Note: In response to feedback on this paper, three sources were revised on March 10, 2025. What is the purpose of the Chinese military? Could the Taiwan question drive the People's Liberation Army (PLA) to prioritize combat readiness? In this paper, the author argues that the modernization of the PLA is fundamentally driven by the imperative to keep the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) in power and not to fight a war. By analyzing political, organizational, and other features of China's military, the author shows how the PLA's focus on political loyalty to the CCP constrains the Chinese military's combat readiness. The author demonstrates that China's anticipated decline will likely intensify the PLA's focus on upholding CCP rule and further reduce any incentive to risk a large-scale, high-intensity war.

How does the Chinese Communist Party's (CCP's) political legitimacy affect the People's Liberation Army (PLA)? In this report, the authors explore how the nature of the CCP's political legitimacy profoundly shapes the military's development and performance. Through a case study analysis, the authors outline three types of political legitimacy in China: (1) "revolutionary charisma" under leaders Mao Zedong and Deng Xiaoping from 1949 to 1979; (2) "economic prosperity" under leaders Deng, Jiang Zemin, and Hu Jintao from 1979 to 2002; and (3) "national populism" under leaders Hu and Xi Jinping since 2002. The authors find that each of these legitimacy types helped both drive and constrain the PLA's modernization and behavior in distinct ways. Moreover, each type of legitimacy experienced periods of strength and weakness. Through an alternative scenario analysis, the authors also explore how the CCP's evolution could change in coming years and what this could mean for the Chinese military’s development and for the U.S. Department of Defense.

Although U.S.-China trade tensions have waxed and waned for decades, they have remained persistently high since 2017. In this report, the authors assess the effectiveness of more-restrictive U.S. economic policies adopted toward China and pursued between 2017 and 2024. These policies include those aimed at addressing the U.S. dependence on imports from China, preventing U.S. technologies from being transferred to China, and supporting investment and production in domestic industries that are deemed critical for U.S. national security and technological leadership. The authors identify two main goals of these recent policies: promoting fairer trade and defending U.S. economic interests. In their policy review, they find that U.S. economic policies achieved limited progress in promoting fairer trade but a higher degree of success in defending U.S. economic-related interests. Finally, the authors present several policy recommendations to better achieve these two goals related to trade, industry, controls on technology, economic diplomacy, foreign investment, and diversification of supply chains away from China.

People's Armed Police Forces Departments (PAFD), or People's militias, have grown under Xi Jinping. This reflects apprehension about domestic security rather than any serious effort at wartime preparedness. PAFD units are staffed by military and civilian employees from local governments. They are responsible for recruiting personnel for all the armed forces, as well as overseeing the recruitment, organizing, and management of militia forces. The Party aims to create a heightened sense of corporate responsibility toward the PRC's national development goals through efforts to build militia units within companies. PAFD also contributes to military modernization through training and recruitment efforts. Xi has also directed all elements of the armed forces, including the PAFD, to support the strengthening of the military-civil fusion development strategy.

The United States, according to official U.S. national security statements and an avalanche of commentary since about 2016, is engaged in a long-term strategic rivalry with China and a lesser — but still critical — rivalry for influence with Russia. Many U.S. strategy documents refer to the concept of strategic competition, but the core idea — and increasingly the reality — of these relationships matches the classic historical concept of a great power rivalry. These rivalries, especially with China, promise to define U.S. foreign policy and national security challenges for decades. Yet most assessments of these rivalries tend to ignore the critical question of outcomes. This report is part of a larger project on the societal sources of national dynamism and competitive advantage. This research aims to identify historical modes of strategic success and failure in great power rivalries that offer lessons for the United States. The authors define categories of success and failure (in terms of such variables as control over territory, relative power, victory or defeat in war, international legitimacy, and social stability) and present detailed case studies on specific historical examples that are associated with success and failure. They also discuss the implications of the typologies of both kinds of outcomes for the rivalry with China.

