staff, “Flight of Chinese Aircraft.”
110. 解放军空军 [People’s Liberation Army Air Force (PLAAF)], 空军战役学 [Sci-
ence of PLAAF Campaigns] (Beijing: Jiefangjun, November 1988), p. 109; Zhang,
Science of Campaigns, p. 362.
111. Shou, Science of Strategy, p. 258. The authors here follow the Chinese Aerospace
Institute and Project Everest translation, page 326.
112. PLAAF, Science of PLAAF Campaigns, p. 109.
113. 任达光 [Ren Daguang], 融合聚力向联合: 空军 “红剑－2018”体系对抗 习闯
思录 [“Converging Toward Jointness: The Air Force’s ‘Red Sword 2018’ Systems
Confrontation”], 空军报 [Air Force News], 14 August 2018.
114. Shou, Science of Strategy, p. 100. The authors here follow the Chinese Aerospace
Institute and Project Everest translation, page 123.
115. 侯豪杰 [Hou Haojie], 最美新时代革命军人姚凯: “金头盔”只是谋打赢的路标!
[“‘The Most Beautiful New Era’ Yao Kai: ‘Golden Helmet’ Is Just a Road Sign for
Winning!”], 北部空军 [Northern Air Force], WeChat, 10 August 2020.
116. 许毅 [Xu Yi], 金盾牌含金几何: 空军蓝盾-2017演习首期比武竞赛观战报告
[“How Much Gold Is in the Golden Shield: Air Force Blue Shield 2017 Exercise
First Phase Competition Report”], 空军报 [Air Force News], 24 April 2017; 刘
鹏越 [Liu Pengyue], 央媒看空军｜一支导弹劲旅的“体系练兵”样本 [“Cen-
tral Media View the Air Force, a Sample of ‘Systems-of-Systems Training’ by a
Guided-Missile Brigade”], 空军在线 [Air Force Online], WeChat, 14 April 2021.
117. Niu, “An Unnamed Air Force Base.”
118. 徐同宣 [Xu Tongxuan], 听着英雄战斗故事成长的他, 带头做了一件事 . . . [“He
Listened to His Hero’s Battle Stories While Growing Up, Took the Lead in Doing
Something. . .”], 空军在线 [Air Force Online], WeChat, 3 August 2020; 姚俊 [Yao
Jun], 沐晔 [Mu Wei], and 梁瑞 [Liang Rui], 大年初一, 战鹰高飞! [“New Year’s
Day, the War Eagles Are Flying High!”], 空军新闻 [Air Force News], WeChat, 13
February 2021.
 Kevin McCauley

14. PLA Logistics Support for

Large-Scale Amphibious Warfare

The People’s Liberation Army (PLA) believes that logistics support is

one of the key elements that would determine the success of any large-scale,
joint landing operation. The initial support for the landing-assault force
and the over-the-shore logistics support are the most difficult and critical
logistics-delivery missions. The PLA actively conducts research into lo-
gistics support for amphibious warfare and has identified many problems
that would require resolution before it could support a large-scale landing
operation successfully. The PLA currently does not possess the requisite
logistics capabilities—namely, equipment, specialized logistics forces, am-
phibious ships, transport aircraft, and war reserves—to support a large-scale
amphibious landing on Taiwan successfully. There is little evidence that the
extensive logistics exercises and training on multiple mission areas neces-
sary to ensure the successful execution of the complex and difficult logistics-
support plan have happened.
PLA logisticians consider transport, matériel and oil supply, medical,
search and rescue (SAR), logistics-infrastructure protection, and mainte-
nance of war-matériel reserves the main functions of logistics support in a
large-scale campaign that comprises blockade, joint-firepower strikes, and
island-landing operations. Such a conflict could escalate with foreign inter-
vention, and there could be chain-reaction conflicts initiated by countries
taking advantage of Beijing’s preoccupation with operations against Taiwan.
30 0 C H I N E S E A M P H I B I O U S WA R FA R E

This type of escalation beyond the island-landing campaign would stress

strained logistics capabilities further.
The PLA is working to construct a precision, just-in-time logistics ca-
pability, to incorporate intelligent technologies to improve planning and
decision-making, and to enable timely support to mobile operational units.
When fully deployed, the logistics integrated command platform will pro-
vide a common operating picture and support a fast and efficient logistics
system. Logistics forces rely heavily on the Beidou satellite navigation po-
sitioning system for communications and coordination of mobile logistics
support to dispersed operational units. The PLA’s Joint Logistics Support
Force is developing multiple networks, databases, and a data-cloud platform
to support logistics planning and supply to units in combat.
The PLA is expanding its logistics capabilities, including air and mar-
itime transport capabilities. Civil-military integration allows the PLA to
leverage civilian assets to support delivery of forces and matériel. The Chi-
nese National Defense Mobilization Law of 2010 supports mobilization of
national resources and promotes civil-military integration. Logistics mobi-
lization of civilian transportation assets is enabled by the 2017 National De-
fense Transportation Law, intended to strengthen the integration of military
requirements into civilian transportation resources. However, numerous
PLA sources detail problems with a lack of suitable civilian ships and air-
craft, equipment not meeting military standards, and poor training.1
This chapter examines PLA logistics support for a large-scale inva-
sion of Taiwan. It draws heavily from a 2017 volume entitled Operation-
al Logistics Support, published by the PLA’s All-Army Logistics Academic
Research Center.2 The primary focus of this book is on logistics support
for a large-scale amphibious operation against Taiwan. It is part of a series
of logistics publications intended to support Central Military Commis-
sion (CMC) decision-making. This “internal” (内部) publication provides
highly detailed information on PLA logistics doctrine and capabilities. It
also discusses PLA weaknesses and offers proposals for remedying them.

Strategic Issues Increasing Logistics Requirements

The CMC’s military strategic guidelines for the “new era” identify sea-based
threats as the primary concern because of territorial and maritime-rights is-
sues. The joint island landing campaign against Taiwan is the main focus of
military preparations and the principal military means of enforcing Taiwan’s
integration with the People’s Republic of China (PRC). The PLA’s evaluation
 P L A LO G I S T I C S S U P P O R T F O R L A RG E- S C A LE A M P H I B I O U S WA R FA R E 3 01

of the security environment during an operation against Taiwan recognizes

several escalatory events: the possibility of U.S. and Japanese intervention,
such as a blockade; a chain reaction in other directions, including actions by
countries such as the Philippines with territorial claims in the South China
Sea, conflict on the disputed PRC-Indian border, or conflict on the Korean
Peninsula; and international sanctions and embargo.3
The following strategic scenarios could have a significant impact on lo-
gistics capabilities and requirements during a large-scale landing operation
against Taiwan.
• U.S. and Japanese intervention would increase the scale, scope, and
intensity of the conflict, requiring the PLA to deploy forces and logis-
tics assets to counter these actions. Initiating operations to deny ac-
cess to the area of operations increases the requirements for the PLA
Air Force (PLAAF), the PLA Navy (PLAN), the PLA Rocket Force
(PLARF), the PLA Strategic Support Force, and logistics forces. In-
tervention by Washington would deny Beijing’s preference for a war
of quick decision, forcing the PRC into preparations for a protracted
conflict.4
• A blockade, possibly combined with international sanctions and an
embargo, would increase the importance of strategic matériel re-
serves and acquisition of alternate sources of resupply. Russia likely
would provide logistics support and access to resupply as far as pos-
sible, along with Iran, Pakistan, and some of the other Shanghai Co-
operation Organization countries. The PRC would need to increase
strategic reserves in advance to mitigate the impact of a blockade,
and a prolonged conflict would require national mobilization.5
• The possibility of chain-reaction conflicts in the South China Sea or
Indian border region or on the Korean Peninsula would require co-
ordination and support with other strategic directions. Conflicts in
secondary directions could draw off support and forces from opera-
tions against Taiwan, depending on their number and scale.6
The PRC’s belief that the United States might intervene would appear
to negate Beijing’s desire for a war of quick decision. A large-scale, pro-
tracted war would place greater emphasis on civil-military integration,
people’s war, and national mobilization. Civil-military resource sharing
and integrated civil-military support would have importance in the areas
of matériel supply, transportation, engineering and construction, equip-
ment support, medical care, and mobilization of high-tech logistics equip-
ment and personnel to meet operational requirements.7
3 02 C H I N E S E A M P H I B I O U S WA R FA R E

Operational Issues Affecting Logistics Support

The operational stages, scale, and methods employed in a large-scale land-
ing operation will affect logistics support. PLA leaders view future warfare
as a high-intensity, dynamic, nonlinear, noncontact, system-of-systems
confrontation involving high consumption and destruction. These future
warfare characteristics add to the complexity and difficulty of logistics sup-
port. The PLA believes a future joint landing operation will include com-
prehensive employment of strategic deterrence; seizure of air, maritime,
and information superiority in the area of operations; a focused blockade
to seal and control the area around Taiwan; a large-scale, joint-firepower
campaign; assault landings on Taiwan, and possibly some of the outer is-
lands; and on-island operations. Throughout the campaign, information
operations, precision strikes, and highly mobile forces will play critical
roles. Additionally, operations will expand past the eastern part of Taiwan
to seize advantage and strategic initiative to control the space around Tai-
wan and counter U.S. intervention.8
Foreign intervention is an important factor affecting the PLA’s logis-
tics operations. Analysis in Operational Logistics Support estimates that
support for a large-scale landing and on-island operations against Taiwan
would need to last approximately three months. However, U.S. interven-
tion, blockade, and international sanctions and embargo would lead to
protracted war. Enemy actions such as information warfare and firepower
strikes can disrupt the PLA’s logistics operations, including command and
control, and interrupt support to operational forces. The threat of precision
strikes will necessitate protection and concealment of logistics forces and
infrastructure.9
Crossing the Taiwan Strait poses great difficulties for the PLA’s logistics-
delivery mission. The strait is 220 kilometers (km) wide at the widest point
and 130 km at the narrowest point. The tides, waves, currents, winds,
weather, beach conditions, and enemy obstacles and defenses pose great
challenges to transporting and landing troops and matériel. The logistics-
support system will sustain hundreds of thousands of troops implement-
ing blockade, firepower strikes, and landing operations. Embarking, trans-
porting, and unloading the immense force and supplies in an unfavorable
natural environment and under enemy attack will present an unprecedent-
edly complex and arduous task.10
The logistics mission will change with transitions to new operational
stages. These missions include supporting forces during the following op-
erational stages: strategic deployment of forces and supplies to and their
 P L A LO G I S T I C S S U P P O R T F O R L A RG E- S C A LE A M P H I B I O U S WA R FA R E 3 03

assembly on the coast; seizing air, maritime, and information superiority;

joint blockade and fire-strike operations; embarkation and maritime trans-
port; landing operations; and on-island operations. Support requirements
for the PLAN, PLAAF, and PLARF will be high during all operational stag-
es. Such a large operation will demand all the resources of the PRC and PLA,
including the People’s Armed Police, militia, and reserves.11
PLA theories for assault-landing operations are evolving and attempting
to catch up with those of more-advanced militaries. Vertical landings, over-
the-horizon assault landings, and integrated joint landings are changing the
PLA’s traditional concept of landing operations. At the same time, PLA the-
orists estimate that a traditional large-scale landing cannot be replaced in
the era of information warfare but rather will be supplemented by airborne,
air-assault, and over-the-horizon landing methods as these capabilities im-
prove. Such evolving concepts for amphibious landings have a significant
impact on logistics.
Timelines for providing logistics support are compressed dramatical-
ly. The accelerated landing of combat troops will shorten the timelines for
meeting critical logistics requirements during the beach assault and seizure
of a landing base. According to Operational Logistics Support, large amounts
of high-tech landing equipment, such as air-cushion vehicles and wing-in-
ground-effect vehicles conducting over-the-horizon landings, can limit the
effects of enemy fire strikes. These systems require high maintenance, are
vulnerable to enemy fires, and—importantly—are not deployed in large
numbers yet. A higher operational tempo will increase the importance of
maintaining command of logistics units and coordination with supported
units. These actions require a fully integrated command-information system
and trained command personnel capable of responding to rapidly changing
logistics requirements on a dynamic battlefield involving frequent transi-
tions in logistics support and adjustments in the logistics-support plan.12

Logistics Command and Control

The PLA believes that logistics command should be highly centralized, but
it should have a decentralized capability to respond at lower echelons to
rapidly changing situations. The command should be highly mobile to en-
sure command and coordination of mobile logistics forces and survivable
against enemy fire strikes and information attacks. The logistics command,
ranging from the strategic to tactical levels, includes multiple networks pro-
viding transportation and delivery; petroleum, oils, and lubricants (POLs)
304 C H I N E S E A M P H I B I O U S WA R FA R E

have separate command systems from the main logistics command. These
command structures flow from the CMC joint operations command center
to theater- and campaign-level forces. See exhibit 1 for an example of the
landing-campaign logistics organization. The command organization for
a landing operation includes the following elements: 13
• An organization planning group responsible for planning logistics
support for the assault force, organization and coordination, air con-
trol of vertical-delivery support, and reinforcements
• A mobile support group responsible for command and control of
mobile support groups for the assault landing
• An unloading support group providing command and control of the
unloading of matériel, POLs, and equipment of the landing-support
force
• A communication support group providing communication support
and coordination with forward units, and the campaign formation
communication hub
• An alert service group responsible for force protection

Exhibit 1. Landing Force Logistics Command Organization and

Force Composition
Commander

Organization Unloading Communication Mobile Support Alert

Planning Support Support Group Group Service
Group Group Group

Mobile Support Mobile Support Mobile Support

Group Group Group
Reinforcement, Loading Support
Ammunition, POL, Group
Medical Services,
and Most • Sea-Skimming Transport Equipment
Matériel Support • Helicopters
Forces
• Ammunition Support Force (Partial)
• Medical Support Force (Partial)
• POL Support Force (Partial)
• Matériel Support Force (Small Quantity)

Ensuring the survivability of command and support units is an im-

portant effort. The PLA expects that units in the main operational direc-
tion will be reinforced, but logistics-command and -support units in sec-
ondary directions will receive little to no reinforcement. Multiple smaller
support units are to be established for redundancy and to prevent overall
 P L A LO G I S T I C S S U P P O R T F O R L A RG E- S C A LE A M P H I B I O U S WA R FA R E 30 5

paralysis in the event that one group is severely damaged or destroyed. The
communication network should be capable of providing stable and resil-
ient communications in a complex electromagnetic environment in which
the enemy employs soft- and hard-kill means. Logistics-support command
is located at sea during the assault-landing stage, where it relies on vulner-
able wireless and satellite communications for command and coordina-
tion. Communications can be strengthened through the use of advanced
frequency-hopping radio stations, communication discipline, and burst
communications; the last mentioned can help to counter enemy jamming,
reconnaissance, and interception. The establishment of auxiliary radio
stations to attract enemy interference can protect the main radio-
communication channels. Radio stations also can be set up to create false
communications networks for deception.14

Transportation and Delivery

Transportation of forces and matériel for a large-scale landing is a major
logistics task requiring strong ground, air, and maritime transportation
support capabilities. One PLA source estimates that transportation re-
quirements would be three thousand military trains, one million vehicles,
2,100 aircraft, and more than eight thousand ships to transport troops,
equipment, and matériel and evacuate wounded during a large-scale am-
phibious operation. Another PLA source estimated that 550 to 700 logis-
tics ships, landing ships, and transport aircraft would be required to land
matériel on Taiwan.15 Traffic volume to the southeast coastal embarkation
areas and transit across the Taiwan Strait, combined with evacuation of
large numbers of casualties, would be unprecedented. Railways, followed
by roads, represent the main transportation means to deliver forces and
matériel from the interior to embarkation areas along rivers and the coast.
Air and waterway transport will supplement movement as required. Ene-
my fire strikes on bridges and tunnels in mountainous areas, in addition to
strikes on airports, ports, and embarkation areas, could cause significant
disruption of transportation. These key nodes along lines of communica-
tion will require defensive and protective measures.16
Theater-command coordination for force projection is complicat-
ed. The attempted integration of multiple support forces of the military,
national and local governments, and civilian enterprise transportation
organizations creates command, planning, and coordination problems.
PLA analysts gave an example in an article that discusses the following
306 C H I N E S E A M P H I B I O U S WA R FA R E

commands and organizations coordinating delivery of forces: the theater

joint operations command center; the joint logistic support center com-
mand; the headquarters of the participating unit(s); national and local rail,
road, water, and air transportation dispatch centers (depending on the sit-
uation); and civilian enterprises providing mobilized transportation. The
joint logistic support center within a theater assists in the planning and use
of the civilian and military transportation resources.17
A central transportation and delivery headquarters would be estab-
lished during wartime operations; see exhibit 2 below. It mainly would
comprise the transportation and delivery departments of the Eastern and
Southern Theater Commands, with augmentation from the PLAAF, PLAN
fleets, PLARF bases, and relevant local government departments. The war-
time transportation and delivery command system would be established
at the strategic (CMC Joint Operations Command Center), theater (joint),
and campaign direction levels connecting to subordinate operational forc-
es. The Eastern and Southern Theaters’ joint logistics organizations would
be responsible for mobilization and distribution of transportation assets,
organization of military transportation and mobile support of troops,
transportation protection, rush repair, and construction. The transporta-
tion and delivery command would be integrated into the operational and
logistics command system, but it would remain relatively independent

Exhibit 2. Transportation and Delivery Command Organization

Echelon and Mission Participating Organizations

Strategic Transport and Delivery • National Defense Mobilization Department

Headquarters (HQ) (within CMC Joint • Logistic Support Department’s Transport
Operations Command Center) and Delivery Bureau
Mission: Unified transportation plan; • Joint Staff Department’s Operations Bureau
mobilization and allocation of trans- • Traffic management elements of the Ministry
portation; organization of repair; guid- of Transport, information industry (tele-
ance of war zone during emergencies; communication), civil aviation, and public
recommendation of traffic defense security
measures to operational units

Theater Joint Transport and Delivery • National Defense Mobilization Department

HQ (Eastern and Southern Theaters) • Joint Logistics Support Force
Mission: Organization and protection • Transportation and communications
of transportation in the war zone; personnel from other theaters, Air Force,
evacuation of wounded; rush repair; Navy, Rocket Force, and provincial govern-
coordination with civil transport ments and other transportation personnel

Campaign Direction • Eastern and Southern Theater, and Logistic

Mission: Assistance of operational Support Department transportation
groups with traffic control; transporta- personnel
tion maintenance and repair
 P L A LO G I S T I C S S U P P O R T F O R L A RG E- S C A LE A M P H I B I O U S WA R FA R E 3 07

at the strategic and campaign levels. A centralized command develops a

“transportation plan” (输送方案) and “transportation support plan” (输
送保障方案). Mobilization and requisition orders are issued for civilian
transportation assets and the refitting of ships. The “wartime augmenta-
tion plan” (战时扩编方案) will expand motor transport troops, specialized
traffic militia, military representative organizations along traffic lines,
combat-readiness departments, and the military catering supply system.
The plan also will adjust personnel levels, supplement equipment levels,
and clarify deployments and tasks.18
The war zone within the Eastern and Southern Theaters represents a
complex geographic environment vulnerable to natural disasters. The re-
gion is mountainous and contains a dense waterway network of rivers and
canals where heavy rainfall can lead to transportation disruptions. There
are many mountain roads posing difficulties for the movement of heavy
equipment, with few alternative routes in the event of blockage. On Taiwan,
the natural environment along the west coast creates complex conditions
for landing troops and matériel. Most beaches have difficult compositions,
including mudflats with shallow water. On the west coast, ebb tides can
leave two hundred meters of mudflats.
Forces and supplies must be landed during a short time span. In the
Taiwan Strait, strong winds and high sea states persist for eight to nine
months of the year, typhoons develop during half the year, and there are
northeast monsoons for three or four months. Ships unloading without
a wharf easily can become stranded. Currents mostly run parallel to the
coast, which can cause landing ships and craft to miss their intended land-
ing sites and strike underwater obstacles. Fog, which occurs more than ten
days per month, can help conceal the landing force, but it also can increase
the difficulty of maintaining formations and landing waves in large-scale
landings. The PLA assesses that there are many landing areas on Taiwan,
but the complex beach, meteorological, and hydrological conditions, com-
bined with Taiwan’s defenses, create difficulties for landing troops, equip-
ment, and supplies.19
The joint landing and logistics forces require strategic mobility to de-
ploy forces to embarkation areas and across the strait for the landing and
on-island operations. Deployment will require large-scale air, road and
rail, and water transportation from multiple directions in multiple ech-
elons from the strategic rear area to the coast and to Taiwan. Secondary
fronts also will require transportation support in the event of chain reac-
tions. In 2017, the PLA judged its military transportation force to be weak
and its infrastructure vulnerable.20
308 C H I N E S E A M P H I B I O U S WA R FA R E

Maritime Delivery
Sealift will be the primary link in the logistics chain by which the largest
volume of forces and matériel will be transported across the strait. This
section will examine elements and issues identified by PLA logistics stud-
ies concerning the PLA’s ability to leverage maritime transport resources,
focusing heavily on civil transport.
The authors of Operational Logistics Support assess that the first-
echelon force, and likely the second echelon, will need to conduct “shore-
to-shore” (岸到岸) landings directly onto the beach, augmented by lighter-
ing. This source posits that the first-echelon force will be landed primarily
by amphibious landing ships, air-cushion vehicles, fishing boats, and other
landing craft, augmented by civilian ships converted to landing ships.21
PLA leadership believes that civilian semisubmersible transport ves-
sels could support the landing of amphibious equipment. The PLA also has
used semisubmersibles as platforms for army aviation. The ships’ large, flat
deck can carry amphibious vehicles and air-cushion landing craft for un-
loading at sea. Semisubmersibles and other suitable civilian ships carrying
fuel supplies could use floating or underwater pipelines to pump fuel to
the shore. A new stern ramp for a roll-on/roll-off (RO/RO) ship has been
observed to be capable of launch and recovery of amphibious armored ve-
hicles, supplementing the landing of forces by other means.22
A PLA source recommends developing the capability to unload con-
tainers without a terminal. This capability includes the development of
auxiliary crane ships and specialized unloading and transport equipment
to allow the unloading of containers without a terminal or wharf. This pri-
marily would support the logistics buildup after a logistics forward support
base is established.23
PLA officials state that the civil fleet lacks the capabilities for amphib-
ious force delivery and equipment and matériel unloading if the following
are lacking: a wharf; at-sea roll-off capability; hoisting and load-change ca-
pability; or a large-scale sea-to-shore pipeline discharge function. The PLA
intends to refit civilian-ships to support the assault landing—specifically,
to transform civilian ships into landing ships. In addition, active or reserve
specialized technical personnel would be needed to supplement the civil-
ian crews; however, according to a 2014 PLA article, there are insufficient
specialized reserve personnel.24
The PLA can mobilize large and medium-size state-owned civil ship-
ping enterprises to deliver forces and provide logistics support. There are
two methods of civilian-ship mobilization; agreement mobilization is
 P L A LO G I S T I C S S U P P O R T F O R L A RG E- S C A LE A M P H I B I O U S WA R FA R E 30 9

employed to mobilize civilian ships for nonwar maritime support mis-

sions, while compulsory requisition is employed in an emergency to mo-
bilize civilian ships into the active force as reserves. China established the
first national maritime strategic-projection support fleet in October 2012,
using the China Shipping Group (now merged with COSCO) as a model.
The joint logistics force has identified civilian ships built to military spec-
ification for mobilization.25
The strategic-projection support fleet is a component of the national
strategic-projection support force. It is a reserve component formed from
large shipping enterprises—for instance, China COSCO Shipping, Hainan
Strait Shipping Company, China National Offshore Oil Corporation, and
China Shipbuilding Industry Corporation—made responsible primarily
for force transport and logistics support. They are formed into a three-tier
structure made up of “general corps” (总队), “groups” (大队), and “squad-
rons” (中队). The civilian fleet also is required to support offshore and
open-sea offensive and defensive operations.26
PLA experts noted in 2017 that the civilian shipping force needs im-
proved training for wartime operations and training assessment standards
to ensure the overall quality of the force. They complain that commercial
enterprises are focused more on business than military-related training,
and the businesses have not established the training regimen required
under the National Defense Transportation Law to support military op-
erations. They have not created training organizations with designated
personnel to formulate training requirements and plans, which results in
civilian crews lacking the skills required to operate under combat condi-
tions. The PLA leadership made proposals to improve training organi-
zation with military training supervision and guidance for the strategic-
projection support fleet. These proposals include annual assessments of the
civilian fleet to improve quality and the establishment of a training depart-
ment at the general corps, a training section at the group, and a training
group at squadron levels to ensure requirements are met.27 However, PLA
sources do not specify whether any proposals have been implemented. PLA
sources also recommend that the PLAN increase the number of training
exercises with mobilized civilian shipping on logistics support and war-
time operations. Most civilian-ship training with the military involves one
or two ships—a number inadequate to meet requirements for a large-scale
landing operation.28
Exhibit 3 lists possible missions for civilian ships in support of the
PLA. Civilian ships require modifications that include the following: de-
ployment of specialized military communications equipment; provision of
310 C H I N E S E A M P H I B I O U S WA R FA R E

Exhibit 3. Possible Missions of Civilian Ships in Support of the PLA

Mission Purpose Support Task Applicable Ship Type

Transportation and Joint implementation of troop, Passenger RO/RO ships or

delivery equipment, and material supply vehicle RO/RO ships, multi-
transportation support purpose ships, container-
ships, bulk cargo ships, gen-
eral cargo ships, oil tankers

Landing and unloading support Semisubmersible barges

for organic units (ships) or heavy cargo
carriers, multipurpose ships
or bulk carriers, deck barges,
tugboats

At-sea replenishment Dry and liquid replenishment as Oil tankers, multipurpose

a supplement to comprehensive ships or containerships
supply ships

Medical support Rescue and transfer of patients, Passenger RO/RO ships

early treatment and evacuation (refitted as health transport
support for large numbers of ships), containerships
patients as a supplement to (refitted as hospital ships),
the standard medical service high-speed passenger ships
equipment and motorized marine
fishing vessels (refitted for
rescue), rescue/salvage boats

Engineering support Assistance in port and wharf Tugboats, deck barges,

repair, channel dredging and salvage boats
obstacle clearing, etc. as a supple-
ment to military auxiliary ships

Equipment technical Maintenance, towing and other Tugs, semisubmersibles

support equipment technical support for (barges) or heavy cargo
ship repair, as well as helicopter carriers, crane boats
relay support, etc.

Safeguarding of Participation in protecting mar- Motorized marine fishing

maritime interests itime rights and other support vessels
operations

Source: Wang Hewen, “Thoughts on Promoting Development of Civilian Ship Carrying Out National
Defense Requirements under New Situation,” p. 23.

living areas for augmented military personnel; medical facilities; improve-

ments to ship structure and performance, such as reinforcing decks or
preparing helicopter landing sites; and firefighting and rescue equipment.
PLA sources indicate that some modifications could be relatively easy to
accomplish, while others would be extensive.29
 P L A LO G I S T I C S S U P P O R T F O R L A RG E- S C A LE A M P H I B I O U S WA R FA R E 311

Air Delivery
The PLAAF is fielding and developing larger transport aircraft to support
strategic delivery. Air transport can deliver supplies and personnel over
great distances more rapidly than other methods, but in smaller quanti-
ties. The army aviation force is expanding as well, with new transport he-
licopters fielded and a heavy-lift helicopter planned to increase delivery
capabilities. The Y-20 medium transport entered military service in 2016;
it reportedly can carry the fifty-eight-ton Type 99A2 main battle tank. PRC
press reports speculate that the PLAAF eventually will receive one hun-
dred to four hundred Y-20s, or even more. Large numbers of this or future
large transport aircraft are required if the PLA plans on a significant capa-
bility to airlift supplies and forces onto Taiwan.30
The PLAAF has studied the U.S. military’s use of unmanned vehicles
(UVs) and precision air delivery to provide logistics support in Afghani-
stan.31 In 2017, the PLAAF began experimenting with delivering supplies to
remote units with unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs). The PLAAF logistics
department partnered with the civilian company SF Express to use a
medium-size drone to provide supplies by parachute. The PLAAF viewed
this experiment as part of the “intelligent battlefield revolution.”32 UVs
could provide future emergency logistics deliveries to isolated units on
Taiwan. As larger-capacity UVs are developed and deployed, they could
become an important method for providing support to the assault-
landing force.
The civil air fleet reserve force is an important resource to augment
the PLAAF’s strategic-projection capabilities, which currently are limited.
In 2011, the CMC incorporated the establishment of a strategic-projection
reserve force into the Twelfth Five-Year Plan. The PRC began creating a
civil aviation strategic-projection support fleet in 2013. This force initially
was embedded in China Southern Airlines and China Eastern Airlines, but
later other air transport enterprises were included. Currently, there are
fifteen civil support fleets based in major airlines to meet increasing
requirements for overseas nonwar and wartime operations. The civilian
airline strategic-projection support fleet has supported evacuations
from Libya and international disaster-relief operations such as the Indian
Ocean tsunami and earthquakes in Haiti and Chile.33
The civilian airline strategic-projection support fleets include passen-
ger and cargo aircraft. Exhibit 4 shows the PRC’s current civilian passen-
ger aircraft numbers by airline. According to PLA experts, as of 2019 the
PRC had 143 large and medium-size civilian cargo aircraft that would meet
PLA standards for strategic projection. These have a total payload of 6,200
312 C H I N E S E A M P H I B I O U S WA R FA R E

Exhibit 4. Current Major tons and include sixty 737, thirty 757,
Civilian Airlines and and twenty-six 777 Boeing cargo aircraft.
Passenger Aircraft Inventory The indigenous C919 airliner, primarily
Airline Company Aircraft intended for passengers, reportedly will
constitute a large proportion of the future
Air China 662 civil air fleet.34
China Southern 786
Ground Transportation
China Eastern 642
Rail and road are the main methods for
Hainan Airlines 740 deploying the assault-landing force and
supplies to embarkation areas. Air and
Xiamen Air 116
waterway transport will supplement
Shenzhen Airlines 116 ground transportation to the coast.
Ground transportation will rely on rail
Sichuan Airlines 130
for longer distances and the transporta-
tion of tracked vehicles, with road trans-
portation for shorter distances and the movement of wheeled vehicles.
Large numbers of forces and amounts of matériel will require transpor-
tation not only within the war zone (i.e., the Eastern and Southern The-
ater Commands) but also from the Northern and Central Theaters to the
southeast coast. The PLA estimates that tens of millions of tons of equip-
ment and supplies will be transported to the southeast coast. The PLA as-
sesses that 40 percent of rail capacity will be used for the operation, and in
special cases up to 60 percent of rail capacity may be used.35
Heavy-equipment transporters (HETs) are an important transport as-
set. Subordinate to the Joint Logistics Support Force and the army, HET
units provide strategic delivery of heavy and tracked equipment. These
transport brigades and regiments, linked with mobilized civilian equip-
ment, are becoming increasingly important as the PLA mechanizes. Em-
ployment of these transportation units requires coordination among mul-
tiple military and civilian departments. The PLA inventory includes an
unknown number of HETs.36 The PLA also fields a large, albeit unknown,
number of motor-transport brigades and regiments for strategic delivery
by road.37
Large numbers of civilian HETs would need to be mobilized for war-
time employment. Civilian enterprises contain large numbers of HETs,
but many, including newly produced vehicles, do not meet military re-
quirements for moving armor. Civilian HETs are not distributed evenly
throughout the PRC; instead, they are concentrated in eastern and south-
ern coastal regions, where they can support the movement of armor to
 P L A LO G I S T I C S S U P P O R T F O R L A RG E- S C A LE A M P H I B I O U S WA R FA R E 313

embarkation areas. To make them suitable for military use, semitrailers

often require modification by the receiving unit. PLA sources label the ve-
hicle mobilization system immature at present. The PLA assesses that the
current numbers of military and civilian HETs are insufficient to support
emergency requirements.38

Delivery Support during the Various Operational Stages

The joint landing operations can include the following stages: operational
preparation, preliminary operations, maritime transit and assault landing,
and on-island operations. Each poses different logistics requirements for
delivery of forces and matériel.

Operational Preparation Stage

The main task in the operational preparation stage is to deliver troops to
assembly areas, operational positions, and embarkation areas on time. The
duration of this stage depends on transportation capabilities and the forces
and matériel transported. Logistics missions during this stage include sup-
porting the deployment of the PLAAF and PLARF conventional-missile
units to implement combat operations; transporting the landing force to
embarkation areas; ensuring the adjustment and transportation of joint
logistics forces and completing the movement of the required military
supplies, POLs, ammunition, medical supplies, and other combat-matériel
reserves; mobilizing civilian transport, especially shipping, and complet-
ing the refitting of ships to support landing operations; and completing
the camouflage and protection of key transportation targets and preparing
for rush repair. Mobilization, requisitioning, and refitting of civilian ships
take a long time, so they must begin in advance. These logistics missions
could provide indications and warning of the impending operation early in
the preparation stage.39
Mobilizing and refitting civilian ships to make up for the shortfall in
amphibious lift also take time, varying with the number of modifications.
While the PRC has access to a significant number of civilian ships, they
require difficult refitting and crew training to support the delivery of the
amphibious landing force. The lack of uniformity and uncertain availabil-
ity of civilian ships add to the problem of refitting them for amphibious
operations.40

Preliminary Stage
The preliminary stage includes military deterrence, joint fire strike,
and blockade operations. The blockade could last several months as an
314 C H I N E S E A M P H I B I O U S WA R FA R E

independent operation or for a relatively short time as part of the joint

landing campaign. By the time the joint landing campaign is conducted,
most of the forces and matériel already will have been transported to the
coast. The PLA predicts that if the United States intervenes, strikes will be
conducted against PRC military targets, large and medium-size cities, im-
portant transportation hubs, ports, airports, tunnels, and bridges. Repair
forces will be mobilized to support the delivery of the remaining forces
on schedule. Defensive measures and camouflage and concealment will be
employed to safeguard transportation nodes, ports, airfields, and embarka-
tion areas. Civilian ships will be dispersed and concealed for protection.41
Multiple methods and locations will be employed for embarkation to
disperse and protect the loading operation. Embarkation will employ large
and small ports, military and civilian ports, ocean and river ports, and
fixed and temporary embarkation points.42

Sea Crossing and Landing Stage

The sea crossing and landing stage is the key to the entire joint landing. Air,
maritime, and information superiority are critical for a successful transit
and assault landing. According to PLA experts, air and maritime suprem-
acy should be 100 percent against Taiwan, and if the United States inter-
venes, the PLA should achieve 60–70 percent air and maritime supremacy
in the area of operations to protect transiting forces adequately. The PLA
identifies four stages of the transit and assault-landing delivery: sea cross-
ing preparation, embarkation, sea crossing, and unloading and landing.43
The sea-crossing-preparation stage begins during the operational
preparation stage. The mobilization and refitting of civilian ships will have
been completed. When the objectives of the blockade and joint fire strike
operations are achieved, the transportation and delivery command will
establish a joint embarkation command post to command the embarka-
tion command posts for each embarkation area. This joint embarkation
command post will organize repairs of ports and wharves; prepare troop
assembly and loading areas; add defensive systems and communications
equipment to the civilian ships; and prepare cranes, loading equipment,
and temporary wharves to support embarkation.44
The embarkation stage links up transport ships and units at the dis-
persed embarkation points for loading. Each campaign formation—a group
army–size task force—will have an embarkation area that is subdivided
into brigade embarkation zones and battalion-level embarkation points.
A sea standby area will be designated for assembly of shipping. The PLA
recommends that embarkation be concealed—for example, by loading at
 P L A LO G I S T I C S S U P P O R T F O R L A RG E- S C A LE A M P H I B I O U S WA R FA R E 315

night. Close coordination is necessary among the embarkation command

post, the PLAAF, the PLAN, and ground air-defense forces to maintain an
effective air-raid early-warning system. Loading and unloading for each
landing direction, echelon, and group must be coordinated carefully with
the use of returning ships to evacuate the wounded.45
The sea crossing stage requires close coordination between the PLAN
and civilian ship formations. The transportation and delivery headquarters
coordinates with the PLAN in organizing the civilian ship formation. The
amphibious task force’s transport group commands the transport ships
during the transit. The PLAN, PLAN aviation, and PLARF will be respon-
sible for underwater, surface, and air surveillance, and they will provide
cover for the transport formations during navigation. The PLA will open
a secure transit corridor to the designated landing beaches to maintain air
and maritime superiority over the transport formations and eliminate any
threat to them. To account for the difference in speed of the civilian ships,
the PLA must plan carefully to regulate the correct arrival of the various
landing waves.46
The unloading and landing stage is the most difficult and intense stage.
It requires efficient and rapid landing to reduce casualties and build up
combat power on the beach to seize a landing base for the second echelon.
PLA experts assess that all the first echelon and most of the second echelon
will unload and land without ports. Civilian ships converted into landing
ships will unload at the beach with amphibious-assault ships and craft,
while other civilian ships will unload at offshore platforms or temporary
wharves once constructed. Landing of second-echelon forces will be con-
ducted immediately on beaches where the initial assault force has achieved
a successful landing. Follow-on force landings will require flexibility to
adjust their landing areas when the initial assault landing is slowed or
blocked to avoid congestion and reduce casualties. This will require flex-
ible logistics command and coordination to redirect logistics support on
the basis of changing situations.
If possible, second-echelon and reserve forces will land on construct-
ed temporary wharves or in functioning captured ports. Organizing the
various landing directions, landing ship groups, subdirections, eche-
lons, and landing waves will require close coordination with the offshore
unloading command of the unloading support group. The transportation
and delivery command will be mainly responsible for installing offshore-
transfer platforms and establishing a technical-support team composed
of waterway military representative offices, local shipping companies,
technical-support detachments, and port shipping departments to assist
in organizing the lightering of forces from the platforms to the beaches.47
316 C H I N E S E A M P H I B I O U S WA R FA R E

Campaign logistics support forces will be responsible for the unload-

ing of matériel, equipment, POLs, and other means of support for the as-
sault force. Logistics units will land behind first-echelon brigades. Landing
times will be short, because tides and hydrology in the area will impact the
ability to resupply the initial assault force. The PLA expects Taiwan’s ports
to be defended heavily, prepared for destruction, and within range of ene-
my fire support. These conditions would require initial logistics support to
be conducted over the shore. When ports are seized, repairs are expected
to be long and complicated. So PLA experts carefully have studied, for in-
stance, the construction of the Mulberry artificial harbors that supported
the Normandy invasion. They conclude that multiple and flexible unload-
ing methods would be required to build up the necessary forces on Taiwan.
Several methods for landing logistics at the landing site are proposed, in-
cluding the following:48
• Airdrop of supplies using informatized technology employing posi-
tioning systems and controllable parachutes for precision airdrops.
The PLA states that fuel bladders, medical equipment, and other
matériel can be air-dropped, including in palletized form.49
• Vertical landing of troops, equipment, and supplies by helicopter to
provide urgent reinforcement.
• Air-cushion vehicles to land personnel and matériel directly on
beaches that are unsuitable for other landing methods.
• Construction of wharves and ramps for RO/RO ships to provide a
relatively high-volume means of unloading personnel and matériel,
although they would be vulnerable to enemy fire strikes. Construc-
tion of wharves and exit roads from the beaches is considered diffi-
cult. Small fishing ports can be used for unloading light equipment
and small quantities of supplies once obstacles are removed and a
wharf is constructed.
• Pipelines to provide a means to deliver a high capacity of fuel and
fresh water from ship to shore. The PLA has high-volume pipelines
with short deployment times.50

On-Island Combat Stage

During the on-island combat stage, the joint logistics command organiza-
tion will organize transportation within Taiwan. Tasks during this stage
include constructing an unloading base composed of a temporary
harbor and repairing damaged enemy ports. Motor-transport units will
supply and transport forces conducting operations on Taiwan. Field
 P L A LO G I S T I C S S U P P O R T F O R L A RG E- S C A LE A M P H I B I O U S WA R FA R E 317

medical units will treat wounded and evacuate them first to the logistics
base, then back to rear hospitals. The campaign transport and delivery
command will organize air and sea transport to and from Taiwan during
this stage.51
Quickly establishing a logistics forward support base in the main land-
ing direction is critical for creating an on-island support capability that
is connected to maritime and air support assets. Enemy fire strikes and
counterattacks pose serious threats to establishing a forward support base.
According to PLA experts, establishment of the support base will begin
approximately two hours after the landing of the first wave of the first-
echelon campaign formation. The unloading force should be deployed
within six hours to support unloading of the heavy equipment of the sec-
ond echelon. The base should be set up in a dispersed manner to provide
greater survivability, since protection capabilities are weak during the
initial stage of the landing. The support base will include a command in-
formation system, matériel-unloading systems, and a rear support system
performing rescue, transport, repair, and other critical functions. The sup-
port base will conduct the following missions:52
• Remove remaining obstacles in coastal waters, on beaches, and on
land; set up navigation aids; open channels to the beaches; and orga-
nize and adjust logistics support.
• Construct and maintain transfer platforms and wharves and repair or
construct landing fields for fixed- and rotary-wing aircraft.
• Organize the unloading of follow-on troops, heavy equipment, and
matériel.
• Establish service stations to provide food and accommodation for
transiting troops.
• Organize equipment maintenance and repair.
• Organize an alert system and deploy ground-based air defenses to
protect the support base.
The command organization of the logistics forward support base like-
ly will be located with the rear command post of the first-echelon cam-
paign formation. The commander will be the deputy commander of the
rear command post, and the command will be augmented with additional
personnel. The command organization will be mainly responsible for plan-
ning and preparation, force projection, base establishment and manage-
ment, advance surveying, coordination of unloading, and various logistics
services. Exhibit 5 shows the support base command organization.53
318 C H I N E S E A M P H I B I O U S WA R FA R E

Subordinate groups of the logistics forward support base will comprise

modular logistics forces reinforced with PLA ground-force and PLAN op-
erational forces. Modular teams will be capable of recombination accord-
ing to the required scale and changing requirements. The logistics forward
support base command will include the following groups, with each group
composed of subordinate specialized modules: 54
• The advance command group probably will be commanded by the
base deputy commander, military transportation personnel, and
others as needed. The advance command group will land with the
first-echelon brigades and be responsible for conducting base topo-
graphic survey and site selection, organizing advance troops to repair
or construct wharves, and preparing for transportation service.
• The rush repair and construction group will include ground-force
engineers, naval and civilian port personnel, PLAAF personnel, and
other specialized and technical personnel responsible for organizing
and guiding the emergency repair and construction of docks, air-
ports, roads, and other required infrastructure. Subordinate modules
will include land and sea obstacle removal, wharf emergency repair,
wharf emergency construction, airport construction, road and bridge
repair, and mobile support modules responsible for opening and
maintaining transportation infrastructure.
• The unloading transport group will comprise combat service, mil-
itary transportation, and mobilization departments, as well as rel-
evant civilian personnel responsible for scheduling, coordinating,
and organizing loading and unloading at ports, temporary wharves,
and airports. Subordinate modules will include maritime-support,
unloading-service, transfer, and mobile-transportation modules re-
sponsible for the movement of heavy equipment and matériel onto
and around the island.
• The rear support group will serve as the campaign logistics forward
support force, opening field stations and implementing base support
for the landing forces. The rear support group will include the mul-
tifunctional theater joint logistics support brigades or field service
stations, which will provide resupply and early medical treatment, as
well as other modules that might provide ammunition, POLs, other
matériel, field hospitals, equipment repair, food, and shelter to sup-
port troops in the field.
• The service support group will be responsible for the field command
and communications structure, adjusting the unloading, lightering,
 P L A LO G I S T I C S S U P P O R T F O R L A RG E- S C A LE A M P H I B I O U S WA R FA R E 319

and transfer of maritime, ground, and air transportation, and orga-

nizing maritime, ground, and air alert and defense functions. Sub-
ordinate modules will include the command adjustment, alert, and
communications-support modules responsible for command adjust-
ment of maritime and land transfer, unloading, maneuver, and other
operations of the campaign logistics force.
Modular logistics units will provide dispersed multipoint deployment
to support forward operational units, all connected by the command in-
formation system. Reserves will be formed, including a rear reserve, pre-
positioned reserve, and mobile reserve. Logistics manpower, equipment
and matériel resources, allocation areas, and command locations will be
adjusted flexibly according to changing battlefield situations and opera-
tional stages to enable continued and stable logistics support. A strong and
survivable command information system is critical to maintain command,
control, and coordination of dispersed forces on a dynamic battlefield. The
command information system will include wired, wireless, satellite, da-
talink, and other communications means. Multiple redundant nodes will
ensure the survivability and continuous operation of the network. The lo-
gistics command network will be connected to the operational command
information system to maintain coordination with operational units.55
The logistics forward support base is critical to the success of the land-
ing operation and requires robust defenses. In addition to reliance on the
campaign-level defensive system, the support base also will require the in-
tegration of its own defense assets into a regional defense system. Logistics
self-defense assets will be deployed on the basis of the nature of the enemy
threat and concentrated near high-value targets such as command posts,
concentrations of supplies and equipment, and the transportation system.
Various cover and concealment methods will be employed to improve the
survivability of the support base and logistics units, including camouflage,
natural shelter, terrain, vegetation, and civilian buildings. Measures also
include antireconnaissance means to protect equipment from enemy opti-
cal and radar reconnaissance, decoys and false targets such as false radio
networks, and protective field defensive positions.56

Unloading Operations
As mentioned previously, the ability of the PLA to off-load large volumes of
forces and matériel to reinforce landing zones will be crucial to the overall
success of a cross-strait landing campaign. Without it, combat forces al-
ready ashore could experience incredible losses. This section will explore in
depth how the PLA intends to deliver critical follow-on forces and supplies.
320 C H I N E S E A M P H I B I O U S WA R FA R E

Exhibit 5. Logistics Forward Support Base Command Organization

and Force Formation
Logistics Forward Support Base Command Post

Advance Rush Repair Unloading Organizational Rear Support Service

Command and Transportation Planning Group Group Support
Group Construction Group Group
Group

Rush Repair and Unloading Support Rear Support Service Support

Recovery Group Group Group Group
• Obstacle Clearing • Maritime Support • Ammunition • Command
Module Module Support Module Adjustment
• Pier Repair Module • Unloading Service • POL Support Module
• Pier Construction Module Module • Alert Module
Module • Barge Transfer Module • Matériel Support • Communication
• Airport Construction • Mobile Transport Module Module
Module Module • Field Hospital
• Bridge Repair Module • Bivouac Support
• Mobile Support Module
Module • Equipment Repair
Module

The PLA believes that it will need to employ multiple methods to land
troops, equipment, and matériel. PLA experts discuss various methods for
seizing a port but predict that seizing a usable port is unlikely. They believe
that Taiwan will defend its ports, destroy critical infrastructure such as
cranes, lay land and sea mines, emplace obstacles, scuttle ships at entrances
to ports and at wharves, sink containers full of rocks as obstacles, and set
flame devices. The PLA will seize ports during the landing operation, but
restoring destroyed ports requires an intensive repair and construction ef-
fort employing large numbers of personnel and large quantities of matériel
and time. Only certain parts of destroyed ports need to be restored initial-
ly, although this would include clearing port entrances, removing dockside
obstructions, and placing navigation aids. RO/RO ships would need only a
suitable gangway for unloading. Roads and bridges leading out of the cap-
tured port would require repair to support movement from the port area.57
Anticipating limited access to Taiwan’s ports initially, the PLA has con-
ducted research on equipment for unloading large quantities of matériel
and heavy equipment over the shore. Delivering equipment and supplies
across Taiwan’s beaches will be difficult because of the defenses and ob-
stacles, potential adverse weather, and natural beach conditions featuring
mudflats and soft beach terrain. Civilian equipment-unloading capacity is
large and can be mobilized along the southeast coast to support this effort.
The relevant equipment includes self-propelled floating crane platforms
and vessels that can be moored with engineering barges to form transfer
platforms at sea. These transfer platforms can be used to transfer forces
and supplies from civilian ships to the platform and to provide lightering
 P L A LO G I S T I C S S U P P O R T F O R L A RG E- S C A LE A M P H I B I O U S WA R FA R E 321

to the shore. Transfer platforms also can be used to support the construc-
tion of artificial floating wharves or to repair damaged wharves. Truck-
mounted and tracked cranes can be used to unload civilian ships. Bridge
or gantry cranes can be transported by special ships to replace damaged
cranes in ports.
However, there is little evidence of the PLA training to carry out
construction and unloading using floating platforms and temporary
wharves under combat conditions. Training realism will be important, as
these unloading options are vulnerable to enemy firepower, weather, and
sea conditions.58
To solve the challenges of over-the-shore logistics support, the PLA
could employ artificial floating wharves, beach unloading platforms, or
maritime barge transfer platforms. Airlanding of troops and matériel also
can augment the buildup of forces on Taiwan.

Artificial Floating Wharf

An artificial floating wharf landing area would include a pier for unload-
ing RO/RO ships and a pier with cranes for unloading cargo ships in a
protected estuary or coastal area. When constructed on the coast, floating
wharves would need breakwaters to shield against or dissipate waves and
minimize the impact of wind and tide. The PLA assesses that it quick-
ly can construct artificial floating wharves to provide an effective means
of rapid unloading. Around 2014, the PLA experimented with two five-
thousand-ton trestle wharves to construct two temporary piers to unload
one armored regiment and an artillery regiment in one tide period. Multi-
purpose pontoons, floating wharves and floating cranes, engineering
barges, semisubmersibles, ground-force bridging equipment and road-
mat layers, and other specialized equipment could be used to set up the
floating wharf and provide access to and exit from the beach. Wind, waves,
tides, beach topography, geological conditions, and natural or artificial ob-
stacles existing on the Taiwan coast would add to the difficulty of choosing
the correct location for the floating wharf.59

Beach Unloading Platform

Similar to the floating-wharf concept, a beach unloading platform could
be used to unload RO/RO ships. Floating or elevated trestle systems with
tracked unloading systems or ground-force bridging equipment can pro-
vide access to the beach. A location would be selected, considering the
natural and artificial environment. A coastal area with relatively steep to-
pography would be required to enable the berthing of large ships, and a
breakwater system would be required to protect the unloading platform.60
322 C H I N E S E A M P H I B I O U S WA R FA R E

Maritime Barge Transfer Platform

A maritime barge transfer platform could be employed if floating wharves
or temporary piers cannot be constructed because of coastal conditions.
Large civilian ships could unload forces and matériel at the floating plat-
form; these would then be lightered to the beach. The floating platform
would require cranes to unload cargo ships and a RO/RO-unloading plat-
form. The anchorage location would need to meet the requirements of
berthing a ten-thousand-deadweight-ton transport ship. As with the other
methods, a system would be required to protect the structure from wind
and waves.61

Airlanding Forces and Matériel

Airlanding can augment the delivery of forces and matériel on Taiwan. En-
abling aircraft to off-load also will be a significant challenge. The Taiwan
military will defend airports, deploy strong counterattack forces within
striking distance, and destroy airport infrastructure to deny the PLA their
use. The PLA will attempt to repair damaged airports or construct landing
fields for the airlanding of troops and supplies. Specialized logistics units
with attached engineering assets will undertake this mission. The airfields
will be vulnerable to defending firepower strikes and counterattacks. Re-
connaissance teams will help to assess the situation of the damaged air-
field or intended landing site to support the development of a repair or
construction plan. Other personnel will be required to remove unexploded
ordnance and mines to allow for repairs to runways and infrastructure. In
addition to runway repairs, navigation aids and lights will be set up, and
water supply, power sources, and communications will be installed.62

Matériel and POL Supply

The large number of participating units and the high intensity of com-
bat during the assault landing will require the sustained, continuous,
high-volume supplying of ammunition, engineering explosive equipment,
and POLs to the beach—a great stress on logistics support. PLA analysis
of consumption rates estimates that large-scale landing operations will re-
quire around thirty million tons of various types of combat matériel and
fifty-six million tons of oil in total from start to finish. The ability of the
logistics force to maintain a continuous flow of supplies directly affects
the combat capability of the assault force and can determine the success of
the landing. PLA experts stress the employment of helicopters, precision
airdrop, or UVs to provide supplies as a component of a multidimensional
 P L A LO G I S T I C S S U P P O R T F O R L A RG E- S C A LE A M P H I B I O U S WA R FA R E 323

delivery system. For the near term, these methods would appear suitable
primarily for emergency support (owing to the system’s limited capacity)
rather than for delivering large quantities of ammunition and POLs.63 The
future fielding of large-capacity unmanned systems could increase the de-
livery means for logistics support.
Each operational stage presents different support requirements. A joint
blockade operation could be long, requiring large quantities of matériel
and POLs delivered at sea by comprehensive supply ships, oil tankers, and
mobilized civilian ships. The PLA estimates that a blockade in support of
a joint landing campaign would be shorter than an independent blockade.
The joint fire strike operation is relatively easier to supply from mainland
bases supporting the PLARF and PLAAF. High-intensity assault-landing
operations will have high consumption rates of ammunition and POLs,
with high casualty and attrition rates. These conditions add to the difficulty
of resupply from the sea without a port or temporary landing facilities.
Intervention by the United States and possibly other countries would
increase significantly consumption rates by the PLAN, PLAAF, and
PLARF. A blockade of the PRC, international sanctions, or embargo could
impact the availability of resources, especially of POLs, requiring rapid
mobilization of the national economy and resupply from foreign sources.
However, according to PLA sources, the National Defense Mobilization
Law does not address matériel mobilization specifically. The PLA considers
matériel-mobilization capabilities relatively solid, but meeting the needs of
a large-scale conflict would stress the system. A long support-preparation
stage would be required to ensure the availability of resources required for
the joint landing operation, possibly providing indications and warning to
the adversary.64
PLA officials state that matériel support has improved at the strategic,
campaign, and tactical levels by combining fixed and mobile support and
multidimensional support, augmented by mobilized forces and equipment.
However, support for a large-scale operation presents problems because
the PLA possesses too few support forces in general, including transport
units, specialized forces and equipment, and reserve units. PLA experts
also believe that the military suffers from relatively weak maritime and
air support forces that do not meet the requirements of large-scale conflict
effectively. Influenced for decades by the strategic concept of coastal defense,
the PLA’s shore-based support forces are relatively strong, compared with
weak maritime mobile support forces and supply ships and backward
matériel-handling capabilities that lack mechanization and intelligent
technologies. Strategic and campaign emergency support forces are small,
and the support brigades in each theater are not sufficient in numbers,
324 C H I N E S E A M P H I B I O U S WA R FA R E

capabilities, and training to provide adequate emergency mobile logis-

tics support. According to PLA experts, the tactical-level matériel support
force is adequate. However, reserve support forces are not standardized,
and training does not meet the requirements of actual combat. They con-
clude that it will be difficult to meet the matériel-support requirements of
a future large-scale operation.65
Key PLA sources note that matériel and POL supply will focus on com-
bining fixed-point and accompanying mobile-support methods. A com-
bination of level-by-level and skip-echelon support will be used, with a
reliance on the latter. Flexibility is key to ensuring the timely and uninter-
rupted flow of supplies down echelon. Intermediate links in the logistics
system should be reduced as much as possible to create a relatively flat sys-
tem for rapid resupply.66
A large-scale landing will require vast amounts of POLs. Using PLA
analysis of recent conflicts, fuel consumption can account for more than
70 percent of logistics matériel. Both military and civilian POL support
would be required. Consumption rates are made using careful calculations
derived from numbers and types of equipment, usage, and duration of
each operational stage. The PLA does not believe the current structure and
layout of fuel reserves is adequate. Furthermore, a chain-reaction conflict
with India, on the Korean Peninsula, or in the South China Sea would re-
quire additional fuel reserves for those secondary conflicts. The PRC relies
on foreign oil, with nearly two-thirds of imported oil passing through the
choke point at the Strait of Malacca. An enemy blockade would result in a
national oil shortage and seriously affect military fuel supplies. Recently
the PRC increased oil stockpiles to approximately one hundred days of re-
serves, and it has constructed underground petroleum reserves and filled
the available reserve storage to address this issue.67
A joint POL command would be created with personnel from the
CMC joint logistics department; theater commands; PLAN, PLAAF,
ground forces, and PLARF; and other relevant government organizations.
The CMC-level command is responsible for overall planning, organiz-
ing, and coordinating POL support at the national level. Each theater-
level, joint POL command includes personnel from the theater; PLAAF,
ground forces, PLARF, and fleet; and relevant local departments. The
theater command (Eastern or Southern) is responsible for implementing
joint POL support within the war zone. Operational groups or campaign
formations would form a corresponding POL command organization to
organize and coordinate POL support to subordinate operational units.68
Theater rear-area oil depots form the backbone of the POL organiza-
tion, supported by the basic support force composed of field oil-pipeline
 P L A LO G I S T I C S S U P P O R T F O R L A RG E- S C A LE A M P H I B I O U S WA R FA R E 325

units, emergency oil-support battalions, and other mobile-support forces.

