Global Insights: Chinese Military Power Report 2009

Global Insights: Chinese Military Power Report 2009

On March 25, the U.S. Department of Defense (DOD) released its annual Military Power of the People's Republic of China (.pdf) report. Despite the recent change in White House occupants, the text resembles the department's previous Chinese military power reports, suggesting that holdovers from the Bush administration supervised its composition.

As required by the 2000 National Defense Authorization Act, the annual report assesses the current and likely future military capabilities, doctrine, strategies, and operational concepts of the People's Republic of China (PRC). The U.S. and other foreign officials have repeatedly complained about the severe constraints on transparency that the Chinese military has placed on its defense plans and programs. As a result of China's limited openness, leading international security experts regularly rely heavily on the report's judgments, notwithstanding its frequent caveats about the limited availability of information concerning these issues.

The 2009 report reviews evidence that Chinese strategists and political leaders have assigned an increasing range of missions and tasks to the Chinese armed forces -- from winning wars, to maintaining stability at home, to defending China's commercial and economic interests overseas. According to the Pentagon, the Chinese military has been receiving additional resources, altering its doctrine, and restructuring its organization in order to accomplish these missions better.

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