This report is part of a larger RAND study on the societal foundations of national competitiveness. Building off that study's identification of the qualities that contribute to national dynamism and success in international rivalries from a Western perspective, the authors surveyed Chinese and Russian thinking about the qualities that tend to produce competitive advantage. The authors aimed to find general themes and patterns of thinking, not actual plans. Both China and Russia hold starkly different views from most U.S. and Western officials and analysts about the societal sources of competitive advantage. Unsurprisingly, the countries' concepts emphasize the claimed advantages of their distinct models, grounded in the unity and coordinated policy allowed by nationalistic autocratic regimes. Chinese and Russian conceptions of societal advantage carry at least an implicit message that an effective combination of three societal characteristics (national ambition and will, unified national identity, and an active state), when layered on top of the cultural values of their respective societies, can provide a winning formula in a long-term rivalry regardless of other factors associated with dynamism and competitive advantage. The contest between the United States and these two rivals may pivot around this essential standoff: a narrower recipe for national success based on nationalism, centralized authority, and willpower versus a more expansive formula built on networked power, grassroots dynamism, and the values of openness and freedom.

In the early 2000s, Chinese leaders foresaw a period of strategic opportunity that they believed would enable the country's rapid development. By the 2010s, however, the benign international environment became more hostile as an increasingly powerful China experienced a rise in tensions with the United States and some of its allies and partners. More importantly, China's domestic situation deteriorated as decades of rapid growth generated destabilizing levels of inequality, corruption, and discontent over official malfeasance. Anxious Chinese leaders have elevated national security as a priority and sought to manage various international and domestic risks.

In their quest for national revival, China's leaders under Xi Jinping have sought to improve the economy's performance. The disappointing economic record of authoritarian regimes provides ample grounds for doubt, yet not all have failed. Why have some succeeded where most did not? The theory of the "enabling condition" highlights the central role that politics plays in the pursuit of economic advancement. The theory explains that a political situation characterized by a strong central leadership, weak elite opposition, and a united public offers favorable prospects for enacting concentrated growth policies. This arrangement enables the central leadership to enlist the public in convincing elites to implement policies that they might otherwise resist. Focusing on the experience of single party, authoritarian regimes, The Autocrat's Predicament: The Political Peril of Economic Upgrade in Single Party, Authoritarian Regimes examines episodes in the histories of the People’s Republic of China, Taiwan, and the Soviet Union. It concludes that China's unfavorable political situation could be potentially unfriendly for its ambitions to build an efficient, highly productive economy.

The U.S. Department of Defense's (DoD's) Planning, Programming, Budgeting, and Execution (PPBE) System was originally developed in the 1960s as a structured approach for planning long-term resource development, assessing program cost-effectiveness, and aligning resources to strategies. Yet changes to the strategic environment, the industrial base, and the nature of military capabilities have raised the question of whether existing U.S. defense budgeting processes remain well aligned with national security needs. Congress called for the establishment of the Commission on PPBE Reform. As part of its data collection efforts, the commission asked RAND Corporation researchers to conduct case studies of budgeting processes across nine comparative organizations: five international defense organizations and four U.S. federal government agencies. Congress also specifically requested two case studies of near-peer competitors, and the research team selected the other seven cases in close partnership with the commission. In this volume, the first of four, RAND researchers conduct case studies of the budgeting processes of China and Russia, the two near-peer competitors. Researchers conducted extensive document reviews and structured discussions with subject-matter experts with experience in the defense budgeting processes of the international governments and other U.S. federal government agencies. Each case study was assigned a unique team with appropriate regional or organizational expertise. For the near-peer competitor cases, the assigned experts had the language skills and methodological training to facilitate working with primary sources in Chinese or Russian. The analysis was also supplemented by experts in the U.S. PPBE process.