Local oil-support forces will augment these forces. In a Taiwan-invasion
scenario, modular units would be organized to form emergency oil-station
teams, oil-pipeline units, field oil-depot units, oil-depot rush units, airport
oil-support units, and field oil stations for mobile support.69
Each element or phase of the joint campaign will entail unique POL
support requirements. Joint fire strike POL support primarily meets the
needs of conventional missile and aviation forces. The operation will be
high intensity, with an urgent and heavy mission to provide vast quantities
of aviation fuel. Support for blockade operations mainly would focus on
the PLAN, PLAN aviation, and PLARF. An air and maritime blockade in-
volving extended operations could consume large quantities of POLs. Sup-
port for large numbers of naval forces would be the main task, with at-sea
replenishment difficult to accomplish under combat conditions. Support
for the assault-landing operation will have high requirements for POLs,
with delivery to and over the shore difficult to carry out during combat to
overcome the beach defenses and seize a beachhead. First-echelon forces
will rely on organic POL support, with the landing of the second echelon
greatly increasing demand. The joint logistics force will land on the island
and establish a POL forward support base under the rear support group of
the logistics forward support base. Pipelines from ships can provide fuel to
the support base. Army aviation can lift fuel bladders to the island to pro-
vide emergency support. The PLA assesses that on-island combat will be
of short duration and limited scale, lowering logistics requirements during
this stage. However, emergency support missions will be complicated by
the complex terrain and destroyed or damaged infrastructure on Taiwan.70
Ensuring stability of POL sources is a strategic issue, and the possibil-
ities of blockade, sanctions, and an embargo all complicate the situation.
According to PLA sources, the PRC needs to increase oil reserves to meet
wartime requirements, reduce its dependence on foreign countries for war-
time crude oil, accelerate diversification of foreign oil sources, and reduce
its dependence on maritime strategic choke points. This has occurred to
some degree with the construction of oil pipelines and alternative routes
for oil imports. But PLA experts believe that it must increase reserves of re-
fined fuels for ships and aircraft and capacity for emergency production by
refining enterprises. At the military level, increased construction and ex-
pansion of POL support bases are required. To simplify POL support, PLA
experts argue that military-equipment fuel types should be standardized
and augmented using alternative fuels. To support POL supplies for block-
ade and assault-landing operations, large-capacity amphibious tracked
326 C H I N E S E A M P H I B I O U S WA R FA R E

refueling vehicles are needed. The field oil-pipeline network should be es-
tablished to provide direct support between rear oil depots and military-
port oil depots. Shore-to-sea refueling capacity needs strengthening, with
PLAN oilers and comprehensive supply ships providing additional sup-
port and civilian ships providing fixed-point resupply along the navigation
channel. Ship-to-shore support for the landing force initially will be de-
rived from amphibious resupply vehicles and fuel barrels, followed by fuel
pipelines and depots established to support on-island combat.71
POL support for the landing operation will require well-trained spe-
cialized forces. However, PLA experts believe there is a gap between the ex-
isting specialized POL support force and the requirements of a large-scale
landing operation. There are too few personnel dedicated to providing mo-
bile POL support; thus, specialists would have to be pulled from oil depots,
which would weaken those depots’ capabilities. Moreover, there are too few
field oil-pipeline units to support requirements. Reserve POL support units
and local support forces, which might not have adequate training, would
need to be mobilized to meet shortfalls. Additionally, POL infrastructure
and supply forces are vulnerable and require protection. An emergency-
repair force, an alert system, defensive measures, and camouflage and
concealment would be required to protect and restore oil support during
combat. National mobilization would be required to provide sustained
strategic POL support for the operation.72

Combat Medical Treatment and Casualty Evacuation

The PLA places great emphasis on the rescue, medical treatment, and evac-
uation of casualties; it views them as important to maintaining troop mo-
rale. And they will be needed, given that unit concealment will be difficult,
leading to high casualty rates. In Operational Logistics Support, the authors
estimate that 120,000 casualties could occur during a large-scale opera-
tion. The nature of air and naval blockade operations and support for the
sea-crossing and landing operations will lead to a need to rescue personnel
at sea. The vast maritime operational area, along with its difficult sea and
weather conditions, will add to the complexity of maritime SAR. In 2017,
the PLA assessed that its joint SAR force was weak and poorly organized
and trained. Additionally, the frontline PLAN medical support force was
considered weak.73
To ensure the survival of personnel who end up in the sea, it is necessary
to rescue them quickly. For each formation, SAR is performed primarily by
 P L A LO G I S T I C S S U P P O R T F O R L A RG E- S C A LE A M P H I B I O U S WA R FA R E 327

ships that are part of that formation or by ships immediately adjacent to it.
The PLA intends to establish integrated military and civilian SAR forces,
to create a three-dimensional SAR system, and to standardize rescue pro-
cedures. This system would divide the Taiwan Strait into a series of grids,
with each warship responsible for performing SAR operations in its sec-
tion. PLA experts argue that to ensure rapid response during wartime, SAR
organization and planning to determine the composition and operations
of SAR forces need to occur during peacetime. The PRC military must im-
prove its warships’ rescue and medical capabilities, and it must create an
independent medical-support and a limited surgical capability.74
During the landing stage, casualties will be high and will include severe
compound injuries and burns. Adverse weather, hydrological conditions,
and enemy attacks will increase the difficulty of treating and evacuating
wounded at the landing site. The PLA believes that battlefield first aid at
the battalion or company level needs to be implemented within ten minutes
of injury, emergency treatment at the brigade level within three hours after
injury, and preliminary treatment at a brigade medical aid post or field hos-
pital within six hours. Campaign logistics will be responsible for conduct-
ing evacuation to medical institutions. The PLA considers combat-medical
forces at all echelons to be insufficient at present, requiring reinforce-
ment to improve battlefield first aid and emergency treatment. During
the assault-landing stage, casualty evacuation will be difficult and time-
consuming, placing great importance on forward medical-support units.75
The PLA believes that joint logistics medical capabilities are relative-
ly strong, capable of establishing forty-six field hospitals and forty-three
brigade medical aid posts and processing thirty-six thousand patients a
day. Military rear hospitals will be able to admit seventy thousand patients
after wartime expansion. Local medical facilities will provide additional
support. Field medical equipment has improved, and medical supplies can
support up to six hundred thousand troops. Combat-medical support can
meet the needs of eighteen thousand wounded at one time, and wartime
medical reserves can support up to five hundred thousand troops for thirty
days. The PLA believes that the wounded will account for approximately 70
to 80 percent of total casualties.76
During the blockade stage, casualties caused by enemy strikes pri-
marily will occur in the PLAN and PLAAF, although there will be oth-
ers associated with ground-based and civilian targets. Rescue of downed
pilots and sailors at sea is an important mission during a blockade. PLA
experts believe that PLAN medical-evacuation assets are weak. The PLA
assesses that the assault-landing stage will account for about 60 percent of
328 C H I N E S E A M P H I B I O U S WA R FA R E

total casualties, with on-island combat accounting for 27 percent. Several

medical aid posts and a specialized casualty forward rescue group will be
established on each landing beach. Brigade, battalion, and company med-
ical organizations will provide support during on-island operations. Cam-
paign medical organizations will reinforce tactical-level medical support
until field hospitals are established on Taiwan.77

Infrastructure Support
Logistics infrastructure support—which includes construction, mainte-
nance, supply, camouflage and concealment, and emergency repair—is
an important logistics mission. Airfields, military ports, field positions,
and rear warehouses are parts of the basic infrastructure required for large
combat operations. During the preparation stage, support is required for
forces in deployed positions and assembly areas. Requisitioning of civil-
ian buildings and houses provides quarters, as well as dispersal and con-
cealment, for troops. Logistics-support forces will need to conduct urgent,
emergency repair to command facilities, airports, wharves, power grids,
depots, and battlefield positions.78
Infrastructure support during the strategic-deployment stage includes
support for troop movement and assembly. The sea- and air-blockade stage
will require expansion of airports and wharves and continuous field- and
shore-service support. The joint fire strike stage will require emergency
construction, repair of damaged facilities, and facility protection and cam-
ouflage. The landing stage will require support to ensure provision of water
and power supplies, and forces will need to rush repair and construction of
airfields and other important facilities.79
Although preparations for an emergency operation against Taiwan
began in 2001, the PLA assessed in 2017 that the support of battlefield fa-
cilities was inefficient. Existing infrastructure was constructed mainly for
defensive operations, with a lack of large operational bases and support
bases to meet the requirements of large-scale offensive operations. Exist-
ing airfields, military ports, and wharves require modernization and up-
grades, according to PLA sources. The PLA also assesses that its ability to
camouflage and otherwise protect existing infrastructure is low.80

War Reserves
Weakness in war-matériel reserves is a critical logistics limitation for the
PRC. The PLA assesses that the PRC’s war-readiness matériel reserve is
 P L A LO G I S T I C S S U P P O R T F O R L A RG E- S C A LE A M P H I B I O U S WA R FA R E 329

insufficient to support a large joint landing operation, and intervention

by the United States or chain-reaction conflicts in other directions would
stress war reserves further. Consumption standards for combat against
Taiwan were formulated in the first years of the new century to guide the
strengthening of war reserves; however, revision of the consumption stan-
dards had not occurred by 2017, despite force modernization and updat-
ing of combat doctrine that had occurred. The fielding of new weapons
and equipment and the development of new operational methods require
revised consumption standards to support planning and maintenance of
sufficient war reserves. It is unclear whether the PLA has revised consump-
tion rates since 2017. The PLA assesses that improvements have occurred
in recent years; however, the matériel reserves are designed primarily to
meet nonwar military operations such as disaster-relief and stability-
maintenance operations, although they could meet the requirements of
a medium-scale conflict. The PLA estimated that the amount of reserves
in 2017 could not meet the requirements of a large-scale war; first-line
depots are described as empty, second-line depots are considered weak,
and third-line depots are far from the front line. Reserves of new and
advanced matériel are not established fully, while old matériel accounts
for a large portion of the war reserves.81
According to PLA experts, matériel reserves in the main strategic di-
rection and frontline tactical areas need strengthening. The military also
must improve its capability to move supplies rapidly to the threatened di-
rection, as well as to increase the volumes of military matériel and civilian
high-tech and general material. Civil-military integration officials need
to plan systematically and coordinate military and local reserve missions.
The PLA planned to strengthen matériel reserves along the coast to form
a large-scale support capability by 2015 and to accelerate construction of
the scale and layout of the depot system by 2020, but the statuses of these
plans are unknown. The turnover of old reserve matériel has been ham-
pered by bureaucratic barriers. Old matériel needs to be eliminated and
new matériel reserves must be acquired to support “trump card” weapons
and equipment, such as precision weapons; informatized equipment and
mobile systems; and specialized matériel for combat in complex terrain,
such as the Indian border. PLA experts believe that improved coordination
between national strategic-matériel reserves and economic-mobilization
departments is required to maintain reserves of items that cannot be man-
ufactured quickly, such as special matériel with high technical content and
material with high military and civilian versatility.82
33 0 C H I N E S E A M P H I B I O U S WA R FA R E

Modernization: Precision Logistics Support

Using Information and Intelligent Technologies
The CMC’s military strategic guideline in the “new era” is guiding na-
tional defense modernization—including logistics construction—to fight
and win wars. This guideline includes improving logistics capabilities for
transportation and delivery, battlefield matériel supply, medical support,
infrastructure support, and war reserves. PLA experts assess that logis-
tics problems are being resolved incrementally, but solutions to some of
the problems remain difficult and represent bottlenecks in supporting a
large landing operation.83 The PLA believes that information and intelli-
gent technologies enabling a precision logistics capability can resolve some
logistics challenges associated with supporting a large-scale landing opera-
tion. Traditional passive logistics-support methods, slow execution, bloat-
ed staffs, complex management, and bureaucratic barriers represent inher-
ent problems restricting improvements in logistics efficiency. To overcome
these impediments, PLA logistics is attempting to transition from a tradi-
tional system to achieve a more flexible and mobile capability. PLA logisti-
cians are testing an intelligent logistics system using artificial intelligence
technology to improve planning and decision-making. The PLA also is
experimenting with unmanned delivery systems that could provide emer-
gency support in the near term and important logistics support in the mid-
to long term if and when larger-capacity UVs are deployed to the force.84
To address logistics weaknesses, the PLA is investing in new—at least
new to the PLA—technologies to improve precision logistics support. PLA
logisticians believe these technologies will provide for a modern precision
logistics system that can support operations better. These technologies
include intelligent-driving and autonomous vehicles; automatic identifi-
cation technologies; data-mining technology; the Internet of things; big
data; cloud computing; and 5G mobile communications. The PLA believes
that intelligent logistics can support timely decision-making and enhanced
precision logistics, such as monitoring combat-logistics requirements, ca-
sualties, warehouse allocation, sorting and packing, automatic loading and
unloading, and rapid long-range delivery.85
Informatized logistics equipment can accelerate the response time that
is critical for the first-echelon landing force when consumption of ammu-
nition and POLs is high, casualties heavy, and logistics forces few. Infor-
matized systems can increase logistics efficiency by collecting and trans-
mitting information in real time, forecasting combat-unit requirements,
providing support in advance, reducing redundant links, improving
 P L A LO G I S T I C S S U P P O R T F O R L A RG E- S C A LE A M P H I B I O U S WA R FA R E 331

response time, providing combat-unit locations on the battlefield, and in-

tegrating logistics forces into a system of systems.86
PLA experts believe that employment of multiple delivery methods can
increase the efficiency and response time of matériel supply. Ground trans-
portation, including the integration of UVs, will remain the main method
of providing high-capacity support. Precision airdrop of supplies can reach
isolated units and provide emergency support. This is especially true for
airborne and special-operations forces in the enemy rear area. Helicopters
or unmanned aerial vehicles also can support distant units and conduct
emergency evacuation of wounded personnel. Air-cushion vehicles and
wing-in-ground-effect vehicles can land supplies on beaches that are diffi-
cult to access by other means. Deployed pipelines are a stable and efficient
method to transport POLs and fresh water to the forward area. Pipelines
can be employed from ship to shore and from the shore inland.87

The PLA assesses that its ability to support a large-scale offensive operation
is improving but that weaknesses persist in every mission area. Significant
deficiencies exist in transportation and war reserves. Certain circumstances
would create additional requirements and stress for logistics—for example,
intervention by the United States could change the nature of the conflict
from a war of quick decision to a protracted war and expand the area of
operations. A chain-reaction conflict in the South China Sea, at the Indian
border, or on the Korean Peninsula would require logistics support in addi-
tional areas. A blockade, international sanctions, or an embargo would force
national mobilization. War-matériel reserves—especially oil—would need to
be stockpiled in advance, along with other strategic matériel and resourc-
es. The PLA’s assessment of the characteristics of future war includes the
following: dispersed mobile forces, high consumption and destruction rates
requiring highly mobile and responsive support units, and just-in-time pre-
cision logistics employing a highly integrated command information system.
Logistics command, coordination, and organization of forces is com-
plex. The PLA believes that the repeated reorganization of the logistics
forces has caused internal frictions, complex coordination issues, low
proficiency, and difficult organizational and command issues affecting
response times and the efficiency of wartime logistics support. The dual
logistics system of the Joint Logistics Support Force combined with the ser-
vice logistics system creates command-and-coordination issues when sup-
porting a large-scale conflict. Adding to this complexity is the need to co-
ordinate with government agencies and civilian enterprises to accomplish
mobilization, requisitioning, repairs and construction, and transportation.
332 C H I N E S E A M P H I B I O U S WA R FA R E

Wartime-logistics functional areas establish separate command networks

from the strategic to the campaign levels that could lead to coordination
problems during a dynamic, large-scale operation.88
The lack of a full system-of-systems operational capability linking all the
services and branches into an integrated entity creates connection problems
between operational commands and the logistics system. The PLA assesses
that the informatization level remains relatively low in the areas of automa-
tion, information systems, and intelligent technologies. The command infor-
mation system of the logistics forces does not meet requirements for major
combat operations. Logistics command information system problems can
disrupt logistics plans and missions, adversely affecting operations. These
disruptions can hamper communications among command levels, front and
rear support elements, and logistics and operational units. To address these
issues, the PLA is developing a precision logistics capability using the logis-
tics integrated command platform to provide just-in-time support to oper-
ational units, but it is unclear how far these efforts have progressed.89 PLA
experts believe that each logistics mission area has weaknesses. They argue
that the greatest weakness involves the delivery of forces and matériel across
the Taiwan Strait to defended beaches without the option of unloading at
a port. The landing stage would see the highest destruction rates and the
heaviest consumption of ammunition and POLs. The PLA plans to establish
floating transfer platforms and temporary wharves to enable civilian ships
to support the logistics force. Enemy strikes, weather, tides, and beach con-
ditions add to the difficulty of this operation.
The PLA regards mobilization of civilian shipping and aircraft as a
problem, despite the guidance of the National Defense Mobilization Law
and National Defense Transportation Law. Civilian maritime, air, and
ground transportation do not meet military requirements adequately. Ci-
vilian crews are not trained for combat operations, and they receive only
limited training with the PLA under large-scale combat conditions.
The lack of war-matériel reserves presents another significant imped-
iment to supporting a large-scale offensive operation. War reserves have
been established to support disaster-relief and internal-stability opera-
tions. They are not stocked to support modern forces, weapons, and equip-
ment for a large operation. Much of the matériel is old and includes stocks
of parts for demobilized equipment. The PLA’s modernization requires re-
placement of older reserve equipment and spare parts to support the mod-
ern equipment now deployed in the force. The current depot system is not
appropriate to support a Taiwan invasion, especially if the conflict were to
become protracted. Stockpiling oil and other strategic resources would be
necessary in the event of escalation and protracted war.
 P L A LO G I S T I C S S U P P O R T F O R L A RG E- S C A LE A M P H I B I O U S WA R FA R E 333

SAR, medical support, and evacuation of the wounded are important

missions that can affect morale. Rescuing casualties at sea will be diffi-
cult in a large area of operations, especially given the possibility of poor
weather. The PLA assesses maritime SAR assets as being too few to support
a large combat operation. Some areas of medical support are assessed as
adequate, but field medical support needs improvement. The PLA is stress-
ing field medical aid during training, but not for a large-scale amphibious
operation.90
Infrastructure support is critical for deployment of forces and matériel
to embarkation areas. The PLA believes that enemy strikes will damage or
destroy key nodes, requiring repairs. The PLA currently lacks the neces-
sary units for transportation protection and emergency repair for the rail,
road, air, and waterway transportation systems spread over four theater
commands. The PLA has inadequate transportation-repair forces, with the
wartime emergency-repair mission depending on local transportation en-
gineering enterprises that are ill prepared to conduct large-scale emergency-
repair operations. PLA experts believe that these problems can be solved
by establishing and training local emergency-repair teams and reforming
the enterprise militia-management system. As of 2017, the military had not
created a reliable emergency-response plan.91
The PLA assesses that even after years of construction in the main
strategic direction (i.e., the area facing Taiwan), infrastructure capabilities
still are insufficient to support major combat operations. The PLA believes
that airfields and ports have poor layouts and throughput capacity, with
inadequate support facilities for new weapons and equipment. In 2017, PLA
experts concluded that only 55 percent of the airfields had special railway
lines for replenishment of oil, ammunition, and other matériel. The PLA
believes that many navy ports do not have the capability to support multi-
ple ship types and do not meet the needs of high-intensity combat support.
Only Fuzhou, Quanzhou, Xiamen, and some other ports in the war zone
have the required heavy lifting equipment. Protection and camouflage of
air and naval facilities are considered poor, with more than 80 percent of
the airfield and port facilities exposed aboveground. Early-warning and
special-aircraft and missile units are not considered to be well protected.
Transportation lines in the area of operations are vulnerable because they
contain many viaducts and tunnels that can be damaged easily and are
difficult to repair.92
At this time, PLA logistics capabilities likely cannot support a large-
scale invasion of Taiwan. The PLA would have to initiate a significant ef-
fort to improve the multiple areas limiting logistics support. Depending on
33 4 C H I N E S E A M P H I B I O U S WA R FA R E

the pace and scale of efforts to improve logistics capabilities, the project
likely would take at least several years once started. Such a crash effort
could provide early indications and warning of an intention to invade Tai-
wan. Alternatively, if the PLA maintains a slow, methodical approach to lo-
gistics modernization, it could take at least a decade to achieve a capability
to support a large-scale amphibious landing on Taiwan.

Notes
1. 中华人民共和国国防动员法 [PRC National Defense Mobilization Law] (pro-
mulgated by the Standing Comm. Nat’l People’s Cong., 26 February 2010, ef-
fective 1 July 2010), available at www.mod.gov.cn/regulatory/2016-02/19/content
_4618039.htm; 董智高 [Dong Zhigao] and 周磊 [Zhou Lei], 关于海外军事后
勤保障力量建设的认识与思考 [“The Understanding and Reflections on Over-
seas Military Logistics Support Force Construction”], 国防科技 [National De-
fense Science & Technology] 37, no. 2 (April 2016), pp. 83–86; 中华人民共和国
国防交通法 [National Defense Transportation Law of the People’s Republic of
China] (promulgated by the Standing Comm. Nat’l People’s Cong., 3 Septem-
ber 2016, effective 1 January 2017), available at www.mod.gov.cn/regulatory/
2016-09/03/content_4724196.htm; also see Kevin McCauley, “Testimony be-
fore the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission: ‘China’s Mil-
itary Power Projection and U.S. National Interests’ [Hearing]; China’s Logistics
Support to Expeditionary Operations,” U.S.-China Economic and Security Review
Commission, 20 February 2020, available at www.uscc.gov/sites/default/files/
McCauley_Written%20Testimony_0.pdf.
2. 全军后勤学术研究中心 [All-Army Logistics Academic Research Center], 作战后
勤保障 [Operational Logistics Support] (n.p.: February 2017) [hereafter Operation-
al Logistics Support].
3. Ibid., pp. 30–31, 36–37, 167; “Full Text: China’s National Defense in the New Era,”
Xinhua, 24 July 2019, www.xinhuanet.com/english/2019-07/24/c_138253389.htm.
4. Operational Logistics Support, pp. 30–31, 36–37, 167.
5. Ibid.
6. Ibid.
7. Ibid., pp. 28, 39.
8. The idea is that by operating east of Taiwan the PLA can prevent the United States
from intervening in the conflict. Ibid., p. 28.
9. Ibid., pp. 29, 38, 66, 192–96.
10. Ibid., p. 30; 陈炫宇 [Chen Xuanyu], 任聪 [Ren Cong], and 王凤忠 [Wang Feng-
zhong], 渡海登岛运输勤务保障面临的问题和对策 [“Problems and Counter-
measures of Sea Crossing and Landing Transportation Service Support”], 军事物
流 [Military Logistics] 35, no. 10 (2016), pp. 166–69.
11. Operational Logistics Support, pp. 29, 38.
 P L A LO G I S T I C S S U P P O R T F O R L A RG E- S C A LE A M P H I B I O U S WA R FA R E 335

12. Ibid., pp. 192–96; Kevin McCauley, “Cultivating Joint Operations Talent,” in The
People of the PLA 2.0, ed. Roy D. Kamphausen (Carlisle, PA: U.S. Army War College
Press, 2021), pp. 237–85, available at press.armywarcollege.edu/monographs/944.
13. Operational Logistics Support, pp. 196–98; Chen, Ren, and Wang, “Problems and
Countermeasures of Sea Crossing,” pp. 166–69.
14. Operational Logistics Support, pp. 198–200.
15. 李鹏 [Li Peng], 孙浩 [Sun Hao], and 刘思阳 [Liu Siyang], 战区联合投送指挥研
究 [“Study on Joint Projection Command for Theater Command”], 军事交通学院
学报 [Journal of Military Transportation University] 21, no. 5 (May 2019), pp. 1–5.
16. Operational Logistics Support, pp. 30, 91.
17. Li, Sun, and Liu, “Study on Joint Projection Command for Theater Command,”
pp. 1–5; Operational Logistics Support, pp. 93–94.
18. Operational Logistics Support, pp. 98–99, 169–70.
19. Ibid., pp. 94–95, 137; Chen, Ren, and Wang, “Problems and Countermeasures of
Sea Crossing,” pp. 166–69.
20. Operational Logistics Support, pp. 169–70.
21. Ibid., p. 120.
22. 刘刚 [Liu Gang], 我国半潜式运输船动员需求及能力展望 [“Prospect and De-
mand for Mobilization of Semisubmersible Carriers in China”], 国防交通工程
与技术 [National Defense Transportation Engineering and Technology], no. 3
(2015), pp. 1–3; “Multi-type Helicopters Conduct Deck-Landing Training on
Civilian Semi-submersible Vessel,” China Military Online, 21 August 2020,
eng.chinamil.com.cn/view/2020-08/21/content_9887106.htm; Conor Kennedy,
“Ramping the Strait: Quick and Dirty Solutions to Boost Amphibious Lift,” James-
town Foundation China Brief 21, no. 14 (16 July 2021), available at jamestown.org/
program/ramping-the-strait-quick-and-dirty-solutions-to-boost-amphibious-lift/.
23. 刘宝新 [Liu Baoxin] and 袁沐 [Yuan Mu], 基于SWOT 分析的军事装备水路
集装箱运输发展策略研究 [“Research on the Development Countermeasures
of Military Equipment in Waterway Container Transportation Based on SWOT
Analysis Method”], 物流科技 [Logistics Technology], no. 7 (2018), pp. 134–36.
24. 刘刚 [Liu Gang] and 虞鹏程 [Yu Pengcheng], 关于组建快速动员海运力量的思
考 [“Our Reflection on the Quick Organization of Military Sealift Reserve Forces”],
国防交通工程与技术 [National Defense Transportation Engineering and Technol-
ogy], no. 3 (2014), p. 3.
25. Ibid., pp. 2–3; 无锡联勤保障中心积极做好新下水半潜船 “民参军” 各项工作
[“Wuxi Joint Logistic Support Center Actively Completes the Work of ‘People’s Par-
ticipation in the Army’ for Newly Launched Semisubmersible Ships”], 中国军网
[China Military Online], 16 April 2017, www.81.cn/jfjbmap/content/2017-04/16/
content_174964.htm.
26. 何国本 [He Guoben] et al., 战略投送支援船队训练现状及对策 [“Current Sit-
uation and Countermeasures of Strategic-Projection Support Fleet Training”],
军事交通学院学报 [Journal of Military Transportation University] 19, no. 5
(May 2017), pp. 1–4; 梁峰 [Liang Feng] et al., 关于我军海上预置能力建设的
思考 [“Thoughts on the Construction of Our Army’s Maritime Pre-positioning
336 C H I N E S E A M P H I B I O U S WA R FA R E

Capability”], 军事交通学院学报 [Journal of Military Transportation University]

20, no. 6 (June 2018), pp. 48–49.
27. He et al., “Current Situation and Countermeasures,” pp. 1–4.
28. Liu and Yu, “Our Reflection on the Quick Organization of Military Sealift Reserve
Forces,” p. 4.
29. 王和文 [Wang Hewen], 新形势下推动民船贯彻国防要求体系发展的思考
[“Thoughts on Promoting Development of Civilian Ship Carrying Out Nation-
al Defense Requirements under New Situation”], 军事交通学院学报 [Journal of
Military Transportation University] 17, no. 11 (November 2015), pp. 22–26.
30. “Chinese Air Force Completes First Flight of Large Transporter,” Xinhua, 7 July
2016, news.xinhuanet.com/english/2016-07/07/c_135496198.htm; “Xian Y-20
Cargo Plane Has Set New Records: Designer,” WantChinaTimes, 5 March 2014,
www.wantchinatimes.com/news-subclass-cnt.aspx?id=20140305000135&cid=
1101; Zhao Lei, “Y-20 Gives Air Power Push,” China Daily, 28 January 2013, usa
.chinadaily.com.cn/epaper/2013-01/28/content_16180440.htm; Zhao Tao, “Heavy-
Duty Y-20 Military Airlifter Weighs In at Show,” China Daily USA, 28
January 2013, usa.chinadaily.com.cn/; Zhao Lei, “Transport Planes Boost PLA
Capabilities,” China Daily, 20 December 2017, usa.chinadaily.com.cn/a/201712/
20/WS5a39a438a31008cf16da24a8.html; “China, Russia Progress in Talks to
Produce Heavy-Lift Helicopters,” Global Times, 14 September 2017, www.global
times.cn/content/1066343.shtml; Cristina L. Garafola and Timothy R. Heath, The
Chinese Air Force’s First Steps toward Becoming an Expeditionary Air Force (San-
ta Monica, CA: RAND, March 2017), available at www.rand.org/pubs/research
_reports/RR2056.html.
31. 赵先刚 [Zhao Xiangang], 打通保障链“最后一公里” [“Open the ‘Last Mile’ of the
Support Chain”], 中国军网 [China Military Online], 15 October 2019, www.81
.cn/jfjbmap/content/2019-10/15/content_245287.htm.
32. 张汨汨 [Zhang Mimi] and 冯国宝 [Feng Guobao], 我军首次运用无人机实施
联合补给演练 [“Our Army Uses UAVs for the First Joint Supply Exercise”], 中
国军网 [China Military Online], 27 January 2018, www.81.cn/jwgz/2018-01/27/
content_7923080.htm.
33. 张昕 [Zhang Xin], 苑德春 [Yuan Dechun], and 张超 [Zhang Chao], 依托战略
投送支援机队实施海外航空战略投送 [“Overseas Aviation Strategic Projection
Using Strategic-Projection Support Fleet”], 军事交通学院学报 [Journal of Mil-
itary Transportation University] 20, no. 4 (April 2018), pp. 5–7, 12; 孙振岚 [Sun
Zhenlan] and 海军 [Hai Jun], 我国民航运输业建设现状与未来发展 [“On the
Present Situation and the Future Development of the Construction of Civilian Avi-
ation Transportation in China”], 国防交通工程与技术 [National Defense Trans-
portation Engineering and Technology] 17, no. 1 (January 2019), p. 1.
34. Sun and Hai, “On the Present Situation and the Future Development of the Con-
struction of Civilian Aviation Transportation in China,” pp. 1–3.
35. Operational Logistics Support, pp. 109, 115.
36. 我军首支重装备运输部队亮相 “大家伙”这样上高原组图 [“Our Army’s First
Heavy-Equipment Transportation Unit Appears on the Plateau like a ‘Big Guy’”],
中国军网 [China Military Online], 27 December 2016, photo.81.cn/pla/2016
-12/27/content_7425199.htm.
 P L A LO G I S T I C S S U P P O R T F O R L A RG E- S C A LE A M P H I B I O U S WA R FA R E 337

37. 磨砺能打胜仗的通途劲旅 [“Tempering a Strong Brigade That Can Win the

War”], 中国军网 [China Military Online], 2 September 2019, www.81.cn/jfjbmap/
content/2019-09/02/content_242319.htm; 任杰 [Ren Jie], 李勤真 [Li Qinzhen],
and 刘海英 [Liu Haiying], 军民融合履带式重装备公路运输力量建设 [“Con-
struction of Road Transportation Force for Tracked Heavy Equipment in Con-
ditions of Civil-Military Integration”], 军事交通学院学报 [Journal of Military
Transportation University] 17, no. 6 (June 2015), pp. 11–13, 40; 王春刚 [Wang
Chugang], 洪梅 [Hong Mei], and 姚中坚 [Yao Zhongjian], 提高陆军重装
备公路运输力量运用效能的思考 [“Thoughts on Improving Use Efficiency
of Army Heavy-Equipment Road Transport Capacity”], 军事交通学院学报
[Journal of Military Transportation University] 21, no. 11 (November 2019),
pp. 5–8.
38. Problems with vehicle mobilization include the following: a national-defense
mobilization department has been established, but civilian organizations at
the local levels are inadequate for the task; the mobilization information sys-
tem requires greater integration between the military and civilian networks, as
well as improvements in civilian information systems; there exists no compre-
hensive database to track civilian vehicle and equipment resources for precision
mobilization; civilian training with the military has been inadequate; commu-
nications interoperability between HET units and supported units is poor; and
the Beidou satellite navigation system occasionally is unavailable, crippling the
dynamic monitoring system of the transportation units and thus hindering op-
erations. There is no evidence that these problems are being addressed. 王仙凤
[Wang Xianfeng] and 吴克华 [Wu Kehua], 军民融合战略下车辆装备保障力
量动员问题探析 [“Vehicle Equipment Support Force Mobilization under Civil-
Military Integration Strategy”], 军事交通学院学报 [Journal of Military Trans-
portation University] 19, no. 5 (May 2017), pp. 28–31, 60; 李勤真 [Li Qinzhen],
王宁 [Wang Ning], and 刘海英 [Liu Haiying], 基于军民融合的重装备战略投
送公路支援车队建设研究 [“Research on Construction of Heavy-Equipment
Strategic Delivery Highway Support Fleet Based on Civil-Military Integra-
tion”], 物流科技 [Logistics Technology], no. 1 (2019), pp. 152–55; Wang, Hong,
and Yao, “Thoughts on Improving Use Efficiency of Army Heavy-Equipment
Road Transport Capacity,” pp. 5–8; “Tempering a Strong Brigade That Can
Win the War”; Ren, Li, and Liu, “Construction of Road Transportation Force
for Tracked Heavy Equipment in Conditions of Civil-Military Integration,”
pp. 11–13, 40.
39. Operational Logistics Support, pp. 97–99.
40. Ibid., p. 170.
41. Ibid., pp. 99–100.
42. Ibid., pp. 119–20.
43. Ibid., p. 99.
44. Ibid., pp. 100–101.
45. Ibid., p. 101.
46. Ibid.; 黄炳越 [Huang Bingyue], 吴晓锋 [Wu Xiaofeng], and 周智超 [Zhou Zhi-
chao], eds., 两栖作战编队指挥体系研究 [Research on Amphibious Operations For-
mation Command System of Systems] (Beijing: Military Science Press, 2013), p. 56.
338 C H I N E S E A M P H I B I O U S WA R FA R E

47. Operational Logistics Support, pp. 101–103.

48. Ibid., pp. 203–204; 罗雷 [Luo Lei] et al., 诺曼底登陆人工港的建设与启示 [“Con-
struction and Enlightenment of Normandy Landing Artificial Port”], 军事交通
学院学报 [Journal of Military Transportation University] 22, no. 1 (January 2020),
pp. 15–18; Chen, Ren, and Wang, “Problems and Countermeasures of Sea Cross-
ing,” pp. 166–69.
49. Operational Logistics Support, pp. 205–207.
50. Ibid.
51. Ibid., p. 103.
52. Ibid., pp. 204–205, 218; 汪欣 [Wang Xin] and 王广东 [Wang Guangdong],
运输投送力量在跨海登岛作战登陆 [“Transport Delivery Force in a Cross-Sea
Landing Operation”], 国防交通工程与技术 [National Defense Transportation En-
gineering and Technology], no. 5 (September 2019), pp. 12–16.
53. Operational Logistics Support, pp. 205–207.
54. Ibid., pp. 207–209; Wang and Wang, “Transport Delivery Force in a Cross-Sea
Landing Operation,” pp. 12–16.
55. Operational Logistics Support, pp. 210–11.
56. Ibid., pp. 221–23; Chen, Ren, and Wang, “Problems and Countermeasures of Sea
Crossing,” pp. 166–69; 陈发智 [Chen Fazhi] and 李晓楠 [Li Xiaonan], 登岛作战
中军交运输保障几个问题的探讨 [“Discussion on Several Problems of Military
Transportation Support in Landing Operations”], 国防交通工程与技术 [Nation-
al Defense Transportation Engineering and Technology], no. 1 (2005), pp. 1–5.
57. Operational Logistics Support, p. 213; Chen and Li, “Discussion on Several Prob-
lems of Military Transportation Support in Landing Operations,” pp. 1–5; Wang
and Wang, “Transport Delivery Force in a Cross-Sea Landing Operation,” pp.
12–16.
58. Operational Logistics Support, pp. 212–14; 王果 [Wang Guo] et al., 两栖登陆作战
后勤保障研究 [“Research on Logistics Support for Amphibious Landing Opera-
tions”], 船舶 [Ship & Boat], no. 4 (2019), pp. 108–14; Chen and Li, “Discussion on
Several Problems of Military Transportation Support in Landing Operations,” pp.
1–5; Wang and Wang, “Transport Delivery Force in a Cross-Sea Landing Opera-
tion,” pp. 12–16.
59. Operational Logistics Support, pp. 120, 214–15; Wang et al., “Research on Logis-
tics Support for Amphibious Landing Operations,” pp. 108–14; Wang and Wang,
“Transport Delivery Force in a Cross-Sea Landing Operation,” pp. 12–16.
60. Operational Logistics Support, pp. 215–16; Wang et al., “Research on Logistics Sup-
port for Amphibious Landing Operations,” pp. 108–14; Wang and Wang, “Trans-
port Delivery Force in a Cross-Sea Landing Operation,” pp. 12–16.
61. Operational Logistics Support, pp. 216–17; Wang and Wang, “Transport Delivery
Force in a Cross-Sea Landing Operation,” pp. 12–16.
62. Operational Logistics Support, pp. 55–56, 217–18.
63. Ibid., pp. 29, 200–201.
64. Ibid., pp. 57–58.
65. Ibid., pp. 58–59.
 P L A LO G I S T I C S S U P P O R T F O R L A RG E- S C A LE A M P H I B I O U S WA R FA R E 339

66. Ibid., p. 201; 曹正荣 [Cao Zhengrong], ed., 信息化陆军作战 [Informatized Army
Operations] (Beijing: National Defense Univ. Press, 2014), p. 196.
67. Operational Logistics Support, pp. 133–38; Aaron Clark and Sharon Cho, “China’s
Oil Reserves Are Close to Reaching Storage Capacity,” Bloomberg, 26 February 2021,
www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-02-26/china-s-oil-reserves-are-close
-to-reaching-storage-capacity; Meng Meng and Chen Aizhu, “China Goes Un-
derground to Expand Its Strategic Oil Reserves,” Reuters, 6 January 2016, www
.reuters.com/article/us-china-oil-reserves-idUSKBN0UK2NO20160106.
68. Operational Logistics Support, pp. 139–43.
69. Ibid., pp. 140–41.
70. Ibid., pp. 144–45.
71. Ibid., pp. 146–49.
72. Ibid., pp. 138–42.
73. Ibid., pp. 171–72.
74. Ibid., p. 41; 林祥国 [Lin Xiangguo] and 傅益江 [Fu Yijiang], 联合战术兵团渡海
登岛作战卫勤保障探讨 [“Discussion on Medical Support of Joint Tactical For-
mations in Sea-Crossing and Island-Landing Operations”], 东南国防医药 [South-
east National Defense Medicine] 8, no. 2 (2006), pp. 147–48.
75. Operational Logistics Support, pp. 202–203; Lin and Fu, “Discussion on Medical
Support of Joint Tactical Formations in Sea-Crossing and Island-Landing Opera-
tions,” pp. 147–48.
76. Operational Logistics Support, pp. 77–81; Lin and Fu, “Discussion on Medical Sup-
port of Joint Tactical Formations in Sea-Crossing and Island-Landing Operations,”
pp. 147–48.
77. Operational Logistics Support, pp. 40, 86–90; 贺德富 [He Defu] and 苏喜生 [Su
Xisheng], 基于兵棋推演的后勤物资储备精确计算 [“Precision Calculation of
Logistics Matériel Reserve Based on Wargame Deduction”], 兵器装备工程学报
[Journal of Ordnance Equipment Engineering] 40, no. 7 (2019), pp. 176–79; Lin and
Fu, “Discussion on Medical Support of Joint Tactical Formations in Sea-Crossing
and Island-Landing Operations,” pp. 147–48.
78. Operational Logistics Support, pp. 150–55.
79. Ibid., p. 164.
80. Ibid., pp. 155–63.
81. Ibid., pp. 59–60, 305; He and Su, “Precision Calculation of Logistics Matériel
Reserve Based on Wargame Deduction,” pp. 176–79; 孟文华 [Meng Wenhua],
后勤战备物资储备建设浅析 [“Analysis on the Construction of Logistic Warfare
Matériel Reserve”], 中国储运网 [China Storage and Transportation Magazine],
no. 10 (2014), pp. 168–69.
82. Operational Logistics Support, pp. 309–14; Meng, “Analysis on the Construction of
Logistic Warfare Matériel Reserve,” pp. 168–69.
83. Operational Logistics Support, pp. 36, 172–73.
84. Ibid., pp. 218–19.
85. 刘晓宝 [Liu Xiaobao], 邓海龙 [Deng Hailong], and 蒋宁 [Jiang Ning], 让军事物
流建设紧扣时代脉搏 [“Let the Construction of Military Logistics Keep Pace with
340 C H I N E S E A M P H I B I O U S WA R FA R E

the Pulse of the Times”], 中国军网 [China Military Online], 28 November 2019,
www.81.cn/jfjbmap/content/2019-11/28/content_248592.htm.
86. Operational Logistics Support, p. 219.
87. Ibid., pp. 219–20.
88. Ibid., pp. 170–71.
89. Ibid., p. 38.
90. 陈典宏 [Chen Dianhong], 真打起仗来伤病员还能这样配合吗? [“Can the Sick
and Wounded Still Cooperate in This Way When There Is a Real War?”], 中国军
网 [China Military Online], 26 May 2021, www.81.cn/jfjbmap/content/2021-05/26/
content_290257.htm.
91. Operational Logistics Support, p. 131.
92. Ibid., pp. 35–36.
 Ian Easton

15. Hostile Harbors

Taiwan’s Ports and PLA Invasion Plans

On 18 February 2016, Chinese Communist Party (CCP) heavyweights

gathered in Shanghai to witness the birth of a colossal maritime-logistics
conglomerate. Under the watchful gaze of Politburo members, local party
leaders, and central government representatives, China COSCO Shipping
Corporation emerged onto the watery scene.1 Created by the unification
of COSCO (China Ocean Shipping Company) Group and China Shipping
Group, Beijing’s newest state-owned enterprise controls over one thousand
ships, forty-six containerports, 190 berths, and a legion of subsidiaries
around the world—including at least four on Taiwan.2
CCP committees in charge of implementing the national military-
civil fusion strategy of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) highlighted
the COSCO megamerger.3 Everyone who was anyone in the party-state
understood what the future held for Taiwan and why one day the military
might need access to those ships and ports. Since 1993, the annexation of
(or “reunification” with) Taiwan—an independent country also known as
the Republic of China (ROC)—had been driving China’s military buildup.
People’s Liberation Army (PLA) doctrine referred to the conquest of Taiwan
as China’s “main strategic direction.”4
War across the Taiwan Strait was hardly inevitable. It seemed possible,
and at times even likely, that an interlocking campaign of political warfare
3 42 C H I N E S E A M P H I B I O U S WA R FA R E

undertaken by various CCP operatives—men and women posted worldwide

in a broad array of front organizations, associations, and companies—might
be able to subvert Taiwan’s democratic government and bring the island na-
tion down without a fight.5 Yet their success was uncertain. And if the CCP’s
propagandists, liaison workers, united front workers, intelligence officers,
and psychological warriors all failed, the military had to be ready to use
overwhelming force.6
The PLA war plan came in several flavors, most of them combining
mental coercion with bold notes of physical destruction, involving opera-
tions in the electromagnetic, air, and sea domains. Beijing’s military plan-
ners assumed that strikes and blockades alone would not be sufficient to
force Taipei’s surrender.7 At some point, Taiwan would have to be invaded
and occupied, and this would require a huge fleet of troop transports.8 Some
ships could be off-loaded directly onto the island’s beaches, but the vast ma-
jority would require access to ports on Taiwan to disgorge their lethal loads.9
Here, strategic planners in Beijing faced an interesting problem: how to
justify the military’s intervention into an ostensibly civilian logistics force.
PLA uniforms would be a bad look—counterproductive in an increasingly
interconnected, globalized world full of statesmen and business leaders who
had to remain convinced that China’s intentions were peaceful. How could
they keep the military behind the scenes while simultaneously ensuring that
COSCO Shipping and other strategic enterprises would be ready to execute
their wartime orders if and when the time came? Enter the lawyers.
On 1 January 2017, the PRC National Defense Transportation Law went
into effect. Among other things, it mandated that all China’s basic infra-
structure and related transportation platforms henceforth would be treated
as military-civil fusion assets. At the CCP’s discretion, they now were re-
quired legally to be designed, built, and managed to support future mili-
tary operations. In the event of conflict, they would be pressed into wartime
service; in the present, during peacetime, they had to prepare accordingly.10
Later that same year came the PRC State Intelligence Law, which declared
that all Chinese companies had to cooperate with Beijing’s intelligence
operations—indeed, that there was no legal way for them to refuse. The law
demanded that companies cover up intelligence-related activities, keeping
them secret, to ensure that the targets of CCP exploitation (foreign custom-
ers and business partners) never would know they were being spied on.11
Of course, companies in the PRC never really had been independent
legal entities capable of saying no to the Communist Party and its armed
wing. The CCP has a long history of using civilian fronts to conduct military
operations and collect intelligence of strategic value.12 Companies in China
 H O S T I LE H A R B O R S 3 43

have no rights beyond those the party-state has allowed to them. For its part,
the CCP sits above the law and uses it to enforce its own will.13 Now Beijing
was presenting that fact in stark terms.
These new laws did not state why the CCP felt that such drastic mea-
sures were needed; that explanation would be left to internal PLA docu-
ments. One such text made the benefits of military-civil fusion plain, noting
that the Chinese military now could exploit over two thousand global-
transport ships, 650,000 merchant marines, and one thousand subsidiary
organizations for power projection. Moreover, because the CCP either di-
rectly or indirectly controlled over one hundred foreign ports, those, too,
could be exploited for military purposes. The COSCO Shipping collective
was merely the tip of the iceberg. The CCP was building a mammoth lo-
gistics complex aimed squarely at defeating Taiwan and the United States.14
This chapter will explore the following questions: How is the PLA pre-
paring to exploit existing port facilities on Taiwan to support an island-
invasion campaign? What are the assumptions guiding these preparations?
On the basis of known PLA assumptions and other factors, which ports on
Taiwan might be targeted for seizure in the event of an invasion, and why?

The Ultramega
At the beginning, it seems important to acknowledge five fundamental
points about a Taiwan invasion scenario, and to remember them as we ex-
amine the finer details.15 Without this baseline, we might draw flawed con-
clusions regarding the central role that ports likely would play in Chinese
amphibious operations.
First, the scale and scope of an all-out Taiwan invasion almost defy hu-
man comprehension. We cannot see such an endeavor clearly in our minds
because nothing like it ever has happened before; no point of comparison
or juxtaposition exists. Our natural impulse when thinking about such a
future amphibious operation is to look to the past, but no similar historical
event has occurred. The leading potential candidates, Operation Over-
lord (D-day in Normandy, France, in 1944) and Operation Iceberg (the
Battle of Okinawa, Japan, in 1945), were each only a fraction of the size this
operation probably would be, and far less complex.16
Second, history’s grandest amphibious operations were relatively sim-
ple affairs in terms of the geographic and human battle spaces. The Nor-
mandy landings occurred in rural France along a relatively flat, fifty-mile
beachfront. The famous bluffs overlooking Normandy’s beaches were only
344 C H I N E S E A M P H I B I O U S WA R FA R E

100–170 feet high, and the coastal area had been evacuated of civilians,
making it a free-fire zone. The Battle of Okinawa unfolded on a tiny island
sixty-six miles long and seven miles wide, with a civilian population of
around three hundred thousand. Okinawa’s highest point is Mount Yo-
naha, a mere 1,650 feet in elevation. Both Normandy and Okinawa were
lightly garrisoned.17
In sharp contrast, Taiwan is an extremely rugged, heavily urbanized na-
tion of 23.6 million people, most of whom live on the main island, which is
245 miles long and ninety miles across at its widest point. Taiwan is made
up of over a hundred islands, most too tiny to see on a map; but many of
the outer islands bristle with missiles, rockets, and artillery guns, and their
granite hills have been honeycombed with tunnels and bunker systems. The
main island of Taiwan has 258 mountain peaks over 9,800 feet in eleva-
tion.18 The tallest, Yushan (Jade Mountain), is just under thirteen thousand
feet high.19 Unlike Normandy or Okinawa, the coastal terrain here is easily
defensible. Taiwan has only fourteen small invasion beaches, and they are
bordered by cliffs and dense urban population centers. Linkou Beach near
Taipei provides an illustrative example. Towering directly over the beach
is Guanyin Mountain (2,020 feet); on its right flank is the Linkou Plateau
(820 feet); to its left is Yangming Mountain (3,590 feet). Structures made of
steel-reinforced concrete blanket the surrounding valleys. Taiwan gets hit
frequently by typhoons and earthquakes, so each building and bridge is de-
signed to withstand severe buffeting.
While this geography itself is extreme, the landscape also is thick with
armed defenders. In wartime, Taiwan could mobilize a counterinvasion
force of at least 450,000 troops, and probably far more. While Taiwan’s
standing military is only around 190,000 strong, it has a large reserve force
composed primarily of recent conscripts who have received basic training.
In 2020, Taiwan’s then defense minister estimated that 260,000 reservists
could be mobilized in a worst-case scenario to augment active-duty person-
nel. This appears to be a conservative estimate. Over two million men on
Taiwan are in the national reserve system, along with a large number of reg-
istered personnel in civilian agencies and companies: airline personnel, bull-
dozer operators, construction workers, truck drivers, bus drivers, fishing-
boat crewmembers, firefighters, police officers, and others.20
Third, were a battle for Taiwan to occur, it would involve other com-
plexities that are vitally important but “squishy,” meaning that they cannot
be quantified satisfactorily. It would be the first country-on-country war
in which both attacker and defender had in their arsenals modern, long-
range missiles capable of cracking open ships and devastating land targets
 H O S T I LE H A R B O R S 3 45

with precision from hundreds of miles away. No one actually knows what
such a fight would look like because it never has happened before. Both
sides would have advanced cyber weapons, electronic-warfare suites, smart
mines, and drone swarms that never have been tested in real-world combat.
Both would have satellites and at least some ability to attack satellites. Both
would have economic leverage to use and the ability to cripple the other’s
economy. Both would have large numbers of its citizens living in the other’s
territory, some of whom are saboteurs and spies (and some of those double
agents). Both would have the fearful option of using weapons of mass de-
struction to disperse biological, chemical, and radioactive agents against the
other. And both might apply more-exotic weapons, such as directed energy
weapons and hypersonic missiles.
The most critical question, of course, is what the United States would do.
It seems logical to assume that the White House would send aid to Taiwan.
Whether the president at the time would order American forces to defend
Taiwan is unknown. According to the Taiwan Relations Act of 1979, the U.S.
military must expect to defend Taiwan and prepare accordingly. To date,
there is no historical case in which an American president failed to send
forces to support the defense of Taiwan in response to a crisis.21 If this track
record is indicative of future performance, the United States is almost cer-
tain to defend Taiwan in the event of a Chinese attack.
In a time of crisis, American leaders likely would surge overwhelming
national resources to the Taiwan Strait area and make their commitments
to Taiwan’s defense more explicit, in hopes of convincing the PRC to de-
escalate tensions. Unlike the U.S. military, the PLA has not seen combat
since 1979; nobody serving in China today, except a handful of geriatric
generals, has any combat experience.22 Equally important, the Chinese mil-
itary does not train very often in realistic, highly complex environments.23
These two facts call into question whether the PLA could pull off a complex
invasion operation successfully.24 If the United States came to Taiwan’s de-
fense, few experts would give China good odds—at least in the near term.
Fourth, some things we can count on, or at least estimate. The quan-
tifiable elements of the PLA invasion operation would be mind-boggling.
Millions of armed forces members in uniform would be mobilized in Chi-
na, including soldiers, sailors, airmen, rocketeers, marines, cyber warriors,
armed policemen, reservists, ground militiamen, and maritime militiamen.
It seems likely that somewhere between one and two million combat troops
would have to cross the Taiwan Strait, which is eighty miles across at its nar-
rowest point and 255 miles at its widest.25
346 C H I N E S E A M P H I B I O U S WA R FA R E

PLA troop numbers, of course, are highly speculative “best guesses” that
rest entirely on assumptions. In theory, the PLA might land as few as three
or four hundred thousand soldiers—for example, if the Taiwanese president
was killed or captured prior to Z-day and armed resistance crumbled. On
the other hand, if Taiwanese government leaders survived and mobilized
everything under their power in a timely fashion, the PLA might have to
send more than two million troops to Taiwan, including paramilitary forces
such as the People’s Armed Police and militia forces. Why so many? Com-
manders planning offensive operations typically want a three-to-one superi-
ority over the defender; if the terrain is unfavorable, they want a five-to-one
ratio—and sometimes more.26 Assuming Taiwan had 450,000 defenders, the
PLA general in charge therefore would want to have at least 1.35 million
men, but the number probably would be closer to 2.25 million.27
If the PLA invasion force was a million or more men, we might expect
an armada of thousands—or even tens of thousands—of ships to deliver
them, augmented by thousands of planes and helicopters.28 The vast major-
ity of these ships would not be from the PLA Navy (PLAN). Vessels that in-
cluded tugs, oilers, barges, ferries, fishing boats, semisubmersible platforms,
container carriers, and heavy roll-on/roll-off (RO/RO) cargo ships would
be mobilized. According to Chinese military sources, many ships would be
deployed as decoys, conducting feints to distract attention away from the
main assault.29 For the PLA, enormous ship numbers now are attainable.
The CCP’s military-civil fusion strategy has been gearing up for just such
an operation. China’s civilian fleets are vast, and every day more hulls are
being retrofitted to support a future military campaign against Taiwan.30
Thousands of tanks, armored personnel vehicles, artillery guns, and rock-
et launchers would accompany the invaders. Mountains of equipment and
lakes of fuel would cross with them.
Fifth, supporting the war effort would be over ninety million CCP mem-
bers, along with the industrial might of a Chinese superpower with over
1.4 billion people. China’s Marxist-Leninist system is uniquely capable of
extracting and harnessing private resources for the state’s use. According to
internal PLA writings on “Xi Jinping Thought,” one of the Communist Par-
ty’s greatest strengths is its ability to force collective action and conduct mass
campaigns, especially in times of emergency.31 The battle of Taiwan would
be the supreme emergency—the “ultramega.”
 H O S T I LE H A R B O R S 3 47

Exhibit 1. PLA Amphibious Staging Area

Source: Project 2049 Institute

Ports Matter
The imagination-crushing dimensions of a PLA amphibious operation
against Taiwan—the moving of millions of humans and machines—all rely
on robust logistics lines. Without them, everything else quickly crumbles
and falls apart.

