With 2.3 million active troops, the
People's Liberation Army (PLA) is the largest standing military force in the world, commanded by the
Central Military Commission (CMC).
[181] The PLA consists of the
People's Liberation Army Ground Force (PLAGF), the
People's Liberation Army Navy (PLAN), the
People's Liberation Army Air Force (PLAAF), and a
strategic nuclear force, the
Second Artillery Corps. According to
SIPRI, China's military expenditure in 2011 totalled US$129.2 billion (923 billion yuan), constituting the
world's second-largest military budget.
[182]
However, other nations, such as the United States, have claimed that
China does not report its real level of military spending, which is
allegedly much higher than the official budget.
[183] A 2007 report by the
US Secretary of Defense noted that "China's actions in certain areas increasingly appear inconsistent with its declaratory policies".
[184] For its part, China claims it maintains an army purely for defensive purposes.
[185]
As a recognised
nuclear weapons state, China is considered both a major regional military power and a
potential military superpower.
[186] As of August 2011, China's Second Artillery Corps is believed to maintain at least 195
nuclear missiles, including 75
ICBMs.
[187] Nonetheless, China is the only member of the
UN Security Council to have relatively limited
power projection capabilities.
[188] To offset this, it has begun developing power projection assets, such as
aircraft carriers, and has established a network of foreign military relationships that has been compared to a
string of pearls.
Members of a Chinese military honor guard. China possesses the largest
standing army in the world, with around 2.3 million active personnel.
Its ground forces alone total 1.7 million soldiers.
China has made significant progress in modernizing its military since
the early 2000s. It has purchased advanced Russian fighter jets, such
as the
Sukhoi Su-30, and has also produced its own modern fighters, most notably the
Chengdu J-10 and
Shenyang J-11.
[189] China is furthermore engaged in developing an indigenous
stealth aircraft, the
Chengdu J-20.
[190][191][192] China's ground forces have also undergone significant modernisations, replacing its ageing
Soviet-derived
tank inventory with numerous variants of the modern
Type 99 tank, and upgrading its battlefield
C3I systems to enhance its
network-centric warfare capabilities.
[193] China has furthermore acquired and improved upon the Russian
S-300 surface-to-air missile system.
[194] Russia later produced the next-generation
S-400 Triumf system, with China reportedly having spent $500 million on a downgraded export version of it.
[195] A number of indigenous missile technologies have also been developed – in 2007, China conducted a
successful test of an
anti-satellite missile,
[196] and its first indigenous land-attack
cruise missile, the
CJ-10, entered service in 2009. In 2011, the
Pentagon reported that China was believed to be testing the
JL-2 missile, a submarine-launched nuclear ICBM with
multiple-warhead delivery capabilities.
[187]
In recent years, much attention has been focused on enhancing the
blue-water capabilities of the People's Liberation Army Navy.
[197] In August 2011, China's first aircraft carrier, the refurbished
Soviet vessel
Varyag, began sea trials.
[198] China furthermore maintains a substantial fleet of
submarines, including several
nuclear-powered attack and
ballistic missile submarines.
[199] On 13 March 2011, the PLAN missile
frigate Xuzhou was spotted off the coast of
Libya, marking the first time in history a Chinese warship sailed into the
Mediterranean. The ship's entrance into the Mediterranean was officially part of a humanitarian mission to rescue Chinese nationals from the
2011 Libyan civil war, though analysts such as
Fareed Zakaria viewed the mission as also being an attempt to increase China's global military presence.
[200]
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