The authors identify tasks that the People's Liberation Army (PLA) would likely be assigned by Chinese leaders to achieve strategic goals both in peacetime competition with the United States and in a hypothetical low-intensity conflict. The authors then analyze potential vulnerabilities in the PLA's execution of those tasks and how the United States could leverage those vulnerabilities to disrupt China's strategic goals, focusing on the potential for peacetime competition to erupt into a broader low-intensity conflict featuring smaller, indirect, or hybrid confrontations that span the world. The authors expand on a comprehensive list of potential PLA missions developed in prior research and explore vulnerabilities in the PLA's execution of the specific tasks required to achieve Beijing's strategic objectives. Across these missions and tasks, they identify five sets of vulnerabilities that, if disrupted, could affect Beijing's ability to achieve its goals: fears of domestic instability after PLA actions, risk of escalating conflict, harm to China's reputation, the PLA's limited ability to support partner states, and the PLA's limited ability to project power. These vulnerabilities provide a sense of the potential pressure points that the PLA could face in accomplishing its objectives. Options for the United States to leverage these pressure points include deterring harmful PLA actions by shaping perceptions of how those actions might affect China's interests, exploiting the consequences of PLA actions to deter Beijing from repeating similar actions, and exploiting PLA weaknesses in power projection and partner support to weaken confidence in the PLA and discourage similar operations.

In 2015, Chinese President Xi Jinping endorsed a new initiative, known as the Global Energy Interconnection (GEI), that could help solve humanity's pressing energy and climate dilemmas through the development of a global power grid. The GEI would connect remote renewable sources of energy to global consumption centers using ultra-high-voltage power transmission lines spanning continents and smart technologies. This way, peak demand for electricity in the evening in eastern China, for example, could be met using solar power at noon in central Asia, matching supply and demand across countries and continents more efficiently. On paper, the proposal presents many benefits. However, concerns about China's intentions and the political, security, and economic implications of a China-led GEI also exist. The GEI is reminiscent of China's similar controversial initiatives to connect with the rest of the world in such sectors as telecommunications, port infrastructure, and rail. In this report, RAND researchers set out to advance knowledge on the GEI and to demystify the potential global security implications associated with this important but poorly understood initiative.

When Yevgeny Prigozhin attempted to overthrow the Russian government with his mercenary company, the Wagner Group, Western observers gleefully described the near-coup as proof of President Vladimir Putin’s weakness. But a more careful consideration suggests self-congratulation may be less warranted than worry. Russia’s political weaknesses are severe but exacerbated by three features widely shared by large, industrialized countries, including the United States and China: 1) a weakening state, 2) the privatization of violence, and 3) the increasing power of non-state groups and identities. These features pose difficult but manageable challenges during peacetime and relatively small-scale combat operations. However, the same features could prove combustible under the pressures of a major war. The potential for an armed insurrection of some type can no longer be regarded as unthinkable.

The Chinese Communist Party's (CCP's) stated ambition to ensure the nation’s revitalization, also called the “China Dream,” now lies two decades away. How do Chinese leaders intend to navigate the intervening years? Will China act cautiously or aggressively to realize its aims? Many observers fear China may become belligerent due to overconfidence, insecurity, or other reasons. Graham Allison and others have warned that an increasingly powerful China might chance a war to secure international leadership. Some experts have argued Beijing might risk military aggression to stave off the country's diminishing prospects. Beijing's ambition to “reunify” with Taiwan, according to other observers, could lead it to risk conflict with the United States. Not all observers agree with such belligerent predictions. But the debate continues in part due to the opaque nature of Chinese decision-making under an increasingly autocratic Xi Jinping.

Taiwan remains an important potential flashpoint between China and the United States. Given the geographic distance between the United States and Taiwan and the military challenge of defeating a major attack by China, an accurate assessment of Taiwan's ability to sustain a defense can be a critical factor for U.S. decisionmakers and planners. In this report, the authors develop a framework for assessing a country's capacity to resist a large-scale military attack. In that framework, a country's ability to withstand such an attack depends on four variables: political leadership and social cohesion, military effectiveness, durability, and military intervention by an ally. The authors then use that framework to assess Taiwan's capacity to resist an attack by China for 90 days — a posited minimum amount of time required for the United States to marshal sufficient forces to carry out a major combat intervention in East Asia. An accurate assessment of Taiwan's ability to withstand a large-scale attack by China could help U.S. decisionmakers and planners better anticipate and respond in such a situation.