Why Taiwanese Ports Must Be Defended

Chinese military writings that appear indicative of doctrine argue that the
success or failure of an invasion of Taiwan likely would hinge on whether
Chinese amphibious-landing forces are able to seize, hold, and exploit the
island’s large port facilities.32 By themselves, Taiwan’s beaches and coast-
al airports are too small to land enough PLA troops, tanks, and supplies
to secure a solid lodgment ashore. Because these sites lack purpose-built
infrastructure for unloading large transports and because they occupy
inherently exposed positions, PLA researchers fear that Chinese landing
forces could be encircled on the beaches, showered with defensive fires, and
overrun by Taiwanese counterattacks.33
348 C H I N E S E A M P H I B I O U S WA R FA R E

Only Taiwan’s large ports could support the rapid influx of hundreds
of thousands of PLA reinforcements and their heavy armor—the massive
second-wave force in charge of hammering into the island’s inland cities
and mountains. From the Chinese military’s perspective, beachheads (cap-
tured beaches) and airheads (captured airports) are necessary but insuffi-
cient parts of a major amphibious-landing zone.34 According to internal
PLA studies, beaches and airports even might be considered auxiliary or
supporting wings, while the core—the fulcrum of an invasion of Taiwan—
is that nation’s own ports.35

Exhibit 2. Potential Invasion Beaches

Source: Project 2049 Institute

Chinese military studies argue that the Taiwanese cannot defend them-
selves effectively and oppose PLA amphibious landings unless they are able
to prevent the aggressor from seizing and using Taiwan’s civil and military
port infrastructure.36 So the PLA has invested remarkable amounts of re-
sources into researching and planning how to take Taiwanese ports. This
effort has included careful assessments of Taiwan’s port-defense plans and
capabilities.
 H O S T I LE H A R B O R S 3 49

Assessing Taiwan’s Port-Defense Plans

PLA researchers expect that the Taiwanese military will make the defense
of the island’s ports a top priority and take extraordinary measures to se-
cure them and, if necessary, to deny them to the attacking side.37 Sources
expect that the Taiwanese military will make their ports defensive strong-
holds in wartime, surrounding them with an interlocking network of fir-
ing positions. According to Chinese military writings, the center of each
Taiwanese port will be defended with concentrated ground forces in well-
prepared, covered defense works, which could include underground bun-
kers and tunnel systems.38 Such points could be located near the ports’
docks, cranes, command centers, and communication nodes.
These imagined strongholds will be watched from above by Taiwanese
infantry units deployed in company and platoon strength to firing posi-
tions in the surrounding urban buildings that overlook the ports. Spotters,
snipers, and air-defense units will take up positions on rooftops. Tanks, ar-
mored fighting vehicles, coastal artillery, and heavy artillery will be hidden
amid nearby infrastructure, a term whose meaning likely includes locations
in warehouses, empty factories, man-made tunnels, and improved natural
caves, and under bridges.39 Defenders, it is assumed, will be located inside
prepared defensive positions near beaches that flank port entries, as well
as hilltops overlooking the ports, nearby traffic intersections, and other
positions favorable to the defense.
The Chinese military assumes that Taiwanese forces will operate un-
der an air-defense umbrella provided by short-range surface-to-air mis-
siles, antiaircraft guns, and electronic-warfare vehicles. PLA studies note
that the island’s port-defense operations could be bolstered further by any
available Taiwanese air force fighters, navy fast-attack craft, army heli-
copter gunships, coastal-defense cruise-missile launchers, and multiple-
launch rocket systems.40 They anticipate that Taiwanese defense forces will
emplace coastal mines and obstacles near the mouths of ports. Reportedly,
the channels leading into and out of Taiwan’s major commercial ports and
naval bases already have defenses, including antisubmarine defenses and
underwater-surveillance arrays. These would be augmented rapidly in a
conflict. PLA sources further estimate that the defenders will set up mine-
fields and obstacles on nearby beaches, which the ROC military will cover
with machine guns in blockhouses and entrenched firing pits.41 In addition
to the employment of Taiwanese infantry in static defense positions around
port areas, Chinese analysts believe the defenders will divide into special-
ized antitank teams, antiairborne (parachute or air-assault) teams, rapid-
reaction counterattack teams, and reserve-force teams.42 These forces are
350 C H I N E S E A M P H I B I O U S WA R FA R E

expected to occupy hardened and camouflaged positions from which they

can provide dense and overlapping fields of fire and maintain interior lines
of communications via tunnels or covered alleyways.
PLA researchers report that Taiwan’s military greatly emphasizes the
use of mines and obstacles. These commentators believe that Chinese am-
phibious forces approaching the island’s ports by sea will face a combi-
nation of sunken ships sticking out of the surf, anchored and floating sea
mines, railroad-stake emplacements, log ramps, concrete wave breakers,
Belgian gates, Czech hedgehogs, and something that PLA texts call “wal-
nut crackers.” Awaiting amphibious tanks in port zones will be improvised
Taiwanese “success mines” (gasoline drums packed with plastic explosives
and shrapnel), antitank mines, antitank ditches, antitank walls, and tank
traps. Awaiting amphibious infantry ashore will be antipersonnel mines,
Mexican sisals (fire-resistant plants with circular arrangements of spiky,
sword-like leaves up to six feet long), webs of barbed wire, iron crash bar-
riers, piles of glass shards embedded in concrete, water-filled trenches,
iron spike boards, antipersonnel revetments, and “contamination zones”
(which the PLA reportedly fears could involve poison gas or radiological
agents). Together, these anticipated obstacles are expected to create man-
made kill boxes inside and around ports.43
Chinese military researchers believe that the Taiwanese military will
seal up the mouths of vulnerable ports by sinking large containerships.
If the attacking side breaches these barriers, the defenders reportedly in-
tend to pump oil and gasoline into their harbors to produce “seas of fire”—
flaming slicks set alight to incite panic, create chaos, and produce mass
casualties. As a final resort, it is thought that Taiwan’s military will blow up
docks, cranes, power plants, fuel-storage depots, water-supply lines, cause-
ways, and other basic port infrastructure as they retreat into the surround-
ing cities, thereby denying the port facilities to the invader.44

Port-Attack Methods
Having considered the Taiwanese military’s likely port-defense plans, Chi-
nese military studies posit six tactical approaches for overcoming the de-
fenders and seizing their ports. Interestingly, PLA research materials weigh
the pros and cons of each individual approach, thereby providing insights
into the leadership’s preferences and perceived challenges. The following
section offers a brief summary of these assessments.45
 H O S T I LE H A R B O R S 351

Direct Amphibious Attacks

In the first approach, undercover PLAN vessels—amphibious landing
ships or RO/RO cargo ships—would transport motorized infantry units
into Taiwan’s ports via normal shipping channels and land them directly at
the docks. The attackers would unload, fight their way across port zones,
and seize surrounding urban areas.
The perceived advantages of such an approach would be speed, surviv-
ability, and shock. Whereas unloading heavy equipment via beaches is a
slow process, docks allow for rapid unloading, so more attack units could
come into action in a timely manner. Operational researchers in the Chi-
nese military express a belief that this method could save many PLA lives
while astonishing the defender, shaking his confidence, and weakening his
morale.
The perceived disadvantages of such an approach are that it could work
only when the targeted ports already had been cleared of obstacles or were
left lightly defended. Even then, there could be dangers; PLA ships sailing
into the ports could get ambushed and bottled up by defensive actions,
including sabotage and “sea of fire” tactics. Landing units also could get
hit by Taiwanese air attacks, long-range artillery bombardment, and heavy
counterattacks launched by reserve units or mobility forces hiding in Tai-
wan’s interior.

Indirect Amphibious Attacks

The PLA could land amphibious armored mechanized units on the beach-
es flanking Taiwan’s ports. Having secured landing beaches and opened
them for reinforcements to land, the attackers would conduct rapid pincer
attacks to seize surrounding urban areas, encircling the ports and cutting
them off from reinforcements. They then would fight their way into port
zones from the inland side.
The perceived advantages of such an approach are that it could work
when Taiwan’s ports are well defended—indeed, PLA researchers estimate
that a port’s flanks are likely to be the weakest points, and therefore the
best to exploit. Moreover, the PLA’s amphibious tanks, infantry fighting
vehicles, and armored transports are highly mobile—they are shock forces
tailor-made for operations such as this. Ideally, port defenders would be so
surprised and demoralized by being encircled that they would surrender
without a fight.
There are several perceived disadvantages to such an approach. Af-
ter PLA amphibious armored mechanized units get off the beach, they
352 C H I N E S E A M P H I B I O U S WA R FA R E

are likely to be overly reliant on easily severed roadways. They could get
bogged down by Taiwanese minefields and obstacle networks in urban ar-
eas, especially if they are not supported sufficiently by combat engineers.
In open areas where maneuvering is relatively easy, they could get hit by
superior Taiwanese ground forces with heavy armor. A final perceived dis-
advantage is that such an indirect approach would be relatively slow to bear
fruit—pincer movements take time to develop. So the PLA might fail to
seize the targeted ports quickly. Second-wave forces then would lack access
to infrastructure in a timely fashion, risking a quagmire.

Sea-Skimming Raids
The PLA could use a composite force of helicopters, hovercraft, and
ground-effect vehicles to conduct surprise attacks on port zones. By flying
just above the wave tops at high speeds, these units notionally would en-
ter ports before the defenders knew what hit them and rapidly seize their
docks, along with the surrounding urban areas and military bases.
A perceived advantage of such an approach is that it could be undertak-
en at night and in rough weather conditions, thereby shocking the defend-
ers. Another distinctive advantage is that the attacking side could avoid sea
mines and obstacles by flying over them. The PLA then could concentrate
forces on landing zones within the ports themselves, or wherever those on
scene assess as best. These notional operations would be fast and flexible.
A perceived disadvantage of such an approach is that it could land only
a relatively small number of troops. For this reason, sea-skimming raids
are considered best employed against ports that are thinly defended or
those whose defenders already have been devastated by preassault missile
strikes. Chinese military texts state that such raids could be effective only
against Taiwan’s small- and medium-size ports with narrow channels. An-
other disadvantage planners anticipate is that command and control would
be difficult, given the potential variety of assets and units involved.

Air Assaults
The PLA could use large numbers of helicopters to drop troops behind Tai-
wan’s port zones and their surrounding urban areas. The attackers would
seize favorable terrain and defensive strongholds in interior areas and en-
circle the ports. The PLA then would attack those ports from their rear.
The perceived advantages are many. The attackers could gain the ele-
ment of surprise and get behind the defenders’ lines into lightly defended
areas. They would avoid the “hard shell” prepared by Taiwan’s military
around port zones and would be able to move rapidly enough to sow chaos
 H O S T I LE H A R B O R S 353

and avoid heavy fire. Such operations could be coordinated with seaborne
amphibious-assault groups to present the defenders with multidimensional
and multidirectional attacks. These operations would be conducted by elite
troops organized in battalion- and company-size units that are flexible and
easy to coordinate.
The perceived disadvantages are that the Taiwanese military could
find, counterattack against, and wipe out Chinese attackers at their land-
ing zones using overwhelming firepower. Helicopters are highly vulnera-
ble to air defenses, making such operations perilous unless the PLA has at
least localized air control, which cannot always be guaranteed near ports.
A battalion-strength air assault reportedly requires two square kilometers
of open space. Given the rough geographic and urban terrain around ports,
suitable locations generally are found only far outside port zones. This
means that the PLA could not actually seize important ports using this
method alone; for it to be effective, planners would have to combine it with
other lines of effort. On balance, however, Chinese military researchers ap-
pear to be especially impressed with the potential for air assaults to achieve
favorable results as part of a broader amphibious campaign.

Horizontal Attacks
The PLA could treat ports as secondary targets. Its focus instead would be
on traditional joint amphibious operations to capture and build up division-
size landing beaches. After the beaches and any nearby coastal airports
were secure, the attackers would land second-wave reinforcements in the
form of armored mechanized units. These units would roll up the coastline
to expand lodgments, taking port zones along the way.
The perceived advantages of this approach are that the attackers could
bring overwhelming troop numbers to bear against even well-defended
ports. Heavy land-attack firepower, capable of defeating Taiwanese armor,
could punch through port defenses quickly, allowing amphibious units to
achieve decisive victories.
The perceived disadvantages are that the Taiwanese military could use
geographic bottlenecks and defense works along coastal roads to pin down
Chinese armor columns. Taiwanese tanks and artillery, along with infan-
try armed with antitank recoilless rifles and man-portable missile launch-
ers, would be in their element. Taiwan’s defenders could infiltrate behind
PLA lines at night or in bad weather and conduct raids on the attacker’s
supply lines, which might sow chaos and prolong operations to seize and
open ports, thereby paralyzing the second wave of the assault.
35 4 C H I N E S E A M P H I B I O U S WA R FA R E

Special-Forces Infiltration
The PLA could use infiltration tactics to seize ports using special forces ca-
pable of covertly entering Taiwan by plane, helicopter, boat, or submarine.
Undercover Chinese military teams first would conduct special reconnais-
sance missions, avoiding detection by the defenders while collecting in-
telligence on the layout of port defenses. Special units then would launch
multidirectional attacks using irregular tactics to seize and hold important
defensive positions, bridges, road intersections, and docks until reinforce-
ments arrived.
The perceived advantages are that such operations could have a force-
multiplier effect, with small but elite teams surprising and overcoming
larger adversary units. These operations would avoid collateral damage
and protect vital infrastructure from destruction. They also could provide
a diplomatic coup for the attacking side by confusing the international
community and reducing its response.
The perceived disadvantages of this approach are that it could be diffi-
cult to infiltrate into Taiwan, given the defender’s reconnaissance and sur-
veillance capabilities. Special-forces units are lightly armed, making them
vulnerable to regular ROC army units that have more troops and heavier
firepower. If discovered, the raiders could have their clandestine commu-
nications equipment jammed. They even might be cut off from reinforce-
ments and run out of ammunition and supplies.

Integrated Port-Seizure Operations

After assessing individual tactical approaches for seizing ports, Chinese
military studies examine ways to combine them into an integrated opera-
tional concept.46 They emphasize that the PLA’s objective is not only to take
and occupy Taiwan’s large ports but to open them and use them as soon as
possible to support the overall invasion campaign. PLA researchers warn:
“If ports are damaged in combat because the defending side destroys them,
or because our side significantly damages them in the course of executing
operations to seize them, well then, occupying those ports means nothing.
. . . We must do our utmost to ensure the least possible damage is done to
port infrastructure.”47
With this overriding objective in mind, the sources we examined pro-
pose an integrated attack plan for amphibious operations against large,
well-defended Taiwanese ports. That plan is summarized in the following
sections of the chapter.48
 H O S T I LE H A R B O R S 355

Phase 1: Execute Paralyzing Strikes

PLA units will soften up the defenders prior to amphibious landings using
precision strikes and joint fires that target local centers of gravity. Chinese
military texts propose the following plan:
• Theater ballistic missiles, bombers, and fighter-bombers will carry
out precision strikes on the defender’s frontline port defenses, includ-
ing early-warning sites (incorporating radars and signals-intelligence
equipment), hardened bunker facilities, air-defense missile launch-
ers, coastal-defense batteries, and command posts. They then will
conduct raids on the Taiwanese military’s rear assembly areas and
long-range artillery sites. Finally, they will intercept the defenders’
mobile reinforcements and reserve units as they converge on the tar-
geted port zones.
• Shipborne guns and artillery will destroy and suppress the defender’s
fortifications and heavy firepower (e.g., artillery and tanks) on near-
by beachheads and inside port zones. They then will interdict the
defender’s frontline mobile counterassault units.
• Helicopter gunships, amphibious artillery, and amphibious tanks will
destroy any remaining beachhead targets, such as coastal-defense
batteries and tanks.

Phase 2: Conduct Commando Operations

PLA special-forces units will carry out operations to pave the way forward
for the main amphibious assaults. They will be inserted by helicopters,
ground-effect vehicles, powered delta-wing aircraft (ultralights), and glid-
ers. Their mission will be to seize firing positions, coastal-defense batter-
ies, and missile-launch sites that pose a threat to landing forces. They could
“leapfrog” frontline beach defenses to seize key defense works in Taiwan’s
“shallow interior,” thereby severing links between forward defenders and
their rear-area reinforcements. They also could infiltrate deeper into sur-
rounding areas to conduct ambushes and raids in a manner that supports
amphibious landings against ports and developing the follow-on campaign
to conquer Taiwan.

Phase 3: Make Amphibious Assaults

PLA units will collect intelligence on Taiwan’s port defenses “by all means
necessary” and select weak points through which to cut with concentrated
amphibious landings made by sea and air. After beach obstacles and coast-
al fortifications have been destroyed using direct fires, large amphibious
356 C H I N E S E A M P H I B I O U S WA R FA R E

forces will make landings from the sea, supported by troops arriving by
helicopters, hovercraft, and ultralights. Once ashore, amphibious-assault
units will conduct pincer movements from the beaches, surrounding port
zones and isolating defenders into pockets of resistance.

Phase 4: Enter and Seize Ports

PLA amphibious-assault units will conduct sea-skimming attacks over
obstacles blocking the port mouths and land squarely in the middle of
port zones. At the same time, PLA units will attack into the ports from
multiple angles under the cover of helicopter gunships. Assault teams will
pour into underground facilities and complex bunker networks, support-
ed by combat engineers who specialize in blasting through heavy doors
and walls. Amphibious tanks will smash through small buildings and, to-
gether with amphibious artillery and armored fighting vehicles, use direct
fires on defending infantry platoons and companies bunkered into multi-
storied buildings. Attack helicopters will rake defenders in high-rises with
cannon and machine-gun fires. Transport helicopters will ferry in grow-
ing numbers of troops to build up captured lodgments. Theater ballistic-
missile launchers, bombers, fighter-bombers, and shipborne guns will pro-
vide heavy fire support. Air-defense missile launchers and air-defense guns
will create a defensive bubble around captured ports.

Phase 5: Defeat Counterattacks

PLA joint forces will fight and defeat Taiwanese counterattacks against
captured port zones. When necessary, the PLA will occupy favorable ter-
rain, stage ambushes, and turn defensive obstacles against enemy mobile
units attempting to retake ports.

Phase 6: Safeguard and Exploit Ports

PLA combat engineers will clear obstacles and work to open ports rapidly,
allowing a massive second wave of reinforcements with main battle tanks
and other heavy equipment to stream into captured lodgments continually.
The PLA will exploit the port’s docks and cranes to off-load ships, tipping
the balance of forces fighting along the coast as quickly as possible. Any
remaining defenders will be mopped up. As the main battlefront moves
inland toward final victory, captured ports will be garrisoned heavily to
protect them from potential counterattacks and saboteurs.
 H O S T I LE H A R B O R S 357

PLA Preparations
The PLA is preparing the battlefield for future port landing operations in
two key ways. First, it is collecting intelligence about Taiwanese ports. In-
telligence is vital for preparing any envisioned future battlefield. Indeed,
Chinese sources indicate that intelligence collection is a priority mission.
PLA texts state that the Chinese military will “use all available means to
collect intelligence on a broad scale and thereby obtain knowledge of the
port defenders’ deployments and situations. Thus, we can find and exploit
their weaknesses with precision.”49
Over the past two decades, the CCP has established representative of-
fices in Taiwan’s major ports, invested in Taiwanese port-building projects,
and gained direct access to at least some of Taiwan’s basic port infrastruc-
ture. For example, Kaohsiung’s Kao Ming Container Terminal was part-
ly owned by a joint venture comprising three CCP-controlled companies:
China Merchants, China Shipping Terminal, and COSCO Shipping.50 In
July 2018, COSCO Shipping bought out Orient Overseas, a major investor
in Taiwanese terminals, thereby reportedly gaining outright control over
the Kao Ming Container Terminal.51
Today, this strategically located terminal in the Port of Kaohsiung uses
automated “smart” cranes made in Shanghai by Shanghai Zhenhua Heavy
Industries Company Limited (ZPMC), a PRC state-owned enterprise with
close ties to the Chinese military.52 Other Taiwanese ports, including the
Port of Taipei, use a significant number of cranes from ZPMC.53 In addition
to cranes and other port infrastructure, ZPMC and COSCO Shipping both
own large dual-use ships that have trained with the PLA and almost certain-
ly would support amphibious-landing operations against Taiwan.54
The automated command-and-control systems that ZPMC equipment
employs in the Ports of Kaohsiung and Taipei and elsewhere use central-
ized networks fed by surveillance cameras deployed around the port. They
further leverage truck and container location-tracking systems, with radio-
frequency identification (known as RFID) technology matched to each
truck’s chassis.55 Given that ZPMC is a CCP-owned company with close ties
to the PLA, it seems almost certain that its automated surveillance systems
could send data back to China, allowing the Chinese military to collect
real-time intelligence on Taiwan’s ports continuously. While this is specu-
lative, PLA operatives could have installed a variety of covert surveillance
devices on the gantry cranes themselves.56 In addition, the presence of CCP
officers and their agents in Taiwan’s major ports might allow undercover
PLA operatives to develop relationships with the local business community
that could be exploited for intelligence-gathering and psychological-warfare
operations.57
358 C H I N E S E A M P H I B I O U S WA R FA R E

Second, winning over, or at least controlling and corrupting, hearts and

minds is an equally vital part of the PLA’s preparation of the future battle-
field. As Chinese military researchers observe, “Psychological warfare is
extremely important for victory in our landing operations. Amphibious-
landing forces will form specialized psychological warfare units to execute
compellence, crumbling the morale of those defending ports and devastat-
ing their will to resist.”58
According to authoritative texts, the PLA will undertake psychological
operations “specifically tailored to their targets by message and method,” us-
ing traditional means such as propaganda broadcasts, messages in balloons,
leaflets, and floating buoys, alongside messages delivered via advanced-
technology tools such as social media. The Chinese military will employ
“any effective measure. . . . We can also use enticements for the businessmen
around the defender’s port zones, getting them to spread our messages and
conquer local hearts.”59

Targeted Ports
Considering known PLA assumptions and other factors, which ports on
Taiwan might be targeted for seizure in the event of an invasion, and why?
Chinese military research indicates that PLA planners are likely to take a
large number of factors into consideration when determining which of Tai-
wan’s ports to target for amphibious landings. According to Chinese sourc-
es, the PLA’s most likely targets will be ports that could support the rapid
off-loading of main battle tanks and other heavy equipment. The ideal can-
didates for attack would be well-developed commercial or industrial ports
flanked by beaches and river deltas in relatively flat and lightly urbanized
areas.60 From these criteria, the Port of Taichung appears to be the most
probable location for a major PLA landing attempt. In addition, Chinese
planners almost certainly would consider the Ports of Kaohsiung, Mailiao,
Taipei, and Anping (Tainan) as potential targets. In contrast, while the Port
of Keelung is strategically located, it appears to meet none of the geograph-
ic criteria that would make it an appealing target for seizure.
Internal PLA sources consider Taiwan’s naval ports to be the most
heavily defended and by far the most difficult to capture. Nonetheless,
the book Research on Port Landing Operations states that Taiwanese naval
ports almost certainly would be targeted for “all-out” attacks and seizure,
because their infrastructure is ideal for creating major landing zones and
bases of operations from which to push inland.61 While not mentioned by
name, the port of Zuoying, near Kaohsiung, appears to be the particular
 H O S T I LE H A R B O R S 359

location that PLA planners have in mind. The Ports of Keelung and Suao
might be considered as well, but their locations would present an attacker
with immense logistical challenges. Exhibit 4 lists Taiwan’s major ports
and describes some of their important features.

Exhibit 3. Taiwan’s Largest International Containerports

Port of Taipei

Port of
Keelung

Port of Suao
Taichung Port

Port of
Hualien

Port of
Anping

Port of
Kaosuing

0 50km

Source: “Automated Container Terminal in Taiwan.”

Internal PLA documents analyzed in this chapter demonstrate that the

Chinese party-state continues to prepare for a Taiwan invasion campaign
with a remarkable degree of focus, and to this end it has developed a large
and growing set of military and nonmilitary capabilities. If the theories
laid out in Chinese military textbooks are put to the test, Taiwan’s own port
infrastructure could become the critical battlefield that decides which side
prevails. The Taiwanese government has demonstrated a willingness to
Exhibit 4. Taiwanese Ports

Details and Considerations for Suitability for

Name Type Size
Amphibious Operations Invasion

Port of Commercial, Mega Dense urban environment, could be flanked from nearby beaches and river Medium-high
Kaohsiung industrial, delta, wide range of excellent port facilities under some degree of CCP influ-
and military ence, overlooked by Shoushan/“Monkey Mountain” (1,168 feet) and Banping
Mountain (720 feet), located near major army and marine corps bases, likely to
be well defended

Port of Military Large Urban, could be flanked from nearby beaches and river delta, overlooked by Medium-high
Zuoying hills, overlooked by Shoushan/“Monkey Mountain” (1,168 feet) and Banping
Mountain (720 feet), located at large navy and marine corps bases, likely to be
well defended

Port of Commercial Large Light urban, could be flanked on both sides from river deltas and beaches, High
Taichung overlooked at a significant distance by the Dadu ridgeline (1,017 feet), close to
large air force and army bases, likely to be well defended

Port of Commercial and Large Dense urban environment, unfavorable coast for flanking attempts, close Low
Keelung military to Taiwan’s capital, surrounded by mountains on all sides, including Wuzhi
(Five Finger) Mountains (2,293 feet) and Huo/Keelung Mountains (1,929 feet),
location of navy base, likely to be well defended

Port of Commercial Large Nonurban, close to Taiwan’s capital, has port infrastructure under some Medium-high
Taipei degree of CCP influence, could be flanked from large nearby beach and river
delta, overlooked by Guanyin Mountain (2,021 feet), Linkou Plateau (820 feet),
and Yangming Mountain (3,589 feet), located near marine corps and army
bases, likely to be well defended
 Suao Military and Large Nonurban, surrounded on two sides by Qixing Mountains (750 feet), Xiaomao Low
Port fishing Mountain (2,579 feet), Dong’ao Ling Mountain (2,694 feet), and other high
peaks, location of large navy base, likely to be moderately defended

Port of Mailiao Industrial Medium Nonurban, could be flanked by nearby river delta, surrounded by flat wet- Medium
lands, likely to be lightly defended

Port of Anping Commercial Small Urban, could be flanked from small river delta and large nearby beach, sur- Medium-high
(Tainan) rounded by flat wetlands, nearby large air force base and army aviation base,
likely to be well defended

Port of Hualien Commercial Small Light urban, overlooked by high mountains, nearby large air force base and Low
underground complex, likely to be moderately defended

Port of Makung Military and Small Nonurban, main port of Penghu Island group, location of navy base, likely to Varies1
fishing be moderately defended

Notes: “Suitability for Invasion” estimates are based on the limited sources available, which are not current, and are constrained further by the author’s imperfect understanding of
the defensive terrain and other military factors; they constitute “best guesses” only.
1 If the Penghu Islands were invaded, the ROC navy base at Makung almost certainly would be the key target to seize. But whether the PLA would attack the Penghus before or
during a Taiwan invasion campaign is an open question. Obviously, taking Makung would not give the PLA a foothold on Taiwan itself.
Source: Geographic data come from Google Maps, local government websites, and hiking-enthusiast blogs. Information on Taiwan’s order of battle can be found in Easton, The Chi-
nese Invasion Threat, pp. 283–307.
Exhibit 5. PLA Roles and Missions in Port Landing Operations

Service/
Unit Type Roles and Missions
Branch

Infantry PLA Motorized (and combined-arms) infantry and amphibious mechanized infantry units will make amphibious landings
ground around ports, generally in coordination with PLA Navy marines. They will secure and expand lodgments, defeat counter-
forces attacks, support armor offensives inland, support combat-engineering operations to clear obstacles and repair docks, and
guard artillery and air-defense assets.

Armor PLA Armored brigades and battalions with amphibious tanks will make amphibious landings in support of infantry units.
ground They will coordinate with airborne operations, air assaults, and special-forces units to seize important targets around ports.
forces Amphibious-tank units will attack upriver deltas to seize key terrain and flank port zones. Conventional armored units
will land as part of the second wave to smash counterattacks, expand lodgments, and hammer inland.

Special PLA Special forces will collect intelligence, carry out raids, seize and occupy strategic points, designate targets for precision strikes,
forces ground and conduct psychological warfare.
forces

Artillery PLA Long-range rocket artillery capable of reaching across the Taiwan Strait will support joint fire strikes on targets to secure
ground control over the information, air, and sea domains. Shipborne guns will carry out direct fires on coastal-defense works,
forces obstacles, and enemy batteries to support infantry and tank landings. Amphibious artillery and antitank artillery units will
support operations to seize, hold, and develop lodgments. Long-range artillery units will locate and destroy enemy batteries
that could devastate captured ports.

Air defense PLA Air-defense units will provide a protective umbrella over all units during all stages of the invasion. They will help secure
ground air control early in conflict. They will then protect amphibious fleets as they assemble, load, and cross the strait. They will
forces protect amphibious-assault units as they make landings, seize ports, strengthen lodgments, and smash counterattacks. They
will protect second-wave and reserve forces as they land and push into the island.

Army PLA Army aviation (helicopter) units will engage coastal targets with direct fires prior to amphibious assaults. They then will
aviation ground provide fire support during the invasion and make raids on interior targets. They will make coastal air assaults, carry out
forces electronic-warfare operations, transport special forces, and conduct logistics-support missions as needed.
 Electronic PLA Electronic-countermeasures units will collect electronic intelligence. They then will jam the defender’s communications,
counter- ground radars, fire-control systems, and precision-guidance systems. They will conduct electronic feints and deception operations to
measures forces ensure operational surprise. They will support air-defense operations and amphibious operations.

PLA PLA Air force units will seize and maintain air control. They then will employ bombers and fighter-bombers to strike the defend-
Air Force Air Force er’s command posts, artillery batteries, mobile reserve forces, and coastal defenses. They will provide air cover and fire sup-
port for amphibious operations and air assaults. They will coordinate with civil aviation assets to conduct airborne assaults.
They will mop up targets that army artillery units miss and help smash counterattacks.

Surface fleet PLA Navy units will seize and maintain sea control. They will support amphibious assaults and port-seizure operations. They will
Navy resist third-party (U.S.) intervention operations. After minesweepers have cleared safe channels to shore, small numbers of
naval amphibious ships and massive numbers of civilian transports will land troops and equipment on Taiwan. The surface
fleet and PLA Naval Air Force will provide fire support, conduct air-defense operations, and enforce maritime “keep-out
zones.”

Marines PLA Marine units will make amphibious landings to seize port zones independently or in coordination with army amphibious
Navy units. They will attack important targets from the coast into the island’s depths. They will conduct special-forces missions.
They will create false targets, carry out feints, and undertake other deception operations to maintain operational surprise.

Theater PLA Ballistic and cruise missiles with theater ranges will carry out joint strikes with the air force at the outset of conflict to gain
missiles Rocket control over the electromagnetic and air domains. They will coordinate with the navy to seize sea control and then cover am-
Force phibious operations. Next, they will provide fire support for the amphibious assaults, protecting them from counterattacking
forces in the island’s rear areas and depths. They will resist third-party (U.S.) intervention operations.

People’s People’s People’s Armed Police units will assemble from all across China as needed to safeguard supply lines and garrison occupied
Armed Armed territory. They will protect against enemy raids and air attacks. They will guard critical infrastructure and, when needed, re-
Police Police store it. They will ensure internal stability within seized port zones. They will support logistics operations. When necessary,
they will augment amphibious-landing operations.

Ground and Militia of Militia units will assemble from all across China as needed to safeguard supply lines and garrison occupied territory. They
maritime China will protect against enemy raids and air attacks. They will guard critical infrastructure and, when needed, restore it. They
militia will ensure internal stability within seized port zones. They will support logistics operations. When necessary, they will
augment amphibious-landing operations.

Source: Xu and Wang, Research on Port Landing Operations, pp. 72–88.

36 4 C H I N E S E A M P H I B I O U S WA R FA R E

address many of its defense challenges; however, some of them remain only
partly addressed, while others have been left completely unaddressed—
because of their political sensitivity. One of the last mentioned appears to
be port security.
It cannot be known which of Taiwan’s ports the PLA ultimately would
select to attack in the event of war and what those attacks would look like
in practice. Nonetheless, educated guesses can be made on the basis of
Chinese military research materials that have emerged on the subject, and
those guesses can be tested against other sources of information, including
reports on known or suspected PLA activities of relevance, such as military
exercises focused on port seizure. Undoubtedly, a basic understanding of
the local geography could prove useful to such analytic endeavors. All this
information and more should help inform future efforts to make Taiwan’s
ports better defended and more secure.
There is much that Taiwan’s government can do to protect itself better
from the threats examined in this chapter. Taiwanese leaders could close
CCP-controlled representative offices. They could remove and replace crit-
ical port infrastructure that is linked to the Chinese military. They could
increase readiness and intensify current preparations for future port-
defense operations. To defend better against known PLA plans to invade
Taiwan through its harbors, the ROC military could acquire and field sig-
nificant numbers of additional missiles and mines. Taiwan could build a
larger and better-trained ground force, with a focus on elite units that spe-
cialize in urban warfare, such as marines and military police.
Taiwan’s reserve force could be overhauled to ensure that the nation is
capable of rapidly mobilizing hundreds of thousands of well-trained and
confident personnel for homeland-defense missions. Taiwan could stock-
pile munitions and supplies near ports. Taiwanese leaders could educate the
public better about the threat, so that everyday citizens are able to identify
and resist PLA political-warfare operations and know how to contribute
should a man-made disaster occur. Enoch Wu and other thought leaders
on Taiwan have started resilience-improvement initiatives involving first
aid training, civil-military workshops, and mass-casualty simulations to
prepare the Taiwanese public for the shock of war.62 These programs could
be expanded and scaled up, with a focus on at-risk port cities.
As a final note, it bears emphasizing that there are many reasons
why Beijing so far has elected to put off an invasion attempt and instead
uses only nonlethal forms of coercion against Taipei. Of these, Taiwan’s
political strength and military power are unlikely to be the main deter-
rent factors. U.S.-Taiwan security relations are the paramount strategic
variable in the decision-making calculus of leaders on both sides of the
 H O S T I LE H A R B O R S 365

Taiwan Strait.63 Going forward, the United States could improve deter-
rence by sending Marines and special-operations forces to Taiwan on
long-term training, advisory, and liaison missions and beginning port-
defense exercises with the Taiwanese military. And the United States could
send high-ranking generals and admirals to participate in those exercises.
Today, vanishingly few senior leaders at the Pentagon could give the pres-
ident of the United States expert counsel in the event of a Taiwan Strait
conflict; they have never even toured Taipei, let alone examined Taiwan’s
coastal battle space and interacted with their counterparts in the field.
Ultimately, the road to strategic success leads away from the applica-
tion of pure military solutions to political problems. The United States and
Taiwan should strive toward what Mark Stokes has dubbed an “NSC re-
lationship”: normal, stable, and constructive. The current ambiguity sur-
rounding America’s policy toward Taiwan is likely to prove structurally
unstable over the long run because it isolates Taipei, emboldens Beijing,
and invites miscalculation on all sides. The United States should contin-
ue moving away from its past policy of diplomatically isolating Taiwan—
keeping it vulnerable, as a concession to Beijing—and find an innovative
way to treat Taiwan as the internationally important, independent country
that it actually is.

Notes
1. 中国远洋海运集团正式成立 [“China COSCO Shipping Corporation Officially
Stood Up”], 中共湖北省委军民融合发展委员会办公室 [CCP Hebei Office of
the Provincial Military-Civil Fusion Development Committee], 23 February 2016,
www.hbjmrh.gov.cn/xwdt/cbgy/9929.htm.
2. This includes representative offices in Taipei, the Port of Keelung, the Port of Tai-
chung, and the Port of Kaohsiung. See “Taiwan (台湾),” COSCO Shipping De-
velopment Co., 9 April 2021, development.coscoshipping.com/col/col1729/index
.html, and “China COSCO Shipping Corporation Officially Stood Up.”
3. “China COSCO Shipping Corporation Officially Stood Up.”
4. 军事科学院军事战略研究部 [Academy of Military Science Strategic Research
Department], 战略学 [Science of Military Strategy] (Beijing: Military Science
Press, 2013), pp. 198–99; 刘海江 [Liu Haijiang] and 李志远 [Li Zhiyuan], eds.,
联合战术思想研究 [Research on Joint Tactical Thought] (Beijing: Lantian Press,
2012), p. 156.
5. For background, see J. Michael Cole, “The War Threat against Taiwan: Preparing
for All Contingencies,” Global Taiwan Brief 6, no. 8 (21 April 2021), globaltaiwan
.org/2021/04/vol-6-issue-8/#JMichaelCole04212021; Kerry K. Gershaneck, Po-
litical Warfare: Strategies for Combating China’s Plan to “Win without Fighting”
(Quantico, VA: Marine Corps Univ. Press, 2020); Peter Mattis, “The Center of
Chinese Influence: The Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference,” in
Insidious Power: How China Undermines Global Democracy, ed. Hsu Szu-chien
36 6 C H I N E S E A M P H I B I O U S WA R FA R E

and J. Michael Cole (Manchester, U.K.: Camphor, 2020), pp. 3–39; Mark Stokes,
“Chinese Authoritarian Influence in the United States” in Hsu and Cole, Insidious
Power, pp. 43–81; Wu Jieh-min and Tsai Hung-jeng, “The China Factor in Taiwan:
Incentive Structure, Impact Assessment, and Counteractions,” in Hsu and Cole,
Insidious Power, pp. 205–36; and Mark Stokes and Russell Hsiao, The People’s
Liberation Army General Political Department: Political Warfare with Chinese
Characteristics (Arlington, VA: Project 2049 Institute, October 2013), project2049
.net/2013/10/14/the-peoples-liberation-army-general-political-department
-political-warfare-with-chinese-characteristics/.
6. See U.S. Defense Dept., Annual Report to Congress: Military and Security De-
velopments Involving the People’s Republic of China, 2020 (Washington, DC:
Office of the Secretary of Defense, 2020), pp. 112–20, media.defense.gov/2020/
Sep/01/2002488689/-1/-1/1/2020-DOD-CHINA-MILITARY-POWER-REPORT
-FINAL.PDF. For an examination of PLA psychological and propaganda opera-
tions directed at Taiwan, see Nathan Beauchamp-Mustafaga and Jessica Drun,
“Exploring Chinese Military Thinking on Social Media Manipulation against
Taiwan,” Jamestown Foundation China Brief 21, no. 7 (12 April 2021), available
at jamestown.org/program/exploring-chinese-military-thinking-on-social-media
-manipulation-against-taiwan/.
7. 曹正荣 [Cao Zhengrong], 孙龙海 [Sun Longhai], and 杨颖 [Yang Yin], eds.,
信息化陆军作战 [Informatized Army Operations] (Beijing: National Defense
Univ. Press, 2014), p. 112.
8. Ibid., pp. 109–13; 袁文先 [Yuan Wenxian], ed., 联合战役信息作战教程 [Course
Book on Joint Campaigns and Information Operations] (Beijing: National Defense
Univ. Press, 2009), pp. 295–96; 曹正荣 [Cao Zhengrong], 吴润波 [Wu Runbo],
and 孙建军 [Sun Jianjun], eds., 信息化联合作战 [Informatized Joint Operations]
(Beijing: Liberation Army Press, 2008), pp. 188–91.
9. 徐立升 [Xu Lisheng] and 王条勇 [Wang Tiaoyong], eds., 港口登陆作战研究
[Research on Port Landing Operations] (Beijing: National Defense Univ. Press,
2015), pp. 11–15.
10. 中华人民共和国国防交通法 [The People’s Republic of China’s National Defense
Transportation Law] (promulgated by the Standing Comm. Nat’l People’s Cong.,
3 September 2016, effective 1 January 2017), available at www.npc.gov.cn/zgrdw/
npc/xinwen/2016-09/03/content_1996764.htm.
11. 中华人民共和国国家情报法 [State Intelligence Law of the People’s Republic of
China] (promulgated by the Standing Comm. Nat’l People’s Cong., 27 June
2017, effective 28 June 2017), available at www.npc.gov.cn/npc/c30834/201806/
483221713dac4f31bda7f9d951108912.shtml.
12. For an example of how this works in practice, see National Counterintelligence
and Security Center, “China’s Collection of Genomic and Other Healthcare Data
from America: Risks to Privacy and U.S. Economic and National Security,”
Office of the Director of National Intelligence, February 2021, www.dni.gov/files/
NCSC/documents/SafeguardingOurFuture/NCSC_China_Genomics_Fact_Sheet
_2021.pdf.
13. Stein Ringen, The Perfect Dictatorship: China in the 21st Century (Hong Kong:
Hong Kong Univ. Press, 2016), pp. 14–15.
14. 姜鲁呜 [Jiang Luwu] and 罗永光 [Luo Yongguang], eds., 形成军民融合深度发
展格局 [Realizing the Deep Development of Military-Civil Fusion in Our Overall
Setup] (Beijing: Defense Univ. Press, 2018), pp. 12, 14.
 H O S T I LE H A R B O R S 367

15. The following section is adapted from Ian Easton, “Why a Taiwan Invasion Would
Look Nothing Like D-day,” The Diplomat, 26 May 2021, thediplomat.com/2021/05/
why-a-taiwan-invasion-would-look-nothing-like-d-day/.
16. Operation Overlord employed over 6,000 ships and over 1,000 aircraft, which
together landed approximately 155,000 Allied troops on D-day, including 24,000 by
air. Operation Iceberg involved 1,500 ships, which landed approximately 50,000
troops on D-day. While it remains unknown how many troops the PLA might
attempt to land on Taiwan on a notional future Z-day, the potential size of Taiwan’s
defending ground force (and other factors) suggests that the PLA would have to
land a far larger force in the initial days of the invasion to have reasonable prospects
of victory. For historical background, see Craig L. Symonds, Neptune: The Allied
Invasion of Europe and the D-day Landings (New York: Oxford Univ. Press, 2014),
pp. 307–33; Christopher D. Yung, Gators of Neptune: Naval Amphibious Planning
for the Normandy Invasion (Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 2013), pp. 125–
51; and Ronald H. Spector, Eagle against the Sun: The American War with Japan
(New York: Vintage Books, 1985), pp. 532–34.
17. The Normandy beaches were defended by around 50,000 troops under German
command. Okinawa had around 78,000 Japanese defenders, augmented by 40,000
Okinawan conscripts who had been pressed into service. See Dave Roos,
“D-day: Facts on the Epic 1944 Invasion That Changed the Course of WWII,”
History, updated 4 June 2020, www.history.com/news/d-day-normandy-wwii
-facts; “Unprecedented Scale: D-day’s Fighters, Helpers, Victims,” AP News, 5
June 2019, apnews.com/article/world-war-ii-europe-france-e91b21d9697a4fa5b03
93c72554c3725; Megan Johnson, “Rudder’s Rangers and the Boys of Pointe du
Hoc: The U.S. Army Rangers’ Mission in the Early Morning Hours of 6 June
1944,” Army Historical Foundation, n.d., armyhistory.org/rudders-rangers-and-the
-boys-of-pointe-du-hoc-the-u-s-army-rangers-mission-in-the-early-morning
-hours-of-6-june-1944/; and Spector, Eagle against the Sun, pp. 532–34.
18. 白光炜 [Bai Guangwei], ed., 台海军事地理教程 [Course Book on the Taiwan
Strait’s Military Geography] (Beijing: Military Science Press, 2013), p. 67; 中国人
民解放军总参谋部测绘局 [Survey and Mapping Bureau of the PLA General Staff
Department], 中国军事地理 [China’s Military Geography] (Beijing: Encyclopedia
of China Publishing House, 2008), p. 394.
19. Bai, Course Book on the Taiwan Strait’s Military Geography, p. 68.
20. However, it is not public information how many guns Taiwan has stockpiled for its
army, marines, and military police reservists. Nor is it clear whether Taiwan’s poorly
resourced and politically unpopular reserve system could mobilize effectively
and use a significant number of those personnel. Much too would depend on
strategic early warning and the will of Taiwan’s president and his or her cabinet
to act with alacrity. See John Feng, “Taiwan to Begin 24/7 Simulation of Chi-
nese Invasion,” Newsweek, 20 April 2021, www.newsweek.com/taiwan-begin-24-7
-simulation-chinese-invasion-1584984, and John Feng, “Taiwan to Raise ‘Temple
Militia’ of Holy Villagers to Fight Off Chinese Invasion,” Newsweek, 20 April 2021,
www.newsweek.com/taiwan-raise-temple-militia-holy-villagers-fight-off-china
-invasion-1585020. For background on Taiwan’s operational readiness, see Mark
Stokes, Yang Kuang-shun, and Eric Lee, Preparing for the Nightmare: Readiness
and Ad Hoc Coalition Operations in the Taiwan Strait (Arlington, VA: Project
2049 Institute, September 2020), project2049.net/2020/09/01/preparing-for-the
-nightmare-readiness-and-ad-hoc-coalition-operations-in-the-taiwan-strait/.
36 8 C H I N E S E A M P H I B I O U S WA R FA R E

21. For background on the history of U.S.-Taiwan defense and security relations, see
Ian Easton, “Will America Defend Taiwan? Here’s What History Says,” in “US
Defense of Taiwan,” special issue, Strategika, no. 73 (30 June 2021), www.hoover
.org/research/will-america-defend-taiwan-heres-what-history-says.
22. Timothy R. Heath, “China’s Military Has No Combat Experience: Does It Matter?,”
RAND Blog, 27 November 2018, www.rand.org/blog/2018/11/chinas-military
-has-no-combat-experience-does-it-matter.html.
23. Steve Sacks, “China’s Military Has a Hidden Weakness,” Asia Defense (blog),
The Diplomat, 20 April 2021, thediplomat.com/2021/04/chinas-military-has-a
-hidden-weakness/; Dennis J. Blasko, “The Chinese Military Speaks to Itself,
Revealing Doubts,” War on the Rocks, 18 February 2019, warontherocks.com/
2019/02/the-chinese-military-speaks-to-itself-revealing-doubts/.
24. The author thanks Randy Schriver for these points.
25. The geographical facts cited in the text come from Survey and Mapping Bureau,
China’s Military Geography, p. 337.
26. For example, see John J. Mearsheimer, “Why the Soviets Can’t Win Quickly in
Central Europe,” International Security 7, no. 1 (Summer 1982), p. 15. See also
Robert Ross Smith, “Luzon versus Formosa,” in Command Decisions, ed. Kent
Roberts Greenfield (Washington, DC: Center of Military History, 1987), pp. 461–
77, and Ian Easton, The Chinese Invasion Threat: Taiwan’s Defense and American
Strategy in Asia (Manchester, U.K.: Eastbridge Books, 2019), p. 39.
27. Obviously, this is a simplistic formula, but it seems logical—and informed guesses
are undoubtedly better than the available alternative.
28. In 2014, the PRC already had well over 70,000 registered transport ships, with
25,113 in Shanghai and 23,725 in Xiamen—directly across the Taiwan Strait.
Since then, these vessels have grown both in numbers and in their dual-use
capabilities. See 中国口岸年鉴2014 [China Port Authority Yearbook 2014] (Bei-
jing: China Port Authority Press, 2014), pp. 38–40. For a recent examination
of military-civil fusion developments in this area, see Conor M. Kennedy,
Civil Transport in PLA Power Projection, China Maritime Report 4 (Newport,
RI: China Maritime Studies Institute, December 2019), digital-commons
.usnwc.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1003&context=cmsi-maritime-reports. For
background on China’s impressive naval shipbuilding industry, see An-
drew S. Erickson, “The Chinese Naval Shipbuilding Bookshelf,” China Analysis
from Original Sources, 11 February 2021, www.andrewerickson.com/2021/02/
the-chinese-naval-shipbuilding-bookshelf/, and Andrew S. Erickson, ed., Chinese
Naval Shipbuilding: An Ambitious and Uncertain Course (Annapolis, MD: Naval
Institute Press, 2016).
29. See Xu and Wang, Research on Port Landing Operations, pp. 72–88.
30. For example, see Conor Kennedy, “Ramping the Strait: Quick and Dirty Solutions
to Boost Amphibious Lift,” Jamestown Foundation China Brief 21, no. 14 (16 July
2021), available at jamestown.org/program/ramping-the-strait-quick-and-dirty
-solutions-to-boost-amphibious-lift/.
31. Jiang and Luo, Realizing the Deep Development of Military-Civil Fusion, pp.
203–204.
32. Xu and Wang, Research on Port Landing Operations, pp. 9–12.
33. Cao, Sun, and Yang, Informatized Army Operations, pp. 134–35; Cao, Wu, and Sun,
Informatized Joint Operations, pp. 202–203.
 H O S T I LE H A R B O R S 369

34. Cao, Sun, and Yang, Informatized Army Operations, pp. 140–41.
35. Xu and Wang, Research on Port Landing Operations, p. 12.
36. Ibid., pp. 11–12.
37. Ibid., pp. 40–43. Unless otherwise noted, the following paragraphs draw from ibid.
38. Considering the context, heavy ground forces appears to refer to armored or
mechanized infantry battalions or brigades.
39. The term appears in Xu and Wang, Research on Port Landing Operations, pp. 40–
43.
40. Although it seems probable that most already would have been lost or expended by
the time PLA amphibious-landing forces were within visual range of Taiwan.
41. Xu and Wang, Research on Port Landing Operations, pp. 41–42.
42. Taiwanese armored units or mechanized infantry units likely would be tasked with
destroying PLA armor and clearing the PLA’s airborne landing zones. Taiwanese
marines and army special-forces teams could be in charge of rapid counterattacks,
although they also could be held in strategic reserve and tasked with nighttime
raids against PLA lodgments once the daylight hours had drawn to a close.
43. See also Cao, Sun, and Yang, Informatized Army Operations, p. 124.
44. Ibid., p. 148.
45. The following sections draw from Xu and Wang, Research on Port Landing Opera-
tions, pp. 44–60, and Cao, Sun, and Yang, Informatized Army Operations, pp. 160–
63.
46. Xu and Wang, Research on Port Landing Operations, pp. 61–70; Cao, Sun, and
Yang, Informatized Army Operations, pp. 160–63.
47. Xu and Wang, Research on Port Landing Operations, p. 101.
48. The following sections draw from ibid., pp. 101–10, and Cao, Sun, and Wang,
Informatized Army Operations, pp. 160–63.
49. Xu and Wang, Research on Port Landing Operations, p. 104.
50. “COSCO Pacific Joins Hands with China Merchants International and China
Shipping Terminal to Invest in Kao Ming Container Terminal at Port of Kao-
hsiung, Taiwan,” COSCO Shipping, 19 December 2012, ports.coscoshipping.com/
en/Media/PressReleases/content.php?id=20121219. See also “Interim Report 2020,”
China Merchants Port Holding Company Limited, 31 March 2021, www.cmport
.com.hk/entouch/investor/reports.aspx, and “Local Contacts—Taiwan,” OOCL,
7 July 2021, www.oocl.com/taiwan/eng/localinformation/localcontacts/Pages/
default.aspx. OOCL was acquired by COSCO, a PRC state-owned enterprise, in
2018.
51. Note that the same deal also gave COSCO control over a container terminal in
the Port of Long Beach, California. However, this was only temporary, as U.S.
government authorities forced COSCO to sell its business to an Australian com-
pany a year later. See Lauly Li and Zach Coleman, “Taiwan Quietly Lets Chinese
State Company Take Over Port Area,” Nikkei Asia, 17 September 2018, asia.nikkei
.com/Business/Companies/Taiwan-quietly-lets-Chinese-state-company-take
-over-port-area, and Chester Yung, “Cosco Shipping Units to Sell U.S. Long Beach
Container Terminal for $1.78 Billion,” Wall Street Journal, 30 April 2019, www.wsj
.com/articles/cosco-shipping-units-to-sell-u-s-long-beach-container-terminal
-for-1-78-billion-11556595995.
370 C H I N E S E A M P H I B I O U S WA R FA R E

52. “ZPMC Bags ASC Order,” WorldCargo News, 1 February 2009, www.worldcargo
news.com/news-in-print/zpmc-bags-asc-order-46373. For background on ZPMC,
see Kate O’Keeffe and Chun Han Wong, “U.S. Sanctions Chinese Firms and
Executives Active in Contested South China Sea,” Wall Street Journal, 26 Au-
gust 2020, www.wsj.com/articles/u-s-imposes-visa-export-restrictions-on-chinese
-firms-and-executives-active-in-contested-south-china-sea-11598446551. See also
U.S. Defense Dept., “DOD Releases List of Additional Companies, in Ac-
cordance with Section 1237 of FY99 NDAA,” news release, 28 August 2020,
www.defense.gov/Newsroom/Releases/Release/Article/2328894/dod-releases-list
-of-additional-companies-in-accordance-with-section-1237-of-fy/, and “Qual-
ifying Entities Prepared in Response to Section 1237 of the National
Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 1999 (PUBLIC LAW 105-261),”
U.S. Department of Defense, 28 August 2020, media.defense.gov/2020/Aug/
28/2002486689/-1/-1/1/LINK_1_1237_TRANCHE-23_QUALIFYING
_ENTITIES.PDF, and “Taipei Crane Deal Gives Lift to ZPMC,” Lloyd’s List,
11 December 2007, lloydslist.maritimeintelligence.informa.com/LL101894/Taipei
-crane-deal-gives-lift-to-ZPMC.
53. Kennedy, “Ramping the Strait”; Andrew Tate, “Exercise Demonstrates PLA Army
Aviation Ability to Use Commercial Ships as Temporary Flight Decks,” Janes, 21
August 2020, www.janes.com/defence-news/news-detail/exercise-demonstrates
-pla-army-aviation-ability-to-use-commercial-ships-as-temporary-flight-decks.
54. See “Automated Container Terminal in Taiwan,” Nippon Express, 26 November
2019, www.nipponexpress.com/press/report/26-Nov-19.html.
55. Note that when two of Kaohsiung’s cranes were lost and two were damaged in
a super typhoon, ZPMC repaired them with an extraordinary level of urgency
(four months instead of the standard eighteen months). See “Ports Get Cranes
in a Hurry,” WorldCargo News, 1 January 2017, www.worldcargonews.com/news
-in-print/ports-get-cranes-in-a-hurry-38624, and “Cranes Down in Kaohsiung,”
WorldCargo News, 1 September 2016, www.worldcargonews.com/news-in-print/
cranes-down-in-kaohsiung-36794.
56. For example, as mentioned, COSCO, a PRC state-owned enterprise, has repre-
sentative offices in Taipei, the Port of Keelung, the Port of Taichung, and the Port
of Kaohsiung. See “Taiwan (台湾).”
57. Xu and Wang, Research on Port Landing Operations, p. 69.
58. Ibid., pp. 69–70.
59. Ibid., pp. 11–14.
60. Ibid., pp. 13–14.
61. Helen Davidson, “Second Line of Defence: Taiwan’s Civilians Train to Resist
Invasion,” The Guardian, 22 September 2021, www.theguardian.com/world/2021/
sep/22/second-line-of-defence-taiwans-civilians-train-to-resist-invasion.
62. Stokes, Yang, and Lee, Preparing for the Nightmare, p. 51
63. See “Reinforcing the U.S.-Taiwan Relationship,” Project 2049 Institute, 17 April
2018, project2049.net/2018/04/17/reinforcing-the-u-s-taiwan-relationship/. For
background, see Mark Stokes, “The United States and Future Policy Options in
the Taiwan Strait,” Project 2049 Institute (blog), 17 January 2017, project2049
.net/2017/01/17/the-united-states-and-future-policy-options-in-the-taiwan
-strait-2/.
 J. Michael Dahm

16. Chinese Ferry Tales

The PLA’s Use of Civilian Shipping in Support
of Over-the-Shore Logistics

The People’s Liberation Army (PLA) probably will not be able to conduct
a successful cross-strait invasion of Taiwan unless and until it masters what
the U.S. military calls joint logistics over-the-shore (JLOTS). While JLOTS is
not a term that Chinese military authors typically use, they nevertheless have
considered how the PLA should conduct logistical support immediately after
a large-scale amphibious assault and have commented on the capabilities
the PLA may require to do so. These capabilities include unloading in
rudimentary or damaged port facilities; using temporary piers or wharves to
off-load vehicles and supplies directly to shore; and unloading cargo ships,
including roll-on/roll-off (RO/RO) ships, at sea and then lightering matériel
to a captured port or beachhead.
PLA authors uniformly assert that “civilian” ships, working closely with
the military, will be an integral component of any major cross-sea logistics
operation, including over-the-shore operations. In recent years, the PLA
has conducted a number of exercises to bolster military-civil fusion (MCF)
in amphibious operations. To what extent have these exercises helped to
develop the JLOTS capabilities needed for a Taiwan invasion?
This chapter sheds light on this vital question by examining carefully
MCF exercises held in 2020 and 2021. In the summer of 2020, the PLA’s
372 C H I N E S E A M P H I B I O U S WA R FA R E

Joint Logistics Support Force (JLSF) conducted a complex, large-scale,

maritime-logistics exercise in China’s Eastern Theater—the military
command that would be responsible for a cross-strait invasion. Taking place
in Lianyungang, Jiangsu Province, Exercise Eastern Transportation-
Projection 2020A featured the JLSF working closely with a large number
of substantial civilian RO/RO ferries, cargo ships, tugs, and construction
vessels, as well as PLA landing craft, in an amphibious-logistics exercise
that became increasingly complex over the course of two months. While the
PLA did not repeat this exercise in the summer of 2021, it did conduct unit-
level training in the Southern Theater Command and a large exercise in the
Eastern Theater Command. These amphibious exercises appeared to move
beyond benign logistics or the deployment of second-echelon forces in
amphibious-landing areas; they involved civilian RO/RO ferries working in
concert with larger PLA Navy (PLAN) amphibious-assault ships, deploying
first-echelon forces offshore in beach-landing operations. In September
2021, the PLA also tested and evaluated a new floating-causeway system, an
effort to improve on a modular floating pier showcased in 2020.
This chapter integrates open-source media reports with ships’ tracking
data from Automatic Identification System (AIS) terminals and commercial
satellite imagery to reconstruct the 2020 and 2021 MCF exercises.1 On the
basis of an in-depth analysis of the events, the chapter offers the following
conclusions about the PLA’s capabilities to conduct amphibious operations
using civilian ships as a core component of a large-scale amphibious
operation:
• As of 2021, the PLA and its reserve civilian merchant fleet probably
were unable to provide significant amphibious-landing capabilities
or the maritime logistics in austere or challenging environments
necessary to support a large-scale, cross-strait invasion of Taiwan.
• The PLA’s use of civilian shipping in amphibious exercises appears
to be limited to select ships that demonstrate capabilities that are
nascent but not yet capable of supporting a cross-strait invasion.
However, capacities could increase rapidly after initial capabilities are
demonstrated formally and exercise participation expands to a larger
number of civilian ships.
• The 2020–21 exercise events appear to have been scripted and focused
on establishing procedures and on coordinating among military units
and civilian components.
• The 2020 JLSF exercise featured experimentation with a number of
novel logistics capabilities that have been slow to develop and likely
have not matured yet, probably owing to a lack of investment. In a
 C H I N E S E FER R Y TA LE S 373

possible change to that pattern, the 2021 activity saw the introduction
of the first new amphibious-landing technologies in over fifteen
years.
• In most cases, civilian shipping support to amphibious exercises was
provided during daylight hours; events were timed for when tides
and weather conditions were favorable; and many evolutions took
place in the sheltered waters of an inner harbor.
• In the 2020 JLSF exercise, there was no evidence of simulated
combat conditions during the exercise; no defensive actions (e.g.,
convoying, escorting, evasion, or diversion) were observed. In the
2021 amphibious-landing exercises, civilian ferries appeared to be
deployed and positioned in ways aimed at mitigating potential threats
to these vulnerable ships.
• These 2020–21 exercises likely provide a baseline for the PLA’s use
of civilian shipping to support large-scale amphibious logistics and
furnish a road map for the types of capabilities and capacities the
PLA may need for future operations.

JLOTS with Chinese Characteristics

According to U.S. military doctrine, logistics over-the-shore (LOTS) opera-
tions involve the loading and off-loading of ships in austere areas where
fixed port facilities are damaged, unavailable, or inadequate for operational
needs. Joint logistics over-the-shore operations occur when forces from
different services—in the case of the U.S. military, the Army, Navy, and
Marine Corps—join together to conduct LOTS operations.2
While some Chinese military authors have examined U.S. concepts and
translated JLOTS as “岸滩联合后勤” (literally, “shore-beach joint logis-
tics”), Chinese military scholars do not appear to have adopted the U.S.
term widely.3 Nevertheless, the Chinese military has discussed how to
conduct logistics operations where port facilities are not available. Terms
more typically associated with these operations include “人工港” (artificial
port) and “无码头卸载” (“no-dock” or “dockless” unloading). This term-
inology is employed most often in the context of an amphibious “landing
base” (登陆基地). A landing base is established immediately after a suc-
cessful amphibious assault by deploying quickly the at-sea component
of the “transportation and projection force” (运输投送力量). In a post-
amphibious-assault scenario, the transportation and projection force
facilitates transshipment of second-echelon troops and heavy equipment
374 C H I N E S E A M P H I B I O U S WA R FA R E

from ships offshore. Use of the landing base is expected to continue until
an adequate “fixed transshipment base” (固定转运基地) can be established
in a captured enemy port or harbor.4
PLA experts have taken lessons from Chinese and foreign mili-
tary history that underscore the significance of access to amphibious-
landing bases. The 1949 campaign to seize Kinmen (Jinmen) Island, in
which Republic of China (ROC) forces routed PLA forces conducting
an amphibious raid, stands out as an example found in many Chinese
writings.5 The loss occurred in large part because PLA boats that had
landed successfully on Kinmen at high tide became stranded at low tide,
leaving them unable to return and bring second-echelon reinforcements
from the mainland. ROC forces decimated the exposed craft. Two Chinese
military authors took a pointed lesson from the Kinmen campaign: “Even
if the first-echelon combat force can seize the beachhead, if logistic support
cannot keep pace, the follow-on echelon will not be able to disembark,
which will have a great impact on the entire landing operation and even
the overall joint operation in extreme cases.”6
The amphibious logistics required for a cross-strait invasion of
Taiwan would be significantly larger in scope than that associated with
the battle over the small island of Kinmen. Reading about Allied over-
the-shore logistics during the invasion of Normandy in the Second World
War appears to be required for PLA logistics students, given the number
of references to that operation. In a January 2020 article, PLA experts
observed that the strategic port of Cherbourg, France, located a few miles
from the Allied beachheads on the Normandy coast, effectively had been
destroyed, then booby-trapped by retreating German forces. It took British
and American forces three weeks to restore port operations in Cherbourg.
The authors asserted that Taiwan forces likewise would sabotage ports and
harbors if the mainland attempted to invade the island. Therefore, like the
Allies in their successful efforts to conduct logistics operations through
an artificial port built in Normandy, the PLA too must have capabilities to
move significant amounts of matériel, equipment, and personnel ashore in
the absence of adequate port infrastructure.7
Chinese military authors writing on logistics uniformly assert that
civilian shipping will be an integral component of any large-scale “cross-
sea projection” (跨海投送) operation, especially a cross-strait invasion of
Taiwan.8 The 1982 Falklands War furnishes another favored case study for
PLA logisticians, who are quick to point out that Great Britain’s Royal Navy
requisitioned not only tankers, RO/RO cargo ships, and containerships
but also passenger ships, tugboats, fishing boats, and other vessels.9 Chi-
nese military authors appear to categorize transportation and projection
 C H I N E S E FER R Y TA LE S 375

capabilities as either military or civilian. In terms of maritime-projection

forces, one Chinese military article observes that the PLA uses five types of
ships to support amphibious logistics: amphibious dock ships, tank landing
ships and landing craft, RO/RO ships, ordinary cargo ships, and fishing
boats.10
Chinese military authors have identified several different capabilities
that they believe the PLA should have to support amphibious-landing
bases. These capabilities include temporary facilities for unloading directly
to a beach: barges, floating piers, and temporarily installed elevated piers.
Temporary piers, sometimes translated as “trestle piers” (栈桥码头), may
be combined with large barges at the end of the piers to berth ships, forming
a mobile port. In some environments, to reach the deep water required for
large ships, temporary piers would have to be impractically long. Therefore,
Chinese military experts aver that the PLA also must have the capability to
set up a “floating offshore sea base” (海上浮动卸载基地) when a relatively
safe area is available offshore, to transfer heavy equipment from a large
RO/RO or other cargo ship to smaller vessels suitable for landing directly
on a beach. Mother ships or barges with cranes also may be necessary for
unloading containers, vehicles, or other cargo onto smaller ships. Finally,
rapid port- and harbor-repair capabilities may be necessary to establish
provisional unloading points in damaged ports.11
A 2020 PLA exercise featured most of these logistics capabilities.
Operations ranged from off-loading cargo and rolling stock at a rudimentary
port facility to the use of relocatable floating piers. Floating piers were
combined with a large, semisubmersible barge to form a mobile port. The
exercise also featured RO/RO and general-cargo vessels using deck barges
and floating cranes to load and unload cargo offshore. Landing craft ferried
cargo and equipment from the offshore floating bases to a beach.

The 2020 JLSF Amphibious-Logistics Exercise

In the summer of 2020, the JLSF conducted a complex logistics exer-
cise named Eastern Transportation-Projection 2020A (东部运投
—2020A). According to a banner that appeared in a video covering
the exercise, this was “military-civil joint training” (军地联合训练),
making it an MCF event.12 This exercise provides insights about Chinese
capabilities to con-duct over-the-shore logistics in support of a Taiwan
invasion or other large-scale military lift operation.
A detailed analysis of publicly available sources, including media
reporting, civilian-ship AIS tracking data, and commercial satellite
376 C H I N E S E A M P H I B I O U S WA R FA R E

imagery, reveals that the exercise took place over two months between
June and August 2020. Two major foci of the exercise appear to have been
the integration of civilian ships into military-logistics operations and the
training of their crews. These ships included large RO/RO ferries, general-
cargo ships, a semisubmersible barge normally used in port construction,
tugs, deck barges, a floating crane, and possibly fishing boats. Cargo and
equipment off-loaded by the civilian ships were not limited to benign
matériel; tanks and other armored vehicles were discharged directly onto a
beach from a civilian ferry using the floating pier.
A one-minute video posted on Chinese-government social media in
August 2020 provides a useful starting point for an analysis of the event.13
PLA JLSF uniform shoulder patches are clearly visible in the video. Name
placards show a Sr. Col. Wang Pengyu (王鹏宇) and a Col. Wang Qiang
(王强) prominently seated at the center of the exercise-viewing area. A
2019 PLA Daily article identifies these officers as the director and political
commissar, respectively, of an unspecified JLSF “Eastern Theater Dispatch
Center” (东部战区某调度中心).14 This dispatch center is likely subordinate
to the Wuxi Joint Logistics Support Center (无锡联勤保障中心), which
provides coordination and command of military and civilian logistics
support in the Eastern Theater.
Staff from the Eastern Theater JLSF almost certainly led this joint
military-civilian exercise. In the video, Colonel Wang offers remarks
about training objectives. He states that the exercise demonstrates that the
PLA has the ability to use any port or ship, not just military ports and
ships, to transport PLA personnel and equipment rapidly in support of
combat operations. In addition to goals related to improving the loading
time of ships, Colonel Wang emphasizes safety and the need to exercise
logistics operations with civil participants to prevent accidents in future
operations.15
Analysis of information gleaned from the video, including signage,
ship names, and background features, indicates that the exercise took place
in Lianyungang, Jiangsu Province. Lianyungang is a port city in the far
northeastern corner of the PLA’s Eastern Theater, ninety nautical miles
(nm) southwest of Qingdao. Subsequent analysis shows that Lianyungang
served as the embarkation port for the exercise. Lanshan, a district of the
city of Rizhao, approximately 22 nm north of Lianyungang, served as the
exercise objective. Lanshan features a dry-bulk-cargo terminal with a quay
used for RO/RO off-loading, as well as a beach in a protected harbor where
offshore unloading and amphibious landings took place.16
 C H I N E S E FER R Y TA LE S 377

Participating Vessels
The 2020 exercise involved two dozen different commercial ships, tugs, and
military landing craft, most of which rotated in and out to conduct specific
events over the course of the six-week operational phase of the exercise.
Many of the participating ships are owned by subsidiaries of Chinese state-
owned enterprises, such as the China Ocean Shipping Company (COSCO),
Sinotrans, and the China Communications Construction Company
(CCCC)—specifically, the CCCC Third Navigation Engineering Bureau.17
Six RO/RO ferries from the Bohai Ferry Group, a privately owned
shipping corporation and the largest ferry operator in Asia, also
participated in the exercise. According to the group’s website, its ships
have been built to national-defense standards and have been organized
into the “Eighth Transport Dadui” (海运八大队), part of China’s maritime
militia strategic-projection support-ship fleet (战略投送支援船队).18 This
fleet is “responsible for force projection and logistics support in diversified
military missions,” including combat operations.19 A maritime militia
affiliation of the state-owned-enterprise ships (e.g., those of COSCO and
CCCC) used in the exercise could not be determined.
In addition to the civilian vessels, as many as eight utility landing craft
(LCUs), four Type 271 (Yupen) LCUs and three to four Type 067 (Yunnan)
LCUs, also participated. Table 1 lists civilian ships observed participating
in the exercise.

Capabilities and Technologies

A number of novel amphibious capabilities and technologies used to
integrate civilian shipping into amphibious operations were identified in
commercial satellite imagery during the 2020 JLSF exercise.

Modular Floating Pier

The opening line of a Chinese news article about the August 2020 exercise
sets the stage for its coverage of the training event: “A loading and unloading
joint command post is opened. Roll-on and hoisting lines of operation
expand synchronously. When the formation of ferries arrives at a certain
sea area, a multimode temporary pier [多方式临时码头] is set up to quickly
unload and land.” 20 This “temporary pier” was to figure prominently in Ex-
ercise Eastern Transportation-Projection 2020A. It allowed RO/RO
ferries to discharge armor and rolling stock directly to a beach-
landing area.
378 C H I N E S E A M P H I B I O U S WA R FA R E

Table 1. Civilian Ships Participating in Exercise Eastern

Transportation-Projection 2020A

Length/Gross
Ship Name Type Owner
Tonnage

Bang Chui Dao RO/RO 443 ft. / 15,500 t China Shipping Passenger Liner
Co. (COSCO)

Hai Yang Dao RO/RO 443 ft. / 15,500 t COSCO

Sheng Tai General 323 ft. / 4,000 t China COSCO Shipping Corp.
cargo (COSCO)

Bo Hai Bao Zhu RO/RO 538 ft. / 24,000 t Shandong Bohai Ferry Co.
(BFG)

Bo Hai Ma Zhu RO/RO 590 ft. / 33,400 t Shandong Bohai Ferry Co. (BFG)

Bo Hai Yin Zhu RO/RO 529 ft. / 19,800 t Shandong Bohai Ferry Co. (BFG)

Bo Hai Zhen Zhu RO/RO 538 ft. / 24,000 t Shandong Bohai Ferry Co. (BFG)

Sheng Sheng 1 RO/RO 394 ft. / 10,300 t Weihai Haida Passenger Trans-
portation Co. (BFG)

Zhong Hua Fu Xing RO/RO 696 ft. / 45,000 t Weihai Haida Passenger Trans-
portation Co. (BFG)

Tian Zhu Shan General 323 ft. / 4,000 t Shanghai Changjiang

cargo Shipping (Sinotrans)

San Hang Gong 8 Heavy lift 213 ft. / CCCC

Unknown

San Hang Tuo 4007 Tug 147 ft. / 842 t CCCC

San Hang Tou 2007 Tug 105 ft. / CCCC

Unknown

San Hang Tuo 1009 Tug 108 ft. / CCCC

Unknown

Wish Way* Heavy lift 512 ft. / 16,600 t CCCC

Jin Xu 9 Unknown Unknown Unknown

Notes: BFG = Bohai Ferry Group; CCCC = China Communications Construction Co.; COSCO = China
Ocean Shipping Company.
* possible participant.

The temporary pier—what the PLA has called an “offshore mobile

unloading platform” (海上机动卸载平台)—was noted in commercial satel-
lite imagery in Lanshan in September 2020.21 Images show modules
for two floating piers: a 1,200-foot (366 meter) pier and a 720-foot (220
 C H I N E S E FER R Y TA LE S 379

meter) pier. Also seen are associated cargo ferries and barges, as well as
warping tugs that maneuver pier modules into place. The Chinese system,
especially with its associated ferries and warping tugs, appears similar to
the U.S. Navy’s Improved Navy Lighterage System (INLS).22
In 2001, China’s National Defense Mobilization Committee reportedly
ordered the development of an “offshore mobile unloading platform” as
one of the major projects under “Project 019” (019工程). The PLA Military
Transportation University’s Military Transportation Research Institute
(军事交通研究所) was tasked to develop a prototype offshore-unloading
platform. The expressed purpose of the project was to create a capability for
at-sea transfer and unloading of vehicles and matériel when ports had been
destroyed by “blue forces.” To design the unloading platform, “more than
20,000 pages of foreign-language materials were collected, translated and
sorted.”23 Design specifications for the American INLS almost certainly
were among those foreign-language materials.
The prototype system comprised “square” or intermediate pontoon
modules, bow-stern modules, ramp modules, propulsion modules, and
electrical-supply modules. These are the same types of modules that make
up the Navy’s INLS. The Chinese offshore mobile unloading platform that
eventually was built appears to be just a causeway, without propulsion or
electrical-supply modules. Patent documents indicate that the proposed
system can operate in sea state 3 (wave height up to four feet), which is
identical to the advertised operating limit of the INLS.24
The offshore mobile unloading platform first was shown publicly in
a television news report highlighting a 2014 Guangzhou Military Region
exercise. The exercise reportedly marked the first time the PLA used a
civilian RO/RO ferry to off-load a PLA unit using the system. As the ferry
made its way from the southern port city of Zhanjiang, the embarked PLA
mechanized infantry company received word from exercise coordinators
that its destination terminal was damaged, so it was ordered to off-load
over the beach using the floating-pier system that was being assembled.25
Commercial satellite imagery indicates that the two floating piers used
in the 2020 exercise were very similar to the offshore mobile unloading
platform used in 2014. They were assembled and disassembled several
times at the southern end of the Lanshan exercise beach. The longer
floating pier normally was used in conjunction with the semisubmersible
barge (described in the next section). AIS tracking data indicate that
LCUs frequently shuttled between RO/RO ships or cargo-unloading areas
offshore and the shorter floating pier. LCU operations appeared to be
independent of RO/RO off-loading operations using the longer pier and
semisubmersible barge.26
38 0 C H I N E S E A M P H I B I O U S WA R FA R E

Fishing boats may have been used to assist in the assembly of the
offshore mobile unloading platforms. Satellite imagery shows pier modules
interspersed with what appears to be fishing vessels in the harbor where the
pier modules were staged.27

Semisubmersible Barge Forming an Artificial Port

The 2020 exercise included a large, semisubmersible barge identified as
San Hang Gong 8 (三航工8). When the barge was attached to the floating
pier, the combination formed an artificial port (人工港) where ships could
be moored, off-loaded, and resupplied. In comments to the media, one of
the PLA exercise participants stated that the semisubmersible barge served
as a temporary marine dock and was used for berthing and unloading
RO/RO ferries.28
Video from the 2014 amphibious exercise in the Guangzhou Military
Region (discussed previously) shows a semisubmersible barge very similar
to San Hang Gong 8 submerging to off-load a warping tug and then being
maneuvered into place at the end of the floating pier. The barge’s freeboard
(its height above water) can be adjusted to accommodate different types
of vessels. In the video, a civilian RO/RO ferry, Nan Fang 6, docked with
the barge and quickly discharged armored vehicles and trucks that then
proceeded to the beach over the floating pier.29
Identical unloading activities apparently took place during the 2020
logistics exercise in Lanshan. The video of the 2020 exercise shows tanks
and armored vehicles exiting from Sheng Sheng 1 and crossing San Hang
Gong 8 onto the floating pier in the foreground.30

Mat Roadway for Beach Access

Satellite imagery shows a dark strip running between the end of the floating
pier and a parking lot on the other side of the beach. While this strip cannot
be identified positively in imagery, it is probably a metal- or synthetic-mat
roadway that was laid down to prevent heavy wheeled or tracked vehicles
from sinking into soft sand or mud. The 2014 Guangzhou Military Region
exercise video shows a metal-mat roadway being laid to the end of the
floating pier.31 Harzone, the division of the China Shipbuilding Industry
Corporation responsible for manufacturing military bridging equipment
and pontoon bridges, produces a “fast hard road paver” that deploys a roll
of aluminum matting and a “fast soft road paver” that deploys a roll of
reinforced polyester fabric as a mat roadway.32
 C H I N E S E FER R Y TA LE S 381

Floating Crane for Offshore Loading/Unloading

Throughout the 2020 exercise, a floating crane was anchored in the center
of the harbor approximately 1.2 nm east of the landing beach. From
commercial satellite imagery, this appears to have been a civilian harbor
crane, a ninety-foot (twenty-seven meter) crane mounted atop a deck barge
measuring 265 by 80 feet (80 by 24 meters).33 AIS tracking data indicate
that two different general-cargo ships came alongside this crane several
times during the exercise, presumably to load or unload cargo.
In 17 August 2020 imagery, six vehicles appear to be parked on the deck
of the crane barge. These vehicles may have been staged for loading onto a
ship during operations that would take place two days later. Alternatively,
the vehicles may have been there to receive cargo from a ship. In the latter
case, the vehicles then would have driven onto an LCU for transport to the
floating pier, where they could be discharged quickly. During what probably
was cargo-off-loading operations, LCUs ran between the crane’s location
and the short floating pier assembled at the south end of the beach.34

RO/RO Offshore Unloading Platform

For several seconds during the video report on the 2020 exercise, two PLA
officers are seen examining a display that presumably shows capabilities
demonstrated during the exercise. According to text visible on the display,
the capability being discussed involved two large engineering side barges
(大型工程方驳), four Type 271 LCUs, and one “pier ferry” (栈桥渡船),
which may be the current term used for the floating pier system. Other
text visible in the display indicates that the barges, which together mea-
sure 427 by 49 feet (130 by 15 meters), may be used to unload wheeled
and tracked vehicles from RO/RO ferries.35
Two 213-foot (65 meter) deck barges were seen in satellite imagery
linked together as one 427-foot (130 meter) barge.36 Ramps appear to have
been affixed to the sides of the barges, probably to allow LCUs to come
alongside the barge for loading. During the exercise, tugs maneuvered the
barge behind RO/RO ferries anchored approximately two nautical miles
offshore, presumably to facilitate loading or off-loading of vehicles. AIS
tracks indicate that Type 271 and Type 067 LCUs moved between the
location of the barge and the short floating pier at the southern end of the
exercise beach during these operations.37

PLAN Landing Craft

Type 271 and Type 067 LCUs᾽ deployed to Lanshan for the exercise from
bases in southern Fujian Province. These LCUs operated in the Lanshan
382 C H I N E S E A M P H I B I O U S WA R FA R E

harbor and beach areas throughout the exercise period. Commercial

satellite imagery from 17 August 2020 shows eight LCUs in the
fishing harbor south of the exercise beach.38 Recognition features and
measurements establish that four Type 271 LCUs and three Type 067
LCUs are present. Another possible LCU, with what appears to be a more
substantial superstructure, and longer than the Type 067s at approximately
145 feet (44 meters), is moored alongside the other LCUs. An LCU of this
size could not be identified in the PLA inventory from available sources.
The LCUs conducted multiple landings directly onto the beach during the
exercise.39
In addition to the LCUs’ using the short floating-pier system to off-load
vehicles and equipment, dredging of select areas appears to have allowed
LCUs to land directly on the beach without concern for getting stranded
on the mudflats at low tide. Cargo ferries associated with the floating-pier
system also conducted beach landings. Satellite imagery shows a cargo ferry
that probably had just discharged vehicles onto the beach. It also shows an
apparent mat roadway crossing the beach.40
The apparent use of the short floating-pier system by landing craft
across the mudflats at Lanshan Beach is notable. Much of Taiwan’s shore-
line has been deemed unsuitable for amphibious landings because of tidal
ranges similar to Lanshan’s (approximately twelve feet). Mudflats in north-
west Taiwan extend several hundred feet from the shore, allowing only a
narrow window for landing at high tide before receding water levels would
strand LCUs or larger landing ships on the flats.

Figure 1. Observed Timeline for

Exercise Eastern Transportation-Projection 2020A
   
 

    

       

  

   

 
   




 

       
  
 C H I N E S E FER R Y TA LE S 383

Table 2. Observed Timeline for

Exercise Eastern Transportation-Projection 2020A

Exercise Phase Dates (2020) Major Events

Deployment 13–21 June RO/RO ferry transports JLSF and forces to

Lianyungang

Preparatory 21 June–13 July Probable unit-level training of cargo/vehicle load-

ing, crane operations, etc.; LCUs conduct landings
at Lanshan Beach

Preliminary 14–31 July Commercial ships observed individually prac-

ticing capabilities, including docking with the
barge / floating pier, off-loading in port, and off-
loading at floating crane and offshore platform

Operational 1–20 August

1st half 2–3 August Four-ship ops: three RO/RO ferries off-load at
rehearsal floating pier and with offshore platform; one
cargo ship off-loads at floating crane

2nd half 9–10 August Four-ship ops: three RO/RO ferries off-load at
rehearsal floating pier and in port; one cargo ship off-loads
at floating crane

Final 18–20 August Eight-ship ops: three RO/RO ferries dock with
evolution floating pier; one RO-RO ferry off-loads with
offshore platform; two RO/RO ferries off-load in
Lanshan Port; two cargo ships off-load at floating
crane

Redeployment 21–25 August RO/RO ferry transports JLSF and equipment back
to port of origin; semisubmersible barge redeploys
to southern Taiwan Strait area

Exercise Summary
Exercise Eastern Transportation-Projection 2020A took place from
mid-June to late August 2020. The exercise progressed in increasingly
complex stages over two months. Figure 1 and table 2 outline the exercise
timeline, highlighting exercise events organized around notional exercise
phases.

Deployment
On 13 June 2020, Hai Yang Dao left its normal route ferrying passengers
across the mouth of the Bohai Sea. The 15,500-ton RO/RO ferry then travel-
ed nine hundred nautical miles south to a nondescript container terminal
in Jiangyin Town (江阴镇), Fujian Province, 35 nm south of Fuzhou and
38 4 C H I N E S E A M P H I B I O U S WA R FA R E

Figure 2. Transits of Hai Yang Dao and San Hang Gong 8,

13–21 June 2020

Bohai
Sea

just across the harbor from Putian. There, on 19 June, Hai Yang Dao
probably picked up staff from the JLSF Eastern Theater Dispatch Center, as
well as equipment, vehicles, and cargo that would be used in the exercise.
Two days later, Hai Yang Dao called in the exercise embarkation port of
Lianyungang for five hours, probably to off-load the exercise participants.
The ship then immediately returned to its regular ferry route across the
Bohai Sea (see figure 2).41
About the time that Hai Yang Dao left the Shandong Peninsula, the large
semisubmersible construction vessel San Hang Gong 8, probably towed by
the tug San Hang Tuo 4007, began its long march from a port-construction
project south of Xiamen, Fujian. The two vessels made between five and
 C H I N E S E FER R Y TA LE S 385

eight knots over the course of a week, arriving in Lanshan on 19 June.42 The
long (and probably expensive) transit of this heavy, semisubmersible barge
to and from southeastern China is curious—especially considering that a
very similar semisubmersible vessel was already in Lanshan at the time of
the exercise.43
For all exercise events, participating ships transited from the port of
embarkation, Lianyungang, to the exercise objective, Lanshan. All ships
followed established routes for entering and exiting those ports and harbors.
The majority of exercise events happened during daylight hours. For each
Figure 3. Typical Track of Exercise Ships, Driven
by Navigation Constraints
Lanshan Beach
exercise area
Lanshan Port
off-load area

major training evolution, ships loaded or unloaded in Lianyungang on

one day and departed before nightfall. The ships then stopped overnight
at an anchorage, usually near Lanshan. They departed the anchorage in
the morning and proceeded either to the port or to the beach area, arriving
around the time of high tide. The typical route each ship took between
Lianyungang and Lanshan is shown in figure 3.

Preparatory Phase
Given the movement of commercial ships and the timing of the arrival of
JLSF and other forces in Lianyungang, as well as some speculation about
necessary exercise preparations, the first three to four weeks of the exercise
probably focused on preparing and staging equipment. Unit-level training
on logistics operations and ship loading also probably occurred. Training
with the mobile floating piers and the semisubmersible barge appears to
38 6 C H I N E S E A M P H I B I O U S WA R FA R E

have been a focus during the first weeks of the exercise. Satellite imagery
and AIS tracks indicate that pier modules were assembled, docked with San
Hang Gong 8, and disassembled several times. LCUs appeared to conduct
independent training, including beach landings, throughout this period.44

Preliminary Phase
The preliminary phase of the exercise took place 14–31 July. During this
phase, individual technologies and capabilities were tested and exercised.
This methodical, building-block approach saw individual ships, or
sometimes pairs of ships, conducting operations such as docking with the
semisubmersible barge / floating pier and conducting port and offshore
loading/unloading operations.
Floating-pier docking operations: The first major exercise event and
the first noted participation of a civilian RO/RO vessel occurred in mid-
July. Sheng Sheng 1 arrived directly from its ferry route in the Bohai on
14 July and docked with San Hang Gong 8 and the floating pier for four
hours. Sheng Sheng 1 may have embarked vehicles, but other than the long
mooring time there were no outward indications that this occurred. Sheng
Sheng 1 proceeded to Lianyungang Port, then returned to Lanshan to dock
with the semisubmersible barge again on 15 July.45 This event probably was
intended to test procedures for docking with the floating pier, barge, and
ferry. Another docking evolution took place on 29 July when the RO/RO
ferry Bang Chui Dao docked with San Hang Gong 8, likely in preparation
for the operational phase of the exercise.46
Port operations: Loading and unloading operations in port involved
RO/RO ferries and general-cargo ships calling at Lanshan’s dry-bulk-cargo
terminal. For scenario purposes, this cargo area probably represented an
austere or damaged port facility.
From 25 to 27 July, the 24,000-ton RO/RO ferry Bo Hai Bao Zhu and
the general-cargo ship Tian Zhu Shan operated between Lianyungang and
Lanshan, again probably conducting preliminary training in advance of
more-complex exercise evolutions. Probable loading or unloading activity
occurred on the quayside at the Lanshan terminal.47 A review of commercial
satellite imagery indicates that no special modifications were made to
the area where ships moored during the exercise.48 However, a review of
historical images available on Google Earth shows that this corner of the
terminal previously had hosted containerships and general-cargo vessels.
Therefore, it is possible that Lanshan’s port infrastructure and cranes were
used to off-load cargo for the exercise. Lanshan’s twelve-foot tidal range
and the operating limits of the ferries’ ramps probably drove the RO/RO
ferries to dock on the quayside only at high tide.
 C H I N E S E FER R Y TA LE S 387

All Chinese ferries used in this exercise—in fact, most Chinese ferries
—have ramps that extend from the ships, allowing them to embark
vehicles from or discharge them onto any suitable pier or quay. This design
feature differs from commercial ferries that have no ramps but rely instead
on ramps at ferry terminals that lower to the ship. Even with ramps
integrated onto the ships, Chinese RO/RO ferries on established routes
usually call at terminals that feature docking platforms that rise and fall
with the tide. Lianyungang has such a platform at its ferry terminal. For a
fixed pier or quay, however, its height likely must be at or below the level
of the ramp on the ferry. This would be problematic if a very low tide put
the ferry’s deck below the height of the pier or quay. However, as long as
the tides do not exceed the operating limits of the RO/RO ferry’s ramp,
the ship can embark or off-load vehicles in virtually any port, including
damaged port facilities where specialized docks to accommodate ferries
are unavailable.
Offshore loading/unloading operations: Preliminary offshore training
evolutions took place immediately after in-port loading/off-loading opera-
tions concluded. During the preliminary phase of the exercise, partic-
ipants worked methodically through single-ship operations (e.g., a RO/RO
ferry docking at the floating pier); then two-ship operations (e.g., RO/RO
and cargo ships off-loading in port); and finally three-ship operations,
with the added complexity of exercising offshore loading and unloading.
27 July 2020: The RO/RO ferry Bo Hai Zhen Zhu arrived at the south
anchorage early and remained there for over seven hours. Tugs approached
the ferry’s stern, marking the first use of the offshore RO/RO unloading
platform (the two modified deck barges). The ship likely arrived empty
from its regular route on the Bohai, then may have conducted on-load
operations before transiting to Lianyungang.
28 July 2020: The general-cargo ship Tian Zhu Shan arrived at the north
anchorage in the morning, probably to initiate offshore crane operations.
Concurrent with the crane-barge evolution, the RO/RO ferry Bang Chui
Dao arrived and docked with the semisubmersible barge. During these
operations, Bo Hai Zhen Zhu also returned from Lianyungang and probably
off-loaded equipment at the dry-bulk-cargo terminal in Lanshan Port. The
two RO/RO ferries departed Lanshan and returned to their respective
routes on the Bohai Sea.
30 July 2020: Tian Zhu Shan returned to the north anchorage, probably
to continue practicing offshore loading or unloading with the floating
crane.49
38 8 C H I N E S E A M P H I B I O U S WA R FA R E

Operational Phase
The operational phase of the exercise took place 1–20 August 2020. It
included four-ship groups in two different rehearsal events performing
the evolutions practiced in the preliminary phase. The final exercise event,
occurring 18–20 August, involved all eight ships conducting loading
operations in Lianyungang and unloading operations in Lanshan, at either
the port or the exercise beach.
1 August 2020: Exercise Eastern Transportation-Projection
2020A entered its final phase with an offshore-loading evolution. Wish
Way, a large, semisubmersible, heavy-lift ship, arrived and anchored in
the exercise harbor within twenty minutes of the arrival of the 45,000-ton
RO/RO ferry Zhong Hua Fu Xing—the crown jewel of the Bohai Ferry
Group, and in August 2020 the largest ferry in Asia.50 As it had not yet
entered regular commercial service on a ferry route, this ship’s first
operation apparently was in service of its military obligations.51
It is not clear what role Wish Way played in the exercise, but the
coincident arrival of a ship of this type is interesting. Semisubmersibles
such as Wish Way, which is owned by CCCC, have supported other PLA
amphibious operations. These highly versatile ships may act as mobile sea
bases, enabling the transfer of forces and equipment.52 That said, for the
most part Wish Way remained at its anchorage for the remainder of the
exercise. In the few commercial satellite images available for 1–20 August,
Wish Way’s deck is clear in each image.53
The RO/RO ferry Hai Yang Dao arrived shortly after Wish Way and
Zhong Hua Fu Xing on 1 August 2020 and proceeded to dock with San
Hang Gong 8.54 Commercial satellite imagery shows that the floating piers
were not present, and San Hang Gong 8 sat alone offshore. What appear
to be vehicles were located on its deck, probably to be loaded on Hai Yang
Dao, which was arriving directly from its ferry route on the Bohai Sea.55
Following the 1 August loading event in Lanshan, all that remained
for the exercise was a single, large-scale evolution. The final event first was
rehearsed in two parts.
2–3 August: A group of four ships (three RO/RO ferries and a cargo
ship) rehearsed their part of the final training event. Weather throughout
the exercise, and specifically for the final training events, appeared to be
unremarkable.56 Figures 4 and 5 show the roles of the ships involved in
this first rehearsal.57 The graphics categorize the ships according to wheth-
er they performed beach-landing operations, offshore off-loading, or
in-port off-loading in Lanshan. For docking operations, the dotted line
indicates the time in the harbor, while the solid block indicates the time
docked with the semisubmersible barge and floating pier.
 C H I N E S E FER R Y TA LE S 389

Figure 4. Loading Operations Timeline, Lianyungang, 2 August 2020

BEACH LANDING
HAI YANG DAO (RO/RO)

SHENG SHENG 1 (RO/RO)

OFFSHORE OFF-LOAD
ZHONG HUA FU XING (RO/RO)
SHENG TAI (Cargo)

Figure 5. Unloading Operations Timeline, Lanshan, 3 August 2020

Off-Loading Ops
BEACH LANDING Dock with Semisubmersible & Floating Pier

HAI YANG DAO (RO/RO)

SHENG SHENG 1 (RO/RO)

OFFSHORE OFF-LOAD Off-Load to Barge, Lightering to Floating Pier

ZHONG HUA FU XING (RO/RO)

SHENG TAI (Cargo)

Figure 6. Loading Operations Timeline, Lianyungang, 9 August 2020

PORT OFF-LOAD
BO HAI YIN ZHU (RO/RO)
BO HAI BAO ZHU (RO/RO)

BEACH LANDING
BANG CHUI DAO (RO/RO) Arrived from Dailin
OFFSHORE OFF-LOAD
SHENG TAI (Cargo)
39 0 C H I N E S E A M P H I B I O U S WA R FA R E

Figure 7. Unloading Operations Timeline, Lanshan, 10 August 2020

Off-Loading Ops
PORT OFF-LOAD Off-Load in Port Lanshan

BO HAI YIN ZHU (RO/RO)

BO HAI BAO ZHU (RO/RO)
Dock with Semisubmersible & Floating Pier

BANG CHUI DAO (RO/RO)

OFFSHORE OFF-LOAD Off-Load to Barge, Lightering to Floating Pier

9–10 August: A week after the first rehearsal, a different set of RO/RO
ferries executed their part of the final event. Figures 6 and 7 show the roles
of the ships involved in this second rehearsal.58 The general-cargo ship
Sheng Tai, of the same class as Tian Zhu Shan, acted as the cargo ship for
both rehearsals. Tian Zhu Shan joined the group only for the final training
event.
18–20 August: All eight ships conducted their respective operations
together in the final training event. In this culmination of the exercise, the
structure and pace of training appeared to reflect a real-world operations
tempo, but one that still was extremely conservative and deliberate. In
the final rehearsal and the final exercise event, RO/RO ships deployed
directly from their home ports to load in Lianyungang. As mentioned
previously, exercise participants loaded on one day, departed Lianyungang
before nightfall, and remained overnight at an anchorage. The ships then
proceeded to Lanshan the following morning, to arrive around high tide.
Following the final off-load events, the ships immediately returned to their
home ports on the Bohai Sea.
The floating piers were disassembled in advance of the final exercise
event, from 18 to 19 August. On 17 August, the semisubmersible barge San
Hang Gong 8 withdrew a couple of nautical miles offshore. Curiously, Wish
Way also left the inner harbor on 17 August and stayed overnight at an
anchorage before returning to the same spot in the Lanshan Beach harbor
the next morning. Again, Wish Way’s withdrawal and its return to coincide
with the final training event indicate that it likely had some role in the
exercise. The other unique element in this final training event involved
Hai Yang Dao arriving in the harbor to dock with San Hang Gong 8 at
approximately 0300 local time on 19 August—the only nighttime evolution
 C H I N E S E FER R Y TA LE S 391

Figure 8. Loading Operations Timeline, Lianyungang, 18 August 2020

PORT OFF-LOAD
BO HAI YIN ZHU (RO/RO)
BO HAI BAO ZHU (RO/RO)
BEACH LANDING
HAI YANG DAO (RO/RO)
SHENG SHENG 1 (RO/RO)
BANG CHUI DAO (RO/RO)

OFFSHORE OFF-LOAD
ZHONG HUA FU XING (RO/RO)
SHENG TAI (Cargo)
TIAN ZHU SHAN (Cargo)

Figure 9. Unloading Operations Timeline, Lanshan, 19 August 2020

Off-loading Ops
PORT OFF-LOAD Off-Load in Port Lanshan

BO HAI YIN ZHU (RO/RO)

BO HAI BAO ZHU (RO/RO)
BEACH LANDING Dock with Semisubmersible & Floating Pier

HAI YANG DAO (RO/RO)

SHENG SHENG 1 (RO/RO)
BANG CHUI DAO (RO/RO)
OFFSHORE OFF-LOAD Off-Load to Barge, Lightering to Floating Pier

ZHONG HUA FU XING (RO/RO)

SHENG TAI (Cargo)
TIAN ZHU SHAN (Cargo)

observed during this exercise. Figures 8 and 9 show the roles of the ships
involved in the final exercise event.59
The general-cargo ship Tian Zhu Shan arrived in the Lanshan Beach
exercise area late in the day on 19 August. It replaced the cargo ship Sheng
Tai at the floating crane in the middle of the harbor. After Tian Zhu Shan’s
arrival, no LCU activity was noted to indicate off-loading. Tian Zhu Shan
remained moored at the crane until the next morning, when off-loading
operations with the LCUs recommenced. The cargo ship departed the
392 C H I N E S E A M P H I B I O U S WA R FA R E

harbor at approximately 1300 local time on 20 August, apparently bringing

the exercise to a close.60
Wish Way departed its anchorage at 1800, just five hours after the final
off-load event. The reasons for the presence of the semisubmersible ship and
its activities during the exercise remain unknown. This semisubmersible
would be an excellent means by which to transport and deploy the
floating-pier system to its operating area, but there are no indications that
occurred. Following the exercise, Wish Way proceeded to Qingdao, a major
commercial port and home to the PLAN’s North Sea Fleet.61 The ship may
have gone to Qingdao to off-load exercise equipment but, again, not the
floating pier; that system remained in Lanshan until at least November
2020. The semisubmersible barge San Hang Gong 8 departed on 27 August
and returned to port-construction projects in southern Fujian Province,
directly across the strait from Taiwan.62

Redeployment
The 33,000-ton RO/RO ferry Bo Hai Ma Zhu, which had not been involved
in any other exercise evolutions, arrived in Lanshan on 23 August 2020,
probably to collect exercise participants and their equipment. Two days
later, the ship called in Jiangyin Town, Fujian, where the deployment to
Lianyungang had originated two months earlier.63

Exercise Analysis
Eastern Transportation-Projection 2020A was a military-civil
training event that exercised amphibious over-the-shore logistics
capabilities. The June–August 2020 exercise involved over sixteen civilian
ships, a variety of amphibious-logistics equipment, and a handful of PLAN
landing craft. Eight large civilian RO/RO ferries played a significant role,
off-loading vehicles directly onto a beach-landing area via a floating pier,
matériel offshore onto a floating platform for transfer to the beach, and
vehicles and equipment into an austere port facility. Two general-cargo
ships also off-loaded cargo offshore using a floating crane before LCUs
transferred the matériel to shore.
The exercise reviewed here, conducted off a relatively small beach in a
protected harbor, appears to demonstrate limited, although in some cases
novel, capabilities. It did not demonstrate the capacity to support a major
maritime lift as part of a cross-strait invasion. With one exception, all civil-
maritime exercise operations were conducted during daylight hours, and
events were timed for when tides and weather conditions were favorable as
well. Most evolutions took place in the sheltered waters of an inner harbor
that is not representative of likely real-world environments in which these
 C H I N E S E FER R Y TA LE S 393

capabilities would be operationalized. That said, the likely overarching

objective of the exercise was to test equipment and procedures. In that
regard, the exercise almost certainly met its goals, and the JLSF probably
regarded it as a success.
Other than a handful of utility landing craft and the armor elements that
were transported by civilian ships, PLA combat forces did not participate
in this exercise. Any coordination by and with the PLAN was not evident.
Admittedly, detailing a PLAN combatant to escort the civilian ships, albeit
through busy waterways filled with other Chinese ships, oblivious to the
exercise, likely was deemed unnecessary. Similarly, it would have been
difficult to justify having an entire amphibious-infantry brigade sitting
around a port for a month waiting to be transported from point A to point
B while the JLSF worked through checklists and procedures with civilian
exercise participants.

Table 3. Timeline of 2021 Military-Civil Fusion Amphibious

and Logistics Exercise Activity

Activity Dates (2021) Major Events

Unit-level 22 July–11 Two RO/RO ferries conducted apparent

training/ August amphibious-assault training with PLA marine or
exercises— amphibious-infantry units and participated in at
Southern The- least two military exercises
ater Command

Large exercise— 2–8 September At least eight civilian vessels participated in what
Eastern Theater was probably a large, multifaceted PLA exercise
Command

Logistics 2–8 September Four RO/RO ferries and two general-cargo ships
operations conducted coordinated operations in four civilian
ports in eastern China known to be used by the
PLA, in a likely large intratheater mobility exercise

Amphibious- 2–4 September Two RO/RO ferries conducted offshore operations

assault deploying PLA assault boats and armor, probably
operations with PLAN amphibious-assault ships

Floating- 11–25 Two RO/RO ferries conducted testing and evalua-

causeway test September tion of the PLA’s new floating-causeway system
and evaluation

2021 Military-Civil Fusion Amphibious and

Logistics Exercise Activity
There are no indications that the PLA conducted a large-scale, over-the-
beach logistics exercise in 2021 similar to Exercise Eastern Transportation-
Projection 2020A. However, between July and September 2021, seven of
39 4 C H I N E S E A M P H I B I O U S WA R FA R E

the vessels that had participated in the 2020 exercise participated in direct
beach-assault operations and experimented with new amphibious-logistics
technologies. In total, fourteen civilian vessels, including eight civilian
RO/RO ferries, participated in military-exercise activity during the sum-
mer of 2021. The 2021 MCF exercise event timeline is shown in table 3.

Unit-Level Training/Exercises—Southern Theater Command

Two RO/RO ferries were observed conducting amphibious-landing train-
ing in the PLA’s Southern Theater from 22 July to 11 August 2021. This
activity involved the RO/RO ferries᾽ operating offshore over several days,
probably deploying and recovering amphibious-assault boats and possibly
amphibious armor. Exercising RO/RO ferries as auxiliary amphibious-
landing ships to deploy PLA combat units offshore represents a significant
evolution in the combat-support role of these civilian ships in PLA
operations. Civilian vessels that participated in the July–August 2021 am-
phibious exercises appear in table 4.

Table 4. RO/RO Ferries Participating in Amphibious-Landing Training,

July–August 2021

Ex. Length / Gross

Ship Name Owner
2020A Tonnage

Yes Bo Hai Ma Zhu 590 ft. / 33,400 t Shandong Bohai Ferry Co. (BFG)

No Hu Lu Dao 443 ft. / 15,500 t China Shipping Passenger Liner Co.

(COSCO)

Notes: BFG = Bohai Ferry Group; COSCO = China Ocean Shipping Company. The column “Ex. 2020A”
indicates whether the ship participated in Exercise Eastern Transportation-Projection 2020A.

On 12 July 2021, the civilian RO/RO ferry Bo Hai Ma Zhu collected a

PLAN Marine Corps (PLANMC) armored-infantry unit from a civilian
quay adjacent to the PLAN base in Qingdao, China.64 The ship then
returned to its ferry terminal in Dalian. The PLANMC unit may have
disembarked in Dalian for training in the Northern Theater, or the unit
may have been split between Bo Hai Ma Zhu and Hu Lu Dao to proceed for
training in the Southern Theater. According to their AIS tracks, both
RO/RO ferries departed Dalian on 13 July en route to southern China. They
arrived off Qianhai (Yangjiang), Guangdong Province, on 17 July 2021
(see figure 10). Commercial satellite imagery indicates that PLAN tank
landing ships (LSTs) probably conducted amphibious-landing operations
at Qianhai Beach just prior to the ferries’ arrival.65
 C H I N E S E FER R Y TA LE S 395

Figure 10. Tracks of RO/RO Ferries Supporting Amphibious-Landing

Exercises, July–August 2021
Bohai
Sea

Tracks of RO/RO Ferries

Supporting Amphibious-
Landing Exercises
July–August 2021

Honghai Bay
Training Area
8–9 Aug
Qianhai
Training Area
17 July–3 Aug

Bo Hai Ma Zhu and Hu Lu Dao remained in the vicinity of Qianhai

Beach for eighteen days, usually positioned two to four nautical miles
offshore. Twice, each ship made a short call in the nearby ports of Maoming
and Shuidong, probably to off-load or on-load equipment, to refuel, or to
resupply.66
Throughout this time, these RO/RO ferries probably deployed and
recovered PLA assault boats (冲锋舟). The PLA uses these high-speed, ten-
person, steel-hull craft equipped with outboard motors to deploy infantry
rapidly in amphibious-landing areas. Enough of such boats to land over a
thousand infantry troops ashore—about 120—were seen in high-resolution
satellite imagery off Qianhai Beach on 23 July 2021.67 Other than in this
image, the boats were missing from available high-resolution satellite
images. They may have been stored under what appear to be canopies
immediately to the east of where the boats were imaged.
39 6 C H I N E S E A M P H I B I O U S WA R FA R E

A 26 July 2021 medium-resolution satellite image shows what are

probably assault boats and amphibious armor operating miles off Qianhai
Beach. Over ninety wakes appear in the image, their sizes indicating that
these probably were made by a mix of the small assault boats and the limited
numbers of larger amphibious armored vehicles noted at Qianhai Beach.
Dozens of the wakes were heading toward the two ferries, indicating the
possible on-loading of boats or vehicles. Other wakes, northeast of where
the ferries were on-loading, appear to be headed into the amphibious-
training area. The boats or vehicles follow in each other’s wakes, as opposed
to assuming a line-abreast formation.68 Many amphibious-exercise areas
in China, as well as prospective beach-landing sites in northern Taiwan,
are relatively narrow. The beachfront constraint lends itself to “follow the
leader” beach-landing tactics that allow large numbers of forces to land in
a relatively small area.
There is evidence that Bo Hai Ma Zhu and Hu Lu Dao may have
deployed and recovered amphibious armor offshore. In 2020, Chinese
media reports revealed that the RO/RO ferry Bang Chui Dao, of the same
ship class as Hu Lu Dao, had been modified with a reinforced ramp for
deploying amphibious armored vehicles at sea.69 On 26 July 2021, high-
resolution satellite imagery taken thirty-six minutes after the medium-
resolution image mentioned above shows both RO/RO ferries offshore with
their vehicle ramps down. Three rectangular objects, possibly amphibious
armor, are inbound to Bo Hai Ma Zhu. At the same moment, half a dozen
amphibious vehicles were imaged landing at Qianhai Beach.70
Given the limits of available imagery, it is possible that the rectangular
objects that appear to be loading onto the ferries are in fact small boats,
not amphibious armor. PLA amphibious armored vehicles have been noted
doing “out and back” training from beaches without deploying from a
landing ship. This chapter could not determine whether these ferries’
ramps were built or reinforced to accommodate the weight of armored
vehicles entering or exiting in offshore waters.
The dual-ferry operations with assault boats and amphibious armored
vehicles likely culminated in an exercise involving PLAN ships and
possibly other military elements in the waters off Qianhai Beach. The
Yangjiang Maritime Safety Administration (MSA) issued a closure notice
for an operating area that included Qianhai Beach for a military exercise
occurring from 31 July to 3 August 2021.71 During that time, Bo Hai Ma Zhu
and Hu Lu Dao operated in the closure area between a nearby anchorage
and the Qianhai Beach landing area, probably deploying and recovering
amphibious elements as part of the exercise.72
 C H I N E S E FER R Y TA LE S 397

Following the exercise at Qianhai, the two ferries transited to the PLAN
South Sea Fleet naval base at Zhanjiang, arriving on 4 August 2021. Bo Hai
Ma Zhu and Hu Lu Dao probably loaded military equipment overnight;
they departed the next morning. The ships proceeded to Honghai Bay,
69 nm east of Hong Kong, to participate in a two-day amphibious-landing
evolution (8–9 August).73 The Guangdong MSA issued a notice for a large
closure area that encompassed Honghai Bay for a military exercise occur-
ring 5–12 August.74
Medium-resolution satellite imagery on 8 August shows Bo Hai Ma
Zhu and ships that measure approximately 390 feet (120 meters)—the same
length as PLAN Type 072 LSTs—departing what probably had been their
off-load area at high speed. Bo Hai Ma Zhu had stopped four nautical miles
offshore for ninety minutes, probably to deploy assault boats, or amphibious
armor, or both. Wakes of probable amphibious armor and assault boats can
be seen in the image. Concurrent with this activity, Hu Lu Dao apparently
was conducting similar off-loading operations to the east. Hu Lu Dao was
stationary for approximately thirty minutes three nautical miles offshore,
outside the frame of the available satellite image.75
After their likely at-sea off-load operations, the ships withdrew several
miles offshore at approximately twelve knots—a relatively high speed for
these RO/RO ferries.76 This maneuver likely simulated a tactical withdrawal
following off-loading to mitigate any threats to the civilian ferries from
adversary forces onshore. The withdrawal tactics observed at Honghai Bay
indicate that the RO/RO ferries likely were exercised in a direct combat-
support role with enemy threats in mind, as opposed to the unopposed
logistics-support activity observed in the 2020 JLSF exercise.
AIS tracks on 8 August indicate that after several hours both RO/RO
ferries moved back within a few miles of the shore landing site, possibly to
on-load troops and equipment that had been deployed hours earlier. Late
on 8 August, Hu Lu Dao started its return journey to the Zhanjiang naval
base. Bo Hai Ma Zhu remained in Honghai Bay; on 9 August, it executed
the same offshore maneuvers, indicating another amphibious-landing
evolution. Bo Hai Ma Zhu then also returned to the Zhanjiang naval
base, probably to off-load the military equipment with which it had been
exercising. Following their off-loads in Zhanjiang, both ships began the
1,500 nm trek back to their ferry routes across the Bohai Sea.77

Large Exercise—Eastern Theater Command

In September 2021, at least seven RO/RO ferries and two general-cargo ships
participated in what likely was a large-scale PLA exercise. Notable activities
39 8 C H I N E S E A M P H I B I O U S WA R FA R E

included a large-scale mobility evolution that was synchronized with other

RO/RO ferries supporting amphibious beach landings. Test and evaluation
with the new-type floating causeway (discussed below) occurred following
the operational phase of the exercise. This September MCF training likely
was the capstone event for civilian shipping integration in summer 2021
PLA exercises.
The exercise spanned the length of the coastline in the Eastern Theater
Command’s area of responsibility. Civilian-ship exercise activity stretched
from Dacheng Bay, which sits on the border with the Southern Theater
Command, to the port of Lianyungang, 670 nm north and only a few miles

Figure 11. Tracks of Civilian Ships Supporting PLA Exercises,

September 2021

Bohai
Sea

8 Sep—RO/RO
logistics group unloads

2 Sep—Landing force loads

2 Sep—Cargo ships load
3 Sep—RO/ROs load
4 Sep—Cargo ships unload
—RO/ROs probably load
4 Sep—Amphibious landing

RO/ROs Logistics Group

4 ships
Cargo Logistics Group
2 ships
RO/RO Landing Group
2–3 ships
 C H I N E S E FER R Y TA LE S 39 9

from the border with the Northern Theater Command. Lianyungang was
also the embarkation port for the 2020 JLSF exercise. Figure 11 shows the
tracks of the RO/RO ferries and cargo ships that supported PLA exercises
in September 2021.78
Three different groups of vessels were identified in the early-September
PLA exercise: a RO/RO logistics group, consisting of four large RO/RO
ferries; a cargo logistics group, consisting of two general-cargo ships; and
a RO/RO ferry landing group, consisting of two RO/RO ferries that con-
ducted amphibious-landing operations. Half the merchant ships identified
in these groups had participated in the 2020 JLSF logistics exercise.
Additionally, in late September two RO/RO ferries, probably constituting
a test-and-evaluation group, practiced docking with a new floating-
causeway system.

RO/RO and General-Cargo Logistics Operations

From 31 August through 8 September 2021, four RO/RO ferries and two
general-cargo ships conducted an Eastern Theater intratheater mobility
exercise, what the PLA calls a “cross-sea projection” (跨海投送) exercise.
Information on logistics-group ships appears in table 5.
Three large RO/RO ferries from the Bohai Ferry Group departed their
routine routes on 31 August and proceeded to the Taiwan Strait. A fourth
Table 5. Merchant Ships Participating in Logistics Training,
September 2021

Ex. Length / Gross

Ship Name Type Owner
2020A Tonnage

Yes Zhong Hua Fu RO/RO 696 ft. / 45,000 t Weihai Haida Passenger
Xing Transportation Co. (BFG)

Yes Bo Hai Zhen Zhu RO/RO 538 ft. / 24,000 t Shandong Bohai Ferry Co.
(BFG)

No Bo Hai Zuan Zhu RO/RO 590 ft. / 33,400 t Shandong Bohai Ferry Co.
(BFG)

No Da Feng Gang Li RO/RO 538 ft. / 34,000 t Weihai Sheng’an Shipping

Ming Hao Co.

Yes Sheng Tai General 323 ft. / 4,000 t China COSCO Shipping
cargo Corp. (COSCO)

Yes Tian Zhu Shan General 323 ft. / 4,000 t Shanghai Changjiang
cargo Shipping (Sinotrans)

Notes: BFG = Bohai Ferry Group; COSCO = China Ocean Shipping Company.
400 C H I N E S E A M P H I B I O U S WA R FA R E

RO/RO ship that had not been observed supporting the PLA previously
joined the three ferries in the East China Sea on their southward trek. On
3 September 2021, all four ships arrived in Jiangyin, the port from which
JLSF elements likely had deployed for Exercise Eastern Transportation-
Projection 2020A. Here, the RO/RO ships again may have picked up JLSF
staff, depot personnel, and equipment to facilitate logistics training during
the exercise. All four RO/RO ships departed Jiangyin on the morning of 3
September.79
The fourth ship in the RO/RO group, Da Feng Gang Li Ming Hao,
operated by Weihai Sheng’an Shipping, is a large RO/RO ship that normally
transports volumes of commercial vehicles; it generally does not operate
on a regular ferry route.80 A different RO/RO ship of this type, operated
by the Chinese conglomerate Sinotrans, was featured in a June 2020
Chinese media report on a cross-sea projection exercise in which the ship
transported a PLA armored brigade.81
On 1–2 September 2021, two general-cargo ships supporting the exercise
arrived at adjacent berths in Fuzhou, China. These two vessels, Sheng Tai
and Tian Zhu Shan, also had participated in the 2020 JLSF exercise. Both
probably loaded vehicles and cargo; they then departed within minutes of
each other on the morning of 3 September.82
All four RO/RO ships arrived in the port of Xiamen within three hours
of each other, early on 4 September 2021. The two general-cargo vessels
arrived a few hours later and by midday had berthed adjacent to the
RO/RO ships. Satellite imagery is not available to indicate whether the cargo
off-loaded from the ships was vehicles or equipment; however, satellite
imagery does appear to indicate that columns of military trucks and armor
probably were staged for loading onto the ships in areas normally left clear
for the port’s container cranes. Bo Hai Zhen Zhu was berthed at a ferry
terminal 1.5 nm south of the area covered by this satellite image.83
It is unlikely that the large RO/RO ferries were loaded to capacity for this
exercise. These classes of ferries have multiple decks and can accommodate
300–50 vehicles, which normally would include a large number of smaller
automobiles.84 Maximum numbers of military utility vehicles, trucks, and
tracked vehicles probably range from 75 to 150, depending on the mix.
Each ferry also can transport up to two thousand troops for relatively short
at-sea periods; the ships likely do not have the facilities to feed and support
thousands of personnel for extended voyages.
The two general-cargo ships may have cross-decked cargo and
equipment to the RO/ROs before they departed on 5 September 2021.
The cargo ships appeared to return to normal commercial activity after
 C H I N E S E FER R Y TA LE S 4 01

departing Xiamen. The four RO/RO ships also departed Xiamen on

5 September within two hours of each other and proceeded north to
Lianyungang, arriving in Lianyungang within a few hours of each other
on the morning of 8 September. The RO/RO ships were only in port for
between three and five hours, probably off-loading equipment and vehicles.
All the ships departed Lianyungang by midday on 8 September to return to
ferry service on the Bohai Sea.85

RO/RO Ferry Amphibious-Landing Operations

On 30 August 2021, one day prior to the RO/RO logistics ferries getting
under way from the Bohai Sea, two other ferries from the Bohai Ferry
Group deployed to the vicinity of the Taiwan Strait to participate in an
amphibious-landing exercise. Bo Hai Ma Zhu, which had concluded its
amphibious-landing training in southern China only two weeks earlier,
was accompanied by one of its sister ships, Bo Hai Cui Zhu.86 Bo Hai Cui
Zhu had made a run to Qingdao on 20 August, just as Bo Hai Ma Zhu had
done in July 2021, probably to pick up troops and equipment. The ferries
may have embarked this force to deploy to the Taiwan Strait for the exercise.
RO/RO ferries that may have participated in amphibious-landing exercises
are listed in table 6.
Bo Hai Ma Zhu and Bo Hai Cui Zhu conducted an amphibious-landing
exercise that appeared to be executed in a single morning. To participate in
this one-day event, the two RO/RO ferries sailed over a thousand nautical
miles each way, without stopping in a port. They arrived east of Dongshan
Island on 2 September 2021 and anchored a thousand yards off a rocky
shore, then apparently took on fuel. The ships also may have on-loaded
exercise forces; or, more likely, they already had forces on board and were
waiting for the exercise to commence. They departed their anchorage
on the evening of 3 September, sailed in a 200 nm circle, and arrived in
Dacheng Bay on the morning of 4 September (see figure 12).87

Table 6. RO/RO Ferries Participating in Amphibious-Landing Exercises,

September 2021

Ex. Length / Gross

Ship Name Owner
2020A Tonnage

Yes Bo Hai Ma Zhu 590 ft. / 33,400 t Shandong Bohai Ferry Co. (Bohai
Ferry Group)

No Bo Hai Cui Zhu 590 ft. / 34,200 t Shandong Bohai Ferry Co. (Bohai
Ferry Group)
4 02 C H I N E S E A M P H I B I O U S WA R FA R E

Bo Hai Ma Zhu arrived first in Dacheng Bay and stopped six nautical
miles offshore for about an hour. As Bo Hai Ma Zhu withdrew to an
anchorage a few miles away to wait for its sister ship, Bo Hai Cui Zhu
arrived at the same off-load point and stopped for over two hours. AIS
weather data indicate there was little to no wind at the time of the likely
off-load activity.88
The PLA released photographs of amphibious-assault vehicles
deploying from LSTs in relatively calm waters in what was identified as
a 4 September 2021 Eastern Theater amphibious-assault exercise. That
exercise likely was the same landing event in which the RO/RO ferries

Figure 12. RO/RO Ferry Amphibious-Landing Exercise Tracks,

2–4 September 2021

Morning, 2 Sep RO/RO Ferry

Anchored offshore Amphibious-Landing
Evening, 3 Sep Exercise Tracks
Under way
2–4 September 2021

Afternoon, 4 Sep
Under way, return
to Bohai Sea
Midday, 4 Sep
Stopped offshore Night, 3–4 Sep
for 3 hours 200 nm transit
Morning, 4 Sep
Stopped, off-loaded
offshore 1–2 hours

participated.89 Medium-resolution satellite imagery taken during Bo Hai

Cui Zhu’s stop appears to show several boats or amphibious vehicles
departing from the ferry’s stern ramp. A stream of boats and vehicles seen
in the image apparently is proceeding to the landing beach. The RO/RO
ferries’ off-load area is over five nautical miles offshore, behind a line of
ships—probably the PLAN LSTs in the photograph deploying amphibious
armor.90
After off-loading, both ferries stopped offshore near Dongshan Island
for several hours. This could have been to off-load additional equipment or
personnel or to on-load the forces they had just deployed to the exercise area.
Both ships departed the anchorage on the afternoon of 4 September 2021
and proceeded directly back to the Bohai Sea, arriving on 7 September.91

Floating-Causeway Test and Evaluation

From 12 to 25 September 2021, two RO/RO ferries, Sheng Sheng 2 and
Bo Hai Zhen Zhu, conducted docking and probable test-and-evaluation
procedures with a new-type floating-causeway system in Dacheng Bay, on
 C H I N E S E FER R Y TA LE S 4 03

the border between Fujian and Guangdong Provinces. The list of vessels
that participated in the causeway test and evaluation—the two RO/RO
ferries, a semisubmersible barge, and three tugs—appears in table 7.

New-Type Floating Causeway

The September 2021 Dacheng Bay event revealed a new system, referred
to here as a floating-causeway system to distinguish it from the floating-
pier system used in the 2020 exercise.92 This new floating-causeway system
bears a much closer resemblance to the U.S. Navy’s INLS than does its
predecessor. Longer than the PLA’s original floating-pier system, it extends
approximately 1,475 feet (450 meters) from the shore. Like INLS and the
PLA’s floating-pier system, the causeway is modular. The new system
still appears to rely on a large semisubmersible barge at the head of the
causeway for RO/RO ships to dock. The same semisubmersible barge that
participated in Exercise Eastern Transportation-Projection 2020A,

Table 7. Civilian Vessels Participating in New-Type Floating-Causeway

Test and Evaluation

Ex. Length / Gross

Ship Name Type Owner
2020A Tonnage

No Sheng Sheng 2 RO/RO 541 ft. / 20,400 t Weihai Haida Passenger

Transportation Co.
(Bohai Ferry Group)

Yes Bo Hai Zhen Zhu RO/RO 538 ft. / 24,000 t Shandong Bohai Ferry Co.
(Bohai Ferry Group)

Yes San Hang Gong 8 Heavy 213 ft. / CCCC

lift Unknown

Yes San Hang Tuo Tug 147 ft. / 842 t CCCC

4007

No Gu Gang Tuo 1 Tug 125 ft. / Unknown

Unknown

No Jin Sheng Tuo Tug 174 ft. / Unknown

Unknown

San Hang Gong 8, was noted operating with the floating-causeway system
in Dacheng Bay in 2021.93
Unlike the older PLA floating-pier system, the new-type floating-
causeway system appears to be self-propelled. Medium-resolution satellite
imagery on 10 September 2021 shows six sections of the floating causeway
apparently moving toward the semisubmersible barge under their own
404 C H I N E S E A M P H I B I O U S WA R FA R E

power.94 Forty minutes later, a high-resolution satellite image captures

the six modules adjacent to the semisubmersible barge. Propulsion units
appear to be affixed to the sides of the causeway modules. A tug apparently
is preparing to tow the barge toward the shoreline, where the causeway
later was assembled.95

New-Type Landing Platform

August and September 2021 commercial satellite imagery of the PLA’s
Dacheng Bay amphibious-training area also reveals what is likely a new
type of landing platform. Like the floating-pier systems, this platform
may solve the previously mentioned challenges of large tidal ranges and
mudflats in amphibious-landing areas. The landing platform probably
allows shallow-draft amphibious-assault ships and landing craft to dock
with and unload at the platform. By using the platform to transfer vehicles
and equipment to the beach, amphibious ships would not need to beach
themselves to load or unload, lessening the risk that they would end up
stranded on the flats at low tide.96
The platform measures approximately 215 by 98 feet (65 by 30 meters).
It appears to have four vertical posts that may house pilings that would
extend to the sea bottom to provide stability when the platform is positioned
in the surf zone. The 270-foot (82 meter) ramp extends from the platform
to the beach.97 No vessels were noted docking with the landing platform in
August and September 2021 commercial satellite imagery.

Event Summary
Sheng Sheng 2 left the Bohai Sea and headed south on 7 September 2021; Bo
Hai Zhen Zhu concluded its participation in the 2–8 September mobility
exercise, departed Lianyungang on 8 September, and followed Sheng Sheng
2 to Dacheng Bay. Sheng Sheng 2 arrived at an anchorage off Dongshan
Island on 10 September; Bo Hai Zhen Zhu arrived on 12 September, after a
brief stop for fuel in Xiamen.98
Commercial satellite imagery indicates that the new floating-causeway
system was set up and taken down several times on the beach in Dacheng
Bay from 6 to 14 September 2021. This likely provided training for the
causeway operators. The causeway sections can be seen maneuvering near
or assembled with the semisubmersible barge San Hang Gong 8, which
acted as a head for the causeway.99 If Sheng Sheng 2 was supposed to have
docked with the barge and the floating causeway during this week, it failed
to achieve that objective. The ferry left the Dongshan Island anchorage
and took up position nine nautical miles offshore in Dacheng Bay on 13
September; however, there are no indications that the ship approached the
 C H I N E S E FER R Y TA LE S 405

floating causeway. Sheng Sheng 2 returned to the Dongshan anchorage on

14 September, then departed two days later to make the thousand-nautical-
mile trek back to the Bohai Sea.100
Bo Hai Zhen Zhu did complete docking evolutions with the semi-
submersible barge and the floating causeway. Details of these events,
including the number of docking attempts and the length of time docked,
could not be determined from available AIS data—it appears that Bo Hai
Zhen Zhu turned off its AIS terminal from 12 to 25 September 2021.101
However, commercial satellite imagery captured what almost certainly
was Bo Hai Zhen Zhu a thousand yards from the floating causeway on
16 September.102 AIS data indicate that the tug next to the RO/RO ferry
maneuvered to the semisubmersible barge ninety minutes after this image
was taken. This may have been the first time a RO/RO ship docked with the
barge and causeway during this evolution.103
Bo Hai Zhen Zhu moored at an undeveloped quay on Huyetuo Island,
just east of Dongshan Island, from 20 to 21 September 2021. Satellite
imagery does not indicate any activity on the quay, but the ship may have
taken on personnel or vehicles for docking maneuvers with the barge and
causeway.104 Despite the lack of AIS data after the ship departed the quay,
other evidence indicates that the ferry proceeded back to Dacheng Bay
and docked with the semisubmersible barge and floating causeway several
times from 22 to 25 September. In medium-resolution commercial satellite
imagery, Bo Hai Zhen Zhu can be seen backed into the semisubmersible
barge on 22, 23, and 25 September. Bo Hai Zhen Zhu’s wake in the 25
September image likely indicates that the ship was backing into the
semisubmersible barge when the image was taken.105 Following these
docking evolutions, Bo Hai Zhen Zhu departed Dacheng Bay on 25
September 2021 and proceeded back to its home port on the Bohai Sea,
arriving on 29 September.106
San Hang Gong 8, towed by its tug, San Hang Tuo 4007, departed
Dacheng Bay on 26 September 2021 and returned to Xiamen on 27
September.107 The floating causeway was missing from commercial satellite
imagery of Dacheng Bay after 25 September; it probably was disassembled
and moved out of the area. Neither the floating causeway’s home port nor
its storage location could be determined.

Exercise Analysis
The scope and diversity of the 2021 military-civil fusion exercises involving
civilian shipping were on par with what was observed in the JLSF Exer-
cise Eastern Transportation-Projection 2020A. Apart from tugs and
smaller craft, the 2020 and 2021 exercise series employed the same number
406 C H I N E S E A M P H I B I O U S WA R FA R E

of major civilian vessels: eight large RO/RO ferries and two general-cargo
ships. Five of the merchant ships participated in both the 2020 and 2021
exercise activities identified in this chapter.108 Combining ships and crews
from previous exercises into current and future exercises represents a
characteristic pattern of Chinese military training in which experience is
passed from units and organizations to others through practice rather than
transferring knowledge through formal training. Seeing the same ships
from the same companies in follow-on exercises should be expected as the
PLA seeks to pass on and build on the experiences that each crew acquired
in the 2020 and 2021 exercises.
The 2021 exercise activity expanded the use of civilian shipping to
include direct combat-support roles for the RO/RO ferries: off-loading
amphibious forces offshore for beach landings. While being used as
auxiliary landing ships in the 2021 exercises, the civilian RO/RO ferries
demonstrated defensive tactics that might mitigate potential adversary
threats; in contrast, reactions to simulated enemy threats were not detected
in the 2020 over-the-shore logistics exercise. In July and August 2021
training, RO/RO ferries in Qianhai and Honghai Bay took up off-load
positions three to four nautical miles offshore. In the Honghai Bay exercise,
ferries rapidly withdrew from the off-load areas after apparently deploying
amphibious forces. In the September 2021 exercises, RO/RO ferries took up
off-load positions more than five nautical miles offshore, behind a line of
PLAN amphibious ships that might screen the civilian vessels from threats.
The September amphibious-landing exercises appear to have been
synchronized with mobility exercises. External observations of events
indicate that the RO/RO ferry landing group supported a beach assault
with PLAN amphibious ships on 4 September 2021. Concurrently, military-
civilian logistics forces loaded on 4 September and departed Xiamen on
5 September. Those ships off-loaded a few days later hundreds of miles
away, possibly simulating an off-load in a captured foreign port. Later,
experimentation with the types of over-the-shore logistics technologies
observed in 2020 continued in 2021 with the test and evaluation of the
PLA’s new floating-causeway system.
The apparent delays in test and evaluation of the floating causeway may
have revealed some issues with the new system. In September 2021, Sheng
Sheng 2 waited offshore for several days without approaching the beach
where the causeway was being assembled and taken down. Eventually, the
RO/RO ferry departed the area and returned to the Bohai Sea, having spent
twelve days away from its home port with little to no exercise activity to
show for it. Later, Bo Hai Zhen Zhu did dock successfully with the causeway
 C H I N E S E FER R Y TA LE S 4 07

and semisubmersible barge. Whatever the specific cause of the delays

in docking with the causeway system, the events underscore the general
difficulties in employing new technologies and procedures in a challenging
maritime environment.
Many of the large Bohai Sea–based RO/RO ferries reportedly are built to
national military standards expressly to contribute to military operations.
It nevertheless is noteworthy that these ferries deployed from northern to
southern China when other large ferries that service routes to and from
Hainan Island might have been used to support PLA exercises.

As of 2021, the PLA and its reserve civilian merchant fleet probably are
unable to provide, in austere or challenging environments, the maritime
logistics necessary to support a cross-strait invasion of Taiwan. Although
the 2021 exercises employed RO/RO ferries as reserve amphibious-landing
ships, deploying infantry in assault boats or amphibious armor, this likely
represents a very modest augmentation for a potential PLA landing force.
Despite concerns that China could bring its vast fleet of merchant ships to
bear on an operation to invade Taiwan or to conduct some other military
operation, there are practical realities that should limit such concerns. The
complexity of amphibious operations appears to have limited military-
civil fusion to a handful of select ships that provide the PLA with relatively
modest capacities.
The apparent increase in civilian ship participation in PLA amphibious
exercises simply may reflect the PLA taking advantage of excess RO/RO
ferry availability during the COVID-19 pandemic; however, the appearance
of new amphibious-logistics technologies—probably years in the making—
suggests otherwise. Any continuation of the integration of civilian ships
into PLA operations will be telling, especially as exercise participation
extends to ships other than the large Bohai Sea–based ferries. Once
procedures have been established and the PLA has gained some experience
integrating civilian vessels into amphibious operations, there may be great
potential to scale up rapidly the use of civilian ships in combat-support
or amphibious-logistics roles. The expanding roles for merchant ships in
military operations may present challenges for China’s adversaries in terms
of detecting, targeting, and countering these civilian vessels.
However, scaling up combat and logistics operations can be a challenge
that increases geometrically in complexity as numbers of participating
forces and volumes increase. Loading and moving eight civilian ships
once is very different from loading and moving eighty ships once—or,
more likely, coordinating dozens of ships to load and move matériel,
408 C H I N E S E A M P H I B I O U S WA R FA R E

equipment, and personnel for days or weeks, all while taking enemy fire.
In the 2020 over-the-shore logistics exercise, the landing and unloading
operations appear to have been completely unopposed. In the 2021 logistics
operations as well, no evidence was observed in the tracks of the ships or
satellite imagery that the exercise sought to simulate the presence of an
enemy force. No defensive actions (e.g., convoying, escorting, evasion, or
diversion) were observed. However, given observations of defensive actions
taken in the 2021 landing exercises, the PLA and its merchant support fleet
may be changing their mind-set about putting these ships in harm’s way.
The appearance of a new floating-causeway system and landing
platform in 2021 indicates that the PLA is investing in better over-the-
shore logistics technologies. These platforms could provide the PLA with
significant capabilities and access to beach-landing areas with military or
civilian ships. Project 019 was initiated in 2001, heralded by the PLA as a
major (if not widely known) project to create a capability for at-sea transfer
and unloading of matériel and equipment in austere conditions. Prototype
capabilities appeared over a decade later. By 2020, it appeared that the
PLA still was using those same prototype capabilities in Exercise Eastern
Transportation-Projection 2020A. Given these long timelines for
development and the challenges the PLA may be experiencing with its new
floating-causeway system, it is unlikely the PLA will increase its over-the-
shore logistics capability rapidly in the next several years.
A group of Chinese military authors affiliated with the PLA’s Military
Transportation University and the JLSF Transportation and Projection
Bureau provide some insights about the state of PLA over-the-shore
logistics capabilities. In January 2020, they wrote that the Chinese
military’s “dockless unloading equipment” (无码头卸载装备) is essentially
a “technical reserve.” Most of the specialized equipment consists of
prototypes, according to these PLA authors. They observe that dockless
unloading equipment usually is kept in storage and seldom used—which
presents significant challenges for conducting training and for procuring
the necessary volume of equipment that otherwise might support large-
scale operations. In their critique, they conclude, “[The Chinese] military’s
dockless unloading is still in its infancy. There are still many weak links.”109
That January 2020 assessment likely is accurate, on the basis of detailed
observations of Exercise Eastern Transportation-Projection 2020A
and 2021 exercise activity. How those nascent capabilities grow in the
coming years should be watched closely.
The 2020 and 2021 exercises integrating civilian shipping, especially
large RO/RO ferries, may have provided the PLA and its JLSF with a
 C H I N E S E FER R Y TA LE S 409

baseline assessment for where the Chinese military is with regard to large-
scale amphibious operations and logistics. The lessons learned from the
JLSF’s experience over the summer of 2020 may provide a road map for
the types of capabilities and capacities the JLSF and the larger PLA joint
force may need for future operations. Depending on the PLA’s takeaways,
one might expect to see what probably still are prototypes, such as the
floating-pier system, the new floating causeway, and the new landing
platform, go through additional experimentation and exercises, possibly
leading to large-scale production of these types of capabilities to support
multiple landing points in a Taiwan invasion. Similarly, ad hoc capabilities
such as multiple deck barges modified into an at-sea RO/RO-unloading
platform may evolve into tailored systems with features supporting the
unique requirements for loading and unloading military equipment from
both naval vessels and civilian ships at sea.
Despite these seemingly negative critiques of PLA amphibious-landing
capabilities in general, and over-the-shore, “dockless” logistics capabilities
in particular, it would be a mistake to underestimate the ingenuity and
tenacity of the PLA. Any evaluation of these 2020 and 2021 exercises should
consider the context of the Chinese approach to problem solving rather
than a Western opinion about how amphibious logistics should be done.
At present the PLA’s reserve merchant fleet probably does not have the
capabilities and capacities to support a disciplined, effective, and efficient
amphibious operation with over-the-shore logistics in support of a Taiwan
invasion. However, efficiency is not necessarily a prerequisite for success,
especially for the PLA. Clearly, the PLA has started to work through what
may be required to support an invasion of Taiwan and how exactly that
will be done. The Chinese Communist Party can leverage a national
mobilization of maritime shipping on a massive scale, and the PLA clearly
intends to exploit that capability. Such a mobilization of civilian shipping to
contribute to cross-strait operations may be very high risk and could result
in extremely high losses. However, there is a certain “quality in quantity.”
There are few challenges related to efficiency and attrition that the Chinese
military could not address simply by applying overwhelming mass and a
tolerance for loss. Future exercises like those explored in this chapter merit
close scrutiny to provide indications of the trajectory of PLA amphibious
and logistics capabilities.
410 C H I N E S E A M P H I B I O U S WA R FA R E

Notes
1. This chapter fuses a variety of publicly and commercially available sources to
develop detailed insights into often complex military activity and capabilities.
Analysis is supported with AIS data from “MarineTraffic: Global Ship Tracking
Intelligence,” MarineTraffic, www.marinetraffic.com/. Google Earth images are
attributed to the commercial satellite provider. The chapter also features
commercial satellite imagery from Planet Labs, the leading provider of global
daily Earth data. Medium-resolution satellite imagery from the PlanetScope
constellation (ground sample distance [GSD] ~3.7 meters) was obtained through
Planet’s Education and Research Program. “Education and Research Program,”
Planet Labs, www.planet.com/markets/education-and-research/. High-resolution
satellite imagery from Planet’s SkySat constellation (GSD ~0.5 meters) was
purchased by the author through SkyWatch Space Applications. SkyWatch, www
.skywatch.com/. The SkyWatch team’s advice and assistance in accessing archived
imagery and tasking satellite collection was greatly appreciated.
2. U.S. Defense Dept., Joint Logistics, Joint Publication 4-0 (Washington, DC: Joint
Chiefs of Staff, 4 February 2019, incorporating change 1 of 8 May 2019), pp. H-1 to
H-2.
3. 吴刚 [Wu Gang], 岸滩联合后勤军交运输保障研究 [“Study on Military Trans-
portation Support of Joint Logistics Over-the-Shore Operations”], 军事交通学院
学报 [Journal of Military Transportation University] 16, no. 7 (July 2014), pp. 9–12.
4. 汪欣 [Wang Xin] and 王广东 [Wang Guangdong], 运输投送力忧在跨海登岛作
战登陆桔地开设中的运用研究 [“Application of Transportation and Projection
Power to the Opening of Landing Bases in Sea-Crossing Landing Operations”],
国防交通工程与技术 [National Defense Transportation Engineering and Technol-
ogy] 17, no. 5 (September 2019), p. 14.
5. For a masterful analysis that draws on authoritative Chinese writings to assess this
and other 1949–50 island-seizure campaigns by the Chinese Communist Party’s
nascent navy and affiliated maritime forces, see Toshi Yoshihara, Mao’s Army Goes
to Sea: The Island Campaigns and the Founding of China’s Navy (Washington, DC:
Georgetown Univ. Press, 2023).
6. 黄谦 [Huang Qian] and 王红旗 [Wang Hongqi], 两栖重型合成旅登陆作战后
勤保障 [“A Probe into the Logistical Support of the Amphibious Heavy Synthetic
Brigade”], 国防科技 [National Defense Technology] 40, no. 3 (June 2019), p. 89.
7. 罗雷 [Luo Lei] et al., 诺曼底登陆人工港的建设与启示 [“Construction and En-
lightenment of Normandy Landing Artificial Port”], 军事交通学院学报 [Journal
of Military Transportation University] 22, no. 1 (January 2020), pp. 15–17.
8. “跨海投送” (cross-sea projection) is a term that has been used to describe these
types of civil-military operations since at least 2015. See, for example, 李开强
[Li Kaiqiang] and 吴俊伟 [Wu Junwei], 空军跨海远程投送 横跨渤黄东南海
四大海域 [“Air Force Cross-Sea Long-Distance Projection across the Four Great
Seas—Bohai, Yellow, South, and East Seas”], 新华网 [Xinhuanet], 12 June 2015,
www.xinhuanet.com//mil/2015-06/12/c_127908248.htm.
9. 陈炫宇 [Chen Xuanyu], 任聪 [Ren Cong], and 王凤忠 [Wang Fengzhong], 渡
海登岛运输勤务保障面临的问题和对策 [“Countermeasures for Problems in
 C H I N E S E FER R Y TA LE S 411

Logistical Support in Cross-Strait and Beach Landing Transportation”], 物流技术

[Logistics Technology] 35, no. 10 (2016), p. 168.
10. Wang and Wang, “Application of Transportation and Projection Power,” p. 13.
11. 陈发智 [Chen Fazhi] and 李晓楠 [Li Xiaonan], 登岛作战中军交运输保障几
个问题的探讨 [“Research into Problems of Military Transportation Support in
an Island Operation”], 国防交通工程与技术 [National Defense Transportation
Engineering and Technology], no. 1 (2005), p. 4. See also Wang and Wang, “Appli-
cation of Transportation and Projection Power,” p. 13.
12. The Chinese term “运投” appears to be uniformly translated into English by
Chinese military authors as “transportation and projection.” “军地” refers to
“军方-地方” (military force and local [civilian] force). “联合训练” means “joint
training.”
13. 央视军事 [CCTV Military], 东部战区军地联合演练跨海投送 [“Eastern Theater
Command Military-Civil Joint Exercise [of] Cross-Sea Projection”], 13 August
2020, Bilibili video, www.bilibili.com/s/video/BV1va4y1J7aU/.
14. 张飞 [Zhang Fei] and 周鹏 [Zhou Peng], 联合投送能力的增长点在哪里—东
部战区运输投送座谈交流发言集锦 [“Where Are the Growth Points for Joint-
Projection Capabilities—a Collection of Speeches and Exchanges on Transporta-
tion and Projection in the Eastern Theater”], 解放军报 [PLA Daily], 22 No-
vember 2019, p. 3, available at www.81.cn/gfbmap/content/2019-11/22/content
_248065.htm.
15. CCTV Military, “Eastern Theater Command Military-Civil Joint Exercise [of]
Cross-Sea Projection,” 0:38–0:57.
16. Lanshan is just across the border in Shandong Province, placing it in the PLA’s
Northern Theater. Maxar Technologies satellite view of Lanshan, China,
35.123° N, 119.378° E, Google Earth Pro, v. 7.3.3.7786, 27 September 2020 (Google,
2020).
17. Ownership and registration information for commercial vessels was obtained
from MarineTraffic, www.marinetraffic.com/. The purported affiliation of the
LCUs with the PLAN Eastern Theater is based on an analysis of AIS position
data that indicates the LCUs likely are homeported in Nan’ao Island (难熬岛),
Niushiwan (牛屎湾), Qinying’ao (亲营澳), and Xiamen (厦门).
18. 全国国防动员工作先进个人颁奖仪式在烟台举行 [“National Defense Mobili-
zation Advanced Individual Award Ceremony Held in Yantai”], 渤海轮渡集团股
份有限公司 [Bohai Ferry Group], 4 July 2020, www.bhferry.com/e/action/Show
Info.php?classid=11&id=81/.
19. 何国本 [He Guoben] et al., 战略投送支援船队训练现状及对策 [“Current Situ-
ation and Countermeasures of Strategic Projection Support Fleet Training”],
军事交通学院学报 [Journal of Military Transportation University], no. 5 (May
2017), p. 1, as cited in Conor M. Kennedy, Civil Transport in PLA Power Projection,
China Maritime Report 4 (Newport, RI: U.S. Naval War College, December
2019), p. 7, available at digital-commons.usnwc.edu/cmsi-maritime-reports/4.
20. 汤金荣 [Tang Jinrong], 周鹏 [Zhou Peng], and 陈峰 [Chen Feng], 跨海投送
[“Cross-Sea Projection”], 中国青年报 [China Youth Daily], 27 August 2020,
m.cyol.com/yuanchuang/2020-08/27/content_18752048.htm.
412 C H I N E S E A M P H I B I O U S WA R FA R E

21. Maxar Technologies satellite view of Lanshan, China, 35.137° N, 119.378° E,

Google Earth Pro, v. 7.3.3.7786, 27 September 2020 (Google, 2020).
22. “Improved Navy Lighterage System,” Fincantieri Marine Group, 27 April 2020,
fincantierimarinegroup.com/products/navy/improved-navy-lighterage-system/.
23. 叶贵先 [Ye Guixian], 解放军装备海上机动卸载平台增强后勤保障能力 [“The
PLA Is Equipped with an Offshore Mobile Unloading Platform to Enhance
Logistics Support”], 光明日报 [Guangming Daily], 27 April 2005, available at
jczs.sina.com.cn/2005-04-27/1823283991.html.
24. Wang Guangdong, in association with the Military Transportation Research
Institute, appears to hold dozens of patents for various marine-logistics-related
inventions and devices, many of which are related to the floating-pier system.
See, for example: 王广东 [Wang Guangdong] et al., 复合滚装/滚卸跳板 [com-
posite roll-on/roll-off gangplank], PRC Patent CN2915928Y, filed 13 June 2006,
and issued 27 June 2007, patents.google.com/patent/CN2915928Y/zh; 王广东
[Wang Guangdong] et al., 海上多用途浮箱 [offshore multiuse buoyancy tank],
PRC Patent CN101209746A, filed 25 December 2007, and issued 9 June 2010,
patents.google.com/patent/CN101209746A/zh; and 王广东 [Wang Guangdong]
et al., 海上箱系统的刚性连接接头 [rigid connector of offshore floating casing
system], PRC Patent CN2871946Y, filed 15 March 2006, and issued 21 February
2007, patents.google.com/patent/CN2871946Y/zh.
25. 广州军区首次民船成建制实兵装卸演练 [“Guangzhou Military Region’s First
Civilian Ship Full-Scale Loading and Unloading Exercise”], CCTV, 20 June 2014,
news.cctv.com/2014/06/20/VIDE1403241489289947.shtml.
26. See AIS position data citations for LCUs and crane off-loads (note 34) and offshore
RO/RO off-loads (note 37). See also Planet Labs SkySat satellite view of Lanshan,
China, 35.141° N, 119.379° E, image ID 20200811_053052_ssc8_u0001, SkyWatch
EarthCache, 11 August 2020, www.skywatch.com/.
27. Planet Labs SkySat satellite view of Lanshan, China, 35.141° N, 119.379° E, image
ID 20200811_053052_ssc8_u0001, SkyWatch EarthCache, 11 August 2020, www
.skywatch.com/.
28. Tang, Zhou, and Chen, “Cross-Sea Projection.”
29. “Guangzhou Military Region’s First Civilian Ship Full-Scale Loading and Un-
loading Exercise.”
30. “Eastern Theater Command Military-Civil Joint Exercise [of] Cross-Sea Projec-
tion,” 0:53–0:57. The video of the tanks off-loading likely was shot on 3 August
2020.
31. “Guangzhou Military Region’s First Civilian Ship Full-Scale Loading and Un-
loading Exercise.”
32. China Harzone Industry, Harzone Catalogue (Wuhan, PRC: 2018), pp. 27–30.
33. Planet Labs SkySat satellite views of Lanshan, China, 35.148° N, 119.401° E, image
ID 20200715_053516_ssc8_u0001, 15 July 2020, and image ID 20200817_023322
_ssc12_u0001, 17 August 2020; both SkyWatch EarthCache, www.skywatch.com/.
34. For example, AIS position data, probable LCU (MMSI 413469786), 3 August
2020, and probable LCUs (MMSI 412357406, 412175175), 10 August 2020, and
probable LCUs (MMSI 412175175, 412170701), 19 August 2020; all Marine-
Traffic, www.marinetraffic.com/.
 C H I N E S E FER R Y TA LE S 413

35. A better Chinese term, used in the maritime industry for what the PLA is calling
a “型工程方驳” (engineering side barge), is probably “甲板驳船” (deck barge).
36. Planet Labs SkySat satellite views of Lanshan, China, 35.147° N, 119.409° E,
image ID 20200801_053655_ssc10_u0001, 1 August 2020, and 35.138° N,
119.383° E, image ID 20200811_053052_ssc8_u0001, 11 August 2020; both
SkyWatch EarthCache, www.skywatch.com/.
37. For example, AIS position data, probable LCUs (MMSI 412175175, 412357400,
412357406, 412357407), 3 August 2020, and probable LCUs (MMSI 413366060,
412175175, 413469786, 412357400, 412357406, 412357407), 19 August 2020; all
MarineTraffic, www.marinetraffic.com/.
38. Planet Labs SkySat satellite views of Lanshan, China, 35.138° N, 119.383° E, image
ID 20200817_023322_ssc12_u0001, SkyWatch EarthCache, 17 August 2020, www
.skywatch.com/.
39. For example, AIS position data, probable LCU (MMSI 412357407) and probable
LCU (MMSI 412170701), MarineTraffic, 7, 22, and 24 July and 5 August 2020,
www.marinetraffic.com/.
40. Planet Labs SkySat satellite view of Lanshan, China, 35.138° N, 119.383° E, image
ID 20200817_023322_ssc12_u0001, 17 August 2020.
41. AIS position data, Hai Yang Dao (MMSI 412468000), MarineTraffic, 13–21 June
2020, www.marinetraffic.com/.
42. AIS position data, San Hang Gong 8 (MMSI 413378280) and San Hang Tuo 4007
(MMSI 412704260), MarineTraffic, 13–19 June 2020, www.marinetraffic.com/.
43. For the entire exercise period, a semisubmersible barge virtually identical to San
Hang Gong 8 loitered in the northern part of the Lanshan Beach inner harbor.
This barge was identified as Zhong Jian Ban Qian Bo 1 (MMSI 413326830), which
appears to be homeported in Lanshan. Other than its presence in the exercise
beach area, nothing indicated it participated in the exercise.
44. AIS position data, San Hang Gong 8 (MMSI 413378280) and probable LCUs
(MMSI 412175175, 413469786, 412170701, 413666669, 412357400, 412357406,
412357407), MarineTraffic, 21 June–12 July 2020, www.marinetraffic.com/.
45. AIS position data, Sheng Sheng 1 (MMSI 412328670), MarineTraffic, 14–16 July
2020, www.marinetraffic.com/; Planet Labs SkySat satellite view of Lanshan,
China, 35.146° N, 119.380° E, image ID 20200715_053516_ssc8_u0001, SkyWatch
EarthCache, 15 July 2020, www.skywatch.com/.
46. AIS position data, Bang Chui Dao (MMSI 412450000) and San Hang Gong 8
(MMSI 413378280), MarineTraffic, 29 July 2020, www.marinetraffic.com/.
47. AIS position data, Bo Hai Bao Zhu (MMSI 412330020) and Tian Zhu Shan (MMSI
412076010), MarineTraffic, 25–27 July 2020, www.marinetraffic.com/.
48. Planet Labs SkySat satellite view of Lanshan, China, 35.096° N, 119.370° E, image
ID 20200817_023322_ssc12_u0001, SkyWatch EarthCache, 17 August 2020, www
.skywatch.com/.
49. This entire subsection covered by AIS position data, Bo Hai Zhen Zhu (MMSI
413409000), Bang Chui Dao (MMSI 412450000), and Tian Zhu Shan (MMSI
412076010), MarineTraffic, 27–30 July 2020, www.marinetraffic.com/.
414 C H I N E S E A M P H I B I O U S WA R FA R E

50. AIS position data, Wish Way (MMSI 371578000) and Zhong Hua Fu Xing (MMSI
412283000), MarineTraffic, 1 August 2020, www.marinetraffic.com/.
51. “Asia’s Largest ‘ro-ro’ Passenger Cruise Ship Sets on Maiden Voyage in East
China,” Xinhua, 7 October 2020, www.xinhuanet.com/english/2020-10/07/c_139
424514.htm.
52. Kennedy, Civil Transport in PLA Power Projection, pp. 15–17.
53. E.g., Planet Labs SkySat satellite view of Lanshan, China, 35.156° N, 119.402° E,
image ID 20200811_053052_ssc8_u0001, SkyWatch EarthCache, 11 August 2020,
www.skywatch.com/.
54. AIS position data, Hai Yang Dao (MMSI 412468000), MarineTraffic, 1 August
2020, www.marinetraffic.com/.
55. Planet Labs SkySat satellite view of Lanshan, China, 35.147° N, 119.395° E,
image ID 20200801_053655_ssc10_u0001, SkyWatch EarthCache, 1 August
2020, www.skywatch.com/.
56. Additional research is required on matters of meteorology, as archived records
of neither weather forecasts nor actual weather conditions for the Chinese coast
were found. Some information on wind conditions was available through AIS data,
which seemed to indicate that winds were light during exercise events.
57. AIS position data, Hai Yang Dao (MMSI 412468000), Sheng Sheng 1 (MMSI
412328670), Zhong Hua Fu Xing (MMSI 412283000), and Sheng Tai (MMSI
412081630), MarineTraffic, 1–3 August 2020, www.marinetraffic.com/.
58. AIS position data, Bo Hai Yin Zhu (MMSI 412328370), Bo Hai Bao Zhu (MMSI 41
2330020), Bang Chui Dao (MMSI 412450000), and Sheng Tai (MMSI 412081630),
MarineTraffic, 8–10 August 2020, www.marinetraffic.com/.
59. AIS position data, Hai Yang Dao (MMSI 412468000), Sheng Sheng 1 (MMSI
412328670), Zhong Hua Fu Xing (MMSI 412283000), Sheng Tai (MMSI 412081630),
Bo Hai Yin Zhu (MMSI 412328370), Bo Hai Bao Zhu (MMSI 412330020), Bang
Chui Dao (MMSI 412450000), and Tian Zhu Shan (MMSI 412076010), Marine-
Traffic, 18–20 August 2020, www.marinetraffic.com/.
60. AIS position data, Tian Zhu Shan (MMSI 412076010) and Sheng Tai (MMSI
412081630), MarineTraffic, 18–20 August 2020.
61. AIS position data, Wish Way (MMSI 371578000), MarineTraffic, 20–27 August
2020, www.marinetraffic.com/. Wish Way was in Qingdao Harbor from 24 to 26
August 2020 for unknown reasons, but it did not appear to go pierside.
62. AIS position data, San Hang Gong 8 (MMSI 413378280) and San Hang Tuo 4007
(MMSI 412704260), MarineTraffic, 20–28 August 2020, www.marinetraffic.com/.
63. AIS position data, Bo Hai Ma Zhu (MMSI 414211000), MarineTraffic, 23–25
August 2020, www.marinetraffic.com/.
64. 海军陆战队某旅组织联合跨海投送演练 [“Marine Corps Brigade Organized
Joint Cross-Sea Projection Exercise”], 中国军视网 [China Military Television
Network], 22 July 2021, www.js7tv.cn/video/202107_253134.html.
65. AIS position data, Bo Hai Ma Zhu (MMSI 414211000) and Hu Lu Dao (MMSI
413134000), MarineTraffic, 11 July–11 August 2021, www.marinetraffic.com/;
Planet Labs PlanetScope satellite view of Qianhai (a.k.a. Fuhu Harbor [福湖港]),
 C H I N E S E FER R Y TA LE S 415

China, 21.492° N, 111.527° E, image ID 20210717_024745_1035, Planet, 17 July

2021, www.planet.com/.
66. AIS position data, Bo Hai Ma Zhu (MMSI 414211000) and Hu Lu Dao (MMSI
413134000), MarineTraffic, 17 July–3 August 2021, www.marinetraffic.com/.
67. Planet Labs SkySat satellite view of Qianhai (a.k.a. Fuhu Harbor [福湖港]),
China, 21.523° N, 111.535° E, image ID 20210723_055645_ssc9_u0001, Sky-
Watch EarthCache, 23 July 2021, www.skywatch.com/.
68. Planet Labs PlanetScope satellite view of Qianhai (a.k.a. Fuhu Harbor [福湖港]),
China, 21.495° N, 111.524° E, image ID 20210726_021919_86_245a, Planet, 26
July 2021, www.planet.com/.
69. Conor Kennedy, “Ramping the Strait: Quick and Dirty Solutions to Boost Amphib-
ious Lift,” Jamestown Foundation China Brief 21, no. 14 (16 July 2021), avail-
able at jamestown.org/program/ramping-the-strait-quick-and-dirty-solutions-to
-boost-amphibious-lift/.
70. Planet Labs SkySat satellite view of Qianhai (a.k.a. Fuhu Harbor [福湖港]), China,
21.521° N, 111.536° E, and 21.463° N, 111.528° E, image ID 20210726_025513
_ssc12_u0001, SkyWatch EarthCache, 26 July 2021, www.planet.com/.
71. 粤阳航通 [2021] 0071号 [Guangdong Navigation Notice 2021, No. 0071]
(promulgated by 中华人民共和国阳江海事局 [PRC Yangjiang Maritime Safe-
ty Administration], 31 July 2021), www.msa.gov.cn/html/hxaq/aqxx/hxtg/gdhsj/
20210731/631E7C79-A8E7-4E36-AAEE-14A07096B3F5.html.
72. AIS position data, Bo Hai Ma Zhu (MMSI 414211000) and Hu Lu Dao (MMSI
413134000), MarineTraffic, 31 July–3 August 2021, www.marinetraffic.com/.
73. AIS position data, Bo Hai Ma Zhu (MMSI 414211000) and Hu Lu Dao (MMSI
413134000), MarineTraffic, 4–9 August 2021, www.marinetraffic.com/.
74. 粤航警174/21 [Guangdong Navigation Warning 174/21] (promulgated by 广东
海事局 [Guangdong Maritime Safety Administration], 5 August 2021), www
.msa.gov.cn/html/hxaq/aqxx/hxjg/Guangdong/20210805/C7F1EF82-32F9-4840
-9A4F-5E02E1264798.html.
75. Planet Labs PlanetScope satellite view of Honghai Bay, China, 22.652° N,
115.392° E, image ID 20210808_020445_25_2439, Planet, www.planet.com/; AIS
position data, Bo Hai Ma Zhu (MMSI 414211000) and Hu Lu Dao
(MMSI 413134000), MarineTraffic, 8 August 2021, www.marinetraffic.com/.
76. AIS position data, Bo Hai Ma Zhu (MMSI 414211000) and Hu Lu Dao (MMSI
413134000), 8 August 2021.
77. AIS position data, Bo Hai Ma Zhu (MMSI 414211000) and Hu Lu Dao (MMSI
413134000), MarineTraffic, 8–16 August 2021, www.marinetraffic.com/.
78. AIS position data, Bo Hai Ma Zhu (MMSI 414211000), Bo Hai Cui Zhu
(MMSI 414096000), Bang Chui Dao (MMSI 412450000), Zhong Hua Fu Xing
(MMSI 412283000), Bo Hai Zhen Zhu (MMSI 413409000), Bo Hai Zuan Zhu
(MMSI 414210000), Da Feng Gang Li Ming Hao (MMSI 413239310), Sheng Tai
(MMSI 412081630), and Tian Zhu Shan (MMSI 412076010), MarineTraffic, 31
August–10 September 2021, www.marinetraffic.com/.
416 C H I N E S E A M P H I B I O U S WA R FA R E

79. AIS position data, Zhong Hua Fu Xing (MMSI 412283000), Bo Hai Zhen Zhu
(MMSI 413409000), Bo Hai Zuan Zhu (MMSI 414210000), and Da Feng Gang
Li Ming Hao (MMSI 413239310), MarineTraffic, 31 August–3 September
2021, www.marinetraffic.com/.
80. 大丰港黎明号 [i.e., “Da Feng Gang Li Ming Hao”], 威海市升安海运有限责任
公司 [Weihai Sheng’an Shipping Co., Ltd.], 15 October 2021, sdseafarer.com/pd
.jsp?id=16/.
81. 军地联合 完成重装跨海投送 [“Military-Civil Joint Forces Complete Heavy-
Equipment Cross-Sea Projection”], 中国军视网 [China Military Television Net-
work], 7 June 2020, www.js7tv.cn/video/202006_219448.html. The video shows
Chang Da Long (MMSI 413473010) loading armor elements from the Seventy-
Fourth Group Army.
82. AIS position data, Sheng Tai (MMSI 412081630), and Tian Zhu Shan (MMSI
412076010), MarineTraffic, 1–3 September 2021, www.marinetraffic.com/.
83. Planet Labs PlanetScope satellite views of Xiamen, China, 24.520° N, 118.080° E,
image ID 20210904_015513_39_2428, 4 September 2021, and image ID
20210903_015638_90_2436, 3 September 2021; both Planet, www.planet.com/.
AIS position data, Zhong Hua Fu Xing (MMSI 412283000), Bo Hai Zhen
Zhu (MMSI 413409000), Bo Hai Zuan Zhu (MMSI 414210000), Da Feng
Gang Li Ming Hao (MMSI 413239310), Sheng Tai (MMSI 412081630), and Tian
Zhu Shan (MMSI 412076010), MarineTraffic, 4 September 2021, www.marine
traffic.com/.
84. See, for example, 渤海钻珠 [“Bo Hai Zuan Zhu”], Bohai Ferry Group, 15
October 2021, www.bhferry.com/zuanzhu.html. There are six ferries in this
class, which can carry up to three hundred cars; the vehicle deck lane length
equals 1.35 nm (2,500 meters). Zhong Hua Fu Xing can carry up to 350 cars.
85. AIS position data, Zhong Hua Fu Xing (MMSI 412283000), Bo Hai Zhen Zhu
(MMSI 413409000), Bo Hai Zuan Zhu (MMSI 414210000), Da Feng Gang Li
Ming Hao (MMSI 413239310), Sheng Tai (MMSI 412081630), and Tian Zhu Shan
(MMSI 412076010), MarineTraffic, 5–11 September 2021, www.marinetraffic
.com/.
86. AIS position data, Bo Hai Ma Zhu (MMSI 414211000) and Bo Hai Cui Zhu
(MMSI 414096000), MarineTraffic, 30 August–7 September 2021, www
.marinetraffic.com/. In total, Bo Hai Ma Zhu was out of commercial ferry service
for forty-five days to support the PLA from mid-July through mid-September
2021.
87. AIS position data, Bo Hai Ma Zhu (MMSI 414211000) and Bo Hai Cui Zhu
(MMSI 414096000), MarineTraffic, 1–4 September 2021, www.marinetraffic.com/.
According to AIS data, the ships likely refueled from the tanker Hai Gong 169
(MMSI 412704030).
88. AIS position data, Bo Hai Ma Zhu (MMSI 414211000) and Bo Hai Cui Zhu
(MMSI 414096000), MarineTraffic, 4 September 2021, www.marinetraffic.com/.
89. “Amphibious Assault Vehicles in Maritime Training Exercise,” China Military
Online, 12 September 2021, eng.chinamil.com.cn/view/2021-09/12/content_100
88512.htm.
 C H I N E S E FER R Y TA LE S 417

90. Planet Labs PlanetScope satellite view of Dacheng Bay, China, 23.575° N,
117.218° E, image ID 20210904_024655_30_2406, Planet, 4 September 2021,
www.planet.com/. The clouds in the handheld image appear in the satellite
image to the south, just outside this cropped satellite image.
91. AIS position data, Bo Hai Ma Zhu (MMSI 414211000) and Bo Hai Cui Zhu
(MMSI 414096000), MarineTraffic, 4–7 September 2021, www.marinetraffic
.com/.
92. Observed landing activity took place on the beach in Fujian’s Zhao’an County,
adjacent to Gongkou Harbor.
93. Michael Dahm and Conor M. Kennedy, “Civilian Shipping: Ferrying the People’s
Liberation Army Ashore,” Center for International Maritime Security, 9 Sep-
tember 2021, cimsec.org/civilian-shipping-ferrying-the-peoples-liberation-army
-ashore/; Planet Labs PlanetScope satellite view of Dacheng Bay, China,
23.620° N, 117.202° E, image ID 20210906_024842_1105, Planet, 6 September
2021, www.planet.com/.
94. Planet Labs PlanetScope satellite view of Dacheng Bay, China, 23.620° N,
117.202° E, image ID 20210910_015856_01_245c, Planet, 10 September 2021,
www.planet.com/.
95. Planet Labs SkySat satellite view of Dacheng Bay, China, 23.609° N, 117.183° E,
image ID 20210910_023851_ssc18_u0001, SkyWatch EarthCache, 10 Sep-
tember 2021, www.skywatch.com/; AIS position data, San Hang Gong 8
(MMSI 413378280) and Jin Sheng Tuo (MMSI 414270090), MarineTraffic, 10
September 2021, www.marinetraffic.com/.
96. Planet Labs SkySat satellite view of Dacheng Bay, China, 23.622° N,
117.207° E, image ID 20210910_023851_ssc18_u0001, SkyWatch EarthCache,
10 September 2021, www.skywatch.com/; Planet Labs PlanetScope satellite
view of Dacheng Bay, China, 23.622° N, 117.207° E, image ID 2021
0906_024842_1105, Planet, 6 September 2021, www.planet.com/.
97. Planet Labs SkySat satellite view of Dacheng Bay, China, 23.622° N, 117.207° E,
image ID 20210910_023851_ssc18_u0001, 10 September 2021; Planet Labs
PlanetScope satellite view of Dacheng Bay, China, 23.622° N, 117.207° E, image
ID 20210906_024842_1105, 6 September 2021.
98. AIS position data, Sheng Sheng 2 (MMSI 413328380) and Bo Hai Zhen Zhu
(MMSI 413409000), MarineTraffic, 7–12 September 2021, www.marinetraffic
.com/.
99. Planet Labs PlanetScope view of Dacheng Bay, China, 23.617° N, 117.198° E,
image ID 20210906_024842_1105, 6 September 2021; image ID 20210907
_015725_28_2445, 7 September 2021; image ID 20210908_024400_76_240a,
8 September 2021; image ID 20210910_015853_71_245c, 10 September
2021; and image ID 20210914_022254_1039, 14 September 2021; all Planet,
www.planet.com/.
100. AIS position data, Sheng Sheng 2 (MMSI 413328380), MarineTraffic, 12–19
September 2021, www.marinetraffic.com/.
101. AIS position data, Bo Hai Zhen Zhu (MMSI 413409000), MarineTraffic, 12–25
September 2021, www.marinetraffic.com/. The ship’s AIS terminal was turned on
briefly when it went into port 20–21 September.
418 C H I N E S E A M P H I B I O U S WA R FA R E

102. Planet Labs PlanetScope satellite view of Dacheng Bay, China, 23.607° N,
117.182° E, image ID 20210916_022129_103c, Planet, 16 September 2021,
www.planet.com/.
103. AIS position data, San Hang Gong 8 (MMSI 413378280), Gu Gang Tuo 1
(MMSI 412701210), and Jin Sheng Tuo (MMSI 414270090), MarineTraffic, 16
September 2021, www.marinetraffic.com/.
104. Planet Labs PlanetScope satellite view of Huyetuo Island, China, 23.783° N,
117.581° E, image ID 20210920_232516_1054, Planet, 20 September 2021,
www.planet.com/; AIS position data, Bo Hai Zhen Zhu (MMSI 413409000),
MarineTraffic, 20–21 September 2021, www.marinetraffic.com/.
105. Planet Labs PlanetScope satellite view of Dacheng Bay, China, 23.611° N,
117.179° E, image ID 20210920_015652_73_242d, 20 September 2021;
image ID 20210922_015944_06_2432, 22 September 2021; image ID 20210923
_022334_37_1063, 23 September 2021; and image ID 20210925_024717_35
_240f, 25 September 2021; all Planet, www.planet.com/. Dacheng Bay was over
cast on 24 September, precluding imagery collection.
106. AIS position data, Bo Hai Zhen Zhu (MMSI 413409000), MarineTraffic, 25–29
September 2021, www.marinetraffic.com/.
107. AIS position data, San Hang Gong 8 (MMSI 413378280) and San Hang Tuo 4007
(MMSI 412704260), MarineTraffic, 26–27 September 2021, www.marinetraffic
.com/.
108. Beyond routine inter- or intratheater movement of forces, these ships may have
participated in other exercises in 2020–21 not identified in the author’s research.
109. Luo et al., “Construction and Enlightenment of Normandy Landing Artificial
Port,” pp. 17–18.
 C H I N E S E FER R Y TA LE S 419

PART V

Implications
 Sam J. Tangredi

17. Trading Places

U.S. Marine Corps and PLAN Amphibious Forces
in the 2020s

In 2019, the U.S. Marine Corps commenced its most significant change
of doctrine and force structure in seven decades. Gen. David H. Berger,
Commandant of the Marine Corps, directed a shift away from the previ-
ous doctrine of “large-scale amphibious forcible-entry and sustained op-
erations ashore” toward an archipelagic maneuver force designed to con-
duct littoral, sea-denial operations against China’s People’s Liberation Army
Navy (PLAN).1 These operations would be conducted within the range of
the People’s Liberation Army’s (PLA’s) long-range missile forces. To fund
this change, the Marine Corps is “divesting to invest,” allowing a decrease
in the number of large amphibious warships and shedding tanks and sig-
nificant elements of its amphibious-landing and helicopter- and tiltrotor-lift
capabilities.2
Meanwhile, the PLAN is moving in an opposite direction. In 2019, the
PLAN launched its first Yushen-class amphibious-assault ship (Type 075
LHD) derived from the design concept of the U.S. Navy’s Wasp-class LHD
warships.3 LHDs are capable of operating both aircraft and air-cushion
landing craft (LCACs), because they have both a flight deck and a well deck.
The first Yushen was commissioned (full operational capability) in 2021. A
second Yushen-class warship was commissioned and a third was launched
the same year. Although slightly smaller than ships of the Wasp class (of
422 C H I N E S E A M P H I B I O U S WA R FA R E

which six remain in service), Yushen-class ships are built (similarly to Wasp)
to conduct amphibious forcible entry and sustained operations ashore.
These ships join eight Yuzhao-class (Type 071) amphibious transport docks
(LPDs)—analogues of the U.S. Navy’s San Antonio–class LPD—capable of
embarking both helicopters and LCACs.4
Although—as the other chapters in this volume make clear—the PLA
is developing capabilities necessary to assault Taiwan, large oceangoing
amphibious-assault ships potentially can conduct amphibious operations on
a global basis, euphemistically phrased by the People’s Republic of China
(PRC) as “far seas protection.” PLAN amphibious warships have deployed
to the Horn of Africa to participate in antipiracy patrols.5 Conor Kennedy
notes that PLAN Marine Corps (PLANMC) “forces are now regularly de-
ployed to China’s first overseas base in Djibouti and will eventually embark
on future amphibious strike groups deployed in the far seas.”6
Given the trends in development of Chinese amphibious warships, it
would appear that the PLA is attempting to duplicate the (previous) USN/
USMC amphibious- and expeditionary-warfare model. The PLAN contin-
ues to operate smaller amphibious warships, such as tank landing ships (i.e.,
LSTs). However, the investment in large amphibious-assault ships indicates
that the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) envisions a future in which it can
deploy expeditionary strike groups similar to those the United States has
employed for the past fifty years. A globally deployable amphibious/expedi-
tionary group is a far cry from the humble origins of the PLA amphibious
force and a considerable leap from the PLAN capabilities that existed in the
first years of this century.
For an invasion of Taiwan across a strait of approximately a hundred
nautical miles (nm), LHDs are not necessarily the optimal (or the most
cost-effective) platforms when numerous smaller warcraft are available (in-
cluding civilian commercial craft). They are, however, optimal for spear-
heading the transport of marines to conduct operations at distances out to
the Horn of Africa, islands in the eastern Pacific, or—with suitable future
logistics support—the Mediterranean. To invest in building LHDs—even
when Taiwan remains the most significant objective for PLA amphibious
forces—is surely not without meaning.
Considering that the U.S. Marine Corps is divesting parts of its global
expeditionary-warfare platforms and weapon systems to fund “stand-in”
forces to conduct kinetic fires from islands in the western Pacific, and the
PLA slowly is building a globally deployable amphibious capability, one
could say that the two forces are “trading places” in doctrine and force
structure.
In past years, PLA amphibious forces were judged to have only a
 T R A D I N G P L AC E S 423

“coastal” capability—they even were repulsed in their efforts to capture

Kinmen (Quemoy), a Republic of China (Taiwan)–held island located less
than 5.3 nm (ten kilometers [km]) from the PRC coastline. Instead, the PLA
had to be content with shelling the island periodically with artillery, when
coercive diplomacy was required. The new USMC doctrinal concepts, Lit-
toral Operations in a Contested Environment (LOCE) and Expeditionary
Advanced Base Operations (EABO), call for the development of littoral land
units for the conduct of sea-denial missions—what in past years might have
been called “coastal defense.” Understanding the irony in this exchange of
roles requires a brief examination of history.

Evolution of the U.S. Marine Corps

The Marine Corps formally was established on 10 November 1775 as the
Continental Marines, on the basis of the model of the British Royal Ma-
rines.7 As colonials fighting for independence from Britain, it was natural
that they emulated British practices. Marines operated as “soldiers of the
sea” aboard naval vessels, acting as sharpshooters and boarders in battles
at sea (and for other naval tasks as necessary) and conducting amphibious
raids ashore and “cutting out” expeditions in enemy ports. They were also
useful in putting down mutinies, for which they often were derided as “the
Navy’s police force.”
In the lead-up to the twentieth century, coordination of amphibious
operations (called “conjunct operations” at that time) between armies and
navies of most nations was uniformly abysmal. Although administrative
(unopposed) landings of army troops were used in many wars (original-
ly, marines stayed with the ships in major campaigns when other soldiers
were available), experience taught military planners the common wisdom
that landing under enemy fire was dangerous to the point of impossible.
Unexpected raids could be managed and there were infrequent successful
landings on contested beaches, but to land an army in force from the sea
against a determined enemy was not countenanced. Since such raids as
were attempted were on a small scale, they largely were assigned to marines
already aboard naval warships.8
Slowly, U.S. Marines (and those of other nations) took on other related
missions ashore such as guarding naval bases, particularly coaling sta-
tions and bases overseas—often called “advanced bases.” From there it was
but a small step to use Marines to fight “small wars”—essentially special
operations–type combat—particularly during those crises in Caribbean
nations in which U.S. presidential administrations decided to intervene
424 C H I N E S E A M P H I B I O U S WA R FA R E

(often referred to as “banana wars”). In some cases, Marines remained in

country for some time as gendarmerie, maintaining peace and performing
such tasks as managing customs duties for insolvent governments.9
In the 1920s, the Marine Corps started to develop doctrine to seize ad-
vanced overseas bases in the event of war rather than only guarding bases
obtained by treaty or other diplomatic means.10 A particularly influential
study in this practice was “Advanced Base Operations in Micronesia” (Op-
erations Plan 712) by Lt. Col. Earl Hancock “Pete” Ellis, USMC, which fo-
cused on requirements for a potential war against imperial Japan.11 Through
a series of exercises conducted in the 1920s and ’30s, the Marine Corps (with
some participation by the Army) developed the doctrine, expertise, and
eventually the specialized amphibious craft to conduct large-scale amphib-
ious assaults on enemy shores. Procedures for such assaults were detailed
in the publication Tentative Manual for Landing Operations. This was the
doctrine for the famed Marine Corps (and Army) amphibious operations
in World War II. (Imperial Japan adopted some of these same tactics in its
invasions in Southeast Asia.)12
The Marine amphibious assault at Inchon, the port of Seoul, in the Ko-
rean War—after allied forces had been pushed into a small enclave in the
south (the “Pusan perimeter”)—is credited with “turning the tide” of the
war and leading to the liberation of South Korea from communist forces. As
the supreme commander, Gen. Douglas MacArthur, USA—never a partic-
ular fan of the Marine Corps—stated: “The Navy and Marines have never
shone more brightly than this morning.” To reinforce the assault, the Ma-
rine Corps sailed an additional expeditionary force originally deployed to
the Mediterranean Sea to Korea instead—covering a distance of over 6,000
nm (11,112 km)—and into the subsequent battles. Reportedly, MacArthur
considered the war practically won after the successful landing at Inchon.13
The historical evolution in doctrine and force structure of the Marine
Corps was from an expeditionary force capable of defending overseas (“ad-
vanced”) naval bases to a force capable of conducting amphibious assaults
against entrenched opposing militaries—a capability thought impossible
but a few decades before, particularly in light of the Allied failure at Gallip-
oli in 1915. This mission remained the primary role of the Marine Corps for
seventy years after Inchon.
Critics, including many retired USMC generals and past leaders, view
General Berger’s decision for change as giving up significant segments of
USMC amphibious-assault capability in exchange for a “stand-in” force pos-
ture similar to the previous defense of advanced bases—with some addition-
al offensive sea-denial weaponry.14 This stand-in posture is to be the Marine
Corps’s primary joint force war-fighting contribution in any potential con-
flict against the CCP/PRC in the western Pacific.15
 T R A D I N G P L AC E S 425

Evolution of PLA Amphibious Forces

Instead of possessing an evolutionary development similar to that of the
U.S. Marine Corps, PLA amphibious forces were created ad hoc for two
specific tasks: the capture of Nationalist-held islands, including Hainan
Island, and the anticipated assault that would lead to the civil war–ending
occupation of Taiwan.
Although islands with very small Nationalist garrisons were overrun,
the October 1949 amphibious assault on the Kinmen (Quemoy) island
group, fifty-nine square miles (152 square km) in size, was a bloody defeat
for the PLA. One authority suggests that not only did this defeat expose
“the PLA’s inability to conduct naval and amphibious warfare,” but it also
“marked a turning point [in the Chinese Civil War], the final halting of the
momentum of the PLA assault against Taiwan.”16 Reportedly, “Mao Zedong
admitted that the battle of Quemoy was the biggest loss to the PLA during
the Chinese Civil War.”17
As Xiaobing Li shows in his chapter in this volume, the PLA learned les-
sons from the defeat. The assault of Hainan—second only to Taiwan in size
of islands held or claimed by Beijing at 13,124 square miles (33,991 square
km)—in April 1950 was a victory for the PLA; it used 2,135 civilian junks
to land an army of more than 115,000 troops, assisted by approximately
fifteen thousand guerrillas (the Qiongya Column). The initial landing of a
regimental-size unit was a disaster, but it focused Nationalist attention away
from the main landings, which required twenty hours to complete. Poor
intelligence—which prevented the Nationalist navy from engaging the tran-
siting junks—also contributed to the Nationalist defeat. The remaining Na-
tionalist forces withdrew to Taiwan. Despite still having limited knowledge
of and experience with amphibious tactics, the PLA was able to use brute
force to conduct the assault successfully. But the strait separating Hainan
from mainland China, while wider than the Quemoy Strait, averages only
nineteen miles (30 km) across—an extremely short distance by the stan-
dards of U.S. expeditionary warfare.
PLA amphibious forces were not successful in assaulting the smaller
nearby islands in the Taiwan Strait (Kinmen [Quemoy] and Matsu [Mazu]),
and both sides considered the approximately one-hundred-mile transit to
Taiwan to be impossible to conduct without supporting (and dominant) air-
power and naval power—which the CCP/PRC did not possess until the first
decade of the twenty-first century. Since then, it has continued to increase
such military and naval power.
Previous chapters have detailed the expansion of the overall amphibious
forces of the PLA. Additionally, they have discussed extensive PLA analytical
426 C H I N E S E A M P H I B I O U S WA R FA R E

examination of successful amphibious operations of the past, both foreign

and Chinese. These have been combined in a way that can be described only
as emulation of pre-2019 USN and USMC capabilities. It would appear that
the PLA is attempting to make up for limited experience by studying the in-
tensive doctrinal and force development that the Marine Corps commenced
in the 1920s—adding the employment of emerging technologies.

Doctrinal Shift:
What Does the Marine Corps Intend to Do?
As General Berger describes, his goal is to develop a “littoral maneuver force
that can operate within range of an enemy’s sensors and weapons,” primar-
ily “to conduct sea control missions in support of the Navy and the Joint
Force.”18 While operating on islands, this infantry force will be equipped
with long-range sensors (unmanned aerial vehicles, etc.) and ground-based,
antiship missiles, quickly maneuvered on land via light vehicles and between
islands aboard a not-yet-designed “light amphibious warship” (LAW). Speed
of maneuver would be the key to avoiding the enemy’s counterbattery fire.
These littoral battalions, forming the 3rd Marine Littoral Regiment,
would not be optimized for amphibious assaults or combat against enemy
forces ashore but would use previously unoccupied territory to conduct at-
tacks on warships and aircraft—essentially, naval combat from the land.19
(An additional irony is that military analyses of the CCP/PRC prior to its
recently extensive buildup of warships referred to the PLA strategy in the
western Pacific as “using the land to control the sea.”) 20
Since General Berger’s focus for USMC doctrine and force structure is
on the potential for conflict with the PLA/PLAN in the western Pacific, the
obvious deployment areas for the littoral regiment would include the islands
of the Philippines. When questioned about how such operations would
be conducted in the event that the Philippines did not allow entry of the
Marines into its territory (despite a mutual-defense treaty with the Unit-
ed States), Berger replied that they then would be conducted “from a sea
base of amphibious ships” such as the larger warships currently comprising
the globally deployable expeditionary strike groups that are centered on an
LHD.21
The shift in doctrine, which is expected to be followed by force-
structure changes, is outlined in two USMC “concepts”: LOCE and EABO.
In the service’s public concept paper (akin to a white paper), LOCE is
described as providing “a framework for naval integration” of the Navy and
 T R A D I N G P L AC E S 427

the Marine Corps.22 The premise of LOCE is that the primary mission of the
Marine Corps in a near-term war with the CCP/PRC is not to conduct an
amphibious assault (“forcible entry”) but to assist the Navy in asserting sea
control in the East and South China Seas.23 Marines would operate as part
of a littoral combat group, with the Navy having overall command, supply-
ing the warships (and necessary support vessels), and providing most of the
group’s firepower. Armed with land versions of the Navy’s antiship missiles,
Marine units would maneuver constantly while ashore by ground vehicles
or from island to island using the proposed LAW. In essence, the Marine lit-
toral units would operate as if they were warships ashore, taking advantage
of the concealment and confusing radar picture that the land might provide.
The LOCE concept was under development in the early 2010s and was
released publicly in 2017, a period during which Department of Defense
(DoD) decision makers believed (or at least stated) that U.S. naval and joint
forces could achieve “sea control” against PLA opposition.24 Sea control is
the ability to dominate an area of ocean so that operations can be carried out
without effective enemy opposition.25 The Marine Corps’s unclassified ver-
sion of the LOCE document formally defines sea control as “the condition
in which one has freedom of action to use the sea [including the airspace
above] for one’s own purposes in specified areas and for specified periods of
time and, where necessary, to deny or limit its use to the enemy.”26
However, since 2017, many analyses have considered it improbable that
sea control could be achieved in the seas close to the Chinese mainland.27
Rather, the United States can achieve sea denial, in which neither side can
operate in those waters. Indeed, the LOCE document includes in its descrip-
tion of the “desired end state” the objective of establishing “persistent sea
denial capabilities forward to deter aggression in the littorals.”28
EABO can be described best as the methodology for implementing
LOCE. Headquarters, USMC issued a Tentative Manual for Expeditionary
Advanced Base Operations in February 2021 “as part of an iterative process
to test, refine and codify” the EABO concept (and thereby the LOCE con-
cept).29 It “intentionally emulates the evolution of ‘Advanced Base Opera-
tions in Micronesia,’ a concept written in 1921, into a Tentative Manual for
Landing Operations generated by the Marine Corps in 1934 and then into a
shared naval product, Landing Operations Doctrine, Fleet Training Publica-
tion 167, in 1938.”30
Given the specific requirement of a conflict engagement in the South or
East China Sea, as conceived today by Commander, U.S. Indo-Pacific Com-
mand (often referred to as “the fight tonight”), the employment of Marines
at advanced bases along the first island chain under the LOCE concept does
428 C H I N E S E A M P H I B I O U S WA R FA R E

make considerable sense. Analysts do not conceive of the potential for a

successful amphibious assault against mainland China. In the case of the
Taiwan Strait, effective sea denial would put an attempt to occupy Taiwan
at risk, presumably deterring such a threat. Whether a Marine Corps littoral
maneuver group actually would have an effect on the CCP/PRC decision
to conduct an amphibious assault against Taiwan or have any effects on an
actual Taiwan Strait operation is a question worth examining.

Applicability to the Taiwan Scenario

Would the 3rd Marine Littoral Regiment have a role in defeating a PLA at-
tempt to cross the Taiwan Strait to occupy Taiwan?
The answer depends on force positioning and range of weapons. The
most effective position for the Taiwan scenario would be on Taiwan-held
islands. Of course, that placement is unlikely, for both political and surviv-
ability reasons. The Marine Corps is primarily the equivalent of light in-
fantry (as is the PLANMC). To defend Taiwan from a full amphibious and
airborne assault would require the air-defense weaponry and heavy armor
of the Army, and if any U.S. forces were to be emplaced on Taiwan prior to
an invasion it likely would be Army units.
If U.S. decision makers decided to emplace U.S. ground forces on Taiwan
after the commencement of an invasion, the initial cadre would need to be
delivered by air transport, as the fastest method. Transporting troops by this
method is relatively easy; transporting heavy equipment is not. During the
Cold War, U.S. plans for air transport of troops called for heavy weapons to
be pre-positioned in allied nations, such as the members of NATO. Thus
far, the United States has not pre-positioned its own equipment on Taiwan.
With the availability of U.S. amphibious warships on deployment near-
by, the Marine Corps would be able to transport a limited amount of heavy
weaponry. However, this is the type of weaponry for which General Berger
plans to make deep cuts in inventory. Yet a USN expeditionary/amphibious
strike group would be the fastest response.
The United States does maintain heavy equipment on board its U.S. Mil-
itary Sealift Command’s maritime pre-positioning force (MPF) ships, which
are maintained in condition of readiness, with some being capable of im-
mediate sortie. Most ships embark thirty-day supplies of USMC equipment
and heavy weaponry. In the western Pacific, elements of a maritime pre-
positioning squadron are stationed at the islands of Guam and Saipan. The
distance between Guam and Taiwan is 1,447 nm (2,680 km). Once under
 T R A D I N G P L AC E S 429

way at an average speed of seventeen knots, MPF ships would take approx-
imately eight days to arrive; however, that arrival likely would happen amid
active combat. Although amphibious warships have self-defense weapons,
MPF ships do not. They would need to be escorted and protected by surface
combatants (cruisers and destroyers)—almost all of which already would
be engaged in battle and unavailable for that mission. In any event, it like-
ly would be the 4th Marine Regiment, stationed on Okinawa, that would
use the MPF equipment. The 4th Marines presumably will retain the expe-
ditionary/amphibious skills and capabilities that the 3rd (Littoral) Marine
Regiment will forgo, although without the divested systems.
As previously stated, the most likely locale for the 3rd Marine Littoral
Regiment to operate is in the Philippine Islands, of which the closest islands
to the southernmost tip of Taiwan are approximately 104 nm (193 km) away.
Currently, USMC littoral forces are to be equipped primarily with the Na-
val Strike Missile (NSM)—the shore-launched version titled Navy Marine
Expeditionary Ship Interdiction System. NSM’s publicly reported range is
100 nm (185 km). Although it can be used against PLAN ships in the east-
ern section of the South China Sea and the Luzon Strait south of Taiwan, it
would not be able to disrupt a cross–Taiwan Strait transit. Besides prevent-
ing a PLA invasion of the Philippines, the most useful role of the 3rd Marine
Littoral Regiment is in attempting to interdict PLAN vessels from transiting
the many Philippine straits to break through the first island chain into the
Pacific.
Another option would be to emplace part of the 3rd Marine Littoral Reg-
iment in Japan’s Senkaku Islands (also called the Diaoyu, Diaoyutai, or Pin-
nacle Islands), which Taiwan and the PRC also claim. The nearest Senkaku
island is within 100 nm (185 km) of the city of Keelung, Taiwan’s northern
port. Therefore, NSM could reach across the strait between them. However,
the majority of the seventy-one supposed features are rocks, with only five
islands and three reefs of any substance. The largest island, Uotsuri, is but
1.7 square miles (4.32 square km), providing very little room to maneuver
Marines. None of the islands has any tall vegetation for cover, and much of
the land area is barren or steep. In the face of a PLA ballistic-missile attack
or attrition battle, survivability would be low.
Although designed for a regional war with the PRC within the first is-
land chain, USMC littoral forces and other new force-structure elements of
EABO would not play a significant role against a direct PLA assault across
the Taiwan Strait.
43 0 C H I N E S E A M P H I B I O U S WA R FA R E

Emulation and Convergence

Criticisms of LOCE, EABO, and General Berger’s shift center on the belief
that the Marine Corps is giving up too much of its global expeditionary
capabilities to focus on a strategy appropriate to a single conflict scenario:
war against the PLA.31 The Marine Corps has divested itself of its entire
inventory of four hundred tanks (transferred to the Army) and many of its
tracked amphibious vehicles. Several helicopter squadrons that normally
deploy with expeditionary (amphibious) strike groups have been placed in
storage.32
Unlike previous commandants, General Berger does not seem in-
clined to fight USN leadership to ensure that the Navy maintains what was
considered the minimal number of amphibious warships (amphibs) that
compose the expeditionary strike groups needed for global operations.
If unchallenged, the Navy is inclined to cut amphibs not only because of
shrinking resources within the Department of the Navy (DON) overall but
also because of the traditional prejudice of the surface navy (whose sailors
maintain and operate the amphibs) against constructing any ships other
than cruisers or destroyers. As one surface navy admiral remarked to this
author, “Why should we care about amphibs? They are the Marine Corps’s
ships.”
It often has required the political power and prestige of the Marine
Corps Commandant—as a coequal with the Chief of Naval Operations
within the DON—to ensure that prejudice does not control the depart-
ment’s shipbuilding plans. In recent decades, the analytically determined
minimal number of large, armed amphibs (these include LPDs and dock
landing ships [i.e., LSDs] as well as the LHDs) considered necessary for
transporting the Fleet Marine Force has shrunk from forty-five to forty-
three to forty-one.33 Instead of pressuring the Navy to ensure the mainte-
nance of this number of globally deployable ships in the face of ship de-
commissionings, General Berger has opted to request the construction of
the fast LAWs designed for archipelagic maneuver of the littoral combat
regiment(s). This is one of the decisions that have inflamed critics. Addi-
tionally, the Navy has been slow, perhaps reluctant, to include the LAWs in
shipbuilding plans.34 More recently, the Marine Corps has admitted that it
could be some time until the LAW program is budgeted.35
As the Tentative Manual states, EABO still is considered to be in a de-
velopmental phase, and the optimal configuration of the Marine Corps
and Navy amphibs still is to be determined. However, the trends are to-
ward a service in which at least one-third of the force is not designed to be
 T R A D I N G P L AC E S 431

a globally deployable, multimission, expeditionary force; rather, it is opti-

mized as an archipelagic maneuver force to conduct sea-denial missions
against the PLAN from the territory of the Philippines or similar locations
within the first island chain.
Since LOCE and EABO now are considered the force-shaping USMC
doctrine, the question remains regarding whether a bigger proportion of
the force will be reconfigured into littoral combat regiments. The Marine
Corps has not abandoned the amphibious-warfare doctrine it developed
through experimentation and experience—sweat and blood—during the
past century; however, that is not its current focus. Rather, the focus is on a
potential war with the CCP/PRC within the first island chain of the west-
ern Pacific, possibly as early as 2027.
As Jennifer Rice shows in chapter 7, the PLAN now is constructing and
commissioning amphibious warships similar to USN designs. Although
the PLAN’s classes of LHDs and LPDs are smaller and less capable than
their U.S. counterparts, the PLA’s patient emulation is evident. However,
in the event of a Taiwan operation, the CCP/PRC can call on a prodigious
civilian fleet to provide supporting transports to be escorted and protect-
ed by surface combatants. With but a small number of MPF ships and an
economically hollowed-out merchant fleet, the United States cannot do the
same.
When a convergence in globally deployable, amphibious-warfare capa-
bility between the PLA and the Navy / Marine Corps will occur is difficult
to determine. A potential PLAN goal may be 2049, the hundredth anniver-
sary of the PRC, cited by General Secretary Xi Jinping as the objective date
for the CCP/PRC to achieve “world-class” military power.36 However, this
trend toward convergence may be hastened by the dismissive attitude of
high-level defense decision makers of the United States. As then–Secretary
of Defense Mark Esper stated in September 2020, “I want to make clear
that China cannot match the United States when it comes to naval power.
Even if we stopped building new ships, it would take the PRC years to close
the gap when it comes to our capability on the high seas.”37 Esper may have
served in the past administration of Donald J. Trump, but that perspective
on relative naval (including expeditionary amphibious) power does not ap-
pear to have changed substantially.

The manner in which the PLA has invested resources into increasing its
amphibious capabilities and the Marine Corps’s shift in doctrine have led
to a number of questions that cannot yet be answered fully, because there is
432 C H I N E S E A M P H I B I O U S WA R FA R E

a lack of incontrovertible evidence—evidence that exists only in the minds

of the decision makers. However, it is important to identify the range of
possibilities for strategists to assess their likelihood and plan accordingly.
Several of this volume’s earlier chapters (as well as this one) point to
the considerable degree to which the PLA has adopted American-style,
pre-2019 amphibious-warfare doctrine and platforms. Although platforms
such as LHDs enhance PLA lift capabilities, as previously observed, they
are not necessarily optimized for an approximately 100 nm cross-strait
Taiwan operation; rather, they are optimized for global-range expedition-
ary missions.
This raises the question: If the Taiwan scenario is the primary purpose
in mind, why is the PLA building amphibious warships that are optimized
for global operations? The logical answer is that the CCP/PRC sees global
expeditionary/amphibious operations as part of the country’s future mil-
itary requirements. In an October 2021 essay on the future of amphibious
warfare, the PLANMC deputy chief of staff, Sr. Capt. Chen Weidong, sug-
gested that the PLAN intends to use amphibious ships to create “floating
bases at sea” to support assault forces in regions much farther away than
the seas surrounding Taiwan.38 “Floating bases at sea” parallels the U.S.
concept of “sea basing,” which guided USN/USMC planning in the 1990s
and into the early twenty-first century.39
Missions could range from relief of their overseas bases—current (such
as Djibouti) or future (the Solomon Islands?)—in the event of a regional or
global conflict, to conducting forcible entry / amphibious assault against
another state. It is possible that, under long-range CCP/PRC planning,
these missions are conceived as being more important than a near-term
amphibious assault on Taiwan.
Although there is no incontrovertible evidence, this conclusion is
supported in part by other chapters of this book that point to a slow ap-
proach to building up the amphibious-transport forces most appropriate
to a cross–Taiwan Strait “dash” followed by steady transit of support-
ing logistics. Additionally, since the bulk of amphibious forces are PLA
ground-force troops not under the command of the PLAN, resources may
not be prioritized toward amphibious operations in comparison with land-
warfare specialties (such as armor or artillery brigades/divisions). As previ-
ously suggested, PLANMC capabilities appear to be oriented toward glob-
al deployments—hence the construction program for globally deployable
amphibious warships such as LHDs.
Regarding U.S. planning, three questions stand out. First, what will
be the mission of the 3rd Marine Littoral Regiment if the Philippine
 T R A D I N G P L AC E S 433

government refuses entry? 40 The United States and the Philippines are
bound by a mutual-defense treaty. However, past Philippine governments
have pondered accommodation with the CCP/PRC, and in June 2022 Phil-
ippine president-elect Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr. described China
as the Philippines’ “strongest partner.”41 To enact a radical force-structure
change whose employment would hinge on a decision by a foreign govern-
ment (even if an ally) might not strike most strategists as prudent.
A prudent future forecast dictates that perhaps after 2049, Guam and
the Marianas, Japan, or even Midway and the northern islands of the Ha-
waiian island chain might need littoral combat regiments for defense, and
the USMC doctrine shift is the result of such forecasting.
Second, would PLAN ships even need to operate within the 100 nm
range of the weapons deployed to the Philippines? It is possible that the 3rd
Marine Littoral Regiment will acquire longer-range, antiship missiles in
the future. Without longer-range weapons, it would be difficult for littoral
combat forces in the Philippines to have any effect on a trans–Taiwan Strait
operation.42 At the same time, it is difficult to foresee an operational mis-
sion that would require the PLAN to venture into the easternmost reaches
of the South China Sea in support of an amphibious assault on Taiwan.
As Michael McDevitt states in the following chapter, amid an invasion of
Taiwan, “beating up PLA island bases [on artificial features in the South
China Sea] is not much of a consolation prize.”
Marines stationed in the Philippines and Japan could help prevent the
PLAN from accessing the broader Pacific Ocean to counter U.S. naval in-
tervention in a Taiwan invasion scenario. By helping to bottle up the PLAN
within the first island chain, the Marine Corps could reduce the threats
that PLAN surface combatants can pose to U.S. surface and submarine
forces supporting Taiwan’s defense from locations in the Philippine Sea.
Although such a capability indeed would be useful in a global conflict with
the PRC, it is unlikely to play a significant role in hindering an assault di-
rectly across the Taiwan Strait, owing to weapons’ ranges and likely forces’
disposition.
Third is the question whether the Marine Corps will retain enough of
the existing force structure to complete expeditionary amphibious mis-
sions successfully (such as seizing overseas PLA bases) on a global ba-
sis.43 In effect, PLA capabilities in that mission set—admittedly currently
small—are increasing while USMC capacity is decreasing.
Until Marine Corps and DoD decision makers answer these questions
fully, it is logical to postulate that USMC and PLA amphibious forces—
particularly the PLANMC—are indeed “trading places.”
43 4 C H I N E S E A M P H I B I O U S WA R FA R E

Notes
1. David H. Berger [Gen., USMC], Force Design 2030 (Washington, DC: U.S. Ma-
rine Corps, March 2020), p. 2, available at www.hqmc.marines.mil/Portals/142/
Docs/CMC38%20Force%20Design%202030%20Report%20Phase%20I%20
and%20II.pdf.
2. Ibid., pp. 7–8.
3. Several official publications, including DoD’s annual report to Congress Military
and Security Developments Involving the People’s Republic of China 2021, use the
ship designation “LHA” for the Yushen class. This is the same designation used by
the Tarawa class, whose five ships are now decommissioned. The LHD designation
was assigned to the follow-on Wasp class, of which six are in service and two de-
commissioned. The LHD designation was used instead of LHA for Wasp because
(unlike the Tarawa class), its well deck was designed to carry LCAC hovercraft.
Wasp also was modified to operate AV-8 Harrier vertical and short takeoff and
landing aircraft (V/STOL) in addition to helicopters. Although Yushen thus far has
operated only helicopters and may or may not be able to handle V/STOL, its well
deck also is designed to accommodate hovercraft. For that reason, I use the des-
ignation LHD for Yushen. U.S. Defense Dept., Military and Security Developments
Involving the People’s Republic of China 2021 (Washington, DC: Office of the Sec-
retary of Defense, 3 November 2021), p. 51, available at media.defense.gov/2021/
Nov/03/2002885874/-1/-1/0/2021-CMPR-FINAL.PDF.
4. Ibid.
5. The United States and other nations typically have deployed destroyers and frigates
for the antipiracy mission. PRC deployment of amphibious warships likely is in-
tended to use the opportunity to train that part of the PLAN in a “nonthreatening”
manner.
6. Conor Kennedy, The New Chinese Marine Corps: A “Strategic Dagger” in a Cross-
Strait Invasion, China Maritime Report 15 (Newport, RI: U.S. Naval War College /
China Maritime Studies Institute, October 2021), available at digital-commons
.usnwc.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1014&context=cmsi-maritime-reports.
7. The history that follows is a grossly condensed overview, eliminating the details
(some of which are nuanced adjustments to the overview) that military and naval
historians would consider essential. Since it is for illustrative purposes, it is in es-
sence a caricature.
8. Jack Shulimson, “U.S. Marines in Panama, 1885,” in Assault from the Sea: Essays on
the History of Amphibious Warfare, ed. Merrill L. Bartlett [Lt. Col., USMC (Ret.)]
(Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1983), p. 108.
9. U.S. State Dept., “U.S. Invasion and Occupation of Haiti, 1915–34,” U.S. Depart-
ment of State Archive, 2001-2009.state.gov/r/pa/ho/time/wwi/88275.htm.
10. Gunther E. Rothenberg, “From Gallipoli to Guadalcanal,” in Bartlett, Assault from
the Sea, pp. 177–78.
11. John J. Reber [Lt. Col., USMC (Ret.)], “Pete Ellis: Amphibious Warfare Prophet,”
U.S. Naval Institute Proceedings 103/11/897 (November 1977), pp. 58–64; Dirk An-
thony Ballendorf and Merrill L. Bartlett, Pete Ellis: An Amphibious Warfare Proph-
et, 1880–1923 (Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1997).
 T R A D I N G P L AC E S 435

12. Hans G. von Lehmann, “Japanese Landing Operations in World War Two,” trans.
Michael C. Halbig, in Bartlett, Assault from the Sea, pp. 195–201.
13. Robert L. Durham, “MacArthur’s Brilliant Landing at Inchon, Korea,” Military
Heritage 22, no. 3 (Fall 2020), available at warfarehistorynetwork.com/2021/09/01/
macarthurs-brilliant-landing-at-inchon-korea/.
14. Jim Webb, “Momentous Changes in the U.S. Marine Corps’ Force Organization
Deserve Debate,” Wall Street Journal, 25 March 2022, www.wsj.com/articles/
momentous-changes-in-the-marine-corps-deserve-debate-reduction-david
-berger-general-11648217667.
15. The awkward CCP/PRC acronym is used in this chapter as a reminder that the
PLA is pledged to the Chinese Communist Party, not the state. For that reason,
PLA forces are also the ultimate tool for domestic security and preservation of
party control of the state.
16. Maochun Miles Yu, “The Battle of Quemoy: The Amphibious Assault That Held
the Postwar Military Balance in the Taiwan Strait,” Naval War College Review 69,
no. 2 (Spring 2016), pp. 92, 103, available at digital-commons.usnwc.edu/nwc
-review/vol69/iss2/8/. This is also the conclusion of Ronald Spector. See Spector,
“The Battle That Saved Taiwan,” MHQ: The Quarterly Journal of Military History
25, no. 1 (Autumn 2012), pp. 98–104.
17. Yu, “The Battle of Quemoy,” p. 103. This is a reference to remarks from Mao Ze-
dong to key PLA field army commanders, 29 October 1949, found in Xiao Feng,
“My Recollection of the Battle of Quemoy” [in Chinese], in Recollections of the
Amphibious Battle of Quemoy, ed. Xiao Feng et al. (Beijing: People’s Press, 1994),
p. 42.
18. David H. Berger [Gen., USMC], “Comments at Current Strategy Forum” (8 June
2022, Naval War College, Newport, RI).
19. Justin Katz, “Marines to Stand Up First Littoral Regiment, Eyeing More Agile
Deployments,” Breaking Defense, 28 February 2022, breakingdefense.com/2022/
02/marines-to-stand-up-first-littoral-regiment-eyeing-more-agile-deployments/.
20. Andrew S. Erickson and David D. Yang, “Using the Land to Control the Sea?
Chinese Analysts Consider the Antiship Ballistic Missile,” Naval War College Re-
view 62, no. 4 (Autumn 2009), pp. 53–86, available at digital-commons.usnwc.edu/
nwc-review/vol62/iss4/6/.
21. Berger, “Comments at Current Strategy Forum.”
22. U.S. Navy and U.S. Marine Corps, Littoral Operations in a Contested Environment,
unclassified ed. (Washington, DC: 2017), approval page, available at www.hqmc
.marines.mil/Portals/160/LOCE%20full%20size%20edition.pdf.
23. Littoral Operations in a Contested Environment does not specify the PRC by name,
because President Barack Obama’s administration wanted to avoid a potential ver-
bal confrontation. However, the concept would be difficult to apply to anywhere
other than the western Pacific. By 2022, it was associated almost exclusively with a
potential conflict with the PRC.
24. U.S. Navy and U.S. Marine Corps, Littoral Operations in a Contested Environment,
p. 9.
436 C H I N E S E A M P H I B I O U S WA R FA R E

25. Sam J. Tangredi, “Sea Power: Theory and Practice,” in Strategy in the Contempo-
rary World: An Introduction to Strategic Studies, ed. John Baylis et al. (Oxford, U.K.:
Oxford Univ. Press, 2002), p. 123; Milan Vego, “Getting Sea Control Right,” U.S.
Naval Institute Proceedings 139/11/1,329 (November 2013), pp. 64–69, avail-
able at www.usni.org/magazines/proceedings/2013/november/getting-sea-control
-right. Such does not mean that the enemy does not attempt to oppose these oper-
ations, only that the opposition is strategically ineffective.
26. U.S. Navy and U.S. Marine Corps, Littoral Operations in a Contested Environment,
p. 26.
27. Hannah Beech, “China’s Sea Control Is a Done Deal, ‘Short of War with the U.S.,’”
New York Times, 20 September 2018, www.nytimes.com/2018/09/20/world/asia/
south-china-sea-navy.html; Daniel E. Ward, “Going to War with China? Dust
Off Corbett!,” U.S. Naval Institute Proceedings 146/1/1,403 (January 2020), avail-
able at www.usni.org/magazines/proceedings/2020/january/going-war-china-dust
-corbett; Victor Duenow [Cdr., USN], “Disputing Chinese Sea Control through
Offensive Sea Mining,” U.S. Naval Institute Proceedings 148/6/1,432 (June 2022),
pp. 54–59, www.usni.org/magazines/proceedings/2022/june/disputing-chinese-sea
-control-through-offensive-sea-mining.
28. U.S. Navy and U.S. Marine Corps, Littoral Operations in a Contested Environment,
p. 9.
29. Headquarters, U.S. Marine Corps, Tentative Manual for Expeditionary Advanced
Base Operations (Washington, DC: February 2021), p. iii, available at mca-marines
.org/wp-content/uploads/TM-EABO-First-Edition-1.pdf.
30. Ibid.
31. Paul McLeary and Lee Hudson, “How Two Dozen Retired Generals Are Trying
to Stop an Overhaul of the Marines,” Politico, 1 April 2022, www.politico.com/
news/2022/04/01/corps-detat-how-two-dozen-retired-generals-are-trying-to
-stop-an-overhaul-of-the-marines-00022446.
32. Frank G. Hoffman [Lt. Col., USMCR (Ret.)], “Still First to Fight? Shaping the
21st Century Marine Corps,” Marine Corps Gazette, June 2020 (web edition), pp.
WE16–WE20.
33. Analytically determined is a flexible description. Many competing analyses inform
the defense-resource debates of a democratic nation. The determination of a “min-
imal number” of amphibious warships obviously is affected by bureaucratic poli-
tics within DoD, as well as the legislative politics that impact the funding.
34. Megan Eckstein, “The Light Amphibious Warship Is Delayed, but the Marine
Corps Has a Temporary Solution,” Defense News, 10 May 2022, www.defensenews
.com/naval/2022/05/10/the-light-amphibious-warship-is-delayed-but-the-marine
-corps-has-a-temporary-solution/.
35. Caleb Larson, “Marine Corps Puts the Light Amphibious Warship on Ice,” The
Buzz (blog), National Interest, 11 May 2022, nationalinterest.org/blog/buzz/
marine-corps-puts-light-amphibious-warship-ice-202379.
36. “Xi Jinping Wants China’s Armed Forces to Be ‘World-Class’ by 2050,” The Econ-
omist, 27 June 2019, www.economist.com/china/2019/06/27/xi-jinping-wants
-chinas-armed-forces-to-be-world-class-by-2050.
 T R A D I N G P L AC E S 437

37. David Vergun, “Esper Describes Steps to Maintaining Future Maritime Superiori-
ty,” U.S. Department of Defense, 16 September 2020, www.defense.gov/News/
News-Stories/Article/Article/2350204/esper-describes-steps-to-maintaining
-future-maritime-superiority/.
38. 陈卫东 [Chen Weidong], 透视两栖作战新特点 [“A Perspective on the New
Characteristics of Amphibious Operations”], 人民海军 [People’s Navy], 8 October
2021, p. 3. Chen’s article was translated into English at the Naval War College’s Chi-
na Maritime Studies Institute.
39. Sam J. Tangredi, “Sea Basing: Concept, Issues, and Recommendations,” Naval War
College Review 64, no. 4 (Autumn 2011), pp. 28–41, available at digital-commons
.usnwc.edu/nwc-review/vol64/iss4/5/.
40. This issue is raised, although not discussed in detail, in Walker D. Mills, “The
U.S. Marine Corps and Advanced Base Operations: Past, Present, and Future,” in
On Contested Shores: The Evolving Role of Amphibious Operations in the History
of Warfare, ed. Timothy Heck and B. A. Friedman (Quantico, VA: Marine Corps
Univ. Press, 2020), p. 390.
41. Anna Felicia Bajo, “Marcos Calls China ‘Our Strongest Partner,’” GMA News On-
line, 10 June 2022, www.gmanetwork.com/news/topstories/nation/834541/marcos
-calls-china-our-strongest-partner/story/.
42. A stumbling block to the Marine Corps obtaining longer-range missiles is that the
Army intends to use its current monopoly on land-based, conventionally armed,
long-range missiles to justify its existing share of DoD resources. It is possible that
littoral combat forces will rely exclusively on Navy weapons (such as the Tom-
ahawk, with which it has not yet exercised). On the Army’s potential resource
conflict with the Marine Corps, see, for example, Rajiv Chandrasekaran, “Army’s
‘Pacific Pathways’ Initiative Sets Up Turf Battle with Marines,” Washington Post,
29 December 2013, www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/armys
-pacific-pathways-initiative-sets-up-turf-battle-with-marines/2013/12/29/11.
43. Mark Cancian writes, “If the Marine Corps has misjudged the future, it will fight
the next conflict at a great disadvantage or, perhaps, be irrelevant.” Cancian,
“The Marine Corps’ Radical Shift toward China,” Center for Strategic and Inter-
national Studies, 25 March 2020, www.csis.org/analysis/marine-corps-radical
-shift-toward-china.
 Michael McDevitt

18. If China Invades, How Should

the U.S. Navy Respond?

What should the U.S. Navy do to prepare to help Taiwan thwart a cross-
strait assault, should the service be ordered to intervene? The answer is
straightforward: prevent the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) from achiev-
ing air and sea control over the Taiwan Strait. Twenty-five years ago, it would
have been assumed that America’s joint force readily could do this because
the U.S. Navy already would possess “sea and associated air control,” or
could achieve it quickly. The U.S. Seventh Fleet was considered the most ca-
pable naval force in East Asia, and U.S. bases in Japan were relatively secure
from attack—but none of this is true today. Then the People’s Republic of
China (PRC) could threaten Taiwan with missile attacks, as it demonstrated
in 1995–96, but no serious analyst thought it could launch a successful inva-
sion, because U.S. reinforcements could rush to East Asia to overwhelm any
assault the PLA was foolish enough to launch. In fact, it became common to
ridicule the very possibility as “the million-man swim.”1
The hubris of yesterday has disappeared as the military balance in East
Asia has flipped, thanks to well-considered Chinese military moderniza-
tion. Today, no one talks about the U.S. Navy having, or gaining, sea control
in the Taiwan Strait. Instead, the mission today is sea denial—a mission that
would prevent the PLA from controlling the Taiwan Strait long enough to
conduct a successful amphibious invasion.
440 C H I N E S E A M P H I B I O U S WA R FA R E

U.S. policy for assisting Taiwan in the event of a PRC invasion is rooted
in the Taiwan Relations Act of 1979. It does not direct the United States to
defend Taiwan should China use force to end Taiwan’s current de facto inde-
pendence; however, it does state the following: “It is the policy of the United
States . . . to maintain the capacity of the United States to resist any resort to
force or other forms of coercion that would jeopardize the security, or the
social or economic system, of the people on Taiwan.”2
In early 2021, both the incumbent commander of the U.S. Indo-
Pacific Command (INDOPACOM) and his designated successor made
news during congressional hearings by opining that the PRC might attempt
to force Taiwan to unify with the mainland within the next six years.3 I ques-
tion whether government officials in Beijing will be ready for war with the
United States by 2027, if ever. If, however, a war over Taiwan is only a few
years away, Beijing has a wide spectrum of military options available short
of actually mounting an amphibious assault. The fact that the PLA has yet
to build a credible invasion force is an important indication of whether an
amphibious assault is in the offing.4 The dozen or so large amphibious ships
that Beijing has commissioned or launched over the past fifteen years seem
to have been focused more on expeditionary operations, although they cer-
tainly could contribute to an assault.
Nonetheless, this chapter assumes that the PRC does attempt an am-
phibious assault against Taiwan in the near future (by 2027) and details USN
options to help Taiwan “resist” the invasion.

Framing the Challenge

Should China start the war, I think the White House would assign the joint
force a limited mandate: prevent a successful invasion of Taiwan. I doubt
it would craft an “unlimited mandate” that, for example, sought regime
change in Beijing or attempted to collapse China’s economy or to starve the
PRC into submission. Even with a more limited aim, it is possible that a
Sino-American war over Taiwan could escalate to nuclear war. This danger
exists from the moment shots are fired in anger, but at least initially both
sides would shrink from actions that would expand the conflict in directions
that could cause unlimited escalation. Accordingly, for the purposes of this
chapter, I am not going to address the frequently mentioned vulnerability
of China’s long sea-lanes to a distant blockade that would threaten General
Secretary Xi Jinping’s position. As a practical matter, a successful blockade
would take too long to help Taiwan. It is worth noting that the combined
merchant fleet of China and Hong Kong numbers somewhere north of eight
 IF CHINA INVADES, HOW SHOULD THE U.S. NAVY RESPOND? 4 41

thousand ships, raising questions about actual U.S. capacity to conduct such
an operation.5
Nor will I address recently discussed notions of a “cost imposing” strat-
egy, such as sinking the PLA Navy (PLAN). As a discrete mission, it does
not make much sense if, at the end of the day, China has no navy but is
sitting in Taipei; as far as Beijing is concerned, that would be a strategic
victory. Having built a formidable navy in less than two decades, Beijing
understands how quickly its navy could be replaced. Sinking Chinese ships
certainly will be necessary to defend Taiwan, but making that the primary
mission gives the impression that Washington is looking for a consolation
prize because saving Taiwan might be too difficult.
We cannot forget that the Republic of China (ROC) government on
Taiwan has agency. It can, and very well may, decide that enough is enough.
Rather than see its society and economy totally destroyed under a relentless
missile and air bombardment, it may decide that discussing unification
with Beijing is the least bad outcome.
No one other than PLA war planners knows precisely how the PLA
would choose to attack Taiwan if Beijing’s patience becomes exhausted or
if Taipei crosses a mainland redline.6 Over the past five years, a number
of interesting studies have explored how Beijing might execute an attack.
I have found a 2021 Council on Foreign Relations report—The United States,
China, and Taiwan: A Strategy to Prevent War, by Robert Blackwill and Philip
Zelikow—and Ian Easton’s 2017 book The Chinese Invasion Threat to be par-
ticularly helpful in exploring this possibility.7
It is important to keep in mind that if it comes to war, both the PRC and
the United States each intend to fight joint campaigns. This type of cam-
paign is something for which the United States is prepared, but the PLA still
is working hard to master it. Naturally, the PLA does not have a static plan.
As its capabilities increase and improve; as Taiwan’s ability to resist evolves;
and, of course, as U.S. capabilities and concepts develop—such as current
ideas regarding dispersed presence—the PLA will adjust its plans.
In deciding to use force against Taiwan, Beijing does not need, and prob-
ably would not attempt, to launch an amphibious assault from a standing
start—a so-called bolt from the blue—because it cannot conceal prepara-
tions to do so. Activities such as troop movements, truck convoys to em-
barkation ports, and the sending of ships and submarines to sea all can be
detected by today’s reconnaissance and early-warning systems. The pretext
for such movements probably would be an announcement that the PLA was
about to conduct a major exercise, or series of exercises—something for
which Taiwan’s military is on guard.
4 42 C H I N E S E A M P H I B I O U S WA R FA R E

This chapter assumes that Beijing would opt for a sequenced (phased
escalation) three-step operation consisting of a coercion phase; an attack
phase, to neuter Taiwan and other regional airpower; and, if necessary, an
invasion phase. This is an artificiality, but it is the best way to help illuminate
critical issues; in practice, a PLA campaign against Taiwan is likely to have
many overlapping activities.

The Coercion Phase

The PLA Eastern Theater Command, with headquarters in Nanjing, along
with the Southern Theater Command would be responsible for executing
the operation against Taiwan. However, it is likely that given the stakes in-
volved for Xi and the Central Military Commission in Beijing, they would
provide close oversight and ensure proper coordination among the in-
volved theater commands.8 By starting with coercive measures that do not
kill or maim people directly or physically destroy property and infrastruc-
ture, the PLA has the ability to inflict grievous economic harm through
large-scale cyberattacks aimed at shutting down the banking system, stock
market, selected power grids, and airports on Taiwan. To isolate Taipei fur-
ther and damage the Taiwanese economy, Beijing could cut the undersea
cables that connect the island to the global Internet and other high-speed
digital data networks associated with financial transactions.

Maritime Aspects
With airports operationally limited, physical isolation of Taiwan could be
expanded by a declaration of a maritime exclusion zone (MEZ) or quar-
antine of perhaps a fifty-mile radius around the island. The goal would
be to keep commercial shipping from bringing fuel, military supplies, and
other necessary resources to Taiwan. Beijing’s hope would be that this first
coercive step might be enough for the people of Taiwan to demand that
its government agree to conduct exploratory discussions about unification
with the mainland—that is, to bring the population and politicians “to
their senses.”
In this phase, the China Coast Guard (CCG) could be assigned to form
a “picket line” to warn approaching merchant ships bound for Taiwan. The
PLAN also might be so assigned, and in any circumstances it certainly would
be an over-the-horizon standby force, but giving the space of the MEZ or
quarantine to the CCG initially reduces escalation potential. Obviously, in
attempting to execute a coercive plan such as this the PLAN must be pre-
pared for the possibility of shots being fired. For example, Taiwan’s small
navy might be ordered to deploy and escort Taiwan-owned merchant ships
 IF CHINA INVADES, HOW SHOULD THE U.S. NAVY RESPOND? 4 43

to port, and the PLAN could be ordered to help the CCG prevent this. This
means that combat at sea could break out against the ROC navy.
At this point, before a direct kinetic attack on Taiwan proper, it is uncer-
tain what the U.S. government would do other than mount a full-court dip-
lomatic effort—including the involvement of the United Nations, provided
the PRC did not exercise a Security Council veto—to calm tensions and
forestall the outbreak of shooting. This could, but not necessarily would, in-
clude encouraging the authorities in Taipei at least to agree to engage Beijing
quietly. Would Beijing want Taiwan figuratively to “come out with its hands
up,” or would it be satisfied with something less than complete surrender,
such as a discussion of what formulation a modified (i.e., post–Hong Kong
repression) “one country, two systems” plan would mean for Taiwan?
The U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) presumably would be taking
important readiness and posture moves, directing all Pacific forces, espe-
cially those in Japan (America’s erstwhile “first responders”), to move to an
extremely high readiness condition. That could include directing ships to
get under way and land-based airpower to disperse. To avoid triggering con-
flict, DoD also might direct U.S. forces to stay out of the PRC exclusion zone
around Taiwan and to do nothing that could provoke actual use of weapons.
Washington probably would be at pains to avoid being put in a position of
firing the first shot. At this point, DoD also, one hopes, would direct naval
forces from the U.S. Atlantic Fleet to execute an operational “swing” of naval
units to the Pacific as reinforcements. Attack submarines should be the first
to be dispatched.
Whether Tokyo also elects to improve the readiness condition of its forces
would be of great importance to both Beijing and Washington. Washington
depends on Japanese air defenses for the protection of U.S. air bases on Jap-
anese territory—specifically, Kadena Air Base and Marine Corps Air Station
(MCAS) Futenma on Okinawa and MCAS Iwakuni in southern Honshu.
U.S. defense officials would be very anxious, and likely diplomatically in-
sistent, that Tokyo increase its readiness posture in step with U.S. readiness
upgrades. After all, as will be discussed in more detail below, planning and
preparation for the defense of Japan are linked inextricably to the defense of
Taiwan. Beijing, on the other hand, would hope that Japan was more wor-
ried about provoking China than preparing for conflict, and it diplomati-
cally and publicly would warn Tokyo to mind its own business and stay out.

Implications for the U.S. Navy

(1) Before the shooting starts, the U.S. Navy needs to be a firm support-
ive voice backing a U.S. government announcement that declares the South
China Sea and East China Sea potential war zones and strongly advises
444 C H I N E S E A M P H I B I O U S WA R FA R E

commercial shippers to use alternative sea routes to Northeast Asia. For ex-
ample, ships could sail via the Lombok Strait, Makassar Strait, Celebes Sea,
and Philippine Sea, then on to Northeast Asia. Furthermore, once the shoot-
ing starts and the U.S. government decides to intervene, it should announce
that the South China Sea, East China Sea, Yellow Sea, and Taiwan Strait are
all considered war zones and that ships may be vulnerable to attack without
warning.
(2) If the ROC navy does attempt to contest a PRC MEZ or quarantine
and shooting breaks out, Taipei likely would request U.S. assistance. If the
United States agreed, it likely would result in the first direct involvement of
U.S. forces. From a planning perspective, it seems essential to gain an un-
derstanding of how the Taiwan government would respond to an MEZ or
quarantine. Would it choose to contest it militarily?
(3) In any issue regarding the potential for combat with China over Tai-
wan, currently the commander of INDOPACOM would be designated the
supported commander, while other joint and specified commands would
be designated supporting commanders. Whether any serious discussions
among INDOPACOM and likely supporting commands have taken place
is unknown to this author. Clearly, however, the Pacific and Atlantic Fleet
commanders and their staffs need to be engaged in discussions regarding
the deployment of Atlantic Fleet ships, aircraft, and especially submarines
to the Pacific theater. In view of the warnings of two USN four-star admi-
rals who are the responsible commanders, one hopes that this discussion is
ongoing; but if not, then the office of the Chief of Naval Operations should
take the lead in making it happen.

Capturing Taiwan’s Offshore Islands

Should MEZ and cyber coercion fail, the PRC’s next step likely would be
a missile and air bombardment of Taiwan. This step would attempt to
eliminate ROC airpower; destroy its command, control, and surveillance
capability; and attack other facilities to emphasize the island’s helplessness
militarily.

Maritime Aspects
It also seems likely that in this phase the PLA would capture or neutral-
ize Taiwan’s offshore island holdings.9 Available PLA studies on a Taiwan
campaign highlight the importance of addressing Taiwan’s outer islands.
Kinmen (Quemoy) is an archipelago of fifteen granite islands that the
mainland routinely shelled during the 1950s and 1960s. One of the islands
 IF CHINA INVADES, HOW SHOULD THE U.S. NAVY RESPOND? 4 45

is only a few miles from the commercial area of the port of Xiamen.10 An-
other of Taiwan’s holdings, 125 miles farther north along the Chinese coast,
is the Matsu (Mazu) group of twenty-eight granite features. These are also
well fortified and cover the approaches to Fuzhou, which, like Xiamen,
is an important commercial port. These two archipelagoes sit squarely
in the likely assembly areas for the PLA’s amphibious-assault forces, and
obviously once the mainland begins to attack Taiwan, Taipei’s garrisons
could use these strongpoints to attack two important Chinese cities and
interfere with key shipping areas.11
Farther afield, the PLA also could tighten its grip on the South China
Sea by seizing Itu Aba (Taiping) Island in the Spratlys and Pratas Island in
the northeast area of the South China Sea. Pratas is strategically important
to the PLAN; Taiping is not. The combination of Woody Island airfield in
the Paracel chain and Pratas Island would create a mutually supporting
network of airfields. This network would give Beijing the ability to control
the northeast entrance to / exit from the South China Sea while flanking
Taiwan from the southwest. PLAN maritime-patrol aircraft flying from
these air bases could help to locate any U.S. attack submarines attempting
to trail PLAN ballistic-missile submarines (i.e., SSBNs) en route from their
Yulin home port in Hainan to the open ocean of the Philippine Sea and
central and northern Pacific Ocean.
Finally, capturing all Taiwan’s offshore islands would give the PRC a use-
ful hedge against disaster if a landing is executed but fails. They also provide
a useful off-ramp for Beijing if it decides to stop short of invasion because
the probability of success suddenly decreases. With these features in hand,
Xi Jinping could declare victory and argue that Taipei, and perhaps Wash-
ington, had been taught a lesson because the PLA had been able to recover
more of China’s lost territory.

Implications for the U.S. Navy

(4) For the purposes of this chapter, I assume that the United States will be
permitted to engage PLA forces wherever they are found. (Djibouti could
be an exception.) Seventh Fleet submarines presumably could be sent
to patrol southwest and northeast of Taiwan to attack PLAN destroyers
that are deployed around Taiwan as a seaward extension of the PRC’s air-
defense network.
(5) What about the U.S. Marines on Okinawa? At this point, other than
moving Marines to the Senkakus (see below), it is not clear how they best
could be employed in these early days. This is under debate at this writ-
ing, as U.S. Marine Corps (USMC) Commandant Gen. David H. Berger is
looking into new posture concepts. His April 2021 article in Military Review
446 C H I N E S E A M P H I B I O U S WA R FA R E

provides a conceptual template for the future of Marines in the western Pa-
cific (WESTPAC).12
(6) What about the WESTPAC Carrier Task Force (CTF) 70? Unless
organic tanking is available to enable one-thousand-nautical-mile (nm)
sorties, CTF 70 should not join the early air battle over Taiwan, because
it would be at a serious firepower disadvantage. Presumably, the Fifth Air
Force also will be moving to dispersal sites at this time.
(7) The 1954 Mutual Defense Treaty between the United States and the
ROC was focused expressly on protecting only Taiwan and the Penghu Islands;
other offshore ROC holdings were not covered specifically. The unwilling-
ness of the administration of Dwight D. Eisenhower—in power during a
time when the United States was very much stronger than the PRC—to com-
mit the United States to fighting for these features is a cautionary tale. U.S.
contingency planning, in which the Navy will have a voice, needs to as-
sess carefully whether any military assistance to Taipei in case of a PRC attack
will include recovery of captured Taiwanese offshore islands. At issue is wheth-
er scarce U.S. resources should be expended on trying to hold, or recapture,
offshore islands. Seventy years ago, President Eisenhower thought not, and
that remains wise today.
(8) Taiwan’s South China Sea islands were not a serious issue in the 1950s;
today, that remains partly true. Occupying Itu Aba (Taiping) does not appre-
ciably improve PLA posture in the Spratlys, but control of Pratas does im-
prove PLA capabilities in the northern reaches of the South China Sea, as
discussed above. However, infrastructure would have to be improved. The
airfield is basic, with no fuel storage and a C-130-capable 5,100-foot concrete
runway. With improvements, it would present a threat to U.S. submarine
operations.13

The Importance of the Senkakus in a Taiwan Scenario

It is a mistake to consider the Senkaku Islands as something akin to a “lesser
included case” when compared with a Taiwan scenario. The location of the
Senkakus—just 100 nm northeast of Taiwan’s major port of Keelung—makes
the largest, Uotsuri-shima, a potential cruise-missile facility for the PLA.

Maritime Aspects
More importantly, in allied hands it would allow Japan and potential
USMC or U.S. Army missile forces to flank possible avenues of assault that
the PLA might use. Potential amphibious assembly areas off Xiamen and
Fuzhou are also credible targets, since they are within 250 nm of Uotsuri.
 IF CHINA INVADES, HOW SHOULD THE U.S. NAVY RESPOND? 4 47

Recommendation for the U.S. Navy

(9) The locational advantages of the Senkakus strongly suggest that To-
kyo, perhaps with USN amphibious-lift assistance, should move quickly to
secure, fortify, and harden Uotsuri and associated features once shooting
seems imminent. The tactical advantages these otherwise useless features
provide probably have not been lost on the PLA, and it is imperative that
Japan beat China to the punch by occupying its own claimed territory first.

The Central Importance of Japan

Beijing has had years to weigh the costs versus the benefits of attacking
U.S. facilities on Japanese soil when it begins an attack on Taiwan. It is
increasingly clear that Japan absolutely has to be “all in from the get-go”
in any contingency involving Taiwan. Despite what former prime minister
Yoshihide Suga said in 2021 about no Japanese involvement in a mainland-
Taiwan conflict, the reality is that Tokyo must develop an internal politi-
cal consensus recognizing that a Chinese attack on Taiwan directly affects
the defense of Japan.14 To this end, the administration of Joseph R. Biden
should convince Japanese officials that they can improve deterrence of the
PRC by declaring that an attack on U.S. forces located in Japan will be con-
sidered an attack on Japan.

Maritime Aspects
On the minus side of the ledger, such an attack, especially if any Japanese
citizens were killed, likely would bring Tokyo’s very capable navy—the
Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force (JMSDF), with its forty-odd destroyers/
frigates and twenty or so submarines—into the fight. In addition, the coun-
try’s air force, the Japan Air Self-Defense Force (JASDF), is well trained
in air-to-air combat and would be ready to contribute to the overall air-
defense equation in the southern half of the East China Sea. By conducting
what essentially would be a surprise attack on Japan, the PRC also would
incur significant global opprobrium.15
On the plus side of the ledger, after moving to the attack phase the PLA
would have a particularly good opportunity to hamstring severely a sig-
nificant portion of U.S. airpower in the region. By attacking air bases and
defensive surface-to-air missile systems with conventionally armed ballis-
tic missiles and land-attack cruise missiles (LACMs), it potentially could
ground or destroy large numbers of U.S. Air Force and USMC fighter and
support aircraft.
448 C H I N E S E A M P H I B I O U S WA R FA R E

Finally, should Tokyo veto planning for its military involvement in a Tai-
wan scenario, it would have to consider seriously how interested Washington
would be in becoming involved in a PLA attack on the Senkakus. Should a
PLA invasion of Taiwan be successful because Japan stayed out of the con-
flict, Tokyo then could find itself on its own when the PRC turned its atten-
tion to the Senkakus and the forty-four tiny islands of the Sakishima Islands.

Recommendations for the U.S. Navy

(10) The U.S. Navy should make its voice heard regarding the establish-
ment of a combined U.S.-Japan forces command to plan for and, if neces-
sary, to lead the fight in Northeast Asia contingencies involving China. The
easiest approach would be to separate the currently “double hatted” U.S.
Forces Japan (USFJ) and command of the Fifth U.S. Air Force in Japan,
then transform USFJ into a subunified combined combatant command.
This is not going to happen overnight unless Beijing does something to
frighten Tokyo outright. In the meantime, however, a consensus should be
reached within the U.S. government—especially among DoD, the Chair-
man of the Joint Chiefs of Staff (CJCS), the combatant command, and, of
course, Congress—on an acceptable command structure, since this likely
would involve a significant realignment of extant command relationships.
(11) A crucial step the U.S. Navy should take is to develop a Taiwan-
conflict submarine-water-space-management plan with the JMSDF for the
area around Japan, especially the East China Sea, the Luzon Strait, and the
southern approaches of Taiwan, so that from the early days of a conflict
both U.S. and JMSDF submarines can deploy to attack PLAN ships.
(12) The U.S. Air Force is pursuing a concept of operations named “Ag-
ile Combat Employment” that involves dispersing Fifth Air Force assets to
bases around Japan or elsewhere in the WESTPAC region.16 Presumably
the JASDF is aware of the concept and even may be considering dispersing
as well. The same is true for USMC fighters at Iwakuni and V-22s located at
Futenma. If aircraft dispersal is going to be the answer for U.S. land-based
airpower in Japan, there needs to be some sort of a combined dispersal plan,
because there are only so many airfields available and logistics preplanning
is necessary. Clearly, the carrier-based air wing (CVW-5) assigned to USS
Ronald Reagan also needs to be involved, because should the PLA choose to
attack while Reagan is in port, its air wing could be off the ship at Iwakuni.
(13) The JMSDF and U.S. Seventh Fleet also must develop coordinated
plans for escorting CTF 70. The JMSDF’s historical mission focus on and
skill in antisubmarine warfare (ASW) would be an important contribution
to the survivability of CTF 70. Additionally, JMSDF prowess in ASW is
 IF CHINA INVADES, HOW SHOULD THE U.S. NAVY RESPOND? 4 49

an essential component of a coordinated regional ASW campaign in the

Philippine Sea. It seems probable that the PLA would dispatch a large num-
ber of its submarines (perhaps as many as twenty-five) to form wolf packs.
Their mission would be to attack U.S. seaborne reinforcements from Ha-
waii and the West Coast of the continental United States.
(14) Once the shooting starts during a PLA Taiwan campaign, no USN
ship operating in the East China Sea or South China Sea is likely to survive
long once discovered. The combination of PLA antiship cruise missiles
(ASCMs), land-based aircraft, submarines, and antiship ballistic missiles
will be overwhelming. The U.S. Navy and the JMSDF should discuss an
agreement detailing that none of their surface ships operate farther west
than fifty miles from the Ryukyu Islands. Not only would this be sensible,
but it also would make it simpler for “blue” forces to blaze away at ships
located in the East China Sea. Both the Marines and Army seem to be keen
to participate in the mission of shooting at PLAN ships. The U.S. Navy
has learned from long and often unhappy experience that over-the-horizon
targeting of long-range ASCMs is not as easy as it sometimes is perceived to
be. Eliminating, to the degree possible, the difficulty in sorting out “non-
cooperative targets” (electronically silent) by keeping “blue” out of most of
the East China Sea altogether would simplify shooting at ships that cannot
be identified positively.
(15) The III Marine Expeditionary Force (MEF) must develop a co-
ordinated operation plan with the Japan Ground Self-Defense Force for
defense/occupation of the Senkakus. It is important to have a plan for mov-
ing Marines from Okinawa to the Senkakus if Futenma is destroyed early
in the fighting. To this end, combined planning should include the option
of prompt Japanese, and potentially USMC, occupation of the Senkakus if
China attacks Taiwan.

The Antiaccess Fight in the Philippine Sea

At this point in the chapter, the assumption is that Taipei did not submit to
nonlethal coercion, and the PLA missile and air bombardment of Taiwan
is ongoing. Serious fighting has broken out along the Ryukyu chain, where
U.S. first responders and U.S. air bases in the Ryukyus have been attacked,
with the goal of taking U.S. land-based aircraft out of the airpower equa-
tion. This attack resulted in Japan joining the military campaign.

Maritime Aspects
The geographic focus now shifts away from the East China Sea and first
island chain to the PRC’s eastward maritime approaches in the Philippine
450 C H I N E S E A M P H I B I O U S WA R FA R E

Sea. The emphasis for the U.S. Navy is twofold: it needs to be doing battle
successfully with both the PLA surveillance system and the PLAN sub-
marine presence. The PLA objective is straightforward: keep U.S. forces
that are moving west toward China as far away from Taiwan and the first
island chain as possible. In DoD jargon, this is known as antiaccess. It
has received voluminous public commentary because PLA Rocket Force
(PLARF) ballistic missiles—and, potentially over the longer term, its mis-
siles with hypersonic glide vehicles—are purported to be able to hit moving
ships, especially U.S. aircraft carrier strike groups sailing west to join the
fight to roll back Chinese aggression.
The PLA concept is a derivative of the Soviet concept that combined
open-ocean surveillance; long-range, land-based aircraft carrying ASCMs;
and nuclear-powered submarines with large loads of ASCMs to form an
imposing capability, largely aimed at defeating nuclear-armed U.S. carrier
battle groups.17 In comparison with the Soviets’ situation, modern technol-
ogy has eased greatly the open-ocean surveillance problem for the PLA.
Ideally, the PLA plans for its surveillance system to find approaching naval
forces so that PLA commanders can direct at-sea submarines to “ambush”
approaching U.S. naval forces or vector land-based aircraft to the attack,
and so they can aim and launch antiship missiles. Without surveillance,
the PLA cannot do any of these tasks effectively. As a result, it has made a
serious investment in creating an overlapping land-, air-, and space-based
ocean-surveillance system, with the apparent goal of providing reliable
ocean surveillance out to at least 2,000 nm from China’s coast. It is prudent
to assume that China keeps track of U.S. carrier movements globally. When
a carrier is headed toward China and gets within approximately 2,000 nm,
Chinese intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR) systems are
able to provide an updated position on the ship every few minutes, and if
the carrier is not operating in an electronically silent mode, position infor-
mation may be available almost continuously.18

Recommendation for the U.S. Navy

(16) Ocean surveillance is both the strength and the Achilles’ heel of PLA
hopes to defeat the U.S. Navy. Virtually all the PLA’s precision weapons
about which we worry are targeted by China’s space-based systems. If we
take these systems down, the PLA will have a much harder time locating
moving targets on land and at sea. Yes, it is true that the joint force is also
dependent on space-based systems, and if we disrupt PLA surveillance
China certainly will respond. In fact, the PLA already may plan to ini-
tiate attacks on U.S. space systems. The joint force simply must learn to
do without them and rely on ISR derived from unmanned aerial vehicles
 IF CHINA INVADES, HOW SHOULD THE U.S. NAVY RESPOND? 451

and microsatellite communications. It will come down to which joint force

will be better at space-deprived combat. Presumably, the U.S. lead in long-
endurance drone surveillance is an advantage. It seems that the only sensi-
ble way to tilt the military advantage toward the United States is to nullify
the PLA’s firepower advantage and make it extremely hard, if not impossi-
ble, for it to aim its missiles.

Stopping the Taiwan Invasion Amphibious Force

Eliminating China’s ocean-surveillance system and equipping U.S. joint
forces with long-range systems are the two keys to fighting China in East
Asia, and specifically to stopping an invasion fleet. Air Force bombers with
long-range, antiship missiles and access to tanking are likely to join U.S.
attack submarines as the most important capabilities. The bombers’ abil-
ity to take off from widely dispersed airfields and launch antiship missiles
from long range at targets on the Taiwan Strait, particularly an amphibious
force, would be crucial.

Maritime Aspects
Carrier-based Navy fighters also would be important, provided the carri-
ers can get close enough to the Taiwan Strait to engage an amphibious force
without being put out of action by missiles or torpedoes. U.S. carrier forces,
no matter the size of the carrier, have to be able to thwart both PLA missiles
and a lot of PLAN submarines to be able to contribute to the fight. The
JMSDF must be an essential partner in the ASW contest.
It is also important to remember that the Seventh Fleet, Fifth Air Force,
and III MEF likely are to be involved in combat from the first shot in a
Taiwan or Senkaku scenario. These first responders have to be able to stay
in the fight well enough to preclude quick Chinese successes. U.S. aircraft
must have access to hardened shelters, including at dispersal airfields. If
first responders survive and remain effective, they will be able to contrib-
ute to the attacks on amphibious shipping. Similarly, if the Marines and
Army have missiles with 500 nm range or better, they can contribute to
the antiassault shoot-out. Potentially, the most effective way to hamstring
an amphibious assault would be submarine attacks. But the PLAN surely
recognizes this; the entire Taiwan Strait and approaches from either its
northeast or southwest entrance likely will be swarming with PLA ASW
forces, making it difficult for USN attack submarines (SSNs) alone to have
a decisive impact.
452 C H I N E S E A M P H I B I O U S WA R FA R E

Recommendations for the U.S. Navy

(17) Too much of the discussion regarding the USN carrier force and China
has revolved around the size of the aircraft carrier and how that relates to
vulnerability. The current trendy idea is that many small F-35B carriers
would be more survivable, and therefore that they represent the answer to
this potential problem. This is fatuous. Not only are such ships far less ca-
pable of defending themselves and surviving battle damage (and thus less
survivable), but, as CJCS Mark A. Milley recently pointed out, if a military
unit can be seen, it can be shot.19 Small carriers are still relatively large
ships, and they can be seen as easily as bigger ones, especially if they are
operating around the first island chain. For the Navy’s carrier force to be
able to contribute to the fight to save Taiwan, or defend Japan, four things
must happen promptly.
• First, the Navy must develop capabilities to seriously degrade,
deceive, and confuse the PRC surveillance system.
• Second, the Navy needs to be able to operate without friendly space-
based ISR.
• Third, the Navy must field organic air-wing tanking as soon as possi-
ble. Navy fighters have to be able to conduct long-range sorties.
• Fourth, the Navy has to expedite the introduction of long-range
(500–600 nm) ASCMs and LACMs that can be launched by F-18s and
F-35Cs.
(18) It is imperative that once the PLA begins to attack Taiwan, the United
States declares the Taiwan Strait something akin to a “free-fire zone.” U.S.
forces are not going to be able to obtain a positive identification on every
ship running around the Taiwan Strait area.
(19) Arguably, the most important additional capability that our first
responders need today is more submarines. Four are stationed in Guam,
and rotational deployments add to the current Seventh Fleet total. None-
theless, the Navy needs to work with Tokyo to add as many SSNs as pos-
sible to our forward-stationed forces in Japan. Because it is inherent in
submarine operations to generate uncertainty in the enemy’s mind, a very
robust SSN presence in and around the first island chain on a day-to-day
basis will make a strong contribution to deterrence.

While it does seem possible that with attack submarines and long-range,
air-launched ASCM strikes the U.S. military could stop a PLA amphibious-
invasion force heading for Taiwan, that is no cause for self-congratulation.
 IF CHINA INVADES, HOW SHOULD THE U.S. NAVY RESPOND? 453

What this chapter does not address, except by implication, is that it does
not seem possible for the U.S. joint force to bring a halt to the PLA missile
and air bombardment that would be preliminary to any invasion. Taiwan
would be forced to absorb serious punishment from the air, probably for a
considerable period, with little help from the United States before the PRC
concluded, probably reluctantly, that it needed to mount an invasion.
U.S. thinking on how to ameliorate the PLARF piece of this problem
seems to be betting a lot of its chips on the concept of small, distributed
forces being able to survive in what General Berger has called the “weap-
ons engagement zone (WEZ) of a peer adversary.”20 The current focus on
dispersed forces—both land-based fighters and small groups of land forces
with ASCMs and medium-range missiles of all sorts—hopping and skip-
ping around scattered islands in the WESTPAC has to be tempered by the
reality that the latitude and longitude of every likely dispersal airfield, is-
land, islet, and rock can be, and probably has been, determined and mea-
sured by the PLA. Dispersion is a great idea, but even dispersed forces can
be seen, which is the primary problem. Daring the PLARF to play whack-
a-mole in the hope that it runs out of missiles before the United States
runs out of dispersed forces seems problematic. Once the PLA concludes
that dispersion is definitely part of U.S. strategy, it will have lots of time to
crank up the production rates of its missile forces to build as much inven-
tory as necessary. I suspect China can build enough missiles to service all
the likely aim points along and around the first island chain. Dispersal sites
have to be made survivable if the concept is to be militarily credible, and
that must start with making sure they cannot be seen.
Finally, I have not mentioned any objectives for naval forces in the
South China Sea. That is intentional. Geographically, the South China Sea
simply does not have enough navigable water space for major surface ships
to operate in dispersed formations. Shoal water has the effect of canalizing
avenues of approach. It is true that U.S. airpower and submarines could
plaster PLA bases in the Spratlys with LACMs. But at the expense of shoot-
ing a lot of cruise missiles at targets, that would have little impact on saving
Taiwan from invasion. A South China Sea campaign against PRC holdings
as another so-called cost-imposing effort would have little real effect in
deflecting Beijing from its only real reason for initiating a war: forcing Tai-
wan to unify with the mainland. Again, beating up PLA island bases is not
much of a consolation prize.
45 4 C H I N E S E A M P H I B I O U S WA R FA R E

Notes
1. For a good synopsis of views at the time, see Patrick E. Tyler, “China’s Military
Stumbles Even as Its Power Grows,” New York Times, 3 December 1996, available at
www.nytimes.com/1996/12/03/world/china-s-military-stumbles-even-as-its
-power-grows.html. The “million-man swim” quote is found in Eric McVadon,
“PRC Exercises, Doctrine and Tactics toward Taiwan: The Naval Dimension,” in
Crisis in the Taiwan Strait, ed. James R. Lilley and Chuck Downs (Washington, DC:
National Defense Univ. Press, 1997), p. 255. It specifically refers to the likely result
of a PLA attempt to invade Taiwan using thousands of fishing boats. In subsequent
usage, the phrase became a popular way to dismiss the success of any PLA invasion
attempt.
2. Taiwan Relations Act, 22 U.S.C. §§ 3301–16 (2018), available at www.ait.org.tw/
our-relationship/policy-history/key-u-s-foreign-policy-documents-region/
taiwan-relations-act/. Emphasis added.
3. Helen Davidson, “China Could Invade Taiwan in Next Six Years, Top US Admiral
Warns,” The Guardian, 9 March 2021, www.theguardian.com/world/2021/mar/10/
china-could-invade-taiwan-in-next-six-years-top-us-admiral-warns.
4. John Culver, “The Unfinished Chinese Civil War,” The Interpreter, 30 September
2020, www.lowyinstitute.org/the-interpreter/unfinished-chinese-civil-war/.
5. United Nations Conference on Trade and Development, Review of Maritime Trans-
port 2020 (New York: United Nations, 2020), p. 41, table 2.3, available at unctad
.org/system/files/official-document/rmt2020_en.pdf.
6. The circumstances under which officials on the mainland historically have warned
that it would use force have evolved over time. These circumstances have includ-
ed (1) formal declaration of Taiwan independence, (2) undefined moves toward
Taiwan independence, (3) internal unrest on Taiwan, (4) Taiwan’s acquisition of
nuclear weapons, (5) indefinite delays in the resumption of cross-strait dialogue
on unification, (6) foreign intervention in Taiwan’s internal affairs, and (6) foreign
forces stationed on Taiwan. Article 8 of China’s March 2005 Anti-Secession Law
states that China may use “non-peaceful means” if “secessionist forces . . . cause the
fact of Taiwan’s secession from China,” if “major incidents entailing Taiwan’s seces-
sion” occur, or if “possibilities for peaceful reunification” are exhausted. U.S. De-
fense Dept., Annual Report to Congress: Military and Security Developments Involv-
ing the People’s Republic of China 2018 (Washington, DC: Office of the Secretary
of Defense, August 2018) [hereafter Annual Report to Congress 2018], pp. 93–94,
available at media.defense.gov/2018/Aug/16/2001955282/-1/-1/1/2018-CHINA
-MILITARY-POWER-REPORT.PDF.
7. Robert D. Blackwill and Philip Zelikow, The United States, China, and Taiwan: A
Strategy to Prevent War (New York: Council on Foreign Relations, February
2021), available at www.cfr.org/report/united-states-china-and-taiwan-strategy
-prevent-war; Ian Easton, The Chinese Invasion Threat: Taiwan’s Defense and
American Strategy in Asia (Arlington, VA: Project 2049 Institute, 2017).
8. Peter Wood, “Snapshot: China’s Eastern Theater Command,” Jamestown Founda-
tion China Brief 17, no. 4 (14 March 2017), available at jamestown.org/program/
snapshot-chinas-eastern-theater-command/.
 IF CHINA INVADES, HOW SHOULD THE U.S. NAVY RESPOND? 455

9. “With few overt military preparations beyond routine training, China could
launch an invasion of small Taiwan-held islands in the South China Sea such as
Pratas or Itu Aba. A PLA invasion of a medium-sized, better-defended island such
as Matsu or Jinmen is within China’s capabilities. Such an invasion would demon-
strate military capability and political resolve while achieving tangible territorial
gain and simultaneously showing some measure of restraint.” Annual Report to
Congress 2018, p. 95.
10. Easton, The Chinese Invasion Threat, p. 114.
11. Ibid., pp. 115–16.
12. David H. Berger [Gen., USMC], “Preparing for the Future: Marine Corps Sup-
port to Joint Operations in Contested Littorals,” Military Review, April 2021, www
.armyupress.army.mil/Journals/Military-Review/Online-Exclusive/2021-OLE/
Berger-Future/.
13. Yoshiyuki Ogasawara, “The Pratas Islands: A New Flashpoint in the South
China Sea,” Flashpoints (blog), The Diplomat, 10 December 2020, thediplomat
.com/2020/12/the-pratas-islands-a-new-flashpoint-in-the-south-china-sea/.
14. Julian Ryall, “Japan Troops Won’t Get Involved If China Invades Taiwan,
PM Yoshihide Suga Says,” South China Morning Post, 21 April 2021,
www.scmp.com/week-asia/politics/article/3130423/japan-troops-wont-get
-involved-if-china-invades-taiwan-pm/.
15. David A. Shlapak, David T. Orletsky, and Barry A. Wilson, Dire Strait? Military
Aspects of the China-Taiwan Confrontation and Options for U.S. Policy (Santa
Monica, CA: RAND, 2000), pp. 7–30.
16. Scott D. Adamson [Maj., USAF] and Shane Praiswater [Maj., USAF], “With Air
Bases at Risk, Agile Combat Employment Must Mature,” Defense News, 12
November 2020, www.defensenews.com/opinion/commentary/2020/11/12/air
-bases-are-at-risk-without-the-agile-combat-employment-approach/.
17. This section is derived from the now-declassified National Intelligence Estimate
NIE 11-15-82/D, Soviet Naval Strategy and Programs through the 1990s, March
1983, which is found in John B. Hattendorf, The Evolution of the U.S. Navy’s Mar-
itime Strategy, 1977–1986, Newport Paper 19 (Newport, RI: Naval War College
Press, 2004), pp. 109–83.
18. U.S. Defense Dept., Annual Report to Congress: Military and Security Developments
Involving the People’s Republic of China 2020 (Washington, DC: Office of the Secre-
tary of Defense, 1 September 2020), pp. 57, 81. The DF-26 medium-range ballistic
missile has both a land-attack and antiship capability. Its range is approximately
2,160 nm, which implies that surveillance and targeting of large ships such as carri-
ers must be at least as effective as the missile. Further, PLAAF H-6 bombers armed
with ASCMs have a notional range of 2,400 nm.
19. “A Conversation with Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Mark A.
Milley,” interview by Michael O’Hanlon, Brookings, 2 December 2020, video,
1:02:11, www.brookings.edu/events/a-conversation-with-chairman-of-the-joint
-chiefs-of-staff-general-mark-a-milley/.
20. Berger, “Preparing for the Future,” p. 3.
 Andrew S. Erickson and Gabriel B. Collins

19. Deterring (or Defeating) a

PLA Invasion
Recommendations for Taipei

China has achieved the most dramatic military buildup since World War
II through concerted efforts over the past quarter-century. Previously lim-
ited in its ability to execute its Joint Firepower Strike, Joint Blockade, and
Joint Island Landing Campaigns against Taiwan, the People’s Liberation
Army (PLA) is making rapid progress toward acquiring achievability as it
prepares to meet the requirements of General Secretary Xi Jinping’s Cen-
tennial Military Building Goal of 2027. In keeping with the purpose of this
volume, this chapter will focus on countering a People’s Republic of China
(PRC) Joint Island Landing Campaign (which could itself be combined
with some combination of the other aforementioned campaign plans
against Taiwan).
The stakes scarcely could be higher and the clock is ticking for Taiwan
to combat this threat, raising an urgent question: What can Taiwan do (in-
cluding, in part, with American encouragement and support) to convince
Xi and his successors that a military attack very likely would fail—and to
reliably defeat PRC military aggression by denying it success, should that
wisdom be ignored? For the United States to relentlessly prioritize safe-
guarding Taiwan, Taiwan must relentlessly prioritize its own defense
where it matters most.
458 C H I N E S E A M P H I B I O U S WA R FA R E

This chapter therefore underscores the key dynamics that should in-
form Taiwan’s defense and highlights six areas to prioritize above all else,
including legacy systems: (1) air defense, (2) mines, (3) antiship missiles
and munitions, (4) coastal artillery, (5) information warfare, and (6) crit-
ical infrastructure resilience. In some cases, Taipei and Washington have
made initial, gradual efforts but must do much more—and faster—to keep
PRC forces at bay. This includes clearing the extensive backlog of systems
that Taiwan has purchased but that the United States has not yet delivered.
Russian president Vladimir V. Putin’s invasion of Ukraine highlights
the urgency of advance preparation, amplified by the fact that Taiwan can-
not easily be resupplied during combat the way Ukraine has been for more
than two years. The systems “on island” when the first PLA missile lands
are very likely what Taiwan’s military will have to fight with for at least the
first thirty days afterward.1 Deterrence and denial are the best approaches
for a vulnerable society facing a quantitatively greater invading force. Suc-
cessful denial of lodgment to PRC amphibious and air assault forces would
buy time for intervention by the U.S. and its allies—the island’s most viable
path to remaining autonomous in the event that Beijing pursues forcible
unification.2
“Gentlemen, we have run out of money. Now we have to think.” The
words often attributed to Winston Churchill capture a central challenge
confronting Taiwan’s defense today. Fueled by tremendous economic
development, China has developed and deployed a panoply of systems
designed to shift the strategic environment from one in which the United
States and Taiwan enjoyed overwhelming advantages and could operate
with impunity to one in which many of their military operations can only
be conducted at great risk.
These new PRC advances primarily are weapons systems that place the
United States on the costly end of a series of competitions. It is far cheaper
and more effective to attack with a missile, for instance, than to defend
against it. China has exploited this dynamic by developing the world’s
largest, most diverse conventional missile force that includes unprece-
dented systems such as the DF-17, DF-21D, and DF-26 antiship ballistic
missiles. Other areas of potentially disproportionate cost- and operational
effectiveness that China has developed include conventionally-powered
submarines and naval mines. By playing to the advantages of its physical
environment, China is adopting a strategy that strives to negate Taiwan’s
and America’s military strengths by directly targeting their military bases,
ships, and aircraft—the very things necessary to defend Taiwan.
China’s meteoric military ramp-up, which continues relentlessly, tar-
gets Taiwan first and foremost. While increasing spending on defense
 D E T ER R I N G (O R D EFE AT I N G ) A P L A I N VA S I O N 459

should be an urgent priority, in all conceivable scenarios Taipei neverthe-

less must decide how to face this threat while operating with suboptimal
limitations in resources, arms suppliers, and military forces. Particularly
given a costly history of defense budget constraints combined with a focus
on legacy platforms, what should be avoided above all is the expenditure of
resources and effort in ways that fail to effectively address China’s mount-
ing military threat. Yet, Taiwan need not be thus condemned—provided
that it doubles down on efforts to follow the smartest available strategy,
with strong American support.

Porcupine Defense: Best Overall Concept

Several leading assessments rightly have called for Taiwan to pursue a
“porcupine strategy” that prioritizes “a large number of small things”
for the island’s defense.3 “Porcupine defense” emphasizes numbers, size,
affordability, mobility, simplicity, and hiding shooters in clutter. Na-
val War College Professor William Murray’s definition of the concept is
“many, small, mobile, and lethal.” Small assets are easier to conceal, while
many and mobile assets are more survivable. Lethal capability is self-
explanatory.4 The goal is to deploy and train with affordable weapons
systems that place China on the disadvantageous end of an arms
competition.
One of the most important principles to illustrate what Taiwan should
most strive to do, and most strive to avoid, might be described as “bul-
let versus body.” Surface ships and fixed air bases increasingly represent
“bodies” vulnerable to “bullets” in the form of missiles. One can expend
“bullets” freely, but a hit to a “body” can be terminal. Not only should
Taiwan avoid offering up “bodies” for easy destruction, but the island
should also specialize in shooting its own “bullets” at PRC “bodies” that
must necessarily be used in a given cross-strait military operation (e.g.,
airborne and seaborne troop transports in the case of an attempted
invasion). By contrast, Taiwan cannot readily protect its air bases
(“bodies”) from the “bullets” of China’s PLA Rocket Force. This argues for
reducing reliance on such vulnerable assets. One particularly potent way
to trade “bullets” for “bodies” is to fire from clutter, which brings us to the
next important dynamic.
The concept of “target versus background” is also crucial; it is relatively
straightforward to discern a target against the air or ocean surface and
missiles can devastate any ship or aircraft so detected. Significant advan-
tages will accrue to the side whose systems’ signal-to-noise ratio enables
460 C H I N E S E A M P H I B I O U S WA R FA R E

them to disappear below the “noise floor,” thereby blending into the back-
ground or into clutter. Examples include the disproportionately effective
actions of U.S. adversaries in the 1991 Gulf War “Scud hunt” and the 1999
Kosovo war.5
Among the other key dynamics, whatever Taiwan acquires or develops
should be highly mobile; a given weapons system’s survivability depends
on how mobile it is in practice. Systems should thus be truly mobile, not
just “relocatable.” Where feasible, weapons should be mounted on relatively
cheap trucks that can hide in the radar clutter generated by complex
terrain or on small high-speed vessels; pursuing both approaches would
present the PLA with markedly different and difficult problems to solve.
Vessels on the ocean are unlikely to ever blend into surface clutter the way
that transporter erector launchers (TELs) and other vehicles blend into land
clutter, thereby offering Taiwan’s on-island forces potential physics-based
advantages over PRC forces crossing the Taiwan Strait.
All told, those tasked with conceiving and executing Taiwan’s defense
should strive to reclaim what we term the “right end of physics”: adopting
a minimum energy approach in accordance with military cost-exchange
ratios. The goal either is to prevent a successful PRC military attack on
Taiwan or to make one prohibitively costly to the attackers. Taiwan’s
planners should concentrate on being able to establish between Taiwan’s
maritime approaches and its shores a tremendous no-man’s-land (or hell-
scape) in which PRC forces cannot operate.6 They should deter by demon-
strating the ability to prevent China from achieving its military objectives—
deterrence by denial. Finally, time is running out; Taiwan’s heretofore tight
fiscal environment and now unforgiving threat timeline (the decade of
maximum danger) places a premium on deploying and maintaining many
affordable, small, mobile, and lethal weapons that can destroy invading
forces as rapidly and effectively as possible.
Each day that Xi is persuaded that “today is not the day” to attack
Taiwan buys another day of peace as policymakers work through this
critical and decisive decade. To help ensure the means to maintain cross-
strait peace, Taiwan’s government should urgently redouble its investment
and effort in six concrete areas: (1) air defense, (2) mines, (3) antiship
missiles and munitions, (4) coastal “kill zone” artillery, (5) information
warfare (particularly electronic warfare: including jammers, decoys, and
deception), and (6) the resilience of critical infrastructure.7 We now survey
each in turn.
 D E T ER R I N G (O R D EFE AT I N G ) A P L A I N VA S I O N 4 61

Air Defense
Taiwan must prevent the PLA from achieving and maintaining air su-
periority in the airspace over and around Taiwan. Ukraine’s experience
demonstrates the importance of mobile ground-based air defenses that,
even if imperfect, can deny an attacker air control over key terrain. As
Harry Halem and Eyck Freymann explain, “Without air control . . . China
would be incapable of executing almost any military plan against Taiwan.”8
Furthermore, in their chapter for this volume, Yung and Haver show that
PLA strategists regard air control as a key precondition for a Joint Island
Landing Campaign.
Mobile, medium-range missiles offer a potent means of denying
Taiwan’s skies to PLA aircraft. The Norwegian Advanced Surface-
to-Air Missile System (NASAMS) platform stands out as an asset that
is mobile, survivable, and combat-proven, and that can fire a range of
readily available missiles including the AIM-120 advanced medium-
range air-to-air missile (AMRAAM), AIM-9X, IRIS-T, and AMRAAM—
Extended Range.9 Each NASAMS battery firing AIM-120 missiles could
deny a column of airspace roughly twenty miles across and fifty-thousand
feet high.10 The system is also comparatively affordable. For the same cost
as Taiwan’s 2019 deal to acquire sixty-six F-16V fighters, the island’s mil-
itary could purchase more than 150 Norwegian Advanced Surface-to-Air
Missile System batteries.11 Finally, its ability to fire multiple missile types
allows for future adaptation. The AMRAAM–Extended Range could ex-
pand the existing AIM-120’s engagement range by 50 percent and altitude
by 70 percent.12 Truck-mounted NASAMS sensors and launchers dispersed
throughout Taiwan that can fire and move would present a formidable
challenge to the PLA Air Force. Truly mobile systems can serve as for-
midable “bullets;” systems that are merely “relocatable” represent “bodies”
likely doomed to destruction in actual combat conditions.
For their part, short-range air defense (SHORAD) systems can
offer critical protection against lower-flying aircraft, helicopters, and
unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs). In this area, Taiwan needs large
stocks of man-portable air-defense systems (MANPADS), which already
have shown their utility in Ukraine against aircraft with perfor-
mance characteristics similar to many of those in China’s air force.
MANPADS could make an airborne assault prohibitively risky or
costly. As of 9 May 2023, the United States alone had delivered 1,600
Stinger MANPADS to Ukraine.13 The quantity transferred to Ukraine
illustrates the sheer munitions mass likely to be required to contest air-
space against a capable, determined invader.
4 62 C H I N E S E A M P H I B I O U S WA R FA R E

Mines
Within the concept of “bullets versus bodies,” mines are a type of particu-
larly advantageous “bullet.” Taiwan’s planners understand the importance
of sea mines for countering a PLA amphibious campaign, but they should
accelerate their efforts.14 Taiwan should urgently build or acquire substan-
tial numbers of shallow-water mines akin to the Russian PDM series, which
could be deployed rapidly in the tidal zone at likely landing points.15 Using
cheap, rapidly deployable passive obstacles such as steel Czech hedgehogs
along Taiwan’s west coast, beaches could complement elevated highways
and other preexisting impediments to canalize (channel) incoming land-
ing forces, thereby amplifying the lethality of mines and artillery against
an invasion force as it tried to land.16
Ukraine’s use of mines in concert with shore-based antiship missiles
(the next section’s topic) likely helped deter a Russian amphibious assault
on Odessa—a lesson worth considering for Taiwan. As Tom Shugart shows
in his chapter, Taiwan also must be prepared for the possibility that the PLA
Navy (PLAN) could use offensive mining to isolate the island and hamper
the operations of allied militaries. Here the best defense is not efforts to
improve mine-countermeasures, but rather to turn the issue around on the
PLA and deny it the ability to move an invasion force overwater onto Taiwan.

Antiship Missiles and Munitions

Rapidly maximizing the quantity and survivability of Taiwan’s long-range
antiship missiles could challenge seriously PLA operations near the island,
and thereby have a deterrent effect.17 Any ships struck by modern antiship
cruise missiles would suffer greatly, and even more so if the missiles cause
fires that subsequently spread. The United States already has approved
the sale of one hundred land-based Harpoon coastal-defense cruise-
missile launchers, four hundred missiles, and twenty-five associated
radars to Taiwan.18
Invading amphibious forces are most vulnerable while they are still
aboard their ships. Taiwan therefore should emphasize targeting ships
at sea. Escalation risks aside, it is more militarily efficient to sink an in-
vasion force at sea after it has left PRC ports and when it is concentrated
in relatively few large (and flammable) amphibious transports and
“civilian” roll-on/roll-off vessels than to bombard it after it is ashore
and dispersed, hiding amidst port and urban clutter, and probably
has a host of camouflage, concealment, and deception (CC&D) assets
 D E T ER R I N G (O R D EFE AT I N G ) A P L A I N VA S I O N 4 63

nearby. The closer to Taiwan that PRC amphibious ships are, so long
as the armored fighting vehicles have not yet debarked, the simpler
Taiwan’s targeting problem becomes. Targeting will become easier as an
invasion force nears Taiwan if shore-based sensors and cheaper, pro-
lific shorter-range UAVs are able to detect the force and help shooters on-
shore more accurately target their weapons.
While antiship cruise missiles certainly can be lethal, the PLA would
also need to consider the damage smaller, loitering munitions can cause.
Even a relatively small warhead can inflict a mission kill (rendering an en-
emy platform incapable of accomplishing its objective without necessarily
destroying it completely) by damaging radars and other sensitive, exposed
equipment on ships. In doing so, loitering munitions can augment antiship
cruise missiles. Taiwan should thus produce or import long-range loitering
munitions such as the Switchblade 600 and ALTIUS-600/700 series—each
of which has sufficient range to cover the entire breadth of the Strait and can
be fired from various mobile launchers.
Taiwan already is developing indigenous loitering munitions. The Na-
tional Chung-Shan Institute of Science and Technology’s Chien Hsiang
antiradiation loitering munition, for example, can be launched from a trailer
mounting twelve box launchers or from naval vessels.19 But volume matters
and an accelerated combination of imports and domestic production will
likely be required to build sufficiently large stocks to threaten a PLA am-
phibious assault force credibly through the decade of maximum danger;
Taiwan’s production of the Chien Hsiang alone is not enough. Loitering
munitions can augment antiship cruise missiles (ASCMs) by damaging ra-
dars. The United States can export potent loitering munitions and already
has agreed to send Taiwan 720 Switchblade-300 (SB300) All Up Rounds
and up to 291 Altius 600M-V systems.20 The combination of fast ASCMs
and many slow UAVs will overwhelm PLAN defenses and destroy invading
ships.

Coastal “Kill Zone” Artillery

Precision fires can turn Taiwan’s near-shore waters, beaches, and airborne
landing areas into kill zones for invading forces and help deny lodgment
or facilitate destruction or eviction of any that managed to get ashore.
The Ukrainian military’s use of artillery to destroy a lightly armored (and
poorly dispersed) Russian assault force at the Hostomel Airport near Kyiv
in February 2022 is illustrative, while other examples from Ukraine high-
light the potency of submunitions and area-effect warheads.21
464 C H I N E S E A M P H I B I O U S WA R FA R E

Taiwan’s forces thus need multiple-launch rocket artillery (for exam-

ple, High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems, a.k.a. HIMARS) with sub-
munitions and area-effect warheads to target any landing force close to
or on the beach (or in a drop zone).22 As demonstrated in the Ukraine
War and previous conflicts, HIMARS—especially with area munitions
(cluster munitions, designed to disperse multiple smaller submunitions
over a wide area)—are devastating to unprotected infantry. Additionally,
HIMARS could employ Saab’s Ground-Launched Small Diameter Bomb
(GLSDB), which now has a laser-homing mode to engage moving targets.23
The GLSDB’s 150 km range and high precision would allow rocket systems
dispersed throughout Taiwan to target a PRC amphibious landing force.24
Taiwan already has recognized HIMARS’s effectiveness for its needs;
eleven HIMARS units are scheduled to be delivered from the United States
by 2027.25 This demonstrates that leaders already are thinking about the
value of mobility, small size, and lethality. However, delivering substan-
tially more of these systems would be even better and could contribute to
deterring a PRC invasion by ensuring sufficient mass of fire against a poten-
tial invasion force, which would likely be massive, despite combat attrition.
Mobile tube artillery systems also are important, particularly when
coupled with Excalibur-type precision shells or submunitions such as
dual-purpose improved conventional munitions (DPICMs). The highly
accurate 155 mm M982 Excalibur precision-guided artillery projectile is
the U.S. Army and Marine Corps’s next-generation cannon artillery pre-
cision munition.26 It can be fired from the 155 mm M109A6 medium self-
propelled howitzer system, of which the United States has agreed to sell
forty to Taiwan, together with associated systems.27 DPICMs are area or
cluster munitions designed to target enemy personnel and light-armored
vehicles. Both are optimized for use against invading forces.
The United States has area- and cluster-type shells stockpiled in sub-
stantial numbers and can (at least in theory) deliver them rapidly, where
they would immediately be compatible with existing Taiwanese 155 mm
artillery systems. Taiwan already operates the M109 155 mm self-propelled
howitzer and could assimilate more of these platforms into its force. The
U.S. Army has roughly five hundred M109A6 systems in storage.28 An
arrangement similar to the World War II–era Lend-Lease Act that helped
supply U.S. allies and partners could provide, for example, 100–150
additional artillery systems for Taiwan and would substantially bolster
the Taiwanese army’s ability to destroy PRC forces that made it onto the
beach or into a drop zone.
 D E T ER R I N G (O R D EFE AT I N G ) A P L A I N VA S I O N 4 65

Taiwan also should stockpile relatively high-volume, lower-cost,

precision-guided munitions to saturate invading troop concentrations.
Effective antitank guided missiles (ATGMs) on trucks or High Mobility
Multipurpose Wheeled Vehicles (“Humvees”) are lethal, mobile, and
relatively cheap; Taiwan needs more of them. AGM-114 Ground-
Launched Hellfire-Light missiles deployed from a modified Humvee
chassis, for example, offer a formidable option for destroying incoming
armor, amphibious assault vehicles, and landing craft while they are still
afloat.29 Another potentially useful system is the Javelin Advanced Anti-
Tank Weapon System–Medium, with rounds pre-positioned in hardened
locations near likely landing areas.30 Ukraine’s fight thus far suggests that
repelling an intense multivector invasion requires thousands of antiarmor
munitions.31

Information/Electronic Warfare: Jamming, Decoys, Deception

Recent history suggests that decoys remain effective and induce an
adversary to shoot costly guided weapons wastefully. While aircraft are
extremely expensive, and Taiwan’s might well be stuck on the ground
and otherwise unusable in the event of conflict, decoys and deception in
employing them are a potential means of reducing the PRC air force’s ef-
fectiveness. NATO’s 1999 bombing of Yugoslavia was rendered measurably
more difficult and less effective by Serbian deception, particularly in the
form of decoys.32
Ukraine has employed a wide range of decoys effectively against Rus-
sian forces.33 For Taiwan today, inflatable decoys of beach, surface-to-air
missile, and coastal-battery vehicles and radars should be deployed and
moved frequently to confuse the PLA’s situational awareness. Decoys and
actual vehicles should employ camouflage to compound the PRC’s target-
ing challenge of discerning the real from the decoy. Ideally, decoys and
actual vehicles should be indistinguishable to China’s military. Posting
distant photos of camouflaged decoys on social media can add an air of
authenticity and make the targets more attractive for striking. Taiwan also
could disguise actual armored vehicles and missile-launch systems as civil-
ian trucks or heavy equipment to complicate PRC targeting efforts.34
Lastly, decoys can distract operators and radars on warships to enable
other strikes. Ukrainian officials assert that Bayraktar TB2 drones used
in this way enabled Neptune antiship missiles to sink Russia’s Moskva.35
This suggests Taiwan could use aerial and aquatic “active decoy” drones to
facilitate attacks against a blockading or invading ships.
466 C H I N E S E A M P H I B I O U S WA R FA R E

Life-Essential Infrastructure
Resilience is one of the key factors that will enable Taiwan to hold up
and hold out. The island should prepare for the possibility of PLA siege
warfare, particularly in the context of a PRC blockade or quarantine
operation. Taiwan’s Petroleum Administration Act currently requires that
the government hold petroleum stocks equivalent to thirty days of con-
sumption levels during the prior year (meaning approximately one million
barrels per day).36 It would be better to store sixty days of liquid fuel, in
hardened, buried, and dispersed locations.37
Taiwan should prepare some emergency stockpiles at higher elevations
and run buried pipelines to generators and fuel offtake risers downhill so
that in the event of total power loss fuel can be moved by gravity. Fuel sup-
pliers also should practice “over the shore” fuel deliveries of the type used
to resupply facilities in austere locations in the event that PRC strikes deny
or destroy ports normally used for fuel deliveries.38 Holding a much higher
inventory level in a more dispersed fashion entails a significant investment
(roughly $3.5 billion at today’s prices), but doing so would reduce vulnera-
bility to precision-guided-munition strikes and increase Taiwan’s ability to
withstand a blockade.39
Likewise, the experiences of Mariupol’ and other Ukrainian cities
show that invaders may target food and water supplies.40 Accordingly, 120
days of basic food stocks should be dispersed to ensure resilience against
possible maritime blockade or quarantine attempts by Beijing. During the
early phase of the COVID-19 pandemic, Taiwan’s Ministry of Economic
Affairs estimated realistically that local food and key goods stocks were suf-
ficient for one to three months—an amount likely insufficient to weather
a prolonged blockade.41 Access to potable water is also essential. Every Tai-
wanese community of five thousand or more people should drill ground-
water wells and connect them to high-resiliency backup power to maintain
potable water supplies in case PRC forces strike reservoirs, main aque-
duct systems, and the electricity grid that normally powers pumping op-
erations. Taiwan also needs redundant communications if PRC attacks
disrupt undersea cables.42 As the 2022 Tonga volcanic eruption under-
scores, Starlink-type satellite internet receivers can enable this continuity,
and as Ukraine demonstrates, can even provide connectivity to support
military operations.
To ensure basic electricity availability critical to water supply and com-
munications, multifuel turbine electrical-power generators—which can
use diesel fuel with its low fire risk as well as gasoline, liquid propane gas,
natural gas, bio gas, and other sources—should be distributed and installed
 D E T ER R I N G (O R D EFE AT I N G ) A P L A I N VA S I O N 4 67

near fuel-storage locations.43 Fuel supplies for the generators should be

dispersed and, to the extent possible, tanks should be placed underground,
in caves or in subsurface structures resistant to air and missile attack. There
is much more that Taiwan can do to ensure adequate supplies of water, fuel,
and food, particularly during a prolonged blockade; increasing resiliency
in these areas merits immediate additional research and dedicated effort.

The PLA is studying Russia’s experiences in Ukraine and working with

Russia to enhance its capabilities and operations. Taiwan must learn and
implement its own lessons, including through collaboration with the
United States, to avoid succumbing to the PRC’s mounting military threat.44
Against that backdrop, the six urgent focus areas this chapter recommends
arise from unforgiving realities. China seeks to win without fighting, or
with minimal fighting, but for Taiwan the best path is to try to avoid the
fight in the first place by demonstrating the ability to prevent China from
consolidating meaningful gains before American and allied firepower
arrives. The bottom line is simple: a war deterred is by far the ideal out-
come for all concerned. To that end, with urgent assistance, munitions, and
training, the United States can help Taiwan become a truly unpalatable and
indigestible porcupine before it is too late.

Notes
This chapter builds on and updates Andrew S. Erickson and Gabriel B. Collins,
“Eight New Points on the Porcupine: More Ukrainian Lessons for Taiwan,” War
on the Rocks, 18 April 2022, warontherocks.com/2022/04/eight-new-points-on-the
-porcupine-more-ukrainian-lessons-for-taiwan/.
1. Thirty days is a rough, conservative assumption regarding how much time U.S.
forces likely would need to come to Taiwan’s aid fully and effectively.
2. See, for example, “Taiwan Studying Ukraine War Tactics, Discussing with U.S.,”
Reuters, 31 March 2022, www.reuters.com/world/taiwan-studying-ukraine-war
-tactics-discussing-with-us-2022-03-31/.
3. For the seminal article that coined and definitively defined the “porcupine strat-
egy,” see William S. Murray, “Revisiting Taiwan’s Defense Strategy,” Naval War
College Review 61, no. 3 (Summer 2008), pp. 13–38, available at digital-commons
.usnwc.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1814&context=nwc-review. For elabora-
tion and further context on this pathbreaking and widely influential research,
see Andrew S. Erickson, “The Prof. William Murray Bookshelf: Keen Insights
into China’s Military Buildup & Taiwan’s Defense Options,” China Analysis from
Original Sources, 28 November 2017, www.andrewerickson.com/2017/11/the
-prof-william-murray-bookshelf-keen-insights-into-chinas-military-buildup
-taiwans-defense-options/. See also James Timbie and James O. Ellis Jr. [Adm.,
468 C H I N E S E A M P H I B I O U S WA R FA R E

USN], “A Large Number of Small Things: A Porcupine Strategy for Taiwan,”

Texas National Security Review 5, no. 1 (Winter 2021/22), pp. 83–93, available at
tnsr.org/2021/12/a-large-number-of-small-things-a-porcupine-strategy-for-taiwan/;
“Keeping and [sic] Eye on the Long Game: Part XVI,” CDR Salamander
(blog), 6 October 2006, cdrsalamander.blogspot.com/2006/10/keeping-and-eye-on
-long-game-part-xvi.html.
4. William Murray, interview by authors, 12 May 2023; further discussions in July
2024.
5. The authors are indebted to Prof. Craig Koerner, Naval War College, for his
pioneering and articulation of concepts described throughout this paragraph;
subsequent inputs in July 2024.
6. Josh Rogin, “The U.S. military plans a ‘Hellscape’ to deter China from attacking
Taiwan,” Washington Post, 10 June 2024, www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/
2024/06/10/taiwan-china-hellscape-military-plan/; Carter Johnston, “Breaking
Down the U.S. Navy’s ‘Hellscape’ in Detail,” Naval News, 16 June 2024,
www.navalnews.com/naval-news/2024/06/breaking-down-the-u-s-navys
-hellscape-in-detail/; Jonathan Chin, “U.S. Plans ‘Hellscape’ Strategy to Defend
Taiwan,” Taipei Times, 12 June 2024, p. 3, www.taipeitimes.com/News/taiwan/
archives/2024/06/12/2003819233; John Grady, “‘Hellscape’ Swarms Could Be a
Cost-Effective Taiwan Defense, Says Report,” USNI News, 1 July 2024, news.usni
.org/2024/07/01/hellscape-swarms-could-be-as-cost-effective-taiwan-defense
-says-report.
7. Michael A. Hunzeker, “Statement before the U.S.-China Economic & Security
Review Commission: Hearing on ‘Deterring PRC Aggression toward Taiwan,’
Panel on ‘the Cross-Strait Military Balance,’” U.S.-China Economic and Security
Review Commission, 18 February 2021, www.uscc.gov/sites/default/files/2021-02/
Michael_Hunzeker_Testimony.pdf; Kharis A. Templeman, “Testimony before the
US-China Economic and Security Commission: Hearing on ‘Political Calculations
Underlying Cross-Strait Deterrence,’” U.S.-China Economic and Security Review
Commission, 18 February 2021, www.uscc.gov/sites/default/files/2021-02/Kharis
_Templeman_Testimony.pdf.
8. Harry Halem and Eyck Freymann, “Ukraine Shows Why Taiwan Needs More Air
Defense,” War on the Rocks, 7 April 2022, warontherocks.com/2022/04/ukraine
-shows-why-taiwan-needs-more-air-defense/.
9. “NASAMS Air Defence System,” Kongsberg, September 2015, sldinfo.com/
wp-content/uploads/2018/05/NASAMS_September-2015_Screen_Small.pdf;
Carl Schulze, “New NASAMS HML Deployed on Cold Response 2022,” Joint
Forces, 26 March 2022, www.joint-forces.com/defence-equipment-news/52204
-new-nasams-hml-deployed-on-cold-response-2022.
10. Tyler Rogoway, “The Common Missile NASAMS Uses Is Its Biggest Advantage
for Ukraine (Updated),” The Drive, 13 October 2022, www.thedrive.com/the
-war-zone/the-common-missile-nasams-uses-is-its-biggest-advantage-for
-ukraine.
11. Taipei Economic and Cultural Representative Office in the United States [hereaf-
ter TECRO], “F-16C/D Block 70 Aircraft and Related Equipment and Support,”
 D E T ER R I N G (O R D EFE AT I N G ) A P L A I N VA S I O N 4 69

Defense Security Cooperation Agency, 20 August 2019, www.dsca.mil/press

-media/major-arms-sales/taipei-economic-and-cultural-representative-office
-united-states-11; Amanda Macias, “Russia Is Luring International Arms Buyers
with a Missile System That Costs Much Less than Models Made by American
Companies,” CNBC, 19 November 2018, www.cnbc.com/2018/11/19/russia-lures
-buyers-as-s-400-missile-system-costs-less-than-us-models.html; “Patriot TMD
—Units,” Global Security, www.globalsecurity.org/space/systems/patriot-unit.htm;
“National Advanced Surface to Air Missile System (NASAMS),” Airforce Tech-
nology, 22 June 2021, www.airforce-technology.com/projects/national-advanced
-surface-to-air-missile-system-nasams/.
12. Robin Hughes, “Raytheon, Kongsberg Complete First AMRAAM-ER Live-Fire
Tests,” Janes, 18 May 2021, www.janes.com/defence-news/news-detail/raytheon
-kongsberg-complete-first-amraam-er-live-fire-tests; “RIM-162 Evolved Sea Spar-
row Missile (ESSM),” Seaforces Online, www.seaforces.org/wpnsys/SURFACE/
RIM-162-Evolved-Sea-Sparrow-Missile.htm.
13. U.S. Defense Dept., “Fact Sheet on U.S. Security Assistance to Ukraine,” fact sheet,
9 May 2023, media.defense.gov/2023/May/09/2003218471/-1/-1/0/UKRAINE
-FACT-SHEET-RUE.PDF.
14. Drew Thompson, “Hope on the Horizon: Taiwan’s Radical New Defense Concept,”
War on the Rocks, 2 October 2018, warontherocks.com/2018/10/hope-on-the
-horizon-taiwans-radical-new-defense-concept/.
15. See, for example, “PDM-series,” Grenades, Mines, and Boobytraps, www.lexpev.nl/
minesandcharges/sovietbalkan/russia/pdmseries.html.
16. See Niamh Cavanagh, “What Are Czech Hedgehogs? Ukraine’s Surprisingly
Simple Antitank Trap,” Yahoo News, 29 March 2022, news.yahoo.com/what-are
-czech-hedgehogs-ukraines-surprisingly-simple-anti-tank-trap-132459674.html.
17. Ian Cobain, “Exocet Missile: How the Sinking of HMS Sheffield Made It Famous,”
The Guardian, 15 October 2017, www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2017/oct/15/
exocet-missile-how-sinking-hms-sheffield-made-famous/; Sam LaGrone, “The
Attack on USS Stark at 30,” USNI News, 17 May 2017, news.usni.org/2017/05/17/
the-attack-uss-stark-at-30/.
18. Defense Security Cooperation Agency, “Taipei Economic and Cultural Rep-
resentative Office in the United States (TECRO)—RGM-84L-4 Harpoon
Surface Launched Block II Missiles,” news release, transmittal no. 20-68,
26 October 2020, www.dsca.mil/press-media/major-arms-sales/taipei-economic
-and-cultural-representative-office-united-states-17/; Defense Security Coopera-
tion Agency, “Taipei Economic and Cultural Representative Office in the
United States (TECRO)—AGM-84L-1 Harpoon Block II Missiles, news release,
transmittal no. 22-45, 2 September 2022, www.dsca.mil/press-media/major
-arms-sales/taipei-economic-and-cultural-representative-office-united-states
-agm.
19. Kelvin Chen, “Taiwan’s Chien Hsiang Drone Showcased in Video for 1st Time,”
Taiwan News, 19 August 2023, www.taiwannews.com.tw/news/4975531.
20. Defense Security Cooperation Agency, “Taipei Economic and Cultural Repre-
sentative Office in the United States (TECRO)—Switchblade 300 Anti-Personnel
470 C H I N E S E A M P H I B I O U S WA R FA R E

and Anti-Armor Loitering Missile System,” news release, transmittal no. 24-47,
18 June 2024, www.dsca.mil/sites/default/files/mas/Press%20Release%20-%20TECRO
%2024-47%20CN.pdf; Defense Security Cooperation Agency, “Taipei Economic
and Cultural Representative Office in the United States (TECRO)—ALTIUS
600M-V Unmanned Aerial Vehicles,” news release, transmittal no. 24-56,
18 June 2024, www.dsca.mil/press-media/major-arms-sales/taipei-economic
-and-cultural-representative-office-united-states-34; Simina Mistreanu, “U.S. Ap-
proves New $360 Million Arms Sale to Taiwan for Drones, Related Equipment,”
AP News, 18 June 2024, apnews.com/article/us-taiwan-china-arms-5eb7e3b357
75813c525a019228ee1a4.
21. “Artillery is Playing a Vital Role in Ukraine,” The Economist, 2 May 2022, www
.economist.com/europe/2022/05/02/artillery-is-playing-a-vital-role-in-ukraine.
22. See, for example, Director, Operational Test and Evaluation, “Guided Multiple
Launch Rocket System—Alternate Warhead (GMLRS-AW) XM30E1,” in FY 2014
Annual Report (Washington, DC: January 2015), p. 110, www.dote.osd.mil/
Portals/97/pub/reports/FY2014/army/2014gmlrs.pdf.
23. “Ground-Launched Small Diameter Bomb,” SAAB, www.saab.com/products/
ground-launched-small-diameter-bomb-glsdb; “Boeing Awarded $22 Million
Laser Small Diameter Bomb Contract,” 7 November 2019, www.thedefensepost
.com/2019/11/07/us-boeing-laser-small-diameter-bomb-contract-22-million/;
“Saab’s Ground-Launched Small Diameter Bomb Hits Sea Target,” Naval
Technology, 15 October 2019, www.naval-technology.com/news/saabs-ground
-launched-small-diameter-bomb-hits-sea-target/?cf-view.
24. “Flexible, Precise and Reliable—the Versatile Long Range Solution That Has It
All,” Saab, 22 March 2019, www.saab.com/newsroom/stories/2019/march/flexible
-precise-and-reliable--the-versatile-long-range-solution-that-has-it-all/.
25. Defense Security Cooperation Agency, “Taipei Economic and Cultural Repre-
sentative Office in the United States (TECRO)—HIMARS, Support, and Equip-
ment,” news release, transmittal no. 20–77, 21 October 2020, www.dsca.mil/press
-media/major-arms-sales/taipei-economic-and-cultural-representative-office
-united-states-15/.
26. “Excalibur Projectiles,” Precision Attack Cannon Munitions, Joint Program
Executive Office Armaments & Ammunition, jpeoaa.army.mil/Project-Offices/
PM-CAS/Organizations/Precision-Attack-Cannon-Munitions/Products/Excalibur/.
27. Defense Security Cooperation Agency, “Taipei Economic and Cultural Repre-
sentative Office in the United States (TECRO)—155mm M109A6 Paladin
Medium Self-Propelled Howitzer System,” news release, transmittal no. 21-44, 4
August 2021, www.dsca.mil/press-media/major-arms-sales/taipei-economic-and
-cultural-representative-office-united-states-20.
28. The Military Balance 2021 (London: International Institute for Strategic Studies,
February 2021), p. 50.
29. For background, see “AGM-114B/K/M/N Hellfire Missile,” America’s Navy, 27 Sep-
tember 2021, www.navy.mil/Resources/Fact-Files/Display-FactFiles/Article/2168
362/agm-114bkmn-hellfire-missile/; “AGM-114 Hellfire Missile Ultimate Guide:
Capabilities, Variants, and Cost,” The Defense Post, 22 March 2021, www.the
defensepost.com/2021/03/22/agm-114-hellfire-missile/.
 D E T ER R I N G (O R D EFE AT I N G ) A P L A I N VA S I O N 471

30. Matt Yu and Emerson Lim, “Taiwan Procures More TOW 2B Anti-tank Missiles
from U.S.,” GlobalSecurity.org, 30 December 2019, www.globalsecurity.org/wmd/
library/news/taiwan/2019/taiwan-191230-cna01.htm.
31. Craig Hooper, “Ukraine’s Use of Stinger and Javelin Missiles Is Outstripping
U.S. Production,” Forbes, 8 March 2022, www.forbes.com/sites/craighooper/
2022/03/08/ukraines-use-of-stinger-and-javelin-missiles-is-outstripping-us
-production/.
32. William A. Sayers, “Operation Allied Force,” Air & Space Forces Magazine,
16 April 2019, www.airandspaceforces.com/article/operation-allied-force-how
-airpower-won-the-war-for-kosovo/; Martin Andrew, “Revisiting the Lessons
of Operation Allied Force,” Air Power Australia, 14 June 2009, www.ausair
power.net/APA-2009-04.html.
33. Master Sergeant Jorge L. Rivero, U.S. Marine Corps, “Decoy Warfare: Lessons
and Implication from the War in Ukraine,” U.S. Naval Institute Proceedings
4/150/1,454 (April 2024), www.usni.org/magazines/proceedings/2024/april/decoy
-warfare-lessons-and-implication-war-ukraine; “Inflatable Tanks, Missiles: Czech
Firm Makes Decoy Armaments,” AP News, 6 March 2023, apnews.com/
article/czech-decoys-war-ukraine-russia-inflatable-a9c478adb9d7ecaa615cb19b
25f4833f; Christopher Miller, “The Decoy Weapons Leading Russian Forces Astray
in Ukraine,” Financial Times, 22 September 2023, www.ft.com/content/b0581f55
-a449-439c-a92f-1dfb1ca5a181.
34. Thomas Newdick, “Taiwan Disguises Armored Vehicles as Cranes and Scrapheaps
during Urban Warfare Maneuvers,” The Drive, 29 October 2020, www.thedrive
.com/the-war-zone/37349/taiwan-disguises-armored-vehicles-as-cranes-and
-scrapheaps-during-urban-warfare-maneuvers/.
35. David Hambling, “Ukraine’s Bayraktar Drone Helped Sink Russian Flagship
Moskva,” Forbes, 14 April 2022, www.forbes.com/sites/davidhambling/2022/04/
14/ukraines-bayraktar-drones-helped-destroy-russian-flagship/.
36. Petroleum Administration Act, art. 24 (as amended 4 June 2014) (Taiwan), law
.moj.gov.tw/ENG/LawClass/LawAll.aspx?pcode=J0020019.
37. Sixty days represents a doubling of our rough, conservative assumption of
how much time U.S. forces would likely need to come to Taiwan’s aid fully and
effectively.
38. See, for example, “Crowley Completes Challenging Over-the-Shore Fuel Delivery
to U.S. Military in Remote Shemya,” Crowley, 16 September 2020, www.crowley
.com/news-and-media/press-releases/crowley-completes-challenging-over-the
-shore-fuel-delivery-to-u-s-military-in-remote-shemya/.
39. For an instructive example, see BBC News, “Toxic Fume Warning in Ukraine
as Oil Depot Hit in Russian Invasion,” 27 February 2022, YouTube video,
2:27, www.youtube.com/watch?v=j_zcR5Ay5JA/.
40. Valerie Hopkins, Ben Hubbard, and Gina Kolata, “How Russia Is Using Ukrai-
nians’ Hunger as a Weapon of War,” New York Times, 29 March 2022, www
.nytimes.com/2022/03/29/world/europe/mariupol-ukraine-russia-war-food
-water.html.
41. While fuel can be rationed, it is much harder to ration food and impossible to
ration water to less than what is needed for drinking and cooking. Cindy Wang,
472 C H I N E S E A M P H I B I O U S WA R FA R E

Samson Ellis, and Miaojung Lin, “As China Fights Second Wave, Taiwan Starts
Stockpiling Again,” Bloomberg | Quint, 16 June 2020, www.bloombergquint.com/
china/taiwan-is-already-preparing-for-the-next-pandemic/.
42. Alexander Freund, “Ukraine Is Using Elon Musk’s Starlink for Drone Strikes,”
DW, 27 March 2022, www.dw.com/en/ukraine-is-using-elon-musks-starlink-for
-drone-strikes/a-61270528/.
43. See, for example, “C1000S,” Capstone Power Solutions, www.capstonepower
solutions.com/products/c1000s/.
44. David Finkelstein, “Beijing’s Ukrainian Battle Lab,” War on the Rocks, 2 May 2022,
warontherocks.com/2022/05/beijings-ukrainian-battle-lab/.
A PPENDI X

Crossing the Strait?

PLA Amphibious Vessels
Relevant to Taiwan Scenarios
PLA Navy Vessels
Type 075 [Yushen] LHD Sensors: Air Group:
Displacement: 35000 std In Class: 3 LJQ-382, AESA X-band low altitude search, Type 760, Type 754 28–30 helicopters, including Z-8, Z-9, Z-10, Z-18, and Z-20
In Service: 2021 Crew: ≈1200 radars Military Lift:
Propulsion: 4 DM Hudong 16PC2-6B @ 48000 kW = 23 kts TJN-906, JSTIDS data links 50–60 AAV, Lt tanks, 122mm SP howitzers, and 1200 troops
Dimensions: 237 × 43.5 × 8.5 m Remarks:
Weapons: Hainan/31 in STCN. Guangxi/32, Anhui/33 in ETCN. Likely fitted
(R)2 PJ-11 30mm with fin stabilizers. Spots for seven large helicopters.
(24)2 HQ-10
2 Type 726/726A Yuyi LCMA
2 elevators

Type 071 [Yuzhao] LPD Sensors: Air Group:

Displacement: 18500 std In Class: 8 + 1 + 1 LJQ-360, LJQ-364, Type 760, Type 754 radars 4 helicopters, including Z-8, Z-9, Z-10, Z-18
In Service: 2007 Crew: 175 TJN-906 data links Military Lift:
Propulsion: 4 DM Hudong 16PC2-6V400 @ 35197 kW = 25 kts 20–25 AAV, Lt tanks, 122mm SP howitzers, and 800 troops
Dimensions: 210 × 28 × 7.5 m Remarks:
Weapons: Kunlunshan/998, Jinggangshan/999, Changbaishan/989,
(1)1 PJ-26 76mm Yimengshan/988, Wuzhishan/987, Longhushan/980, Siming-
(R)4 PJ-13 30mm shan/986, Qilianshan/985, one more. 980, 986, 988 in ETCN.
(50)4 120mm MS MRL 985, 987, 989, 998, 999 in STCN. Helo pad aft with spots for two
4 Type 726/726A Yuyi LCMA large helicopters.
2 LCVP

Abbreviations: ETCN: Eastern Theater Command Navy

AAV: Amphibious Armored Vehicles NTCN: Northern Theater Command Navy
IFV: Infantry Fighting Vehicles STCN: Southern Theater Command Navy
MBT: Main Battle Tank MS MRL: Multiple Rocket Launcher
SP: Self-propelled Copyright © 2023 by the Admiralty Trilogy Group and Manfred Meyer
Type 072A, B [Yuting II] LST
Displacement: 3700 std In Class: 9, 6 + 1
In Service: 2003 Crew: 104
Propulsion: 2 DM 12PA6V-280MPC @ 14150 kW = 21 kts
Dimensions: 119.7 × 16.4 × 2.8 m
Weapons:
(2)1 PJ-76F 37mm (Type 072A)
(1)1 PJ-17 30 mm (Type 072B)
Sensors:
Type 760, Type 753C radar
TJN-905 data link
Military Lift: Type 072A
10–15 AAV or 18 122mm towed howitzer + vehicle or 250 troops
or 500 tons cargo
Remarks:
Type 072A: Tianzhushan/921, Daqingshan/922, Baxianshan/973,
Huadingshan/992, Luo Xiaoshan/993, Daiyunshan/994,
Wanyangshan/995, Laotieshan/996, Yunwushan/997.
• Type 072B: Dabieshan/981, Taihangshan/982, Wuyishan/974,
Culaishan/975, Tianmushan/976, Wutaishan/977.
• 921 and 922 in NTCN. 973, 974, 975, 976, 977, 981, 982 in
ETCN. 992–997 in STCN. Helo pad aft, not fitted with refueling or
maintenance facilities. Aft ramp for either two Type 724 LCPA or
amphibious vehicles.
Type 072B

Type 072III, Type 072IIIHG [Yuting I] LST

Displacement: 3430 std In Class: 5, 5
In Service: 1992, 1997 Crew: 110
Propulsion: 2 DM 12PA6V-280MPC @ 14150 kW = 21 kts
Dimensions: 119.7 × 16.4 × 2.8 m
Weapons:
(2)3 PJ-76F 37mm (072IIIHG)
(2)3 Type 66 57mm/70 (072III)
Sensors:
Type 760, Type 753C radars
TJN-901 data link Type 072III Yuting I (hulls 1–5)
Military Lift:
10–15 AAV or 18 122mm towed howitzer + vehicle or 250 troops
or 500 tons cargo
Remarks:
Helo pad aft, not fitted with refueling or maintenance facilities. Aft
ramp for either two Type 724 LCPA or amphibious vehicles.
• Type 072III: Emeishan/991, Danxiashan/934, Xuefengshan/935,
Haiyangshan/936, Qingchengshan/937. All STCN.
• Type 072IIIHG: Yandangshan/968, Jiuhuashan/969, Huang-
gangshan/970, Putuoshan/939, Tiantaishan/940. All ETCN.
• Feb 18: Haiyangshan/936 fitted with experimental railgun for
trials, replacing Type 66 57mm. Bow ramp welded shut.

Type 072IIIHG Yuting I (hulls 6–10)

Type 072II [Yukan] LST
Displacement: 3100 std In Class: 3
In Service: 1978–2020 Crew: 133
Propulsion: DM 12PA6V-280MPC @ 14150 kW = 18 kts
Dimensions: 119.5 × 16.4 × 2.8 m
Weapons:
(2)4 Type 66 57mm/70
(2)4 Type 61 25mm
2 LCVP
Sensors:
2 Type 760 radars
YJN-901 data link
Military Lift:
10–15 AAV or 18 122mm towed howitzer + vehicle or 250 troops
or 500 tons cargo
Remarks:
Dongtingshan/931, Helanshan/932, Liupanshan/933. All ETCN.

Type 073A [Yunshu] LSM

Displacement: 1550 std In Class: 10
In Service: 2003 Crew: 74
Propulsion: 2 DM6PA6I-280 @ 7080 kW = 17 kts
Dimensions: 87 × 12.6 × 2.5 m
Weapons:
(2)1 PJ-76F 37mm
Sensors:
Type 760, Type 753C radars
Military Lift:
6 AAV or 180 troops or 250 tons cargo
Remarks:
Shengzhoushan/941, Lúshan/942, Yushan/943, Mengshan/944
in ETCN. Huashan/945, Songshan/946, Lushan/947,
Xueshan/948, Hengshan/949, Taishan/950 in STCN.

Type 073III [Yudeng] LSM

Displacement: 1460 std In Class: 1
In Service: 1994 Crew: 74
Propulsion: 2 DM6PA6I-2800 @ 7080 kW = 17 kts
Dimensions: 87 × 12.6 × 2.3 m
Weapons:
(2)1 PJ-76F 37mm
Sensors:
Type 760, Type 753C radars
Military Lift:
6 AAV or 180 troops or 250 tons cargo
Remarks:
Wudangshan/990 in STCN.
• 2010: Decommed, later converted with two deck hatches and a
crane and reactivated as island resupply ship in South China Sea.
Renamed Jinchengshan.
Type 074 [Yuhai] LSM
Displacement: 656 std In Class: 15–16
In Service: 1995 Crew: 56
Propulsion: 2 DM 8L20/27 @ 1678 kW = 17 kts
Dimensions: 58.4 × 10.4 × 2.34 m
Weapons:
(2)1 Type 61 25mm
(2)2 Type 69 14.5mm
Sensors:
Type 760 radar
Military Lift:
2 AAV or 200 troops or 150 tons cargo
Remarks:
3111–3113, 3115–3117 in NTCN. 3229, 3231, 3244, 3357–3359 in
ETCN.

Type 074A [Yubei] LCU

Displacement: 650 std In Class: 10
Size Class: D/Small In Service: 2004
Propulsion: Diesel Crew: 27
Propulsion: 2 DM @ 3600 kW = 18 kts
Dimensions: 58.4 × 11 × 2.7 m
Weapons:
(2)2 Type 69 14.5mm
Sensors:
Type 756 radar
Military Lift:
6 AAV or 150 troops or 150 tons cargo
Remarks:
3128, 3129 in NTCN. 3232, 3233, 3234, 3235 in ETCN. 3315,
3316, 3317, 3318 in STCN.

Ex-Russian Project 1232.2 Zubr

[Pomornik]/Type 958 LCUA
Displacement: 480 std In Class: 6
In Service: 2014 Crew: 31
Propulsion: 5 GTu NK-12 @ 43520 kW = 63 kts
Dimensions: 57.3 × 25.6 × 1.6 m
Weapons:
(R)2 AK-630 30mm//EO GFC (Pr. 1232.2)
(R)2 PJ-13 30mm//EO GFC (Type 958)
Sensors:
LJQ-362 Mod, Type 760 radars
TJN-906 data links
Military Lift:
3 MBT or 8 AAV or 10 6×6 trucks or 360 troops or 150 tons cargo
Remarks:
3325–3328, two more
Type 726, Type 726A [Yuyi] LCMA Sensors:
Displacement: 150 std In Class: 3, 13 + 6 + 8 Raytheon Pathfinder radar
In Service: 2011, 2017 Crew: 6 Military Lift:
Propulsion: 2 GTu QC-70 @ 10295 kW = 52 kts 1 amphibious tank and 2 amphibious IFV and 20 troops or 4
Dimensions: 33 × 16.8 × 5 m amphibious IFV and 40 troops or 60 tons cargo
Weapons: Cbt Sys: None Remarks:
(1)1 QJZ-89 12.7mm 3226–3239, 3320–3322, 3325–3327, 3330–3334, 3337. Bow and
stern ramps. 3320–3322 are Type 726 with Ukrainian gas turbines
in STCN.
• 2017: Deliveries of Type 726A begin, with Chinese gas turbines
replacing Ukrainian engines.

Type 724 [Payi] LCPA Sensors:

Displacement: 6.4 std In Class: 20 nav radar
In Service: 1994 Crew: 3 Military Lift:
Propulsion: 2 DM @ 559 kW = 40 kts 10 troops
Dimensions: 12.4 × 7 × 2 m Remarks:
Air cushion vehicle
• 2020: 3310–3312, 8530–8538 reported in service.

Mod Hansa Sonderburgh ALH

Displacement: 20000 std In Class: 1
In Service: 2015 Crew: ?
Propulsion: 1 DM Hudong 7S70MC @ 15785 kW = 19.5 kts
Dimensions: 175 × 35 × ? m
Sensors:
nav radars
Military Lift:
?
Remarks:
Yinmahu/834. Multipurpose landing platform.
PLA Ground Forces Vessels
Type 074HKG [Yuhai] WLSM
Displacement: 656 std In Class: 3
In Service: 2017 Crew: 56
Propulsion: 2 DM 8L20/27 @ 1678 kW = 17 kts
Dimensions: 58.4 × 10.4 × 2.34 m
Weapons:
(1)1 PJ-17 30mm
(1)2 QJZ-89 12.7mm
Sensors:
Type 760 radar
Military Lift:
2 AAV or 200 troops or 150 tons cargo
Remarks:
3357–3359, Hong Kong Garrison ships. Bow ramp.

Type 68 [Yunnan II] WLCM Sensors:

Displacement: 85 std In Class: 35 Type 726 radar
In Service: 1980s Crew: 10 Military Lift:
Propulsion: 2 DM 12V150C @ 882 kW = 11.5 kts 2 AAV or 4 trucks or 150 troops or 36 tons cargo
Dimensions: 24.8 × 5.2 × 1.3 m Remarks:
Weapons: These small landing craft are no longer used by the landing
(2)2 Type 69 14.5mm forces. They are used for general transport and support duties
in the bases, and therefore are quasi-auxiliary vessels.

Type 69 [Yupen] WLCU Sensors:

Displacement: 156 std In Class: c70 nav radar
In Service: 1997 Crew: ? Military Lift:
Propulsion: 2 DM @ 474 kW = 12.5 kts 2 AAV or 4 trucks or 150 troops
Dimensions: 33.6 × 5.80 × 1.75 m Remarks:
Weapons: Some are converted as transports, tankers, or training vessels.
(2)2 Type 69 14.5mm
 Sensors:
Yujiu WLCT nav radars
Displacement: ? std In Class: 2+ Military Lift:
In Service: 2021 Crew: ? ?
Propulsion: ? Remarks:
Dimensions: 73 × 12 × ? m More expected to be built.
Weapons:
(1)1 PJ-17 30mm

Yutu WLCU Sensors:

Displacement: ? std In Class: about 20 nav radars
In Service: 2021 Crew: ? Military Lift:
Propulsion: ? ?
Dimensions: 56 × ? × ? m
Weapons:
(1)2 Type 87 25mm

Type 271IID [Yuwei] WLCU Sensors:

Displacement: 507 std In Class: about 100 nav radars
In Service: 1987 Crew: 36 Military Lift:
Propulsion: 2 DM 6300CZ @ 833kW = 13 kts 3 med. tanks or 7 6×6 trucks or 8 towed guns/howitzers or 300
Dimensions: 56 × 9.2 × 1.7 m troops or 150 tons cargo
Weapons:
(2)4 Type 69 25mm

Yubu WLCM Military Lift:

Displacement: 600 std In Class: 7 ?
In Service: 2021 Crew: ? Remarks:
Propulsion: ? Carried in dock space of LHD and LPD.
Dimensions: 36 × 6.8 × ? m
Sensors:
nav radar
 PLA Navy Amphibious Ship Assignments

Total
Eastern Theater Command Northern Theater Command Southern Theater Command Remarks
In Svc

Type 075
3 32, 33 31
Yushen LHD

Type 071
8 980, 986, 988 985, 987, 989, 998, 999
Yuzhao LPD

Type 072A
9 973 921, 922 992, 993, 994, 995, 996, 997
Yuting II LST

Type 072B
6 974, 975, 976, 977, 981, 982
Yuting II LST

Type 072III
5 934, 935, 936, 937, 991
Yuting I LST

Type 072IIIHG
5 939, 940, 968, 969, 970
Yuting I LST

Type 072II
3 931, 932, 933
Yukan LST

Type 073A
10 941, 942, 943, 944 945, 946, 947, 948, 949, 950
Yunshu LSM

Type 073III
1 990
Yudeng LSM

Type 074 3229, 3231, 3244, 3357, 3358,

15 3111, 3112, 3113, 3115, 3116, 3117
Yuhai LSM 3359

Type 074A
10 3232, 3233, 3234, 3235 3128, 3129 3315, 3316, 3317, 3318
Yubei LCU

Project 12332/
Type 728 6 3325, 3326, 3327 3328, two more unassigned
Zubr LCUA

Type 726/726A
3/13 4 (726A) 3 (726), 9 (726A)
Yuyi LCMA

Type 724
20 ? ? ? Unknown assignment
Payi LCPA
About the Contributors

dennis j. blasko is a retired lieutenant colonel, U.S. Army, with twenty-

three years of service as a military intelligence officer and foreign area of-
ficer specializing in China. He was an Army attaché in Beijing and Hong
Kong from 1992 to 1996. He served in infantry units in Germany, Italy, and
Korea and in Washington at the Defense Intelligence Agency; Headquarters,
Department of the Army (Office of Special Operations); and the National
Defense University’s War Gaming and Simulation Center. Blasko is a gradu-
ate of the U.S. Military Academy and the Naval Postgraduate School. He has
written numerous articles and chapters on the Chinese military, along with
the book The Chinese Army Today: Tradition and Transformation for the 21st
Century, second edition (Routledge, 2012).

john chen is Chief of Data Solutions and a lead analyst at Exovera’s

Center for Intelligence Research and Analysis, where he works on foreign-
policy, national-security, and science-and-technology issues using Chinese-
language sources. Chen is also a nonresident fellow at the Atlantic Council’s
Global China Hub. His current research interests include Chinese cyber and
information operations. Chen holds degrees from Dartmouth College and
Georgetown University.

gabriel b. collins is the Baker Botts Fellow in Energy and Environmental

Regulatory Affairs at Rice University’s Baker Institute for Public Policy and a
senior visiting research fellow at the Oxford Institute for Energy Studies. His
research portfolio is global and focuses on a range of energy, environmental,
legal, and national-security issues. Collins received his BA from Princeton
University and a JD from the University of Michigan Law School. He is a
484 C H I N E S E A M P H I B I O U S WA R FA R E

Permian Basin native, reads Chinese and Russian, and is licensed to practice
law in Texas.

john k. culver is a nonresident senior fellow with the Atlantic Council’s

Global China Hub and a former Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) senior
intelligence officer with thirty-five years of experience as a leading analyst
of East Asian affairs, including security, economic, and foreign-policy di-
mensions. Previously as National Intelligence Officer for East Asia from
2015 to 2018, Culver drove the Intelligence Community’s support to top
policy makers on East Asian issues and managed extensive relationships
inside and outside government. He produced a large body of sophisticat-
ed, leading-edge analysis and mentored widely on analytic tradecraft. He
also routinely represented the Intelligence Community to senior U.S. pol-
icy, military, academic, private-sector, and foreign-government audiences.
Culver is a recipient of the 2013 William L. Langer Award for extraordinary
achievement in the CIA’s analytic mission. He was a member of the Senior
Intelligence Service and CIA’s Senior Analytic Service. He also was awarded
the Distinguished Career Intelligence Medal.

j. michael dahm is a principal intelligence analyst at the MITRE Corpo-

ration in McLean, Virginia. MITRE is a not-for-profit, federally funded
research-and-development (R&D) corporation; his analysis informs pol-
icy and strategy development for MITRE’s government sponsors. His ex-
pertise and focus areas include Indo-Pacific security affairs and challenges
presented by China across the spectrum of competition. Prior to joining
MITRE, Dahm was a senior national-security researcher concentrating on
foreign threats and technology development at Johns Hopkins University’s
Applied Physics Laboratory (APL). He also served as the lab’s liaison to the
U.S. Intelligence Community, delivering intelligence assessments, mission
data, and threat models for APL’s advanced R&D programs. Dahm served
as a U.S. Navy intelligence officer for over twenty-five years, performing
in several diverse operational and staff assignments conducting missions
ranging from noncombatant evacuation operations in Europe and Africa
to combat operations in the Balkans and Iraq. He has focused on Asia-
Pacific security matters since 2006, when he was assigned to the U.S. Pacific
Command, serving as Chief of Intelligence Plans and later establishing the
Commander’s China Strategic Focus Group. From 2012 to 2015, he was the
assistant naval attaché at the U.S. embassy in Beijing, China. In his final tour,
he served as the Senior Naval Intelligence Officer for China at the Office of
Naval Intelligence. On the basis of his extensive experience, he was desig-
nated an Asia-Pacific Hands Master by the Navy before retiring from active
 A B O U T T H E C O N T R I BU TO R S 4 85

duty in 2017. Dahm has a BA in international relations from the University

of Southern California and an MS in strategic intelligence from the National
Intelligence University. He is now an adjunct professor at the latter, teaching
a graduate-level course on Chinese military capabilities and strategy.

ian easton serves as a research fellow at the Project 2049 Institute, where
he conducts research on defense and security issues involving the United
States, China, Japan, and Taiwan. During the summer of 2013, he also was a
visiting fellow at the Japan Institute for International Affairs in Tokyo. Pre-
viously Easton worked as a China analyst at the Center for Naval Analyses
in Alexandria, Virginia, for two years. Prior to that, he lived in Taiwan and
China for five years. During his time in Taiwan, he worked as a transla-
tor for Island Technologies Inc. and the Foundation for Asia-Pacific Peace
Studies. While in Taipei, he also conducted research with the Asia bureau
chief of Defense News. Easton holds an MA in China studies from National
Chengchi University, in Taiwan, and a BA in international studies from the
University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. He also holds a certification in
advanced Mandarin Chinese, having formally studied the language at Fudan
University, in Shanghai, and National Taiwan Normal University in Taipei.
His research has been featured in major media outlets in the United States
and Asia. He has lectured at the Naval War College and Japan’s National
Defense Academy.

maj. tom fox is an aviation officer in the U.S. Army. He currently serves in
the 2nd Combat Aviation Brigade at Camp Humphreys, Republic of Korea.
He is rated in the OH-58D Kiowa Warrior scout helicopter and AH-64E
Apache attack helicopter. In 2011, he deployed to Kandahar, Afghanistan, in
support of Operation Enduring Freedom. From 2018 to 2021, he served
as an assistant professor of international affairs and taught Chinese politics
in the Department of Social Sciences at the U.S. Military Academy at West
Point. He holds a BSFS from Georgetown University and an MPP from the
Harvard Kennedy School.

cdr. william fox, usn, currently serves as senior intelligence analyst and
branch chief for the Foreign Influence China Branch in the Directorate
for Intelligence of U.S. Africa Command. He recently served as a found-
ing member of the Red Team for the Office of the Secretary of Defense, as
Senior Intelligence Officer for East Asia in the Chief of Naval Operations’
Directorate for Information Warfare (OPNAV N2N6), and as special assis-
tant to the Joint Chiefs of Staff Director for Intelligence (Joint Staff J2). Fox
previously served as an assistant naval attaché at the U.S. embassy in Beijing,
486 C H I N E S E A M P H I B I O U S WA R FA R E

China, and as a China analyst at the Office of Naval Intelligence. Fox has
served in multiple operational roles, most recently as the Deputy Assistant
Chief of Staff for Intelligence for Carrier Strike Group 9. Fox holds a master’s
degree in international affairs from the Fletcher School of Law and Diplo-
macy at Tufts University. His bachelor’s degree in applied linguistics is from
Moody Bible Institute. He is also a graduate of the Defense Language Insti-
tute’s Accelerated Mandarin Basic Course and the Intelligence Community
Advanced Analyst Program. Fox was a 2019–20 fellow in the Massachusetts
Institute of Technology’s Seminar XXI program. He is fluent in Mandarin
Chinese. Fox has been awarded the Intelligence Community’s National In-
telligence Exceptional Achievement Medal and the Intelligence and Nation-
al Security Alliance’s William O. Studeman Military Award.

cristina l. garafola is an associate policy researcher at the RAND Cor-

poration. Her research focuses on the ramifications of China’s rise for its
global status, particularly with respect to defense issues, China’s influence
on regional actors, and implications for the United States. From 2017 to
2019, Garafola served in the Office of the Secretary of Defense, where she
focused on national defense strategy and Indo-Pacific strategy implementa-
tion. She also has worked at the Department of the Treasury, the Center for
Strategic and International Studies, and the Department of State. She is the
coauthor of the book 70 Years of the PLA Air Force (2021), published by the
China Aerospace Studies Institute. Her work has been published by RAND
and in Asian Security, Journal of Strategic Studies, War on the Rocks, and
the Jamestown Foundation’s China Brief. Garafola holds an MA in China
studies from the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies,
a graduate certificate from the Hopkins-Nanjing Center for Chinese and
American Studies, and a BA in international relations and Chinese from
Hamilton College. She speaks Chinese.

zoe haver is a China analyst at Recorded Future. She specializes in the

South China Sea disputes, maritime security, and the People’s Liberation
Army. She has worked on these topics for Radio Free Asia, the Center for
Advanced China Research, SOSi’s Center for Intelligence Research and
Analysis, the Naval War College’s China Maritime Studies Institute, C4ADS,
and other organizations. She received her BA from George Washington Uni-
versity and is proficient in Mandarin Chinese.

lonnie henley retired from federal service in 2019 after more than forty
years as an intelligence officer and East Asia expert. He served twenty-two
years as a U.S. Army China foreign area officer and military intelligence
 A B O U T T H E C O N T R I BU TO R S 4 87

officer in Korea, at the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA), on the Army

Staff, and in the History Department of the U.S. Military Academy at West
Point. He retired as a lieutenant colonel in 2000 and joined the senior civil
service, first as Defense Intelligence Officer (DIO) for East Asia and later as
Senior Intelligence Expert for Strategic Warning at DIA. He worked for two
years as a senior analyst with CENTRA Technology Inc. before returning to
government service as Deputy National Intelligence Officer for East Asia.
He rejoined DIA in 2008, serving for six years as the agency’s senior China
analyst, then National Intelligence Collection Officer for East Asia, culmi-
nating with a second term as DIO for East Asia. Henley holds a bachelor’s
degree in engineering and Chinese from West Point and master’s degrees in
Chinese language from Oxford University, which he attended as a Rhodes
Scholar; in Chinese history from Columbia University; and in strategic in-
telligence from the Defense Intelligence College (now National Intelligence
University). His wife, Sara Hanks, is a corporate attorney and CEO specializ-
ing in early-stage capital formation. They live in Alexandria, Virginia.

lt. gen. charles w. hooper, usa (ret.), is one of America’s most distin-
guished soldier-diplomats and known as a conceptual and analytical thinker,
a consummate negotiator, a trusted adviser who effectively navigates com-
plex, sensitive issues and challenges, and a catalyst for collaboration and co-
operation. He is well-known and widely respected within the Departments
of State and Defense and the Intelligence Community and among national-
security scholars. Lieutenant General Hooper has over forty years of experi-
ence in security policy formulation and execution, strategic intelligence, se-
curity cooperation, sensitive negotiations, foreign military sales, education,
and transformational leadership. A fluent Chinese linguist with almost seven
years living and working in China, he is one of the nation’s foremost experts
on the Chinese military and defense industries. In addition to operational as-
signments with the 25th Infantry and 82nd Airborne Divisions and teaching
Chinese foreign policy at the Naval Postgraduate School, Lieutenant General
Hooper had three high-profile diplomatic assignments, including serving
as the U.S. defense attaché—the senior U.S. military officer—in both China
and Egypt. Lieutenant General Hooper also served as the senior Depart-
ment of Defense (DoD) strategist and planner (J5) for U.S. Africa Com-
mand, as deputy strategy and plans director for U.S. Indo-Pacific Command
(Deputy J5), and as the senior China and Taiwan policy official in the Office
of the Secretary of Defense. In his final military assignment (2017–20), he
was director of the Defense Security Cooperation Agency, responsible for
the overseas sale of all weapons, military equipment, support services, and
488 C H I N E S E A M P H I B I O U S WA R FA R E

training packages for the U.S. government. In that capacity he served as the
DoD expert on U.S. security-assistance funding and U.S. foreign military
sales. Lieutenant General Hooper is a graduate of the U.S. Military Academy
at West Point (BS) and the Harvard University Kennedy School of Govern-
ment (MPA); at the latter he received the Don K. Price Award for Academic
Excellence and Public Service. He also holds a certificate in Chinese lan-
guage and literature from the British Ministry of Defence’s Chinese Lan-
guage School. He returned to Harvard as a postgraduate research fellow at
the Weatherhead Center for International Affairs, studying U.S.-China mil-
itary relations. Among his numerous honors, Lieutenant General Hooper
was awarded the National Defense Medal by the French government and
was the first Army student-officer and first Harvard Kennedy School stu-
dent ever selected to give a Harvard commencement address. Lieutenant
General Hooper is now a senior counselor with the Cohen Group, the
Washington, DC, consulting firm founded by former Secretary of Defense
William Cohen. He is also a member of the National Bureau of Asian Re-
search Board of Directors, a senior fellow at Harvard’s Belfer Center, a senior
nonresident scholar at the Atlantic Council, and a member of the Council
on Foreign Relations.

roderick lee is the Director of Research at Air University’s China Aero-

space Studies Institute (CASI). Prior to joining CASI, he served as an analyst
with the U.S. Navy covering Chinese naval forces. He earned his master of
arts degree from George Washington University’s Elliott School of Interna-
tional Affairs.

xiaobing li is a professor of history in the Department of History and Ge-

ography and the Don Betz Endowed Chair in International Studies at the
University of Central Oklahoma. He is the executive editor of the journal the
Chinese Historical Review and an editorial board member of both the Journal
of Military History and the Journal of Chinese Military History. He served in
the People’s Liberation Army in China and received his PhD from Carnegie
Mellon University. His recent books include The Dragon in the Jungle: The
Chinese Army in the Vietnam War (Oxford University Press, 2020), Attack
at Chosin: The Chinese Second Offensive in Korea (University of Oklahoma
Press, 2020), China’s War in Korea: Strategic Culture and Geopolitics (Palgrave
Macmillan, 2019), Building Ho’s Army: Chinese Military Assistance to North
Vietnam (University Press of Kentucky, 2019), The History of Taiwan (ABC-
CLIO, 2019), The Cold War in East Asia (Routledge, 2018), and China’s Bat-
tle for Korea: The 1951 Spring Offensive (Indiana University Press, 2014). His
book Attack at Chosin won the U.S. Commission on Military History’s 2021
 A B O U T T H E C O N T R I BU TO R S 4 89

Brigadier General James L. Collins Jr. Book Prize in Military History. He is

also coeditor of, and a contributor to, eight volumes, including A Century of
Student Movements in China: The Mountain Movers, 1919–2019 (Lexington,
2020), Corruption and Anticorruption in Modern China (2019), Power versus
Law in Modern China: Cities, Courts, and the Communist Party (University
Press of Kentucky, 2017), Urbanization and Party Survival in China (2017),
and Ethnic China: Identity, Assimilation, and Resistance (2015).

kevin mccauley has served as senior intelligence officer on the Sovi-

et Union, Russia, China, and Taiwan during thirty-one years in the fed-
eral government, as well as an adjunct at the RAND Corporation. He has
served on numerous advisory boards and working groups supporting the
Intelligence Community, National Intelligence Council, and U.S. Indo-
Pacific Command. McCauley has traveled extensively throughout the Asia-
Pacific region for the government. His publications include PLA System of
Systems Operations: Enabling Joint Operations; “Cultivating Joint Operations
Talent” in a 2021 Army War College publication, The People of the PLA 2.0;
People’s Liberation Army: Army Campaign Doctrine in Transition for the U.S.
Army Training and Doctrine Command (TRADOC); and Russian Influence
Campaigns against the West: From the Cold War to Putin. McCauley has pro-
vided testimony to the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commis-
sion on the joint logistic support force and logistics support to expedition-
ary operations. McCauley currently writes on People’s Liberation Army and
Taiwan military affairs. He also contributes to the U.S. Army TRADOC’s
Foreign Military Studies Office’s OE Watch journal.

rear adm. michael a. mcdevitt, usn (ret.), is a senior fellow at CNA,

a not-for-profit, federally funded research center in Washington, DC. He
stepped down as vice president of CNA’s Center for Strategic Studies, and
since that time has led major projects for CNA focused on the maritime di-
mension of China’s national strategy and maritime-related security issues in
the Indian and Pacific Oceans. He completed a two-year term as a member
of the congressionally appointed U.S.-China Economic and Security Review
Commission in 2020. McDevitt spent the operational portion of his naval
career in the Pacific and Indian Oceans. He held four at-sea commands,
including that of an aircraft carrier battle group. He was the director of the
East Asia Policy Office for the Secretary of Defense during the George H. W.
Bush administration. He also served for two years as the Director for Strat-
egy, War Plans and Policy (J5) for U.S. Pacific Command. He concluded his
thirty-four-year active-duty career as the commandant of the National War
College in Washington, DC. McDevitt received a bachelor of arts degree in
49 0 C H I N E S E A M P H I B I O U S WA R FA R E

U.S. history from the University of Southern California and a master’s de-
gree in American diplomatic history from Georgetown University. He was
a Chief of Naval Operations Strategic Studies Group fellow at the U.S. Naval
War College. He is also a graduate of the National War College in Washing-
ton, DC. McDevitt’s book China as a Twenty First Century Naval Power was
published in 2020 by the Naval Institute Press.

grant f. rhode teaches and conducts research at the Pardee School of

Global Studies at Boston University and the Naval War College. He is an
associate in research at the Fairbank Center for Chinese Studies at Harvard
University and a faculty affiliate of the China Maritime Studies Institute of
the Naval War College. He has been a visiting scholar in Taiwan at both
National Chengchi University and National Taiwan University. He trained
in Chinese studies in the United Kingdom before conducting his doctoral
studies in Asian diplomatic history and international relations. Rhode’s cur-
rent research focuses on China’s role in historical and contemporary Eur-
asian maritime affairs. On the historical front, he recently completed a book
entitled Great Power Clashes along the Maritime Silk Road: Lessons from His-
tory to Shape Current Strategy. On the contemporary front, he directs Boston
University’s program series Assessing China’s Belt and Road Initiative. Re-
cent publications include “By Land and by Sea: China’s Belt and Road in Eu-
rope” (2019), “China, Global History, and the Sea” (2020), Mongol Invasions
of Northeast Asia: Korea and Japan (2020), “China’s Emergence as a Power
in the Mediterranean: Port Diplomacy and Active Engagement” (2021), and
“Tasting Gall: Chiang Kai-shek and China’s War with Japan” (2022).

jennifer rice is a senior intelligence analyst with the Department of the

Navy. Her portfolio includes issues of naval strategy, modernization, di-
plomacy, and force employment. She completed her MA in security policy
studies at George Washington University and received a BA in English and
political science from James Madison University.

tom shugart is an adjunct senior fellow with the defense program at the
Center for a New American Security. His research focuses on undersea war-
fare and maritime competition, military innovation and acquisition, and the
broader military balance in the Indo-Pacific. Shugart served for over twenty-
five years in the Navy, where he last worked in the Defense Department’s
Office of Net Assessment. He served as a submarine-warfare officer during
his military service, deploying multiple times to the Indo-Pacific region
and commanding the nuclear-powered fast-attack submarine USS Olympia
(SSN 717) from 2013 to 2016. Following his submarine command tour,
 A B O U T T H E C O N T R I BU TO R S 491

he served on the Navy Staff as the principal officer providing oversight of

the Columbia-class SSBN program, the Navy’s highest-priority acquisition
effort. Over the course of his military career, he served aboard both fast-
attack and ballistic-missile submarines, as well as at shore headquarters. He
also served on the Joint Staff as the principal officer responsible for nuclear
strike planning, advising of senior Defense Department leaders on nuclear
weapons employment plans, and the training of presidential military aides
and command center personnel on nuclear command and control. Shugart’s
writing has appeared in War on the Rocks, the National Interest, the U.S.
Naval Institute’s Proceedings, and the Lowy Institute’s Interpreter. He has
provided expert testimony to the U.S.-China Economic and Security Re-
view Commission and the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. During a
previous assignment to the Center for a New American Security as a Navy
fellow, in 2017 he published the highly influential study First Strike: China’s
Missile Threat to U.S. Bases in Asia, which has been cited in numerous U.S.
and international think-tank reports and studies. Shugart is a graduate of
the Naval War College, from which he holds an MA in national security and
strategic studies. During his time there, he served as a full-time member
and Red Force commander of the Halsey Alfa Group, gaming near-future
operational-tactical war fighting in East Asia. He is also a graduate in me-
chanical engineering of the University of Texas at Austin and received
postgraduate training in nuclear engineering from the U.S. Naval Nucle-
ar Propulsion Program. He is an instrument-rated commercial pilot and
FAA-certified flight instructor.

dr. sam j. tangredi was appointed the Leidos Chair of Future Warfare
Studies in March 2019, and since May 2017 has served as the director of the
Institute for Future Warfare Studies at the Naval War College. He initially
joined the College as a professor of national, naval, and maritime strategy in
the Strategic and Operational Research Department, Center for Naval War-
fare Studies, in October 2016. Tangredi has published six books and over
two hundred journal articles and book chapters, as well as numerous reports
for governmental and academic organizations. He is a retired Navy captain
and surface-warfare officer specializing in naval strategy. He was command-
ing officer of the amphibious warship USS Harpers Ferry (LSD 49).

joel wuthnow, PhD, is a senior research fellow in the Center for the Study
of Chinese Military Affairs within the Institute for National Strategic Stud-
ies (INSS) at the U.S. National Defense University (NDU). In addition to
his duties in INSS, he also serves as an adjunct professor in the Edmund A.
Walsh School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University. Prior to joining
492 C H I N E S E A M P H I B I O U S WA R FA R E

NDU, Wuthnow was a China analyst at CNA, a postdoctoral fellow in the

China and the World Program at Princeton University, and a predoctoral
fellow at the Brookings Institution. His degrees are from Princeton Uni-
versity (AB, summa cum laude, in public and international affairs), Oxford
University (MPhil in modern Chinese studies), and Columbia University
(PhD in political science). He is proficient in Mandarin. Wuthnow’s research
areas include Chinese foreign and security policy, Chinese military affairs,
U.S.-China relations, and strategic developments in East Asia. His recent
books and monographs, all from NDU Press, include The PLA beyond Bor-
ders: Chinese Military Operations in Regional and Global Context (2021, lead
editor), System Overload: Can China’s Military Be Distracted in a War over
Taiwan? (2020), Chairman Xi Remakes the PLA: Assessing Chinese Military
Reforms (2019, coeditor), and China’s Other Army: The People’s Armed Police
in an Era of Reform (2019). Wuthnow’s research also has appeared in jour-
nals such as Asia Policy, Asian Security, China Quarterly, Chinese Journal of
International Politics, Joint Force Quarterly, Journal of Contemporary China,
and Journal of Strategic Studies, and in edited volumes.

dr. christopher yung currently serves as the dean of academic affairs

of the Marine Corps War College, Quantico, Virginia. In this capacity he
oversees the curriculum design, development, revision, and execution of the
academic calendar for the Marine Corps’s top-level school. As such, he is
responsible for the education of the future senior national-security leader-
ship from all the military services (lieutenant colonels and colonels), the
interagency (GS-14s and -15s), and international military students from
across the globe. He has oversight of the college’s civilian and military pro-
fessors/instructors. He is part of the civilian academic leadership (Council
of Deans) responsible for coordination of all academic issues across Marine
Corps University (MCU). He is a member of the Joint Staff ’s Military Edu-
cation Coordination Council. Previously, Yung was the Donald Bren Chair
of Non-Western Strategic Thought and the Director of East Asian Studies
at MCU. In that capacity he lectured and led seminars at the Marine Corps
War College, the School of Advanced Warfighting, the Command and Staff
College, the Expeditionary Warfare School, and all the other schools and
education organizations under the MCU umbrella. He received the 2019
Elihu Rose Award for Civilian Faculty Teaching at MCU. Yung specializes
in Asian security issues, particularly strategic issues related to China and
the Chinese military. He researches, writes, and publishes widely on the
People’s Liberation Army, has testified before Congress on Chinese military
capabilities, and has made American and international media appearances,
 A B O U T T H E C O N T R I BU TO R S 493

both in print and televised, on issues related to Asian security. Yung is the
former senior research fellow at the Center for the Study of Chinese Military
Affairs, Institute for National Strategic Studies, National Defense University.
Prior to his government service, Yung spent eighteen years at the Center for
Naval Analyses, where he provided analytical support to various Depart-
ment of Defense organizations at the Pentagon and operational commands.
Yung is the author or editor of numerous books, articles, and chapters on the
Chinese military. Yung received both his PhD and MA in international rela-
tions and East Asian studies from the Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced In-
ternational Studies at Johns Hopkins University. He also received language
training from the Beijing Foreign Language Teacher’s College and Columbia
University.

About the Editors

andrew s. erickson is a professor of strategy (tenured full professor) and
the research director in the Naval War College’s China Maritime Studies
Institute (CMSI). A core founding member, he helped establish CMSI and
stand it up officially in 2006, and has played an integral role in its develop-
ment. CMSI inspired the creation of other research centers, which he has
advised and supported. Erickson is currently a visiting professor in full-time
residence at Harvard University’s Department of Government. From 2019
to 2022, he was a visiting scholar at Harvard’s John King Fairbank Center
for Chinese Studies, where he has been an associate in research since 2008.
Erickson has taught courses at the Naval War College and Yonsei University,
and received his PhD from Princeton University. He is the editor of, and a
contributor to, three volumes: Maritime Gray Zone Operations: Challenges
and Countermeasures in the Indo-Pacific (Routledge Cass Series: Naval Pol-
icy and History, 2022), Chinese Naval Shipbuilding (Naval Institute Press,
2016), and Proceedings of the 47th History Symposium of the International
Academy of Astronautics (Univelt, 2015). He is coeditor of, and a contribu-
tor to, eleven volumes. They include six (in addition to Chinese Naval Ship-
building) of the Naval Institute Press’s seven Studies in Chinese Maritime
Development books, for which he is the series editor—most recently, China’s
Maritime Gray Zone Operations (2019). Erickson’s research website is www
.andrewerickson.com/.

conor m. kennedy is an instructor and research associate in CMSI. In

addition to his own continuing research in this area, he has worked with
CMSI’s Andrew Erickson on a pathbreaking eight-plus-year project to
49 4 C H I N E S E A M P H I B I O U S WA R FA R E

uncover China’s critically important but insufficiently understood maritime

militia; their China Maritime Report no. 1, China’s Third Sea Force, inaugu-
rated a new series of CMSI studies. Kennedy holds a master’s degree from
the Johns Hopkins University–Nanjing University Center for Chinese and
American Studies and is professionally proficient in Mandarin Chinese.

ryan d. martinson is an assistant professor in, and a core member of,

CMSI. He holds a master’s degree from the Fletcher School of Law and Di-
plomacy at Tufts University and a bachelor of science from Union College.
Martinson also has studied at Fudan University, the Beijing Language and
Culture University, and the Hopkins-Nanjing Center. His research primar-
ily focuses on the intersection between marine policy and military strategy.
Martinson’s work has appeared in periodicals such as the U.S. Naval Institute
Proceedings, the RUSI Journal, Asian Security, the Journal of Strategic Studies,
the Naval War College Review, Marine Policy, Orbis, and Survival.

The views and opinions expressed herein by the contributors and editors are
theirs alone. They do not represent the policies or position of the U.S. Depart-
ment of Defense, the U.S. Navy, or any other organization with which they are,
or have been, affiliated.
Titles in the Series

China’s Future Nuclear Submarine Force*

China’s Energy Strategy: The Impact on Beijing’s Maritime Policies*
China Goes to Sea: Maritime Transformation in Comparative Historical
Perspective*
China, the United States and 21st-Century Sea Power: Defining a Maritime
Security Partnership*
Chinese Aerospace Power: Evolving Maritime Roles*
Chinese Naval Shipbuilding: An Ambitious and Uncertain Course*
China’s Maritime Gray Zone Operations*

* Published by the Naval Institute Press.

“Amid rising cross-Strait tensions, Chinese Amphibious Warfare delivers timely in-
sights into China’s strategic calculus and military capabilities concerning Taiwan.
It is a critical read for policymakers, military leaders, and others seeking to under-
stand a contingency that holds significant implications for international security
and the global economy.”
JENNIFER WELCH, Chief Geoeconomics Analyst, Bloomberg
Economics; former Director for China and Taiwan, National
Security Council
“For a long time to come, Chinese Amphibious Warfare will be the go-to volume for
understanding the PLA’s strengths and weaknesses in executing an amphibious in-
vasion of Taiwan. Written by an impressive cohort of experts, each of twenty chap-
ters is evidence-based in its analysis and balanced in its conclusions. The policy
implications for the United States, Taiwan, and Japan are sobering, but the authors
identify ways to complicate PLA operations and strengthen deterrence.”
DR. RICHARD C. BUSH, former Chairman and Managing
Director, American Institute in Taiwan; Nonresident Senior
Fellow, The Brookings Institution
“Singularly comprehensive and timely. Chinese Amphibious Warfare is indispensable in assess-
ing Taiwan Strait scenarios, China’s regional maritime objectives and capabilities, and Bei-
jing’s increasing global maritime influence. Necessarily wide in scope, yet rich in detail, it is
both an authoritative primer and matchless reference for all interested in the potential for and
possible outcomes of conflict in a fraught region and beyond.”
ADMIRAL GARY ROUGHEAD, U.S. Navy (Ret.),
former Chief of Naval Operations and Commander, U.S. Pacific Fleet

“There is a vast and ever-growing literature on the issue of whether China intends to invade
Taiwan. But much of this literature ignores an equally important issue: is China capable of
invading Taiwan? No other non-classified work even comes close to this book’s comprehen-
sive coverage of this critical question of China’s capacities. No future discussion of potential
Taiwan Strait scenarios will be complete unless it incorporates the findings and insights of
this book. Its thoughtful and thought-provoking implications extend far beyond the military
realm.”
DR. MICHAEL SZONYI, Frank Wen-Hsiung Wu Memorial Professor
of Chinese History and former Director, Fairbank Center for Chinese Studies,
Harvard University; Author of Cold War Island: Quemoy on the Front Line

“This meticulous and compelling study concludes that China is developing the capabilities for
a cross-Strait invasion in a comprehensive manner. It also makes clear that the forced annex-
ation of Taiwan would be a daunting and costly mission for the PLA. Chinese Amphibious
Warfare makes clear that the time is now to help Taiwan strengthen its defenses.”
LIEUTENANT GENERAL H. R. MCMASTER, U.S. Army (Ret.),
25th U.S. National Security Advisor; Author of Battlegrounds and At War
with Ourselves; Senior Fellow, Hoover Institution, Stanford University

Continued on inside back cover